TDM 1 ⬡ The Oval Portrait

[liburuzaina]

	Casting Call The Oval Portrait Edgar Allan Poe »» "Long — long I read — and devoutly, devotedly I gazed." Name: The Aristocrat Casting Call: Characters with a Birthday from September through December Physical Notes: Desperately wounded, to the point of being bedridden, but not losing consciousness. Personality Notes: Curious, and prone to becoming enraptured by the pursuit of learning about whatever has caught their curiosity. Mildly delirious due to injury. Compulsions: To learn about their surroundings, whether through study of the portraits in the chateau apartment, conversation with a companion, or ill-advised exploration. «« »» "We established ourselves in one of the smallest and least sumptuously furnished apartments." Name: The Valet Casting Call: Characters with an Unknown Birthday Physical Notes: Older than The Aristocrat by ≥ 5 years. Personality Notes: Willing and able (by force or by cleverness) to break in to a home for the well-being of their employer. A caretaker by nature. Compulsions: To see that The Aristocrat is comfortable for the night and their wounds are tended to, and to get some rest themselves once their duty is complete. In the absence of The Aristocrat, The Valet is free to act as they please. «« »» "She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee." Name: The Maiden Casting Call: Characters with a birthday from May through August Physical Notes: Young, aged from 15-20. Personality Notes: All smiles, loving and cherishing of all things, hating only The Painter's art, for they deprive them of their lover. Compulsions: To live life to the fullest, to love, to be happy... But also to make their husband, The Painter happy, by being a good and willing subject for his portraiture, should he ask. ⬡ Will slowly waste away and die, should they sit and allow themselves to be painted. «« »» "And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded the painter." Name: The Painter Casting Call: Characters with a birthday from January through April Physical Notes: Older than the maiden by ≥ 10 years. Personality Notes: Passionate, studious, austere, wild, moody. More in love with his art than his wife. Compulsions: To paint. To paint, and paint, and paint some more. To ask their lovely wife to be the subject for their next piece, and to throw themselves into the completion of it. ⬡ Unaware they are doing harm with their painting, until it is complete. «« code @ efryndiel The Chateau ⬡ Common Cast Characters most likely to originate in The Chateau are The Aristocrat and The Valet ⬡ Literary Description "To all appearance it had been temporarily and very lately abandoned. We established ourselves in one of the smallest and least sumptuously furnished apartments. It lay in a remote turret of the building. Its decorations were rich, yet tattered and antique. Its walls were hung with tapestry and bedecked with manifold and multiform armorial trophies, together with an unusually great number of very spirited modern paintings in frames of rich golden arabesque." ⬡ For Your Exploration Characters may attempt to explore the Chateau, but it will be shrouded in darkness, and every room they enter will bring them back to the apartment chosen by The Valet. What decorations may be seen are dark and victorian in design, and the room and halls may be lit by candlelight. The Maiden's portrait is on the wall, and will initially be cloaked in shadow for The Aristocrat to find. It appears remarkably lifelike, almost as though it is a window instead of a portrait. The other paintings on the walls will contain figures that are almost familiar to The Aristocrat and The Valet - as though they could be someone they know, but only if they squint. There is no electricity. Characters will not have access to any powers. The Artist's Tower ⬡ Common Cast Characters most likely to originate in The Artist's Tower are The Maiden and The Painter ⬡ Literary Description "But she was humble and obedient, and sat meekly for many weeks in the dark, high turret-chamber where the light dripped upon the pale canvas only from overhead. But he, the painter, took glory in his work, which went on from hour to hour, and from day to day." ⬡ For Your Exploration Should characters leave the Painter's studio, they will immediately be transported outside, to a sprawling field of wildflowers. There won't seem to be anything else around, but there will be a light breeze and the sound of the sea in the distance. Inside the studio, the air is stale and musty, smelling of oil paints and turpentine. It's dim, lit only by a skylight. There is a stool for the subject and an easel with canvas sitting in the light, but everything else - art materials, more canvases, both empty and with the beginnings of paintings, and props - are all pushed to the sides of the room and cloaked in shadow. Like The Chateau, there is no electricity, and characters will not have access to their powers. The Library ⬡ Welcome! Free from their roles, through either death, completion of the Story, or from not being pulled into the tale in the first place, characters will find themselves in the gardens outside of the Library itself. As always, it will look and feel like a temperate, autumn afternoon. As this setting is part of the Library itself, characters will have full access to all their powers. ⬡ Grand Opening Coming Soon! The front door will, unfortunately, be locked, and a sign will be taped on the doors, detailing how the Library will be opening soon, but in the meantime to please enjoy the grounds and the pizza party in the courtyard. ⬡ Pizza party? Pizza party! In the courtyard, there will be tables set up that will be absolutely covered in stacks of paper plates, 2-liter bottles of any soda one could dream of, and stacks and stacks of pizza boxes, containing any flavor combination that could be desired. Opening a random box will provide a random, but popular, flavor. Opening a box with an Intent and a Desire for something specific will provide exactly that. Enjoy! It won't run out. navigation • premise • reserves • faq

Comments

[summonere]

"Literary romance," V clarifies with suppressed exasperation that not everyone knows the taxonomy of literary genres!!(!!) "Romanticism idealizes certain beautiful traits about a situation or an era, and the gothic qualifier indicates that there may be supernatural or tragic elements to that beauty."

Which makes answering Dimitri's question all the more uncomfortable. Because V had been the romanticized thing, and his slow death was the tragedy. His supernatural haunting of his portrait was also-- He actually shudders remembering the disorientation of existing in the Chateau while his essence lived on in that painting.

He's not so smug now that he's uncomfortable, and his talking bird can't talk to anyone else to distract them and take the heat off. So here he is, too disturbed by what he remembers to finish answering.

[royalboar]

It is a very academic kind of correction, and Dimitri’s expression reveals the exact sentiment of an ‘oh’ without uttering as much. But his pride is a woeful thing in general, and it takes zero offense to V’s exasperation behind the explanation.

Tragedy. He supposes that might account for all the gloom, and the injury he had to endure for a time. And the delirium of an unclear mind — something that ran too parallel to his personal experiences than he liked.

“I see,” he says, but waits as though expecting the question he asked to be answered. But V leaves it hanging, and Dimitri frowns deeply again, wondering if he caught a shudder running through him.

“Were you... ensnared in these apparent tragic elements, as well?”

If all else fails... just pry more.

[summonere]

"I..." He closes his eyes wearily for a moment. "Yes. I was the subject of the portrait."

Who Dimitri saw in the portrait was beside the point. The point was the essence it exuded. Its eerie perfection. V had looked at it together with the valet, trying to comprehend the sick feeling it gave him. It was like looking at his own corpse.

"As they paint you, you wither away and die. They take something from you with their obsession and they put it into their work. And you let them, because you love them."

To be unmade and made again lesser is not a new experience to him. The creation of Nelo Angelo lives on in his mind, it is V's anguish to bear now. But he had never loved Mundus.

[royalboar]

That steals any immediate reply from him. Dimitri had caught a glance of the portrait illuminated at the end of a long corridor, of course, one that seemed far too life-like compared to the rest; but the details of recollection are all a blur, like it had more than one face, more than one persona. Given how many of them played roles, some overlapping, it makes a small amount of sense.

But he had been nothing more than a wounded and overtly delirious aristocrat with a penchant for denying his valet’s attempts to get him back into bed. He cannot imagine what it must be like, to feel pieces of yourself slip away, drain away — and willingly, under the adulation of someone loved.

“To have that forced upon you, it is awful. I am sorry,” he says, and though they have only just met, Dimitri does mean it. “You mean that you died in there? Or did the tale end before that could happen?"

[summonere]

He's sorry? V makes an incredulous face like he doesn't understand the purpose of such a condolence, but the expression lacks the sharpness it would have had if he were not troubled by everything that had transpired. It was a sorry story.

"Sometimes, I was in the dark of an empty home."

It had reminded him of the burned and abandoned Sparda home. Fine things turned to ruin. The chateau had hints of memories in every direction, just like the way he so often found himself fantasizing about that window seat where he had once read in the sunlight as a child. Sometimes he imagines it with his mother dead at his feet.

"I think I must have already been dead, but the portrait lived on; forgotten in the gallery."

He clears his throat, shakes the thoughts from his mind. "As I said, a gothic romance often entails such supernatural elements as metaphor."

[royalboar]

It is a sorry story, and Dimitri’s empathy is a bane and a boon to him — in this case, it’s unwavering in the face of V’s incredulous look, only growing larger with more context.

“Quite the literary device, as you’ve explained,” he agrees, his tone gone solemn. Dimitri’s arms cross. “Yet metaphors should remain as such; not acted out by those of flesh and blood as though it were some kind of…”

Some kind of what?

“…stage play.” The thought baffles him, truly. “What is the point?”