+ Your imagination can't hurt you! ...Or can it? +

[vitaelamorte]

You heard The Playing Cards, it's going to be... something. The bulletin board will reveal what's to come, and I have some more information under the cut.





"If you know yourself, you have nothing to fear."
"Working together is the only way."
"Deaths are a necessary part of life, but not all deaths are necessary."
"The needs of the many outweigh the life of just one."

First of all, here's the whole spiel in bullet points, in case the set-up seems a little daunting:

• Mindscape labyrinth. Characters are isolated in sections, together with one or two others.

• The event brings together people who don't get along. May be outright enemies, may be uneasy acquaintances, or even strangers who plain haven't had a chance to build trust and understanding yet.

• You invent the challenges! Can be easy or convoluted, physical or mental. Just as long as the solution features some element of nonviolence, cooperation, or self-sacrifice.

• All characters will additionally have an animal form, which may sometimes help and sometimes hinder their progress. How much of their humanity they retain in this form, and how well they can control its timing will vary from character to character, though none of them will have complete control over both aspects.

• Succeed in one challenge, get transported to a different section with different people. Succeed in three challenges, and wake up back in regular flavour Wonderland (with occasional bouts of animal transformation still intact).

Some additional information that may be useful:

• Deaths in the mindscape will not count towards the mansion total, as death may even be a necessary part of some challenges. Characters will feel their death in the mindscape, but will revive immediately (and probably in a different section than they were before).

• (Deaths incurred upon waking up back in the mansion, however, will be counted as the regular kind again.)

• Hunger, thirst, and time are all twisted in the mindscape. Characters may feel none of it, or they may find themselves facing a challenge where one or all these aspects come into play.

• Challenges can be failed. An important part of the solution may be destroyed, mistakes may cost characters their (fake) lives. Characters unable to complete a challenge may find themselves stuck in a section of the mindscape, and feel as though wasting away for days, before they are finally transported to the next section for another attempt.

• Characters' usual powers and abilities will be equally fickle as everything else. Sometimes a challenge may require their powers, at other times it may punish them for their unwanted use. Other times still their powers may simply be gone, so as to not factor into a challenge one way or another.

• There is no network in the mindscape. Sorry, you really are stuck like this.

• (Here is a video of the mindscape in its canon, for anyone wants a bit of a better impression of it.)

Finally, and most importantly of all, this event will require some coordination to plot out. So, when you look for mindscape partners and devise challenges, please use the comment section in this post. It will help a lot to keep everything in one place, and make it accessible to everybody. This is a really great opportunity to make new and unusual CR, so have a look at what's out there!

Below you will also find a section to submit challenges, as well as our usual Q&A comment for any further questions you might have. By the way, a log for the mindscape will be provided on Friday, though of course you're welcome to make your own posts and logs as well!

And that's all, have a splendid day!

~Mouette

Comments

Questions...

[vitaelamorte]

...and answers!

[theothermrgray]

Do we get paired with a different character for every task, or are we stuck with the same jerk for the whole thing?

[chardismastic]

Will characters be able to speak in animal form AND when the change happens, do clothes change with?

Re: Questions...

[mourning_ghost]

Do animal characters get a separate animal form?

[forwearemany]

So Legion's most unique and defining trait (it shapes their entire way of thinking) is that they're actually a swarm of smaller A.I. all working together inside of one body. Would it be possible for them to transform into a swarm of insects?

[choosetruth]

Do characters get to hold onto things that they usually have on them? And while the network doesn't work, can things be recorded for later?

CHALLENGES

[vitaelamorte]

Some challenges may play heavily into an individual character's personality and skills, while others may be a more general test of certain values, which any couple of characters might face. If you have one such challenge and would like to share it, then go ahead and post its set-up and solution here!

That way you get to show off your challenge-making skills, and people who are bad at devising challenges get to play out a neat scenario, without having to fret about setting it up.

[goodwoofjames]

1. Portal laser puzzle! You'll find a portal gun in the room, waiting and ready to use.

2. You come upon a giant scale. Beside it are about a hundred cubes, each weighing one pound. Behind the scale is a tall ledge. Your goal is to adjust the scale so that someone can ride one side up onto the ledge. There's one catch, however: there is a time limit that resets everything in the room-- including your positions --if you do not reach the ledge within five seconds.

There are several potential solutions for this puzzle, however the easiest would be for one partner to transform into an animal that weighs less than a few pounds, and for the other partner to send them skyward by throwing only a few cubes onto the other side of the scale.

3. This room contains a large button on the floor. The weight of two average sized human beings is not enough to depress the button, so you'll have to figure something else out. The room appears to have previously been part of some sort of abandoned construction project, as you can see boards, nails, rope, and other simple building tools strewn about the floor. What doesn't fit (along with the weird button) is a trapdoor in the ceiling, about thirty/forty feet up. It'd be easy enough to knock the door open, as it is clearly very old, but chances are you won't be able to hit it simply by throwing something up there. Should you figure out how to open the door, it will immediately release an enormous boulder, which crashes to the ground. It weighs about as much as an average sedan, and is just enough to weigh the button down. The button on the opposite side of the room.

Again, there are several potential solutions to this. Because the button only must be depressed, not held down, some sort of contraption utilizing leverage could conceivably do the trick. Animals that can climb or fly can access the trapdoor, and two average-sized human beings working together should be able to move a (mostly round) boulder the size of a car. And there's always the possibility that your animagus is a particularly heavy one.

These are what I have right now! I'll see what else I can think of.

[stefanged]

One partner wakes up inside a high school chemistry lab, while the other wakes up on the other end of a maze. To succeed, the lab partner must guide the maze partner successfully to the chemistry lab via a mirror inside the chemistry lab. The catch? They must successfully determine which chemical compounds the maze is asking of them.

(With certain, more scientifically-literate partners, the mindscape will add a time limit! No difficulty if they can both linger, right?)

There's only one solution: correctly mix the right compounds together (and mix them before the time limit). With each successful mixture, an obstacle will disappear from the maze partner's end - and at the very end, the door will open, allowing the maze partner to meet the lab partner.

The maze will have the chemical formulas, while the lab will have the necessary ingredients - so teamwork is a MUST. The maze partner must tell the lab partner which compounds to mix, while the lab partner must trust their maze partner & follow instructions to the letter.

The compounds / formulas can depend from partner to partner; I've been combing through high school chemistry experiments, such as the Chemical Chameleon. The more scientifically literate the partner, the harder you can go.

This puzzle comes with a one-time built-in save, where one obstacle will disappear regardless, but should you fail (and Stefan and his partner most definitely will), one partner will be sent back to the start of the maze, while the other will get shuffled to the next task.

late additions w/ starbucks

[determinedest]

1. The famous Colored Tile Puzzle, of course! The solution is to have a really good memory for the different colors lmao

2. There is a long, narrow hallway with electromagnetic barriers lining either wall. The exit door is at the end. Both characters start on a semicircular "free space." Once they set foot outside the space, the barriers will advance until they meet, ultimately trapping and killing anyone who hasn't reached the hallway's end in time. Characters then get to respawn and try to get past the barriers as often as possible.

Solution: The characters must step outside the free space, then step back inside it so the energy barriers collide and pass through one another. The resulting collision of energy leaves behind a pathway of unaffected space the characters can chart their way through, though the extant field will still prove fatal if touched.

3. There is a single knife on a podium in an empty room. Once touched, the room will generate a mirror image of the character who wields the weapon and will then attempt to kill them. This trial will likely involve intensive physical exhaustion, and the mirror images will deliberately employ every psychological means of manipulation possible by saying things they know the characters won't want to hear or admit to themselves. Characters will likely need to respawn here, and may fail as many times as they need to.

Solution: Both characters must pick up the knife at the same time. The room cannot generate two mirror images at once, and the room will then manifest a door that allows them to exit.

4. For the archeologically inclined! The pair of characters will end up in a stone room. On one wall, there's a line of runes in an abstruse language of your choosing. On the other, there's a row of geometric shapes whose insides are soft, like wet sand, so they may be drawn in.

Solution: The runes translate to "3141915" etc. - in sort, the digits of pi. The solution is to draw a line in the circle shape on the wall from center to bottom, as pi is used to find the circumference of a circle by measuring the radius. This will allow the characters to leave the room.

Souji, Kaneki, Naoki

[eatsyourscience]

Souji will be turning into a cat because there is no other choice. He's good at teamwork challenges and probably at luck-related challenges. I'm really not sure who he could do challenges with - he doesn't seem to have anyone he dislikes/who dislikes him.

I have no idea what Kaneki will turn into. Anyone who doesn't like human-eating folks could be paired up with him (though I guess they'd have to know what he was up front). He'll be good at problem-solving/puzzle challenges as well as physical challenges.

Naoki is too new to really have anyone to dislike. He's a demon, though, so anyone who doesn't like those is free to pair up with him! He will turn into a ??? He's excellent about physical challenges because he is ridiculously strong.

I am so bad at this.

Re: Souji, Kaneki, Naoki

[mourning_ghost]

Maybe Nageki could do a challenge with Naoki. I don't think he has strong feelings about demons so it would be because they are strangers.

Sirius and Greg!

[goodwoofjames]

YEEEEEAH WOOF EVENT!

Sirius is going to be a little jazzed to see people's animagus forms. And then less jazzed because he'll only get matched with people he doesn't get along with. Which is actually pretty few and far beRick.

What? Who said that.

He's actually pretty decent at thinking outside the box so he'll be really helpful for puzzlessss.

Greg is REALLY good at thinking outside the box. He found silver thread in a spider web and used forced perspective to catch the sun in a teacup. What he is NOT good at is making enemies, so let me know if your peeps might fit with him. Or not.

ETA: I also don't know what Greg's animal should be. Elephant would make sense because of his costume, but idk how well it suits his personality. Suggestions are welcome!

[tattooedredheads]

Maybe Greg could be a seal?

Dorian Gray

[theothermrgray]

OH DEAR GOD.

Time to torment Dorian Gray!

Dorian is a decently clever fellow, but he'll be less than willing to have to sacrifice himself. What's worse is he's most likely going to be stuck with Rick (Complete jerk), Dipper (That one kid he didn't get along with at Hogwarts), and Zacharie (Total Stranger).

Also, Dorian's animal form is a black cat. Because cats are cute and fluffy and black cats are evil.

Edits, do not reply

[theothermrgray]

I should have clarified this earlier, but I asked the mun's permission on plurk before I started this tag post.

If anyone else wants to be stuck with a narcissistic dandy from the victorian era who doesn't trust anyone with his personal secrets, let me know. I get the feeling that Dorian might wind up failing a few challenges.

[slapfight]

ROCKET: Is an avid escape artist and an excellent tactician, so he'll be a pretty good commanding presence in the challenges, especially if they involve "escape the room" type scenarios. He's pretty good at coordinating and this might even end up being super fun for him and release some pent up feelings of frustration for not being able to escape Wonderland, so naturally he's going to be the character I focus on the most for this event.

MABEL: Excels at creative approaches to problem solving, though she needs level-headed thinkers to help her execute them in reasonable ways, otherwise she'll be doing insane things that aren't gonna work and will probably cause more harm than good. Her animagus form will be a mangalica.

PERIDOT: Excels at logic and reason and figuring out problems without concerning herself with any emotional fallout, since she'll be working with people who aren't her friends. Will need to be constantly pushed to cooperate in team efforts, because she'll want to do everything herself because she's more efficient. Her animagus form will be a cat.

[adaptiveimmunities]

...So if you want a TERRIBLE PAIRING that would surely end in disaster, you could pair Mabel with Shaun, who also tends toward impulsive and reckless solutions. He will be a golden retriever, and they will almost certainly make a huge mess.

Nageki Fujishiro and Kay

[tattooedredheads]

Nageki will be turning into a scorpion while Kay gets to turn into a bat. Both should be alright at the puzzles although Nageki will likely be better at it.

I don't really have anyone in mind to get stuck with them, so if you want your character to get stuck with either one, let me know!

Georgia, Dipper, Pidge

[krmvgivv]

Dipper's animal form is a crow. Clever, often underestimated, and often disliked. He'll be very good at logic challenges and very bad at trust challenges. So obviously, we should give him lots of the latter. Self-sacrifice and non-violence he's pretty good at too, though he'll be a little less willing to go through with things due to recent improvements in his self-preservation skills.

Pidge is going to turn into a lion because of fucking course she is. She is extremely clever and tends to rely strongly on her mind even in physical challenges, so anything that she can't outthink will be pretty interesting. She isn't great at humans so the hardest challenges for her will be ones that call on her to actually empathize and deal with other people. She'll be best at challenges where she can hack.

Georgia is going to turn into a fox. This is going to annoy her a lot because everything about Wonderland annoys her a lot, so she'll definitely need to do it for some challenges. She is also going to be terrible at challenges that involve her trusting anyone and super pissed that she's not with her brother, so that'll be fun for anyone paired up with her.

WHO WANTS THINGS?

[theothermrgray]

Trust challenge with Dipper and Dorian?

Sure, it's not like Dorian's bad at sacrificing himself or anything!

Also, Dorian turns into a cat. Hilarity ensues.

alphys, shepard, and wendy

[sciencelizard]

oops I forgot to make a proper plotting comment

Alphys is not going to enjoy this a single bit and probably just lie on the ground until this is over, except she has the most negative CR of everyone so she's gonna have run-ins with Chara and Toriel and probably not do very well at either of them. Her animal form will be a carolina anole lizard, also yellow, because it's funny as shit. I'd take more for her if people want but she's pretty booked up. She'll be best at anything that allows her to use science, and terrible at anything physical or that asks her to not be an anxious mess.

Shepard is Really Good at finding and solving problems so I'm a little stumped on what to do for her. She's got a lot of experience on a team and solo, in hacking, physical prowess, and straight-out survival. The only thing she's kind of terrible with is talking about her feelings, but she'll do just about anything if it's for an event. Her animal form will be a German Shepherd dog, also because it's funny as shit. If people want to run into her/do a challenge with her let me know! Otherwise she'll sit this event out.

Wendy is also really good at finding and solving problems so she's ?????? but has much more fun potential with Being A Brat and Not Working Well All The Time. But she'll also do what it takes to survive so will probably work with most anybody. She excells at physical challenges and loyalty, but she's not an analytical thinker. Her animal form will be a huge red wolf, which she will love being immensely. She too is gonna be mostly benched unless people want to interact with her!

tl;dr im trying to take it easy this event so no hard feelings if ya don't want to plot because I have too many open threads right now, lmao

Mettaton

[mettatonvevo]

Mettaton is, unsurprisingly, going to be a Green Peacock for this event! Big, flashy, and completely unsubtle in his appearance. Thaaaat's Mettaton!

I'm in that interesting position where (unless I have forgotten someone) Mettaton doesn't have all that much negative CR, and the small bit he has had has plans with other characters. So! I am happily open to new CR being created for this event!

As for challenges, Mettaton is a shrewd robot who is good at reading people, communicating, and performing (of course)! He can be quite clever on his own if given the chance! He won't be completely useless in any physical challenges due to having magic and being made of metal, but he's not the kind of person to want to do that sort of thing, lol. He also has three different forms he can switch between!

His default is his EX form, but his other two forms are his Box form in which it is really, really hard to kill him, and his NEO form which was created specifically for combat. If you want to devise a challenge that involves him switching into one of those forms before he becomes the beautiful peacock he is, I am definitely open to that!

All in all, if you want to hash things out for this event, either comment here or feel free to add me on plurk! (PBmajesty)

[krmvgivv]

Pidge and Mettaton don't exactly have negative cr but they do have weird cr so maybe something with them? I should warn you her first instinct is maybe I can hack this so that's definitely fine

Toriel

[didntknowbest]

Toriel is probably just straight up going to be a goat. She's very willing to help and protect others- even people she doesn't like, she'll still try and keep them from being killed, even if it's somewhat grudgingly.

Frisk + Tim

[determinedest]

All right so here's the dealio with both these assholes of mine.

FRISK, as of some occurrences during the week, is no longer determined. They'll gradually be able to regain enough determination to be their old self again, but currently? They can't SAVE, they can't LOAD, and they definitely aren't anything like the plucky little kid you might know. They're pretty much completely empty, personality-wise, and will dully go about following any suggestions you make to them.

I have no plans for them currently (including their animal form lol). They don't have a lot of negative CR, though they do have plenty of people they haven't met yet. I will warn that if you get paired up with Frisk, they really won't be much of a help and more of a liability at this point in time.

TIM will have the animal form of a raven, for a lot of reasons. He will be paired up with Georgia Mason for one challenge since they're perpetually at odds, but other than that, I have no other plans for him! If you want in on this, let me know!

[catinthemask]

Hey Tim buddy pal, want to be paired up with a guy who's made to help with puzzles? And can actually pull his "I'm totally The Judge" joke because Zacharie can actually turn into a cat this time.

[punful]

Sans will be a sloth and Rick will be a fox.

Sans is slated to have one challenge with Max that will involve rewinds and teleportation.

Rick is slated to have a challenge with Dorian and a challenge with Ford.

Plotting goes here!

[accelerate]

ignoring the fact that both your guys have the same animals as mine (i think we call this fate) i'm sorely lacking in sans and barry being the best of buds threads. are you up for a really ridiculous challenge? i'm trying to get barry to stand still/actually move slowly in this event and clearly he needs a skeleton friend who fully endorses the font comic sans to help a brother out.

also i demand a sloth race as well.

[mypartnerintime]

So far Max has one challenge with Sans and one with Tim!

Is there anyone else who wants a challenge? :D Max is fairly good at solving puzzles.

Oh and I'm thinking she'll randomly turn into a mouse for a challenge or two because she's so mousy.

PUNS. OuO

[thisismadfreaky]

I still need 2 challenges/partners so I'm down!

Shaun Mason | Newsflesh | Action News Division

[adaptiveimmunities]

Shaun will have a challenge with Mabel, Iris, and Pidge, but I am happy to donate his "no Shun, don't do that" skills to anyone else who's looking for an impulsive "hey, what does this do?" participant in their challenge.

Shaun needs more friends. c:

Zacharie

[catinthemask]

Zacharie here has a challenge with both Dorian and Tim for now but more are welcome! He'll be attempting to act as a guide NPC throughout the event but how helpful he'll be is probably up in the air since this isn't OFF.

He'll also be taking the form of a Sphynx cat. Living the dream :D

Cisco Ramon

[thisismadfreaky]

Okay soooo. I haven't figured out his animal. Working on that.

I know he's gonna have a task with Maya Hart, based on The Monty Hall Problem, in which there are 3 doors, with 3 different effects.
● One simply leads to the next task. Easy peasy!
● One will generate an electric shock if the doorknob is touched to open it.
● One will have a boxing glove spring out and suckerpunch whoever opens the door. (THANKS SHEENA! ♥)
Opening the wrong door twice leads the room to resent, the doors and their effects to shuffle, and start over.

I still need other people/tasks though, soooo come at me?!

[manipulative]

would you be up for the complete yet epic strangers of katherine and cisco to team up and take a challenge by storm?