Topic: Dream Machine [MUL]

[kylie]

Jenna is a gamer with too much time on her hands. 
Except...  It is no longer all in her hands.

(Inspired by the anime Ghost in the Shell - including the thumbnail art, and by the Mamoru Oshii film Avalon.)

     Jenna logged on for a long run in a world she knew.  She was good, she had shaped her world and set her parameters.  There was a timer.  She should not need an attendant like the others. 
     
     Something went amiss.  Now, she finds that the virtual dramas she walks through have shifted.  Her familiar characters have been replaced with others: women who must take risks and make compromises she would never make.  Locked into the Machine, her senses are filled with sensuous but shocking encounters.

     The virtual world is dream-like.  It is rich with so many sensations, so much allure...  A sheet of beautiful, lustrous ice floes drifting over the dangers that she now faces.  The characters have their own reasons and purposes, their own programmed ways and reactions.  As the player, Jenna can attempt to tweak them or to adopt other characters.  But, her attention and her thinking are continually pulled between their situation and her own. 

     In the background, on the edge of her awareness, the Machine slowly feeds her body with sensations from her all-encompassing suit and chair.  Mostly, the Machine provides an environment.  Yet, it is also a smooth, distant intelligence that drives each story.  And sometimes, it works to fit her feelings closer to the stories it is programmed with. 

     Still on the horizon:  Is there a human reason behind all this, or is it only an error of the Machine...  Does the Machine have its own reasons?  Jenna barely has capacity left to think about how to find such reasons.  Will they come to her, in the course of events?  If there is sense to it and she were to learn of it...  Would she wish she hadn't?

If this sounds interesting, see here for a possible plot.
http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=25728.0

I'd like to play Jenna.  I have imagined some other initial characters as men, but am not 100% fixed on that.  Anyone into the flow of it can play them and the Machine.  At the moment, I'm thinking of one partner to manage the Machine and Jenna's various encounters.  Subject to discussion.

General questions here please, particulars in PM if you like.  :)

[kylie]

Bump.

I know everyone's off for holidays... But, still looking for someone into this.  :)

[Murphy Sez]

But if everyone's off for the holidays, wouldn't that mean more people available to play?
*thinks they're all hiding in Warcraft*

[kylie]

Ha.

Depends what they're "off" doing, of course.

[Palace Athene]

I like it, mainly because it reminds me of Ayreon's Universal Migrator Part 1: The Dream Sequencer. Same idea, different use.

[kylie]

I like it, mainly because it reminds me of Ayreon's Universal Migrator Part 1: The Dream Sequencer. Same idea, different use.

  Interesting.  I'm not really familiar with the song.  I don't usually think of myself as so "psychedelic," if that is a word for it.  But some of what they say about its atmosphere in the reviews seems to apply.

Bop me a line if it's something you're interested in. 

Random caveats: Some on/offs might help to see.  In a play-by-post, I would probably rather have more than a few sentences at a time.  Not necessarily a page, but a couple paragraphs anyway.  Especially for this, where there can be various things going on simultaneously in different places.  Or, I suppose it could be done a little differently in real-time chat, if that took off.  But anyway, there's always the message box.

You might also check out Trinket's idea for "Nanochip's Bizarre World."  That one has more in the way of virtual/distorted? reality and end of life/the world.  We talked about doing something there but it's a little close to home for me.  Her style is apparently more soft romance, whereas I like some psychic shadows coming and going alongside the sensations.
http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=22414.0

[Palace Athene]

Technically Ayeron's Prog Metal, but nonetheless... I would call this more inventive than anything else.

I think I will 'bop' you a line, because this is pretty interesting.

I'll look into Trinket's.

[kylie]

Giving this a go here.  :)
 
http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=26328.0

I might consider any interest in variants.  Maybe, more likely if there are serious variations but with similar themes: controlled situations, clothing with powers, personality blurs and contrasts, perspective changes...

[kylie]

I may be interested in starting this over, if someone is up for it.

Caveat:
Yes, some of the characters inside can be somewhat predictable.  That doesn't mean that my character, however entangled in a general plot and to some degree a shared notion of another persona, will be so predictable in how she responds to any particular action. 
In other words:  No godmoding. 
That sounds chilly, but it's annoying when you feel like you have to say it.  So hopefully that will make it quicker.

Btw.  Also thinking of redoing ons and offs in the near future.
Not substantive changes, but reorganizing for (hopefully) easier reading.