Masquerade! Paper faces on parade

[god_damned]

WHO: OPEN. Anyone who wants to attend can arrive!
WHERE: A dreamscape created by Mordin experimenting with Minako's powers.
WHEN: Tonight.
WARNINGS: Will edit if necessary? I can't expect anything horrific occuring.
SUMMARY: When your character goes to bed, they will all experience a shared dream! This is the result of Mordin messing with Minako's powers, causing a manifestation of a masquerade ball! details here.
FORMAT: Tagger's choice!


The last thing you remember is your head hitting the pillow.

Is this really a dream? The scene before you is vivid and alive. You are hosted inside a grand mansion, with its ballroom as the center stage. There are many doors, leading to winding hallways and spacious rooms, but none seem to lead outside, no matter what path you choose. This place seems inescapable, and so does the music which carries through the walls. It's beautiful, like a whole orchestra is housed in this place, but none of the rooms seem to contain a single musician, nor a speaker for the broadcast.

There is a comfort: you're not alone. However, you are not sure exactly who it is you're with. Everyone around you is hidden behind a mask, though you're sure there is something familiar about a few of them. There's only one way to find out if they're a friend or foe. Don't be shy; go introduce yourself.

Oh wait, you can't. Something stalls the words in your throat, and another name comes out instead: one from the history books, or far off fantasy.

That's when you realize: this mask on your face, and how you're dressed... you've been given a role to play – you all have – and it's so powerful that it's usurped your own name.

It's natural for a Hero to have a mask and a costume, but isn't this a bit far?

Comments

[glowsferatu]

What has me curious is attempting to determine what might give cause to a phenomenon like that. How deep your masks may go, and if that's intended to mean something.

[ but that sounds too much like psychoanalysis for kanaya to make heads or tails of it. she wishes rose were here, she might have better luck at sussing it out. ]

this time in the correct thread WHOOPS

[xxii_thefool]

Well... I suppose I could put it this way.

If you could take your mask off, would you say that there's a "real you" underneath it?

well you caught it before i noticed c:

[glowsferatu]

[ there would be quite a bit in the face she makes at that to read an answer in, if you could see it. the pause isn't much less telling. ]

I suppose that depends on the strict realness of you, whether it be a complication in concept of reality, or of one's self. [ which is to say that ] I don't know.

[xxii_thefool]

It's a tricky question, isn't it?

If I had to guess, that might be the difference.

[glowsferatu]

I think the problem may perhaps be in the nature of where we are, and the somewhat troubled relationship between dreams and reality. Sometimes they are a reflection of each other, but there are many unexpected ways a skew can occur in that image.

That being said, I think there is at least whatever we define as ourselves residing in its core. The problem is how different that definition may be from what is, I suppose.

[xxii_thefool]

[She laughs, a pleased if slightly embarrassed sound.]

I think you went a bit over my head there... but I get the gist of it, at least.

...a core self, huh? But I don't think I have something like that.

[glowsferatu]

I was talking more about a sort of self-definition than anything necessarily objective. [ because objective concepts of self are really fucking complicated, especially when you've seen it cast in as many lights as kanaya has. ] Do you not have any real idea as to your own identity? Is that why you can change between the masks?

What will await you underneath once the last has been removed?

[xxii_thefool]

I'm pretty sure that's not possible, so I'm not too worried about it.

[So cheerful!]

I wouldn't say that I don't understand who I am. It's more like, I don't think my masks are any less "real" than the rest of me.

[glowsferatu]

[ why does that line sound so familiar? she's quiet a moment, trying to figure out what it reminds her of when she suddenly realizes that she'd said something similar to karkat's shadow back in february. ]

Right. Because...it's a true facet of yourself that would shield whatever does lie beneath. Not only the desire itself, but in that the result is a creation of yours that is also constructed with yourself as the main building material.

...Or something like that.

[xxii_thefool]

That's it exactly! [She sounds honestly delighted.] Like... like a stone with many sides. No matter how different it looks viewed one way or another, it's not as though that means one side is more real than another one.

And if you were to start cutting off pieces trying to find the real stone, in the end you'd just end up with a lot of pieces.

[glowsferatu]

But I think the purpose of a mask i still worth considering in the matter. Masks exist to hide things. Perhaps many of them will be hiding other masks, but should all the masks but one be seen past, what is it the last one would disguise?

The problem is that they're masks to begin with. Right now, I'm certain that I must have a face behind this mask, and beyond all yours, I'd say the same for you. But in the metaphor, that's where it breaks down. A facade requires a face.

[xxii_thefool]

Hmm... [She tilts her head, thinking on it for some moments.] You have a point. I suppose that's the trouble with relying on a metaphor... or, I guess in this case, being forced to use one.

It's useful for comparisons, but there will always be places where it just doesn't fit.

[glowsferatu]

I think part of the problem is that it currently isn't a metaphor. We are literally in the masks we speak of hypothetically.