[video/action] The Nightmare Emerges

[phobophage]

(OOC: her permission post is here)

[video] Shameless plug
Well, I reviewed the recent conversations on this network, so I won't bother with the whole "Where are I? What's going on?" procedure. I have a pretty good idea of what's going on. It's superbly annoying, but I haven't survived as long as I have without learning to adjust. So I'm going to try starting a business that's, as they say, by artists for artists. Basically I'm going to apply my prior experience as a professional artist and manager of artist collectives to helping other artists, whether it is with selling their works, promoting themselves, getting exhibited, or getting gigs from local businesses. If you're interested, whether it is as an artist or support staff, drop me a line. I'm called The Shadow Lurking Behind You, but you can just call me Shadow.

Might as well do something with my time now that I've lost many of the usual ways to spend my time. And physicality means I need money for a place to stash my stuff and art supplies. Speaking of, who else have suddenly found themselves physical? It sucks. It means you actually have to walk places and so on. I'll just make that my one complaint of this post.

Also, what's with all this collecting adorable fight-happy critters? It's like something out of someone's dream about similar video games.

[action] The Shadow Lurking Behind You

[You're probably just walking somewhere, probably on a street, when it happens. You get a unspeakably ominous feeling. Like something horrible is lurking behind you. It feels like it's approaching. The shadows seem deeper, darker, like they're hiding things.

Or maybe you have enough resistance to such things to realize you're the target of an illusion.]

[action] Just Catnapping Around Town

[Or you might encounter Shadow in one of her lazier moods loafing around in one of her favorite forms: a black-furred sabertooth cat with red eyes. She has a tendency to sprawl out in weird places like other people's pouches, atop other people's cars, or inside elevators.]

Comments

video

[liveofftheland]

Well, that's enterprising. You sound like you're used to this.

Re: video

[phobophage]

I'm used to having really inconvenient things happen to me at the whim of forces outside of my control. Comes of being one of the Queen of the Dream World's favorite toys. Though occasionally she does things that affect larger swaths of the Dream World, like her declaration of Headless Day. I have friends who took years to find their heads after that fiasco.

[liveofftheland]

I think you've made your point about bizarre. I wouldn't believe a word of it, but I mean, look at this place.

[phobophage]

If it's something you can imagine happening in dreams, it's happened in the Dream World. It's like that. This place is definitely odder than what I would expect from an actually physical place, though.

[liveofftheland]

How can you tell the difference?

[phobophage]

I can just feel it. This isn't the Dream World or a place similar to it. Besides, I can't do all the stuff here I can in the Dream World. Like warping.

[liveofftheland]

It put a damper on your magic? Don't think that happened to any of us. Not that I'm the one to ask, I've got no talent for it.

[phobophage]

It's more that in dreams it's easy to rewrite reality, but the physical world isn't that accommodating. I can still do some things, like shapeshifting or messing with people's perceptions, but the first seems to be because my body's still malleable and the second's because it's largely mental in nature. And us dreamlings're basically beings of pure psyche.

[liveofftheland]

So you're like a demon, but also completely not like a demon.

1/2

[phobophage]

I suppose! Demon is a weird comparison but probably a little less weird for the kind of dreamling I'm.

2/2

[phobophage]

[There's a visible shift.]

And that would be a Nightmare.

[liveofftheland]

[Marie takes in a sharp breath, but keeps facing forward at the screen.]

Hence the sudden creepy look.

[phobophage]

Hmm. You've got solid guts. Anyways, as a Nightmare, I scare people. That's pretty much it. Oh, my specialty's predators lurking behind you.

[liveofftheland]

What, so is it your job, or do you need it to live or what?

[phobophage]

It's who we are. Part of our essential nature. If we stopped doing it, we would cease existing as we are. That's true for other Dreamlings, too. It's a good thing that we love doing it.

So, yeah, you could say we need it to live. Also, it's fun.

[liveofftheland]

Charming. Well, you are what you are, right?

The Shadow

[yep_stilldead]

[Hm. This is bad. Ivy doesn't love the darkness under the best of circumstances - it reminds her of two centuries of solitude. But this - this is advanced darkness.

The walking doll turns around, as if to confront the darkness, and Ivy makes herself visible over it.]

J-Just so you know, if anyone's trying to follow me and murder me in the shadows, you'll just be disappointed! I've already been murdered once, so you can't do it again!

shadow

[ninjabanish]

[Alice isn't a stranger to the shadows- She was an assassin trained in the ways of ninja, she knows better than anyone how to hide in them. But to watch them become darker, and this sense, the feeling on the back of her neck of danger...

She leaps, drawing a pair of twin sickles, twisting around as she jumps to face behind her.]

Show yourself!

Shadow

[therabbit]

[Momiji had decided to buy some groceries by himself, at least in his attempt to try and act like an adult who lives in an apartment, but he soon found himself shivering. he didn't quite understand eye as he looked over his shoulder every now and again before walking.

he still felt uneasy and he didn't know why until he stopped again.]

Is someone around?

video;

[trollkeru]

You already seem to know what you want to do. Probably the quickest I have ever seen anyone figure thing out.

Impressive.

[phobophage]

You know, there're those who believe in ethical terror. They only scare the willing, which largely consists of thrillseekers of assorted stripes. Some create horror stories then have human volunteers type them out to be turned into books. Some create horror theme parks in the Dream World. Some find volunteers who wants to experience a particular sort of nightmare.

Mind you, I'm not one of them.

[phobophage]

[This reaction... it's the reaction of someone with combat training. Okay, you know what? This isn't worth it. She isn't going to find out if this physical shell she's now in can die.]

Okay, I guess I'll just have to stop the fun when the weapons come out.

[And yet she doesn't show herself. Not yet. The ominous feeling recedes, and the shadows return to what they were. But Shadow remains in the natural shadows, using illusion to conceal her presence.]

I don't mean you any harm, okay? I'm just scaring people.

[phobophage]

When you live long enough, you get into enough weird situations that you learn to adjust quickly. Besides, I spent a couple of days lurking and reading the network.

[liveofftheland]

And you're saying that, again, because it's fun for you to creep people out.

[phobophage]

You got it in one! But anyways, I'm called The Shadow Lurking Behind You. I didn't pick it out by the way, it's something I got called long ago and it stuck. Just Shadow for short is fine.

How about you? What's your name?