aworldwithoutboxes | we found love in a hopeless place

THE MURDERGAME SHIPPING MEME

This is probably too straight to accurately represent murdergame ships but like. We take what the stock image industry gives us.

So, you've been put into a murder mystery game where you're going to have to fight for your life! Every week another body or two, surrounded by strangers- Wait, you knew that? You actually kind of have your bearings? Well fine, here's a different problem - see that person over there? Yeah, that one. Wouldn't it be a really terrible idea if you fell in love with them right now?

This is a meme for that sometimes most fun of bad choices in murdergames: shipping. Leave a toplevel with info that might be in your character's profile (if you like), maybe a murdergame title (optional but encouraged), and any extra info you want to give along with whatever your shipping prefs are, then either pick from the prompts below or wing it and go tag around!

SETTINGS (note: absolutely not an exhaustive list)
1. Shopping Mall - Live your teen movie romance dreams! Sure, someone seems to get mcfucking murdered in the Starbucks every week, but that doesn't mean you can't go on a coffee date, right?
2. School - Live the... other party of your teen movie romance dreams! It's a little hard to be romantic when the only place for a dinner date is the cafeteria, but in fairness you are also constantly overcoming bigger problems than that here.
3. Generic Facility - Looking for romance? Try scenic Sealed-Off Building Full of Rooms! It's themed in some way - science, underwater - but the concept is the same. Surely there's some kind of bar or inexplicable amusement park in here you could use for a romantic evening, right?
4. Spooky Mansion - You know what they say about going on dates to scary movies, right? What if the scary movie was uh. The whole thing. The whole place. Where you live. And die, sometimes.
5. Romance Zone - I mean hey, maybe you're stuck somewhere literally built for both romance and murder! Pleasure and pain. Life and death. Smoochin' and stabbin'.
6. Other - If you can block off an area, you can put a murdergame there. Get creative!

PROMPTS (ship scenarios)
1. Confession (Fun) - Ah, the start of any good murdergame relationship. Maybe you've been dancing around each other for a week or two, maybe over the course of one thread and a lot of screaming your players decided you're gonna kiss. Time to figure out what these feelings mean while you're, you know. Here. Can be combined with some of the other prompts too, if you like.
2. Dating??? - Where do you even go to date in a murdergame? Is it even worth trying to hang onto this kind of normalcy when either of you could die any day now? It's probably fine.
2b. Dating+ - Can be combined with any other prompt, but somehow, some way, one of you is taking the lead in this date and getting a bunch of emotions in... because you're deathflagging. You're deathflagging hard.
3. Afterparty - Hey, that was a rough trial! Whatever it was! But you're both alive, so... better try to comfort each other, huh? Enjoy whatever kind of snacks you guys have available.
4. Confession (Unfun) - Oops, uh. One of you... seems to have confessed to murder. Better get whatever last moments in that you can before voting ends and one of you gets brutally executed!
5. The Couple That Kills Together - Okay, so maybe you did or didn't actually kill someone together. But at least one of you did a murder, and the body hasn't been properly discovered yet, so... time to talk this through? Make bad choices for love?
6. Deadland Romance - Maybe you've just reunited in the land of the dead, or maybe this is where you're trying to get your relationship off the ground. Either way, there's gotta be some weird emotions to "we're dead and trying to make it work."
7. Golden End Reunion - Great news! You beat up the mastermind (or befriended them, I don't know your style) and got all of the dead people back, including the other half of your ship! That's gotta feel good, seeing them again after however many weeks.
8. What now? - The game is over, it's time to go home. But... which home? If you split up, is there going to be a chance to visit each other again? Can you work that kind of long-distance?
9. Smut Option - Look. It's not generally onscreen, but hookups happen. Did you have to kick roommates out? Is this the fabled... you know, variant of option 5? Basically look, if you wanna use this meme for smut I'm not gonna say no, just tag appropriately.
10. Anything else! - Look, one of the fun things about murdergame ships is how many ways they can go in the emotional crucible inherent to them. I can't account for a lot of things ahead of the basics, so plot with your thread partner and have fun with it! Hell, maybe bring a good ol' murdergame polyblob into the mix, I'm not gonna stop you! Go with ur heart, assume other characters, live your truth!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Matthew had gone up to the highest point of the abandoned, snowy village during their first week there to see what might lie beyond the high gates at all sides, and saw white, white, white, and it didn't matter anymore that no one had found a way to scale or open them.

It's Thursday, and getting late. Someone will die tonight. It's been just long enough to accept these things as fact, now, as inexplicably but certainly related. They will hold a trial this weekend and, if they're lucky, they'll find the killer. They got it wrong, once, and now a murderer walks among them, refusing to discuss the scapegoat sent to the pyre in their stead (Python had made a joke, in those last moments, and Linde has thought about it more than once this week). So often, they die by fire. It never leaves them warmer.]

Camilla!

[Linde calls for her as the sun sets, watching her walk back towards the interlopers' living quarters; uneven rows of tiny, one-room homes, twenty in all, just enough for everyone who arrived here on the first day. She took dinner with Lorenz and Xane, and spending so much time moderating their personalities kept her behind, so catching up means jogging a little, hiking her dress up above her ankles with one hand, stumbling just a little over the hem. She's used to warmth and finery; she's acquiesced to leggings and boots, but hasn't let go of her long skirts.]

Camilla, [again, smiling; her shoulder brushes against Camilla's, lightly, as she comes up to walk beside her. It's the only time she ever finds warmth in this wretched place; in her smile, her laugh, moments like these of light and mostly-mistaken touch.

Mostly.

Something hangs in the air between them, unspoken and unnamed. Linde has tried (or, at least, thought about trying). The words latch in her throat every time. Once, a babbling attempt to express gratitude for Camilla's company ended in the words just so neat, and Linde has not stopped cursing herself for it. I would trust you with all of me, she could try; there is no light here without you, I could mourn the person I might have been had I met you all those awful years ago. I have never felt so safe than I do with you.

But instead, all she managed was just so neat, and an instance of weeping against Camilla's shoulder when the shadowed beings behind this place dangled their secrets over their heads and Linde spoke of her father, of Gharnef, of all the fury she couldn't let go of. Maybe that was it.]

I hope it isn't a bother for me to ask, [and there's something a touch—deliberate, maybe, the way she glances aside, as if embarrassed,] but, ah, could I invite you to my quarters tonight? Considering...

[It's Thursday night. Someone is going to die.

And if Linde has done everything right, it will be Lorenz.]

Edited (SORRY I REMEMBERED SOMETHING AND REALIZED I NEEDED TO CHANGE A NAME) 2020-10-15 17:58 (UTC)

[To say that this game has been taxing is an understatement. The cold has never bothered Camilla, truly; Nohr is a cold place in more ways than one, but to watch these people kill, to watch them with the knowledge that the more time she spends in this place, the more her precious siblings could be in danger--it was all suffocating, really.

But there's a voice. A voice that cuts through the fog in her mind, fills her lungs with fresh air, and Camilla turns around--and there comes Linde, rushed as Camilla walks back towards her quarters after the lovely dinner she had with Tethys and Anna; Camilla could feel the thoughts ebb out of her mind as the other girl ran up, and for a brief moment their shoulders touched, and ah--

It's an accident, Camilla is all but certain, but her heart still skips a beat all the same. It feels like there's always something in the air between them; something left unsaid, something which Camilla so wishes she could put into words around a woman who Camilla has listened to, who she's defended, who she's enjoyed her time around...]

Oh Linde, dear, of course it's not a bother! I would be happy to stay with you for the evening.

[Even the more rational part of Camilla is agreement, if such a thing exists; Linde couldn't possibly hurt her physically, after all.]

I trust that everything is quite alright?

[does she need to pound someone. does someone need to get fucked up, just say the word--]

Oh, of course! Well— [And, realizing she's said that too quickly, she chuckles, in that way one does when it isn't funny at all.] Besides the usual, I guess.

[The usual. So that's what all these weeks of death have come to.

She lowers her voice, enough to sound like she offers a confession if not a secret.] I've just...been nervous. And I couldn't have asked anyone else.

[Linde, for one, more certainly has a rational voice in her, and it has seen the hot fury Camilla defends her with when someone dares accuse Linde at a trial, and hears the unspoken offer to fix the situation in her latest question, and could not speak over the sound of Linde's ever-pounding heart to suggest Camilla would ever try to hurt her if it wanted to.]

[The usual. Camilla almost laughs at that--to think that something like this could become the usual. It makes her want to laugh. It makes her sick.

Still, Camilla's smile doesn't falter, even as Linde's voice drops; protection, then. At least, that's what Camilla sees it as. Her eyes go half lidded, an affirmative, soft nod an indication that she hears the young woman loud and clear.]

Of course, darling. I'll ensure that nothing happens to you; you have my word.

[She'll kill anyone who tries to harm even a single hair on Linde's head; that's a promise.

Either way, they seem to be getting close to Linde's cabin, and Camilla's smile brightens. Though maybe that's due to the person she's with; so beautiful. So strong, emotionally. But of course, Camilla politely turns her head away, towards the door.

She's gonna need to spend a night here without letting her own heart get to her. Gods help her.]

Shall we?

[A sigh escapes her without her quite allowing it. You have my word, and oh, how Linde believes every word of it. Her gut twists a little, to think that Camilla could trust her so entirely and she would—use her; is that what she's doing? This weekend, Camilla will see Linde on the suspects list at the trial and insist on their alibi, all fury and fire, Linde knows she will, and she will be wrong.]

Thank you, Camilla.

[She walks them to her cabin and edges on ahead to unlock it. Camilla might notice, as she opens the door, that Linde has done very little to customize the space. None of the personal effects she's gained over their stay are immediately visible, besides an extra coat and scarf on a hook—and a present Camilla had given her some weeks ago, sitting on the table by the bed.

The bed.

Oh no there's only one bed.]

Please make yourself comfortable. [Linde holds the door open for Camilla, and has two realizations in rapid succession: one, that she's left her present so clearly out in plain sight, and two, oh no there's only one bed!!! Ah, she's turning a little pink...]

I'll sleep on the floor. I'd hate to invite you over and ask that of you.

[Camilla does spare a glance at Linde's room, when she opens the door--it's sparse in comparison to Camilla's own, decorated enough to be lively even in a place like this, with what she could get her hands on. It's a bit of a surprise, really, but not as much of a surprise as seeing a very familiar little present on Linde's table, and oh.

Oh her heart skips a beat. It's not enough to be distracted (though Camilla's gaze lingers on it a little longer than needed, eyes soft in a way they only get when she speaks of her siblings), but it's enough to distract from the very prevalent fact of there only being--]

--What?

[Camilla's brought out of her own head at those words. I'll sleep on the floor, what does Linde think Camilla is? A cur? A heathen? Obviously not, but Camilla's expression openly startles as she takes a step inside.]

I shall make myself comfortable, darling Linde, but...you needn't sacrifice your own comfort for my sake. Please, allow me to take the floor instead. I couldn't bear to make you suffer so.

[mistakes have been MADE today folks]

we found love in a hopeless place

:)

[softly] oh no

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