aworldwithoutboxes | (no subject)

THE MURDERGAME SHIPPING MEME V1.1

This is probably too straight to accurately represent most 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 (recommended, so everyone knows what your character is About), 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! Profile code and some prefs options below.

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!

PROFILE CODE (pilfered from the general murdergame meme):

PREFS CODE:

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ She's stood at one of the boarded up windows when Cass opens the door, staring like she might be able to pierce through the wood and figure out just what's lurking out there if she tries long enough. She's distracted enough that she doesn't immediately realize she's been followed and it's only when Cassandra speaks her name that she reacts – she jumps hard enough to make the desk at her side rattle and whips around. Her shoulders are high and tense, but when she sees who it is, they unwind just a little. ]

... Cassandra. [ She follows that with a sigh and lets herself sink into one of the chairs. She'd been doing a good job of keeping herself cold and steady during the trial, but now she's just visibly exhausted. ] I thought you might have gone with the others. We've had a long day.

Iris.

[Cassandra catches herself in the doorway, her hand still closed around the knob as Iris jumps. She unfreezes as the Ultimate Savior does, arms coming to hang limply at her sides. Tenseness was fine. Expected, even. With the torture - yes, it was torture - they were forced to contend with each week... maybe it would have been worse to not see her like this.

...No. Seeing Iris like this was bad. Exhaustion was one thing, they were all suffering from that. But fear? Worry?]

You don't have to tell me. That was... [Awful. Unforgettable. Pointless.] Long, yeah. I saw you headed this way, and I just wanted to check in on you.

[ Iris doesn't smile – partly because well, it's Iris, and she never smiles but mostly it's exhaustion, physical and emotional and every other kind in between. But something about the chilly expression she's wearing seems to warm up just a touch, even if everything else about her posture is still stiff. ]

I appreciate your concern, but there's no need to worry. I simply needed a moment alone to gather myself. I'll be fine.

[ Which, of course, means that she's currently not fine. ]

... How are you, then, Cassandra? You may speak your mind freely while the others aren't here to fret.

[Would it be stranger if she smiled? It's hard to say, but the exhaustion clearly went both ways. There's visible effort in the way Cassandra continues to carry herself, putting an extra sway in her step. Maybe one of these weeks would be the one where she stopped clenching her jaw.

But surely not this one.]

You want to know what I think? [That catches her, but only for a moment.] I'm... not okay. I'm tired, Iris.

[And she approaches, one step after another.]

And I know for a fact that you're not okay either. You wouldn't have left to be by yourself if you were.

[ Iris says nothing. Not at first, anyway.

She merely looks Cassandra up and down with that dreadfully cold, searching gaze of hers – the one she can't warm up, no matter how she tries. Right now it's probing, feeling out the chinks in Cassandra's armor and most importantly of all, trying to find some reason, any reason at all to find that she can't be trusted.

Iris finds nothing at all. It's somehow both a relief and a disappointment. She lets loose a breath she hadn't been fully aware she'd been holding and taps the desk lightly – an invitation for Cassandra to take the seat opposite her.

Like equals.

Or co-conspirators. ]

... A thought for a thought. We shall conduct ourselves as such, if that is acceptable to you.

[ She doesn't wait for Cassandra to reply before she continues. ]

I am tired. Of this dreadful game, and of looking at all those faces during the week and wondering which of them will try to throw us all to the wolves this time. What it might take for you or myself to try and do the same.

[ She inclines her head towards Cassandra in an unspoken invitation – your turn. ]

[Cassandra waits, and she listens.

Cassandra has always been honest with Iris, practical to a fault as the two women explored this strange - precarious even - part of their lives. The woman was a wall, carefully tended to like.... well, a suit of armor. Cassandra knew plenty about those, and even more about protecting herself from prying eyes.

But she's never made it seem as though she couldn't be trusted. That was the one thing, above all others, that Cass wished to express.

Her eyes, bright, intelligent, surprisingly soft for someone so outwardly cooled in her interactions, move to the desk. She rounds the desk and slides on top of it.

She faced Iris now and, like always, she would listen.]

It's exhausting being stuck like this. This place isn't a home. This isn't living.

[Her head tilts slightly, gauging Iris's intentions. Hard to say...]

It would have to be something pretty serious for you and me, wouldn't it? Something that... pushes us to the point we decide that throwing the others to the wolves is the best outcome for all of this.

[ After so many hours of both of them tempering their feelings and responses, it's... oddly cathartic to hear Cassandra speak so freely. Even now, weeks into this game, it's not something Iris can do quite the same. To tell the truth, she's envious of how easily it seems to come to Cassandra in times like this. The least Iris can do, though, is offer her that same courtesy in return. ]

I would hardly say that. [ She lets out a hard breath that doesn't quite become a laugh and tips her head back in thought. ] Despite our positions, you and I... both have certain attachments, do we not? Certain obligations, to crown and court and kingdom.

[ Not the same kingdom, of course. But Iris thinks that Cassandra might understand what the weight of those obligations feels like better than the others. ]

Can you be so sure that a threat posed to such obligations would be a terrible temptation in of itself?