humiliatious | Amphitheater Multiverse: The Wastelands

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Amphitheater Multiverse: The Wastelands

Amphitheater Multiverse

The Amphitheater is a mysterious place. It's in the space of a blink that you appear outside one of its many entrances. You're beckoned inside, taken to the center, where the showrunners assign you a role. Another blink, and you're no longer surrounded by rows of crowded seats. The crowd and cast have disappeared. Whatever role you were given, that is your life now, even if only for the duration of the performance. Be careful, though. It's easy to get lost in the role you were given. It's not uncommon for performers to forget who they are.

Performance: The Wastelands

It's a scenario which has fascinated since the very inception of story-telling: What happens after the world ends? It seems that's what's occurred here. Shops and houses are left empty of life, looted of supplies. Strange, mutant plants grow wrap around buildings and overtake forests, which infected animals slip out of to attack. Towns are less so towns, and more so guarded fortresses which only allow certain individuals in and out. Supplies are scarce, and trade has devolved into a bartering system. Camps of survivors are scattered throughout the countryside and abandoned villages, with some bigger groups splitting up into factions. Infighting is common, as well as altercations between groups. The world has become temperamental, anxious, everyone always prepared to attack. Those affected by the mutation find it even harder to survive every day, met with a whole host of biological and social obstacles. Everyone's goal is to survive. What role will you play?

Dramatis Personae

scavengers & survivalists

Scavengers and survivalists survive on their own as best as they can. They are loners who travel from settlement to settlement, trading supplies they've found before moving onto the next place. Some prefer to live off grid entirely, and only interact with others when passing in their travels. Others hide away in cities and towns, away from the eyes of the factions that govern them, stealing what they need. Generally, these types believe that others will slow them down, and are concerned more with their own survival than anything else, which makes them poor companions.

leaders

The world as all knew it may have ended, but so long as there are people still alive, they will need leaders. One might lead a small settlement with only a handful of people, merely interested in surviving. Instead, one might be the leader of a powerful faction in a major fortress city, with hundreds at your command. There are religious leaders, as well, which devotees follow faithfully in all that they do. Whatever the case may be, the leader is, at the end of the day, someone responsible for the wellbeing of the many others that depend on them.

traders

Traders are apocalypse-made merchants who survive by collecting and selling items between settlements. Some of these merchants travel, moving from settlement to settlement and providing goods for travelers on the road, and some reside in settlements, providing goods for the town. They may sell anything from rations to weapons to medical supplies, and generally tend to have good relationships with leaders, due to their many connections. They are good salespeople, exceptionally clever with words, and may convince you to leave with something you don't need, or give them something you do.

the affected

No one is quite sure what caused animals, plants, and people to all start changing - why some are affected, and others aren't - but some strange mutation took hold after the world came to an end, rendering some something between human and beast. They are not mindless, and they are not hungry, but they have been known to attack - transform into monsters which blindly lash out until their prey has been disposed of. This only happens when they are provoked, however...

hunters

Some believe that the affected must be disposed of, studied, or otherwise detained until an explanation for their condition can be found. There are a few leaders, both religious and otherwise, who claim to be researching a cure for the strange affliction. They hire hunters to find the affected and bring them to their headquarters. Other hunters have more personal reasons for wanting to seek out the affected and dispose of them.

devotees

In times of great crisis, such as these, people find themselves desperate for a guiding light to follow. Devotees pledge themselves to leaders, objects, gods, etc., and follow them dutifully no matter what they're asked to do. Some religious factions condemn the affected, while some celebrate and welcome them, and others still that want to research them; likewise, there are some factions that welcome anyone, some that only welcome allied factions, some that welcome no one. It all depends on what one has decided to devote themselves to - the point is, they're devoted.

OOC

Hello! Welcome to Amphitheater Multiverse, inspired by former game 7Dead's AU/amplitheater premise. Essentially, characters enter a magical amphitheater that is holding a performance (this time it is "The Wastelands," a post-apocalyptic story), and they are cast in roles. This transports them to the setting of the "play" - essentially one big collective AU you can TL and play in (your characters can either be aware they're in a play, completely lost in their roles, some combination thereof, etc.). You can play out multiple roles/enter & exit the amphitheater more than once.

Please follow basic DWRP etiquette, don't be a jerk, use CWs in subject lines/read them. Play anyone you want - canon characters, OCs, fandom OCs, AUs, CRAUs, etc., etc. This event is open for anyone to play. You do not need to know me or be on my plurk list or anything like that. If you have any questions, please direct them here, or hit me up on plurk at

pantheraliam (just note that I don't add people unless I know them). Have fun, be safe o v o;;

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[She almost thinks it a hallucination for its clarity. But if the flash before, prolonged and grueling doesn’t do it, the emotion in Armin’s grip and the solidity of his voice are enough.

[For him, Aubrey can hope.

[Keeping their hands together tight, she urges them forward. There’s temptation to run; she feels shaky. The sight alone, having sight, is almost overwhelming on its own. But one way or another, no matter how long it takes, they’ll be there…]

[The run begins with Armin stumbling, Aubrey's hand tight in his. They've been walking for what feels like months, maybe years, but suddenly, it feels as though his legs don't work. When he starts to fall, Aubrey has to help pull him back up, but then, they're both running, right toward the entrance of the Amphitheater. Before they enter, Armin skids to a stop, catching Aubrey by the shoulders and turning to face her.

[Her. His hand comes up to tuck pink hair away from brown eyes. He hasn't seen her in...far, far too long.]

Aubrey...

[He laughs, his hands both coming to cup her face. He kisses her lips.]

Aubrey.

It's so good to see you again.

[No matter what hell awaits, it can’t take away this. Blonde hair, soft lips; eyes blue as the sea. Aubrey brings a hand to his cheek, the other to his nape; and for all they’ve been close, there’s a fresh wonder to it now.]

Armin…

[When he falters, she’ll always reach for him.]

I love you, too.

[And they could stay in this moment forever, she feels, but…

[Eventually, they’ll move They don’t have a choice.]

['I love you too.' He feels silly for not saying so himself, but he doesn't have to. She says it for him, and they both mean it, they both know.

[He kisses her again, and that's all. He thinks of Eren, thinks it would be impossible to rip him away, but Armin knows they need to move. He laces their fingers, squeezes her hand; turns to face the strange, imposing building.]

Have you seen anything like it before?

[She can only tear her eyes away when Armin does, and even so Aubrey glances to him when she talks.]

Not in person… Maybe in schoolbooks. [Old cartoons? It feels like lifetimes ago.] The, uh… Colosseum.

[Aubrey frowns.]

People fought to the death. For “entertainment.”

[It’s quiet, from the outside. Still, her hand closes tighter around his.]

[Armin makes a short sound, barely more than a breath.]

Seems a bit on the nose for this place. Then again...

It's changed a lot since we first woke up. Hasn't it?

[His question trails off; they're still walking toward the entrance.]

Stay close to me.

[Aubrey lets out a mirthless little huff.] It never lets us get used to it for long....

[He doesn’t need to tell her to keep close twice; she appreciates it, all the same. And silently curses herself for not paying more attention in history class.

[She expects noise, clashing weapons, mangled cries… though, maybe that’s just from the dark. No one steps forward to force them into armor, suit them up in some barracks and prepare for slaughter… There doesn’t even seem to be an audience.

[And it’s not an empty arena that greets them, either. Blistering sands, desecrated structures, warped plants twisting into the sky so highly, it’s hard to make out if there are seats past the horizon at all. The building didn’t look half this big from the outside.]

Is this familiar to you…? [Hushed, despite the seeming lack of listeners.]

[It's a building on the outside and another world on the inside. Armin had no expectations, so he tells himself that he isn't surprised. He places a hand between Aubrey's shoulder blades, a focused glare on his face as he scans their surroundings. Whatever walls surrounded them before (if they ever did at all) are gone.

[Armin looks back at Aubrey.]

No. I've never seen this place before in my life. Nowhere like it, either.

[Although...now that he thinks about it...]

It looks...like it's been completely destroyed.

[Exactly how his world must look now. He'd almost wonder if this were an outright reflection.

[Meanwhile, he hasn't noticed - one solitary black root crawling out of the corner of his mouth, branching out and spreading upward toward his eye...]

[It’s strange, the places this world takes them. Flickering lights, lost rooftops, a town destroyed into a soft living room—and yet none of it has felt quite so vast, so unfamiliar. Not anywhere visible.

[And Armin doesn’t know it.

[Aubrey holds his gaze while he talks; looks away only briefly, at the destruction he speaks of. There’s a half-formed thought on her tongue, an apartment she didn’t know, signs of someone else’s—

[Death. In the living, on his face; Aubrey recognizes it with a foreign intuition, and jerks back at the sight. (She hasn’t moved away from Armin since before it all went dark—if even then. Her skin immediately feels colder for his absence.)]

Armin, your… [Or is it “you’re”? She doesn’t want to say it. She wants it gone.

[But she traces the affliction’s path with her own hand, up her own face. The motion is almost involuntary. Shouldn’t she reach out…?]

[Armin feels the absence of Aubrey's weight immediately - even just the lightest brush of her skin had kept him tethered to the ground, but now...

[She moves away. The frown is plain on his face. When Aubrey touches her face, Armin touches his, feels the ridge of that root.

[His titan ability engaging? Usually, those marks gouge their way in. What's about to happen?

[He backs away too.]

Something to look in. [He mutters it, turning this way and that to search for anything reflective. He finds nothing.

[When he turns back to Aubrey, the roots have branched and crawled - up his nose, into his ear; his left eye is completely black.]

What is it?

[Didn't Eren free him of his titan ability anyway...?]

Aubrey. Tell me.

[He backs away. There’s a distinct sense that he shouldn’t be allowed to separate. In the dark, it felt they were never more than an arm’s length away.

[And now he’s turning.]

You’re affected. [Aubrey doesn’t know how she knows. But her raised hand, shaking, opens, covering and sprawling across the left half of her face.] You don’t feel it…?

[Are you a threat? An entirely unwelcome thought. Teeth gritting in fear, she swallows.]

[Aubrey is afraid. That's unwelcome. Armin feels his teeth grit too, though he doesn't quite understand why. His fist is clenching. He thinks of Eren and spreads out his hand, shaking it, shaking his head.]

Aubrey. [His voice is firm, suddenly; there is some desperation.

[He forces his voice to sound gentle. Why does he have to force it? She'll never know the difference.]

It's alright. [He holds his hands up, then out. The tips of his nails are starting to turn black too, but if he notices, he doesn't acknowledge it.]

I don't know what's happening yet, but I know we'll solve the puzzle like we always do. This is clearly the next step, so...

We're closer than ever to seeing Eren and Sunny again.

[Armin won't die before they reach them. He's not worried about that.

[His voice get just a little quieter.]

Whatever happens, I'm not going to hurt you. [Those last two words - aggressive. He swallows down a lump in his throat, eyes momentarily widing.

[And then he takes a deep breath.]

It's alright. Let's keep walking...

[She’s never been afraid of Armin. (Can’t remember otherwise.) And she can love him even when he scares her, so…]

It’s spreading fast. [Tentative, Aubrey lowers her own hand; shifts focus to it, for a tense heartbeat, but… it’s unaffected. Why him? What happens if it takes over?

[She starts walking, slow. Can’t shake the feeling she’s not supposed to let him out of her sight. Does, anyway, because… it’s Armin. She does trust Armin.]

I don’t know why, but… I feel like there might be more like you. [Not quite human. There’s a black streak across the ruins, not unlike what crawls across Armin’s skin. Was it there before, or had she not noticed?]

And I’m supposed to find them. [And bring you back.]

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Amphitheater Multiverse: The Wastelands

HEHEHEHE

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hehe...rng'd the role...

I didn’t :)

FEAR?

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don't mind my limited icons

🤝 the same boat…