That moment between waking... (Nightmare meme)

[madreen_rua]

the nightmare meme

"So on his Nightmare through the evening fog
Flits the squab Fiend o'er fen, and lake, and bog;
Seeks some love-wilder'd maid with sleep oppress'd,
Alights, and grinning sits upon her breast."
- Erasmus Darwin, "Night-Mare"


Everyone has nightmares right? The dark thoughts lurking in the depths of our minds. Our fears out of our control. At least they only occur in our sleeping hours... right?

This meme is designed to wretch that comfort right out from under you.

Your character is stuck in their worst nightmare and worse yet, someone is stuck in there with them. Whether it's a familiar face, a stranger, intentional or accidental, you have to dig your way out. Good luck lost souls. And remember. The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.

Feel free to use the prompts below as a jumping point, or make up whatever you want. As a warning this meme will possibly contain TRIGGERS and MATURE CONTENT. Read ahead with caution.


Prompts:

i. the WEAVER (the nightmare)

001 - waking nightmare - wake up. Wake up. Wake. UP. The only sure guarantee out of a dream. And yet when your eyes open, the fear still surrounds you. The nightmare has its hold. You've woken up to your own nightmare. Why hasn't it gone away?

002 - stuck - Slowly, you begin to realize this is all just a dream. But you can't get out. You're stuck to the whims of your subconscious, unable to escape. Completely aware that this is just a nightmare, but unable to escape.

003 - pursuit - You're being chased, endlessly, by something, someone. Maybe it's a boogey monster, maybe it's only a metaphor. But you're out of breath and places to run.

004 - the end of your world - The apocalypse. Brought about around you. Maybe it came slowly, like a slow burning fire-- or perhaps it was a conflagration. Your entire world is falling apart around you and you can do nothing to stop it. Or perhaps even worse, you're the cause.

005 - your greatest fear - Maybe your greatest fear is something common, like spiders, or something which seems completely mundane, such as the color yellow. Whatever it is, it's surrounding you. Keeping you in it's embrace.

006 - ground hog day - It starts out harmless. One day, not unlike any other. Except, it's repeated over. And over. And over. And over. Until slowly your mind just.... slips away.

007 - i have no mouth and I must scream - slowly, against your will, you're transforming. Turning into a creature unlike yourself. Perhaps a monster, maybe a pile of goo. Whatever it is, you're helpless to stop it.

008 - free style - take these prompts and throw em' out the window. Do it however you want.


ii. the THREAD (why the other character is there)

001 - the devil on their chest - Maybe the dreamer was someone in your way, someone who had done harm to you or someone you care about, maybe it’s just for shits and giggles. But you are the one who has stuck them in this nightmare, and you want to watch them fall victim to their own mind.

002 - mind link - for some reason you share a connection with this person. Perhaps it's just the passing of the stars, a jolt of electricity, or their mind reaching for yours. But now you’re stuck here, trying to get them out.

003 - experiment - Just a quick injection, maybe a little sting, it won't hurt. That's what the men in coats said. But look where that got you.

004 - save them - you've been tasked to save this person, no matter the cost. Maybe they're a stranger, maybe they're your closest friend, even your greatest enemy, but you have to save them.

005 - just following orders - It's a job, and you've been tasked to it. They may have some info you need. Or maybe you have to keep them in for the benefit of someone else. It doesn't matter. It's only a job. Right?

006 - we have ways of making you talk - They have something you need. And it's time you squeeze it out of them.

007 - free style - take these prompts and throw em' out the window. Do it however you want.

In order to make this meme a bit easier when it comes to tagging out we have written up a short little form. If you could fill it out and stick it in your characters opening comment, along with the usual character name and series header, it would be helpful to everyone in order to find someone appropriate to tag! Plotting is more than encouraged!

<b>Possible nightmares/preferences:</b> <b>Quick History:</b> <b>Quick Personality:</b> <b>Triggers/things you'd like to avoid:</b>

 

Comments

Caleb Widogast | Critical Role | OTA - voicetesting

[zemnianjoy]

[ ooc: Oh nightmare.. his favorite ]

sakura matou | fate/stay night

[grail]

( sakura canonically suffers from nightmares involving violence, body horror, and cannibalism, but probably isn’t a particularly restful sleeper even outside of that. see her info post for in-depth warnings, and feel free to hmu if you’d like to hash something specific out!

favorite prompts are 1, 2, 3, and especially 7, but basically everything is on the table. )

franklin donut | rvb

[tossing]

[ his worst nightmare would probably be reliving all his memories (again), getting stuck in another time loop, or dying horribly (again). aside from that, probably something that involves being forgotten/ignored/abandoned by those he cares about (again).

willing to discuss the hows/whys of the scenario and how that person got there with him. rvb canon is super flexible with that kind of thing, be it magic or science-y nonsense. ]

kirschtaria wodime ♔ fate/go

[cryptant]

[ kirschtaria's nightmares might contain some spoilers about his backstory. ]

John Constantine | Constantine/Legends of Tomorrow | ota

[onewaytohell]

[Either role. Likely to either be trapped as punishment by something demonic or tasked to rescue someone else. Both roles are 100% his jam though. Assumed CR + cross-canon welcome.]

james sunderland ( silent hill 2 )

[choking]

( definitely the one suffering from the nightmare. spoilers for a very old franchise: james put his wife out of her misery and in a state of intense stress, he found himself at silent hill, being tortured by his own guilt through the form of various monsters…. )

tom hanniger. ( my bloody valentine )

[pickaxe]

[ It's been 7 years, but Tom still has nightmares about that fateful night:

He and his friends attended a Valentine's Day party at the Hanniger Mine when Harry Warden had shown up. Harry went on a killing spree, murdering several people before turning his attention to Tom. Just before killing Tom, two policemen shot Harry through the chest, splattering Tom's face with blood. Despite the injury, Harry managed to escape the mines out of a hatch.

OR

Tom generally blacks out during his episodes / possession, could also play a scenario where he's the one stalking, trapped in his own body, and unable to stop himself. ]

Zelda | LoZ:OoT

[wisdominshadows]

[Hyrule's nothing if not full of nightmare material, isn't it?]

Lan Sizhui | The Untamed | OTA

[notaturnip]

_{[His early life has got a little nightmare fuel lbr, but also he does deal with demons and monsters on a p much daily basis, so he might be an excellent person to have tagging along your nightmares. I'm good to roll either way]}

rika furude / higurashi no naku koro ni ( ota )

[miisdealt]

[ in terms of nightmares, rika's life has basically been a living one, and she tends to have dreams in relation to that. a lot of her nightmares will involve violent, potentially graphic content, including but not limited to: gore, body horror, cannibalism, torture, potential domestic/family abuse, and just a lot of murder/death in general. domestic/family abuse can be opted out from, and i can tone some of the other concepts down, but just be warned that all nightmares from rika's end will have murder and torture of some kind. feel free to hit me up to hash anything out.

in terms of the prompts, i'm most interested in 1, 2, 3. 6 is basically written with her canon. i'm also interested in 7, with more of a metaphorical twist on it - having rika turn and be seen as a monster, a witch over a human. also another thing to note: while rika may be a teenager, due to her nightmares digging into her innate fears, it is very likely that in most nightmares of her own that she will become a child again--11, and helpless, unable to do a single thing about her 'fate'.

as for why your character is there, i like the concepts of 1, 2, and 4. i'm also interested in 3, but can work with wildcard options, too, let me know. ]

[moon_heroine]

(OoC: Oh, gosh, I like this a lot! Maybe 3 for the nightmare and 4 for the reason? Maybe add in a bit of revival every time they suffer?)

Dilandau Albatou | Escaflowne

[diabolical_adonis]

[ Open to a lot here, but please discuss first. ]

Maria Ushiromiya | Umineko no Naku Koro ni | OTA

[uuuuu]

(( Voice testing! Let me know if you'd like to avoid spoilers (I'm asking for no spoilers past episode 5 as I'm still reading)!

Fine with her visiting dreams, but note if you're visiting hers that themes of child abuse will likely come up unless you ask otherwise! ))

[miisdealt]

[ sneaks my way into this comment.

do you want rika to visit maria's dreams or vice versa or maybe a mixture of both. i don't even know. horrible ideas include maria visiting rika's dream of her becoming a 'witch' and just the potential awful implications of that but to be honest i can roll with w/e if you have a preference.

(also you know i'm good with pretty much w/e) ]

Monika || Doki Doki Literature Club || OTA

[peninhand]

[ She is the one suffering from the nightmares.

Her most common nightmare will be about her time spent in the "digital void" she gets trapped in whenever DDLC was shut down. It is a void filled with flashing colors and lights, screeching noises and screams. No matter how much she screams or begs for help, no one can hear her. It hammers at her mind till she cannot even think any more and is left a broken husk until the player turns the game back on. Whoever visits her nightmare won't be affected by the colors and screams, but they'll still see and hear them in a limited capacity. It shares a lot of similarities with sensory overload, and it's painful both physically and mentally.

Another nightmare is a repeat of when the player deleted her. Finally, the last nightmare would be her friends becoming aware of everything she's done and accusing her of being the worst, of deserving all of the world's misery, etc.

Her nightmares, regardless of the flavor, come with pretty heavy CW, which include amongst others suicidal ideation, torture despair, existential crisis. ]

Eskel || The Witcher (any) || OTA

[wolfdogwitcher]

{{Funny how a creature that is known to have had all the fear and emotional attachment burned out of them decades ago can still have nightmares. Especially these nightmares. Eskel has no fear of the beasts in the dark, not even the ones who have set their teeth or claws into him, nor has he violence against himself (with few exceptions)-- he accepts he will one day die alone in the depths of some lair or perhaps hanged or burned on the humans' scaffolding. It is not a question of if, but when; this is the witcher's lot.

No, what Eskel fears the most is the loss of the little world that had seen him from a peasant boy of four to a man turned out onto the Path.

004. The final sacking of Kaer Morhen, that killed all who were within its walls. All but one, but in this dream Eskel cannot find Vesemir as he staggers through this sea of violent death. TW: a lot of mentioned child death in this prompt.

005. It's finally happened: he came home for the winter and found the keep empty. And no matter how long he watched at the gate for his brothers and his old masters, it stayed that way. If someone else winds up in this nightmare with him, he will probably be drunk and going mad with grief and isolation.

008. A selection of memories for Eskel to relive, perhaps without knowing he's stuck in a nightmare. His own near death at the hands of the grown Child of Surprise that he betrayed. And the facing her again, a messy death made necessary in an effort to clean up his mess. The death of the man who had been the only father he'd ever known. Watching his brother Geralt linger at the edge of death while they were still barely more than boys (if that, since the Trial of the Grasses can be wreaked upon the body of child as young as 8).}}

J'onn J'onzz 👽 DC

[yourfavorite]

As a powerful psychic, J'onn might be deliberately diving into someone's nightmares in order to protect them, or he could accidentally project his own.

Paris | Greek mythology

[eidosariste]

[Skipping 7 entirely. For regular canon 1, 3, 4-6 are all great. 3 would involve a mountain scene and trying to run through that, with something that sounds like it can fly just out of sight. 4 is, uh, obviously a nightmare about Troy's future destruction.

For his modern reincarnation AU, we're probably talking a mix of 1 and 2; basically Paris as dreams (which, even if they're not technically nightmares, he sort of views them as such) from anywhere during his first/original life, and he always knows they're dreams. 4, again with something of Troy's destruction, but the actual razing even if Paris was already dead by then, might be another possibility!

If he's not the dreamer, I'd prefer the mind-link option as to how/why he's in the other character's dream.]

yelena belova | mcu

[unwidowed]

[ warning for spoilers, obviously. let's do this. ]

Puck/Robin Goodfellow | for monsterbytrade

[gentle_puck]

With the benefit of repeated incidents, Robin can say with certainty that he's dreamt more since meeting Geralt than ever before in his lifetime. What he cannot say is that he's necessarily come to enjoy the phenomenon. Despite their link, most often in his dreams, he is alone, and unchosen solitude brings its own set of fears, especially in an environment over which he has dubious control. All his self-proclaimed fondness for surprises aside, control matters a great deal to the Puck, and if that has something foundational to do with the lack of it in so many areas of his life, he will absolutely never say so. Sometimes he realizes he's dreaming; Geralt's presence is a sure sign. More often, he does not, and he's helpless to watch while things slide more and more surely out of his grip.

At first, he guesses that this is a dream. The blurred edges and slippery details suggest as much during the long tumble into darkness. But it's also a mirror of things that have happened before, and forgetting is always easier than he would like. He clings to the wrong details. Everything unravels.

He's racing through the forest, always running from something he equally longs for and fears, but the trees are a tunnel and the only way is down, underground, with stone scraping into steel beneath his feet. The air is stale and the walls around him form a black maze as they shrink and tighten. Passages turn narrow and exits slam shut. He shifts shape again and again and again, ever smaller, squirming his way through crevices and fighting through boltholes that don't fit, over ledges that cut. He can hear something in the distance, loud and rapid like panic--the grinding of gears, the shaking of bars, the thudding of his own heartbeat.

The world closes around him like a trap. The last tunnel closes off behind him and shears off one wing; the compression of the walls shatters the other. He scrabbles against the floor, the ceiling, his own skin, but everything is pain and blunt metal. It crushes him down and holds him still. His heart still beats, but the sound and sensation of it is savage: no comfort, just torture in the absence of anything else. If he could move, he would rip himself out of his own bones to escape. There's nowhere to go, and if a world still exists outside this box, he's lost the connecting thread. All his lines have snapped.

[monsterbytrade]

It turns out that Geralt is a natural when it comes to dreaming.

At least-- he's a natural when he doesn't know he's in a dream. When he simply finds himself in fur, running on four large paws; then he is as comfortable as in the skin he wears when waking, padding through dreamscapes that he can change with need or to suit his whim. To be fair it makes little difference if the lack of pigment comes in fur or hair, if Geralt needs something, the dream likes to provide it. With some time and experience behind them Geralt is as likely as Robin to set the boundaries and ever-shifting foundations that outline their shared experiences. Unfortunately his aptitude for adaptation is a sword that cuts both ways and the dreams are just as responsive to him the moment understanding sets in, naturally followed by decades of enforced static personality. Then, one of several things tend to happen-- the first is that he blows the dream up. Often literally.

Also, earthquakes.

Or lightning.

The sky falling. Monsters of every ilk setting in. The corpses of children, animated and vengeful. Regardless of the instrument, he brings destruction.

It is as if the strength of will that lets the unconscious Geralt manipulate the dream becomes a vice, one that strangles everything illogical as soon as it realizes that all the rules are as thin as the morning fog. He's never sure which is more humiliating-- destroying the dream beneath their feet or, when he manages to keep himself together, rendering himself completely inept at any further manipulation. Robin has tried, and failed, to teach him when they reach that place they both know is a dream. Grasping at sand yields nothing but empty hands when the man attempting to keep it only knows how to clutch with brutal strength.

The learning has been slow-going but in its continued absence an almost-comfortable habit has been forming. That he is less likely to blow apart.

Tonight the branches are low and bare and they snag at his passage through the forest, woody fingers gripping at cloak and breeches, a bad imitation of lust. He's lost his way. It isn't the first time and it won't be the last but Geralt doesn't like the slinking taste of the place around him. The soft leather of his gloves are silent as he opens and closes his hands into fists, denying himself the want to draw his sword. As he goes he realizes that he's picking his way through the bones of somewhere old and forgotten; teeth of stone and timber stick from the earth like a broken snarl.

A grind of rusted metal crunches through the fog and Geralt spins a neat circle to face an opponent that doesn't come. The sound presses in, a slow and deteriorating heartbeat like gears that don't quite fit together anymore but don't know any other rhythm. Behind the smell of oxidized ore and fetid wood there is something else, something clean but muted. A bright thing buried under rot so old that it has turned to loam... but the sound of that old heartbeat feels like panic for a system ready to come loose from its moorings and Geralt can't hold onto the thread.

When he turns back the way he'd been going the long strands of tangled undergrowth make his feet untrustworthy and the Witcher falls; a sharp jut of metal is waiting and a hot line of pain slices across his cheek. Blood patters onto the ground near his hands and the dirt drinks it in, hungry.

Where was he going? What is he missing?

Dean Winchester | Supernatural

[singlemantear]

[ooc: There are many things that could be Dean's worst nightmare: his brother or someone else in his life dying, being stuck in a box at the bottom of the ocean, being killed by any number of things, being possessed by Michael, getting killed by God, a deadly plague taking over the earth, Purgatory, hell itself. Anything else you can imagine. Take your pick.

Malcolm Bright | Prodigal Son

[prodigalmess]

[ welp. ]

Makoto Naegi | Danganronpa | OTA

[cloversandcranes]

((Makoto's nightmares are full of spoilers, including teen murder and post-apocalyptic horror. His nightmare will be a mix of his fears and his PTSD. What fun. Expect lots of suffering.))

((Every thread is welcome except for some exceptions. All of the Weaver scenarios are fine but only ii002, ii004 and ii007 are okay with the Thread scenarios. I just don't see him doing those other ones.))

((Here is my Info/Permission Page for more info.))))

Jonathan Crane [The Scarecrow] || DC Comics || OTA

[hosannas_of_anguish]

[ Who wants some fear toxin? ]

Luca Paguro | Luca (OTA) - Spoilers in the last link

[schoolingfish]

[OOC: For some possible nightmares he might get stuck in for 1 and 2 (or worst fears for 5), they could be stuck in the deep ocean. Uncle Ugo may or may not be present. Option 7 would also work for this one if his body starts turning into a deep sea creature form due to being in the Deep for too long. Or if you'd rather do something on land, this moment would work well, only with the situation getting worse and worse as it goes on. That one could also be used for number 3 if you want to use that scenario for a chase scene.

I'm open to any of the prompts for why the other character is there.]

Ben Solo/Kylo Ren | Star Wars

[niteofren]

[Nightmares could be anything from the results of Palpatine and Snoke messing with his mind or any of the deaths he’s witnessed or been part of. Alternatively, he could somehow end up in your nightmare.]