thebackstage | It's Curtains Act 3 Test Drive

1) CURTAINS UP

You’ve just woken up in some kind of dorm room, which is certainly not where you went to bed last night. Actually, do you even remember going to sleep…? Regardless, this isn't where you last were, and worse still - there's other people waking up in the same room with you, in the same state.

Talk to your roommates! Go out and meet everyone from the other rooms! Most of these people may be strangers, but you’re gonna all have to get used to one another. And who knows? There may actually be a familiar face in the crowd.

2) THIS PETTY PACE

By now, you're acquainted with everybody here and you're slowly growing bored. Bored enough to kill? Hopefully not. You'd better try to find something else to do. You can always go hang out with your castmates, or maybe try and whip something up in the kitchen! There’s even a band room to keep you busy! I sure hope you like music.

3) BREAK A LEG

Comedies are fun and all, but that’s not quite what we’re about here. You’ve all just been handed this week’s motive. What do you make of it? Is it one that might actually tempt you to kill, or did you get off lightly this time? Either way, maybe you’d better look around the room and see who else is having a rough time.

4) I LOVE PLAY REHEARSAL

It's Club Day! What's Club Day, you ask? Come to the classroom on the poster to find out! It looks like this week's club is Bread Club. Be wary, when you enter the classroom you'll face a shower of various bread slices but be rewarded with a surprisingly fancy layout of spreads and jams to go with them. Don't mind the oddly threatening poster on the far wall. He's just here to supervise.

5) CURTAIN

It was bound to happen eventually. Someone is dead, and now it's time to go off and investigate. Were they close to you? Are you, perhaps, feeling guilty? Either way, it's probably best not to leave anyone alone right now.

6) CUE MUSIC

Feelings in a murder-school can get pretty gosh darn intense. Sometimes you’ve just got to let it out. And hey, if you sing a song about whatever’s going on in your head, maybe someone will hear and come help you? Either way, this is a musical – there’s not really any reason not to sing.

[Mod Note: The song mechanic is meant to be fluid and simple. You do not have to produce your own song lyrics, nor are you required to use show tunes (although we do encourage it!). If you want to rewrite existing lyrics to fit the situation, go for it! Anything goes - if Mumford and Sons expresses your character’s current emotions, then break out the banjos. We want to keep the musical mechanic as fun and simple as we can to encourage our players to use it as much as they like.]

6) WILDCARD

Make up your own prompt!

--

Questions, comments, concerned? Reach the mods on plurk at

slothbless (Lynny) and

lluosogrwydd (Lu) and at our public mod plurk

stagemanagers. Our official Act 3 FAQ can also be found here!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh, [ says Orpheus, trying to take that in, brows furrowed and looking generally pretty confused. ]

Are you... from the future?

[ That's the first conclusion he manages to draw, and it seems... logical? Maybe. If people can show up here from all over the world, maybe they're from all over time, too. But hundreds of years from now - or his now? That's a lot to think about. ]

...I don't...

[She frowns.]

I don't know. The year for me is 1854.

[ Orpheus actually starts a little bit at that, sitting up straighter at the piano in surprise. ]

That is a really long time? It's 678.2, where I'm from.

[ Except, wait. ]

...But you didn't include the Olympiad in the year? Do you not know which one it is?

February...678?...

[The Olympiad--]

Oh...those games haven't been played in centuries. I'm sorry.

February? [ He says it like he's never heard the word before, blinking in confusion as he tries to work out what it could mean and why she's just said it. ] Games?

[ Oh!! Wait, no, he's got that one. She must mean the Olympics. ]

Oh, no, the Olympiad isn't about the games. [ it's a little about the games, Orpheus ] It's - the cycle of four years that the calendar goes by? Like, next year will be 678.3, then 678.4, then 679.1? Do you not... do that?

No, I'm afraid not.

It's 1854, for me. And yes, February, it's a month.

Oh. See, I've never heard of February? We have different months, too.

[ This is all incredibly strange, and Orpheus isn't sure what to make of it. If she's from the future, she's from so far ahead that they use an entirely different calendar, and he's not sure if that's reassuring or not given his gods are long gone by her time. ]

Maybe you're not from the future? Maybe we're just from - really different places? Does that make sense?

No, it does. It's strange, though. Could another place know of the Greek gods other than Greece?

[No, wait, that's dumb, she knows of the Greek gods and she's not from Greece.]

I come from Austria. Vienna, in fact. Well--I live there now. But I was born in Munich, in the kingdom of Bavaria. Is that at all familiar to you?

[ Orpheus has to think about that for a minute, his education being sort of scattershot what with the lack of much formal schooling. Geography was one of those subjects he'd never been able to focus on very well despite his best efforts, but Austria rings a bell, at least. ]

A lot of famous composers are from Austria. I'm from the United States, though. I've never been to Greece, myself, but Mister Hermes has told me stories about when the gods still lived there, thousands of years ago.

The United States? Mister Hermes? Are you....saying...the Greek gods are in the West? In America?

[whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Yup, now she's really confused.]

Some of them! [ says Orpheus, brightly, not quite catching on to the extent of her confusion. ] They went their separate ways a long time ago, so they're kind of all over the place.

I guess they didn't do that where you come from? Since you keep calling them the Greek gods.

I...no, we mainly know about them because of what the Greeks and Romans left behind about them. But the Roman Empire fell centuries ago, and everyone's Christian now!

Edited 2021-05-15 02:35 (UTC)

Oh, [ says Orpheus, brows furrowing again. ] I don't know what a Christian is. Or much about the Roman Empire, but I think that was a long time ago for me, too?

[ Again, world history is not exactly Orpheus's strong suit. ]

This is all really strange, and I don't think I really understand it.

I don't either. How can someone know what a Christian is...yet also know of the Romans?

[ Orpheus just kind of shrugs. He has no idea! Normally he'd be happy to chalk it up to his own ignorance, but it sounds like this stuff with the Christians and his gods being long gone would be really hard to have missed if it were true where he came from. ]

Maybe we're from... different Earths? Like, things happened one way where you come from, and another where I came from. Like in the pulp fiction books.

[ That... still doesn't explain how they both got here, but give him a minute, he's trying. ]

It's Curtains Act 3 Test Drive

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