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Description

"I don't want my entire life to be defined by one, single, glorified moment. I want to be remembered. I want to leave a mark. I refuse to disappear."

Please forgive me for this weird layout- I had no idea what I was doing WHEEZE
I wanted to spend more time trying to fix things, but then I'd never be done with this part of the event--
And since I've still got part 2 and Adelaide's submission to work with, I gave up and decided to just post this as is OTL

Update [10/22/2017] Because life decided to give me NO time to write that part 2 I promised--
I give you the rest of Theo's nightmare adventures in point form OTL Or more like short lit snippets because wow I didn't expect to get so carried away;;;

• This part ends with Theo running into a fortune teller's hut. The room's dark so he can't see much, but the woman's face is illuminated by her crystal ball and wow that's hella cool and creepy at the same time.

• "Would you like your fortune told?
No....no I don't- Theo tries to speak but the words die on his lips. He's afraid of the answer, afraid of what she'll see, afraid of what she'll say-
"Come closer. Look into the crystal ball."
No...you can't make me. But he can't avert his eyes.
"Tell me, Theodore, what do you see?"
He sees nothing. The surface hasn't changed. If anything, it's subtle glow has grown even more dim, casting the room in incomplete darkness.
"Oh, that's right, I forgot--"

"A phony like you doesn't get to have a future."

• "....No."
With those words Theo can feel his composure start to shatter: his voice is little more than a whisper at first, but it progressively gets louder.
"No...I...I-I'm not-"
The sound of crackling lightning pierces the room, and for a moment everything is just white and bright and pain-
"Y-you're lying, I can't--"
The room is still bright when the flash has passed, but there is no sign of the fortune teller- the ambiance disappearing right along with her.

• It was impossible to see in the darkness, but now that his eyes have adjusted to the light--
Theo finds himself in a room of mirrors: reflective surfaces line every wall, and from every angle he can see his face staring.
Smiling.
"No-" A mask is smiling. When...had he put that on? His fingers brush up along the line of his jaw, and the mask rests almost seamlessly against against it. As if it was meant to be there? ...No. As if it were pasted there. Reaching behind his head he feels for the string and undoes it quickly with nimble fingers.
The smiling, mocking mask - a mask that looks so eerily looks like his own face - drops to the floor with a satisfied crack.
Theo's eyes return to the mirror.
Laughing.
No- Another mask? He undoes it more quickly than the first.
Sneering.
No.
Smirking.
Nonononono-
Taunting
NO!

• When he all but throws himself to the ground, Theo is surrounded by masks: mocking, and ugly, and too disgustingly honest that he can't bare looking at the mirror for another second.
Why is he so disgusted by this?
He shouldn't be so disgusted by this--
After all, isn't this what he does? Put up fronts? Hide behind smiles?
How is that any different from wearing a mask?

• He has no aspirations; no goals he desperately wants to achieve-
He's always done what he's been told to do; act the way he's been expected to act; say the lines he's been taught to recite-
If that's not a phony, what is?
Entertaining thoughts of a bright future feels like...a liberty.
Theo would even go so far as to say:
"I can't imagine my future."
Strange that this is the first time he's realized this - realized what he's always considered natural has always been nothing but a front.

• Good God are those masks making him sick.
He tentatively reaches for the closest one (ironically the smiling mask, the first he discarded) and lets his fingers brush against that haunting grin. And then-
CRACK
With a burst of anger he smashed it against the ground, the fragile porcelain shattering upon impact.
CRACK
He hates that smile. Hates what it represents- hates who he's become--
CRACK
The fractures have spread, disfiguring the once smiling face. It almost looks...sad now. Lonely.
CRACK
Much better.

• Things feel....different suddenly, but he's too exhausted to figure out why. All he knows is that there's no more lightning, no more mirrors-
No more masks. Even his natural one has crumbled, cracked, faded: it was as though he had shattered his own demeanor when he shattered that smiling mask.
That could be an issue.
But he didn't have the energy to care.
"Theo....?" "Monsieur Theodore?"

A feminine voice... And a familiar one? He cracks open an eye.
Mind hazy from exhaustion, it takes him a moment to realize he's no longer in the tent. Ah yes-
Theodore. Soleil. Piper. The basement-
He lifted a hand to cheek and was surprised to feel that it was wet with tears.

"Hey, are you....okay?"

"I...."
Of course I am- The words die on his lips before he can even consider telling such an obvious lie.

"No. No I'm not."

Word Count: 765

I ended up writing all the text at like, 3am, after randomly waking up and being struck with inspiration for Theo's fears - and while I made sure to clean it up a bit, I feel like the general vague-ness and dreamlike fluidity of the original text has stuck. ...Or at least I hope it stuck? Since I feel like it goes really well with the dream-theme.
Also SO SORRY FOR HOW MESSY PARTS ARE THIS WOW I'm very bad at doing trad backgrounds alsdkjads
So if you don't understand things -- whether it be about how I portrayed things, or questions about Theo himself -- feel free to ask for some clarification ouo/
Aaaand even if you don't ask, I'll be doing some clarification anyways in part 2, since that's where Theo's fears are more concretely shown and discussed. This one was all about a very physical fear of thunderstorms which I tried to present in a slightly symbolic way?, while the next one explores some more deeply-rooted psychological fears ovo

Sooooo since I wasn't able to illustrate it as clearly as I'd have liked to:
Theo's greatest fear (aside from thunder storms/lightning) is losing himself. And the reason that mortifies him so much is because it's so closely tied in with his fears for the future.
He'd been groomed his whole life to take over his father's company, so when that plan fell through you can probably imagine how horrible an impact that had on him: Sure it gave Theo an opportunity to learn about himself and what he might want out of life, but what do you do when you don't have a very clear concept for either of those things?
Theo....is too stuck living in the past. He doesn't think there's anything to look forward to.
He wants to be himself, learn to embrace what he loves, but... he's got a pretty strong mentality that he's got to be who people expect him to be.

So yeah, as you can guess, he was pretty broken after this event lol
For a while, he even tries keeping talking to a minimum, because he's afraid he won't be able to keep up his persona-

Artwork, Theodore, Mama and Papa Moreau, Dominik (c) TheLostArts

Description

"I don't want my entire life to be defined by one, single, glorified moment. I want to be remembered. I want to leave a mark. I refuse to disappear."

Please forgive me for this weird layout- I had no idea what I was doing WHEEZE
I wanted to spend more time trying to fix things, but then I'd never be done with this part of the event--
And since I've still got part 2 and Adelaide's submission to work with, I gave up and decided to just post this as is OTL

Update [10/22/2017] Because life decided to give me NO time to write that part 2 I promised--
I give you the rest of Theo's nightmare adventures in point form OTL Or more like short lit snippets because wow I didn't expect to get so carried away;;;

• This part ends with Theo running into a fortune teller's hut. The room's dark so he can't see much, but the woman's face is illuminated by her crystal ball and wow that's hella cool and creepy at the same time.

• "Would you like your fortune told?
No....no I don't- Theo tries to speak but the words die on his lips. He's afraid of the answer, afraid of what she'll see, afraid of what she'll say-
"Come closer. Look into the crystal ball."
No...you can't make me. But he can't avert his eyes.
"Tell me, Theodore, what do you see?"
He sees nothing. The surface hasn't changed. If anything, it's subtle glow has grown even more dim, casting the room in incomplete darkness.
"Oh, that's right, I forgot--"

"A phony like you doesn't get to have a future."

• "....No."
With those words Theo can feel his composure start to shatter: his voice is little more than a whisper at first, but it progressively gets louder.
"No...I...I-I'm not-"
The sound of crackling lightning pierces the room, and for a moment everything is just white and bright and pain-
"Y-you're lying, I can't--"
The room is still bright when the flash has passed, but there is no sign of the fortune teller- the ambiance disappearing right along with her.

• It was impossible to see in the darkness, but now that his eyes have adjusted to the light--
Theo finds himself in a room of mirrors: reflective surfaces line every wall, and from every angle he can see his face staring.
Smiling.
"No-" A mask is smiling. When...had he put that on? His fingers brush up along the line of his jaw, and the mask rests almost seamlessly against against it. As if it was meant to be there? ...No. As if it were pasted there. Reaching behind his head he feels for the string and undoes it quickly with nimble fingers.
The smiling, mocking mask - a mask that looks so eerily looks like his own face - drops to the floor with a satisfied crack.
Theo's eyes return to the mirror.
Laughing.
No- Another mask? He undoes it more quickly than the first.
Sneering.
No.
Smirking.
Nonononono-
Taunting
NO!

• When he all but throws himself to the ground, Theo is surrounded by masks: mocking, and ugly, and too disgustingly honest that he can't bare looking at the mirror for another second.
Why is he so disgusted by this?
He shouldn't be so disgusted by this--
After all, isn't this what he does? Put up fronts? Hide behind smiles?
How is that any different from wearing a mask?

• He has no aspirations; no goals he desperately wants to achieve-
He's always done what he's been told to do; act the way he's been expected to act; say the lines he's been taught to recite-
If that's not a phony, what is?
Entertaining thoughts of a bright future feels like...a liberty.
Theo would even go so far as to say:
"I can't imagine my future."
Strange that this is the first time he's realized this - realized what he's always considered natural has always been nothing but a front.

• Good God are those masks making him sick.
He tentatively reaches for the closest one (ironically the smiling mask, the first he discarded) and lets his fingers brush against that haunting grin. And then-
CRACK
With a burst of anger he smashed it against the ground, the fragile porcelain shattering upon impact.
CRACK
He hates that smile. Hates what it represents- hates who he's become--
CRACK
The fractures have spread, disfiguring the once smiling face. It almost looks...sad now. Lonely.
CRACK
Much better.

• Things feel....different suddenly, but he's too exhausted to figure out why. All he knows is that there's no more lightning, no more mirrors-
No more masks. Even his natural one has crumbled, cracked, faded: it was as though he had shattered his own demeanor when he shattered that smiling mask.
That could be an issue.
But he didn't have the energy to care.
"Theo....?" "Monsieur Theodore?"

A feminine voice... And a familiar one? He cracks open an eye.
Mind hazy from exhaustion, it takes him a moment to realize he's no longer in the tent. Ah yes-
Theodore. Soleil. Piper. The basement-
He lifted a hand to cheek and was surprised to feel that it was wet with tears.

"Hey, are you....okay?"

"I...."
Of course I am- The words die on his lips before he can even consider telling such an obvious lie.

"No. No I'm not."

Word Count: 765

I ended up writing all the text at like, 3am, after randomly waking up and being struck with inspiration for Theo's fears - and while I made sure to clean it up a bit, I feel like the general vague-ness and dreamlike fluidity of the original text has stuck. ...Or at least I hope it stuck? Since I feel like it goes really well with the dream-theme.
Also SO SORRY FOR HOW MESSY PARTS ARE THIS WOW I'm very bad at doing trad backgrounds alsdkjads
So if you don't understand things -- whether it be about how I portrayed things, or questions about Theo himself -- feel free to ask for some clarification ouo/
Aaaand even if you don't ask, I'll be doing some clarification anyways in part 2, since that's where Theo's fears are more concretely shown and discussed. This one was all about a very physical fear of thunderstorms which I tried to present in a slightly symbolic way?, while the next one explores some more deeply-rooted psychological fears ovo

Sooooo since I wasn't able to illustrate it as clearly as I'd have liked to:
Theo's greatest fear (aside from thunder storms/lightning) is losing himself. And the reason that mortifies him so much is because it's so closely tied in with his fears for the future.
He'd been groomed his whole life to take over his father's company, so when that plan fell through you can probably imagine how horrible an impact that had on him: Sure it gave Theo an opportunity to learn about himself and what he might want out of life, but what do you do when you don't have a very clear concept for either of those things?
Theo....is too stuck living in the past. He doesn't think there's anything to look forward to.
He wants to be himself, learn to embrace what he loves, but... he's got a pretty strong mentality that he's got to be who people expect him to be.

So yeah, as you can guess, he was pretty broken after this event lol
For a while, he even tries keeping talking to a minimum, because he's afraid he won't be able to keep up his persona-

Artwork, Theodore, Mama and Papa Moreau, Dominik (c) TheLostArts