how meta is too meta? || mun looking at a game

[troping]

...I don't think you really know what you're committing to. Last Christmas was great and all, but if there are real characters from Glee here, will they be bursting into song?

[Spinning cameras. Lilting melodies. Hip-hop remixes. Perish the thought.]

It seems pretty dark, even with the promise of alter-egos.

Comments

[atdennys]

Ugh, Glee. That's all the context I need.

... Wait, alter-egos of who? If it's the Glee club, that I would like to see.

[troping]

Alter-egos of us.

[As if the answer is the simplest thing in the whole world. Get it together, Winger.]

It is my understanding that every person in this Wonderland gets a mirror-self. An evil twin on the opposite side of the glass, as it were. Like a parallel universe within a universe, the Mister Hyde to your Doctor Jekyll.

[atdennys]

[Sorry, too busy raising perfectly sculpted eyebrows.]

... Okay, maybe I do need more context.

Start from the beginning. What happened last Christmas?

[troping]

You don't remember? We all joined Glee club again for the Christmas Pageant. But then we found out that Mister Rad murdered the previous Glee club in a bus wreck staged to look like an accident.

[Ah, just like it was yesterday. Pity.]

Regardless, the Wonderland I'm talking about has to do with a place where my writer is considering sending me.

[Which, frankly, sounds awesome.]

[atdennys]

Oh, that last Christmas. It wasn't exactly what I would call great and all.

I get that—as much as any of us gets the crap that goes on in this place ruled by 'muns'—but I don't get what this so-called Wonderland has to do with the TV show Glee. Or the Glee club at Greendale.

[troping]

My mun says there are characters from the TV show there. Imagine, Jeff: a place where characters from all our universe's television series and movies interact, all without knowing that they're actually characters!

[Talk about something as mind-blowing as stepping into the Matrix!]

[regretzio]

[strum]

♪ You say that like there's something wrong
Regardless of the season
With bursting into song
For no especial reason ♪

[troping]

...I don't have to throw money to get you to leave, do I?

[Call it a hunch, but he's getting a very definite "I'll annoy you until you pay me" vibe.]

[regretzio]

[strum]

♪ It's simple and organic!
But compared to most I've passed
You have an unusually fast
Grasp of the mechanic ♪

[troping]

Hm.

[This is a quandary.]

Seeing as we're in the Meta Space, all I have on me is a quarter, a pair of comically mismatched buttons, and a piece of lint.

[chapstickaddiction]

[troping]

...so you mean you aren't going to sing at all, or just not in carefully choreographed performances?

[chloroformedthejanitor]

Wait, I thought we didn't like Evil Abed?

[troping]

We don't.

[Duh. He has a bone-saw, for Heaven's sake.]

But I'm primarily interested in the principle mechanics behind the concept of these mirror selves. Are they our exact opposites? Will they only exhibit certain flawed characteristics? Or will they try to murder us horribly in our sleep?

[So many possibilities!]

[chloroformedthejanitor]

[She's just making sure! Jeez.]

Ooooh, that is interesting. I can't imagine if they tried to murder you in your sleep that they'd be allowed to live in, uh, Wonderland, was it?

[troping]

That's just it!

[A lofty finger, meant to punctuate his point.]

They live on the other side of our mirrors, always watching.

[...Cue the music from the Twilight Zone.]

[chloroformedthejanitor]

Ooooooooooh.

[It's pretty weird how he can just make music start playing. What is that, anyway? Is there an app for it?]

That's.....kind of creepy, actually. You really want to live there?

[troping]

Why not? It'll be like living in a television series within a movie within a book. Like Inception, only with fewer explosions and a complete lack of Christopher Nolan's suspenseful genius.

[chloroformedthejanitor]

I thought the explosions and the suspenseful genius were the good parts?

[troping]

[...Annie. Annie, what about the cinematography? And the plot twists? And the levels? Outside of the suspenseful genius, those were phenomenal. Abed controls the compulsion to twitch.

She can't help it. She doesn't know any better.]

Partly. But I don't think explosions are helpful if I'm going to be living in a place 24/7.

[chloroformedthejanitor]

Hmm. I guess that makes sense.

What about the Dreamatorium though? Won't you miss it? [Annie maybe doesn't want Abed to leave, if you can't tell.]

[troping]

I might build another one.

[Maybe in his room's closet.]

It won't be the state-of-the-art system we have at the apartment, but it'll do in a pinch and I'll have to add more boxes and paper-towel rolls anyway if there are more people I interact with.

[usted]

Dark how?

[ Wow. So interesting. ]

[troping]

The last time my friends and I were forced to join our school's glee club, the teacher threatened to kill us.

[Oh, that incorrigible Mister Rad. His songs were weird, albeit catchy.]

[usted]

That's awful. The glee club part, anyway.

[troping]

At first I thought it would be cool because everyone would be spending the holidays together, but movies have shown me that singing and dancing can have disastrous effects on personal relationships.

[That's what Chicago says, anyway. And maybe they really did have it coming.]

[usted]

Saw VIII? Yeah, I know. Worst musical ever.

[troping]

It's the unusual case of seven movies and a no miniseries. I thought maybe FX would pick it up, but then I remembered how terrible the films were and how no one would care. Suspension of disbelief stops being suspended when you keep recycling your themes.

[usted]

So I guess you watch a lot of movies, maybe.

[ She really needs to clarify that now. It's pretty hard to tell, because the clues are very subtle. ]

[troping]

[If that was sarcasm, he didn't quite catch it.]

Not really. Maybe one or two a day, but I'm down to continuous re-watches so I should order some more DVDs online.

This is a beautiful post and I really hope you join us <3

[justlove]

I haven't been there that long, but I do know that we don't actually walk around bursting into song whenever the mood takes us.

Truth be told, you actually already know me. ;)

[troping]

[Abed narrows his eyes, unsure if he should take the impeccably-gelled hair with the teenager attached to it at face value.

Er. Hair value?]

I'm pretty sure you do. It's standard in a series like yours to sing what you're feeling rather than make a face to express it.

Oh, so I do! Well, I'm excited anyway~

[justlove]

Maybe in the actual show, but in the mansion, we're just normal kids. [Well, almost normal.]

:D

[troping]

...I feel like there's a quote about being normal that I should say, but since most directors strive for the opposite of that, I haven't got anything.

[Not every one-liner can be like life is like a box of chocolates.]

[surgicalprodigy]

They haven't busted into song yet!

I'm Alan, pleased to meet you, resident genius surgeon and general medic of Wonderland.

[troping]

Genius doctor à la Patch Adams, or more like the guy who did the reconstructive work in Face/Off?

[surgicalprodigy]

à la Patch Adams, minus the whole institution part, and I hate clowns!

[troping]

A freelance surgeon?

[Somehow that doesn't seem entirely safe. But who is Abed to question potentially falsified doctorates?]

[surgicalprodigy]

Mhm, well, not entirely freelance, at least at home. I have help where it counts.

[ you know what else isn't safe? alan's surgical methods, but who's counting! ]

Agree with Blaine!

[bigbrothercoop]

I have to admit, I haven't heard any singing yet.

I kind of wished they had. I love getting a standing O.