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[May. 20th, 2011|04:44 pm] |
Premise, Setting, Storylines.
"Persona" - Refers to the literary character that is associated with your character (examples: Hercules, Snow White, Puss in boots, Gingerbread Man.. etc). Someone your character 'relates' to/identifies with from a piece of written work. - Your character does not have to be like them. Persona was used as a term to avoid confusion while writing premise/rules/guidelines etc and has since stuck.
PREMISE
People get lost in the pages of books all the time, whisked away into worlds of imagination created by talented authors. People leave the real world behind for just a little bit as they sink into the written word.
Couldn't it go both ways? What if while you're getting lost in the story... the story is getting lost within you?
Perhaps you remember it; that quaint little book shop, it has big bay windows which always displays some book of interest to those special few, beckoning them to pause in their busy life, step inside and maybe look just a little closer. The Bookstores motto "Life is a series of Open Books" drew you in. Its shelves are packed with books of every kind, thick, thin, small, tall and wide. Not just books, anything that contains a story, or even just a page. Everything is packed; racks, shelves and sometimes just stacked on the floor or available counter-space, all in a seeming disarray with no real organized system, but you always seem to find what you're looking for or perhaps it finds you.
Perhaps you took your find to the cashier, some elderly type who smiled kindly and rung up your purchase, placing it in a simple blue bag with little more than a passing 'Good choice', perhaps you tucked it into your jacket and slunk out the door unwilling to meet the shopkeepers eye, whatever the circumstance, you somehow managed to acquire a book, a scroll, a page that called to you and demanded your attention. Some don't get the book from the shop, some find it collecting dust in the attic or it's passed on from a parent, grandparent.. maybe you pinched it from your brother or sister. You are the proud owner of a very special book... one that changes you forever.
However you have gained ownership you are left with the choice; Do you read it right away or will it languish in your bedside drawer for months or years on end until one day you find it and crack open it's pages, The book smells different and almost instantly from the first page you are pulled into the story. The more you read, the further into the story you go and more importantly, the more the story goes into you. It takes hold, demanding your attention, demanding you finish it, finish reading the story... the more you read the more you feel it, that drawing to a particular Storybook Character, a persona that slips from the pages and into you.
It's after the first time that you finish that maybe you begin to notice something, like something about you has changed, something is just a little different. Suddenly there is a talent or skill you didn't have before or a talent or skill that becomes amplified. Suddenly, you find yourself compelled to write in a journal or you find your journal attached to strangers, whether written in pen and paper, electronically, you can see their entries and they can see yours, you know how to block some things from the others, you can share comments and thoughts through your journal. Perhaps you hear a whisper in your head, perhaps you've changed just a little bit, or perhaps you struggle to be yourself, fighting for control of yourself.. or perhaps you are the Persona, distantly remembering some modern life but now you've escaped the confines of the pages and this world is yours now. There is an awareness of others like yourself who were drawn into stories only to find that when they finished they had changed in some little special way, you don't know what story they are from, you don't know what they can do. But you begin to understand... they exist, they know you exist. Perhaps it's good, perhaps it's bad but, what you do from here... is your choice.
Premise | Rules/App | Player Directory | Friend Button | Holds
Taken PBs & Personas | Quick Character Reference | Visual Character Reference |
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