It may very well be the worst thing that's ever happened to you! | OPEN MINGLE

[vitaelamorte]

Who: EVERYONE!
Where: EVERYWHERE!
When: Friday October 27th - Tuesday October 31st
Rating: PG-13, warn if you're gonna go higher!
Summary: A catch all for the Horrible Memory Truth Event!
The Story:

For the duration of this event, everyone's entire room will be replaced with a memory playing on loop. They will likely recognize the moment as soon as they see it – it is a moment they remember as the worst moment of their entire lives. It could be a memory from home or something that happened in Wonderland. Lengths of the memories will vary, but they will find that these are not memories they can merely watch – they can step into these memories and attempt to make changes to them, and the memories will be long enough that they have time to make changes (though no more than 24 hours). However, anyone who tries will find that it is futile. No matter what you do or how hard you try, the outcome is always exactly the same somehow. No changes you make will prevent that horrible outcome. It just happens over and over and over again no matter what you do.

On top of that, perhaps complicating any attempts to make changes, everyone will be forced to be honest for the duration of the event. No lies or half-truths are allowed, and filters will be gone for the entire five days. If something bothers someone then they will blurt it out, regardless of whether or not it hurts someone's feelings, and no one will be able to simply keep quiet when they have something to say. They must be truthful and honest with every word they say.

This is a catch-all log for all of your Worst Memory needs! Please mark your threads clearly in the subject line with your character's name and Room Number + Floor for character rooms, or just location if you're making a top level for a public place in the mansion (like the tea rooms or the kitchen) so people can see if there's already a thread available. And here's the plot post if you need it!

Have fun!

Comments

[fulllifeconsequences]

A kitchen is exactly where they expect Asriel to be, honestly.

The sealed-off underground had never had a copy of the book they once loved, so they couldn't really impart that series of associations when they thought of the word "Kitchen" through anything but secondhand quotes, but Chara and Asriel had something in common far more important than a book about loving kitchens and their cosiness.

They had the actual experience of them.

The warm, tidy kitchen of Home, New Home. The whole room snug with the residual warmth of an oven powered by fire magic, illuminated by soft light streaming through the parted curtains. A fridge with the good kind of chocolate bars stocked within it, spacious clean counters, gleaming tile. The comforting aroma of browning butter and crisp cinnamon, of tender pastry, of bubbling pots of homemade soup or sauteing snails. The whistle of a kettle, like a beacon calling everyone to gather round.

None of those things are in this kitchen, except maybe for counters and tile.

And, of course, Asriel himself.

The pot he kicked skitters across the floor, clinging and clanging as it bounces along. It comes to a stop near their feet, so... they stomp it. Their foot completely fails to dent it, only really succeeding in producing a dull tunk sound.

"Yeah, it sucks," they agree wholeheartedly, utterly willing to be mad at the cookware for no better reason than because Asriel is. "Get wrecked, pot."

[pleasereset]

"Chara..." he sounds a little surprised to see them, or maybe he was just hoping they wouldn't catch him in the middle of their outburst. He seems a little embarrassed, if not still a little angry.

"I was just-" before Asriel can make up some kind of excuse, something entirely different comes out of his mouth, "-mad at my room. I mean, mad at this place and its stupid events."

[fulllifeconsequences]

"Wowie! Me too!" They blurt cheerfully, relieved that this inability to lie hasn't taken away their ability to tell the truth with an inappropriate veneer of glee.

"I haven't looked, but I can guess. The memory in your room's something I already know about, huh? Probably something that was my fault." Everything bad that had happened to him, after all, had been because he went out of his way to help a fallen human. "Probably nothing you want to relive." They decide to pick up the pot they had been Totally Ruthlessly Beating, carry it over to the sink. Got floor germs on it, after all. Needs to be washed. If you're not careful in the kitchen, you can make somebody sick!

"So maybe you can tell me about what you're doing in here, instead."

[pleasereset]

No, it isn't. It's nothing. It's no big deal, really. Asriel wants one of those sentences to reach his mouth, but instead:

"It's when I woke up as a flower - the first time. I tried to make the memory stop, but it just kept going."

No matter how many times he ripped that flower version of himself out of the ground, no matter how much he pleaded with himself to just shut up, it would always come back, crying for help that would never come.

He'd also rather tear his own tongue out than keep talking about it. He's still not entirely sure what Chara does and doesn't know about Flowey, but the less he talked about it, the better.

He doesn't want to be remembered as Flowey. He... doesn't have to be, right? If he just doesn't get angry like before, if he buries all those sarcastic remarks that sometimes pop into his head, if he just buries those destructive urges, all of it... he won't be.

But everyone already knew who he was.

Asriel tries to quickly change the subject.

"I'm making hot chocolate. Well, I was trying to before I knocked over a bunch of pots.

... Do you want some?"

suicide cw

[fulllifeconsequences]

He told them about that once, walking through New Home's too-silent halls. Does he remember that? Could he tell them what lurks beyond Sans in that timeline? It's better, they think, not to wonder. The story he told was heartrending enough in and of itself. The way that he had to suffer, all because of their stupid, stupid plan... all he was ever guilty of was coming to the aid of someone who cried for help. Look where it got him, right? Now he's the one who cried out, only he had to learn what it was like when nobody came. He had to see for himself what humanity was really like, because you wouldn't explain why you hated them so much.

"Yeah. Hot chocolate sounds nice." They answer, so they don't have to own up to any other truths. That's it. That's all. They don't have to own up to anything else. They don't have to say anything. They don't. They won't. They're all done-

"When you told me about that memory in New Home, you told me that you decided to follow in my footsteps," they point out, head down, rosiness draining from their cheeks. "I taught you that, didn't I? When I told you why I climbed the mountain. When I..." Follow in your footsteps, right? Do like you do, Chara. He tried to erase himself from existence, because you showed him how to.

"The last time you came here... the you before you, I mean. That Asriel... tried again, because of me."

suicide cw

[pleasereset]

Hot chocolate for two then. He digs out a new pot, setting it on the stove. He wonders if just using fire magic would be enough... his magic isn't particularly strong anymore. He lifts his head as Chara speaks, tilting his head to the side.

"I... don't remember telling you that."

Not the right timeline, not that Asriel would know. Everything Asriel's learned about Chara and Frisk, and the monsters here hinted that there was more than one timeline. How could there not be? He's created so many of them that even he started to lose count of what he did and when. He doesn't really want to think of the implications of what that could mean. They're all here. They're all alive. That... should be enough to make him happy.

But...

He's quiet a moment, hoping that focusing on making hot chocolate will keep him from opening his mouth. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen either.

"... But yeah, I did. It wasn't something that you taught me, I just... I couldn't feel anything. I could still feel anger and fear, things like that, but the really important things - like love, I couldn't feel it at all.

And you were gone. I couldn't... I couldn't keep going, not when you were gone, but I was somehow still alive.

But... haha, I guess it turned out I wanted to live more than I thought I did. At the very least, I was too scared to die."

He doesn't want to talk about this. This is such an awful thing to talk about and he just won't shut up.

"Frisk told me a little about the other Asriel that was here before. I asked them if that Asriel was happy here and... they didn't really have an answer for me."

He can't imagine trying to kill himself because of Chara. Never Chara. But he doesn't deserve to be here. And the longer he stays, the harder it's going to be to leave. But he needs to go back, because it's going to hurt so much worse the longer he stays.

"That Asriel... wasn't a very happy person, was he?"

[fulllifeconsequences]

It's funny, what determination does. Your body fights its hardest to keep living, even if your heart is already set on erasing yourself from existence. A child in blue rises up from a flowerbed. A flower recoils in terror from the idea of what might happen to something soulless after it dies. A human needs so, so many buttercups before they're sick enough. There's a grim sort of humour, maybe, to how the lengths you'll go to in order to escape pain so often just end up prolonging your suffering.

Ha ha. Even Chara can tell they're thinking pretty pretentious things right now.

But... those flowery, arm's-length terms are easier to think about than - than the painful, visceral matter at hand.

Was Asriel a very happy person?

"Are you?"

He must know them well enough to read what the smile on their face is saying.

"Asriel... time stopped for both of us a very long time ago." Neither of them knows how to live like they have a future. Neither can look at the world they call home and really see a place for themselves in it. Let them go, Asriel, right? That's what you wanted. Can't break their hearts all over again. "We both know what's waiting for us when all of this ends. That Asriel... time never started moving again for him." Waiting for when he'd turn back into a flower. Hiding from Mom and Dad, because what's the point of reuniting with anyone if you'll just have to say goodbye again?

"Is it moving for you?"

[pleasereset]

"No."

It's an answer to both questions, really. Shouldn't he be happy? He got his old body back, his emotions feel like they're there. Chara and Frisk are here, his parents, it's everything he could want.

The previous two incarnations of him weren't happy, why would it be different for him? Because Chara's right, time stopped moving for them a long time ago.

"No, it's not. I... haha, I should be happy, shouldn't I? I have everything I could ever want here.

But I can't have any of this. When all of this ends, when I go back - it's just going to be me in the Ruins, and it's going to be me turning back into Flowey. And all of this will be gone. That's... the ending I'm always going to have. No amount of Determination in the world is going to change that.

When I first found out how long everyone else here had been, how they've been living their lives, I was really jealous. Because everyone had already moved on."

Jealousy was an ugly emotion, and not one that Asriel wanted to admit to. He was happy, in the moment the barrier broke. He was happen he managed to do one thing right, and let everyone go so they could finally live their lives.

He just didn't imagine it'd be so painful to see them happily living their lives without either of them in it.

"I'm scared of this place, Chara. I don't want to get attached... it's not where I belong."

[fulllifeconsequences]

"...I know." They admit it softly, with a defeated little rush of breath, because god but they know how it feels. They know what it's like to not have a future. If they're neither human nor monster, how could they ever hope to have a place in the world of humans and monsters? Anomalies like them... they're nothing but the last remaining threat to everyone's happiness. The weight of their mistakes and the things they've become are far too heavy to allow them a place in a perfectly happy story.

They can't say they're surprised Asriel might feel the same. He's the one, after all, who taught them that.

Doesn't mean it doesn't make their heart sink, though. Each time he comes here... it's foolish, but they can never seem to stop themself from hoping. He's got everything he could want here, right? The friend he really wants, the family he deserves, his body, his feelings. Everything necessary for his problems to be solved perfectly, no? Only... thinking in terms like that... it doesn't really work outside of the short-term rush of achievement-hunting. Time and time again, it's never actually that easy to be happy.

After all, what's waiting for them back home? Nothing but a dead-end. Nothing but finding out what happens to something without a soul when it dies. If determination is the resolve to change fate... then how could they ever accept a fate as painful as that?

"It's - it's too painful, isn't it? You know it's better if everyone moves on. You know it's better if they're all perfectly happy without you." It's a good thing, actually, that he knows they're bad. It's a good thing, actually, to replace them with the friend he really wished for. It's better. There's nothing left to worry about. Everyone's perfectly happy, after all. "But actually seeing them leaving you behind, shutting you away, throwing you out..." There are no pictures of Asgore, Asriel, or Chara in Home. Toriel won't take care of those flowers anymore, now that she has a new child to lead around by the hand. "You are our future," Asgore tells a brand-new child. He only wants to see his wife and son. For some reason, far beyond the limited reach their spectre can achieve, a better person than them does it all perfect. Nobody reacts with horror or alarm or violence when a monster appears in the village.

Do they ever tell anyone, they wonder, about who the angel who had seen the surface really was? Do they visit that flower deep within the Ruins? What keeps him going, if he has neither hope nor Resets to cling to anymore?

"But even if it's better for everyone else... it isn't better for the ones left behind, is it? It hurts. It hurts too much to bear. Why should we just be the tragic footnote in someone else's tale? Why must happiness come at our expense? Of course you're jealous. Anyone would be. So..."

Exhale.

"Everyone and everything in these worthless memories... perhaps it really is better that we let them go, Asriel. Leave behind that pointless world, if it has already left us behind. Why can't this be where you belong, Asriel? What stops you from making the place you've fallen into your new home?"