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

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

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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[This isn't like before. He can't just shut his mouth and have that be the end of it, because he needs to say something. It's like when he starts talking to somebody and loses track of what he's trying to say and starts bullshitting and he can see their eyes glaze over but he can't stop now because then it'd be worse.]

Tim this isn't...this isn't like the last time, when I asked you about Jessica--which, I mean, by the way, I still feel like kind of a piece of shit about, even though I still want to know, and I'm kinda pissed you haven't just told me, but, but--

[No no no no no. He's looking over at Tim, eyes blown wide with terror, but he can't stop.]

--but, I mean, it's almost like, like we're friends or something, and I don't want to think about that, because then I'd have to think about all the ways I've been a really, just, completely godawful friend, and I really don't want to be talking about this with an audience!

[His voice cracks on the last bit, high and hysterical in a way that's just...humiliating in every possible way.]

[Wonderland is why they can't have nice things.]

[The skeleton war on the screen isn't even funny anymore. It's just...noise and images. Tim looks like a deer in headlights, Jay is audibly panicking, Clementine...he doesn't know her that well, but she's just a kid. He didn't know she'd died until she says it. She's just a kid, and why does this shit keep happening to kids?]

[Funny how happiness disappears in an instant. It's why he doesn't trust it. And god, of all things, it's--honesty, is that it? Again? Again, seriously?]

listen.

[His voice is calm, because he is. He's calm. Tired. Resigned.]

i did this recently. don't try to fight it. you'll just give yourself a headache. try to...stay calm, which uh...i know is a useless thing to say. let's just--we can stay quiet and just head back to our rooms. postpone the rest of this. have a movie night sometime later if we're not all too--uh--humiliated to hang out again, i guess.

...clem, i'm really sorry you died. that shouldn't have happened. kids shouldn't die. which is f--fucking inane and hypocritical coming from me, but...

[He gives a very heavy sigh.]

let's...all just keep quiet and go, yeah?

Aren't you two friends? ( Clementine blurts it out before she can help it, but they- she always thought Tim and Jay were. She told Jay as much, because why wouldn't they be? Her gaze turns to Saan then, breathing in sharp, shaking her head. Her chest still aches when she thinks of dying, being carried by Mae, waking up after. )

Sometimes shit makes it so kids are as likely to die as anybody else. It'd be hypocritical of me too. ( To say what Sans said. Clementine's pointed her gun at someone around her age before. That same kid is the one who shot her, trying to kill her. She's a dangerous little girl. She made herself that way. Sometimes they have to make themselves that way. )

Sans has a really good plan. Sorry you did this shit already. It's bullshit. People deserve their privacy. ( They deserve that much. They deserve to not blurt out truths when it's hard or painful. Truth can be a weapon. ) We can stuff food in our face on the way out. Maybe that'll help, but I'm not humiliated, and I don't fucking judge, and I still want to hang out again with you guys.

( She picks up candy bars to toss each of their ways. she doesn't have anything she cares that much to keep in. No secrets. She lies to stay alive, but she hasn't needed to do that here so she can be the last to leave. Let them get out and get far. )

I have no idea what we are. I don't know how to feel about someone like him, all right?

[Jesus. He wants out. He wants out, right fucking now, because Sans is trying to keep them calm and Clem is being earnest, like she really means it and - she does, right? She's being genuine here, because she has no choice. She actually likes them.]

[He scrambles to catch the candy bar lobbed in his direction, firing it only a cursory glance before his gaze is pulled, inexorably, as all things involving him are, to Jay.]

Because you're a -

You're a jackass, and an idiot, and I never expected you to care because you never acted like it, and I don't know what to say to you when you jumped me with a knife in my own fucking house and I tied you up and I got you killed!

[Now that he's started, he can't fucking stop. His eyes are already burning. Fuck this. Fuck all of this.]

Because you're the only people I can look at and see me in and not hate what I see.

[Sans is telling them they have to calm down, and it makes sense--it makes perfect sense--because if you're calm, you're quiet, and if you're quiet, you're not babbling every thought that comes into your goddamn head, but how the hell is he supposed to keep calm when--?]

[A candy bar nails him right in the cheek, and he flinches hard, elbow jerking up to cover his face.]

[There's too much going on.]

[And then Tim starts yelling about him, at him, and it's like someone screwed in a telephoto lens. He scrambles out of the seat, standing up to his full height--not particularly impressive back home, but he's now aware that he's actually taller than everybody else in this theater.]

You didn't get me killed. [For once, the words come out slow, precise.]

You lied to me for--for months, while we looked for answers you already knew, you fed me pills when I was unconscious, you tied me up and left so you could find Alex first, but you didn't get me killed.

But you know what's worse than everything? You keep helping. You keep--you keep listening.

How am I supposed to interpret that?

[Everything goes to shit very quickly.]

[Sans gets very slowly to his feet as Jay and Tim go off, bones creaking like he's a thousand years older. He sure feels like it. Clementine is on board, almost philosophical about things, but the two men--the event just swallows them down instantly.]

[He's not supposed to be hearing any of this.]

[He catches the candy bar easily. Always has to be a hundred percent aware of his surroundings, of what's coming at him, of anything that's moving, of--everything. Even a goddamn candy bar thrown with barely any force at all.]

[He pockets it. Too late now.]

i shouldn't be here.

[Shouldn't have expected anything but another rug pull. Another crumbling of the foundation beneath his feet. You'd think he'd learn. But monsters--monsters are optimistic, to a fault. He'd be long dead if he didn't hold tightly, stubbornly, to that last bit of hope.]

thanks, clem. i appreciate that.

[He looks dully between Jay and Tim.]

for the record...friends hurt each other all the time. friends, family. maybe people just--can't exist without hurting each other. or maybe it's just people like...us. i don't know. i don't know, and i kinda...hate it.

listen...you're both being compelled. right? we all are. but i'm not part of this argument, which means...i can teleport one of you out of here and put an end to it right now. separate you two. but--only if you want, cause i know--i know teleporting is--tim doesn't like it, i'm not sure about you, jay. just--offer's on the table.

( Clementine opens up her candy bar and shoves a bite of it into her mouth. It's a whole lot of fucked ups hit coming out of the two of them right now, but she also knows they live in a really screwed up situation even if she doesn't know all the details. It doesn't' mean she's still not shocked at all the shit that happened between them (no wonder- no wonder Jay wasn't sure before if they were friends, but where she's from, this stuff just happens between friends, between family, between strangers. No one can afford to trust anyone. Not all the way). And she has no idea what part of herself Tim sees that he doesn't hate when he sees it in her but he's grateful there's something. Hating yourself is exhausting.

She nods in agreement with Sans. )

When you're in a fucked up situation especially like you two were, you're gonna hurt a friend or someone you care about or a stranger. Your choices can really screw them over or put them in danger or you hurt them to try to protect yourself or someone else. You don't know who to trust or if you even can so you act out of desperation or fear. It's fucked up. I've been there, but it happens, and you can still be friends now if you want. This place is a whole different kind of fucked up. You can be on the same side.

( Other than that she's just gonna chew on her chocolate as she lets the two of them decide if one of them wants teleported out. She doesn't want to leave in case the discussion gets worse or something- She's used to emotional talks like this turning violent pretty fast. )

[Everyone’s got something to say and everyone’s taking over one another and he can’t chew any of it back when it keeps boiling out like hot lead and scorching the back of his throat and burning the corners of his eyes. Stop. Just - stop being such a goddamn baby about it.]

How am I supposed to accept that? I’m poison. You should know that! Everyone in this room is gonna start seeing things, and then they’re gonna start dying and it’s all gonna be my fault!

How am I supposed to say we can be friends when we both know, Jay, what being friends does to people who know me?

[Jay shoots Clementine a pained look. This place is different, she says. You can be on the same side.]

[That’s awfully tough when they keep coming around to the same bullshit.]

[Sans offers them a way out, but Jay isn’t ready to take it. This place is making them talk, sure, but even without it, he just can’t let Tim get the last word on this.]

Oh, ‘we both know’? Tim, they’re all dead—we’re all dead because of Alex! And don’t—don’t say Alex is your fault, because then why wasn’t Seth or Sarah or Brian, or, or Amy or Jessica or, or me or— [His voice chokes on “or you”, because easy as it is to say, it’s not the truth.] None of us ended up running around killing people!

If anything, the only thing that might’ve been your fault was that thing showing up in the first place!

[Wait.]

[Shit.]

Edited 2017-10-30 23:28 (UTC)

[He feels like sitting down again. Just--maybe falling asleep right here and now, in the midst of the argument. This hardly has anything to do with him anymore. He and Clementine are just kind of watching this, trying to mediate, but how can you mediate when you're forced into the truth yourself?]

[And Jay says Alex's name, and it confirms the thing he's always suspected. Alex was from their world. Alex killed people.]

[How many of them? Jay, and all those people he listed? Sans can't care about people he's never even met, but still. He knew Alex had LV, or something like it. He knew, from how easy it was for Alex to threaten him and threaten Papyrus.]

["That thing." Does Jay mean that tall creature they saw in the tower? What does Jay even mean? How could something like that be Tim's fault?]

tim, nothing that could happen to me will ever be as bad as-- [No, stop.] --when my brother's mirror killed me last year.

[Stop, god, just stop, this has nothing to do with him.]

i'm not gonna ask. i don't--want to know. i really don't. i'm so tired of knowing.

clem...maybe we should just--leave.

( Well, this is just going from bad to worse, and Sans and Clementine aren't really able to help at all or stop it from getting any worse. No matter what they do so she feels kind of bad that they're witness to- to all of this. )

Fuck.

( She hisses out a breath between her teeth, but wants to say something first ) You're not poison, Tim. Not to me. You're good to me.

( And she's selfish enough. She's been around enough people doing terrible shit and done enough terrible shit herself to not hold that against someone if they had reason. Clem looks over at Sans and then nods even if she's still worried about potential violence, but it already feels like a violation seeing, hearing. They're not really able to do much.

Fuck though, though Sans' brother's mirror killed him? Here, she was pissed at her own mirror for taking her hat, but that's obviously something he didn't want to say so she'll try not to react to it much. She's already picking up her stuff, moving toward the door. )

Do you guys want us to go?

[And there it is.]

[There's a sickening, vindictive twist in his gut - the thing he knew was true, and was just waiting to hear in full. And he did. It's his fault, he knows. It's his fault that thing showed up. And it's that thing that turned Alex, that torqued him, that made him someone who shot friends in the gut without a second thought.]

[It's an admission he knew he'd been expecting. Had himself mentally braced for since he made that confession on the burnt, abandoned floor of an old hospital room. Since Jay tried to save face by saying that he's not like Alex, at least.]

It was that thing that made Alex what he is. And whose fault is that, huh?

[Sans breaks in with a line he already knew was a problem, and Clem - Clem's the most astute, and asks the worst question of all.]

[Because he can't prevent the answer from boiling out of him.]

I want to have never met any of you. I want to be - normal, fuck! I want to not poison every person I meet!

[This is just...awful. This is horrible. Tim's carving into himself like he did on the floor of the hospital, Sans got killed by somebody who looks like his brother, and Clem's just...she's just trying to reassure Tim in the way Jay never learned how.]

[Should they leave?]

[If they left, it would just be Jay, stumbling over his words, making things worse. Driving the knife in deeper. Tim wishes he never met him, and it's not easy to see why.]

No. [Dammit. He didn't want to say this, but it's happening anyway.] No, I don't want you guys to...to go, because I think if it's just me I'm gonna keep saying stuff that... [He officially hates this event.] ...that makes Tim more upset.

[Is he done? Can he stop? Of course not.]

Listen, Tim. That thing messed with... [He grits his teeth, but the rest of the sentence comes out exactly the way he didn't want it to.] ...messed with both of us. But now we're, we're here, and somehow neither one of us has attempted mass murder. God, we just--we're trying to watch a movie!

Look, what I'm trying to say is maybe it's not...maybe it's not as simple as you think it is.

[There's that look on Clem's face, and on Jay's face, the one people always get when they find out. It's gone in the next moment, because there's a thousand other things to focus on right now. A thousand other hurts.]

[Tim says he wants to be normal, wants to not poison everyone, and god, they really are alike, aren't they? It seems more like an almost literal poison in Tim's case, or at least that's how he perceives it. But still. Poison is poison.]

then...then we'll stay.

[Which means he'll keep feeling useless, keep being some spectator as these two rip each other's souls out. And that goddamn movie is still playing in the background, casting a level of absurdity over everything. Sans can't even appreciate the humor right now. Nothing is funny.]

you haven't poisoned me any worse than i already was, tim. hell, half the time i'm thinking about how i'm probably doing that to you. to--everyone. poison...cancels out poison, maybe. maybe that's why we get along.

i came out wrong. i've been wrong my entire life. you can't make this any worse for me, tim. if some...weird, eldritch thing comes after me then...ha, god, it won't even be the first time.

[He gives a very, very heavy sigh.]

i think jay is right. nothing about this sounds simple.

( Clementine nods right along with Sans even if she doesn't know if they'll be able to help at all. Sometimes they fight anyway, sometimes she fights anyway. They'll stay. )

A lot of people have died because of me back in my own world, but not here- Things are different here. The fucked up shit we went through shaped us and stays, but the situation in Wonderland is so different, and you tried to save Jay, and you helped me.

( And that matters too. She wonders at the terrible things people go through to make themselves feel like they're poison, but didn't she feel similar to that back in her world? Just not in those exact terms, because people just tried to protect her all the time or- or she had to make decisions other people wouldn't or couldn't. People died because of her. They died around her. They died to keep her safe. They died because she killed them.

It's why she aggressively fought so hard to stay alive, to survive, because she owed it to them. )

Jay's right. It sounds way more fucking complicated than that.

[Jay's right.]

[He can only shake his head mutely at first, because what the hell else is he supposed to say to that?]

And the only time you can admit that something's going on with you is when Wonderland makes you. [He pounces on that, the one thing he can hold to. Press back with every inch he gets, because maybe then - maybe then he won't feel like a fucking idiot for letting this shit gut him for so long.]

You have any idea how much this thing fucks with you? That doesn't just go away, Jay! But you keep acting like that shit is just temporary, like you'll just go back to normal once it's all done. You of all should know - it is never done.

Look around you. What about any of us is normal? [He flings one hand out to gesture at the whole of them - a paranoid cameraman, a traumatized kid who can fight off zombies without missing a beat, a skeleton with crushing depression who's been here longer than any of them. And then - then there's Tim.] What is so goddamn terrible about being like any one of us, huh?

Oh, fuck you, Tim. [He breaks eye contact, gaze hitting the ground.]

[And surprise, surprise, this place won't let him leave it at that. He can feel the familiar weight of the camera hanging in his good hand, and for once, he wishes he could just switch the thing off, smash it against a wall, erase all record of this humiliating disaster of a conversation.]

[But he can't. Because he's paranoid. Because he's sick. Because--]

I'm scared. That's what's so goddamn terrible, alright? Because I'm just supposed to be the cameraman. The cameraman's not, he's not involved in the scene, he's...he's the audience. He gives information to the audience. And my audience? I don't believe they gave a shit about me, alright? I just, I just gave them what they wanted, and if I'm--and if I start losing time and, and seeing things that aren't there, and hurting people, then I can't even do that!

[He's not even sure if that one was directed at him, but he'll take it. It's the truth, after all. Sans never tells anybody anything. Unless something makes him.]

[So much of this is lost on him. He doesn't know what to do. Doesn't even know how to try.]

the cameraman, huh. the observer.

[He nods. He understands this much, at least.]

the observer doesn't have to be involved. they can stay separate. they can...stand back, pretend it's not happening to them. it's easier.

sucks when the world doesn't let you keep doing that.

Who gives a fuck what people want from you if they don't give a shit about you? Screw your audience if they didn't care.

You can still tell a story even if you're doing all those things. ( Even if he's seeing stuff, even if he's hurting people, he can still do it. Tim is right. None of them are going back to 'normal'. Her normal is most people's fucked up. Normal doesn't exist in Wonderland, and it didn't exist where she's from either ) You can still be a camerman even if you're involved.

You can still tell a story even if it's your own or you can do whatever you want to do. It's scary as hell, but Wonderland is different than where you're from and you're not alone. Neither of you are. ( They're all here. Sans and Clem stayed because Jay asked them to, because they didn't want Tim to get more hurt. She unwraps more of her chocolate bar and just takes a bite out of it, cause. might as well. )

...and I know that's scary too. ( probably should have said that before she took a bite, but the point remains. )

[ is it for the best that everyone is watching? That he’s getting this support from the sidelines? Hell if he knows anymore. Hell if he even knows where to start. But now that his mouth is open, it seems there’s no shutting it up.]

You’re already involved, Jay. You stopped being some passive observer the day you started looking for Alex. This was a risk, and now this? This is the fucking consequence, okay? Own up to it and get help, because it’s the reason you started going down the same road as Alex.

[Jay has to take a minute to breathe, his face unevenly covered with his hands, as the others speak. This place forces a frantic nod out of him when Sans starts talking about being the 'observer', but he keeps his mouth shut until well after Tim says his piece. He just needs time. He just needs to think.]

Didn't expect this to turn into some kind of...intervention.

[He's aiming for sarcasm, but he falls short, his voice low and cracking at the edges.]

Alright. Fine. This is...this is the consequence. But, look, I'm not like-- [He chokes on the name, and he can feel his face flush red. They all know what he was going to say, and they all know why he can't say it.]

[There's a moment of painful, frustrated silence, a clenched jaw and stuttering breaths, before Jay finally blurts out:] I'm not a murderer!

[He heaves a sigh. Clem is starting in on her candy bar, so he figure he might as well too. It casts yet another layer of absurdity over this whole thing, and maybe that'll let him not take things so seriously.]

[Though it seems that's not an option.]

we keep going much longer and it's gonna be a four-way intervention.

[It's as close to a joke as he can come. Jokes are inherently disingenuous.]

[He's quiet for awhile after they've all said their piece, and after Jay's final outburst.]

is it...hard? i--sometimes i wonder.

[He breaks off a piece of chocolate but doesn't quite eat it yet. He's not looking at anyone.]

with humans, i mean. is it just--is it hard to just--not kill people? i get that accidents happen, and--and i know it's hypocritical to...single out humans. after everything monsters have done. but, hell, monsters too, is it just--how hard can it be to just--it's the one thing i still can't wrap my head around. i can't understand it. i don't get it. the idea that it could be easy, just a thing that happens, is just...so...foreign.

( This isn't anything she wants to talk about, but she doesn't have a choice like they don't. She chews and swallows. She wonders how many people any of them have killed. Her list is high. It'll just get higher. She breaks her chocolate bar in her hands. ) Most humans don't kill people at least not- not in my world before it turned to shit with walkers- zombies. There were murders but my parents never-

( They never killed anyone, and if they had, they would have gone to jail like Lee was on his way to jail when walkers happened then he didn't have to go to jail anymore. )

The first two times I killed someone, it was the hardest shit I've ever had to do, but my world's fucked up. You kill to survive. You grow up or you die.

The last time I killed someone, it- it was really hard too, because someone I cared about was about to kill someone else I cared about, but sometimes it is- sometimes it is easy. Sometimes it gets easy. I'm afraid it'll get easy for me.

( It has to, doesn't it? )

I am.

[It’s torn from his throat before he can even consider it. Right in front of Sans. Right in front of Clem.]

I killed Alex. I kept - I didn’t want to, I didn’t, and I told him I knew how to help! I wanted to. God, I - I didn’t want to kill him. I didn’t want to kill anyone who ended up dead because I brought that thing into their lives.

[He doesn’t want to say it. God, he doesn’t. But out it rushes anyway, hot and leaden. Clem’s right. He doesn’t ever want it to get easy. But he knows - knows eventually, it will, assuming it hasn’t already.]

And you know what, Jay?

So did you.

Look, I know, alright? I know. [Jay starts to pace.] She wouldn't have gotten involved if it wasn't for me. Alex made that one real clear.

[He didn't stop at her, did he? He was so sorry that he dragged Tim in, too, and the viewers, and anybody else he could find.]

["Sometimes, it gets easy."]

But that's why...I couldn't just leave it, Tim! There was someone--there were people out there who were--were dangerous, and the people who weren't had to know, or they'd just get picked off even easier!

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cw for internalized ableism

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