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

( 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!

[Sometimes it gets easy.]

[That's LOVE. He knows. He knows what that looks like. Remembers a haunted look on Frisk's face, those few times that there was only--one. One, or two. Enough to get to LV 2, maybe 3. Enough to ruin the ending.]

[He remembers thinking, who gets to LV 2 on accident?]

[He knows better now. It's not that simple. It's not even remotely that simple. It doesn't...ruin the ending, because these are worlds without Resets. There isn't an ending. There's just the future, everpresent on the horizon. And he can't remember what that's like. Even now, two years later, he's still waiting for it to happen again, because it will. It absolutely will. No one stays in Wonderland forever.]

[There were certain absolutes that are gone now.]

[Tim. Clem. And he's met other people here, people with a bit of LV under their belt, and it's--still completely foreign to him, how that can just happen. But it can. Different worlds, different rules. Are Tim and Clem irredeemable because of it?]

[Was Frisk irredeemable for a mistake?]

[He'll never get used to it, he thinks. Having his foundation torn out from under him.]

[Only that's hypocritical, isn't it? It's not a foundation if you're willing to excavate it yourself under the right circumstances. You can't call it some pillar of your being unless there's absolutely zero chance that you'll ever knock it down.]

it was hypocritical for me to even ask. considering what i've--i'm not even from that timeline, but it still--if the rest of them think it counts, if the mere capacity for it counts, then--then i'm--

[He can't, no. This has nothing to do with him, this is between Tim and Jay, this is something he had no business knowing about, and it would just make things about him, would be ridiculous to even say, but--]

[But Wonderland won't listen to any of his usual excuses or rationalizations.]

i guess we're all murderers.

Edited 2017-11-02 06:44 (UTC)

( Clementine hasn't thought of it like that before. She's never used that word for herself. Murderer. What's the difference between killing someone to survive, killing to protect someone, and just killing to kill? It has to be- Does there have to be? Maybe she is a murderer too.

Maybe that's the only word for it even if the reasoning changes.

She killed most people to protect herself or someone else. She killed Lee so he wouldn't turn into a walker, but with Carver, she stayed back to watch Kenny kill him. He had to die or he'd keep coming after them all, but he didn't have to die the way Kenny did it and she stayed to watch.

Why? Because she wanted to face the reality of it. She couldn't sweep it under the rug. )

Except for Jay.

( He shouted he wasn't a murderer so it must be true or he must at least believe it to be true. She's not sure how this whole thing works, and it doesn't matter. She's back to eating chocolate, sinking into a seat. )

[All of them.]

[Clem, who must have killed dozens of walkers. Does that count? It’s the apocalypse- people are gonna die one way or another, huh? And Sans, who has apparently committed those same transgressions. Tim stares between the trio of them all with his mouth half-open until finally he straightens.]

[What the hell does this say about any of them?]

So what’s that mean for all of us?

[All murderers, except for Jay.]

[If Tim had been just a little slower, if Jay's grip on the knife had been just a little tighter, that might not be the case. He remembers how it felt. He remembers wanting Tim to bleed.]

[And he has an idea, stitched together from Sunday school admonitions, from the sensation of drowning, from the ring of blood dripping from Alex's forehead.]

I don't wanna be that--that asshole, but...what if that's why we're here?

[He sits down again too. Standing is such a pain. No time for it. No energy for it.]

i dunno if i want to think of wonderland as...punishment. as hell. my brother's here.

It's a lot better than where I'm from too.

( She pops more chocolate into her mouth as she glances at Sans when he sits. )

If it's punishment, it's not a very good at being punishment.

I don't think it is.

[He shakes his head, and - belatedly, there's something that spills out between clenched teeth and hunched shoulders.]

Especially since I never died. [No matter how much he wished it had been him, instead of everyone else. Him, instead of Alex, instead of Jay, instead of Brian, instead of anyone who deserved to walk away from the hell he made for them.]

[They all disagree, and they've all got reasons that make sense. Jay's not sure if he's relieved there's reasons to believe they're not literally in hell, or disappointed that he's got to throw out another theory. Or hypothesis or whatever.]

[And then Tim keeps talking.]

[He never died.]

[He killed Alex, and he survived.]

[He got out. In the end, someone got out.]

[The realization hits with a surge of conflicting emotions: relief--god, mostly relief--shot through with offense and a thin streak of jealousy. Someone got out, even if it wasn't Jay in the end, and Tim kept it a secret for months. It's just like the tape, just like the hospital, just like every single thing Tim knew that could've helped them.]

Why didn't you tell me?

[His voice climbs higher, more urgent, because this is his chance, this is finally his chance.]

Tim, did anybody else make it out?

[Sans shakes his head.] it's just some kind of pocket dimension. it might be alive, it might be sentient. those are the sorts of things i'm not sure we can know.

[Monsters don't have much of a concept of Hell to begin with. No more than there's any real afterlife. You live on in whatever has your dust, and that's about it.]

[Tim keeps talking, and Sans sort of forgot that was the sort of thing that needed stating or clarifying. That people just show up here, having died. The way his brother did, twice in a row. He nods again, slowly, but then Jay answers.]

[And apparently, it's news.]

[Sans stays quiet, looking between them. There's a sudden tension that he can't really put a name to, not unless he wants to ask about what Jay means, and what all happened to the two of them back home. And he won't ask. He doesn't want to know.]

( Clementine stays quiet too since she's only half aware of what's even being talked about. She'll just pull her knees up to her chest, eating her chocolate.

Seems like a good way to handle this situation when she wouldn't want any information that's not freely given, when she hasn't lived the lives they're describing. She's lived her own, but it's so far removed, and the threats were always obvious. She's glad Sans is here too. )

Edited (chose the wrong icon at first oops D:) 2017-11-07 18:12 (UTC)

You never asked. You just figured you knew that’s how it was, just like you always do.

[That’s no fucking excuse. He knows that. It’s just that by the time he realized that was the conclusion Jay had drawn, it was too late to correct him. Too late to mention it without losing what little progress they made. Too late to avoid questions like this, that have Tim doing what he’s best at, and the only thing he can think of to do.]

[He bolts.]

[Don’t stop him now, because he’s tearing the door open and getting the hell out while he still can.]

Tim, wait!

[Isn’t it just like Tim, to be so scared of a simple goddamn question that he’d rather bolt? This is Jay’s one chance to get the truth. Last time, Tim could just refuse to speak, but this time? This time, he has to keep talking. He has to tell Jay what’s going on, he has to—]

[Jay makes it as far as the door before he freezes.]

[Wind it back. Remember.]

[He remembers his hands wound around Tim’s neck, Tim backing away, Tim splayed across the leaves, unable to escape. A knife in Jay’s hand, the blood seeping through Tim’s shirt, liar, liar, liar—]

[This isn’t right.]

[He didn’t used to do this, did he?]

[Gripping the doorframe, Jay looks back at the others, for...for advice, guidance, instructions, something. Jay doesn’t know what to do.]

[Tim Flees.]

[Sans climbs very slowly back to his feet as Jay starts after him.]

jay. don't.

[Jay stops at the doorframe even before Sans said anything. He goes to the door himself and looks out to see if he can spot Tim, but the other man is already gone. Sans sighs. It's exactly what he would have done if confronted with a question he simply refused to answer--though of course Sans would have taken a shortcut.]

just...let him be for awhile. i don't really know what's going on with you two, but...this event's already a nightmare. just give him some time, yeah?

Leave him be.

The truth is a weapon sometimes. ( It's why people keep their secrets. It's why finding out the truth isn't always freeing. It's why telling the truth in the wrong moment can only put someone in more danger.

She's seen it happen again and again.

If he doesn't want to answer, he shouldn't have to. )

It's okay.

( to let it go. )

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cw for internalized ableism

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