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

[determinedest]

Frisk.

[It's not the fact they can utter it at all that gives them pause. It's the ease and alacrity with which they answer. It's never easy, they know, to hear their own death. To witness it. He does a good job at hiding it, but it's getting to him too. Of course it is. Why wouldn't it be?]

It's you in there. Isn't it?

[sonofab]

...Frisk? That sounds more like something the police do to a criminal.

[Frisk looks surprised to be saying their own name which would have made Damian think they were giving a false title, but with this event happening he knew that wasn't possible. The truth had them all in its claws.]

Yes. [The answer leaps out before he could think of a way to mask it with half-truths.] It's my memory, why wouldn't I be in there?

[determinedest]

I didn’t know you died before you came here. I’m sorry.

[ Guess they really must mean it, huh? Don’t pounce after their name - that will just lead, they know, to subjects better off not being broached at times like these.]

I don’t like that kids get hurt when they’re not me.

[sonofab]

[He frowns because he never said anything about dying, but no, with the loud scene behind the door, it wasn't hard to figure out.] It's in the past. No need to apologize.

[What an...odd thing to say. No one ever really liked kids getting hurt, aside from the truly sick, but to want that pain for yourself?]

Sometimes people need the hurt. It shapes them. Grows one as a person to experience something painful.

[Whether that was a change for the better or not? Only time would tell. Damian just knows he wouldn’t be who he is today without that pain. Still couldn't tell you if this is a good or bad thing though.]

Can't go around taking everyone's pain for yourself, Frisk. That would just be selfish.

[determinedest]

[There’s the faintest wince as he says it. They know. It’s not like they don’t know. They’re just selfish by nature, and that doesn’t really excuse it either. It just makes it even worse. Being aware of the problem doesn’t make it all go away.]

I know. But I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know how to help, and I feel like I should.

I don’t know what I am if I’m not trying to help.

[sonofab]

[Not to quote the insipid book series they are all trapped in, but curiouser and curiouser. It's not like wanting to help was a bad thing, at least if you were smart about it, but to lose ones complete sense of self? ...He supposed that wasn't entirely unrelatable.

He knows even if being Robin hurt, was dangerous, got him killed and lost him his family... He wouldn't and doesn't know what to do without it.]

I guess I'm kinda in the same boat on that. [He murmurs thoughtfully.]

[determinedest]

So why are you still watching?

[They'd locked the door once they knew what was in their room, in their slice of rug. A Rabbit Hole, a skeleton, a child slamming SAVE after SAVE into position with the locking glint of gold.]

[They'd nothing to gain from reliving that past. Not truly.]

[Did they?]

[sonofab]

[Honestly he was telling himself it was to learn from his mistakes. To keep this from happening to him again... but mother wouldn't use the same trick twice.]

Being in there is the closest I've come to seeing my parents again since I came here.

[He looks surprised by his own answer. No, if you looked you wouldn't see Talia or Batman, but he knew they were there, watching the scene. That father was on his way rushing to save him... but he'd always be too late. He was just fruitlessly hoping to catch even a glimpse of them before his memory faded to black.]

[determinedest]

[Did they hurt him? Help him? Fail to save him? Is he another one? Another one like them, like others who - ]

[Their features don't lend themselves easily to expressive natures. But there's a solemn crumpling to them nonetheless, the pinching of the corners of their eyes, the weary lowering to their head.]

Are they the ones that hurt you?

[sonofab]

[A little of everything really, but this isn't what Frisk ask. Did they hurt him? Not both, no.]

No. Just one. [The sound of the boys muffled screams for his mother.] You ask a lot of questions. Did your parents hurt you? [Abuse?]

[determinedest]

They weren't my parents.

[There's a sharpness to the words that answers his question for him - snapping the answer out across the flat of the space between them like breaking bone, but at least now it's something they refuse to believe.]

[sonofab]

[Damian tilts his head in intrigue. The sudden sharp edges in the child's usually soft tone. An anger to it like they thought if they hardened themselves enough to it, will it to have never happend.]

Then who?

[determinedest]

People who didn’t deserve to be called parents.

[The iron to the words should shake them. It should eat at them to their CORE. It doesn’t. It’s not painful to think about. Not in the way it used to be. Not in the way that saturated their very bones with the sickening guilt if jnow they wouldn’t ever be good enough.]

[Not anymore.]

[sonofab]

That could be said for one's biological parents to.

[The al Ghul’s obviously should never have children. They all either ended up as assassins or meat suits for Grandfather.

He spoke with such venom about these people, but how else would one talk about their abusers. Still he couldn't say they weren't his parents right now if they truly were.]

Kidnappers?

[determinedest]

They had me. They weren’t my parents.

[The conviction in their tone is absolute and uncompromising. They’d scratch their names and faces from their own mind if they could. Scrub it all free. Memories they wouldn’t mind losing, ha ha, because nothing about them was worth remembering.]

[sonofab]

[Well now that made no sense, unless these people were their parents and they just hated them so much they've managed to convince themselves that saying this was truth... or grown in a lab, which isn't an impossible outcome.

Damian himself was grown in an artificial womb, but his mother was still his mother, but maybe if she hadn't raised him he could deny her with just as much conviction.

Wouldn’t that be nice?]

That makes no sense. Congratulation on that even under a truth spell.

Are these people here in Wonderland now?

[determinedest]

No.

And they never should.

[It’s not a matter of convincing. A child does not grow in a home in perpetual terror and learn to call it “home” after even all that. They had a mom, once, but that - that’s no longer available to them. They’ve lost that right. And that’s okay. It’s just.]

[sonofab]

That's good... [Damian raises a brow. Maybe it was just something the child needs to tell themselves to find comfort. He knew his own mother could appear at anytime and he honestly wasn't sure what he'd do it she did.]

So are you here alone then?

[determinedest]

Not really.

[And...their expression, their stance, every potential to be bristling and wary and waiting for the verbal crack across face and mouth, fades in an instant, melding easily with the typical closed-away quiet they usually exhibit.]

I have friends. People who...are real family.

[sonofab]

[That was definite signs of trauma. He'd come across a few people that seemed much happier here than in their home. He was sort of feeling the same. While his relationships with people weren't perfect, he wasn't ...alone here anymore.

But there was no place for Robin here and he wasn't sure how to be anything but Robin.]

I get that. Friends tend to let you down less than family. [He wishes he could stop talking. Why were these words coming out? Stuff Damian hadn't even realized he felt.]

I'm not very good at making friends or trusting people, but the few I do have, haven't hurt me.

[determinedest]

People will always let you down. It's just...how much you're willing to forgive them.

[They've learned that things aren't particularly easy to shut off, here. They know that, because they would never be speaking this much aloud otherwise. They know that. But - they can't seem to stop, now that it's started.]

[It's what Wonderland wants.]

And how badly they hurt you, too.

[sonofab]

I'm not a forgiving person, but it takes a lot to hurt me.

[He pushes away from the door. Even with the screams and explosions, the physical pain was never the worse part. It was always the emotional stuff that really stuck with you.]

The hurt can run deep but, in the end, it makes you stronger. That sucks to hear, but it’s truth. [He couldn’t say it if he didn’t believe it to be.] It gave you the strength to want to help people after all. So maybe you can't think of another purpose because you've found the one you want most?

You’re still going to have to let others find their strength sometimes. And not run into rooms full of gunfire with nothing but a shield. [Seriously kid, don’t do that.]

[determinedest]

I don't care if I get hurt. Or even if I die. I've done it before.

[Perhaps more blunt than is typical for them, but...they've not attempted to hide such a thing before until they learned that many, on occasion, do not appreciate hearing about the many and variegated deaths of a child. Even less do people like the idea that the monsters they so love may have perpetuated that.]

[They think that maybe, for once in their life, maybe for the first time, they - understand why that is.]

I don't feel stronger for any of it.

[sonofab]

[He was getting that. Not that resurrection was an out of this world to him. Not just because he came back from the dead, but more because his Grandfather had been doing it for over 700 years. Not to mention Todd’s return from the dead. Then there was Grayson... but his was fake the whole time, the lying cheat.]

No, you often won't feel it until a situation comes that calls upon it. Then you'll find you can do things you never thought you could before... kind like discovering a new superpower.

[determinedest]

I already have a superpower.

[It's called determination. It's called the power to SAVE other people. But even still, it isn't really enough. It never is. It's a flash, a bright lightshow, a happy pronouncement for their own sake. It makes them feel better in certain moments of light.]

[But outside of that...what is it good for, besides ERASING the sins they do not deserve to have ERASED?]