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

[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?]

You keep letting that determination shine bright kid.

[sonofab]

Yeah? [More kids with powers. The show offs.]

What is it?

they always do <3

[determinedest]

Determination.

[That's...not quite enough, they know. And the event compresses the words in their chest, a tightening iron band that won't let that vague answer be quite enough. And so they continue, because they must.]

[Because they can't not.]

I can make a SAVE. A point in time where I can go back.

[sonofab]

[Determination was more a state of mind wasn't it? But he supposed if one had enough will to never stop, it can be considered a superpower.]

A...save? What-- Do you just reload like a computer? I thought you were human.

[Not that this kid not being human would be all that surprising. He's met talking skeletons here, a talking raccoon and a large goat monster eating pie in a camping chair. A kid that looks human but isn't, wouldn't be that surprising at this point.]

[determinedest]

I'm an anomaly.

[And it's...the truth. Ha ha.]

[Or at least, it's something they steadfastly and irrevocably believe. Anomaly, something stretched too thin, DT levels far surpassed those of an ordinary human.]

[sonofab]

An anomaly. A nicer way to say freak of nature. [Damian says when the blunt honesty jumps out again, but when it came to being rude he rarely held back.]

That's a pretty useful power. So you've never died while you are here because you've "made a SAVE"?

[determinedest]

[They shrug slightly, and something like a smile twitches at the corner of one lip. A nicer way to say "freak of nature." Well, so what, then? They are a freak. Anomaly is just the fancier word for it.]

No. I've died. It's not as powerful here. [And sometimes they don't think to make one in time.] Back home, the only way I could LOAD was by dying.

[sonofab]

No? It doesn't work at all then? Pity. [That sounds like a useful power. This child also sounds more like a computer program than a human.]

Dying and resurrecting as common as eating where you come from then? [He starts to lead Frisk away from his door when the sound of his own death scream starts to grate on his nerves.]

[determinedest]

For me. For everyone else, too, but they didn't know it.

[They shrug, and let him. The shrill sound of a young boy howling his last cuts across their ears, but they hardly flinch. They keep talking fluidly, as though wondering if the volume of someone else crying their last will make the burden of their next words any easier to bear.]

I killed them a lot.

[sonofab]

[Damian pauses to look down as Frisk. That was a sudden conflict for someone that spoke of wanting to help people.]

Why? Didn't you say you wanted to help people?

[determinedest]

I didn't always. Or I told myself I did.

[They sound decidedly nonplussed about all of it. It's practically rote at this point. They confess their sins and then wonder when those consequences will come. And when they do come, they can hardly bear it. For all their eagerness to punish themself, it's harder, it seems, when someone else is willing to take up that mantle like they keep insisting they should.]

I think some part of me still thinks that by trying now, I can make up for what I've done. But I know I can't, really.