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

[persevere]

[There's no resistance on her part as he picks her up to remove her from that terrible space. Her arms slip around his neck, she leans her cheek against his collarbone, she closes her eyes against the air that whips past them as they leave it behind in the past where it belongs.

If only she couldn't still hear it.

She tries to keep her face from crumbling as he holds the side of her face in his palm. She fails.]

I thought he hated me.

[poppycock]

( his heart breaks. it is torn in two, seeing how this has done the same and more to her. on its heels surges something fierce. ) Only a fool would hate you, ( he says with certainty, ) and he was a fool to believe any part of you need change. ( his thumb rubs her cheek. )

[persevere]

He couldn't even stay alive long enough to make it up to me.

[Hard truths, brought forth by Wonderland's continued effects, bubble to the surface. They're things that she's never wanted to think, but they're there, in the back of her mind, when she has nothing else to keep her occupied.]

He picked dying so that he didn't have to be like me. He left me and he didn't have to.

[It was selfish of her to say, she knows, but it felt like that. Not everyone made a good vampire, she knew that too, and her father would have hated everything about it.

That didn't make it hurt any less.]

[poppycock]

( her tears soak into the pads of his thumbs. they fall too freely to do anything but smear their paths. anguish balls in his chest and tightens; he knows with strained sorrow there is nothing he can say or do to ease her pain. (it has been centuries since he believed enough in the love of a parent to expect it or to be heartbroken by its absence.

but he remembers it.

and more than any memory or grief, he knows what she deserves.)

all she says is true. he cannot argue: it is not in his knowledge, perception, nor place to do so. ) Perhaps. If I could go back and force him to be the father he should've been... ( he couldn't. he wouldn't. for it would make no difference. a darker part of him would have him suffer. ) Oftentimes our parents' love is more selfish than we could've ever imagined. He didn't deserve you.

[persevere]

No, Klaus. [She shakes her head, forces herself to choke back the last sob in her throat, level a serious gaze at him.] There's no going back and fixing things, and even if there was, it wouldn't be real.

[She knows he knows, but the words come out anyway. She doesn't want a father's love based on fear, and she knows he loved her.

He just didn't love her enough.]

It's not like I'll be able to learn from his mistakes. Besides, at least I had Mom, right?

[Had. Not anymore. But her mother hadn't chosen to leave her.]

[poppycock]

( he does know. he wishes he didn't: that it could be so easily fixed, that her heartbreak could be easily remedied. he trails off because he wants it to be so and wishes it could be — but knows there is no easy answer.

his fingers thread through her hair. he strokes her cheek. (she will be able to learn from his mistakes; his lashes flutter in his silence. she had her mother, but she deserved much more.) ) You have yourself. ( that is more constant than anything else. ) Your family in your future. ( that is more valuable than anything else. ) You have me. ( without question, should she want it.

here, and at home. )

[persevere]

[Her family is dead, is what she thinks first, but sometimes you can choose your family too. She wasn't alone, and her friends would be her family in the wake of the things she had lost.

Or so she wanted to believe.

But she did have herself and she'd left behind the idea of letting herself down awhile ago (even if she still felt unsure of herself from time to time). As for the rest, well-

Her arms slip around his neck, pull him into a hug.]

Thank you.

[poppycock]

( his arms wrap around her waist and he holds her tight, as close as his strength allows. his head tips into hers, his breath on her neck. for the moment, there is only the solidity of her embrace, broken and bristled by one her memory's whimpers. his eyes open, but it's not her voice that has him still, it's the voice of someone else.

he hears it, feels the presence of that second door behind his back.

'always and forever. i used to admire that vow. it gave me back what had been beaten out of me...'

he's filled with dread. it's enough to feel as if his heart has stopped. slowly, his arms loosen around her; he pulls back. )

[persevere]

[Caroline blinks her now tearless eyes, pulling back as he does, confusion filtering across her face. She can feel his apprehension in the way his body stills, in the rigidity of his frame.

She doesn't recognize the voice.]

Who is that?

[She asks the question even as she realizes she probably doesn't want to know.]

[poppycock]

( no one of matter. those are the words he wishes to say. he wants with an instinctual, selfish guarding of his heart and his shame to attempt to steer her thoughts and attentions elsewhere. he knows perfectly well it would not fool her, but in his quiet desperation and anguish he would try.

(he doesn't want her to see him as he was in that moment. he doesn't want her to perceive his failures as he does.)

his hands slide down from her shoulders to grasp her arms. he gazes sightlessly between them before his eyes lift to hers.

the truth comes out, unbidden. ) Marcellus. ( he hears his brother next. ) Elijah.

[persevere]

[She would know he was lying to her, so it's probably for the best that he doesn't. Wonderland wouldn't present them with a memory of no one important, that much is obvious. And he wouldn't be reacting the way he did if that were the case anyway.

(She wouldn't. She never sees what he perceives as failure to be anything close. They're always something else, something sadder.)

She recognizes the first name, already knew the second a long time ago. The man he raised and his eldest brother, speaking to one another for what was sure to be a horrible reason.]

We don't have to stay.

[poppycock]

( he doesn't want to stay. he doesn't to relive a moment in his life that fills him with irrefutable fear and a deep-aching sorrow and rage. no. they don't have to stay, but in suggesting it, he knows that is what they will do. what he'll do. he exhales in a slow release as his eyes, certain with decision, linger on hers. he wanted to build that wall a moment ago, but her offer reminds him of how easily and without regret it can be and has been torn down.

how perhaps he needs it to be. wants it to be. perhaps it's time.

she loves him. she has seen his shortcomings, his remorses and traumas, his terrors and mistakes, and she has not made him feel any less for them; like a monster or a misfit.

his hand falls to hold hers. (he doesn't want to do it alone.) he steps back slowly to make his intent clear, to ask for her to follow, and then he turns to open the door.

the scene has re-looped when they step inside. after a moment, he says, his voice wistful and thick, ) He’s so much like me. I want him to suffer for what he’s done... and I know I failed him.

This was the moment. ( tears prick his eyes. ) I didn’t know it at the time, but... this... was when I lost everything.

[persevere]

[She feels his hand reach for hers, and her fingers thread through his in response, fitting her palm against his the way it has so many times now. She squeezes gently, realizing that he's not going to avoid this, that maybe in some small way he wants her to see it.

It's an understanding that, at least between them, sharing pain also seems to lessen it, however minutely.

Or maybe it doesn't lessen it, but simply makes what they have stronger because of it, letting the bad not seem quite so impossible to overcome.

She watches because she needs to. She's seen so much and still knows so little sometimes when it comes to the trials of his life. It's clear this isn't what he wanted, this violence, but there's also a truth to what Marcel says before Elijah takes matters into his own hands.

It's complicated, and horrible, and...sad. Her own eyes sting as the scene unfolds; she doesn't know what to say.

So she doesn't say anything. Instead, her hand tightens in his, quiet solidarity, a reminder that he hasn't lost everything, because she's here.]