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]

I don't want you to leave.

[That's a stupid thing to say. A stupid, selfish thing to say and it pops out of their mouth before they can prevent it and they wish they could claw it back, cram it back into their big, dumb mouth and just shut up the way they're best at, but they're not, but they're not, but they're not and Wonderland won't let them.]

I don't want to see you go.

[normandysbest]

I know. A lot of people don’t.

[And that’s so—gods, why? She can’t be that good a person. She’s hardly even a person, she’s—an icon, really. She’s what they needed her to be. Does that really make her so important, to have been at the right place at the right time? To be doing the particular shakedown run of a particular ship to catch Saren, to find the Reapers before all else, to be whatever she is now?]

But they won’t need me anymore when it’s all done. When I can finally save them.

[determinedest]

We don't need you because you save people.

[In a way, she already has. Hasn't she?]

[It's an awkwardness they can't put into words, that sensation of - someone who understands. Resonating on different frequencies across different threads, a tuning fork stuck in someone else's SOUL.]

You're a friend.

[normandysbest]

[It's hard to say there's a point at which she'll be done, if she really thinks about it. There will always be people in distress, won't there? There's always going to be a hand reaching out to her in the dark, desperate. It's not a good way to think about it, keeping her strung along from purpose to purpose, from one dangerous and impossible scene to the next until it kills her. But it's kept her alive this far. It's... something.]

You've got lots of friends. A lot of people do. And I can't live forever, it's... they're going to have to let me go eventually. Everyone is. The world is.

[determinedest]

But not a lot of friends like you.

[The pool of people who they know understand - what it is to be someone like them - it's not a very large pool at all. Does she know that? Does she know how few people they know, that they really know, that they trust to be able to look at the choices they have made and never pin them with dark and terrible stares and cold judgment and jokes about how they could have tried harder?]

[Is that their fault, for not ever saying it?]

Not a lot of people who understand what it's like. Being us.

[normandysbest]

The ones who move the world.

[She responds before she thinks of it, but it's not like she could stop herself. She knows what they mean. But she's never-- before the Mansion, she's never know anyone quite like that. No one else who had everything resting on their shoulders, being the only ones to move the world.]

Back home, it's just me. There isn't anyone else like that. But I guess it comes with the job description.

[determinedest]

It's just me back home, too.

[Even if they were less alone than they first assumed, in the end, when the final departure closes over them like waves over a drowning person's skull, when they exit the dark and step into the sun, there's the echo of old words in their head, in their chest, in their SOUL.]

[Guess it really is still just you, Frisk.]

I guess it's selfish to think it, but I don't want to lose someone who knows how it feels.

[normandysbest]

[Shepard sighs, more like a chuckle. She catches when the memory loops this time, the tiniest stutter, where she feels the pressure of Thane's hand return. Something familiar. The moving of the world in gentle waves, towards him, and away.]

I don't think it's selfish. To reach for something that makes you happy.

[She passes the pressure along to them, in measures, the link between her past and this future she's built in Wonderland.]

Everyone needs it, right? Just to not be alone.

[determinedest]

...so what about you?

[Do you matter less? Or does your world shrink to only encompass the thoughts and wonders of others, and never your own? That's an easy thing to do, they know; they do it a lot, they think, because they cannot lie to themself and they cannot pretend that they do anything else.]

[Other people are more important.]

[normandysbest]

I... don't know. I don't know if I've really wanted anything past the safety of my friends for a while.

[That probably doesn't sound great, from the hero of the galaxy. From some great savior, someone who's supposed to care so much about everyone.]

Probably should care about more. But that's all I've got.

[determinedest]

If I have to care about me sometimes, then...

[It's probably not the greatest, that they're saying this aloud. But they can't stop it from being said, now that it's there. Now that it's being said, it can't be unsaid and unhappened away.]

Then you have to care about you. It's only fair.

[normandysbest]

[There's a pause, like she's thinking about it. As if she really has that luxury. But she puts a bit of pressure into their hand as Thane's slips from hers again. Funny, how she catches that every time.]

I guess that is fair.

[She'll concede that much.]

Guess I'm not so good at forcing caring. Or maybe I just forgot what personhood feels like.

[determinedest]

You're a person. Doing a lot of great things or, or bad things...doesn't change that.

[It's a little surprising to hear that coming out of their own mouth, honestly. They'd almost assumed they wouldn't be able to properly believe that, but...]

[But if they say it, then they must believe it. That's what this event has decided, and so - and so that's how it is.]

[normandysbest]

[Her mouth pulls into a small smile, hearing them say that.]

Kid, hearing that from you might actually make me believe it.

[Finally, she lets go of Thane. It's longer than they ever had, in this repeating space. It's lonely.

But she's not alone.

Shepard looks down towards Frisk, considering an action but wanting to ask.]

I can pick you up, if you want a better look at him. I know I asked if you wanted to meet him.

[determinedest]

[They said something right.]

[The offer pulls at them like an undertow. The desire to refuse wells up in their chest, but the inescapable nature of their wanting to accept generates the nod, timid and faint.]

[They don’t mind, if it’s her picking them up. She feels safer than most.]

Um...are you sure?

[normandysbest]

Yeah. C'mon.

[She crouches a bit, bringing her arm around their legs, so they can almost use it as a seat. Shepard uses her other arm to steady them, but once they're up, they can see him- the patterns on the scales of his skin that fade between green and red and black, the ridges of his cheekbones down his neck in finlike juts of color and point, his eyes when they open, completely, entirely black. The dream repeats, and he turns his head, and smiles at them both.

Shepard finds it in her to smile back.]

Here he is.

[determinedest]

[It's okay.]

[It'd be hard to go along with it if they didn't feel like it was; they can't even be dishonest with themself. And when she gently hooks her arm underneath them and boosts them upward, it's all right, too, because she's steady. They can even rest one hand on her shoulder and not feel strange about it, because it's new but it doesn't feel bad.]

[He's pretty.]

[His eyes are dark as beetles and the thick, spiny fins that flare out gently along his face...he reminds them a little like Undyne, if she were more armadillo than fish.]

[Even if they know he cannot hear them, it feels wrong not to say something.]

Hi, Thane.

[normandysbest]

[Thane doesn't have the energy to really respond, but the look is enough for her. Somehow, watching this directly is stirring it again, the tightness in her chest and the water at her eyes.

Frisk's weight is nice, though. It gives her something to concentrate on. It's grounding.]

You know, his species is uh, mildly hallucinogentic to humans. If you lick him.

[She doesn't really know how to say anything else. It's not a joke, per se, but it's... something.]

[determinedest]

[Hallucinogenic. It's a little like being allergic to temmies, in its own way, and despite the gravity of all, despite knowing that he's dying and Shepard herself must still be on such a perpetual edge because of it, they let the words coax a warm hum from the back of their throat. Almost like a giggle, but not quite. That would be inappropriate.]

You licked him lots, huh?

[...possibly also inappropriate.]

[normandysbest]

[Probably would've been. But she's pretty used to laughing at Death's face.]

Kid, you have no idea.

[She looks at him again, and maybe, there's a bit more peace.]

You ready to go?

[determinedest]

Okay.

[If it helped...well, they just have to hope that it helped. It should have helped. If there's even the slightest possibility that it did help, then it was worth it.]

...did it help?

[normandysbest]

[She keeps them in her arms, a weight to remind her as she reaches forward, lays a hand on Thane one more time.

It's time to go. But at least Frisk knows she's not lying when she responds, even if she still looks teary as she turns to go.]

Yeah. Yeah, it did.

[determinedest]

[It's a little silly, to be clinging to her like...like a koala, or something. People don't tend to pick children up and carry them around unless they've done something wrong. Even when they do, it isn't like this - it isn't gentle, supporting them with the arch of someone's arm under their legs. It's a fist on the back of the shirt, or being crammed under someone's arm so you go limp as a ragdoll.]

[It's a little strange. But it's not a bad thing.]

Good. [Then it was worth it.]