and in the end if i don't make it on the list [ open ]

[postictal]

Who: Tim Wright and YOU! ...and guest
Where: It's a Wonderful Wonderlandland
When: January 19th - January 23rd
Rating: PG-13 probable
Summary: Tim's ideal world is simple. Incredibly simple. Except for the part where it's impossible.
The Story:

19th - 20th ; fantasy ; give me a boost over heaven's gate

Once he gets over how he has to shade his eyes against the diamond reflection of a too-bright sun, of the pumping lights and blinding colors of what looks like what might've been the end result if Lisa Frank took a couple tabs of acid and decided to start her very own apocalypse, he figures, correctly, that there's probably more to it than this. He prowls the edges of the bubble of increasingly absurd imagery, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It does.

He turns a corner, and there they are.

Sarah's hair falls back in a dark curtain as she laughs at something Seth just said. A little further - he can swear that's Jay there too, squirrely as ever, and the broad shoulders of a silhouette that couldn't belong to anyone but Brian.

But most startling, terrifying, unnatural than anything else, than the fact that they're there at all, is the way they all laugh and grin and joke freely and without abandon.

It's in the way they all look happy.

He doesn't breach that perfect world just yet. If this is his chance to watch what the world might have been without him, then why would he spoil it a second time? He can see them all like this, like they were meant to be, and no matter how thickly the nostalgia might build in his chest, how blindingly the ache of longing might tighten its stranglehold around his throat, he doesn't draw any nearer.

He simply settles down on the grass, draws his knees up beneath his chin, folds his arms around them and...watches.

21st - 23rd ; but i'm a missile that's guided to you;

Of course it wasn't real.

Apparently music is how you're supposed to destroy the things, but he's kind of lacking the instrumentation and an additional pair of willing voices for the sake of the three-part harmony that's supposed to be the kicker here. And, frankly, in his adrenaline-soaked, survivalist state, he doesn't have much of an instinct for memorization of lyrics from the Top Ten Hits From the Nineties listings in an off-brand version of a world not unlike his own.

It's kind of hard to be scared of zombies at this point, though. He'll give Wonderland that much; it sure knows how to desensitize.

He's not doing too badly, all things considered. You'll find him perched just alongside a sluggish river of viscous, rainbow-tinted water, having deftly dug a trench out from the sparkling earth and filled the bottom of the ditch with knitting needles, points up, to catch any one of the slavering horde that decides he looks interesting enough.

It's not a permanent measure by any means, but it's only until he can figure out how to get the busted karaoke machine he's been tinkering worth to start working again.

wildcard ; you're the one habit i just can't kick

[If you want a closed prompt with either Frisk or Tim, let me know here or at arrpee! Just because this is initially a Tim log doesn't mean I can't toss Frisk in if you wanna do something with them! I will match prose or brackets!]

Comments

[postictal]

[Ordinarily, a very pissed-off looking fline with a nail-studded bat would be grounds to start going on the defensive, just to preemptively defuse the situation and ensure it doesn't get worse than it already is. But at this point...]

[At this point, he's just tired.]

Really rather you didn't. They're not really hurting anyone like that.

[Maybe it's his own fantastical nonexistence that has him far from concerned about the potentially imminent danger.]

Not fond of this one, huh?

[deadshapes]

[He seems so mellow, which just pisses her off more. How can anyone be calm about this?]

They're not even real. They're just--colorful shapes that look like people.

[Some of the bright blue and green grass beneath her feet blackens when she says it.]

It's all stupid. I hate this. I hate this fake shit. I hate when this stupid place tries to trick me. I hate not knowing what's real!

[She smashes the can again, this time sending it flying. It crumples into rust on impact.]

How can you be so calm about this?

[postictal]

'Cause none of it's ever real.

[Because he's used to things not being real, and not just in the context of Wonderland. If he's lost it, then he's lost it - only a matter of time, he's pretty much always told himself and been told. Trouble differentiating between hallucination and reality.]

[Her sour mood looks like it might actually be having an effect on the environment, which, while probably scientifically fascinating to somebody out there, still has him glancing slightly nervously over his shoulder to make sure the corruption hasn't flowered out to the gaggle of college-age nonentities.]

[He doesn't want to see that again.]

'Least I actually know it's not me this time, so it's gotta be Wonderland.

cw: internalized ableism

[deadshapes]

What, do you normally live in a stupid fantasy world?

[It doesn't occur to her that he might mean the other thing. She's never met anyone else who had--issues like her own. She knows she's crazy, and so crazy should look like her, and like what's on TV all the time--loud, obvious, violent.]

And you're just okay with that? Ugh. Who even are you? Who are they?

[She gestures with her bat at the group of humans.]

[postictal]

Not really. Just used to shit like this by now.

[Used to it from his own head and by Wonderland’s design. Maybe she hasn’t been here for long enough. Maybe she’s just reached her limit. Whatever it is, he’s pretty sure it’d be rude to outright ask.]

Tim. Some people I knew in college. And given that it’s nicer than most of the shit I get to see, I’m gonna let ‘em stick around for as long as they want.

[deadshapes]

Yeah, I get it, Wonderland messes with our heads all the time and I should just get used to it already, whatever!

[She's been here almost a year, right? She should be used to having her mind and reality destroyed, right? It should be commonplace and she shouldn't make such a fuss. Why are you making this such a big deal, Mae? No one else is freaking out like a weird psycho.]

Okay, Tim, you know it's not gonna last, right? Wonderland's not just gonna let things be all nice and happy or whatever. There's gonna be a catch. It's probably gonna be some crazy Requiem for a Dream shit, considering!

[postictal]

Not what I meant, but that too, I guess.

[His brain's not screwed on tight. There's second-guessing. There's stuff that's real, and stuff that isn't. The mansion floods, and he swears he's seeing something, something waiting in the corner of his eye - but no one else sees It, so It can't really be there, can It?]

[That's just what the doctors said.]

I know. Dunno what the catch is yet, but yeah, you're right. This isn't gonna last.

[deadshapes]

Yeah, thanks. Like it's always that effing easy.

[She's all out of trashcans to smash and God does she need to do more violence right now.]

Then why just sit there and watch? Also like, why? If you don't care if they're fake or not then just go talk to them.

[postictal]

Tried, a bit. Guess they can't see me.

[If that bothers him, it doesn't really show. That's...kind of the point of all this, isn't it? This is something he wishes could be true. Something this world is making alluring, tempting to him. It wouldn't do for them all to be swarming around him, eager to chat up a good old pal with a great long shadow hanging over his head.]

[So he's not in this equation at all.]

[deadshapes]

...This is your--fantasy or whatever, and you're not even in it?

[That's how all of this works, right? Everyone gets their own little fantastical corner of the world, where all of their wishes are granted and everything they could want is just handed to them.]

[So this makes no sense. Unless the thing he wants is...]

[She lowers her bat, resting the end on the ground, seemingly thinking for a bit.]

Well that's effing dark.

[She kind of wants to take his hand and bring him somewhere else, because this can't possibly be healthy. He needs a bat of his own and to go smash some stuff, maybe.]

[Not everyone deals with their problems with violence, Mae.]

You know that's also bullshit, right? Haven't you ever seen that one stupid--like, I guess it's a Christmas movie? It's a Wonderful Life or whatever?

[She grinds her bat into the dirt a bit. Ugh, what's she gonna do, give a pep talk to this guy she just met who apparently would rather just not exist or something? It just, God, it rubs her the wrong way, like everything else in this shitty event.]

This whole world's an effing liar.

[postictal]

[He shrugs.]

[Look at them; don't they look happy? Don't they seem better like this? No awful, unknowable things hanging over their heads. No caved-in skulls or bruises in the shape of handprints clenched around their necks. No screams. No burned-out corpses. No gasoline, clinging tacky and sap-sticky to anyone's nostrils or the backs of their throats.]

[No cameras. No tapes.]

[Without him, everyone's...free.]

I've heard of it. Never actually seen it. [Maybe it'd be too much like his life.]

[The world's a liar, she says. Does she know she's talking to one now? Probably not; it's the nature of liars to be difficult to detect.]

Most people are liars.

[deadshapes]

[He just shrugs, like it doesn't matter. What the hell? How can he be so blase about not existing.]

You should. Cause the point is that it's stupid to think the world would be the same or better off if someone just didn't exist.

[He's not saying anything, though, so he probably doesn't want to discuss it. Nor does he need some freaking therapizing from the crazy girl who just ran up and started beating the shit out of a sparkly trashcan.]

I didn't say people, I said the world. Everyone lies, that's just a people thing, who cares? [She grinds her bat a bit deeper into the ground.] It's this event, it's not just messing with people's heads and tricking them. It's lying. It's like, saying everything can be this stupid sugary garbage, when it freaking can't, because in life you get hurt all the time, and people cry, and that's how it should be. And I'm saying all this dumb shit and you don't even care, cause you don't even know me, I'm just the crazy girl hitting trashcans and being angry.

[Hey, Killer.]

Whatever, this is stupid. I'm gonna find more stuff to hit. You wanna come with me, or you gonna--stay and watch TV?

[postictal]

[Maybe it is stupid. Maybe that's what makes it a fantasy. Maybe it's a pointless endeavor, and removing him from the equation would just delay the inevitable. But - for a little while, he gets to pretend, and that's fine, isn't it?]

[He has to pull the thoughts away like strings of taffy, like amber sap, tacky and stuck to the edges of his brain. She's rapidly approaching some kind of asymptote, and he has no idea how to derail. Should he derail? Is that his responsibility still, as a non-person non-entity?]

I'm just the crazy guy staring off into space, so I guess we're even.

[deadshapes]

[Fantasies, she figures, are supposed to be fun. Building a robot out of broken parts and then leaving it in the middle of the woods for someone else to find and make up stories about.]

[Well, maybe fantasies can also be stupid.]

[It's just not helping her nerves right now, and she knows if she sticks around here any longer, she's gonna say or do something she's really gonna regret. There's no popping these bubbles, not the one surrounding the fake laughing humans, or the one surrounding this--sad, real human.]

Whatever.

[She rests her bat on her shoulder and stalks off.]