entrancelogs | Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore

Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore | OPEN

Who: E V E R Y O N E (Including our 4th wall guests!)
Where: Everywhere, one both Mirror and Real Side!
When: December 12th - December 18th (WEEK ONE)
Rating: PG-13, warn if going higher
Summary: This year's Ewaymas celebration rolls out the way it usually does, with intense decorating, a sudden snowfall and...far more arrivals than usual! New faces and old fill the mansion - but why would Wonderland bring so many people at once? And why do some of them remember Wonderland?
The Story:

On the evening before December 12th, the captives of Wonderland might be awoken by a loud commotion. Some of it is typical Ewaymas noise, likely familiar to anyone who has been in Wonderland for more than a year – construction sounds and jingle bells as Wonderland decks its own halls quite literally. Garland and lights race down the walls and down the stairs, and stockings appear on the walls for each and every person in Wonderland, embroidered with their names. There are decorative candles everywhere, and all sorts of decorations for every conceivable winter holiday, even if it does not align perfectly to the dates of Ewaymas. Time isn't real, so there will be menorahs and dreidels and Star of Davids even though Hanukkah ended two days prior. And of course, in the front hall, growing straight out of the floor, is a large decorated tree full of ornaments for everyone. And as always, it will have snowed heavily overnight, bringing all of the snow Wonderland will have between now and spring.

There is a second source of commotion in the night though – the sound of a crowd.

Over the course of the night, dozens of new arrivals will appear in Wonderland. Some for the first time. Some wondering how they managed to return with their memories. Others stumbling in with no recollection of ever having been here. Some might be friends from other timelines, other possibilities, and some might even be doubles of people who are already in Wonderland. It's strange for Wonderland to drag so many people into the mansion at once, but everything seems to indicate that they are supposed to be there. They have their own network devices and even have their own stockings on the wall and their own ornaments on the tree – by all accounts, it seems Wonderland expects that they'll be staying, and is treating them like any other new arrivals. Please, make them feel at home and help them settle in nicely.

The first few days will be for catching up with old friends and enjoying the decorations and settling into Wonderland. However, within a couple of days the decorations will start to glitch, much the way corrupted computer graphics might. Lights might change abruptly from multi-color to blue or white, entire décor styles will abruptly change, candle flames will flicker on and off like broken fluorescent lights, and any singing decorations might loop on a beat or two over and over putting you into an eternal hell. Wonderland doesn't seem to be able to stick to one motif, and it can't stop changing. These glitches are occurring on both the Real Side of Wonderland and the Mirror Side.

By the 15th, these glitches will include entire rooms changing into different holiday scenes. These scenes will all be of characters at various winter holidays in the past, the present (in their world), or a possible future. At this point in the event, characters will still be able to navigate the basic mansion and be able to exit these moments easily. These scenes cannot be interacted with – Wonderland seems to consider them another form of decorating. Unlike previous events of this type, these scenes will not loop at first. They will play once, and then Wonderland will glitch and correct itself to be the room it is supposed to be. The scene might play again, but it will be in a different location if it does.

By this point, Wonderland is having an increasingly difficult time holding itself together in a way that makes geographical sense. You might exit one room, even a room that was not previously playing a scene, and find yourself in the kitchen or on the roof instead of in the hallway. You might open a door that you were sure led to your room only to see a ten foot drop to the grounds outside.

This is the mingle log for WEEK ONE! For more information on this part of the event or any questions, please head over to the plot post, or check out our Fourth Wall Master Post for your other Fourth Wall event needs! Prose or [action brackets] are welcome. Please clearly indicate whether your character is on the Real Side or Mirror Side in your top levels. And of course, have fun! ♥

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah, well. I imagine most things are.

[Speak dryly, as though that must not have been hell. As though that must - ]

[What is he doing? He swallows, a convulsion of his throat that sticks something just at the back of it. If this is the last chance he gets, if this is goodbye for good, isn't he squandering it by just...watching it go by?]

Do you wanna talk about it?

[He poses the question casually, calmly, offhand. Allowing him the out, if he wants it.]

[Jay grimaces, eyes rolling. Do you wanna talk about it? Tim asks, like he thinks he's some kind of therapist. Like Jay's gonna talk about his feelings, and then he'll come to some grand realization, and then maybe he'll skip off into the sunset instead of stumbling backwards into hell.]

[But 'no' sticks in his throat.]

[Tim's been there. Jay's seen it.]

[He doesn't want to go back there without--without what? Validation? Solidarity?]

[God, is he seriously considering this? Does he seriously want to talk about his feelings?]

[For once he's glad the camera's not rolling.]

[He doesn't say "no" at all. He's not sure how to say the other thing. So he just shoots Tim a meaningful look, brief eye contact, and shrugs. It's an invitation. Sure. You start.]

[~~'Cause I sure as hell don't know how.~~]

Edited 2019-01-09 07:03 (UTC)

You don't have to, if you don't want to.

[He shrugs, rolling his shoulders and looking away. Reluctance. That's something he recognizes. He himself elected to die rather than choke on any words of doomed honesty.]

[But then, that was his choice. His choice, and his burden to bear. He wasn't about to risk what might happen if he let honesty flood into the world around him, and taint the people who he hadn't yet bled his sickness into.]

But we don't know how long this gonna last. If you have something to get off your chest, it might as well be someone who might not even remember it, right?

[It's like saying it into the pillow pressed against your face. Like scrubbing it out of the footage. Like typing it into a document before erasing every word.]

[Not really.]

[He's still got an audience.]

[Jay digs his fingers into the cloth and foam of the camera's grip, listening as the velcro fastening tears apart, sticks, tears apart again.]

[He doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know how to condense it. He needs visuals, needs to cut raw footage down into something comprehensible, something that communicates what's in his head without cutting away the rough edges to fit into words.]

There's nobody.

[It's almost inaudible, the tension in his throat throttling it down to a whisper.]

I've been there since...since then, and it's always just been me.

[He rips at the velcro, feeling the hooks dig in under his nails.]

Thought I saw a--a body once, but it...It was gone before I could see if...what it was. Maybe it wasn't.

I remember.

[He murmurs it quietly, trying not to dwell on the memories he's repressed. Flipping a body onto its back, and being created by the wet crater that was once a human face. The way it glistened, the way the skin was cool to the touch, as if it only just happened - ]

[He remembers, even if he tries not to.]

It's like everything there stays the way it was.

[Jay nods, a few too many times.]

You can't bleed, you can't--you can't sleep...

[He was going to say something else there. Given that time in the hospital, the one with the fistful of pills and the camera lurching dangerously to the side, Jay's not sure he has to.]

It's... [The word feels too small, but it's the one that comes to mind. It's the one that came to mind back then, when there was a lull the static long enough to string a full thought together.] ...stuck. Or--or it's not--it's never, never stuck, but you are.

Time stops mattering.

[How long was he in there? How long is measurable? He tries not to let it gather in the corners of his mind, the questions that would hurt to answer. That would hurt to think about answering. The parts of him that haven't forgotten, that haven't shed the remainders of a grief he never spoke to, have locked in silence as they try not to feel horrified.]

It just keeps you like that.

[Maybe that's what It always wanted. Some sort of...perpetual suffusion of energy that It could just reap from, whenever it wanted.]

[Alex. Brian. God, god, both of them...]

[Was that why Alex drove that rock down with such ruthless finality, until he caved the poor man's skull in? So that It wouldn't have anything to work with?]

[Without a timestamp hanging over the corner of the frame, is time passing? How can anyone check?]

Just... [Kept.] ...like that.

[He digs a finger into the skin of the opposite palm, hands still perched atop the camera in his lap. It might be out of Tim's line of sight, might not; at this point, it barely matters. He watches the skin bleach white-to-red-to-pale again. It doesn't happen like that, back there. The blood's slower, if it's moving at all.]

And it's not just the bl--not just your body. It's...like it's everything. Your head, or whatever. However you were when it...yeah.

[Terrified. Terrified and vicious. Not human--not even a walking tripod anymore, just a cornered animal. The image makes his skin crawl, but it feels right. Mostly right. Right enough. Enough that he doesn't want to say it out loud.]

[He thinks it's easier to get some distance, when he's here.]

But then it wasn't.

You left?

[His eyes flick to meet Jay's suddenly, and he doesn't blink. Doesn't look away. He seems far more capable of meeting someone else's eyes now, for whatever reason. His focus is solemn and incisive and a frown cuts across his features, dimpling his brow.]

[Tim ended up leaving, eventually, but it's hard to say if that was something that was really his choice at all - or just what It wanted from him, at the time.]

[Maybe It just wanted him out in the real world. Where everyone else was.]

You...was that when you ended up here?

No. No, yeah. I mean--

[Tim actually meets his eyes. Doesn't look away, doesn't blink, just stays there. It seems nice enough. Doesn't seem like a threat, but it's distracting.]

[Still, he holds Tim's gaze longer than he typically likes to give anybody. Stops talking, though; that would be too many things at once. He's not sure what he looks like, expression-wise, but he hopes it's not completely obvious he has no idea what he's talking about. He hopes it's not completely obvious how deeply the conversation has shaken him, or how much of a relief it is to not just be having it in his own head, looped and played back.]

[See, distance. Perspective. Easier when he's got Wonderland between him and...himself.]

I don't...remember. Not exactly. Just that at some point I was here. 'N then I wasn't. And somewhere in all of that, back there, I got...not unstuck, but...less. I could think, kind of.

Can't say it was anything I did.

It wasn't for me.

[When has anything he's ever done been his choice?]

[Even the backdoor proves to be incomplete, and barred to him. He has nothing - no guarantee that any of it is ever something that he chooses, something that he effects, something in his hands. But then, he's used to that.]

[He's had to be.]

It's like it's what It wants.

[Of course.]

[He doesn't just stumble on things by accident, save for maybe that hole in the ground. He doesn't just have good luck, and if it seems that way, there's probably someone watching, making sure everything goes according to plan.]

[He sees the carrot. Now, where's the stick?]

If it wants me to be spreading anything, it's not exactly doing a great job. Like I said, there's just...nobody.

[He stares at the table, shoulders hunched. He mumbles his next words. Maybe he's got distance, maybe Tim's saying he'll forget whatever Jay says anyway, maybe he's supposed to be getting things off his chest, but maybe he's just gonna embarrass himself.]

[Again, at least the camera's not running.]

Didn't think it was possible to get, like, lonely after all this.

[The word sticks in his throat. Lonely, like his friends went out to some bullshit college party without him. Lonely, like some asshole whining about the fact that his girlfriend broke up with him two weeks ago. He's been working alone for years. Alex was a fluke, and one he didn't remember. Tim was a fluke. Jessica was only a few days, and then she was gone.]

[But even then, there was the person at the front desk, the person behind the counter, the anonymous masses online. Even on the days he was terrified, the days he checked the corners of his hotel room for hidden lenses, watched the staff's body language for tension, for violence, for a knife hidden in a pocket or a gun tucked in the waistband, there was some reassurance in the knowledge that he wasn't entirely alone.]

[Too bad he didn't notice until it was taken away.]

[The next words are bitter, spat through a tense jaw.]

Guess you learn something new every day.

[He went directly to the Masons, upon showing up. He went looking for Clem, and Sans, and Shepard, and the Tim he remembers. He needed to see they still exist. He needed to know.]

Wait.

[If it wants me to be spreading anything...]

Wait, shit.

You went looking.

[It's not hard to figure out what his distress might be keyed from, why that realization might have been like some sort of subconscious blow. The creeping wirework of something outside of yourself, beyond your perception, beyond your control, becomes so inlaid and thorough and inescapable that you stop mapping out the boundaries of it, coming to assume that there simply aren't any.]

[Tim glances away.]

[There's not much he can do about that.]

You can't know. Not really.

[You can't know, for certain, that it's your fault, your doing. But it's easier. It's so, so much easier to assume as such. It boils it all down to one specific origin, that central fucking etiology, like the tumor that you'd need to excise.]

[He didn't need the benefit of hindsight. In the tracing of the steps he took, Tim understood with perfect clarity why Alex Kralie did any of it.]

You can never really know.

[Jay cocks his head, eyes narrowing. It's not hostile, not angry. Stubborn, maybe.]

We can't, or we don't?

[Just because they don't know now doesn't mean the information's not out there somewhere.]

[Still, he knows it's a waste of a question. Unless Tim's sitting on some vast, untapped store of information Jay hadn't considered, this isn't going to get him anything new, just more uncertainty. All their information comes from Tim's patchy memory, or Jay's camera, or totheark's replies, or Alex, filtered through Tim again. If they've learned anything else, that thing made damn sure they forgot.]

[He can't just give up, though. Shift his focus, maybe. Ease back a little on the intensity, now that Alex isn't two steps behind them. But not give up.]

Don't, I guess. But I don't know who you'd ask.

[Other than the people still stuck there, assuming any part of them is...still remotely conscious and, god, he doesn't even want to think about what that might be like.]

[He darts Jay a look, heavy with warning. It's not like he can do a damn thing about it, but - well, it's up to him. What he does with this. Whether he does anything with it, or not.

It's not the worst thing in the world. Not knowing.

[Jay catches Tim's look, just for a moment, before he silently resumes picking at the velcro strips holding the camera grip together.]

[It's not the worst thing in the world. That's the bar.]

[Rrrrip.]

Guess you're right.

[He rubs his thumb against the strip of fabric, letting the hooks dig and scrape at his skin.]

I mean. [A quiet huff of breath--not quite a laugh, but an attempt at irony. An attempt to undercut the way his shoulders tense and his temples ache just trying to piece together the scraps of coherent thought that place allowed him.]

We've both seen what's worse.

[And that's it, isn't it? They both know how it feels to have it burrow its roots into your skull, to feel them wind around each nerve. They both know how it feels to be torn apart so utterly you can't describe it after--not because it's too painful to remember, but because you can't keep the thoughts stitched in order long enough to remember how painful it was. Tim got out (in a sense), and Jay didn't (in a sense), but they still know. To the best of their ability, they still remember.]

[Softly, mumbled towards the table, Jay says something else. With his nails dug into the camera grip, he says something else.]

I missed you.

[There's no mistaking it in the small, startled blink, and the way he stands up a little straighter and looks at him. That caught him off guard. Might've been a...last ditch thing. A one chance thing. He just knows so many people who are hermetically sealed, locked down vaults about this kind of thing that even potential last words don't get that kind of bitter honesty.]

[Not usually, anyway.]

[It's a shame he can't return the sentiment without a little interest.]

[It's a shame he can't really know if it's him, or just - this nebulous idea that he's all right, that he's okay, that Jay missed, because he can no longer tell if the same can be said for who Tim himself was missing.]

[Pretty fucked up, when you think about it. So he doesn't.]

Me, or the guy you knew?

[Jay snorts, the tension wound up his spine jumping at the chance for some kind of outlet.]

[It doesn't help. Instead, it sends a spasm shooting up his neck, ratcheting up the tension across his shoulders even further. He winces.]

Depends on when.

[He picks at the edge of the table, looking for a hole, a splinter, something to give his hands something to do.]

When this place..."sends you home", it wipes...basically everything from here. You can't remember anything. Probably shouldn't remember anything right now, to be honest.

[Nothing. Flawless Wonderland engineering, as always. It probably gets replaced every few days. He starts digging a new divot into the tabletop.]

So back there, I only knew the one.

[He pauses.]

Who might not be either of you. Or...or both of you, I guess, if you're, like...

[He waves, aimlessly. He's not sure how all this works. He's not sure anyone does, even that physicist he talked to once, or that drunk, asshole scientist he tried to have a conversation with over the network. Do all the Tims come back to one central Tim? Is there an infinite number of Tims, all from incrementally different universes? Is there a chance he's going to meet another Tim, near-identical to his own, but with the only difference being that somebody stepped on a butterfly or something back during filming in 2006?]

[Does the same thing apply to him? If he gets sent home, how does he know he got sent back to the same "home" he left? He's been in Wonderland before, but was that the same Jay?]

[God, he needs to stop. Shut it down. Think about it later, or never, whichever makes the most sense.]

I'm not him, Jay.

[It's as gentle as he can make it - which isn't much, admittedly.]

I don't think I ever could be. We've already... [Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. You don't get to travel both, though you're maybe allowed the chance to glimpse a little ways ahead.]

[He doesn't dwell much on the woods. Far-reaching, thick with black branches. Yellow and laden with trails. Dark and deep. He's already taken a direction that swerves too far in one direction to course correct. You can't be both.]

I'm not me if I don't remember where I've been.

[He's not Tim, not the right Tim, not the only Tim who's felt like he has something to fight for and someone that he wants to be better for, people that he would fight and die for but, more importantly, wants to live for, if he doesn't have everything that made him who he is.]

[Every memory. Every face.]

[He won't be anything else.]

[He's not the one Jay missed, but he used to be. He's not the one Jay misses, but he could have been, if things had gone differently. He won't be now, though. Too much time, too many memories, too many little differences.]

[That's probably why Jay was able to say anything at all, if he's honest.]

Guess I'm not really...

[Is Tim thinking the same thing? Are his eyes catching on all the differences, the places where things are just slightly off? Jay wouldn't notice, doesn't notice unless he winds back the footage far enough, but maybe somebody else would.]

[Or maybe they wouldn't. Nobody's supposed to notice the cameraman.]

...the same guy you remember, either.

[I'm not me if I don't remember where I've been. Who are they, now, with so many pieces missing? Who will Jay be, once Wonderland reaches into his skull and scrapes the new memories out? Jay Merrick, factory reset, tossed back "home".]

[His voice catches, bitterness layered over fear.]

Maybe I will be, though. If this place gets what it wants.

[He remembers how it was when he first arrived, terrified and vicious, tearing Tim open to make him talk, because he has to know.]

[That's not him. That's not supposed to be him. Excise it, throw it away. That man died, bled out in Benedict Hall. He's gone now.]

[That man brandished a knife at Tim and Clementine. He pushed Tim for answers when he was incapable of keeping secrets, magically compelled to answer; he pushed Sans for explanations when his memories were too far gone to remember why he hadn't shared them before. He lunged for a box of matches as echoing metal voices screamed in his skull. That man admitted to his own sickness to a burnt corpse dissolving in a bathhouse. That man sobbed into the front of Tim's shirt, one arm hooked around Clem's neck. That man took a job as an intern for a local paper, brought sodas from the kitchen and reorganized files and took B-roll. That man had a cat named Archie.]

[~~That man doesn't want to forget.~~]

That guy was different. They're all different.

[He lets his shoulders lift in an incremental shrug. The lump of a locket is a weight around his neck, the chain of a promise twined into the strands of his beacon-red soul. Maybe it's more like an anchor, tying him back to where he wants to be. Where he wishes he could be, or maybe just thinks he needs to be.]

[Maybe they don't need him, really, anymore. They never really did.]

[Maybe that was a lie, too, in its own way.]

[Two fingers go to the lump just beneath his shirt, where the locket in question dwells.]

That's not a bad thing.

[There's something under Tim's shirt. It's substantial, whatever it is. Too small to be a chest-cam, at least by 2013 standards. Could be a necklace with some kind of large pendant, or a medal. Could be something else, maybe something implanted in his chest, maybe some horrible growth. There's so much Jay doesn't know yet, about Tim and his island and his castle and his friends, and he's already wasted his question.]

[He cocks his head, squinting at the lump under Tim's hand.]

[It's not polite to stare.]

[He forces his gaze back to the table.]

[What was he saying? They're all different, and that's not a bad thing. This Tim has known another Jay, and he could tell the other guy was different. Jay--this Jay, the one he is right now, sitting across from Tim and carving curved nail-marks into the tabletop--has changed, become a different version of himself, a not-Jay, or at least a not-the-same-Jay. Merrick-adJaycent. Fuck, focus.]

[What is that lump?]

[Don't focus on that.]

Bad or not, does that make us...?

[No, also a bad idea. He wants to cut it off there, but he's not sure how else to end the sentence. Does that make them someone else? Is there one right version of them? Is that one of the other ones?]

Like, how much...how much d'you think we can--?

[Goddammit, it's not his turn for a question. Stop. Reword it. Rethink it. No questions in the title cards.]

When we forget stuff, we change. When stuff happens, we--we change. Like, I guess that's natural, or whatever. I'm just not sure how much can really happen before we, I dunno...

Like, that's what happened with Alex. And Brian. They changed.

[Does this Tim know he knows about Brian? Does this Tim know about Brian himself?]

[He knows about Brian more than he maybe should, and yet - not enough. Not enough to really know the details of what happened to him. They met in the chaos of conflict and he learned, piecemeal, that Brian had lost every scrap of himself over time or maybe in one fell swoop, and left this shell of someone who was, even worse, still aware of his own empty nature.]

[Leaving someone who did not or could not speak, who had grown to used to living feral and alone and forgotten, who had never once considered that if he'd just asked for help that he would have gotten it. That there was so little, so goddamned little, that Tim would not have done to help his best friend.]

[But at that point, perhaps understandably, going to Tim for anything other than a stolen fistful of medication was off the table.]

[Until LifeAftr.]

I don't think it's the same kinda change here.

[He lifts his shoulders in an incremental shrug.]

You know I've never seen It since ending up somewhere else. Not once.

[Jay freezes, eyes wide.]

[His eyebrows furrow, confused for a moment and then thoughtful, but his focus doesn't shift.]

[He's just moving, not quite thinking. When he tries, it's just static.]

[He blinks.]

I have.

[He wasn't holding his breath there. His mistake; now he has to suck one in to compensate, closing his eyes. Figures. It was too good to be true.]

The real thing? Or something that just - looked like It?

[Because that, that he's pretty sure he's hallucinated, imagined, dreamed in some way or another. He's felt Its presence in the abstract sense, in the distant sense. In the sense that It can't be so easily ignored, but at least safely categorized as something that does not affect him more than usual.]

[More than It affects everything that he is, more or less.]

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