[open]

[uncoils]

Who: Jolyne and you, hopefully!
Where: The Diner
When: The 11th
Rating: Don't see it going any higher than PG-13
Summary: Jolyne wants to try something her family doesn't usually do. Talk about what's on her mind.
The Story:

It's been a few days since...whatever that was. Really, Jolyne's not sure what to call that one either. It was like being in a superhero movie, except that's not exactly it either. She didn't have an issue with being some sort of superpowered mutant, that's not really anything new. She didn't have an issue with not having powers either, that's also nothing new. But having her memories screwed with again? She doesn't really like that at all.

So today she's decided to sort of sit in the diner and ask people about it. Is it just her that minds? Is it something you get used to in Wonderland? At this point, she can't really see it happening, but she's still fairly new to the whole thing. So rather than just sit in her room and mull it over, or find something to vent her frustrations at, she'll try actually asking people. And the diner seemed like a good place for that. So if you're in there, expect her to come up with a question along the lines of...

“Hey, so how do you feel about that whole...Genosha thing?”

She's not really sure what to call it, but she figures that works well enough. And it's a poor way of trying to express all the problems she has with it, but hey, she's new to this sort of thing. Now, if she actually knows you, she has something else to talk about, if they want to. If not, she'll just play catch up, but somebody told her that it might be a good idea to talk about potential events from her world, so if she's spoken to you at least once, odds are she'll start off by asking something like,

“Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Comments

[slapfight]

This potentially dramatic conversation is slightly upended before it can even begin by the fact that the girl eating pie in the diner is (A. Green and (B. Currently sitting on a stack of books, so she can reach said table.

How do I feel about which part?" She waves her fork around in agitated circles. "The having our memories altered for fun part? Or the having our entire make-up altered to make us fit in Wonderland's latest fantasy?"

She stabs her pie with her fork, making agitated cat noises. It's about as intimidating as a kitten. "Because I feel like the Wonderclods responsible for Wonderland have messed with the wrong gem."

[uncoils]

Oddly enough? Not that much of a problem for Jolyne. Then again this is what happens when someone's friends with a sentient plankton colony back home and also gets attacked by weird copyright infringing monsters every time she turns around (and even if that wasn't the case some people in Jojo are just designed...oddly.). So it doesn't really throw her off as much as it could. She's still weird, but it's a weird Jolyne can handle as opposed to Wonderland's weirdness.

“Both.”

She'll take a seat while watching Peridot mangle the pie. That's uh...something. Sorry if she stares for a moment before finishing her statement.

“I'm just glad I'm not the only one who has a problem with it. I've only been here for two things like this, but temporary or not, I'm tired of it. It's weird too how everybody just seems to go with it.”

Not that she can really say she doesn't fall into the same trap back home, but it's more that she has to roll with things as they happen or the villain wins, but here, that's not really the case.

"You can't really do anything about it though, right? Like under other circumstances you could find the guy doing it and kick his ass, but here, you can't."

[slapfight]

"Affirmative." She actually eats some of the mangled pie, wherein it becomes somewhat clear that her angry mangling may have just been because she's still grasping how to hold a fork. Or eat, for that matter. The process is still disturbing to her, but it's an outlet for her stress. At least Amethyst makes it seem like it is. Also it tastes good.

"Of course, every problem has a solution- I've no doubt there are ways to track down the ones in control and put an end to this, but the how eludes me."

[uncoils]

“Beats me.”

Part of her feels like she should offer some tips on using a fork, but at the same time, she's not sure if that's considered rude or not. FF would usually ask about things like that, but Jolyne's smart enough to know that you can't just assume people in Wonderland are like people back home. Or even that people back home or like people back home. Man, why is everything so complicated?

“I can't think of anything that somebody wouldn't have done a while ago. Like, if someone had some sort of tracking powers, or built something to detect Wonderland's, I don't know what to call it, the weird shit Wonderland pulls. But there's no way I'm the first person to think of that, and there's no way it hasn't been tried before.”

It's frustrating is what it is. She bets there's probably some sort of ridiculous Stand back home that would probably be an anti-Wonderland power, but hey, she doesn't have it. It's not here, so what good does that even do? Plus, it'd probably belong to some jackass or something because that's just how these things work.

[slapfight]

"That's because everything we would need is on the Mirror side." Matter-of-fact and to the point, because she firmly believes she Knows Things about all of this. "The trouble is that it's exceedingly difficult to get to the Mirror Side, so that's a problem in itself, and then once you're there, you have to contend with the Mirrors and the Queen to find what you're looking for- and, of course, we don't actually know what we're looking for, so we'd have to capture the Queen or one of her more loyal Mirrors to find out."

She sighs drearily and pushes her plate away. "There's just too many variables."

[tattooedredheads]

Kay would rather not discuss how he feels about the last event, but he is willing to share a few thoughts on the matter if it makes Jolyne forget the question.

"I'd like to know why some of us started remembering the truth. It looks like the event only lasted a few days, but the last time something like this happened we didn't remember until after it was completely over. It could be that the original Genosha was a lie and Wonderland was attempting to replicate that. Or," he raises a finger with a smile, "it could mean that Wonderland was unable to keep up the illusion this time. That our memories are always present during these kinds of events, but are blocked off."

He hasn't figured out how to check that theory yet. Brain scans would be the obvious answer but he wouldn't have thought to do that during the last event and he doubts anyone else would have either.

[uncoils]

“Hey, that's a good point!”

You've got her attention now Kay. Here she was just thinking Wonderland was pulling the crap it apparently always pulls, but that's a really good point. So she'll just focus on that instead of mulling over her regular event feelings. They're still there, of course, but this is definitely a line of discussion worth exploring.

“But has anything like that happened before? I've heard Wonderland usually goes all in on these things.”

She's confused about that one. It doesn't match what she heard, but she supposes anything's possible. She's yet to meet anything in her world that's completely foolproof, so it does make sense even Wonderland wouldn't be. Right?

[tattooedredheads]

"Not that I've heard, but that isn't the only oddity," Kay says. "Everyone agrees that events happen every two weeks. The past three events happened just like everyone expected. But the fourth event back was different. Instead of using someone's memories, the mirrors simply flipped at the time an event was scheduled. It's strange that it happened at the same time a normal event didn't."

[uncoils]

“Huh, really?”

Now that's something she hadn't noticed. Then again she hadn't really invested in a calendar. Didn't make much sense in a place where it can suddenly be a knockoff Halloween at any given moment. She's got a rough idea of how long she's been here, and that was all she figured she needed. But hearing this, now maybe she's not so sure.

“So every two weeks like clockwork?”

[digiorno]

He was warned that very first day: you can lose your memories. He asked for the best and the worst things, and that's what Elena gave him as the worst: you can lose your memories, and that's the closest he got to entirely losing his cool that day.

He knew it would come. He just thought, probably foolishly, that there would be some warning, some opportunity to use Gold Experience to reject this particular brand of theft. Absurd, obviously. Elena would have told him if that was even remotely possible. These memories were returned, but maybe the next ones won't be.

So he's in a terrible mood. Not that it shows; he's as smiley and serene as usual, but underneath it all he's simmering. He's only vaguely surprised to see Jolyne in the diner when he (more or less spontaneously) enters — something something Stand users something gravity — but it is a little startling to hear that question from her, of all people. Startling enough that he answers instantly and honestly.

"It was a violation."

[uncoils]

Ugh, let's not talk about gravity. Jolyne's had enough of gravity to last her an entire lifetime at this point. If she ever met Isaac Newton, she'd probably be tempted to kick his ass as thanks for the whole law of gravity thing.

“I don't know if I'd word it like that, but I think I agree with that one.”

Honestly, it's weird to find herself agreeing with Giorno, and the confusion shows on her face for a moment. Nothing against him, but he's Dio's kid, she's Jotaro's kid, she's not sure if they're allowed to agree. Or if they do if it's the kind of thing that heralds the end of the days or something.

“Nothing bad happened to me during it or anything like that, but it's just...”

It's hard to put into words for her. Nothing really bad happened to her or anything, but having the memories of being a different her, still Jolyne, but also not Jolyne is a weird thing to just sort of live with. The other event was weird, but it was the equivalent of someone changing names around, this one, this was a bit much, and it's still not sitting right with her.

“It's like, if I was back home, this would've been done by a Stand user, and I could've gone and kicked his ass. Or you would've. Or someone would've. But here we're just supposed to suck it up and deal with it, and I don't like that.”

[digiorno]

"Here, it's just Wonderland."

Jolyne says she doesn't like it; Giorno personally doesn't accept it. He has fought since he was very small to push back against the inevitable, against blood and fate and destiny. The idea that he's here now with no way of fighting what's going to happen to him--what's happened already, what will keep happening to him--no, he refuses to accept that. There has to be a way to stop it. Just because no one's found it yet . . .

Well, no one had discovered Diavolo's identity before he came along, either. Not everyone is Giorno Giovanna.

"It doesn't have to be bad to be a violation," he adds, his voice quiet and contemplative. "The fact is that who we are at our cores was taken away. Our memories, our identities. Someone warned me about this when I first arrived. I just wasn't expecting it to happen so quickly. I certainly wasn't expecting not to have anyone to hit over it."

[uncoils]

“Seriously. I'm not used to this. There's always someone to hit. Or at least ever since I've gotten a Stand, that's how it's been.”

Even if she never finds the user, they're somewhere out there and someone can punch them. That's how it works. Here, like she said during one of her other conversations, you can't. What's someone going to do, go find the person the memories came from and punch their face in? That's a terrible solution.

“I think I'm starting to really get what a bullshit explanation “that's just how Wonderland is” is. Not that I didn't get it before, but when I told you that, I'd been through way less of this crap than I have now.”

Way back when the only problem she had to deal with was some stupid man in the mirror. Not having her memories turned upside down in a whole new way. Being forced to remember only three things at a time? That sucked. This is somehow less dangerous (so far anyway), but still manages to suck more.

[zigazigah]

"Uh, sure. What's up?"

To be frank, Trish is content to push the whole ordeal out of her mind. She knew it was only a matter of time before something like that happened. She'd been warned by plenty of people about these so-called events where pieces and scraps of other worlds would bleed through into Wonderland. It'd change the environment and it would change the people. But knowing something and experiencing it are two different things. And right now, Trish doesn't particularly want to try and parse through what that experience was like. She's much more content to let.

But Jolyne looks like there's something on her mind, and she had been good at helping Trish adjust to being here in general. Plus, Trish liked her in general. So, if she's got to bring all of that stuff to the forefront, she'll do it. Maybe a little reluctantly, but she'll do it.

[uncoils]

“...uh.”

You know, she'd probably given some thought to what she was going to say, but actually saying it is another matter entirely. She doesn't want to dump a bunch of baggage on people, that's not good. Especially not her friends. But the more she sees of Wonderland's crap, the more she thinks about it taking ideas from her world, and that's just such a bad idea.

“How've you been doing? With Wonderland's everything, I guess.”

She really hopes that didn't come out as awkwardly as she feels like it did, but it's hard to find a proper way to segue into telling a friend that her part of the world is awful and anything that comes from it is going to be awful, so set up anti Yo-Yo Ma traps, get a poison frog umbrella, or write stuff down just in case. Or however one would brace for Stand related bullshit in the off chance it happens. So instead, she'll try and make conversation while figuring out how to explain things. ...no wonder her dad doesn't do this very often. It can be a real pain.

[zigazigah]

It doesn't seem all that awkward. Or well, it's not as awkward as it could be, in any case. There's really only one person she thinks could have ever probably explained all the weird things that kept happening — things Trish now understands to be related to Stands — and he refused to answer her questions when she asked him directly. And once all bets were off, she only got things in piecemeal. It wasn't really until later when there was space and time to breathe that Trish finally got all the answers she was looking for. So, Jolyne's doing just fine, all thing's considered. Trish thinks about the question for a moment before she nods.

"I think I'm doing alright," she says. "I mean, it kinda sucked, but I'm not about to start falling apart over it, you know?"

[uncoils]

“Me either. It's just...”

What's the word she's looking for? There's a few of them, sure, but some of them are probably better than others. It's not a matter of watching her language or anything like that, it's just the problem of finding the best way to phrase it.

“It's frustrating. Back home, things happen, you find the guy causing them, and you knock his lights out. It's simple. Here, there's no guy, and if you want the person responsible, they're from our memories right. So you'd have to go kick the ass of whoever's memories did it, and it's not their fault, so it doesn't get you anywhere.”

Actually, that's a good way to segue into one of her concerns, so she'll spin it into something way more natural sounding than just sort of throwing warnings about Stone Ocean at people.

“Like say, if people started to turn into snails, I wouldn't want people trying to kick my ass because Wonderland decided to yank stuff out of my head. And don't even get me started on this memory thing. I just got used to being who I am and what that means, I really can't stand this place deciding it wants to fuck with that on a whim.”

Sorry, she didn't mean to talk Trish's ears off there, it's just she has a lot of feelings about this whole event bullshit and they just all sort of came out at once.

[blackbirdsing]

Sarah's mostly been keeping to herself since everything happened. She's gotten past drinking at 10 am and now, around people, at her little massage place, she's fine. How was the event for you, Sarah? It was fine. She spent a night talking to her brother, and now she's all better.

Except, she really can't get the way Jane looked when Sarah found her body out of her head; maybe when you're an FBI agent or someone who fights bad guys on the regular you do get used to it. But she's not, and so privately, she's a mess. But at least she's not at the bar and she's eating her feelings in the diner, right?

When someone asks her to talk, she pulls herself away from her own thoughts, just nursing coffee now and nods, gesturing to the seat in the booth across from her. "Yeah, sure. What's up?"

[uncoils]

“I don't think we've met before. Jolyne Kujo”

She must've have mistaken Sarah for somebody else to have asked that question, but that's okay. It's not a big deal given how many people are in Wonderland. Besides, any chance to meet new people's fine with her. But actually, before she talks about anything she cares about further...

“Actually, are you okay? You look like you had something on your mind.”

Not that it's any of her business, but she may as well ask. It's only common courtesy and Jolyne sure wishes she had somebody ask her that repeatedly throughout her life.

[blackbirdsing]

"Sarah Weller," she introduces herself, but at the question, Sarah realizes she does probably look like a disaster, and she rubs a hand across her face.

"Lingering event thoughts. That was my first really big one and it didn't go very well. I thought the 'trick-or-treat for a monster' thing was bad, but this was definitely another level."

[uncoils]

“Seriously.”

Jolyne'll just take a seat at the table. Sorry, she'd ask, but it doesn't look taken. That and she's very much used to sitting where she wants anyway.

“When I got here, we got mirrors, then that stupid trickster thing. And now the last two. It's weird, they're not any worse than the trickster. Like there wasn't a penalty of death if you don't do anything, but screwing with someone's identity is still pretty messed up. Like, you're you, right? You're not dude you or mutant you or whatever, but then all of a sudden you have the memories of that crap, and it's just a mess.”

She'd go on, but she's trying to stay coherent and not start swearing at everything. She's done plenty of that in her room, she doesn't want to make a scene in the diner.

[cuteshit]

Kanji happens to be working behind the counter when it's his turn to be approached, though he's caught snippets of conversation here and there as Jolyne has talked to others-- not intending to eavesdrop, but the diner is only so big. He pauses in wiping the counter down when she approaches, offering a crooked smile before slinging the towel he'd been using over his shoulder.

"Sure, I got time to talk. Seems like you're makin' the rounds today," he comments, nodding towards the diner at large. "You playin' detective or somethin'?"

[uncoils]

“No, definitely not.”

The thought of her playing detective makes her snicker just a little. It's not like she's some sort of super criminal or anything, but she's usually on the wrong side of the bars to play things like that.

“I'm just sort of seeing if I'm the only one bothered by having their memories fucked with every time Wonderland decides to pull bullshit. And, sort of play warning committee, I guess.”

She sighs, it's kind of a pain in the ass to do this. She doesn't want to, but it's better than being caught off guard.

“I wasn't going to, but I met that senpai friend of yours and he talked to me about talking to people about possible things it could pull from my world. I don't know how much it'll help, especially if Wonderland decides to fuck with our heads, but I figured some of my friends deserve the heads up. You know, in case things like what we talked about happen. Or any of the other crap I've been through.”

[cuteshit]

"Definitely not the only one bothered," Kanji tells her without hesitation, his eyebrows pulling downward as he frowns. "The hell do they think they are, screwin' with our heads like that, anyway?"

But warning committee-- that definitely gets his attention, and makes him think that if Souji hasn't already covered all the bases telling people about what might come from their world, he might do well to do the same. It's unlikely that Souji missed anything, but it was always possible that there was some memory unique to Kanji that might make an appearance.

"Not a bad idea," he goes on to say grimly, leaning his weight against the counter. "Considering what you've already told me about where you come from? If Wonderland wants you to relive any of it, things could get rough."

[uncoils]

“Yeah. See, before I talked to that Souji guy, my main worry was about people coming here. My friends are okay, like if they showed up, it'd be no big deal. Some of them are a little...let's go with weird, but they're not bad people.”

Just ignore all the criminal convictions between them, okay? There's reasons for most of it. Well, not for Anasui, he just sort of did that all on his own, but everyone else really isn't as bad as their rap sheets might make them seem.

“But the other guys, like the zombie guy, or this priest, which makes me sound like a horrible person, but trust me, he's not the kind of priest you'd think of, they're bad news. But it's not even them I have to worry about, Wonderland could totally pull something out of my head that brings their bullshit here without them even being here.”

That all just sort of came out like one giant rambling run on sentence. She didn't mean for it to be, but it's just that once she starts actually talking about her problems, stopping is hard.

“So yeah, I just wanted to try and let them know that it could bring some really awful shit here.”

She's just sort of staring a hole in the counter because she knows she's not the only one from a world like that, but her issues seem somehow...worse. Being dumped into the world of Stands and bizarre adventures sucked so much for her, so that if she can help someone else, if she can keep someone from being thrown into it blind if it does happen, then she feels like she did her job properly.