Piper 90: Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
goneawaymod) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
goneawayworld2021-04-10 09:37 pm
goneawaymod) wrote in goneawayworld2021-04-10 09:37 pm
3..2...1...CONTACT!
Who: The New Hires
What: Sudden Memory Share
Where: Their Memory Palaces
When: After "Don't Touch That Dial"
Warnings/Notes: Possible in every memory, warn in subject lines.
Contact.
It's during a pause in their day. A nap. An idle moment looking across the Top Deck. Taking a slow breath between reps in the training room.
The New Hires are connected. Mental pathways locking together, they're forced into one another's innermost beings. Thrust into one another's memory palaces where the mind collects and stores everything that makes them who they are. The core of their beings are only a few steps away and no one can help the violation.
To make matters worse, it comes with no explanation or no ability to pull out and stop. Once they're through the first memory, perhaps they can find a way out, but they're already witnessing some event from their host's past. And, if they left, who knows whether or not they'd end up accidentally invading another memory palace?
And if they were there, who was in theirs?
[[So, how this works: the memories can either be viewed in spectator mode or the guest can be experiencing everything themselves. The person whose memories are being shown, the host, can watch as their current self or take the form they had of their past self. They can talk about the memory with the "guest" that's visiting.
They cannot control the first memory shown, the player decides that, but they can control any other memories they'd like to show people after. Of course, there's also always the option of an extreme emotional reaction bringing up other memories unbidden.]]
What: Sudden Memory Share
Where: Their Memory Palaces
When: After "Don't Touch That Dial"
Warnings/Notes: Possible in every memory, warn in subject lines.
Contact.
It's during a pause in their day. A nap. An idle moment looking across the Top Deck. Taking a slow breath between reps in the training room.
The New Hires are connected. Mental pathways locking together, they're forced into one another's innermost beings. Thrust into one another's memory palaces where the mind collects and stores everything that makes them who they are. The core of their beings are only a few steps away and no one can help the violation.
To make matters worse, it comes with no explanation or no ability to pull out and stop. Once they're through the first memory, perhaps they can find a way out, but they're already witnessing some event from their host's past. And, if they left, who knows whether or not they'd end up accidentally invading another memory palace?
And if they were there, who was in theirs?
[[So, how this works: the memories can either be viewed in spectator mode or the guest can be experiencing everything themselves. The person whose memories are being shown, the host, can watch as their current self or take the form they had of their past self. They can talk about the memory with the "guest" that's visiting.
They cannot control the first memory shown, the player decides that, but they can control any other memories they'd like to show people after. Of course, there's also always the option of an extreme emotional reaction bringing up other memories unbidden.]]
cw: child neglect
The child looks like he's maybe 12 or 13 years-old.
The social worker, a magenta-skinned alien, with his clipboard, looks like he wishes he was anywhere else but there. They're currently in a small, spartan apartment. Very clean, very unfurnished, considering a child lives there. There's not a single toy in sight.
"I have to go through the whole checklist, and assess that you're still capable of living independently. You may be only a few years short of legal adulthood but that's still young to be emancipated. Normally, it wouldn't be allowed, but your circumstances are...unique."
"Which means that you being here is a pointless waste of my time. Let's explore a hypothetical - even if you did deem my situation to be untenable, who would actually agree to be my legal guardian?" asks the child.
The social worker works his jaw, "I'm sure someone would -"
"Would you?" asks the child. "Volunteer?"
The social worker is speechless for a moment, "Well, I'm already a parent and my job takes up a lot of my time. If that wasn't the case, I'd volunteer for fostering, certainly -"
"I didn't ask about fostering in general. I asked if you'd act as legal guardian for me," the child says, directing a piercing green stare at the social worker. "Knowing who and what I am."
"Like I said, I'm sure someone would," says the social worker, directing his attention back at his clipboard.
The child just rolls his eyes and then yanks the clipboard out of the man's hand.
"Here," he says, checking off a checklist and writing in a few answers. "That should keep your supervisor off your back. Now if there's nothing else, please vacate the premises. I was about to prepare a meal."
The social worker looks frustrated now as he packs up his paperwork into his bag. He looks like he's going to say something but simply leaves.
The child prepares a prepackaged meal, having to stand on a step-stool to reach some kind of heating unit a little too high up on a wall. Then eats alone, in silence, reading something on a little tablet.
no subject
He knew about a few different versions of Brainiac 5 from the comics, so he had some knowledge of his childhood going in, but nothing that really went into the nitty-gritty of it. It was one thing seeing someone's past play out in vague, illustrated, flashbacks in the pages of a comic. It was something else to see the real thing play out in front of you.
And those had sure never gone into anything like this. It was an almost mundane kind of depressing. No death, or violence, no outright cruelty, outside of the negligent cruelty of a system or culture all too ready to neatly sweep a problem child under the rug. But all the same, it felt deeply personal.
The fact that the social worker couldn't even pretend like he would take the kid in if given the chance, just to give him some solid hope that his promises of finding a home weren't empty...it was heartbreaking. It didn't matter that the guy was trying to be 'polite' or 'kind' about it, being oh so careful with his phrasing. If anything, it was worse than an outright "no". At least that wouldn't have been beating around the bush.
When the guy left, not even bothering to challenge the kid's assumptions that if he could make it so he wouldn't get in trouble, he'd leave, the room felt bitterly empty.
"So...social workers are useless in every universe. Good to know." Almost unconsciously he followed the kid as he went to work on making his own meal, leaning against the counter next to him, sure by now that the kid wouldn't be able to see him one way or the other.
no subject
He says it very matter-of-factly, like being judged by an entire galactic society is just par for the course.
no subject
“He could have at least tried.” Despite the bitter edge in his tone, his voice is soft, with a hint of resignation. Would putting a kid through the wringer of failing to find a foster family again and again, or landing him with a bad one really be an improvement? It was just sort of a shit situation with no real easy solution. But that fact didn't make the whole thing any easier to swallow. Brainy seemed almost at peace with how things went down though, or at least unbothered. If he had any tells to indicate otherwise, Merton didn’t know him well enough to suss them out.
“Though, I guess there are worse fates than being alone.” But man he was so young. No one should have to be alone that young.
He doesn’t ask what would make a kid so infamous as to make the prospect of adoption unthinkable, not only on an entire planet, but within an entire collection of planets. He already knew, or had a decent enough idea, so it doesn’t even occur to him that it would be the next obvious question.
no subject
He at least sounds well adjusted now, like he's made peace with most of it.
Though he still struggles to articulate what it really was at times. Abuse. Slavery. But he's trying to put the words to it, to treat his own experiences and emotions about it as valid. And so it's better than it was.
"I was considered state property until Colugov felt I was more trouble than I was worth, and let me go. Having a solitary existence after that, doing work I enjoyed, living free of council members and handlers and schedules I had no say over...it was much better. And my first employer was fortunately a very kind man, who watched over me for the rest of my life, and tried to provide me with opportunities that made me happy, even after I stopped working for him. He's still a very good friend now - more like family at this point."
no subject
Thank god. The peanut gallery is here. It's Tucker, looking at the doorway like the social worker who walked through it was made of very pungent garbage. What a douchebag.
That's a whole entire kid getting crap treatment. He's like four. (Okay, so maybe that's more in line with Junior's scale of maturing. Aliens, man. Who even knows.)
"'Oh, I'd certainly volunteer, blah blah blah.' Just fuckin' own up to how much you suck, loser."
no subject
He looks back at the door the social worker left through.
"I pity him almost. It was an untenable situation. It's doubtful anyone in the entire UP would've taken me in, my employer RJ Brande notwithstanding. He actually did offer to be my legal guardian once, but I turned him down because it would've appeared to be favoritism if he gave my labs preferential treatment for funding within the company."
He shakes his head.
"He was the only one, I think. I think any other potential foster parents would've balked if told I was to be their charge."
no subject
"Well, what for? You were a kid!"
Which is more or less to say, he finds this calm and logical explanation neither mollifying nor reassuring. His job is aggressively giving a shit about everything around him, failing to disguise it at all, and later acting like he's been successfully disguising it anyway. Right now, he's at steps one and two.
"If someone's gotta be responsible for a kid, you take care of the fucking kid! It's not rocket science! That's- I dunno, super tenable to me. How's your boss the only person around with any chill?"
He'll never say he did the best job actually parenting with Junior. But he did a job and Junior's awesome, so that counts for something.
no subject
People not knowing the context of who Brainiac was has actually never happened to him, whether in his time period or in the past during the height of his tyranny.
In his brief time in the Second Galaxy, perhaps. That was it.
"When I say the words 'genocidal dictator' who is the first Earth historical figure you think of?"
no subject
"Jeff Bezos. Why?"
no subject
At the 20th century end, a much younger Robbie, skinny and mulleted, is sitting with a styrofoam sandwich box, carton of fries, and a soda with a unpacked McDonald’s bag across from him. He keeps looking over at the clock. From the condensation pooling around the cup, it’s been there for some time. Eventually, he sighs and starts into his food.
Off to the side, Robbie himself is standing with his arms crossed, with a look of intense concentration on his face. He tried to force a different memory to be shared because he hates intruding on other people’s trauma. This was the first thing he thought of, but it didn’t seem to work as he wanted. Making the best of it, he jokes, “You look like you needed company.”