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.]]
Re: I
"I'm not mad," she says. "I'm actually kind of impressed. All the weird crap my brain has thrown up on this night over the last few years and I never got something like that."
She shrugs in answer to the question, glancing away.
"This was the first night I shifted and found out about werewolves," she says. "You've seen me all huge and hairy, imagine that but panicked and furious. It was...messy."
The wolf has approached the doll at this point, nuzzling up to it as it sobs.
Re: I
The closest thing to a wolf person Jennifer has experienced was, well, Stray Dog. He still looked completely human, only making it creepier, but in Jennifer's world the monsters are way too human, to the point that she needs some fairytale creatures and characters to process them.
She wonders if being scared of 'human monsters' is part of her bias. Perhaps if werewolves existed in her universe the horrors she lived and witnessed in the orphanage would slide down the scale and become petty drama. For this reason she's not sure she can respond adequately to Stacia's situation. She doesn't fully comprehend it.
"Did you later find other people you could relate to or at least talk about it?"
Jennifer asks gently. As awkward and feeble as she might be, she has the empathy to ask the right questions.
Re: I
Instead, she just gestures around at the wolf and at the three men, hovering awkwardly at their safe distance.
"Everyone else here is a werewolf, too," she says. "The wolf is Athena -- not the goddess, just named for her. The men are Ace, Bulletproof, and Shield. Nicknames, obviously."
She doesn't know Bulletproof and Shield's "real" names, or if Shield even has one. And Ace's is just too long to bother with. But their names would sound weird to someone accustomed to regular human names, and Stacia would rather not go into the details of deed names.
The man she'd indicated to Jennifer as Ace pulls off his coat, wads it up, and lobs it at the human-sized doll and the wolf. The wolf pulls it over to the doll so that it can cover up the worst of the blood and nudity.
Re: I
The blood that comes into contact with the coat and stains it converts in some kind of red stitching, creating patterns all over its surface, funnily enough being visible when in the real vision it was mostly covered.
"...So these are your friends? Where are they taking you?"
Re: I
Even in the best case scenario, where you know it's a possibility and you don't harm anyone, you're still so scared or angry or both that the only thing you can do to handle it is turn into an unthinking monster. And it seems like most people it happens to forget how bad it is, that first time. Stacia had started inviting herself along on new Garou retrieval trips just to make sure that someone was there who'd say "yeah, this sucks, I'm sorry".
The wolf -- Athena -- nudges the doll into a sitting position, as Bulletproof and Shield sidle out of the clearing. Ace continues to hover at distance, as though he has no intention of leaving.
Re: I
She knows that expressing sympathies doesn't change anything, but from the way Stacia describes the experience she must have felt lonely at the time. It's good to show one's nurturing nature in response, Jennifer thinks.
"You are still so young now, these things hit even harder when you are young and alone..."
Jennifer won't specify but you can trust her to know that feeling.
Re: I
"The sympathy is appreciated," Stacia says. She's sure the response is Jennifer's impulse, she doubts the other girl can turn disturbing things into dolls and read minds. It's a response that says good things about her.
"I'm not sure where this memory can be said to 'end', but when it does, we might be tossed into one of yours," she says by way of warning. "Or we might bop off into other people's memories, or maybe into another one of mine. I don't have enough experience to say for sure, but that's what happened last time we had something like this happen."
Re: I
Jennifer herself is used to have her memories bleed into the present and viceversa, her perception of things remained...Scarred, after the incident at the orphanage.
It comes to her that, despite her memories ranging from straight up traumatic to bittersweet at best, she is used to dealing with them and if she can use them to paint the memoryscape in favour of sparing Stacia from dealing with hers then that's good.
"I'll show you the best of mine, then. Hopefully they'll be a good enough distraction."
She deliberately focuses on a 'happy' memory as the memoryscape warps.
The Jennifer in the memory is about nine years old, her hair is cut very short and she's wearing boy's clothes. She's locked in a cold basement, unkempt and smelly from the humidity. Sitting on a bed, she can only spend time rereading the letters that that girl slipped through that window near the ceiling.
'9 January From W to J
...Oh my poor, kind Prince.
You're worried because that man sometimes seems crazy, right? Well, don't worry.
I know where he hides that awful thing of his. So, let's run away, together.
You can leave it all to me. Everything will be all right.'
'20 January From W to J
My Prince,
Please don't worry. I'll do anything for you. Just... pledge your love for me.
That's all I ask.'
A noise distracts her from reading the last letter - not that she doesn't know it by heart by now, it has their important promise written on it. It's her, it's Wendy.
"I came, just like I promised. It looks like he went somewhere. Stay right there. I'll help you out."
While waiting for her to come, Jennifer toys with the handle of a closet and a little teddybear that was sitting on top of it falls off. Romantic as she is, she takes it as a cue to bring it with her. Once Wendy unlocks the door and retrieves Gregory's gun - his 'dangerous thing' as she calls it - she exhorts Jennifer to follow her into the rose garden.
Wendy smiles happily. She tells Jennifer that she want to make a trade, the brooch for the bear. They decide to name the bear Joshua, as that man always calls Jennifer. As for the brooch, well...Jennifer still has it after all this time.
"So, let's renew our pact."
They take each other's hands.
"Everlasting
true love
I am yours."
Re: I
"'Why' is a good question," she says. "The general assumption is that this is a side-effect of the Stuff, but it only seems to affect us -- as far as I know, no one's ended up sharing memories with Jorg staffers or anyone off of the Rig. That's something we should look into, given that I'd really rather not share my memories with them. But this is only the second or third time this has happened in the year I've been here, depending on how you count. We haven't had a lot of opportunity for experimentation. Any suggestions on that angle?"
The memory Jennifer selects for display doesn't seem like one that ought to qualify as someone's "best" memory, given that Jennifer's only nine in it and the content is frankly unsettling. Stacia eyes the girl that isn't Jennifer, then looks back at the present-day Jennifer.
"So this is the day you got out of that basement forever, right?"