( event ) OH HAIL NO.

[magnitudes]

WHO: Open to all!
WHERE: All porter cities and wherever effected characters find themselves.
WHEN: 11th - 18th November
WHAT: A game-wide catch-all for the memory sharing/loss event.
WARNINGS: high potential for memories to include traumatic material such as violence, abuse & murder. Please mark any content warnings in subject lines, and also give a heads up for spoilers if appropriate.
NOTE: Players are by no means required to thread in this log in order to participate in this event, it's just here for convenience. Plotting & info post OVER HERE.

IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY... late afternoon through early evening. Well, whatever.

Perhaps they saw the storm in De Chima that started over one of the museums, dark stormclouds seeming to bloom across the sky. Maybe they felt the charge in the air and had to take cover from hail and lightning, or perhaps they just felt the sharp snap of static later that day when they were on an escalator in Heropa, opening a door in Nonah, or were handed change at the grocery store in one of the other cities. Their hair might not have rebelled dramatically, but that doesn't mean the ImPorts are immune to the other effect of this particular electric charge: memories going awry.

Throughout the week, characters will find their minds and their memories being less reliable, and maybe less present than they normally would be.

Don't worry, though. It's probably fine.

Comments

Veronica Sawyer | cw: bullying, eating disorders, some fatphobia

[couldbebeautiful]

[Veronica's in her last class when the storm starts. She thinks nothing of it, at the time, and keeps going about her day once she's finished up her schoolwork. She cuts across a new route home, but stops to chat with people—short conversations, small-talk type things, in some cases questions over material covered in class. At least once she forges a signature for someone on the fly, cap of her pen in her mouth as she scrawls a signature that's not hers on an absence note.

Maybe one of them is you. Or maybe you're further down the chain, you poor sucker. However you got them, you're stuck with one of these memories now:]

WE WERE SO TINY.

You’re young, just turned sixteen, beginning to grow into your awkward limbs and fading acne and shabby clothes, and you’re snuggled up on the couch with your best friend in the world, watching her favorite movie. On-screen, Buttercup pushes the black-clad Dread Pirate Roberts down the hill, screaming: You can die too for all I care!

The Dread Pirate Roberts, because he is really her long-lost love Westley, screams back, As you wish! while he rolls down the hill.

“Oh my sweet Westley, what have I done?” your best friend says, almost completely in sync with Princess Buttercup. The two of you laugh, and you reach into a bowl of popcorn as the scene continues.

THIS COULD BE BEAUTIFUL.

You’re in a bathroom with three other girls—two of them are touching up their makeup, and you can hear one vomiting in a closed bathroom stall. You sigh, and turn back to your diary.

“Grow up, Heather,” says the girl in red—Heather Chandler, the queen of queens, a mythic bitch. You look at her, out of the corner of your eye, and an ugly little weight sits in your stomach. Hatred, you name it. (Envy, you know it.) “Bulimia is so ‘87.”

“Maybe you should see a doctor, Heather,” says the girl in yellow—Heather McNamara, not the brightest in the class. Or in the school. Or even in the town. Her eyes flick worriedly to the stall.

“Yeah, Heather,” groans the girl in the stall—Heather Duke, in green, following after Chandler like a shadow. You can’t quite discern her personality, but you do know she runs the yearbook committee with an iron fist, and you see her sometimes, watching Chandler with a hate that makes you seriously wonder. “Maybe I should.”

“Ah, Heather and Heather,” says a much older woman, dressed like a hippie, as she enters the bathroom—Mrs. Fleming, the school’s guidance counselor. You duck out of her way, but you shouldn’t have bothered—to her, you’re invisible. She eyes both Heathers with disdain.

Duke throws up again. You know this because you hear her.

“And Heather,” says Fleming, eyes cutting to the stall. “Perhaps you didn’t hear the bell ring? You’re late for class.”

You look down at your diary, flip frantically to the back, where you keep a few, ah, materials that would absolutely get you in trouble, were anyone to see it. You take out a slip of paper and start to write four names, in your English teacher’s almost illegitimate cursive. You hear Heather Chandler, lying smoothly to Fleming’s face, hear the almost triumphant tone in Mrs. Fleming’s voice as she says, “Week’s detention, all of you—”

“Actually, Mrs. Fleming,” you interrupt, handing her the slip, “all four of us are out on a hall pass.” Duke staggers out of the stall, then, and you add, “Yearbook committee.”

“I see you’re all listed,” says Fleming, distinctly sour as you try not to let the relief bubbling in your chest show, “hurry up and get where you’re going.” When she leaves, all three girls crowd around you, and Chandler snatches the slip of paper from your fingers, examines it with such scrutiny you’re almost flattered. The Heathers have never paid attention to you before. You like it.

“This is an excellent forgery,” she says. “Who are you?”

“Veronica,” you say. “Um, Sawyer.” You stick your hand out. “I crave a boon.”

SO STEP INTO MY CANDY STORE.

“Since when do you talk to that lard-ass?” says—one of the jocks, Kurt or Ram, you’re not too sure. One brainless, skirt-chasing jock is the same as the other, you’ve found out that much hanging around the Heathers these past two weeks. In his hand is a note. (In his hand is a bomb that could ruin someone’s life.)

“Oh, don’t read it!” says Chandler. “She’s having an extra-heavy flow and wanted some advice from my gyno.”

You move, fast, and snatch the note from the jock’s hands. You can’t let this happen. You can’t. Not to her, not to your best friend who still believes in happy endings. “You can’t do this,” you say.

“What?” says Duke, with a mean little laugh. “It’ll give her shower nozzle masturbation material for weeks—”

“Shut up, Heather,” says Chandler.

“Sorry, Heather.”

You sigh, then turn to Chandler. “Martha has had a thing for Ram for like, twelve years now. This? This would kill her.” It would, sure as sunrise. Could you bear that burden? You don’t think—

"Are we going to have a problem?"

MARKED FOR EVIL.

So that’s it, then. You’ve sold your soul away, to the demon queen of high school and her minions. You watch Martha, your best friend, the closest thing to an actual friend you have, walk away with the note clutched to her chest, spinning fantasies in her head of Ram picking her up and taking her away. They’ll crush her, and it’s all your fault.

“You shouldn’t have bowed down to the swatch dogs and diet cokeheads,” says an unfamiliar voice, behind you, and you whip around to see a boy, in a black trenchcoat, reading a book. He shuts it, and you see Charles Baudelaire’s name written across the cover. You wonder, with a jolt, what a guy like this is doing in the halls of Westerburg High. “They’re gonna crush that girl.”

“What?” you say.

“Clearly,” he says, standing up from his seat, and he’s much taller than you, and his eyes are so deep and dark and soulful that you could drown in them, “you’ve got a soul. You’ve just gotta work harder at keeping it clean.” He turns away from you and says, “We’re all born marked for evil.”

“Don’t just quote Baudelaire at me in the walkway, excuse me,” you say, to catch his attention, this impossible boy. “I didn’t catch your name.”

He smiles at you. “I didn’t throw it.”

[Later on in the day, once Veronica figures out just what has been going on, she starts tracking people down, starting with a mass text to her friends:]

This is going to sound weird, but does the word "Heathers" sound familiar to you? Not Heather, singular, Heathers.

[In the meantime, if you happen to have a memory of hers and you know it's not yours, it's—actually really easy to identify her. Her routine doesn't vary: she goes to school, she goes to work, she goes exploring or visits friends in other cities, and then she goes home. And she does it all in clothes that scream she's from the eighties.]

for brendan. || cw: death, bullying

[couldbebeautiful]

BIG BLUE.

“I say we go with Big Blue,” says your boyfriend JD, staring at the covered mug full of drain cleaner he’s holding up with a fascination that’s almost—unsettling. But, nah, he’s just kidding.

“Don’t be stupid, that stuff would kill her,” you say, lightly. You mix the prairie oyster together, making sure to stir well. You hope this is enough for Heather Chandler to decide to revoke the death warrant on your social life.

“Thus ending her hangover!”

You roll your eyes, covering up the mug.

“Chicken,” JD teases, and clucks at you. You smack his shoulder with a huff, and he laughs, shakes his head, sets the mug of draino down on the table beside your mug. “Hey. I was just kidding.” He catches your lips in a kiss, and it’s perfect, it’s beautiful. You could almost stay like this forever.

“PRAIRIE OYSTER!” screams Heather, upstairs. “CHOP, CHOP!”

You sigh into his mouth, and break away, picking up a mug. You give him one last smile and turn away, to go up the stairs.

“Veronica, you—”

“Yeah?”

He’s quiet, then he shakes his head and smiles back at you. “Never mind.”

“Okay,” you say. You turn away once more, butterflies fluttering in your stomach, and walk up the stairs. You push open the door to Heather’s bedroom, and are pinned to your place for a moment by the way she glares at you, even while hungover and squinting at you. “Good morning, Heather.”

“Ah, Veronica,” says Heather, tilting her head and judging you and JD, who comes in after you. “Quelle su-preeze.” She swings her legs off her bed, in a smooth, practiced motion, and says, “Well, let’s get to it. Beg.”

“About last night,” you start, “we, uh, we both said some things that we—”

“I would prefer,” she interrupts, “that you do this on your knees. In front of your boytoy here.” She grins cruelly at JD, and your heart leaps into your chest. She’s got to be kidding. She has to be. Not even Heather could be that cruel, that petty.

“I, I’m really sorry,” you start again.

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” she snaps. You flinch back. “Down.”

You look at JD, an impassive stone wall, but there’s something dark flickering in his eyes. You look at Heather, expecting your obedience, and for a moment you want so badly to throw the prairie oyster in her face and damn the consequences that you’re almost blinded by it, your hands shaking in anger.

But you yield, because you cannot go to school on Monday and be alone in a crowd, be a target once more. You just can’t.

So you kneel.

“Nice,” says Heather, hopping off her bed and taking the mug from you. She leans in close, and whispers in your ear, “But you’re still dead to me.”

For a moment you’re blinded with rage, humiliation, fear. How could she? How could she be so petty, so cruel? How could she do this to you? (Some part of you reminds you: Martha should’ve been a dead giveaway.)

Maybe that’s what keeps you from seeing the blue liquid in time. She takes a deep sip, chokes, and you’re up off your knees and trying to keep her from collapsing, because what is going on here? What is happening to her? Why is she coughing like that, why are her lips so blue—

“Corn nuts,” she croaks, her death-grip on you like a vise. Then she collapses to the floor, one hand on your leg. You stare down at her in shock, numb, confused, your head spinning.

JD breaks the spell: “Holy shit,” he says, stunned, and with a horrifying clarity, you realize:

You gave her the wrong mug.

Cassian Andor | OTA | cw: R1-style darkness

[candor1]

he dreamed of a woman with green eyes like stardust
who held him on a beach until their matter burned away and their energies blended into one

he dreamed of a man with kind haunted eyes
who'd been hellishly violated yet still wanted to care for everyone else

he dreamed of a droid with moon-glowing oculars
who'd been built to kill but guarded his life

he dreamed they died for each other
then got to live with each other

then with a gasp
a worldbreaking tremor
a lightning flash of utter cold

he woke up.


---------

OOC: here's what's happening

Memories up for grabs:
• the movie
• the novelization - some great Cas POV here for things in the movie, and moments in between things in the movie that may well have been part of the script but didn't make final cut
• the Kaytu chapter, and two bits of this chapter that I'll copy directly as comments on this top level—from this fic I wrote. Since, again, what Cassian's losing is essentially his CR, and the paradigm shift of knowing he can deeply care about and profoundly trust other people in his life.

A pre-R1 memory up for grabs [guess who]

[candor1]

Kaytoo would take their getaway shuttle straight to Coruscant and embed himself there independently. Cassian would go through Five Points Station to give Joreth Sward a data trail.

On his last day at Five Points, Cassian got his hair shorn to the scalp and made himself clean-shaven for the first time since Spectrum. Looking at himself in the mirror, it seemed like a really bad farce: how much younger he looked.

He was about to leave for the most high-profile assignment of his life. Already looking like his alias. He should not do anything to draw attention to himself.

…But he noticed her. It was the second time he'd seen her.

He'd never seen her face. Only her height and her clothes. But she hadn't changed either of those. And while he (by necessity) hadn't realized at the time, he'd been able to replay the mental record to identify her as the one person on this station who'd actually managed to pickpocket him. She'd only gotten his credits, nothing he'd have to track her down for. But he couldn't help keep an eye out for her ever since.

He wasn't her target now. She looked like she was hunting.

He was avoiding going to his cabin to sleep at all costs. Surely that was the reason. The only reason, why he followed her.

Why he was there at Moeseffa's cantina when she found her prey: a Caldanian and a Gigoran, either alone twice her height and more times her weight, and she full on attacked them.

It wasn't as hopeless as it should have been. Her skills were exceptional, and they kept underestimating her.

But there came a moment Cassian had seen before.

A Sullustan insurgent dropping his weapon and standing, eyes serenely closed, into the crossfire.
One of his people on Chemvau, when Cassian made the mistake of looking back as he abandoned them, leaning relaxedly back onto a vibroblade.
Xilo's eyes and shoulders going finally slack as she mouthed at him, Run.

The woman just lost her will to fight.

She went down as her opponents pummelled her.

Already look like Sward. Highest profile assignment of your life. Imperial-controlled station. Data trail. Do not draw attention to yourself.

For the first time in his life, for no reason he could explain, Cassian put the mission second.

He knocked out the Gigoran with his chair.
Pulled his blaster on the Caldanian and ordered them away.
Knelt by the broken Human.
She did indeed want to die; she unresistingly let him pick her up and carry her away from there.
She wouldn't let him take her to the med station. Nor would she tell him where she lived.
He took her back to his cabin.

It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. That he gently wiped the blood off her face; so swollen and miscolored and split, he couldn't map her bone structure. Eyes puffed nearly closed and bloodshot where they showed, he couldn't see they were green. Reset her broken nose. Reset her jaw. Cleaned her knuckles. Bound her arm. Cleaned her knee. Applied disinfectant and numbing agent to every wound. Used a few bacta patches and thermal pads from his own emergency pac for her ribs. Held up the blankets for her to crawl painfully under, resigned or uncaring if she was about to feel him press himself against her as payment for his aid, or withdrawn so far inside herself she was barely aware of him at all.

He folded the sheets around her and turned away to finish packing for the morning. Folded himself last, down to a shadow, in his chair. Rising only to periodically reapply numbing agent and refresh her thermals. Otherwise unable to do more than watch her struggle with pain and exhaustion and whatever wracking despair had driven her to deliberately pick a fight in order to lose—for the rest of the night.

By the morning, she was finally sleeping comfortably.
He transferred more credits to pay up the cabin for another day. Arranged for a meal to be delivered in a few hours.
He left without waking her.
Had a feeling if he did, he would never make it to Coruscant. His life wasn't his to give away like that.

Out of all the people he'd met and put out of mind, he'd never stopped wondering what happened to her. Though he won't make the connection and won't recognize her—hardened, straightened, face healed, eyes lasered, movement unstilted, no longer utterly twisted and shrunken and shackled from fresh grief—when he'll see her again.




[OOC: co-conceived with kestreldawn, inspired by Rebel Rising]

Ken Kaneki

[ghoulking]

[ Kaneki was about to open the door to his coffee shop while carrying two boxes the pastries and cakes he cooked, when the storm started. At first it's a bit surprising, but eventually he enters the shop and doesn't think any further about it; storms happen, right? The café must be open for business, after all, and there is a lot of work to do during the afternoon - but of course, Kaneki will welcome anyone who drops by.

But clearly "storms don't just happen", though, not in this place. And whoever is lucky (or unlucky) enough, might end up with one or more of the following memories:

BAD MEMORIES
Mother's love CW: CHILD ABUSE
Jason Torture CW: TORTURE, GORE, VIOLENCE
Kakuja CW: VIOLENCE, BODY HORROR
Date with Rize CW: VIOLENCE, BLOOD, CANNIBALISM
Half Kill CW: VIOLENCE AGAINST A CHILD
Spears CW: VIOLENCE, BLOOD, BODY HORROR
Shizaru's death CW: VIOLENCE

GOOD MEMORIES
Talking about Rize
Loser
Punpy Puns
Tiny Actor
Shoujo Eyes

MOM MEMORIES
Rick and Kaneki
Kanaya and Kaneki (cw : suicidal thoughts)

If anyone happens to realize these are not their memories, they can certainly come talk to kaneki if they'd like. After all, white haired guy with eyepatch called "kaneki" is hard to miss (and a lot of people do use the name "kaneki-kun" during those memories. But if someone believes they really are a ghoul, well then, mister Ghoul here is certainly around to try and talk some sense. ]

ooc : Since I've plotted with some people already, I'd like for only two more characters for the bad memories, on a first come, first serve basis, please! you can choose as many memories as you'd like! c: ]

[poreiavian]

[ loma doesn't come by kaneki's cafe often. it isn't that she dislikes it, but she prefers to be in spaces where the likelihood of coming across people who know her in the wild is slim. imPort created spaces are therefore avoided unless a pressing reason emerges.

this is a very pressing reason. one so that loma barges in to the cafe around mid-day once she starts getting the flow of memories she is steadily receiving under control. she's making A List that is how burdensome it's getting. ]

Kaneki! [ she's shouting the second she comes in, not caring for anyone she may disturb. ] Ken Kaneki, I must speak with you at once!

Jonathan Crane

[restingstitchface]

[The storm passes with Crane spending his entire time seeking distraction inside his research manuals and medical journals. Firm and tense pressure. Uneven drops in temperature. He had the misfortune to be riding the elevator in Wayne Enterprises later that afternoon, experiencing a sharp prick of electricity around his fingers when they brush the rail. He thinks of his associates, wonders what they're doing, then pays no mind to any of them as he heads inside his office.

He rememberes how he has persevered and thrived through all difficult circumstances - his aborted experiment on Gotham, his capture at the hands of the Batman, and the humiliation of being sedated and imprisoned inside his own hospital, and then Blackgate, without treatment. How his role of respected psychiatrist had reflected at him like glass and then been shattered from the outside. When that facade had shattered, he had become the Scarecrow, his true self. In essence he had survived the destruction of his entire concept of self. And he had flourished.]


OOC: Let's plot! PM me on this journal or Plurk and I'll write something for you.

dooku | revolution

[restingstitchface]

Crane breathes deeply through his nose and grips the court documents beneath him a little tighter. The list of names was beginning to grow downwards from the bottom of where his glasses could read the ends of the register. Today, it trailed over his arms and stretched over the end of his desk and down towards the marble floor. The feeling was there that it would be longer tomorrow and it made his heart faster still, like a project was growing and he was directing it. He shakes the records and more sheets drop from the bottom; more people that numbered, well, to a figure that the police couldn't count to.


After indulging himself in remembering his list of enemies of the revolution, he locks the memory away and refreshes his memory of some other court cases Dooku might appreciate.

Lando Calrissian | ota

[bespin]

[ Lando doesn't let a little storm interrupt his daily business in De Chima, and by the end of the night he makes his way back to Nonah, unknowingly spreading the memory-sharing effects like a virus with him. He can be found in any Porter city, making his usual rounds, conducting his business.

As the week goes on, it gets more and more confusing telling what memories are his and what aren't. But, he doesn't let his confusion show, still going about his day to day life as if everything is fine. ]

[ ooc: shared memories to follow. plotting comment is here. plot with me on plurk if you want something in particular! ]

losing your best friend (cw: blood, dead bodies)

[bespin]

[ You're on a ship. A pleasure craft you were supposed to steal with the help of some friends and some hired thugs. Instead, you found more than you bargained for on board. But that's all done now. You're alive and unscathed. Your friend, not so much. ]

AUTO-DESTRUCT COUNTDOWN ABOUT TO COMMENCE

[ You make your way down the corridor past red flashing lights, hurrying as fast as you can without risking further harm to your friend, whose arm is slung over your shoulder. He's barely clothed, a half-healed wound bandaged over his stomach. He needed more time in the bacta tank, but you weren't about to leave him there with the ship set to self-destruct. ]

Almost there, old buddy. How you doing?

Implants are pushing hard, but I think I've— [ His voice changes suddenly, all sense of emotion leaving it as his AJ^6 cyborg construct implants take over. ] Unit performance suboptimal. Rerouting neural pathways for increased efficien— No! Dammit, no.

[ You round a corner and run into a bounty hunter, dressed in dark armor and helmet covering her face. At her feet, the second assassin lies in a pool of his own blood, a knife sticking out of his ribs. ]

Chanath? You're... the woman? [ You had mentioned a woman who would get you off the ship in one piece. You probably should have been upfront with your friend that that woman was his ex, but you were pressed for time. ]

Last time I checked. How are you, Lobot?

Been... better. Good to see you... though. Missed you.

You two can catch up later— This whole damn thing's about to blow. Where's our ride, Chanath?

[ Even though the reflective visor of her helmet, you can tell she's only got bad news. ]

Gone. I'm sorry, boys. Looks like this is it.

[ Your heart beats that much faster. Your friend slumps against you a little more. ] Escape... pods?

No good. Chanath shut those down— and she doesn't have the code to turn them back on.

[ His face is tired and pained, but a look of determination comes over it suddenly. ]

Get me to an interface.

[ You rush to do as he says, sitting him down gently against a wall and plugging the interface into his neural construct. You know this might be your only way out of there, but it gives you a sinking feeling in your gut. ]

Can't... stop the auto-destruct. It's... hardwired. Designed not to be... messed with. Probably 'cause of... guys like me. Neural re-route eighty-four percent complete. Neural re-route eighty-five —Think I can turn the... escape... pods... back on, though.

Almost lost you for a second there, buddy. [ Keep it loose, keep it light. Joke to cover up how worried and scared you're feeling. ]

Lando... I'm already lost. Can't fight... the implants and crack into this damn... ship at the same time.

[ There's another thing you're feeling. Anger. ]

Don't be ridiculous. You're Lobot. You know all the odds! There's no beating you, my man!

ESCAPE PODS ACTIVE AND READY FOR USE. REPEAT: ESCAPE PODS ACTIVE AND READY FOR USE.

[ A knot in your stomach comes untied. ]

Ha! There we go. What'd I tell you? Lobot, you are—

Neural re-route one hundred percent complete.

[ He's gone. You've lost him to the implants. Your best friend's brain is now running on circuits and wires instead of grey matter. His face is passive, and though he follows you to the escape pods obediently, there's no weight to him, no substance. The guy should be exhausted from pain and exertion, but instead he's blank. Nothing.

You try to persuade Chanath to come with you, that he might come back to himself if he knows she's waiting for him. But she declines, gets in an escape pod, and goes. So you and your best friend get in the next escape pod over, and you talk, because there's no one but the two of you to listen now. ]

I don't know if you can hear me, but I swear. I'll do everything I can to cure you. I'll find a way.

Hey, Lando. [ For a second, your heart jumps, and you think he's back, but as he continues you realize it's nothing but a prerecorded message. ] If you're hearing this recording, I'm gone, and you just said the word "cure." I bet it didn't take you very long, either.

[ Your escape pod powers up and blasts away. The ship explodes behind you as you and your friend sit in the cramped space together. ]

Maybe you'll pull it off. I wouldn't put it past you. I've seen you beat crazier odds. But even if you don't, I'm not angry about what happened to me. Not now, and definitely not by the time you hear this. I live by my choices. I don't think I have very much time left. Let me get to it.

You have a power, Lando. People follow you. They willingly become chips in your game. Cards in your deck. That's an amazing thing. It's how you do... the things you do. We're your luck. So here's what I'd like to tell you, while I'm still your friend of many years, instead of... whatever I'm about to become. Stop playing. Get out of the game. Fold. Find something to believe in. Other than yourself, anyway. Use that power you have... that luck, all that charm, and do something good with it.

Lando. Old buddy. You're better than this.

Ronan Lynch

[nightmarist]

[Ronan's at the Meadows when the storm begins to brew on the horizon. It takes him about a half hour to get the animals sheltered in their stables, and in that time, the storm drifts away from the city and rolls its way over the farm. Being the tallest thing in the vicinity as lightning flickers threateningly around him, he hurries from the pasture to the main house, not quite in time to avoid being lashed with rain and hail.

Once inside, he dries his face with the hem of his shirt and hurries to his bedroom to change into something less soggy. From the magical seclusion of his room, he can't hear any weather other than the perpetual gentle rainfall of the illusion beyond his window, but when he returns to the kitchen, the storm's raging in full force outside. He waits it out while sipping a whiskey-heavy Irish coffee by the window.

After it passes, he heads out and hops into the BMW for a drive down to the city for a meeting with his producers. He only gets about halfway there before a call comes in to inform him the meeting's cancelled, but he carries on anyway, because now he's in the mood for Indian takeout from his favorite place in town.

And all the while, brushing past roommates and houseguests and random people on the street, he doesn't realize he's leaking memories.

That time he was called out by a psychic.

The first time he showed off his magic.

His recurring dream of Cabeswater.

His more awkward dream about Kavinsky and Adam.

When he found a baby mouse at the Barns.

And more, spilling from his mind as if through a crack in glass, before he realizes it and isolates himself to prevent anything more terrible from making itself known to strangers.]

(( Note: As mentioned here, memories are first-come first-serve since I'd like to avoid repeats, so check to see if someone's already claimed one. You don't have to share in order to see one of Ronan's memories. ))

[heisenbitch]

[ It's the middle of the night, a number of hours after the huge storm in De Chima has passed. It's been a weird fucking week, with the huge fire at the Swear-In, and then the huge storm - but it's fucking weird every week, and Jesse has been finding himself steadily growing more and more resigned to it all. He hasn't got the energy to be freaked out by most things anymore. And between not being able to really sleep, not being able to get high, and having to find ways to take his mind of stuff during the times he finds himself listless and without anything to occupy himself with...

Well. He fills those times with reckless activities that make him both feel alive and numb at the same time. Like street racing. He'd messaged Ronan - Round 2 @ 12am intersection near De Chima porter. See you then or not - and he'd been at that exact location, parked up with engine idling by the curb with the window down and smoking, waiting to see if Ronan would actually show. He had. They raced. Ronan won, but only just this time.

And now, parked side by side in a parking lot surrounded by parklands and overlooking a large lake that shimmers in the moonlight, Jesse is seated on the trunk of his yellow car beside Ronan. Burger from Wendy's in his hands, shoulders slouched, staring out at the lake while chewing a bite with the residue of adrenalin still humming blissfully through him. This place is nothing like the desert back in New Mexico, but the solitude of this place causes his mind to wander, for a moment, back to the early days back home; the RV, the simpler days of cooking with Mr. White that would last well into the night. Sweltering days, freezing nights. Fear and excitement, nervousness and frustration always boiling away inside him in varying degrees while trying to take in everything Mr. White had been teaching him. The arguments they had in that fucking RV. God.

A rustle among the leaves down at the edge of the lake pulls Jesse back to the present; a mouse scurrying and foraging around. As he swallows his bite of food, he reaches over to Ronan for the bottle of booze, wanting to wash his mouthful down with a swig. Fingers brush accidentally against Ronan's as he takes it from him, and suddenly, a memory strikes out of nowhere, floods into him: The warm, musty smell of grain, the even mustier smell of mice, a feeling of being home yet desperately homesick for home at the same time, surrounded by people he loves more than anything in the world while reaching into a feed bin. It's so real and solid and all encompassing that the memory feels like it's a part of him.

Jesse has no idea that he, too, is leaking memories. ]

[closed to Poe/Hux]

[photophobic]

Kylo had grown tired of staring at the walls of Hux's living room.
So here he was, dressed in what almost passed for 'normal' clothes, scowling as he attempted to write poetry in a cafe nearby the General's place of work.
He'd bought a leather-bound notepad and a fairly expensive pen to see if that would be any more inspiring than trying to use the communication device he'd been given on arrival, but so far all he had was a disappointingly short list of words that almost rhymed with 'Vader' (most of them crossed out) and a furious scribble over an aborted sketch of a TIE fighter.

He reached for his coffee, taking a sip-- and grimaced, finding it had gone cold somewhere between 'trader' and 'crater'.

[flightforfreedom]

Now Poe Dameron and Kylo Ren had a long and sordid history. Fighting, villany, torture, ripping memories from minds - lots of terrible stuff had happened.

The thing was, Poe couldn't remember any of it. In fact, he couldn't remember anything about the war at all. No torture, no fighting, no blaster bolts hanging in mid air - The last thing he could remember about Kylo Ren wasn't really Kylo Ren at all. But Ben Solo. A young dark haired boy who hung on his mother's coat tails and was generally adorable.

So when Poe stopped into to a coffee shop to get a drink, turned around, and saw a face that was vaguely familiar, he stopped for a minute before a grin spread across his face and he stepped over.

"Ben Solo. Ben Solo is that you? Force, you're so much bigger then when I last saw you! I didn't even know you were here! How are you doing? Holding up? Have you seen your parents yet? They're here too--"

Yuichiro Hyakuya

[dejerate]

CONTENT WARNING: Death, Human Experimentation, War, Demon Possession, Drugs are involved in this series.

Guren Ichinose: Live. Live until you find a new reason to live.....

[It's dark. A young boy of about twelve lies curled up under his blankets in bed, sniffling still from the aftermath of a nightmare. A nightmare that is still all too real and painful.

A man enters, comments how the boy woke up screaming. Again. There's some teasing, fondness already starting to be evident in their dynamic in spite of how early this all is in their relationship just yet. He offers to stay, until Yuu falls asleep again. The boy asks why the other saved him, took him in after he was found wandering and lost once he'd finally escaped the vampires. 'It hurts' he admits, as he thinks back to the events just prior to his being found. Being among humans again.

To his surprise and possible confusion, Guren also admits that he is in pain. They chat about how if one keeps going, they might find someone who needs them eventually. After bidding goodnight, Guren takes out a file relating to the young boy. The Seraph of the End project.]

Ashuramaru:

[The time has come. Finally! The test to prove himself in obtaining a Cursed Gear of his very own! Yuu isn't even the last bit scared or worried, regardless of the stories of what happens should someone fail, being possessed by said demon in the Cursed Gear. He steps forward towards a familiar sword with a green tint on the blade. Ashuramaru.

He passes out as the exam begins, finding himself among the bodies of the Hyakuya orphans, just as he had been that night he escaped the vampire city, only Yuu's body is older, at the current age of sixteen. A young Mika greets him by taunting and blaming him for abandoning them and leaving them to die. Yuu instantly realizes him as the demon, Ashuramaru. Ashuramaru changes form into a spiral of darkness, piercing Yuu in the chest, claiming his heart as weak, that he is stronger than the previous demon Yuu managed to overcome. Yuu stubbornly retorts that he ordered Ashuramaru to give him power, that power belongs to him now. Ashuramaru asks why he wants power, Yuu responds that he desires revenge. Because he lost something -- someone, precious. This seems to please the demon. Enough that Ashuramaru agrees to help the boy.

But that isn't all. He's told to give up love. That above all, demons like greed but cannot stand love. If Yuu relents for even a second's weakness, Ashuramaru would claim his body. Yuu still agrees.

In exchange for this, Ashuramaru informs him he is only one-tenth human. That there is something strange inside of him. It's the first Yuu himself has heard of it. But that seems to be the end of the contract ceremony, as Ashuramaru tells Yuu to slice the world wide open, and the boy wakes.]

Death:

[Guren is captured by Crowley, one of the other noble vampires. Yuu is not having a bar of it and is determined to save and rescue his superior and mentor. He completely ignores the warnings and protests of his fellow squad members that he already took one pill to increase his synchronization with Ashuramaru, that he shouldn't take any more.

He pops two of the pills into his mouth, claiming he would rather be dead if he couldn't save his family, if he failed in that a second time.

Which results in him spitting and coughing up blood, collapsing for a moment as the rest of them panic after having tried to make him spit the pills back out.

He sees Ashuramaru, the demon inside his blade, in a blank space within his consciousness. The demon informs Yuu he has died, but the Angels are keeping him alive somehow with their incredible power. He gestures to the trumpets, physically restraining Yuu from the impulse to go to one and blow on it to summon that power, telling him angels are worse than demons. That Ashuramaru himself should be able to heal the other.

Which he does. Somehow, and with that added power of those pills Yuu took. Yuu wakes and proceeds to attempt to go after the vampire and rescue Guren, leaving the others to sprint after him to catch up, calling after him.]

Seraph of the End:

[Yuu is unable to take seeing the vampires attacking his squad as Mika attempts to convince him to run away, that he shouldn't look back at such a sight. But Yuu struggles free from the now-vampire's grasp. And the sight overwhelms him, Ashuramaru encourages him to run before it is too late. Unfortunately, of course it is. The pill he took earlier finally taking effect as Guren had intended and knew would happen.

His eyes bleed, and he grows a strange, misshapen black wing. He's unable to control it, seeming a completely different person, as he struts forward towards one of his squad members, Shinoa. Their leader. He claims all sinners must die, as he points his sword at her, she stares in horror and confusion, unable to move in time before he strikes. Luckily for her, Mika steps in the way, trying to get through to Yuu by yelling that he can't kill humans. All the while, he blames the military, the humans for their experiments on Yuu forcing this.

Guren tells Shinoa to embrace her comrade, that Yuu isn't entirely too far gone and can return to normal. She splutters, seeming confused but does as he instructs, begging him to return to his senses. Yuu tenses, coughing up more blood before passing out in her arms.]

[ooc: Or if you would like another option, from canon or from his time at MoM, let me know. You can pm his journal or poke me over @ caprican Just let me know and I can throw up a different starter for you.]

Ashumaru

[allforyuu]

[Because vampires don't dream, Mika hadn't had nightmares in years. It all started so confusingly. Mika didn't recognize the demon room or the strange, cloudy visions. But he did remember the scene of the slaughter. Something was wrong. The blood on the floor was the same. The children were lying in all the same places Mika remembered they bled out. But he hadn't seen the scene from this point of view before. It was as if he hadn't even been stabbed. It felt like a nightmare, especially when he saw his younger self step forward and say such monstrous things.]

[Mika found himself shaking his head, both at the sight of his precious family, but also in refusal to the demon's offer, later. Why anyone would agree was beyond him. It all hurt. But it was pain that told him a lot about the person behind them, and Mika knew Yuu well enough to recognize him.]

hajime shino (cw in link: suicidal thoughts, bullying)

[looseleaves]

[ The storm hits without mercy, but thankfully--Hajime is inside. He'd decided to donate the time he had after recovering from the fire at the hospital. The idol costume he'd been working on the past few days wasn't done, but it'd been wearable, along with a mask... so he'd been okay with sharing his song to soothe and heal and numb patients as he could. He was Registered now, after all, so it should be fine.

He hasn't really visited his residence very often since the fire, but with the storm... he really hopes everyone's okay.

Hajime goes along with his usual schedule otherwise, though he cuts his play short to actually go home while it's still light out. He doesn't want to be caught in the storm.

But in his haste... he certainly doesn't notice that his memories are affecting some people around him. ]

[ Contact: PM and feycircle! I'll be updating the memory thread as I go, so if you just want a random happy memory to detract from the angst, I'll give you one that's probably unlisted. ]

Memory 2

[beautiful_monster]

[Hajime's absence hadn't gone unnoticed by Yuri. In fact, he'd been just about to head out to look for his new roommate when the singer finally came home—just in time to find Yuri in the middle of tugging his shoes on. He stops in the middle of reaching for the second one and straightens up, ready to snap irritably, when the memory suddenly floods his every thought.

It's...bittersweet, in a way. It feels like his own even though he doesn't know any of these people—but he does. Somehow. And even when he manages to process what he's just seen...remembered...it still leaves an ache that settles deep in his chest. He misses them like he misses his own family, and he can't help but wonder if they're alright now. And—

He'd been staring at Hajime in confusion while the memory played out in his head, a bit of a sad and vacant look in his eyes. And then he realizes just whose name "his mother" had said and snaps back to attention, pointing wildly at the other boy.]

What— What the hell! What was that?!

[umopepisdn]

[ Eleven only notices the storm because she hasn't been able to go out and feel the rain in a long, long time. She goes out the front door at the first thunderclaps and spends some time in the backyard, stomping in the mud and enjoying the feel of the cold water on her skin. After a while, she goes inside, and by the time she's taken a bath and crawled into bed, the storm seems to have ended. She certainly doesn't think anything of it.

But during the next week, something weird starts to happen. It's like little pieces of herself are breaking away and ending up in places they shouldn't be.

Benny's death at the diner
The Unfortunate Incident of the Cat in the Lab
Saving Mike
Fighting the demogorgon (flashing lights warning)
Fighting with Hopper (season two spoilers!) ]

[couldbebeautiful]

[Veronica's pieces are still all together, it's more like—copies of them are being posted all over town. Which is a pretty bad analogy, but hey, it's what she has. One of them shines in the daytime, like so:

You’re young, just turned sixteen, beginning to grow into your awkward limbs and fading acne and shabby clothes, and you’re snuggled up on the couch with your best friend in the world, watching her favorite movie. On-screen, Buttercup pushes the black-clad Dread Pirate Roberts down the hill, screaming: You can die too for all I care!

The Dread Pirate Roberts, because he is really her long-lost love Westley, screams back, As you wish! while he rolls down the hill.

"Oh my sweet Westley, what have I done?" your best friend says, almost completely in sync with Princess Buttercup. The two of you laugh, and you reach into a bowl of popcorn as the scene continues.

"How many times have you rented this video, anyway?" you ask her, popping kernels of popcorn into your mouth. It's buttery on your tongue, and your friend laughs, leans her whole body against you. You nudge her side, and her weight lifts a little so you can move better.

"I sort of lost count," she admits. "But it's really good!"

"I know it's really good," you reassure her, taking her hand. It's oily with butter from eating so much popcorn, same as yours. "I wouldn't be watching with you, if it wasn't."

She grins up at you. "Next time, you can pick the movie," she says. "I know you want to watch the new one, what was it, um—"

You actually want to watch Nightmare on Elm Street, but that's too horrifying for Martha to handle. Instead you shrug, lightly, and say, "Return of the Jedi?" and watch her eyes light up in delight.

In turn, something else slips into Veronica's head: four boys, maybe thirteen at most, two watching her with surprise and awe and two in fear. The crack of an arm breaking, a switchblade clattering to the ground. A boy, shouting, Yeah, you better run! She's our friend and she's crazy!

She's writing in her diary when it flashes across her memory, settles in along with a cacophony of others. As memories go, it's a little weird—she's never met any of those boys, except Mike, and this isn't something from Mike's perspective. But it's not her memory, it's someone else's. Someone else with apparent mind powers.

...maybe if she thinks really, really hard whoever the memory belongs to will come running? It's not the best of ideas, but it's the best one she has with no leads except a kid she talked to all of one time over the network, so if Eleven might care to look for whoever the memory of a movie and a friend belongs to, it's going to be surprisingly easy to find her.

She's the one concentrating really hard on a park bench.]

...any time now.

beth greene

[littlemissfutility]

[tl;dr writeups gonna get linked under this top-level. If we haven't talked about your character seeing something in particular, please drop me a line in PM or on prettydoes real quick!]

It takes time for the storm to reach Beth. She's shaking hands with the director of a commercial--her first, no less, and her part of it now complete--when she feels a little zap through her palm. It's startling, but it's just static.

That's what she assumes, anyway.

Her memories mostly stay where they belong in her head, but copies of them go traveling.

nb: death, violence, zombies

[littlemissfutility]

the barn

She doesn't know any of the group well at that point--not like she will later. And in that moment, she hates all of them for what they do. Shane, most of all, but everyone who helps, even Glenn...

God, they shoot at people she's known all her life. Neighbors, friends, her mother, her brother. And they have reason to. As the walkers--not people, not anymore--stagger out of the barn, she sees the truth her family's been hiding from. These aren't people who can get better. These are corpses that happen to move. There's nothing of the people she loved behind those grey-filmed eyes.

Her boyfriend from high school, Jimmy, he's still alive then. She clings to him, alternately watching and trying not to see. There are bodies everywhere when they're done, even the little girl they'd been looking so hard for. And her mother's lying there with Shawn, looking like a dishrag somebody tossed down and forgot about. This is the last time she's ever going to see her mother, and she's just...there, a heap in the dust. Someone needs to help her, to lay her out right, to touch her face and remember who she was.

Beth's weeping as she goes to her, her head aching with all the crying she's already done. No one manages to hold her back, though they try, and she sobs as she kneels down, reaching to turn her over. She doesn't realize until then that they hadn't gotten her in the head. A pair of hands, gone from slender to bony, claw at her hair. Something inhuman hisses at her. Something not her mother at all.

They drag Beth away, screaming all the while, and she tries not to hear the crunch of bone.

Jonathan Walsh - OTA

[drivesadesk]

Jonathan notices the storm. Mostly because he's walking home from work. He grumbles a bit when it starts, but decides to stop in a convenience store to wait this out. It seemed like a pretty fast, sudden storm. It was probably going to pass as quickly as he came. He feels a slight tingling sensation before he gets inside, and wonders about that for a moment before quickly dismissing it. It was probably nothing. Maybe electricity in the air, but not anything he was going to worry about.

He didn't lose his memories, which made him even less prone to wonder about what was going on. He had no idea that copies of his memories were being sent off, to possibly be received by anyone.

They might just gain some vague recollection of being a green, scaly being, or they might get something more detailed than that. Memories of being part of an operation that abducted children for various experiments. Maybe they'd remember the fear the test subjects expressed.

Of course, not all the memories Jonathan would send out were dark. Some were mild, things like Jonathan learning the names of some new Earth foods. But many of the memories were dark. In his home universe, Jonathan had been betrayed, people he cared about died, and driven by grief and anger, Jonathan had gone out and sought revenge.

Those were the kinds of things that saturated someones mind and thoughts, and now, it seemed, they might sink into the thoughts of others.

[darkpants_warmfeeling]

And then one night after the storm, Jacob Taylor will be knocking on Jonathan's door. He looks harrowed, sleepless.

"Jonathan," he says, his voice tight, loud enough to be heard through the door. "We gotta talk."

Brendan Frye - TW: death, murder, self-harm, underage drinking

[pale_blue_arrow]

[Brendan's got a college level English class these days and, in spite of the bare minimum effort he puts into other classes, he enjoys English Lit. He keeps his hands in pockets and his body in motion as he walks back home in Nonah from it, to the apartment he and Manabu have laid claim to. It's not much, but it's nice enough to meet his low standards. It's when he decides to stop to get some shopping done - he loves Manabu, but the guy can't do groceries worth a damn - that he runs afoul of whatever weirdness is going on.

Maybe you're in Nonah too, and get smacked with one of his memories via proximity. Or maybe fate is a bit crueler and throws you a curveball. Regardless, you've got one of his more notable moments rattling around in your head now:]

Desecration

The San Clemente sun is ruthless, even though it was technically September, almost October. A few people glance over at your mother when she comes to pick you up from school. You have your mother’s hair, thick and curly and hard to tame, but you didn’t get her beautiful cool-toned terra-cotta colored skin. At kindergarten you figured out it wasn’t just brown but terra-cotta thanks to a crayon color called that; you put the crayon in your pocket to sneak it home so you can color better pictures of your mom. Even if she doesn’t say anything, your mom keeps all your drawings in a box on her desk, which means they probably make her happy. You’re going to make better ones and make her happier; you can see she’s unhappy even when she picks you up from school. Her eyes are dark like yours but they’re so sad you always think she’s about to cry.

She never does, though. She takes you by the hand and guides you home even though Dad lets you walk to school and back on your own. Moms are nice like that. You know that from the other kids’ moms since work means your Mom can’t do all the stuff she wants to. Maybe that’s why she’s sad. You try to cheer her up with all the cool stuff you did in class today and she does smile, finally, when you tell her the librarian says you read like a third grader. Mom is smarter than you at Spanish and Dad is smarter than both of you at Math, but the way Mom beams at you, you think maybe one day you’ll be smarter than them at books. Maybe then you can read books to Mom the way she used to read them to you when you were in preschool. That’d be cool.

It’s so hot your Mom stops under the shade of an orange tree and you do too. Your mom kneels down to wipe at your face with a tissue and asks if that’s better. It is, so you nod. For a moment you stay there on the cool sidewalk together. Somewhere, someone has their radio on, and it’s blaring out country music, filling up the silence. Mom reaches out with long fingers to skim shards of broken glass where the sidewalk meets the road and you wonder if she’s going to add to her collection. She has a bunch of glass pieces in different colors in her bedside dresser, which she’s told you not to play with because they’re sharp. This glass is blue, which is a color she doesn’t have a lot of. Glass isn’t like crayons where you can buy a pack in a bunch of colors. She has to just hope pretty colors come along.

Your Mom always wears long sleeves even in summer because the other grown ups stare at her arms. You didn’t know until now, as she drags a blue chunk of glass across her skin, that she made the scratches herself. You thought maybe one of the ladies at her job had a mean cat. Then your Mom discards the piece for another piece of glass that’s sharper and makes a real cut like you’d get sent to the school nurse for and puts that piece in her pocket. You try to come closer and she stares at you. Her eyes are so sad. Her hair is falling in front of her face so you push it back behind her ears like she does your hair. Usually that makes her smile. All it does now is make her pause before picking up another piece of glass and dragging it across her palm.

“If it can’t get through the top of the hand, it never gets through the bottom,” she sighs, not really talking to you, just sort of talking because she is. “It’s not worth taking home.” And she throws it away, picks up another piece. This one bites at her fingertips and works on her palm, so she puts it in her pocket, too. “That’s better.”

Something uneasy rises up in your tummy. You think you should tell Dad but he’ll yell at Mom and make her cry again. You don’t like him very much. He’s a bully to her. And the teacher doesn’t like Mom because Mom’s from Colombia, which is really far away on maps Mom’s shown you. The teacher doesn’t like kids from Mexico either even though that’s not far away on the map at all. So you feel sick but you don’t say anything as Mom gets up, straightens her hair with her fingers, and wraps a tissue around her bleeding hand. It’s not okay but you don’t know why. Or maybe it is okay and you don’t understand yet.

You make her a really nice drawing with your terra-cotta crayon and she puts it on the fridge. There’s a smudge of a bloody fingerprint on the back that you look at when she’s in her office, and you want to ask why she does what she does, but you’re scared you’ll start yelling like Dad does, with his big booming voice that shakes tears out of people. You don’t want your Mom to cry. You stay quiet and go watch old black and white movies on TV where the detectives in the stories explain things. Things make more sense in movies. And sometimes Mom will come watch them with you, and you can braid her hair.

She doesn’t come that evening, so you fall asleep on the couch and dream fitfully about broken glass and country music and red smears on your mom’s terra-cotta skin that will never wash out.

Confrontation

The sky is too bright, and someone underneath you is too warm. The scent of perfume, Coco Mademoiselle from Chanel, spikes through your unconscious state and hauls you back up to the land of the living like smelling salts. Laura is dabbing at your face, which feels like it’s on fire, and you swat away her hand. Oh God oh no oh- “What time is it?” you half-yell, shoving yourself upright, the wind blessedly cool on your face as you half climb and half fall out of her ridiculous topless car with its’ overly nice everything onto the unforgiving pavement of the parking lot. She’s trying to tell you to lie down so you just ask again, now actually yelling, “What time is it? What time is it?!”

“Three-forty; you’re exhausted, you’ve swallowed a lot of blood-”

“Shit.” Dode thinks you killed Emily. You need to go talk Dode down from telling everyone else that lie before it’s too late and now you’re trying to get up on your elbows and manage to crawl-and-lunge forward a dozen feet or so before exhaustion drag you down again. Lying down is for guys not trying to dodge jail time. “Shut up, shut up - please shut up!” you yell over Laura’s pleas to get back in the car and let her take you to a hospital. There isn’t time. “Please,” you beg again, and she’s out of her car now, kneeling on the ground reaching for you, but you keep talking over her before she can try to talk you out of this. “Okay, what you’ve gotta do is drive around the pie house lot so Dode’s gotta go by you an’ me to get down to the tunnel.” The tunnel. The tunnel where the Pin and his gang will be waiting and they will put a bullet in you if you don’t think very hard, very quickly. Focus. Swallow more blood, and keep going: “If you see Dode, then honk four times, long-short, long-short. And don’t be seen.”

“Get back in the car,” she says with that air of command you’re suddenly incredibly sick of.

“Do it!” you shout over her, and something angry flashes in her eyes. Softer, you say, “Please? I need you to do this. I need you here.” And maybe that’s because it’s what she’s been angling for since she met you, to be let in, to be needed and be a part of your life, but for once Laura looks genuinely surprised. “Please.”

She turns and gets back into the car. You haul yourself up, the circling flock of seagulls crying out and drawing your eyes up as you force your way forward, down to the football field, one foot in front of the other. You can feel every old punch from Tugger in your stomach, your back, making you dizzy as up feels like down, mid-afternoon feels colder than it should. There’s blood in your mouth and the words internal bleeding come to mind but you can’t stop. If Dode blows the whistle on you then the real murderer walks free, gets away with everything, and you owe it to Emily and her memory and the way she used to stay at your house for days when her parents were fighting and fill up the silence with humming and hugs and questions and laughs to get whoever killed her locked up, even if it kills you.

Dode is standing there, newspaper clutched in his hand. He’s every inch the classic San Clemente trash fire you pretend you aren’t, black leather jacket, slicked back spiky black hair, big angry eyes that contain multitudes of hatreds for everyone and everything and right now, you. He storms up to you and you swallow, tasting blood as you ask, “What’re you doing, Dode?”

“Gonna stop me?” His voice is high, edged, borderline-hysterical.

“What do you think you’re doing?” you ask, voice level and calm. You have to stay calm or he’ll get more worked up and you know you can’t take him in a fight, not like this, huddled over because it hurts too much to stand up straight.

“I saw you!” he shouts, and there’s that edge again. “I saw what you did!”

Sounding calm now involves Herculean effort. Given the circles you’ve been running in that could mean anything, it could mean nothing. You keep talking as he keeps getting closer, fists clenched so hard the knuckles are white. “What did you see? Dode, what-”

“I saw you!”

“What did you see me-?”

“You were in the tunnel, I saw you!” You swallow, terror spiking through you as he confirms your worst fears. “I saw you - you were with her, dead, and you took the body! I saw you hide it!”

Your knees want to give out but your voice doesn’t show it. “Yeah, I did. Is that all you saw? What about before?”

“Before what?”

“Before I got there. Did you see who killed her?”

“You killed her!” he sounds like he wants to cry or scream. You want to, too, but you can’t afford to.

“I found the body, Dode,” you correct, and ah, there it is, there’s the shake of the voice you were trying to keep at bay, but you meet his eyes and it seems to dim his anger for a second.

He shakes his head, takes a step back. “Nah, we - I thought you didn’t,” he’s waving the hand not clutching the newspaper around now, something vulnerable in his voice that seems out of place for Emily’s other ex, given how short a time they were dating. “But we figured it out. I got the news on you ‘cause you hid the body-”

Wait, ‘we’? “Who’s ‘we’?”

“SHUT UP!” And it’ll be a miracle if the whole city doesn’t hear him, that volume and that rage. “Shut up, you’re always talking always got a smart remark to say just shut up-”

“I didn’t kill her, Dode,” you choke out between coughs, blood flecking the ground in front of you, hearty coughs from somewhere deep in your chest threatening to bubble up. “Dode, I know what you think of Em-”

“Shut up!” Oh God, is he crying?

“-and I know you tried to help her,” you finish, but he screams at you to shut up again and you’re coughing again and your legs fail you. Now you’re on the ground, hands and knees, trying to blink back the stars floating in front of your vision.

“I know you killed her, and me and Kara, we’re gonna bury you,” he marches over to you as you collapse onto the ground further and yanks your head up, kneeling beside you to shout in your ear, “And we’re gonna get paid doin’ it, dig? It’s gonna be over real nice-”

“I’m telling you, you’re in over your head,” you force out, swallowing phlegm and blood and something that tastes acidic and dangerous, “You don’t wanna put your hand in this-”

“She’s dead!” Now he really is crying, shoving off of you and backing up to swipe angrily at his eyes, murder in his face and his heart in his voice. “She’s dead because of you!”

You try reasoning with him one last time. “Why was she scared, Dode? She came to me, who was she scared of?” You use the space to get to your feet, suddenly strong in that hopeful way, that maybe you can get him to help you, you can get help putting away Em’s killer and you can walk away amicable enemies.

But he’s already shaking his head, refusing to see there’s another person, another factor at play, here. “You’ve got it confused-”

“Dode-”

“You couldn’t stand it, your little ‘Em’ - she was gonna keep it, it was mine and you couldn’t stand that!” Tears tumble down his cheeks, but you barely notice.

The truth coils around your throat, makes it hard to speak. The list of names in Emily’s notebook, one column for boys and one for girls, the boys’ column scratched out as if rendered irrelevant. No. No, you refuse to let yourself think it and you won’t say it. Tense silence roars in your ears and you blurt out, “What - what was yours?”

“I’m gonna make you pay,” he threatens, voice quiet.

You press on, “What was yours?”

“I loved her,” he says, light brown eyes searing into yours. “And I woulda loved that kid.” You can’t breathe. You can’t move. You can only stand there, the enormity of the news washing over you and you’re drowning in it. “I’m gonna bury you,” he repeats as he walks past you, still clutching the newspaper with the article about Emily’s disappearance in one hand.

You grab onto his shoulder, thinking to ask something, anything, but then he hits you, and you crumple to the ground, shaking, cold sweat beading your skin, the word ‘kid’ flickering on repeat in your head. It had been four months since you and Emily last - did she know when she left you? Or when she started dating Dode? Was she ever going to tell you? Was it - it might be Dode’s depending on how far along she was - it might be yours, might have been your kid, your child, she thought it was a girl, those were baby names in her notebook, you had a daughter and you failed your daughter just like you failed your mother and Emily and everyone else-

You lay there in shock and at some point, the pain in your chest gets hotter and your vision goes black.

2/2, since I ran out of space for all the memories

[pale_blue_arrow]

Together Now

It’s one in the morning on a Saturday. You’ve got cereal to eat in case you get hungry, which you rarely are until around two. The TV’s filling up the quiet with a black and white piece that’s about as generic as they come, a film noir so by the numbers you’ve been guessing bits of dialogue and plot developments since it started with unparalleled accuracy.

The knock on the door is almost a welcome distraction, except at this hour that can only be Emily, and when you told your crush she could swing by any time you hadn’t meant it that literally. You’re not in pajamas because you sleep in your clothes, but she’s in a pastel blue set of them that makes her look two years younger than you, not the two months she is. She’s in your AP English class and you’re both eighth graders in a sea of high school snobs, and she’s got her copy of Metropolis in her arms as if this can be played off as a study date or something.

You open the door immediately to let her in. “Em? You okay?”

Her cheeks are tear-streaked as she forces a smile and you know she’s lying before she says, “Yeah, yeah. I just…”

Emily’s parents aren’t like yours. For one, they’re always around. For another, they both argue, fit to bring houses down, and they’ll turn on her from time to time. You look down at Emily’s sandals and decide whatever they said, you don’t need to know to know it must’ve been bad to send her running across town at this hour. You tug her in by the hand, close and lock the door, then awkwardly stand there for a moment rubbing her back before she lets the book hit the floor with a thud, wraps her arms around you and holds on for dear life. Her sobs are quiet, her head buried in your chest, and she’s tiny and cold and not the commanding, cheerful presence she is at school. So you hold onto her, rocking back and forth slightly, pressing kisses to the top of her head, murmuring, and you’re not sure how long you stay like that before she calms down from whatever torturous things they said to her.

You want to go find them and read them the riot act. Knowing it won’t work, instead you just guide Emily to the living room, to the couch you’d been sitting on, where she seizes the remote to search for other programs. She wraps herself up in your blanket while you go to the kitchen to microwave some takeout and pour both of you a glass of wine. Your parents aren’t home tonight and neither of them blames to be until Monday. You don’t have to worry about a few glasses.

Her tiny nose crinkles and you fall in love with her perfect angel face all over again. “Is that wine?”

“You said Bramish wouldn’t let you have any at Homecoming, right?” you say, like that’s a perfectly adequate explanation. You settle in beside her with your own drink, tucking your legs under you to lean back. She takes a sip, blinks at the unexpected taste, then smiles at you.

“Thanks, Bren.”

“No problem, Em.” You take the remote from her and change the channel to Disney, which is playing Gargoyles, one of those shows that has decent writing and terrible scheduling. Her smile gets bigger as she leans against you. “This okay?”

“Yeah.” She stays quiet until commercial break, by which point her glass is empty, then asks, “Can I stay the night?”

“The guest room’s kinda bare,” you shrug, like it’s not a blessed relief she’s not going back to her home where those two assholes are laying in wait, “But if you don’t mind then I don’t see why not.”

She kisses you. You’re years past your first kiss, but with Emily it’s special, it’s everything, it’s not just a kiss, it’s serenity. You are utterly smitten and you know it and you don’t care if it’s weird, at least you two are honest with each other. That probably counts for something. It feels easier to be with her than anyone else in the world. Sure, you’re both kinda strange, but you’ve got each other. That’s enough.

It Was Forever, Then

You’re in the guest room and it’s really yours and Emily’s room, these days, but it is especially your room when you fall asleep in the same bed.

It’s probably the kind of thing she’d get excommunicated for, if the Orthodox Church does excommunications. You’re not sure if they do. You know Emily had some kind of immense internal debate before you two did more than make out, which is probably fair. The only reason you don’t have debates of that nature is you’re pretty sure you’re gonna marry Emily one day, when you’re older. You’ll take her hand, run far away from San Clemente, out of California, for-fucking-ever, as her friend Kara puts it, and you’ll get married and never go back to this shit hole. Until then you play house when your parents are gone. In a few minutes you’ll get up to go make her breakfast and get the paper.

Right now, though, she’s tangled up with you and she’s gained a few inches over the last year, but you gained an entire handful. For every joke you’ve made about her looking like a dainty elf, she’s had a Tolkien quote at the ready. Laying down you can pretend to be the same height, when she doesn’t bury herself against your side like she’s trying to hide in the shadows between you and under the blankets. You’re both a little awake, a lot not. Her hands play with your curly, messy hair, forever fascinated by the texture. You’re always a little freaked out, a little fascinated that you can feel her spine and see her ribs. As much as she eats at your place, at hers her parents make her cry until she gets sick. Sometimes she’ll skip food at their place because throwing up hurts and she’s afraid they’ll freak her out again, make her sick. You rub the ridge of bones until your fingers have the feel of each memorized. Her breathing evens out again.

When she slips back into sleep, you spend a few minutes watching her, your precious Em, soft and small in private even though she’s so energetic at school. The real Emily isn’t flawless like the girl she projects. You think maybe you love flawed Em more than perfect Emily. You’re flawed, too. You’re kind of messed up, the way you either can’t make words or talk nonstop, the relentless energy and the crushing depression. But she doesn’t hate you for being messed up and you don’t hate her. One day you’ll both get pills or therapists or whatever magical thing it takes to make the past go away, then you’ll be okay. Until then you have mornings like these, laying in bed in pajamas she bought you that match hers, awash in soft blankets and warmth, pretending the world doesn’t exist. Pretending this house is yours.

You slip out of bed eventually, but you can’t get the flowery hibiscus smell of Em’s shampoo out of your nose even when you start cooking.

Departure

You’re dying. You’re actually dying.

You didn’t think anything could scare you until the pain seized you as you closed the door to your house. The cops have the right people in custody, you did right by Emily’s memory, you told yourself you were going home to rest when you knew you were going to die. Or maybe you didn’t know, because now that the pain is burning through your torso, you’re not sure you want to. You don’t have anything to live for, you don’t have good enough luck to die - or do you? That’d be your luck, live through everything only to die after the real danger has passed.

You’ve been knocked out a half dozen times and beaten more than that, in the span of two weeks. You’re pretty sure your body is throwing in the towel. Suddenly you’re not so sure about this anymore, about dying, not when you don’t know what comes after. Like most people here, you never gave a damn about religion. As you use the walls to keep moving, hopefully towards bed, you feel your confidence in your former atheism crumble. You’re not sure what comes after and you don’t want to know, you really don’t.

Keep it together, you tell yourself. You’re not dying, don’t be so dramatic. Sit down and catch your breath. This is thwarted by you failing to navigate the task of opening a door without falling. You sink painfully to the floor, coughing up a mouthful of something wet and red. Once you’ve started coughing, you can’t stop; time stalls and the room spirals as your body shakes with the force of your spasms. The yellow-gray wallpaper is flecked red when you open your eyes. Your glasses fell off when you landed, so everything is a blur, but that doesn’t explain the cold, the cold on a sunny day when you’re in your jacket, cold that makes it hard to catch your breath.

You’re gasping for air like a fish on land when you realize nobody’s going to be home until tomorrow. Your instincts demand you call 911, even knowing your dad will hate the bill for the ambulance. The phone is all the way across the room, though, and… you’re not sure you want to try. You’re scared of what you don’t know but what you do has been so terrible and you’re tired of everything. You’re tired, scared, alone, you failed everyone and you’re only three weeks past your sixteenth birthday. There’s so much life left to live and you’re not sure how you’ll screw it up or who will use and abuse you but you know you will and they will. Do you really want to call for help? You don’t know. You think you should try, so you don’t have to find out where this icy chill and fiery pain lead. Everything hurts so much that you forget about being afraid and try to get to your elbows to at least inch forward.

You black out twice. You think maybe you’ve moved a little closer. It’s so cold you’re shaking, whole-body shivers. Cold sweat drips into your eyes. You forget where the phone is and when you remember you can’t remember what number to call. Keeping your eyes open takes too much effort. You’re so tired. You need to rest.

You don’t wake up.

Kang | OTA | CW: death, murder (attempted and succeeded), child abuse

[governorkang]

It takes less than a day for the effects of the storm to travel to Heropa. Kang doesn't pay much attention to that first zap, thinking it's only static electricity. The weather is getting colder, after all.

But then, the memories start spreading. Anyone that bumps into him may find themselves experiencing something mild, such as coming up with a wild plan, a friend giving a well-deserved lecture, or a flying minotaur. Other, less pleasant ones, include being assigned (literal) shit duty, being warned of genocide, and child abuse.

There are also general flashes of war-time scenarios, of death and destruction and mayhem, or more light-hearted family moments with his mate, children, and grandchildren.

He is lucky enough to only receive others' memories, still able to keep them separate and not losing any of his own.

Jonathan's getting the 'warned of genocide' memory

[drivesadesk]

Jonathan decided he was tired of waiting for the storm to pass, so he bought a newspaper to hold over his head (for what little good that would do), and continued to walk toward his home in Heropa when he suddenly felt a slight tingle. It wasn't the first he'd felt, and he was prepared to dismiss it, until he realized he remembered something that...didn't quite make sense.

In the memory, he was talking to a lizard man...only not his kind of lizard man, but one like Kang, and as the memory unfolded, it seemed like it was very much a different situation than in his own world. One where roles were very much reversed. Where humans seemed to have the upper hand, and had lizard men digging latrines for them, something about humans 'knowing about the females'...it was all very strange, and didn't make much sense to Jonathan.

Why would he remember this?

Soldier: 76 || OTA || Warnings: Violence, death

[notayoungman]

Way out in Maurita Falls, he never saw the storm. The shocks, however, were mildly concerning but nothing more than an irritation as his equipment seemed unaffected. At first, he experiences nothing more than that, unaware that memories have begun to leak out into the world. Soon, he will forget ever having been part of Overwatch, some of those already fading from his mind. But that would come later.

The Memories

- Fighting gang members in Mexico and falling back on old habits
- Finding Ana and fighting Reaper
- The burden of responsibility/unexpected inspiration
- Halloween stories with the team (A rare nice one)
- Anything mentioned in his canon except the incident with the explosion (because I have no freaking clue how that actually went down).
- Anything that's happened in MoM so far (it's only been like 2 weeks).

Hit me up at thorhugs to plot!

the burden LETS DO THIS

[h2no]

Arceus, it's like something is bringing us together at this point.

[archie comments mildly, walking the soldier stalk around near where he's sitting on a low wall.]

You stalkin' me, or somethin'?

Arthur | OTA

[aloadeddie]

Within 36 hours of the original storm, Heropa sees the effects of it. Arthur is (mostly) minding his own business, going from home to work and then maybe a bar, completely unaware of the fact that he is soon leaking memories.

Perhaps, if you're lucky, you'll see something like a play date with a couple of particularly cherubic kids. Or maybe you'll stumble across a stolen kiss.

But there are less pleasant memories, as well. The loss of a friend is even more complicated when someone is framed for a crime he didn't commit. (cw: mention of suicide) Also, crime is difficult when dead people show up to shoot you in the head.

Unwary folks might see other various scenes of Arthur dreaming, teaching others to dream, or spending long tedious hours doing research.

Arthur isn't losing any of his own memories, but he may pick up on memories of others.

[ ooc: if you would like your character to see something else of Arthur's, let me know! you can comment here or ping me at frodabaggins to set something up! ]

Kanan | OTA

[kanyounot]

Kanan will be undergoing a drastic change with the storm - he'll be losing nearly all his memories from the past decade, reverting back to a hedonistic, laid-back guy who is most certainly not a Jedi, and has no intention of joining a rebellion.

All the while, he will be leaking memories for others to pick up on. Perhaps you remember being a youngling, learning from a Master? Or perhaps you remember the trauma of a deadly betrayal? (cw: violence) Perhaps you will have the sudden memory of a meeting that will change your life forever? Or, perhaps, a fight that will maim you.

You will be able to find memory-altered Kanan at many local dive bars, blowing all his money on booze and flirting with every sentient female he crosses paths with.

[ ooc: if there's another memory you would like me to write up, let me know by commenting over here or poking me at frodabaggins! ]

For Hera

[kanyounot]

[ She slips into his room that night with a smile in her voice, and they stay up late. Talking, mostly. Yes, really! Talking, about everything, because Hera is the one person in the whole universe that Kanan can talk to about anything, so they do. About Ezra, and about the rest of their crew, and the rebellion, and about Kanan's podcast and Hera's job working with teenagers, and... and...

And they kiss, sure. They do that, too, because they suddenly seem to have time for it, and Kanan isn't going to mess with a good thing. But it's late, and so they fall asleep like that, in Kanan's bed, arms around each other.

When he wakes, a change has occurred, but he's completely unaware of it.

He stretches, and immediately realizes he's not alone. Not that unusual, really, though usually he remembers at least something about how he ended up like this. He won't question it, though. She - he's pretty sure she's a she - is very warm, far too warm to be a human, and a quick exploration with his hands determines - Twi'lek. Wow. Nice one, Jarrus. He smiles, but pulls away a little. He'll try to slip out of the bed without waking her up - he's a busy man, he's got places to be, he's already moving on. ]

ota + warnings included per option.

[tropism]

[ ooc: warnings for violence, child/personal abuses of various forms, body horror bullying, pee

when it happened, giorno had been in a cafe doing his homework quietly. he asks to order a cappucino and as soon as the waiter leaves, the entire world seems to stand still. it felt like the world was slowing down, like gold experience's light suffusing his body, like the world was suddenly moving a state of imposed lethargy, and giorno panics and drops some of his books accidentally from the table while murmuring "no - this can't be -" ]

OPTION A. IT'S A SCHOOL DAY TODAY warnings for: bullying, violence

the yelling won't stop. these kids are coming in droves and descending upon your weak, prone body like a plague of locusts come to feed on the remains of the field. each face and each body comes towards you to inflict barbs, painful, humiliating, sharp in the way that kids can be. then the blows fall: accompanied by jeering, laughing, by disgust in the way a body is paralyzed in fear and in hurt, it is painful and isolating and incredibly lonely. this is done in turns and feels like an eternity. again and again it happens and you cannot do anything, whatever blows that were meant to retaliate don't connect; whatever movement you make in an attempt to fend off the blows are pitiful and they move through your arms the way a wolf huffs and puffs a straw house.

you are left on the floor of a classroom. you stand up. curiously, the glass windows catch the glimpse of a dark-haired boy with a bowlcut and sullen eyes, and no more.

class begins in a few minutes. everyone settles to their places and groups like nothing is wrong and the generally heavy mood is replaced by resentment that gives way to normalcy: "he started it!" "he asked for it!" "isn't he weird? anyway, last week, i went to a party with my cousins, and ...."

scum of the earth. you want to be picked off of the floor and thrown out the window, never to be seen again.

OPTION B. BABYFACE warnings for: body horror, violence, choking

it happens suddenly. a cube of flesh is taken out of your throat, then your eyes. you are faced with an opponent that constantly reforms itself from objects it fuses to, splitting its body to puncture your own and creating multiple gashes in your face and hands, all the size of a cube. this goes on until bits and pieces of yourself are removed in chunks and it becomes difficult to breathe; blood falls down like rivers to your chest and hands, and you can't breathe -

- until you figure out how to reverse it, to make it your own. a pin becomes living flesh in your hands then the warm, round feeling of an eye, brilliantly blue, peers out of the hunk of flesh in your palm. fitting it into the hole in your skull is painful and you can feel it as it attaches and becomes part of your skull again, extending veins and muscles back into your body and fitting into the gaps of your bloodied wound. rocks are shaped into a piece of your throat that was missing, warm and slippery as it slots back into your wound like lego, and slowly, you feel the burning sense from your lungs ease and wind rush through your body again. your amputated foot is reattached and muscles slip back into the bones like a glove, wrapping around it firmly until you can walk again. the sensation is strange until it feels like it is you: replaced living objects which become your own, the skin no longer marred where the parts have returned to their respective places like they've never left it at all.

OPTION C. ENTERING THE GANG warning for: pee

you encounter the gang. a group of four individuals who follow bruno, one of whom is holding a knife and has an entire cheek bleeding as he glares at you. the other one is licking his thumb. two other guys hang at the back, one of them dressed in black and smiling in a way that screams i fucking hate you. bruno tells them that you've been told of your arrival.

your introduction means nothing to them. in fact, the only way you've been acknowledged so far is the fact that goth asshole decides to take the teapot and you vaguely hear the swishing of water, which you sincerely hope isn't what you think is what's happening. but all the other guys are intent on watching him like they completely forget you exist, and apparently this is how your day is going to begin.

"why don't you sit down, and drink some tea?"

you sit down. you take the teacup and the saucer. buccelati sits down with you as well and asks for the tea, but he's rebuffed by the goth disaster. and as soon as the tea is poured, the pungent small of what is unmistakenably urine fills your nose with its stench.

you are clearly expected to drink it. four faces are gleefully watching for your movement, waiting to see what you'll do.

"what is it?" the godless goth says, his tone light but mocking. "you said thank you after i went all that trouble of pouring you that tea. let's see you drink it. or do you not like it because it's lukewarm?"

says the cashmere terror wearing white socks and crocks: "maybe he doesn't want to be part of the team!"

you're running out of options. enough bullshitting.

you tip the teacup into your mouth.

ooc. if you want anything else in particular pm me at ilium or pm this journal.

for DIO

[tropism]

EX. THE REQUIEM PLAYS QUIETLY warnings for: dysphoria

in the colosseum -

there is a distinct sense of a soul not being in the right body. it is a soul that is yours, burning brightly like the sun and yet in a body that is not yours, shifting and moving in familiar ways but entirely different and wrong. it is very much like watching through a lens; doing and talking feels like a dream.

a turtle is slowly making its way around a column. it talks. it is slowly and persistent as it crawls, muttering, "ugh, what a pain!" in a familiar, gruff voice that one has heard speak, so many years ago in cairo, perhaps climbing up a stairway after blowing his bloody nose on the drapes ... but that was years and years ago and this is the first time this boy with the wrong body has met it at all.

a curious gesture is made after it opens its mouth: a key is lifted from its back, but nothing happens. again the turtle shifts until it declares: "my name is jean pierre polnareff ... i agreed to meet you here, in the colosseum, but diavolo caught me and i failed to uphold my end of the agreement. my body has died in the second floor, but because i was forced to use the power of this arrow, it hurts ... so much .... but i was able to swap souls with this turtle!

all of you! you must listen to me! what is happening right now ... is a fragment of the power of the arrow i had meant to give you!"

Armitage Hux

[therewillbeorder]

closed to Kylo Ren: De Chima

[It was too quiet. There were times when he needed it but too much of it grated on him, made him uneasy. He was used to always having something to do, there had never been any time to sit at the window and watch the rain and lightning. First, there had never been a window to watch storms out of and second, getting a chance to sit down for more than a few moments was a rare thing.

But here he had sat most of the morning that Sunday, holding a now empty mug in his hands. The last day had been strange and unsettling, he couldn't figure out what was going on and that bothered him, especially after the incident with Dameron.

He hated surprises, he hated not knowing things.

He looked up as he heard Ren open the door, tapping a finger against the empty mug.]



closed to K-2SO: store

[Hux didn't mind the stormy weather. Though he had spent most of his life on a star destroyer in space, he was from a planet where these storms were the norm day in and day out. He brushed off strange twinges in his mind, attributing that to lack of sleep and stress from everything going on.

It was odd how the stormy weather was almost comforting even though he was wet by the time he got to the store, shaking off his umbrella lightly. He normally didn't run the errands but there were a few things he wanted to get on his way home.

He paused as he heard the bell on the store's door chime, something in his mind shifting-]

-there is the sound of a small bell, a chirp of a content cat with a flash of orange...


closed to Eli Vanto: De Chima

[Just because he didn't mind stormy weather didn't mean he didn't like the cold. He was freezing by the time he got to the house, setting the umbrella in the entryway as he stepped out of his shoes. He didn't allow mud to be tracked in, he was very careful about that.

He paused as he heard a noise in the kitchen, raising his eyebrows. He knew Ren would be out until later so he assumed it was one of his other housemates. He peeled off his coat, unable to shake the haziness in his mind. Perhaps he was coming down with something, that would be just his luck.

Hopefully, that wasn't the case. He didn't want to think about what kind of primitive diseases ran rampant on this backwater planet.

He went into the kitchen to see who was home, hoping that if it was Eli that at least there would be coffee ready for him.]


[ooc: warnings for death, genocide, abuse, torture, etc. hit me up at illuminations if you would like a prompt!]

+1 definitely shaken knight of ren

[photophobic]

[Ren's aura was on again, a low level hum despite his best efforts. The confusion all around was becoming so frustratingly distracting, the Force snagging and pulling in ways that made absolutely no sense. He kicked off his boots, leaving them right in the middle of the floor, and shrugged off his coat, glancing over to Hux and frowning.

It was definitely unsettling, seeing Hux caught off guard.]

No answers. Only more questions.

[He throws himself onto the couch irritably.]

arthur pendragon.

[hardcut]

( plotting comment over yonder. )

for padme

[hardcut]

Creak, slam, the heavy wooden door opens and falls back into place behind you, shuffling onto the terrace, hands busy with a tray loaded up with food. It's a bright and sunny day, unusual for this time of year in Londinium, and frankly miserable for it – you're dressed for something cooler and are already sweating through your clothes, sturdy linen and leather, and though the sun is miserable it's at least better than the suffocating humidity indoors. You let the tray thunk down on the table heavily, let yourself thunk down even heavier into a chair.

“Why don't it snow no more,” complains Backlack next to you, looking as sweaty and miserable as you feel. He's entirely too old to be speaking like a Visigoth struggling with the language, pretending like he can't read and write just fine; it'll be a wonder if his kid turns out able to to say anything besides Welsh swear words and loud noises. Wetstick – someday they'll start calling him Tristan again – is sacked out in the shade, and just grunts something indistinct as an answer.

“Maybe Merlin stole it,” is your barely-interested contribution. It snows. It snows way too fucking often, actually, light dustings of it never weighing down heavily enough to coat the city in white, always just enough to turn immediately into muddy sludge. At least the food isn't hot – bread and cheese, meat and fruit. Wedges of apple and melon are young enough to have a snap to their bite, still, and it's almost refreshing. In the street below, someone is shouting out selling eggs, trying to be heard over the echoing clang of the blacksmith two buildings down, and the argument two someones are having. You listen, voices indistinct up here, but can't actually be arsed to see what's going on. If it's important, someone'll tell you. So you lean back in your chair and look out at the city – wooden buildings with straw rooves crammed in around old stone structures, the – what do they call it? Amphitheater, you think, but there's a Roman name people use still. You haven't been down that way in ages.

Creak, and the door opens again, Aelwyn from downstairs poking her head out and setting down a pitcher of something or other (wine, you think). “I coulda brought that up for you, Arthur,” she says, nodding to the food.

“Naw,” you forestall any offers of comping, “we're not here on business.” Wetstick, who still hasn't moved, grunts agreement.

She flashes a smile. “Pity, I like watching Ferdi nearly piss himself – get you lads anything else?” She's got on a blue dress. Must have been expensive. Good. Profits are up. You file this information away for later, and laugh quietly, but tell her no thanks. Slam, the door closes as Aelwyn leaves. The argument from down in the street is louder. Backlack is looking over the edge. Maybe it'll be cooler tomorrow. Way in the distance, the clear jewel sky muddles to gray where it touches earth. Or it must. The jagged line of buildings and rising coils of smoke obscures the level slice of horizon itself.

“Colosseum,” you say. That's the Roman name.

“What?” 'Lack's looking at you, but only briefly. “I think Thelo and the baker's man might actually kill each other down there.”

Uuughh. You pop another piece of apple in your mouth before you stand up, moving the opposite direction from your two conspirators and heading to lever yourself up and over the balcony edge.

gwen wynne-york | content warnings as required.

[trouvaille]

( plotting comment or hit me up at keanuleaves for memories below. )

for arthur pendragon; drugging, abduction, mind control.

[trouvaille]

You come to in the backseat of a car; wrists bound behind your back, arms aching, one shoe ... somewhere, which is not on your foot, so this is already going thrillingly, whatever the fuck this is. Last you remember, you were at a bar -

which is not exactly unusual

- and you'd declined the drink, firmly, paid for your own. Much good that appears to have done you, head still swimming with whatever it had been that definitely wasn't just gin, because you know what a hangover feels like and this isn't that. Also, you don't normally have those tied up in the back of moving - moving - vehicles. On roads that have mostly sky visible from what you can see, not the high buildings you're used to. With strangers who drug girls in bars.

“Do you have any idea-” your voice sounds so shrill, even to your own ears. “You stop this fucking car right now.”

Terror makes command taste strange in your mouth, but stranger still: the car jolts to a stop and you slide, colliding painfully with the back of the front seats and the gearbox between them, a sound shoved out of you that you don't like. You like none of this, but you're an opportunist at heart and the thing is, the car stopped.

You swallow. Roll. Feel your broken shoe under your back on the floor of the car, where it will have left a bruise, later.

“Let me out,” you say, experimental. You can tell he's moving, but you can't see at this angle any more and it's slow, so you try again, firmer: “You are going to come here and let me go.”

The car door slams. For what feels like entirely too long, you stare at the ceiling and you're pretty sure you're going to die- when he hauls you out, you're certain, but the knife cuts through your bonds and not your skin and he steadies you, one bare foot and one high heel, and when you look up at him (tall, but everyone's taller than you, a face you don't recognise, an expression that you do: as bemused by what's happening as you are) -

“I want an apology,” you say, gathering the tattered shreds of your dignity about yourself. “I want my purse back!” The hysterical edge doesn't sound like you, you think, some awful cunt has made you into a frightened thing you don't know and you hate it, you hate him-

“I'm sorry,” he says, digging in the front seat for your purse; “I'm sorry, I'm a cunt.”

“Fuck off,” you mutter, your head swimming, and then he does, with the car keys.

You look down the long stretch of empty road in the other direction. You take off your shoe, and start walking. Maybe when you get somewhere with a phone, some of this will make any sense at all.

bodhi rook

[onlydoubts]

[ Bodhi is fond of the storm, or rather - flying out in it. At least until it gets too dangerous, his feet hitting the ground as soon as the first flash of lightning lights up the sky. He pulls his goggles up onto his head, giving the sky a curious glance and trudges on home. ]

[ ooc: if you'd like to plot something, hit me with a pm here or on plurk @ ghoulified ]

for eli (tw: allusions to torture, capture, and planetary destruction)

[onlydoubts]

Maybe, Bodhi thought, just maybe his torment was over.

He recognized some of the faces running with him. There were whole crowds behind Baze and Chirrut, clattering through the stone hallways with riffles and duffels slung over their shoulders. Among them were Bodhi's captors, the men and women who'd bound him, blinded him, marched him at gunpoint across the desert when he'd begged simply to help them. They didn't look at him now, didn't seem to see him. He pushed his aching legs and cold lungs harder to pace.

"They'll kill us," he whispered to Baze. "You don't know these people."

Baze laughed so hard that Bodhi was terrified the rebels would look back. They kept running.

"Forgive my friend," Chirrut said. "You would think it's funny too, if you knew he wanted you dead, most of all."

Bodhi didn't think that was funny in the slightest. But a rescue was a rescue.

They ran out of the catacombs, up ancient steps worn smooth over centuries, and burst into the frigid dawn. Sunlight slashed through Bodhi's eyes with cuts of blue and green and silver. He couldn't recall when he'd last seen sunlight, though Bor Gullet would have known.

He staggered to a stop behind Baze and Chirrut standing on a broad mountain ledge overlooking a valley. The rebels were gone, scattered somewhere. In the valley there was nothing but dust, a billowing, blooming storm of sand, expanding outward in all directions.

"What do you see?" Chirrut asked Baze.

Bodhi blinked away the scars of light. When his eyes had adjusted, he realized the valley was now too dim. He raised his stiff neck and looked to the sky, and saw a shadow like a moon eclipsing the sun.

Realizations crashed together. Bodhi was on Jedha, had never left Jedha, and he was looking onto the valley where the Holy City had been. And above him, in the sky...

"No," he whispered. "No."

This was not a rescue. This was a trick of Bor Gullet. This was the reason he had left the Empire, abandoned his friends, trusted the words of Galen Erso, suffered torment and humiliation -- to stop the battle station, stop the planet killer from coming to life. What he saw was not real. It could not be.

"It wasn't supposed to happen yet," he whispered, though no one listened. He was too late. This was his fault.

SARISSA THERON | individual starters below

[magnitudes]

Plotting comment here; I'm open to doing things with anyone, but I like doing custom starters, so just get in touch with me and we can come up with a plan! Sarissa's got potential for a lot of very dumb, whimsical memories, but there's also some dark content, so we can work out whatever would be more interesting for you.

FOR JAKE PERALTA ( cw: ref to past ridic nsfw shenanigans, violence, domestic violence & murder )

[magnitudes]

( She's had a long day. Like, a long day, including stopping a museum robbery, and then trying to get a handle on the storm clusterfuck that rolled in during. She's not naive - that was probably kinda her and the Flash's fault, but they pulled it back into control and everything was fine and dandy, eventually. Also, hey, giant balls of hail looked kind of cool, but really hurt when you were trying to get them contained and your body was wavering with its storm physiology.

Whatever, she's fine, but she earned this ice cream that she's having. Ice cream for dinner was a legitimate choice. There's several different flavours, a waffle bowl, and an obscene number of toppings involved, and she's so glad Cosima introduced her to so many good food places in De Chima, because she needs this right now. So refreshing, so tasty, so cold—

I like 'em cooooold.

It's sudden, the feeling of whaaaat is happening that grips her. Not ominous, just confused, and then it's like falling down a rabbit hole of jumbled memories, things that associate together and just keep clicking into place. Fingers running over her - not, not her, A - chest, talking about cracking it open like its sexy (wow, morbid, and kind of disturbing) and a swollen appendix, and wow the voice that she knows isn't hers is very familiar. Why?

Sarissa swallows her ice cream, except she's looking at it a little suspiciously. Was this laced with something? She's just on the verge of standing to go get a new bowl, when it keeps stretching on. The same woman, lingerie, a lab coat and—

oooh, how long have you been dead, body? )

Ahhh. Oh, Christ, no. Weird.

( Fouuur daaays. ) Oh, what?

( Sarissa leans back in her seat, and stubbornly scoops up some of the ice cream, staring it down accusingly. ) Look, it has been a weird day already, I don't need hallucinogenic ice cream. Work with me, here.

( Okay? Okay. No more funny business. Because she can remember that, remember it as familiarly as if it were the kind of memory played over and over out of fondness or out of shame, but she knows for a fact that she has no memories involving pretending to be sexy-dead. She feels kind of awkward about it, though, so maybe the weird or sexy? dilemma she also feels like she should be having isn't actually that much of dilemma.

But oh, how wrong she was. )

daenerys targaryen.

[jalan]

[ ooc ; find my plotting comment yonder, and individual memories below. i'm going to first form custom memories, and if i have time and willing, some free-for-all things, but let me know if you'd like something per the plotting comment and i will write it! ]

fire cannot kill a dragon: for gwen wynne-york.

[jalan]

Darkness, firelight, the smell of human bodies which in turn smell of their horses. Smoke, roasting meat, wine. The relentless pounding of drums permeate the air. It seems strange, that this is your place in the world, the absolute right place to be when you have longed for home -- whatever that was -- all your life. The feast has put the khalasar in good spirits. Men lounge half naked, women dance half naked, and there is one between the knees of your warlord husband who sits among his men. Again, he looks to you, eyes dark, clever, a cleverness that no longer frightens you.

There is, of course, one thing that could ruin the evening.

"Daenerys!"

There he is. Viserys. Shock of hair as pale as yours, his dirty Westerosi rags making him stand out all the more. You can tell by his sway that he is drunk, which makes your stomach turn over. This place is sacred, and yet here he is, wandering through and tearing apart manners and protocol like so much spiderweb, oblivious and uncaring. "Where's my sister!"

You look to Jorah, at your side, and quietly bid; "Stop him."

"Where is she!" Viserys' voice is sharp beneath the deep sounds of the gathering, drums and men. He gesticulates wildly at Dothraki warriors, who, as ever, look upon him like he's a simpleton, a fool. "I'm here for the feast! The whore's feast?"

Jorah has crossed the tent, and reaches for his arm as you would escort out a common drunk. "Come--"

Viserys snarls, twisting like a snake-- "Get your hands off me," pointing under the knight's nose, all venom and teeth, "no one touches the dragon."

You hear one of Drogo's bloodriders mutter, and both he and his lord chuckle low to themselves, attracting now Viserys' attention. You can feel a peculiar tension dance up your wrists, your spine, but the old fear is no longer there. Viserys raises his arms in grand greeting, pronouncing, "Khal Drogo! I'm here for the feast."

Does he truly expect to be invited, to sit with the khal, and his honoured brothers? In Dothraki, the language you've learned so quickly, Drogo corrects him: "We have a place for you." Viserys, who has not bothered to learn a single word of Dothraki, looks to Ser Jorah, who translates, gesturing to the isolated, dark corners of the feast, where the feeble sit among the children. Not with pleasure, not exactly, but you know something has shifted. Jorah harbours no loyalty for Viserys, if he ever truly did.

Viserys does not fly into a rage. He is beyond that, you can tell. "That is no place for a king."

Slowly, Drogo reaches for the common words he has learned, and says with deep certainty; "You are no king."

Viserys, with show, draws his blade, the slide of metal drawing more attention than he could have commanded with voice alone. The sacrilege of exposed metal twinges in your heart, the drums now silent. Viserys points his blade to Jorah, before the knight can close in, his voice thick now with feeling: "Keep away from me."

"Viserys, please." Your own voice flies from your throat before you can stop it.

Silence, for a moment, as Viserys finds you in the shadows, his eyes wide with fury, and his voice quiet as he says; "There she is."

He turns his blade towards you, following after it. Behind him, Jorah urges him, "Put the sword down. Or they'll kill us all."

"They can't kill us." Viserys swings his blade, feet unsteady, commanding the attention of the khalasar, for better or for ill. "They can't shed blood in their sacred city."

Doreah steps between you and your brother's blade as he comes closer; you are swift to gently, but firmly, shepherd her aside with your arm.

"But I can." The point of the sword settles against your belly, felt through your clothing, Dothraki made and always tough. You do not look down at it. You wait for the fear to come, even as he pushes, forcing you to sit. You watch him, as he glances to Khal Drogo, smug, like a little boy knowing he is touching what he ought not. "I want what I came for." He sounds calm. Reasonable. Pitiless. "I want the crown he promised me. He bought you, but he never paid for you. Tell him I want what was bargained for or I'm taking you back. He can keep the baby. I'll cut it out and leave it for him."

Your heart has changed. It has hardened, become bloodless. Drogo speaks.

"What's he saying?"

"He says yes." Viserys face changes, too. It's severity softens. Hope kindles in his eyes, that are so like yours. You know what you are saying, when you say with such gentle feeling; "You shall have a golden crown that men shall tremble to behold."

"Well, that was all I wanted." He looks as though he could cry, even though he smiles first, like a child overtired with relief. "What was-- what was promised."

Drogo rises to his feet, and so do you, as the sword drops, and Viserys gives space. You feel, first, your husband's hand on your belly, and you touch his battle-worn knuckles. You look to him, his clever, dark eyes, and you know he is reading yours, and what it is you desire. Drogo gives the order.

Men descend on Viserys in a moment, and perhaps the city entire hears the crunch of his broken arm. Viserys' expression transforms into shock, and horror, silent until he finds his voice again: "No!"

What happens then is all faster than you would have imagined. Viserys' cries jumble together, cries of demanding his crown, that he is the dragon, that they cannot touch him. Drogo has left your side to throw gold into the emptied pot over the fire, and you watch as Viserys realises what it is that's about to happen.

Ser Jorah has arrived at your side, his hand gentle on your arm. "Look away, khaleesi."

"No."

Viserys has grown hysterical. "Dany," he cries. As if they were children. As if they were brother and sister, still. He has been forced to kneel. The fire nearby burns bright, Drogo an outlight of darkness as he tends to the melting gold. "Dany, tell them. Make them, make them. You can't, you can't, please, Dany, please."

Is there anything left, in you, to feel shame? Fear? Guilt? Or did that all fly from your heart when he touched his sword to your belly, where your son grows? Such things leaving you should hurt more, you think, but you feel no pain now, and you do not look away as Drogo stands over him, declares his gift of a crown for a king, and upends the molten gold over your brother's head. The screaming is piercing, and then it is gone, Viserys dying so suddenly, and collapsing in the dirt. Hardened metal, capping his skull, strikes the ground.

"Khaleesi," Jorah says, beside you.

"He was no dragon," you say, to Jorah, and the frightened girl you were, once. "Fire cannot kill a dragon."

Jon Snow

[song_of_ice]

Individual prompts below. My plotting comment is HERE. If you would like something, feel free to hit it up and we can plot something out.

For The Watch: Closed to Bela

[song_of_ice]

The Kingslayer's taunts are forgotten as you enter the familiar bedroom of your sister. The sound of activity missing, as quiet and isolated as your own room. Unlike Sansa, Arya doesn't have a team of maids to help her pack, only a direwolf at her side.

"Septa Mordane said I have to do it again," Arya tells you with an annoyed look. "'My things weren't properly folded', she said. Who cares how they are folded? They are only going to get messed up anyway."

There isn't much you can say to that, as household matters have never concerned you. Instead, you look down at the direwolf pup at her side. "It's good you've got help."

"Watch." Arya stands at her full height, proud and pleased. "Nymeria, gloves." The wolf simply stares back at her. A long pause drifts between them. Arya nods her head, a silent direction, but just as before, the wolf does no respond.

You can't resist, "Impressive."

"Shut up. Nymeria, gloves!"

The wolf only cocks her head in response. Not wanting to drag this out, you instead get to the reason why you've come. "I have something for you and it has to be packed very carefully." All of the other goodbyes seem like nothing compared to this one, yet you try to push forward, focusing instead on the gift that you know will please her.

"A present?"

"Close the door."

As she does so, you place the bundle in your arms on the bed, carefully unfurling until a small, thin blade is in your hands. It's delicate, but lethal, the perfect size for such a small, but wild girl. "This is no toy." You unsheath it for her. "Be careful you don't cut yourself."

"It's so skinny."

"So are you. I had the blacksmith make it for you special. It won't cut a man's head off, but it will poke him full of holes if you are quick enough."

"I can be quick." She is eager to interject, the joy obvious in her eyes.

"You will have to work at it everyday." You watch her as she stares down at the blade. "How does it feel? Do you like the balance?"

"I think so."

You lean in close to her, cupping the back of her head as you smile fondly at your sister, the only one who ever understood you. "First lesson," it's said as though imparting a great secret, "stick 'em with the pointy end."

"I know which end to use."

There was that impatience again. All you can do is smile in response before the reality of the situation hits you. "I'm going to miss you." She only stares back wordlessly,
about to leap at you, save for the blade. "Careful," you are quick to say. She sets it aside and jumps from the ground into your arms, holding you tightly. Real love. It seemed such a rare thing in Winterfell, but you actually have it.

"All the best swords have names, you know." You say against her embrace.

"Sansa can keep her sewing needles, I've got a Needle of my own."

***

The next goodbye is not as easy. Even as you climb the stairs to Bran's room, you feel a looming dread gnawing in your stomach. She will be there, the woman you had tried to give way to for all of your life. Winterfell is her home, not yours, but you dare to risk her anger just this once, this only time so that you might say goodbye to your brother. But even still, you're not sure if you have the right.

She's there, just like you expected, weaving her doll obsessively in an attempt to protect him. Superstitions that you don't know very much about and never would have gotten to experience. There was no mother to hover over you bedside and worry for you. You pause in the doorway, uncertain and sinking beneath her glare. Her eyes stare at you as she always has before, but there is a new level of hatred, as though to say "it should have been you."

"I came to say goodbye to Bran."

"You've said it."

For the first time in your life, you push past her and go to Bran's side, ignoring her hostility as best you can. Bran is still in bed, unconscious and unmoving. You have never seen him so small and weak before. He usually scaled the walls of Winterfell with no trouble, yet here he was frail and fragile, so unlike himself. Some wondered if he was going to wake, but you refuse to let that thought linger in your mind. He would get better and to prove it, you would make him a promise.

"I wish I could be here when you wake up. I'm going North with Uncle Benjen, I'm taking the Black." You hesitate before taking a seat beside him, Lady Catelyn staring at you with hatred in her eyes. "I know we always talked about seeing the Wall together, but you'll be able to come visit me at Castle Black when you are better. I'll know my way around by then. I'll be a sworn Brother of the Night's Watch. We can go out walking beyond the Wall if you're not afraid." Emotion is starting to get the better of you, the fear that he won't wake, that he can't even hear you now. You are struggling, in need of reassurance and kindness. Helplessly, you look up at Lady Catelyn, tears are in her eyes as well. For a brief moment, you truly believe she might reach out and extend some tenderness. A moment shared between you where she can understand how much you need her approval.

But her words are like a cold rush of wind. "I want you to leave."

You turn and see your father's figure, standing in the room observing you both. It's hard to tell what is in his expression. Is it disapproval for her words or is it disappointment that you challenged her in this way? You don't ask and you don't stay to hear what he might stay. You hurry to your feet, pausing only to kiss Bran's forehead, and leave the room without another glance.

***

Robb is waiting for you outside, as you knew he was, looking as excited as you should feel. You both heard stories about how noble and honorable the Night's Watch is. Yet it is you who are going while he remains behind, the Trueborn Son in his home, the Keep he shall be lord of someday. Even in this moment though, freshly bruised by his mother's hatred, you can't bring it in yourself to be angry at him. That fond smile and warmth will be what you remember best about him, not these brief flickers of rivalry that only seemed to appear whenever Lady Catelyn was about.

The saddle on your shoulder is weighing you down, but not so much as this final goodbye.

"You said goodbye to Bran?" Robb asks you. You nod in reply. "He's not going to die, I know it."

"You Starks are hard to kill."

He hesitates but asks the obvious question. "My mother?"

Does it really matter anymore? "She was very kind." He seems appeased by the lie, at least.

"Good. Next time I see you, you'll be all in black."

"It was always my color."

There is disappointment in his eyes and sadness. "Farewell, Snow."

"And you Stark."

He surges forward and embraces you, the last brotherly bond you will ever share. In this moment, you can forget and forgive every slight or argument. It doesn't matter if you're a bastard. He is your brother and you'll miss him. All you can do is wish him well and hope you will see him again soon.