weep not for the memories

[brushoff]

WHO: Everybody!
WHERE: all cities
WHEN: March 4 - March 6
WHAT: it's a catch-all log, sucka! Tag here and thread around for the Dorian Ruins Everything Guilt Extravaganza part of the overall March plot. Please check out this ooc post for details!
WARNINGS: Traumatic memories. Possible talk of murder, death, blood, other nasty things. I'll try to update if the warnings needed but please use content warnings if it gets super nasty!

It starts off on March 4th, the early morning before the sun's even risen. You know those weird mirages that were hanging around the day before? Well now it's getting a little personal.

These mirages come and go seemingly for no reason. They might stay for a minute, they might stay for an hour. The images vary between person but the unifying factor is that the mirages consist of people the player characters have hurt, whether people in-game or from their homes. Whether they murdered them, slandered them, or even had a petty little argument, the unifying factor is the guilt each character feels towards or about this mirage. After all, you know you hurt them somehow. You know their existence somehow makes you feel guilty.

Another unifying factor? The creepy way these mirages just seem to stick to you. They'll follow you if you try to leave, staring you down with their creepy unblinking mirage eyes. And whoops: everybody can see said mirages. Hopefully you're not being stalked by someone you and somebody else both know, wouldn't that be awkward?

Have fun confronting your traumatizing past and/or wondering why your buddy's got some creepy ghost guy following him, imPorts!

( ooc: this is a catch-all log! Make starters of your characters getting haunted by their creepy mirages, have other people react to said creepy mirages, ???, profit. Hit me up on the ooc post if you have any questions! )

Comments

[leaflets]

[ Her tears haven't quite dried up, but she's not violently sobbing any longer. Something about Kidou's calm is definitely helping. She rubs at her eyes, trying to smile but it's weak and barely there. It's...there's something different about the way it makes her feel, not having that outpouring of sympathy that her problems usually get. With someone closer to her age, she prefers it, she realizes. She isn't being handled with child gloves for fear of upsetting her more, or being soothed. She's being treated as an equal, or as much of one as Kidou can manage.

It's not that she feels coddled by, say Kaneki but...it's so hard sometimes to stay positive about everything, to keep from worrying the people she loves. And she tries, because Kaneki has so much to handle already, he doesn't need a crying Hinami on his plate too. ]

Kikkun...thank you. [ It still hurts, she stills wants to lay down and cry for hours. But it's not so overwhelming with something else to focus on. With the thought of this only being an illusion to cling to. ] I'm sorry, I didn't... I-I was panicking and...what happened with Mama...

[ She hadn't exactly planned on spilling disturbing details to him. Only two people in this world knew that true extent of what Hinami had been put through by the Mado. ]

I try to remember her the way she was...and seeing her like that...

[tacticianing]

[Either the situation is dire enough, or it's been long enough, that Kidou seems to have simply accepted that 'Kikkun' is what Fueguchi refers to him as. There's no reaction at all to it this time.]

It's understandable. I can't think of anyone who wouldn't react badly to that.

[He won't - can't - say 'it's alright'. It wasn't. And from what she'd told him already, it probably never could be. So while that might be a standard phrase to offer someone, it's an utterly useless statement to Kidou that he isn't going to rely on. For his own problems, maybe. Never for someone else's.

He offers her a wan smile then, more sad than anything else.]

But... at least you can remember her.

[leaflets]

[ What a weird picture they must make, Hinami thinks, as she moves to mirror the way Kidou is sitting. Two kids sitting on a roof they shouldn't have been able to get onto, looking tired and sad. She's pretty sure her face is probably a blotchy mess. ]

I'm scared I'll forget her sometimes. Or Papa. Someone once told me...for me to turn out, as a Ghoul, the way I am must mean I've been loved and protected. And it's true. I'm really lucky. Almost every Ghoul I know lost their parents when they were younger than me...that's just how it is, with humans and ghouls fighting the way we do.

[ She was different from Ghouls in so very many ways, and even after both of her parents were gone...their entire group had worked hard to keep her sheltered and protected. ]

I could never go to school, it wasn't safe. So she taught me to read and write all by herself. She'd make my clothes by hand. She was so kind, she never wanted to hurt anyone...she didn't deserve...

They turned her into a weapon, her and Papa. [ She needs to make him understand, it feels a little bit like. Maybe the Investigators have reason for the these they do, but-- Ghouls have theirs too, and maybe Kidou is the only person who can be logical enough to set aside emotion and see that too. Or maybe it's just to get it off her own chest, with all these feelings welling up and trying to push their way out. ] If they were going to find me and kill me too, I think I was okay with that, in a way. If I could be with my parents again, then...if I really didn't have any right to exist... But that man...that's what the Investigators do. They take our kagunes and they use them to kill us. He had both Mama and Papa, and it was...

I try to remember the good things, but sometimes that's all I can remember too.

[ Kagunes are incredibly personal to Ghouls, rarely even pulled out outside of fighting. Seeing her parents' used had been like watching their corpses be used. Hinami wipes at her eyes, already a painful red. ]

When I saw her in the school...all I could think was that she came back because she hated me for letting her die. Or she hated me for not killing that man when I had the chance. For not getting revenge for her and Papa when he was right there to let me do it. But I didn't want to get revenge. I wasn't angry, I was just...sad.

[ Because Kidou's thought before was right: Between humans and Ghouls, it's a never ending cycle, one of hatred and revenge. Investigator kills Ghoul for killing their loved one, Ghoul's loved ones kill Investigators in revenge, and it just keeps going. ]

[tacticianing]

[All the while, Kidou's listening. He doesn't interrupt. He doesn't react. He's let his face slide down into a calm mask by now, focusing on his breathing and her words together. All of this is horrific. No... horrific doesn't begin to describe it. No one single word would ever be adequate for any of this.

Not the fact that ghouls exist. Not the fact that people rip out organs - that was what she'd said a kagune was, wasn't it? something like a hunting organ? - in order to kill other ghouls with them. Not the fact that someone with a personality like Fueguchi had to suffer something like that. Nor the fact that someone who can only exist by killing other people would have the personality of Fueguchi at all, or ...

But that was it, wasn't it? That prejudice he's been facing this whole time, his own unease and fear dealing with Fueguchi and Kaneki both makes this understandable why any of this would happen. Even when the knowledge sinks like a swallowed stone in his stomach, twisting at his insides until it even hurts to swallow, Kidou can't say he can't understand. He can see exactly why people would want someone like Fueguchi dead. He hates that about himself, but he can see it. But... at the same time... there was nothing but injustice about the world she describes. He'd find it infuriating if he didn't also feel that it was closer to tragic. As it is, he has to settle for awful ambivalence between the two.

And still, Kidou stays calm on the surface, his composure unshakable now that he knows what he might have to expect. There's nothing to be done about any of this now except listen and let it seep in. Kidou can't help thinking he should be growing numb to this kind of thing by now, but each new tiny piece to this puzzle is a new splinter of ice in his heart.

That suspicion about this being a cycle returns, nagging at the back of his mind with increasing insistence. Sometimes, the worst part about being a tactician is being right.

He breathes in again, and out. And when he's sure he can keep any tension out of his voice, after he's arranged the sentence he wants to use in his head, then he replies. Is it cowardice on his part to just not address 90% of anything she's said, or is it being helpful? Kidou isn't even sure himself, and he's not overly eager to search within himself to confirm he's avoiding things.

Hopefully, he'll just look thoughtful for a few moments, and nothing more, but he doesn't look as neutrally composed as he wishes he did.]

...

Even when it seems like it's the right thing to do, acting with revenge in mind makes everyone else suffer.

[Kidou manages to shove some of the damning softness from his expression as he comes around to a definitive statement. It's both experience and resolve that give him that much.]

It takes a truly strong person to step above that.