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Priority Log - Part 2
Log 06 Priority (Part II)
Still the Big Screen Car
The last two weeks have been a busy time at FONY Records! Maybe you've been working diligently on your upcoming projects — or maybe you've been fighting the sense that something is wrong. That this life, whether it's better or worse than before, is not your own.
Either way, passengers will finally receive a new objective on their phones...
From here on out, characters can regain their real memories. They can do so randomly, but the most reliable way is to work with another passenger: they will know that by touching foreheads (yes, headbutting counts) for pairs, or huddling very closely for groups, they will unlock some memories for one or all of them — of course, it also allows the other person to see and feel everything play out, as though they lived it themselves.
It's memshare time!
As passengers regain their memories, their AU lives will start to fade. Production crews disappear, texts from your parents delete themselves, your favorite coffee shop is suddenly empty... Because you can't have both.
At least one character will need to reject the AU in order for everyone to progress; there is no minimum comment count. Characters may go both routes, but should ultimately prioritize one for the AC Poll.
Remembering
As characters regain the memories of their real lives, all semblance of their fake ones will rapidly disappear. And choosing to remember comes with side effects: passengers are overtaken by a fierce chill as the source of the cold finally presents itself. The shadows in the empty buildings around them start to stretch out. These shades collect in huge swathes — and shape themselves into sharp, spindly arms and fingers. They'll grab at whoever passes, leaving them cold and constricted, making it hard to remember what's happened and trying to drag them back into the illusions of the AU. However, when these shadows have manifested, they're also vulnerable: they can be dissolved by using a strong light, like a fire, flashlight, or stage light. Even sunlight will do the trick, but physically resisting the shadows will grow more and more difficult as they sap warmth from everything they touch.
For those less physically inclined, the shades have one more weakness: real, happy memories. By focusing on something that brought them past comfort, however small, characters can drive off the shades little by little.
This force controlling the AU clearly lives in shadows. Characters can weaken it by confronting these shades, in which case they will find themselves alone with their memories and a ghostly, empty city of Danaca.
Resisting
But maybe you don't want to remember—maybe your life in Danaca is too good to give up, and you'd rather have this even if it's not real. Unfortunately, once the illusion starts to shatter, there's no stopping the cracks from spreading.Characters that don't regain their memories through contact with other passengers (whether intentionally or unintentionally), will still find their fake identities starting to fade away, but their real identities won't be able to fill the gaps. Instead, they'll find themselves... hollow. Devoid of personality, hopes and dreams. Empty.
...And in that empty space, something else might slip in. The steady collapsing of Danaca has left plenty of strong emotions and ghosts hovering in the air, and passengers might find themselves embodying a powerful current of despair or anger. Or perhaps one of the false denizens might inhabit them (Chadsef, anyone?). Contact with another passenger might also ignite enough memory to return their personality, but it might also give them the wrong one; they might start acting like someone from their memories instead, such as a childhood friend (or enemy).
Regardless of the scenario, there is one common thread: an innate desire for contact with other passengers. Though they won't remember why, passengers will eventually be driven to reclaim their original selves through memshare with other characters. Whether they get everything back before they leave is up to you!
OOC Notes
AC Check is up! The deadline to submit AC is December 1st, 11:59 p.m. EST. Please note this is a day extended as we've pushed the log back a day, AC schedule overall will remain as normal.
Memshare: To add a little spice, memories do not need to be limited by your character's canon point. That is to say, sharing scenes from your character's future will also count as memshare.
Continuing Memloss: Characters may or may not regain all their memories prior to leaving the car, player's choice. The memshare mechanic will no longer be in effect, however players are free to naturally regain memories over time.
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a!
There is no screaming crowd that scatters from the epicenter—it's eerie silence in the surrounding block, people missing from restaurants and designer stores that line the streets. It's all just lights flickering from the blast and rumbling soot as he turns the corner. The sight there is...
He's not prepared for the brutality of it. Or he shouldn't be—no one should be. But he doesn't scream or puke, the color draining from his face as he breathes in shallowly. In and out. It's familiar, but it isn't. After a few seconds of processing, moments passed with something in his chest tensing and twisting so fiercely it hurts, he shakes himself out of it and runs up. ]
Rex! What... [ What happened? ] Are you all right!?
no subject
He sees a metropolitan area covered in flames, being overtaken by a swarm of green forms, and hears the sound of the wind mixed with those of screams. The scent of smoke enters his nostrils as he registers that he's floating in midair on some kind of whirring, hovering vehicle surrounded by others, some seated and some flying on their own. Rex, in that scenario, estimates the distance between himself and the ground as somewhere from 70 to 80 feet in the air and just...
Jumps.]
Wh-
[His hands move as he, in real time, shuffles backwards, startled by the sudden presence. The flesh he once held falls to the ground and melds into the shadow beneath him, disappearing in an instant.
Rex pokes and prods at his clothes, examining his body, and whilst there's tatters in his attire, it's true. He is entirely unharmed.
He stands.]
...Yeah.
[It occurs to him that, had he been a normal person, he shouldn't have survived.]
Yoooo.
no subject
But Rex is real and no matter how warped everything else is right now. He knows him. They're... friends. He has to keep it together and help him. ]
...Come on.
[ He not-so-gently urges him away from the epicenter, compelled somewhat to stick close but also just wanting to get them somewhere safe. ]
It's a miracle you're even alive—what happened?
cw: gore, WARNING: LINK TO IMAGE CONTAINS GORE (tho... cartoony???)
Than any average human being should, anyway.]
No.
[Anger courses through him like a wildfire, familiar in how it scorches from within. It is telling, perhaps, that this is the emotion that makes him feel the most like himself.]
It was me. This was my-
[Yet another moment flashes before him, although it's a snapshot, a snippet. Only the moment in which life became nothingness, a human being turning into mincemeat.
But that was real. His fault, even though it hadn't even been on purpose.]
No! Fuck that noise! It was this thing's fault.
[He barks out the following words as tears begin to well up in his eyes, and Rex curses that he doesn't have his visor to hide behind, so it can fog up and leave him to weep. A similar incident. People too powerful and thoughtless to consider the danger of his abilities, people who knew and didn't care.
Radcliffe had used him, a thirteen year old boy, as the perfect lackey. Poor and unloved, starving and abandoned, to knock off officials and higher-ups under the guise of "public safety," all to take power for himself. Blow up the Pentagon, he said. It's for the good of the country, he said. But killing people? Innocent people? Once Rex had learned of the truth, when he had seen a picture of a man whose smithereens he'd created himself, he refused.
And then he paid for it.
How is this any different?]
Let go.
[He doesn't specify, but it's for Dimitri's protection.
Once again, this vehicle has shown that whoever conducts it has no real regard for human life, and if there is any, it is cruel and thoughtless. To erase the memory of a dangerous killing-machine, an individual whose body and abilities cost investors, scientists, and god knows who the fuck else hundreds of thousands of dollars, is an egregious error. It had taken Rex years to get everything down, nevermind all the tests he had to pass prior to the operation. No school, no personal life.
Just the honing of a singular skill- Murder.]
no subject
But it comes with a bit of clarity, too. He remembers... that he and Rex are not longtime friends. They're only just growing to know each other. Even so, he's not afraid of him so much as for him, squeezing firmly on his arm, voice just as determined. He sounds like a prince again, a forgotten persona. ]
No.
[ The bodies and shadows in the alley are fading, even if the soot remains. He can't stand it, still pale, but he doesn't bolt.
It only takes a flicker of a moment for his expression to soften, his voice gentle. For however frightening this must be for Dimitri, he knows it will be infinitely worse for Rex. ]
...Please don't drive me off. I want to be here for you. [ It's okay. ]
no subject
He doesn't roll his eyes, despite the urge to, because his gut tells him that Dimitri really doesn't mean any harm. A few descriptors come to mind. This guy has no sense of humor, but that in itself is funny, if at the dude's own expense. He is a simpleton, not in that he is unintelligent per se, but he's just so goddamn literal it's bizarre.]
I'm fine.
[Clearly, he is not. Not emotionally well, at least.
But this is just Rex's default.]
That happened a long time ago.
[There it goes, a puff of something conflicted, trying to make its way from his heart to his mind. Rex stifles it abruptly, in the way one would cut a cord, so he can keep himself from recognizing that he is feeling pain. His mind may not register the anguish this way, but it will remain in his body, affecting each and every overly-clenched muscle and tightening his shoulder blades, ultimately weighing him down.
It would have been nice to have a friendship be fucking real for once. Texting Dimitri in the dorms had been such a relief.]
So my life's a rip-roarin' shit-show. It's been that way since day one! And there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it.
[That, unfortunately, is the truth.]
I don't like killing people. Not if I don't have to! It's gross! I gotta wash my hair a thousand times to get the stank of dead person off of me. It's the worst!
So, shoo fly! Don't bother me. I need to figure my powers out, since they're fucking dangerous and all.
no subject
You're right. I probably can't do anything, but that doesn't mean I'll leave.
[ ...Except it only takes the brush of his hand on Rex's arm before it's memory theater time again.
You are fifteen, and it has been two years since near everyone you loved was taken by flame. Two years since the genocide which you were helpless to stop, no matter how lofty your position.
But you have recovered from your wounds—the physical ones, anyway—all just history and scar tissue. You are still young, and you are stronger than anyone in your Kingdom, and you have the Goddess's blessing in your blood—you could twist metal in your hands with ease since you were just a child.
Childhood is a long-ago concept though, and you are an adult now, commanding a battalion of your own. An army under your eventual crown. You have studied feverishly the art of war, of swords and lances, and nothing can stand in your way as you go to meet a rebel army in the western lands of your vast, frigid territory.
And battle is—invigorating. Gratifying.
You feel, for the first time in a long while, as though you have some control over your life. And more than anything, it feels right, the way adrenaline burns bright in your blood, all that blistering anger and grief finding expression in the slash of a blade, the brutal twist of a lance. You are righting something wrong. You cannot see your own face, but it must be a wild thing for how frightened you leave your enemies. It must be a smile. The ghosts that always whisper and jeer at you finally turn into white noise.
(Out of the corner of your eye, you spot your friend, Felix, and his eyes are glued on you and wide with terror.)
It's not until after you throw a spear into their leader's chest that the rebellion settles, quiet eventually falling over the battlefield. You are told that you handled yourself with skill, a force to be reckoned with, before you go walking over the dirt, packed down by the beat of horse hooves and greaves, stepping between bodies until silver glints in the corner of your eye.
You crouch beside a fallen soldier's body, cut from shoulder to waist, struck down in a single blow. Clutched tight in his palm is a locket's chain; your hand moves before your mind does to squeeze the tiny, silver heart that hangs there open.
It holds nothing special. Just a lock of blonde hair, as fair as your own, nearly dropping through your fingers.
—And it's only then that you really wake from the haze of battle. It takes this simple thing to remind you that this was your enemy, but also a man, who surely loved someone enough to carry a piece of them into battle, fighting a terrifying, hopeless fight against a royal army that you yourself vanguarded. You do not think death is so romantic that he died thinking of whoever this hair belonged to—a daughter, a mother. A lover, perhaps.
He surely died with a mind for nothing but miserable pain. Blinding fear. You think it will take months for his family to learn of his demise. People will mourn him. The gratification, the rightness of it all—you wake up to how awful it is, and how wretched you are. And you are just—a frightened child again, shivering and clutching a locket in the midst of death and destruction by your hand. You know you will kill again—there is so much left for you to do—and it will feel as disastrous as it does now, because you will carry this guilt beside you like a companion even if it won't fix what you've broken, even if it means nothing to those you have and will hurt.
You are no stranger to cruelty. But this is the day you learn that you are so capable of it. ]
no subject
Oof.
[What concerns him, and forces the young Guardian to be sensitive for once in his goddamn life, is that Dimitri had viewed himself as an adult in that moment. The blond hails from a different time, and if the prince were any other normal teenager, Rex would make light of how fucked up it is that the both of them had seen the inside of a human head before grabbing their first hot-girl boob.]
Guess that was Mortal Kombat about 200 or 300 years before Mortal Kombat was even released, damn!
[It's not a joke that Dimitri will understand, but it's something. A breather. Rex had taken years to come to terms with the gravity of what happened to him, and in a way, he is still grieving, processing. When Eve bid him goodbye, for real, that time... She didn't even look angry, just disappointed. Like him screwing Kate and screwing up was supposed to happen, or that she should've seen it coming.]
Was that your first time straight up slicin' and dicin' a guy?
[He blurts this out casually, but there is an air of sentimentality tinged in the uptick of Rex's pitch at the end. The redhead maintains a tone that lacks shock or judgment.]
no subject
...Yes.
[ His first time leading on the battlefield. Right. He'd killed a lot of people that day. A hazy layer of his real memories comes back to him as the shadows of the alley stretch and warp, the people in the streets—alive or not—all vanished by now.
With the danger past them, Dimitri's grip on Rex's arm slacks, though he doesn't stray far from his side. He couldn't run from the truth of who he was forever: a beast—sadistic and black-hearted and cruel. If there's any surprise to this, it's Rex's reaction, which is remarkably even-keeled considering the slaughter he just saw. ]
Though it wasn't the last time, of course. [ Mostly bandits and the like, but there were others, too. ] ...So you'll find no fear or judgment from me, Rex. [ His memories, while disturbing, were not deliberately cruel. Just the actions of a scared and misled child with too much power and not enough well-intentioned guidance. ] Whatever you have done in your life, I'm sure I have managed worse.
descriptions of violence
[Rex grimaces in a manner that would imply both guilt and surprise. How does he explain to Dimitri that he had killed so many other people before that, on command, and very much so on purpose. It had even been fun for a while, like posing as the protagonist of a gory video game in real life. Sure, he was under the age of 15 and being both gaslit and lied to, but those individuals are permanently dead as a result. Blowing targets up was as easy as playing whack-a-mole, especially because after a while, the very human blood and guts that were spilled as a result looked similar to the meat you could get at a butcher shop.
Blood, when not derived from his own body or the orifices of loved ones, still looks like ketchup to him to this very day.]
Iiiii'd take that back if I were you.
[Following that line of dialogue are several distressed blinks. No, this morse code won't save him now...]
Why are you so hellbent on thinkin' that you're the bad guy? Theoretically speaking, there isn't just a universe, there's multiple. Being on this thing is proof of that shit, right?
Which mean that there's a lot of bad guys out there. A fuckton! A shitload. A SHITFUCKTONLOAD! Y'know, people who'll slice their enemies' dicks off just for funsies?!
So there's no way that you're, um, the baddest guy? Like, statistically... To ever exist in your timeline. It's all weird science bullshit. Don't ask me for the specifics. I'm too hot to be an actual nerd.