![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
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.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
locomo e2 traincationFAQ & Game Info / Calendar / Taken
Applications / Reserves / Hiatus & Drops
FULL NAVIGATION
athy;
His fears are ungrounded, of course. The building is still there when he wakes up. It's just that all the people in it are missing.
There should be distant conversation or a cacophony of barking when he heads down the stairs early in the morning, at least, but instead there's just the creak of the floorboards and eerie stillness as he drifts through the rooms. His heart pounds for reasons he doesn't understand, and it's so quiet that he whips around at the slightest noise.
—Which turns out to be the only other person here. ]
...Athanasia?
no subject
Where else would Athanasia be but home? Home is where she has a loving family. Even if the world outside is out to get them, even if the paparazzi wants to slander them, even if she can't help but feel colder and colder these days, the warmth of her family is enough.
She wakes up from a sweet dream, an unexciting one where all that happens is she sits at the kitchen table with parents who love her and a brother who's promised to always be there for her. The silence is deafening and frightening, and her heart constricts in her chest, the more she finds herself alone.
She breaks into a run as soon as he calls her name, fourteen and young and not raised to a princess with all the responsibilities, prestige, and formalities to go along with it. ]
Dimitri!
[ She throws herself at him, hoping he won't be the ghost of a dream. ]
no subject
Without thinking, without hesitation, he drops to a knee to meet her, squeezing her tight. This is his... sister? His family. Of course he wouldn't waste a moment comforting her when she sounds distressed, his own heart pounding hard against his ribs.
Why is he afraid? Part of him expects her to evaporate in his arms. He just holds her for a moment, a shaky breath rattling out of him as he convinces himself this isn't some nightmare. Or a dream. It's hard to gauge anymore. ]
Are you all right, Athy?
[ The house, so welcoming before, feels forbidding when it's so quiet. There is a distant tick of a clock and nothing else. ]
Where is everyone?
no subject
She clings to him, shivering even when the relief washes over her that he's here and solid and real. This isn't an illusion. ]
I don't know.
[ Where everyone is. If she's all right. It's Dimitri, so she can afford to be a little more honest about her feelings. Right?
Right.
It's a little scary how it doesn't feel as certain as it should be, as if it isn't how it's always has been. ]
I don't know why we're the only ones here. Mom should be home, and...
[ All their dogs should be making a disaster of the house like usual. ]
no subject
...Yeah.
[ There's no way they should be the only ones here. They don't hire walkers for the dogs, and their mother isn't in any shape to have taken the entire pack of them off on an impromptu jog. He'd already searched the study for their father and called him, to no avail.
He knows the living patterns of the people here like the back of his hand, but for the life of him he can't figure out where else they could be. (He doesn't know much about his parents at all—what are their names? What do they look like?) But Athy is here, and she seems as shaken as he is by all of this, so he takes his apprehension and the growing dread and swallows it all into the pit of his stomach, locking it down with a weak smile. He's not good at faking them, but his voice evens out. ]
I'm sure it's fine. [ He's not. But it must be. ] We'll get breakfast ready and they'll be back by the time the table's set.
[ After a moment, he taps his forehead gently against hers. For all that he's unsettled, his words are genuine. Loving. ]
I'm still here.
no subject
Athanasia isn't inclined to be optimistic, but it's easier to believe when she's not alone. The smile that begins when he taps his forehead against hers dies before it can fully form.
You are outside for the first time since that night you walked back to your palace in tears, and the sun is too bright against your eyes, too warm on your skin.
It has been days since your father's birthday, days since he dragged you before everyone and made you kneel in front of him for the first time in your life—for the first time in this life. You remember how he called you a sinner, neither a princess nor a daughter, a wench that he would kill the next time he saw you.
(You remember when he said you look very pretty on the night of your debutante, a night full of happiness so genuine and true you could scarcely believe it was real.)
It has been even longer since your father has forgotten all about you and your time together, and as you walk through the beautiful rose garden outside your palace (the rose garden your father had grown because he knew they were your favorite flower), you stare blankly at all these flowers that should bring you some semblance of joy.
You feel nothing of that, as listless and empty as you have been.
You pluck rose after rose off the hedges and drop them onto the ground, leaving a trail of blooms bound to die. Rose after rose is pulled and left until you come across a familiar flutter of white cloth.
Daddy.
Before you can think anything more, he greets you.
"As I thought, I shouldn't have let you live. If I had removed you from my sight when I first saw you, there would be no reason for that face to weigh on my mind like this till now."
And then he attacks you with murderous intent.
Your father's magic is rebuffed by the protection magic cast on you, that he himself cast on you, as he bleeds as a consequence of his own magic. He continues to get hurt because even as he's trying to kill you, he is also protecting you.
You think, this is a punishment. You are being punished.
You think how all you wanted in this life was to survive. You knew this was a likely scenario. You thought this was how it was going to be from the start, so why is it that it hurts so much? Why do you still think of him like that in your mind?
Why is your heart breaking even though everything you did was just to survive?
(What you wanted was his love. You finally had his love, and now you no longer do.)
You want to cry, and tears well up in your eyes. You hate this.
You remember how much he's given you. You remember how much time he's spent with you. You remember how you thought at last, you were finally safe with him.
You don't want to die. You haver never wanted to die, but most of all, you refuse to die by his hand. You refuse to be killed by the father you love (you can't tell yourself you love him because of this exact scenario, but if you didn't love him, would you still call him Daddy even though he's trying to murder you?), so you do what you do best:
You run.
You have to disappear. ]
no subject
Instead—
It is very late, and the monastery halls echo with your footsteps.
It does not bother you that dawn is only hours away—on nights like this, sleep evades you anyway. You stop to pray, the chapel filled with ghostly moonlight. It feels, somehow, even more quiet here, hallowed as it is. You pray for the people you've lost, and that your honor and blades strike true. You pray for forgiveness. Privately, you grieve. You are well aware that there is no point to any of it, and the whole gesture is more habit than faith.
The chapel isn't your real destination anyway. No, you're on the way to Garreg Mach's vast library, packed full of church-sanctioned tomes and the dream of any learned student. But you've already had a royal education. What you don't have is the meticulously kept records in the back of the library, gathering dust sans the most recent booklets.
You pour over them until you track down the records of your uncle's donations to the church, flipping through the pages as a small lantern flickers, your only company. It seems your uncle, as expected, abruptly stopped making donations a good while ago. It's concerning, and deeply out of character for him... or it was. You were not close to your uncle, but even you can see how his demeanor has changed. He is cold and condescending now, his smile often replaced with a sneer. A different man entirely.
Something claws at you, an intrusive thought, a whisper of doubt. Your uncle is a lord of the Empire, but he has been moving strangely. Your suspicion makes you aloof towards the Black Eagles class sans Edelgard, distrusting where you are usually so open-hearted. You think there is a connection here, a conspiracy in these pages that may just be tangled to the Tragedy of Duscur, the event that killed your family and friends and razed an entire people.
Anger spikes in you. Your headache pierces back, and you shut the book.
Because... his uncle is his family, no matter how distant. And you have memories of dancing with Edelgard until the sun slipped away, all because you could not meet her exacting standards as a waltz partner without hours of practice. She was strict and frank, but not unkind. You would sneak out of the castle to meet her and explore the nearby neighborhoods, get scolded for your etiquette, to talk for hours without getting tired at all.
She was your best friend.
She does not remember you now—a fact that pains you more than you care to admit, but ultimately something you are at peace with. She has moved on, her sights trained squarely on the future while you live in the past. And maybe it's that very same history that makes you take these suspicions and lock them up tight, burying them as deep in your heart as you can. It is dreadful to distrust your own family. Your headache pounds. (The truth would break you.) You feel guilt for even thinking about it—how could you? how vile and treacherous is your heart?—and will have to stop to pray again.
It is not as though you have been blinded by love. You see the signs, and simply choose to look the other way. ]
no subject
It splinters the reality (the dream, the illusion, the happiness) that she had unconsciously been clinging to. Athanasia doesn't think the warmth and love of a normal family is something she can easily have, and this only serve to prove her right again. ]
Dim—
[ The nickname she used with so much affection cracks and disappears in her throat. She is used to lying, but this a lie that hurts too much now.
(Is it a lie? Because the hurt that claws at her insides feels so genuine.)
Her hold on him, once tight with fear and desperation, slackens with equal measure, equal emotions for a different reason. She must retreat. ]
I-I don't want—
[ She is too afraid to finish this thought aloud. She doesn't want to cement anything into reality, and she does not want to hear what she thinks he'll say in answer.
Even if they have similar experiences, even if she's done her fair share of pouring over books because of her family, even if they've both been forgotten by someone they had so much fun with, Dimitri's anger stands out. In her scared mind, all she can think of is that his anger is similar to her father's, and she isn't strong enough to see the love fade from his eyes, too.
Should she disappear here, if they aren't really family?
Because it's not like this is something he would choose to look the other way for, right?
No one would love her enough for that, and he won't, if he acknowledges she isn't his sister. ]
no subject
But her memory is just what it takes to bring them into reality. They get to see the truth about family: it's messy. Dysfunctional and painful. The fact that she'd still love a man who could speak in such foul words about her, a father who would kill his own daughter... If it were Dimitri, the grief and anger of betrayal would've ruined him, precisely because he'd loved them. Instead, he's left speechless as they're pulled back into reality.
And just like that, the illusion is breaking. They're not siblings. He'd never even met her before this. He'd question if she was even real if not for the memory that'd played.
But she is real, and the pain she'd felt was so acute, so gut-wrenching—in the memory, her eyes had welled up with tears. His do the same now, even if he hasn't cried in years. He'd spent all his tears on his family, he'd told himself, but living someone else's memory makes empathy as sharp and strong as a knife. ]
Athanasia... [ His expression falters a moment, but he clears his throat and takes her hands in his with a clumsy sort of gentleness. First of all: ] Is it all right if I still call you Athy?
no subject
It's a terrible coincidence that Dimtiri has headaches that pair with his anger and distrust, and it's that coincidence that made fear grip her more. When he takes her hands, it startles her out of her slight panic.
His words settle in her mind, and her own eyes brim with tears. Is she crying for what she lost with him, or is she crying because he is still being kind even if now they know they're strangers? ]
Yes. [ She thinks it'll hurt for a while, but she doesn't want to be abandoned again.
She is too afraid to ask him if she can call him Dima, too. She has to put up a small wall from her end. She can't shake her memories, and even if he's being gentle, she doesn't know if one day, he won't decide that he'd rather be alone than be someone who would call her Athy. ]
I'd like that. [ ... ] We can... get to know each other?
[ It's a tentative question that doesn't cover all her vulnerability and insecurity. She wants to get to know him, someone who was capable of giving such unconditional love even if it was based on something fake.
(She doesn't want to see it as something fake.) ]
no subject
Is it better, then, that they have each other when they awake? Two utter strangers with only a lifetime of lies left to comfort each other. He doesn't know her, but he's seen what she's suffered, the hurt that he's feared for a very long time now.
Can they help each other, or is this just another person to lose? Is she thinking the same? If she is, then maybe they're close enough to family after all.
In any case, it's better than being alone. He smiles, more sad than sweet, his voice wrought and sincere. ]
Of course. I'd like that very much.
[ She seems a kind, if lonely girl. One that didn't deserve to be punished like this so many times. His expression shifts, eyes soft with regret. ]
...I'm sorry. That... I'm not your brother. [ It's hard to say aloud. ] But even so, I want to help care for you, if you'll allow it.
[ All the things he offered—his time and fondness—they don't have to be fake or lost. They just have to be grown. ]
no subject
(She is lonely and a coward. Her whole life she's been disingenuous in order to survive.)
If she thinks of his care as something she could also eventually lose, it should be fine. ]
I don't think you controlled that. Did you? [ She laughs a little. That'd be so messed up, if he did, but he seems more genuine than she could ever be. ] Why wouldn't I want you to?
[ ... ]
Um, now that we remember, do you think we can - leave?
[ It's hard to want to linger there when there are hardly any of the signs left of the warmth they once knew—were led to know. ]