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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...

> Looking back is blinding.

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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Wooooooooow!! Lookit you go! I give it an eight-point-five, your powers of regurgitation are beyond expectation! And the colour coordination! Faboo!

[Jill is frankly surprised he wasn't horking it at the diner. He made such a stink about putting grub in his gob, she was sure she'd catch an Exorcist spray to the face.

He releases her and her footing fumbles, but hey! Looks like putting their heads together did do them a bit of good! She doesn't feel like a popsicle anymore! Wheatley gets to have his cutesy little meltdown in peace while Jill kicks out her legs and swings her hips in a circle. Joints and circulation, folks, two essentials for staying spry in old age.]

Hmm? What you saw? You oughta know, we started off in your head. Or did I have a stroke and imagine you blasting off to space?

[Kind of embarrassing, buddy.]

I guess you wouldn't know anything about part two, though. If it makes you feel better that was news to me, too! My other half saw that. I did wonder how the first killings went. What a way to go, huh? Bet she was hoping for a different kind of double penetration! Or was it duodecuple? Did you count?

[That's twelve by the way. Jill would explain but she's too busy laughing at her own jokes.]

Ah, god, that was--that was horrible--I didn't even know I could do that!

[The vomiting, however, is increasingly less important as Jill recounts his own memories and all he can really do is gape at her. Now he has to process this, and figure out how to cover his own ass--part of him knows that Jill doesn't really care, but most of him is so terrified of this information getting out that it takes concentrated effort not to panic.

He's panicking anyway. He doesn't know what else to do.]

You saw-- [All of that? Oh, no.] I can--I can explain.

[He probably can't explain, but he makes a slightly desperate grab for her arm, as if he expects her to pull away from him.]

It isn't what it looks like! There's, uh. Context. Lots of context, that I'm sure didn't--didn't come through. While you were watching.

Just be grateful you're not a chick, or you'd be in for a real surprise by the end of the month!

[Jill pops a hip and lays a cool hand on it, absolutely unbothered by his mounting horror. Oh sure, there were plenty of questions to be asked. But watching him squirm is just too good to pass up.]

Like what? Not catching you when you fell off the rail? I didn't know that was an offense punishable by death.

[She pauses.]

Not that I can talk. Hair trigger temper and all that. Heh...

[At that, he offers her something of a withering glance. It's quickly becoming apparent that she's not going to accept his denial or excuses, and he has no real idea how to respond to that. Even more bewildering, she doesn't seem to be particularly horrified by his misdeeds. That doesn't make sense to him--he's spent all this time worried that people would hate him if he knew, and this is...not what he really expected.

He ventures a question.]

You didn't kill that girl, did you? It was--was that a robot, or something?

[Certainly explains a few things, and his first instinct is to assure her that not all robots are like that, but clearly that's not true. He was like that.]

[That impudent glare! Such ire. Such denial. Seriously, if she had any idea where his thoughts were going she'd be laughing her ass off. Moreso than she is now. If Jill had been asked to guess what his deal was, her estimates would all be in the right ballpark. Robots and fleshies rarely mixed well. And when they did, something still goes horribly wrong. Just ask sweet baby Alter Ego. It's classic. How could she possibly be surprised by this revelation? Better yet, how can she buy his lame little excuses?

Like recognizes like. The motives and moods may vary, but Jill bets he's still got a temper on him. He's just stuck in a body that can't make good use of it. Short man syndrome, am I right ladies?

Though the accusation he follows up with shuts her up good. It's as if all the mirth has been wiped from her body. Her stare is tar-black. Bilious. Disquieting.]

What? You think just because I'm a killer I'm guilty of all kinds of things?

[The snap is explosive. She's not got her scissors out, but the finger she jabs his way looks just as poised to pierce.]

WELL I'M FUCKING NOT! Of course it was that shitty bear-bot! Better yet, it was the psycho bitch piloting it!

She's the one who ran the game! She's the one who rigged the school up like some snuff-fetish fantasy! No one was allowed to leave unless they killed someone else, and then they had to get away with it, too! If they didn't, lights out! Public execution, personalized to your particular disliking! You think I would come up with high-faluting crap like that just to kill one chick? Hell, you think I had the budget?!

[She thumbs her nose and tosses her hair.]

I'm a serial killer. Not a megalomaniac. Wise up, Wheats.

[It takes him only a moment to realize he probably shouldn't have said that. Despite his (temporary) humanity and recently-acquired empathy, it seems that he's still very good at sticking his foot in his mouth. Wheatley full-body cringes away from her finger, as if fully expecting her to enact violence on his person.]

No, no, that's not what I--I didn't mean that!

[He still doesn't understand much about what he saw, but he does know that all of the people in the memory were human children. Despite his outward demeanor, he's seen a fairly significant amount of human death, both caused by him and otherwise--for the first time, he finds that he's a little horrified about this. Even if she's a killer herself, this shouldn't have happened to her. It's terrible, and wrong.

Which means, perhaps, that what he did to the test subject was terrible and wrong in turn. ]

Your other classmates, did they--

[Whether he meant it like that or not, he was already pressing on a sore spot. Every time some shit went wrong, everybody blamed it on the serial killer. As if she's got the time or the mind to mess with every Dick and Jane on the planet. Sheesh.

Nonetheless, her tirade has ended and her temper has flipped. She's positively serene as she answers him now, flicking an impatient hand through the air.]

Eh, mostly dead. Guess there's a secret killer in all of us, just waiting for the right incentive to arise! But anyway, six of us got out. Out of sixteen. That's what? A third?

[Close enough. Jill isn't here to do math.]

And how many did you give the axe to? Sounds like you had a couple test subjects go wrong. What'd ya do, Wheats? Was it the neurotoxin, or the fire?

[It was hard to say. He was kind of a on a tear back there.]

[Wheatley folds his arms and curls in on himself a little, as if making himself as small as possible will help to extricate himself from the conversation, even though he knows there's no avoiding anything, at this point. He's deeply unsettled by what she's telling him, but isn't quite sure what to do about the feeling in the pit of his stomach, and the fact that she's turning this back around on him only makes it worse.]

I don't--I don't know what happened to her.

[It's not like he was able to check, given the fact that he'd been sent hurtling into space, but he did see the test subject pulled back through the portal. He's got no idea what GLaDOS did to her after that, or if she even made it back to the facility alive.

Any hope of making it through this conversation without admitting to additional deaths evaporates when she mentions the others. He thinks, for a moment, he might deny it, but all the things he said in his lair are fresh in his mind. He did taunt the test subject with the others he'd pulled out of stasis before her. There's no real getting around that.]

The others, were--accidents. You know how it goes, you pull them out of stasis, try to--to get them to the portal device, but they're all disoriented from cryosleep so then they slip on something and they bash their little heads in, or fall into some water, or the turrets get them. I wasn't--I never wanted to kill them!

[Wheatley is practically begging, at this point. He doubts that Jill is going to be particularly sympathetic, but the last thing he wants is for anyone else to find out.]

Priority Log - Part 2

i smooch your face and never let you go

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SCREAMS please forgive me for the delay

shhHHHHHH