Priority Log - Part 2

[locomodo]

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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Comments

[testgasm]

[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--

SCREAMS please forgive me for the delay

[shiftybladesofcray]

[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.]

shhHHHHHH

[testgasm]

[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.]