wildestmods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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wildestlogs2022-03-30 06:50 pm
wildestmods) wrote in wildestlogs2022-03-30 06:50 pm
Entry tags:
- agent connecticut,
- aiden price,
- alloran semitur corrass,
- ange ushiromiya,
- aziraphale,
- bob laughs-at-the-storm,
- bumblebee,
- bunnymund,
- cammie maccloud,
- dan sagittarius,
- dick grayson,
- doreen green,
- elle bryant,
- filbo fiddlepie,
- holly short,
- kaworu nagisa,
- kon-el,
- michelangelo,
- miles morales,
- mio amakura,
- need,
- nog,
- sarah kerrigan,
- stacia novik,
- tim drake
MEMORY SHARE ※ 1
MEMORY SHARE
It's during a pause in their day. A nap. An idle moment looking out from the gardens at the landscape passing by below. Taking a moment to catch their breath after a jog in one of the castle's larger magic rooms.
The squad is suddenly connected. Mental pathways locking together, they're forced into one another's innermost beings. Thrust into one another's memory palaces where the mind collects and stores everything that makes them who they are. The core of their beings are only a few steps away and no one can prevent the link.
To make matters worse, it comes with no explanation or no ability to pull out and stop. Once they're through the first memory, perhaps they can find a way out, but they're already witnessing some event from their host's past. And, if they left, who knows whether or not they'd end up accidentally invading another memory palace?
And if they were there, who was in theirs?
[ooc: So, how this works: the memories can either be viewed in spectator mode or the guest can be experiencing everything themselves. The person whose memories are being shown, the host, can watch as their current self or take the form they had of their past self. They can also be invisible until the memory is finished. They can talk about the memory with the "guest" that's visiting.
They cannot control the first memory shown, the player decides that, but they can sometimes control any other memories they'd like to show people after. Of course, there's also always the option of an extreme emotional reaction bringing up other memories unbidden.]
no subject
"Not the kind of memory I wanted to see but that's fine" she had said, kind of amused. Adults will be adults.
It wasn't long before she realized this was not a memory she'd have wanted to see, but for different reasons.
Seeing Dan ransack the house for valuables...it doesn't take long for Ange to begin watching that, eyes wide open. By the time he's looking for sellable medication in the cabinet she has gone pale, and once Dan left, stealing the laptop and taking his bounty along, Ange looks stunned and horrified.
The real Dan's words make her turn towards him immediately. It's not great -- the first time they had a leisurely conversation, back when she was examining all those leather bags, she had welcomed him somewhat coldly, but since then his attitude towards him had warmed up quite a bit.
Right now, though, the warmth is gone, replaced by what seems to be disbelief.
"What...was all that? Dan, what kind of person are you?"
no subject
But that doesn't excuse it, and Ange shouldn't have to be asked to give him a pass. What kind of person are you?, when Dan barely ever asks himself that question. He barely thinks of himself as existing at all.
"I'm a liar and a thief. When I don't have many options..." He thinks about how that woman must have cried herself to sleep many times. He thinks about how Ange's trust was so hard to earn. "I sometimes still don't choose the best one."
He shakes his head. "I'm sorry, Ange. I know I let you think otherwise by omission."
no subject
"I...I thought..."
How to even put it into words? After having given it much thought, she really thought maybe...maybe there were people who really were like Dan. Selfless and straightforward and trustworthy.
Perhaps it's because of Ange's long, long history of illusions and pain, that when she finds out someone has been dishonest she always thinks the worse of it. There's no kind scenario, her mind always goes to the worst intentions. Not even her dear brother, who she admires like nobody else in the world, was safe from that. Once she found out he was intentionally concealing the truths she wanted to hear about, she began shouting and accusing him of being no better than the witches who had been toying with everyone.
So of course, what chance does Dan have?
Ange already feels anger begin to fill her.
"I can see that" she said. Her tone is harsh. "I don't care how many options you had or what you thought while you were doing this. I..." Ange gets tense and adds:
"This is how you are. You worm your way into other people's lives so you can get something out of it. Isn't that right?!"
no subject
But how to explain that difference, when that memory is on display? The fact that occasionally Dan has worked his way into a stranger's home for a night doesn't preclude that he forms genuine connections with people, that he truly cares about others, that he cares about Ange. It's different when it's an adult being shorted her toiletries and tech. It's different when it's a relationship that lasts a night. It's different when Dan doesn't have other options to put food on the table, when Dan doesn't even have a table.
The reasons that it's different are not justifications.
"I also worm my way into their lives because I care about them."
no subject
Apparently, in Ange's eyes things are mostly black and white. One thing excludes the other. Gray areas are very few, especially when it's about people's behavior. Perhaps that has contributed to her cynicism about people, or perhaps it's a result of it, who knows.
"You found her in a parking lot and convinced her to go on a date with you, didn't you?" Pretty rough and most likely jumping to conclusions based on what she heard. "I...I have no idea how you could look at someone for that long, for hours, and carry on with that!"
Her anger makes her jump further than that, to other conclusions she doesn't even stop to consider if they may be true or not: Dan doing that proves he has a lot of practice, this was far from the first time. Dan dazzled this woman so well she fell in love with him that quickly. Dan is a manipulative ass. Dan wouldn't hesitate to do it again and again.
Dan must be doing so even here in the Wilderlands, is the conclusion she gets to. So of course...she lowers her voice, sickened at the thought because it'd mean Dan's relationships with everyone is based on nothing more than manipulation...including her friendship with him.
"...you have...you're doing it these days too. You probably have been doing that around in the camp as well...even though you wouldn't be able to ghost anyone, that doesn't mean you can't fool others for as long as you can and win their favor..."
Even though she's not shouting anymore, she's not any calmer.
no subject
He has no evidence to prove his case, and he's fairly certain that trying to make an argument is just going to be considered further evidence that he's unrepentant, manipulative, trying to grab purchase in Ange's esteem for the sake of fucking her over later.
He thinks about what he knows about Ange, remembers the implications that she was moneyed and people she trusted attacked her for it. He can't blame her.
"Yeah, I did talk her into going out with me in the parking lot. I was in desperate circumstances. I had a- I-" He stammers over the sentence I had a kid because it still hurts so much to acknowledge that, like opening his mouth to let that sentiment out is opening a vulnerability for someone to stab him in the chest. "I know it was wrong. I didn't see no better options at the time. I don't just do things like that for the hell of it. It ain't the same as the situation here."
She doesn't have to believe him. He can't make her believe him.
no subject
"...I'm so fed up...!"
She shakes her head violently, grabbing it, and starts to cry. She's so torn, between protecting herself and trying to believe him.
"I was such an idiot. I managed to convince myself to lower my guard and just accept everything, only for it to turn out to be all a trick once again. Of course. What did I expect...?"
Her fists ball up, looking upwards, she turns her back to Dan, screeching up at whatever is above.
"I get it, I get it, I get it! This is what you wanted, isn't it? It's some sort of punishment for me, isn't it?! You damn witches!"
It's pretty obvious she's not talking to Dan anymore. All this time she still hasn't been able to tell if this is all real, or if it's a world created to torment her in. What else could be so cruel? So cruel as to let her know something so...so nice as these people who were talking to her and then hit her with a truth like this? Turning back to Dan, she looks at him with the look of someone who really has been on the brink of some seriously messed up despair, for a long time already. For years.
"Too bad, Dan, your deceptions won't work on me! This fake kindness of yours isn't fooling me anymore! I have...always been...all alone...I know...there never was anyone I could rely on. Not my aunt, not the witches, not my brother, and certainly...certainly not you!"
It's not great -- to Dan half of this all probably was just nonsense. This girl was furious at him, then she began shouting about witches and deceptions and other things. A lot of people faced with this would think she lost her marbles, pretty much. But Ange seems to not care anymore.
no subject
"Okay," he says softly, trying to be placating without being condescending. Ange is a teenage girl; people condescend to her enough over things less important than this pain of betrayal that she's so familiar with that she's leaping into it even when it's not necessary. Even when there's been no betrayal here, at least, none directed towards her. "I ain't asking you to rely on me. I ain't asking you for nothing, Ange. Not your vulnerability, not your trust...you don't want to give me those things, that's fine."
He takes a breath and tries to take control of this memory world, tries to pivot it towards some way to give her context, to at least show her why he was desperate enough to manipulate and hurt another person like that so she knows that he won't be motivated that way here. He wants to show her his life on the road, the small indignities of living in a car, bathing in gas station restrooms and cold rivers, getting woken up and kicked out of homeless shelters at seven in the morning only to find he's picked up lice, waking up to parking tickets he can't read for sleeping in the lot behind a Home Depot, credit card declined, fake credit card declined, pockets empty.
And a memory like that does surface, but one that Dan didn't want, one heavily-populated by his brothers and sisters whose faces will always break his heart because he saw them all die, held them all as he died.
“So let’s review the plan,” A young woman who looks very similar to Dan, probably barely drinking age, says to a small passel of children and teenagers crammed into a van with her. They're all in shabby clothes, all with hollow cheeks and chapped lips and lank hair. The van smells like body odor, cigarette smoke and blood, and every inch of spare space is filled with all the belongings these five youths have, including firearms.
“Zack, you knock over the guy’s shopping cart. Try and knock over the whole thing, so there’s lots to clean up. Tab, you pretend you’re helping him and put on them angel eyes, and you get the wallet. Then you two haul ass out here and get in the car, but be subtle. Dan-Dan, Carson, take the plates off. Then I get us to the gas station, we all look for security cameras, and once we’ve filled the van up we drive off, slap the plates back on and go. You get caught, you run for the exit. Security ain’t gonna tackle a kid. If we gotta haul out and you ain’t in the van, we’ll come back for you. Promise.”
“If there’s two credit cards in the wallet, can we buy food at the gas station? Or if there’s cash?” the youngest boy, about ten years old, asks. “We ain’t eaten since breakfast yesterday.”
“I know, baby. I ain’t had shit but a Seven-Up since two days ago.”
“I’ll grab us a box of pop-tarts or something while you fill up. Been working on my sleight of hand.” Dan, also young, probably only just out of his teenage years, grins. “Better hope this works or we’re gonna have to push the van to Texas.”
The real Dan doesn't say anything. He just holds his palms up as if to say to Ange, see, this is all I've got.
no subject
When Ange Ushiromiya gets angry, she really tends to get lost in her fury until she does something she regrets. She accused Aunt Eva of being a killer, obliterating her relationship with her. She destroyed every single imaginary friend she had, all at once, when they failed to protect her from the brunt of reality. She suspected a potential ally of deceit and her distrust led to her not accepting his help in a escape plan, almost getting captured by enemies because she tried to get away on her own.
...she refused to listen to her brother once he tried to show her there are more important things than the truth, blocking out his arguments in the panic of considering that perhaps what she knew was all wrong.
Here she's seeing proof that Dan wasn't doing things just for the fun of it. It's...catches her off guard. Ange watches, seeing each person, seeing what happens.
"...I...I...you..."
Ange turns her gaze away. Guilt, pity, somehow still wrath because she's stubborn as hell, everything battling inside her. What should she do, did she act rashly, what's she going to do now...
"I...this is..."
She really seems to be at a loss for words.
no subject
"You don't owe me no apologies." He sighs. "What I did to that woman was cruel, even if I might could have had good reasons to do it. It ain't wrong of you to feel threatened when someone you've come to trust acts cruelly towards someone else."
That's just pain begetting further pain, the fear that any person who demonstrates themselves a threat is a threat to her. It's reasonable fear and pain.
"So I'll let you set the tone for how you want us to treat each other from this point on."
no subject
Dan isn't wrong, both in his words and in his reasoning, having read her well. Ange has had enough pain during twelve years and sure would like to try having more. It has never worked, though, partly because of her own decisions.
Dan's offer of letting her define it is very kind, and Ange hangs her head. For several seconds, she stands there, until with a huff she looks up.
"I'll think about it"
If she will the one to define it, well, she's going to leave it on the table and run because she really doesn't feel like doing it right now. So she runs. Giving him one last smouldering glance, Ange flees, really starting to wonder if she's the one with the problem here.
It seems that, for the time being, she isn't setting any tone. That probably will have to wait for later.
Who knows how she managed to leave the mind palace, but before long she's gone.