Event Log: Bad End

[hadrielmods]

Who: All characters participating in the event
What: The event log for the Bad End event
Where: All over the city!
When: August 23rd-September 5th
Warnings: Bad futures, awkward conversations, smashed mirrors

You wake up to find a mirror at your bedside - a pretty nice one, too, a silver hand mirror perfect for fixing your hair in. Only when you try to do that, it's not your gorgeous reflection that you see. It's something else - a terrible future, just about as bad as anything you could imagine for yourself.

Maybe you see your loved ones dead on the ground, and you know it's your fault. Maybe you see the goal you've been working so hard for pulled out of your reach forever. Maybe you see someone you've hurt in the past ruining your life. Maybe you see your hot girlfriend leaving you to shack up with your worst enemy. Whatever you see, it really sucks, and you know that it's possible. This future could happen if you make the wrong choices, give in to your worst impulses.

Break the mirror if you want, but you'll see the same vision in any reflective surface in the city. You can't break them all, but you can sure try. And what will you do when you see your best friend's vision - and it features you betraying them?

Seek reassurance, give reassurance, lash out, vow to yourself that you'll never let it turn out that way, sink into the depths of sorrow because you feel like the future you see is inevitable. Whatever you do, it won't take away those visions - not until the event is over.

► This log covers August 23rd-September 5th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you can't handle the idea of your dark future, or maybe you just accidentally slip and fall on a mirror shard, let us know here.

Comments

[mismanagement]

[The offer is temping. Maketh watches Nick for a long moment before shaking her head.]

No. But I would ask you something. I know you have had -- doubts.

[They all have. But his have been something more in the past, Maketh knows.]

When it is -- confusing, how do you remember where you stand?

[synthedick]

[Nick thinks for a moment himself, crossing his arms as he tries to find an answer to that question.]

After I 'woke up,' so to speak, I spent a long time wandering in the wasteland of my world before I came into contact with any people. I had a head full of memories that weren't really mine, no real idea where I came from or what happened. Didn't even know if I had a name other than the one from the personality they copied into me. I didn't know who I was then... and hell, I sometimes don't know who I am now.

[He's not exactly proud to admit that, but he knows he can trust Maketh with such things. His brow tightens as he continues, his eyes flicking from his mechanical hands back to his friend before him.]

The first people I ever met out there in the wastes -- they treated me with the kind of dignity you'd treat regular person. They didn't know any more about what I was than I did, other than 'a synth,' but it didn't really matter. They treated me with kindness, and I've been trying to repay that ever since. I've met a whole lot of people over the years, some of them less, er... savory than others, but I still believe after all I've been through, back home and here in Hadriel, that those good people are the ones worth standing with, even when things get hairy.

[He offers her a small, but reassuring smile.]

It's easy to forget sometimes that there's more to me than some synthetic copy of a dead cop, or a failed prototype from a terrible place. My friends, my family here... they're the ones who help me remember who I am, and who I want to be. They're the ones who remind me why this place, and what we do, is important.

[mismanagement]

I have people here that I care for. [Maketh meets his eyes briefly.] People that I've come to love.

[In many ways. Some are more complicated than others.]

Is it enough? To want to be better because you love someone?

[synthedick]

[He hasn't yet brought it up with Rey, but he remembers the fake world and the wedding that happened there... or didn't happen, rather. That's a whole can of worms for another day, when they're not dealing with the gods' latest event.]

Why wouldn't it be?

[mismanagement]

Because I am still an Imperial.

[In many ways. In the ways that matter. She shakes her head.]

And if I cannot be--good, and honorable for the people I love, then what -- what is the point?

[synthedick]

You're still an Imperial, and I'm still a synth, a product of the boogeyman of the Commonwealth. We can't change what we are, but we can decide who we are, and who we want to be.

[He wouldn't be a detective if that weren't true. He's not just a synth, a prototype made to pretend to be human; he's not just a copy of Nick Valentine, a long-dead cop from a long-dead world. While he still struggles with his identity some days, Nick knows he's long been a person in his own right, someone with family, friends, a place to call home... and he wouldn't have any of that if he believed himself incapable of being anything more than a tool of the Institute.]

We all make mistakes. Slip up every now and then, fall off the wagon, so the speak. That's just human nature. If you want to be better for whatever reason, even if it's because you love someone, there's only one person holding you back.

[mismanagement]

[Harsh words. But true words, in the end. Maketh rubs her face briefly, then nods.]

Most of the time I know that. But -- sometimes I am very tired of this, Nick.

[She looks away.]

The Empire was a lie. I know that. I do. But I never questioned my place. And I -- miss that. Sometimes. Knowing exactly where I stood.

[synthedick]

[Maketh looks away, but Nick keeps his eyes on her, his expression sympathetic as he lets out a quiet sigh from the back of his throat. It's hard to keep up a mask as someone pretends they're something they're not -- or at least something they don't believe themselves to be. He's seen Maketh be more than some lackey, watched as she's stepped up time and time again for the people of Hadriel, putting herself in danger when a lot of other folks wouldn't even bother. It's not always an easy decision -- the ones leaders have to make rarely are.

In his time in Diamond City, he saw the leadership make some awful choices, ones that got a lot of folks, did far more harm than good. He'd questioned them at the time, but there wasn't much he could do as an individual. It was a frustrating fact, but one he ultimately had to live with. In Hadriel, he can make a difference -- they all can. The trick is knowing that they're capable of it.

Getting someone to see that is a challenge, especially when they've lived so long knowing nothing else.]

What makes you question that now?

[mismanagement]

[She's quiet for a long moment.]

Conversations, I suppose. Some of them with Hux.

[She meets his eyes for this.]

I know what he is. I have always known what he is. But he is -- simple. I don't second-guess myself when I speak to him.

[synthedick]

[Hux. Nick had a feeling that he might have something to do with this -- hell, he's been watching the guy over the network as much as possible, just to make sure he didn't try to start anything. It was Maketh herself who'd warned him about the man to begin with, but she knows his and Henry's thoughts on the whole Hux situation.

Nick's brow still knits together though, twitching with a nerve that's almost human as Maketh says Hux's name.]

And what do you think 'your place' is in regards to him?

[mismanagement]

I could fit there. If I changed myself just a little.

[The truth of it scares her sometimes. How easy it would be to shift just so and adopt a new position, a new mentality. It would be like the Empire again. And once she had fit so easily there.]

I think it would be easier, sometimes. But I do not--I am not that person. I am trying not to be that person.

[synthedick]

What's easy isn't always what's right... but you know that.

[He gives Maketh a half-smile.]

For what it's worth, I think you fit in fine right where you are now. You aren't that person anymore, and hell, this city is better for it.

[mismanagement]

[She lifts her head, giving him a faint smile.]

Thank you, Nick. Your respect means a great deal to me. I--I hope you know that.

[synthedick]

[Morose as she may be, Maketh's smile is a welcomed one to Nick.]

I'm just doing what's right. We all have to watch out for one another if we're going to make something of this place, and that includes you. You don't give yourself enough credit, Maketh.

[Boy, he knows a few people like that, his adopted family included. Maybe that's one reason they get along so well.]

[mismanagement]

Perhaps.

[She thinks that was a problem in the past, giving herself too much credit. Thus she's avoiding that now.]

Thank you, Nick.

[synthedick]

Anytime.

[And with that, he slides out of his seat and heads out with a nod. He'd better get back to his patrol, if for no other reason than to make sure no one else is drowning in their own doubts. That's just what the gods are after, and if there's any way he can help people -- even if it's just with a few reassuring words -- then that's what he'll do.]