hadriel_logs | Event Log: Memories Past

Event Log: Memories Past

Who: Everyone
What: Memory Share Event!
Where: All around the city
When: November 14th-20th
Warnings: Please remember to tag all warnings for memory shares!

Have you ever looked through someone else's eyes? Heard through their ears, spoken with their tongue? The gods have tried to teach some of you empathy, but it's time you learned the hard way, exactly what the others here have been through. For a week, every time you brush skin to skin with someone, you'll experience a memory of theirs: happy, sad, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that it feels real to you.

The first touch may come as a surprise- it lasts only for a split second but may feel like an eternity, where you're trapped in someone else's memory. After that, it could be more expected, and some may even figure out how to control it and share specific scenes from their past with others. Or, you might wear gloves and long sleeve shirts for awhile, nobody's judging.

Maybe curtail the handholding for awhile- or go right ahead, if that's your thing. After all, you never really know somebody unless you've walked a mile in their shoes, right?

► This log covers November 14th-20th.
► 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 die in a memory, you don't die in real life, but if you do die in real life please let us know here.

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[Tinya has never seen anything like this before. Drake is being--experimented on, like he's some kind of 20th century lab rat. no one would do such a thing in the 30th century. she takes a moment to count her blessings from being in a more enlightened time. but in the meantime, she wants to help Drake, however she can.

how can she help him? give the word and she'll be there]

[ Drake isn't cancelling anything for an event, he's had to do that before and this one seems... well, it's not harmless, he's aware of what people could see but he's curating who he spends time around. Some people aren't in the know yet, but it'd be too suspicious to cancel something like training with Tinya. It would look like he's got something to hide.

He does, but also... doesn't? In any case he decides to take the risk, and just be careful to keep his sleeves down. They agree to avoid hitting anywhere with exposed skin just to keep this productive and private, and the fight is going fine until their blades lock and Drake slips forward, his arm brushing hers.

--

"I'm never going to see my son again."

Drake is crammed into a containment cell with at least a dozen other people, their expressions running the gamut from sad to terrified. He's cold and hungry and doesn't remember how he got here, but he is here and he has to deal with that. The man who spoke is sitting on the tile floor, head in his hands. Drake crouches next to him, gripping his shoulder. His voice is gentle and determined when he replies. "Hey, you gotta try to calm down a little bit, buddy, all right? We're gonna find a way out of this."

The man shakes his head, despairing, voice hitching as he continues. "He thinks I killed myself. He's never gonna get over it."

Drake presses his lips together for a moment, draws breath to say something else when a door slides open in the hall outside the cell -- men in scrubs and lab coats come into view, struggling with a man -- or something that used to be a man -- at the end of a dog catcher's stick. They're forcing him along using jabs from a cattle prod and he's thrashing and snarling and frothing at the mouth, trying to get at his captors. They shove him into an adjacent cell.

"That's the guy they took yesterday... what did they do to him?"

A lab tech turns away from his previous rat and addresses the people in Drake's cell. "Now, which one of you freaks wants to try cure version number three, huh? Eenie, meenie, miny--"

"Moe." Drake stands up and steps to the glass, squaring his shoulders and tilting his chin high. He can't let anyone else be taken away, turned into whatever that monster across the hallway is. He has to protect these people and maybe, just maybe, buy them enough time to be rescued. "Three's my lucky number."

"Look at you. The brave one."

"Why don't you put the cattle prod down? We can have a brave-off." The tech hesitates, looking him up and down, and Drake nods knowingly. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

"Get down on your knees." Drake obeys and the tech calls out to his teammate at a control panel. "Door." The glass of the cell slides away and another tech hooks the loop of the stick around Drake's neck, tightens it and drags him to his feet. "Come on, let's go."

Drake is led, on the stick, down the hall and into a sterile-looking exam room. They direct him onto a steel table, fasten straps and cuffs around him to keep him contained. A woman in a lab coat wheels over an IV bag and takes the cap off the needle, other hand pushing his shirt sleeve up.

"Cheer up," she says as she taps the inside of his elbow, "You're getting the cure."

Drake ignores her, ignores everyone, closes his eyes, and they don't even bother to swab his arm before sliding the needle into his vein. Like they know already that it won't make a difference. They all know that this is it for him -- he'll never see anyone he loves again, and he didn't get to say goodbye.

The needle is cold and the liquid that comes through it is colder but burns somehow at the same time, icy fire spreading from the crook of his arm. The memory fades out as he turns, gone for good.

--

Does he see anything of hers? ]

[he sees Tinya out of her Legion uniform. a civilian.

she's running towards a large, domed building, omnicoms containing valuable data clasped in her arms. the overwhelming feeling is one of anxiety as she knows that her mother needs these documents and she also knows that she's running late, that the United Planets meeting will begin any minute and that if her mother doesn't have this data, she'll never hear the end of the admonishments.

"Mom's gonna kill me! I can't believe I left these documents behind at the hotel! Why can't I do anything right for once? C'mon, Tinya, c'mon..."

finally, she enters the halls of the United Planets headquarters, looking around frantically for her mother.

"Luckily, it's getting pretty crowded in here. Maybe she won't notice I'm late?"

Tinya scans the hall for any sign of her mother, finally finding her across the room, up in the risers and apparently arguing with another delegate. her focus is entirely on the argument, leaving Tinya to breath a sigh of relief and hope that her attention stays that way.

"There she is! I better get to her fast, before the meeting starts!"

most people would have to walk around the enormous globe in the center of the room, but not Tinya. she phases and walks straight through it, noticing something. . . odd about its insides. she'd been expecting either a hollow shell or a solid mass, but inside there's. . . wiring. of a kind she's never seen before. "That's weird. Why does the globe have--"

but she's cut off by her mother's angry voice from the risers. "Tinya Wazzo! Get over here now!"

Tinya closes her eyes briefly. her mother sounds outraged at Tinya's display of her powers and she slowly makes her way up to her mother, dreading the inevitable confrontation, but at the same time wanting to alert her to the wiring inside the globe. whatever it was, it didn't look like it was supposed to be there.

when Tinya finally makes it to her mother, her mother grabs Tinya's ear, pinching it tightly as her fingernails dig into the sensitive flesh. she'd try phasing to get away, but she knows that her mother would simply phase in response and still be able to catch her.

her mother speaks in an outraged whisper, "Are you purposefully trying to embarrass me in front of the whole galaxy?"

Tinya winces in pain and tries to get her mother to calm down, "Oww! I didn't--"

but her mother doesn't let her keep speaking, she interrupts with "You didn't think is what you didn't do! How could you show such disrespect?"

Tinya's hopes that her mother will listen to her about the globe sinks, but she still has to try "But, mom. The globe!"

but her mother was in no mood to listen to her daughter's concerns and she snaps "Just sit down and be quiet!"

with one final twist to Tinya's earlobe, her mother lets go and Tinya sinks into her seat, humiliated and unable to get the globe out of her mind. why wouldn't anyone listen to her for a change?

and the memory fades out]

[ Drake pulls back, definitely thrown out of the spar after that little trip. Was there a bomb in that globe? Wait-- uh oh. ]

Did you see anything?

[ Tinya's only just looking back at him rather than into nothing -- she definitely saw something, but considering his life. Well. It could either be dangerous for him or completely undermine his authority if she thinks he's a criminal. He doesn't sound frantic, exactly, just vaguely concerned, but inside? This could be bad. ]

[she's blinking rapidly to acclimate herself to reality]

Wha--what did I see? [she shakes her head] I saw some nassheads treating you like some kind of lab rat. What were they doing? Why were they doing it?

[and something occurs to her]

Did you see something?

[ Great. Juuuust great. Drake doesn't know what a nasshead is but at least Tinya's obviously against the lab rat aspect of it all. If she pushes for details maybe it'll come out in his favor but he'd really rather not. He answers her second question first, not trying to ignore the first, but. It's a lot to unpack. ]

Yeah, I saw... it looked like there was a bomb inside a globe, but your mother wouldn't listen to you trying to warn her. [ His face scrunches a little. ] She didn't seem very nice to you.

[that's a good distraction, bringing up her mother. that will delay her from pressing for details for a while.

she nods] There was a bomb. My mother didn't listen, but Saturn Girl did. She's a telepath. [and Tinya sighs] That's. . . kind of typical for my mom. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, I'm never good enough for her.

[ Score. He's sure he'll circle back around, but it buys him some time. ]

I'm sorry. My Ma's a real trip too, just in a different way... almost the opposite, actually, she thinks I hung the moon and expects me to be perfect all the time. But that's not how anybody is.

The bomb didn't go off, then? Good.

[some time, anyway]

I'd like to say that I'm used to it, but I'm not. I do expect it, though. And it must be tough, living up to those expectations. How do you do it?

No, Live Wire blasted a hole in the roof and Cosmic Boy was able to magnetically lift it through the hole and far enough in the air that when it did go off, no one was hurt.

I just try to keep up, really. I answer the phone, I show up to fix the sink, I'm there in the little ways even if I can't be the perfect, successful son in any other way. It keeps her happy for the most part, even if I'm not rich or famous or whatever. She's still hounding me for grandkids, though.

[ Which can't happen now for like a half dozen reasons but. You know. Details. Drake nods at the story. ]

You saved everybody there. Nice teamwork.

That must be nice. I wish my mom would settle for that. But she won't. I can't do anything right and she hates not only my boyfriend, she hates the Legion, too. And as an ambassador to the United Planets, she's in a position where she could do something about that hatred.

[and if what Tinya suspects is true is true, she'll have plenty of reason to act on that hatred]

Thank you. [a slow smile spreads across her face] I actually kind of tagged along when the three Legion founders were chasing the people responsible. Phased and walked through things so no one could see me. Saved Saturn Girl's life in the process. That's when they asked me to join.

[ Drake frowns slightly, taking that all in. It doesn't sound fantastic, but Tinya's mom is just one person, right? ]

That sounds... complicated. Hopefully they'd be able to see that she's biased. Such a big organization of superheroes should have more weight than a bitter parent.

[one person with a lot of political clout and a lot of people listening to her]

You'd think? But the Legion is new. We've already had one death in the ranks. And mom knows how to get people to listen to her, she's been doing it all her life.

Oh... well I still hope she doesn't make a shit about it. And that everybody sees the good you're doing, that it's important.

It is important. We're the only ones trying to stop the White Triangle and now they've attacked Earth directly. They've already destroyed Trom.

Destroyed? Like a whole planet? Can you guys handle that, it sounds like a full invasion...? How many of you are there?

Yes, they burned it down to nothing. Over seven billion people, dead. We have to be able to handle that. No one else can or is willing to. And there are seven of us on active duty. We got lucky and McCauley lent us the Workforce, that's another four people, so that's twelve of us including me against four Daxamites.

Shit. A dozen against an army? I... you're gonna have to be real tactical.

We're trying to be and Brainy has something cooking in the lab that should help, but that's all we've been told about it. Whatever it is, it better be a miracle. [because we're going to need one, goes unsaid]

Good luck, Tinya. It'll take everything you've got, obviously, but hopefully you can get an advantage somehow too. Whatever tips the scales.

[ One other thing stands out there, though. ]

...his name's really Brainy? That's appropriate.

Yeah, something. Anything. I won't be picky.

[she weakly chuckles] Not really. It's Brainiac 5. "Brainiac" is an honor among his people, but most non-Coluans remember the first Brainiac as Superman's enemy.

Oh. I guess that's not great, that association. It doesn't give him trouble, does it?

No. [she reconsiders] Well, some of our teammates teased him about it. I think Lyle was trying to flirt with him, using that as a pick-up line. [she shakes her head]

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Event Log: Memories Past

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