[EVENT] Memory Tapes

[vrdr_mods]

On the morning of November 21st, denizens in the Velvet Room will awake to a message on their phones or by their bedsides in an envelope. Perhaps even on their computer screens.

Greetings! If you've received this message, then you've been selected as a participant in a new activity to strengthen bonds within this community.

In order to facilitate connections with your fellow residents, we advise you to watch this video. Watch it and return the tape to its rightful owner. If you lacked the means to watch VHS tapes before, we have provided you with the necessary equipment.

Failure to do so may put your own memories at risk. Do not be selfish, lest you find yourself struggling to recall crucial moments of your life. You have no way of knowing which memories have been shared, so ask yourself if it is worth the risk to selfishly hoard another's secrets.

They will soon find a VHS tape, with a case that gives off a soft, blue glow to symbolize its importance. If they lack a TV or VCR, they will find one in their living space.

What they do is up to them, but they should heed the warning, if they value their own memories.


[For links to characters' memories, please see this post in the OOC comm. Have fun!]

Comments

[lakebrat]

"You know, I bet Raven could be persuaded to move the board. Though it's useful to newcomers where it is, so...."

Setting down the tape, he gets up in turn, pulling on a t-shirt and leaning down to offer a closed-mouth kiss.

[willowandoak]

He leans up into the kiss, not smiling only because of the fucking tapes. "Maybe for just a moment. Long enough to blow Igor's desk up. Maybe."

When he breathed fire, he couldn't do much to the desk, just singe it a little. But an explosion might work.

[lakebrat]

"Igor might object to the conspiracy board, if Raven started... conspiring. Huh." He reaches for his pants, frowning into space as he steps into them; really, it's lucky he's pretty. "Back in a moment. Then we can kiss properly instead of worrying about these tapes."

That's a lie, he knows. They will worry about the tapes all morning. Either that or at least watch them long enough to catalogue them. He skips through things in his past that he hasn't discussed with Ren, scoring them on how awkward they would be to show up on video.

[willowandoak]

"You fucking liar," he says to Goro's back, without heat. With Goro gone, he flops back onto the bed and stares at the ceiling for a moment. After everything, after Goro went through his damn Palace, this should be fine, but there's always something more. There's always something worse. There's always one thing that's too much.

And also, other people are probably watching his memories of who the fuck knows what. It makes his skin crawl.

He hisses in anger and gets up, throwing on a pair of clean clothes and slipping his switchknife in his pocket for no other reason than that he feels better with it there. Then he waits.

Goro's shitty TV has a VCR player attached, he notices. Lovely.

[lakebrat]

He comes back after a few minutes, dressed and washed up and teeth cleaned, hair possibly a little tousled still just because Ren likes it that way, and will probably need something to cheer him up. Dropping onto the sofa next to Ren, he offers the tapes a bilious look.

"You know, it's worrying that this has happened so soon. Don't you think?" After Hallowe'en, he means. As if the place is stepping into a new gear.

[willowandoak]

The hair does make him smile. He touches it as he stands up; but the expression falls when Goro talks. "It might not mean anything. We had Halloween last year. Magpie's Ren coming to visit from the future as a fucking ghost prisoner is wilder than anything that happened this year."

He's trying to convince himself as much as he is Goro. "Hold tight for a sec. And stop jinxing it."

Then it's his turn to disappear downstairs. He wants kisses, dammit.

[lakebrat]

A hand of ice closes around his heart, as he watches Ren leave. Rens arriving from the future as ghost prisoners... it's not the last thing he wants to think about, but it's close. Restless, he gets up, looking through the tapes for any sign that they differ; his search is not productive.

When Ren returns, he sets the current tape down, and turns to smile, holding out a hand; it's almost perfect. "Kiss?"

[willowandoak]

Ren pulls him in by his outstretched hand and kisses him slowly and luxuriously, or at least he tries to; it's possible that there's a bit too much intensity for it to be convincing.

He opens his mouth to say something afterwards. Some show of bravado, he doesn't fucking know. But nothing comes out.

[lakebrat]

And Goro struggles, not wanting to let him go; he leans in again. It's going to fucking suck, whatever it is, and he knows it. It would be nice if he didn't want to intrude on the privacy of whoever else is involved, at least; but he does.

When they come apart again, he winces. "So, how do you want to do it? Together, or apart? Breakfast first? Flowers?"

[willowandoak]

"Together," he says at once. Whatever Goro sees, Ren wants to know it, not just get a secondhand account. "...if that's what you want."

[lakebrat]

His stomach flutters. Shit. Nothing in his past is that bad. There's nothing he's afraid of Ren seeing.

... Is there? Why does that thought fill him with such a sense of fucking dread? Annoyed with himself, he squeezes Ren's hand. "Come on, then. Pick one."

[willowandoak]

"What? Why me? You do it."

[lakebrat]

"What? No. You pick. I—"

Breaking away, he turns and heads to the steps, going down. "Morgana! Pick a number between one and six for me."

"Is this about that videotape business?" the cat says.

"You know it."

Some time passes, during which the cat is presumably thinking, until he says "Five! It's auspicious. Do you know why I don't have a tape?"

"Maybe something to do with your special circumstances," Goro says with a smile in his voice. He appears back up the stairs, looking only mildly harassed.

"Tape five, then, unless you have an objection."

[willowandoak]

"I have so many objections," Ren mutters, picking the fifth tape from the pile and sticking it in the VCR the wrong way. "Fuck."

The second time he gets it right. The ancient TV starts up on its own, and he stands grimly in front of it, watching as the memory plays out.

He knows immediately which Futaba it is, if only because she mentioned the drugging to him one time. His stomach sinks through the floor, and though he doesn't come out and say it's his sister, Goro will be able to see it on his face. He doesn't blink at the violence; it's the look on her face that gets him, the venom in her voice. My mother was in the past, now was she? In another world, not either of theirs but a third one, Futaba did this to him.

There is also a little voice in the back of his head wondering if people are watching old-fashioned tapes of his murders. He supposes he'll find out.

[lakebrat]

And indeed, he finds himself looking away from the screen, watching Ren's profile instead, through the sobs and screams on the tape; watching the tension and the recognition on his face. He knows Futaba has a darkness in her; it would have been hard to go through the Palace with her and not see it. It would be hard for her to be what she is, to work for Shido, and not come out changed.

But how changed? Is this, at any level, what his own Futaba would like to do to Ren? Well, of course it is—and yet....

He reaches for Ren's hand, catching his breath as silently as he can. "Wow."

[willowandoak]

Ren swallows and clings to Goro's hand.

"She told me about that once. Still not the same as." He gestures at the TV. Not the same as watching.

I wonder if someone here is watching me murder someone, he thinks again, but he doesn't want to say it. Unfortunately, what comes out of his mouth instead is more revealing. "You know, there's probably a world where that happened to me. Like. If there are all these... variations. I bet there's one like that."

[lakebrat]

"Likely more of them where it's happening to me." He reaches a hand, to brush against Ren's cheek. He can still hear Futaba's voice cracking, not because of what she was doing, but because it ended too soon.

Would you have done it, he wants to ask. But he thinks he knows the answer. His hand still cradles Ren's face, all the same.

"Oracle won't do that to you." Small comfort though he knows it is.

[willowandoak]

"I wouldn't sit there and get gutted just to make her feel better," he mutters, but without his usual undertone of defiance.

[lakebrat]

But Ren feels like he ought to, all the same. Goro can hear it in his voice. He slides an arm around Ren's slumped shoulders where they're sitting on the bed, draws him close.

"You don't deserve to have that done to you." It's true. If it had been his mother... well, he's seen well enough what he would do. But that wouldn't be justice.

[willowandoak]

He makes a small noise im his throat and presses his face against Goro's shoulder, just for a couple seconds. Then he straightens up.

"Fuck. This'll take all day if we fall apart every damn time. Do you have sticky notes or something? To label them?"

Really, he just doesn't want to think about it anymore.

[lakebrat]

"Yeah." He has a marker pen ready on his desk, actually. But he doesn't quite move, keeping his hand on Ren's shoulder. Futaba—Ren's Futaba, that is—needs more help than either of them can give. And while he thinks Ren could stand to be held a moment longer, he knows what it's like to need to move on.

"Want to pick a number, or shall I just grab one?"

[willowandoak]

Ren chooses the option that Goro didn't offer, just to make himself feel a little better, and selects a tape at random himself. He squints at the VCR for a second before finding the button to eject Futaba's tape. "Here," he says absently, passing it back to Goro. He doesn't put in the new tape yet, though, waiting instead for Futaba's to be labelled first.

[lakebrat]

He takes the tape, writing not on the black tape itself, but on the luminous blue case. Futaba. Good enough, he figures, setting it in a new pile and sitting back down.

"So," he murmurs, watching the tape in Ren's hands, the joke falling flat even as he speaks it. "What fresh hell awaits us?"

[willowandoak]

"Based on who lives here, I'm guessing more murder." Ren is including himself and his near-inevitable tape when he says that, which is why he doesn't sound as indifferent as he might otherwise. He sticks the new tape in the VCR and returns to Goro's side as it starts playing.

It's immediately obvious who the memory belongs to, which is convenient. They haven't yet had to play a guessing game. That's the only good thing Ren can say, however. He doesn't particularly care about invading Falcon's privacy, but watching this happen... Falcon trying to fight, only to be brought up short with a word from Shido, unable to do anything but comply despite his horror.

Ren watches with a fixed expression. I own you, says the Shido on the tape, and he flinches; his breath stutters when Wakaba Isshiki appears. Her death is different from the death of his world's Isshiki, just like what happened to Falcon isn't the same as what happened to Ren. But Ren can see the threads connecting them. Alternate worlds, but echoes of the same events, over and over, and always Shido at the center of it.

He doesn't quite realize how rigid his posture is. I own you. He's heard that before, from the same lips.

[lakebrat]

But Goro is pressed against him, holding him close—holding him tight, with a hand like a claw, with the other fist knotted tight to match. He watched the tape with widening eyes, drawn tighter and thinner by his own rage until his own name, in his father's voice, could snap him. He recoils all at once as if to erase what's on the screen with the force of it.

He does not even begin to touch on the delicate subject of Futaba's mother. Instead, he lets his nails dig into the meat of Ren's arm, a reminder and a goad: I'm here. You're safe. I own you. I own you. Fuck.

There are no words; just a hiss of bile that escapes from his throat, as they sit in stunned silence. And Falcon, shit, poor Falcon. What even is there to be said about that? That scream is still ringing in Goro's ears.