lifeaftr | January Event: Fade to Black

Entry tags:

January Event: Fade to Black

JANUARY EVENT: FADE TO BLACK

Who: Anyone and everyone!
What: Your true self comes to roost
When: January 21st - 23rd; January 25th - 28th
Where: All over!
Warnings: Dark subjects such as violence and self-destruction are likely to come to the forefront - please mark your content accordingly!

Down in that Darkness

This log is primarily for the Shadow and Light portions of the event, for ease and convenience. Your Shadow can be either the Persona-inspired sort - a "brutal, bitterly honest recreation of a character's worst flaws, darkest fears, and deepest secrets" - or the edgier, more laughable variant. The Lights, on the other hand, will do their utmost to convince their real selves of their best qualities, no matter how little they want to hear them.

Remember that the Shadows will be present from January 21st to January 23rd, and the Lights will be present from January 25th to January 28th.

On January 25th, we will post a separate log for Rejection Rooms!

Some useful links, for reference:

[ ♆ ] OOC Event Post
[ ♆ ] Rejection Room Sign-Ups; remember to note your interest in these as soon as possible!
[ ♆ ] Deaths Page; death penalties have been reduced for the duration of this event, but still do let us know if your character dies regardless!

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] January 20th: The monthly Storytelling occurs.
[ ♆ ] January 21st: Shadows of both initial variants appear.
[ ♆ ] January 23rd: Shadows of both initial variants disappear.
[ ♆ ] January 25th Lights and Rejection Rooms appear.
[ ♆ ] January 28th: Lights and Rejection Rooms dissipate. Those still trapped in their Rejection Rooms by the event's end will suffer a character death.

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[There's words to say to all of this- there are, and they will say them. They'll spend hours reiterating it all, over and over again, until there's no more doubts in Tim's mind. If it's the only thing they have the chance to do in their very short time in existence, then Chara knows this is the best they can do. They'll be here for Tim, like he's been there for them, without excuses and pretenses muddying the waters between what's real, and what's just old defenses that they don't know how to take down.

Before all of that, however.

Before any of it.

Chara slides out of their seat and moves around the table. Still gripping his hand, they wrap their other arm around his shoulder, resting their forehead on top of his hair.

Before anything else, he- needs this. A hug. Something real to hold onto in a universe full of countless deceptions and falsehoods that have led to two very broken people meeting.

Probably about as much as they do.]

[He's probably a terrible person for this - god, but he knew that, he knows he is, he knows he is because good people don't end up here and good people don't take advantage like this because he barely needed any prompting whatsoever before he just goes and spills all his troubles and frustrations and unspoken pain on the shoulders of a child who is already carrying so much and who has borne so much but he's trying not to break down and failing failing failing utterly particularly when the light touch of someone wrapping their arms around him dislodges something in the back of his throat and wrenches.]

[It was always - ]
[It was always pieces like this, just pieces like this, like the smell of her perfume and the scratch of the frizz of her hair against his cheek when she pulled him close and whispered, an apposition of lips to ear, I'll visit soon, okay? It was always scattered pictures, flash-frozen sensations, the vaguest notion of what a hug is supposed to be like.]

[For about two seconds, he's frozen.]

[Then, he just]
[He doesn't want to let go.]

[He doesn't want to let go.]

You're - you're important. [The words are croaked, muffled, thick with something he's trying to swallow back, even now.] You are.

[He doesn't have the means to enumerate it to himself, let alone articulate it, but they're one of the reasons that he's trying to be better than he has.]

You deserve - so much more than what you've gotten.

So are you. [They whisper back. There's no panic in this hold; no tension in their shoulders, or stiffness in their words to indicate any desire to be free of this. It's the type of comfortable they don't think they can really provide him again, maybe...not ever.

Sometimes, you just have to take advantage of what's possible now.]

You've done so much for me, Tim. You've trusted me, you take care of me- you've never let me down, you know. What happened in that castle, none of it was your fault. I didn't blame you then, and I don't blame you now.

None of me does.

[And sometimes, things happen that never will. They hug tighter, getting- getting his hair wet. Crying for him and for themself, for how confusing and terrifying everything is. Every day could be like this forever, but it won't be. They've seen who he can be. There are very few things they desire more.]

Regardless of what life has thrown my way, I'm getting better. I'm getting better in part because I have you, Tim. I have you and Frisk, and our house by the sea.

It's home. Where my family lives.

Where you are.

[He is a liar. When confronted with indelible truth, he simply doesn't know what to do. These kinds of simple, easy admissions that cut him to the fucking core that he might not ever hear aloud again, might not ever hear because everything gets so tangled up and complicated and fucking messy, they're stripping away all the defenses he's spent years caking around his heart, around the soul that beats red in the center of him.]

You're the strongest person I know.

[Why he's telling them this - when he should be telling the Chara who will remember this, who will take some part of this away - is that just a solemn condemnation of who he is? His refusal to be anything of worth, except when the stakes can safely be considered nonexistent?]

[Are you just using them all over again?]

[Family is like a punch to the gut.]

[He can't remember when he last heard it in that context. When he was last named anyone's family, when he was considered important enough to be labeled as such, and god but if he isn't having every difficulty trying to bite back the floodgates before he just starts sobbing and never stops.]

Whatever happens, I want to be there. No matter how bad it gets.

I'm not that strong, really. I just act like I am.

[Impossible to have the strength of a mother when you can have the fragility of a child, as someone had once put it. A thin veneer of control had always gone a long way, outwardly- inwards, everything was fragile. It had always been so... fragile.]

If I'm strong- it means that you and Frisk don't have to be. You don't have to fight. Don't have to die. I'm not strong, Tim- but I'll keep acting like I am.

I want you to be there, too.

Strong is just acting like it, anyway. Fake it 'til you make it, right?

[His smile is feeble, watery, cracked, which is why, perhaps, it's the most sincere expression of its kind in months. Not the wry twists he manages in periods of impromptu and unexpected levity, but a wobbling, peeling-paint thing that's naked in its sincerity and nearabout just as terrifying.]

You don't always have to be. You can let someone else carry it for a bit. If you need it.

[Give that to me. I can hold it for you.]

[A laugh.] Right.

[Like that isn't precisely what they've been doing since the day they met him. They smile back at him, voice dry.]

You might know that, and I might know that... do I really need to tell you the rest of me has never even considered the notion?

[Not strong, no, not even all that capable- but responsible? Yes. They're responsible.

For everything.]

[The selfish desire to ask, to press - am I really helping? Are things really getting better? - it's slammed up against the walls of his ribs with the throb of his heart, along the roof of his mouth. They don't exist purely to assuage his own guilt.]

[They shouldn't. That's not why he cares.]
[That's not why he loves you.]
I just...one day. I know how it is. When you have to walk yourself back from the edge. Doesn't work as well when it's other people pulling you away.

[He won't ask you to forgive him for that - for allowing it. For enabling it. For accepting the self-destructive intent as long as it poured him forward to his own demise, because he knew better than to try and stop them.]

[The important part of not going through with it is deciding not to. Is you deciding not to, of your own accord.]

You think one day, you'll...

[Step away from the edge, all on your own? Or at least - not look at it quite so often?]

Well...

[They drift, for a moment, thinking about what to tell him. How best to say it.]

I still see two children standing at the edge of the cauldron to hell.

But it's no longer by choice. I keep finding myself turning my head, whenever people call for me.

[Not quite there. Not quite ready to step away from the ledge.

But they're not about to jump, either.]

If things continue the way they are, I think someday, I'll step away from it for good.

I have hope that I will.

[Hope. There's a funny word. To hear it coming from them, without any wry sardonic twist - that's even stranger. He's not naive enough to believe that they're really altogether ready to move away. He knows what it's like, after all. To have an exit plan. To have something that feels like the one part of your life you have any control over.]

[How painful that might feel to relinquish.]

Those kids have done a whole lot for so many people out there. People who...

[Who would miss them. Who love them, more than anything else in the world.]

I hope you stay. Both of you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

January Event: Fade to Black

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

I like how I scrapped all but 9 threads and 3 of them are Tim

AS IF I WOULD COMPLAIN

I KNOW YOU WOULDN'T BUT STILL

cw: suicide mentions

no subject

no subject