Velveteen/Velma Martinez (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bunny_ears) wrote2013-02-26 11:14 pm
bunny_ears) wrote2013-02-26 11:14 pm
Entry tags:
Memory #4: The (nearly) endless Halloween take 22
Memory: The (nearly) endless Halloween take 22
Earned: Day 224 (Apples to Apples)
Form: An orange
So this is a memory of a time loop of Halloween. Specifically this is the loop where Vel starts remembering more than just a generic deja vu feeling.
She's 13, and this is definitely before the Holiday Special memory. Vel wakes up on Halloween morning, and has this strange feeling that she's done this before and that Something is Wrong. She has some time to kill before she has to be in makeup for an afternoon interview, and is wandering around. Vel has a feeling that Action Dude will be playing catch in their training gym... and he is. Vel dismisses this as coincidence. But then she tests it by 'remembering' where her other friends are (the Claw is arguing with his father in the lab, Sparkle Bright is on her way to makeup too...).
So, something is seriously wrong, and no one else seems to realize it. Vel has to fake her way through an interview and photoshoot, which normally she'd have fun doing, since part of it was 'you girls play and we'll take pictures'. The interview was pretty heavily scripted, to be honest, and Vel had been trained to fake emotions for the cameras. About the only surprise is that the interviewer asks if Sparkle Bright has a crush... and even that isn't a surprise for Vel, who remembers that the answer makes Sparkle Bright blush, lose control of her powers (in the sense that she turns candy-apple red, then purple), and refuse to answer.
After that, Vel changes into a Halloween version of her bunny costume and has to pass out candy to kids for the news crews to film her doing, and she just wants to go to her room and go to bed...
... except then she does, wakes up and it's Halloween again and this time she remembers everything that will happen right off, rather than getting snatches of it. Vel decides she's going to fake being sick and stay in bed until the world makes sense, because what the hell? This isn't fun at all!
What Joy Learns
Well, for one, this is the second memory she has that indicates her life as a junior superhero was a lot of publicity stunts and not much that indicates she did any actual hero-ing. She gets some more feelings about her friends, but it's kind of overshadowed with 'time loop -- what the hell'. Had Joy got the first version of this memory first, she'd get more of the feelings besides her feeling of dread. Now some of that was because Vel didn't want to be a precog, because the training might take her away from her friends, but more and more was because something was wrong and she didn't know what to do about it. She's still a very junior superhero.
ETA: I realized on talking to Jill, that this also gives Joy a lot of memories of what her life was like as a teenager. She shared a room with Sparkle Bright, and the boys roomed nearby. Her parents -- and Sparks' and Action Dude's were absent. She was tightly scheduled and had rules like 'always be in costume while in public... which covers everything except your room and the locker rooms' (Vel had variations of her costume for different activities, but everything was themed, even her PJs). And, since Velma did have a more normal childhood for a while, she probably knows this isn't how kids normally grow up, even if it was accepted as the new normal for Vel at this point. The interview implies that it's the official position of The Super Patriots Inc. that keeping the kids here helps train their powers as well as protect other kids from accidents.
Effects
... What the hell is up with me and holidays?
+ A lot more prone to unease when things get weird.
Earned: Day 224 (Apples to Apples)
Form: An orange
The interview was hell the second time through; without the acting lessons and coaching she'd received, Velveteen wouldn't even have been able to fake having fun.
Halloween was worse.
When bedtime finally came, she tumbled into bed before the bears were even done smoothing out the sheets, praying that this had just been a fluke, or a supervillain playing tricks, and that it would all be better when she woke up. It would all be okay.
-- Velveteen vs. the Eternal Halloween (Part I)
So this is a memory of a time loop of Halloween. Specifically this is the loop where Vel starts remembering more than just a generic deja vu feeling.
She's 13, and this is definitely before the Holiday Special memory. Vel wakes up on Halloween morning, and has this strange feeling that she's done this before and that Something is Wrong. She has some time to kill before she has to be in makeup for an afternoon interview, and is wandering around. Vel has a feeling that Action Dude will be playing catch in their training gym... and he is. Vel dismisses this as coincidence. But then she tests it by 'remembering' where her other friends are (the Claw is arguing with his father in the lab, Sparkle Bright is on her way to makeup too...).
So, something is seriously wrong, and no one else seems to realize it. Vel has to fake her way through an interview and photoshoot, which normally she'd have fun doing, since part of it was 'you girls play and we'll take pictures'. The interview was pretty heavily scripted, to be honest, and Vel had been trained to fake emotions for the cameras. About the only surprise is that the interviewer asks if Sparkle Bright has a crush... and even that isn't a surprise for Vel, who remembers that the answer makes Sparkle Bright blush, lose control of her powers (in the sense that she turns candy-apple red, then purple), and refuse to answer.
After that, Vel changes into a Halloween version of her bunny costume and has to pass out candy to kids for the news crews to film her doing, and she just wants to go to her room and go to bed...
... except then she does, wakes up and it's Halloween again and this time she remembers everything that will happen right off, rather than getting snatches of it. Vel decides she's going to fake being sick and stay in bed until the world makes sense, because what the hell? This isn't fun at all!
What Joy Learns
Well, for one, this is the second memory she has that indicates her life as a junior superhero was a lot of publicity stunts and not much that indicates she did any actual hero-ing. She gets some more feelings about her friends, but it's kind of overshadowed with 'time loop -- what the hell'. Had Joy got the first version of this memory first, she'd get more of the feelings besides her feeling of dread. Now some of that was because Vel didn't want to be a precog, because the training might take her away from her friends, but more and more was because something was wrong and she didn't know what to do about it. She's still a very junior superhero.
ETA: I realized on talking to Jill, that this also gives Joy a lot of memories of what her life was like as a teenager. She shared a room with Sparkle Bright, and the boys roomed nearby. Her parents -- and Sparks' and Action Dude's were absent. She was tightly scheduled and had rules like 'always be in costume while in public... which covers everything except your room and the locker rooms' (Vel had variations of her costume for different activities, but everything was themed, even her PJs). And, since Velma did have a more normal childhood for a while, she probably knows this isn't how kids normally grow up, even if it was accepted as the new normal for Vel at this point. The interview implies that it's the official position of The Super Patriots Inc. that keeping the kids here helps train their powers as well as protect other kids from accidents.
Effects
... What the hell is up with me and holidays?
+ A lot more prone to unease when things get weird.