Memory #10 -- The Hall of Mirrors
May. 22nd, 2013 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunny_earsMemory: The Hall of Mirrors
Earned: Marjory and June's story
Form: An apple (untaken)
So, Velveteen is with Santa Claus and a girl done up in Halloween colors. I'm going to fudge a bit and skip the bits where they talk about how Winter and Autumn (and Spring) sent Velma through 'It's a Wonderful Life', because that's a whole other Significant Memory.
They reach a door to a gingerbread house in Winter, and the Halloween girl tries to open it, but can't. Santa tells her that's because her future as 'Halloween Princess' is fixed, because all versions of Autumn's Country are the same. Velma can enter, because she still can make choices to change her future.
Then Jackie shows up and kind of apologizes for being involved, but Vel forgives her pretty quickly, with the idea that Jackie can't really go against Santa. Jackie will be guiding her, since she or the Snow Queen are needed to make the Mirrors show what they're supposed to show you... which is 'you as you might have been'. Well.
So Santa, Vel and Jackie go inside, leaving Miss Halloween Princess (who Velma really doesn't like) outside. She finds herself in a mirror maze... except the reflections aren't distorted normally just different. She touches the first one, and gets a vision of her life if her superpowers never manifested. This shocks her, and she bumps into a second mirror.
This one's not so pleasant. In this possibility Velma is the supervillain Roadkill, who has a grudge against the Super Patriots (and the world in general) and animates dead animals more often than as stuffed toys.
That's when Jackie rescues her and steadies her and explains about the mirrors -- they represent possible versions of Vel, many of which can never exist now but could have if Vel made the right (or wrong) choices. Vel notes that Jackie only shows up in some mirrors (not the normal life one, for instance), because those are the paths where they'd meet. Jackie tells her to not touch a mirror unless she's sure she wants to find out about that version of her, and that Jackie had to go through once and touch all of them before she could be her mother's heir. (Wow.) She also mentions the universes where Vel does go supervillain -- either as Roadkill, the Puppeteer, or Marionette (where she is an undead supervillain).
Jackie advises Vel to only touch the ones she thinks she still could be. This goes on for a bit, and Vel isn't sure what she is here for, until she gets to the part of the maze that holds empty mirrors, aka all the possibilities where she dies. She was pissed at Jackie for not warning her about those before she touched them, and Jackie tells her they are all the possibilities where she tried to fight the Super Patriots without a team. Jackie notes that none of the mirrors where she does so with a team are empty. Jackie tells her that if she wants to challenge the Super Patriots, she can't do so alone and live. Vel isn't sure she wants to challenge them.
Then she meets the possibilities where she teams up and takes on the Super Patriots. She gets to one with Sparkle Bright (actually going by Polychrome), Victory Anna, Action Dude and her and gets misty because she ahdn't expected Action Dude to side with her. Jackie is all 'yes, we all know the guy is crazily in love with you'. She also learns about Jory, a terra-kinetic whose sister is Governor of Oregon, and who is dead in Vel's timeline -- at age 12, because Marketing will send underaged superheros into fights. Jackie notes that Jory was partially immune to the Super Patriots conditioning, so she would have freelanced at age 18.
Vel is getting sick of how the message is 'your life is shit', and the Halloween Princess (or a reflection) returns and tells her that 'nope, you don't have any good options left'. There's also another reference to 'coming to the seasons', which Vel doesn't fully understand, but Hailey elaborates as 'helping to sustain the reality of our seasons'. Santa shows up again to keep Jackie and Halloween Princess from fighting, and tells Vel that they're not here to force her to choose them, but she has to choose something to do with her life. Santa tells her she can choose any of the reflections she's seen.
Vel asks for a favor from Santa and 'the Spirit of Halloween'/Halloween Princess first -- to make a change in the reflection she came from. Santa says he can't promise there won't be a price, and Vel agrees to spend a year in each Season and to choose one (or none, but she has to give them a fair shot) at the end. She also asks to put that off for a year so she can 'to fix things with The Super Patriot' as well as the change she's asking for. Which... is another memory.
What Joy Learned
What. The. Hell.
Joy is going to need a lot of time to process this one, since it gives her a lot of information at once. The business of all those alternate timelines is confusing enough, even with the note that she stuck mostly to ones that weren't too far off her own (besides Vel the Lawyer and Roadkill).
But she also gets some information about the Seasons here that is confusing. They want her... for some reason. Or at least want her doing something. Enough to convince her to put herself through that.
Also all the teasing about Crap the Super Patriots were doing. Jackie mentions 'conditioning' and that a twelve year old got killed (and that that wasn't unusual for junior supers which Vel knew, but Joy learned).
Also her powers are broader than she thought if a supervillain of her can animate the dead. This is not something Joy would ever try unless she was desperate.
Effects
What. The. Hell.
+ Wariness towards the personae and magic. Since the Seasonal figures are close to Personae in Joy's head, and even Santa (who she liked) was involved in... something meddling with her life.
- So I have... something sort of? with Action Dude? An 'Its Complicated' thing clearly, but it is a Thing.
Whenever she takes this memory, Joy might need help working out all the implications. Of course, it's not a sharable memory...
Earned: Marjory and June's story
Form: An apple (untaken)
"Exactly." Jackie let her go. "Only touch the ones you're sure of. Most of them won't know you're here, but there are some heads you don't want to look inside, even when they're versions of your own. Maybe especially when they're versions of your own. We're our own worst enemies."
-- Velveteen Versus The Retroactive Continuity
So, Velveteen is with Santa Claus and a girl done up in Halloween colors. I'm going to fudge a bit and skip the bits where they talk about how Winter and Autumn (and Spring) sent Velma through 'It's a Wonderful Life', because that's a whole other Significant Memory.
They reach a door to a gingerbread house in Winter, and the Halloween girl tries to open it, but can't. Santa tells her that's because her future as 'Halloween Princess' is fixed, because all versions of Autumn's Country are the same. Velma can enter, because she still can make choices to change her future.
Then Jackie shows up and kind of apologizes for being involved, but Vel forgives her pretty quickly, with the idea that Jackie can't really go against Santa. Jackie will be guiding her, since she or the Snow Queen are needed to make the Mirrors show what they're supposed to show you... which is 'you as you might have been'. Well.
So Santa, Vel and Jackie go inside, leaving Miss Halloween Princess (who Velma really doesn't like) outside. She finds herself in a mirror maze... except the reflections aren't distorted normally just different. She touches the first one, and gets a vision of her life if her superpowers never manifested. This shocks her, and she bumps into a second mirror.
This one's not so pleasant. In this possibility Velma is the supervillain Roadkill, who has a grudge against the Super Patriots (and the world in general) and animates dead animals more often than as stuffed toys.
That's when Jackie rescues her and steadies her and explains about the mirrors -- they represent possible versions of Vel, many of which can never exist now but could have if Vel made the right (or wrong) choices. Vel notes that Jackie only shows up in some mirrors (not the normal life one, for instance), because those are the paths where they'd meet. Jackie tells her to not touch a mirror unless she's sure she wants to find out about that version of her, and that Jackie had to go through once and touch all of them before she could be her mother's heir. (Wow.) She also mentions the universes where Vel does go supervillain -- either as Roadkill, the Puppeteer, or Marionette (where she is an undead supervillain).
Jackie advises Vel to only touch the ones she thinks she still could be. This goes on for a bit, and Vel isn't sure what she is here for, until she gets to the part of the maze that holds empty mirrors, aka all the possibilities where she dies. She was pissed at Jackie for not warning her about those before she touched them, and Jackie tells her they are all the possibilities where she tried to fight the Super Patriots without a team. Jackie notes that none of the mirrors where she does so with a team are empty. Jackie tells her that if she wants to challenge the Super Patriots, she can't do so alone and live. Vel isn't sure she wants to challenge them.
Then she meets the possibilities where she teams up and takes on the Super Patriots. She gets to one with Sparkle Bright (actually going by Polychrome), Victory Anna, Action Dude and her and gets misty because she ahdn't expected Action Dude to side with her. Jackie is all 'yes, we all know the guy is crazily in love with you'. She also learns about Jory, a terra-kinetic whose sister is Governor of Oregon, and who is dead in Vel's timeline -- at age 12, because Marketing will send underaged superheros into fights. Jackie notes that Jory was partially immune to the Super Patriots conditioning, so she would have freelanced at age 18.
Vel is getting sick of how the message is 'your life is shit', and the Halloween Princess (or a reflection) returns and tells her that 'nope, you don't have any good options left'. There's also another reference to 'coming to the seasons', which Vel doesn't fully understand, but Hailey elaborates as 'helping to sustain the reality of our seasons'. Santa shows up again to keep Jackie and Halloween Princess from fighting, and tells Vel that they're not here to force her to choose them, but she has to choose something to do with her life. Santa tells her she can choose any of the reflections she's seen.
Vel asks for a favor from Santa and 'the Spirit of Halloween'/Halloween Princess first -- to make a change in the reflection she came from. Santa says he can't promise there won't be a price, and Vel agrees to spend a year in each Season and to choose one (or none, but she has to give them a fair shot) at the end. She also asks to put that off for a year so she can 'to fix things with The Super Patriot' as well as the change she's asking for. Which... is another memory.
What Joy Learned
What. The. Hell.
Joy is going to need a lot of time to process this one, since it gives her a lot of information at once. The business of all those alternate timelines is confusing enough, even with the note that she stuck mostly to ones that weren't too far off her own (besides Vel the Lawyer and Roadkill).
But she also gets some information about the Seasons here that is confusing. They want her... for some reason. Or at least want her doing something. Enough to convince her to put herself through that.
Also all the teasing about Crap the Super Patriots were doing. Jackie mentions 'conditioning' and that a twelve year old got killed (and that that wasn't unusual for junior supers which Vel knew, but Joy learned).
Also her powers are broader than she thought if a supervillain of her can animate the dead. This is not something Joy would ever try unless she was desperate.
Effects
What. The. Hell.
+ Wariness towards the personae and magic. Since the Seasonal figures are close to Personae in Joy's head, and even Santa (who she liked) was involved in... something meddling with her life.
- So I have... something sort of? with Action Dude? An 'Its Complicated' thing clearly, but it is a Thing.
Whenever she takes this memory, Joy might need help working out all the implications. Of course, it's not a sharable memory...