Memory #15 -- Saving Halloween.
Jul. 30th, 2013 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunny_earsForm: Candle in holder.
It's another kid memory!
So this basically comes right after one of Vel's received memories where she gets Groundhog Day on Halloween. After realizing she's stuck, she freaks out and pretends to be sick... and then the voices come and she realizes she's not in her quarters any more. She's in a bedroom that looks like it belongs to a haunted house, albeit one that was already Halloween-themed before it started to decay.
There is a teenaged girl with her, who looks a bit like Hot Topic does Halloween. Her name is Hailey. Hailey notes that Vel is taking this well, and Vel tells her that her superhero training includes 'what to do when you wake up in an alternate reality'. Hailey tells her that the rest of Vel's team isn't here, but she needs Vel's help. And they are in the place that Halloween comes from, Autumn's Country, which Vel had sort of guessed.
Then a scarecrow shows up and Vel runs like hell while Hailey fights it off. Eventually, a boy in a cat costume -- 'Scaredy Cat' -- catches Vel before she can get into more trouble. He reinforces that they need Vel's help, and points out that standing in the middle of an open, deserted street in the physical embodiment of Halloween is a Terrible Idea.
Scaredy Cat gives Vel a brief lesson on the Seasonal Countries, specifically the history of Autumn. A lot of this information is probably germane to Aather, since it is about how human stories shape mythical places. Autumn and Spring are especially bad about this, since they are about change. Except Halloween's guardians, Trick and Treat, decided to go play superhero in the mortal world, leaving them without defenders, and Halloween is currently vital to Autumn thanks to the amount of emphasis placed on it in American culture. Halloween can only be taken over on Halloween, which is why it was repeating. If it repeated 31 times without someone stopping it, it dies or is taken over, and anyone with a connection to the Holiday -- Trick, Treat, Scaredy and Hailey -- all die or fade out.
Vel continues to hope this is a hell of a dream, and decides to test it by running into a tree. It is not a dream, and this results in her passing out. She eventually wakes up alone after Hailey and Scaredy drag her into a farmhouse because now is not the time for unconsciousness. Vel finds a mirror and realizes that her Halloween uniform looks rather more Halloween-y. And that her costume rabbit ears and tail are no longer costume. Which freaks her out.
Her screams bring Hailey and Scaredy back. Vel demands that they change her back and send her home, because forced body modification is NOT COOL. Hailey says that it wasn't her, it was the place that had changed Vel because Halloween is about making the costume real. Vel also gets more history from Hailey and Scaredy. Decades ago years ago, Hailey was in Vel's shoes. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz had meant that suddenly Wicked Witches had a lot of power, so Halloween needed some innocent farmgirl to defeat one, because that was how the book said to do it. Hailey was the top choice because she had been born on Halloween and her parents named her Hailey Ween, giving her a connection to the holiday enough to bring her to Autumn's Country. After she won, she became the Halloween Princess... which meant that she couldn't be the hero needed when the holiday came into trouble again.
Now the problem was superheros taking over, which meant you needed a super. Vel wasn't born on Halloween, but she has come connection to the holiday, enough that it has to be her (at least since Trick and Treat aren't answering Hailey's calls). And Vel knows her duty. Dammit. While Hailey leads her to the fight, Scaredy tells Vel how to get home afterward. He also hints that Hailey wouldn't tell her because it would be kinder to let Vel stay in Autumn, but Scaredy isn't 'the good one' so he can give Vel what she wants and now what would be kindest. Because that's not ominous at all.
So Vel walks into a replica of the Super Patriots Inc.'s HQ (but spooky) and fights replicas of the Big Three using statues of heroes and villains. This is probably the first time she's fought solo and it is terrifying. Also terrifying is that she is bleeding stuffing instead of blood. She tells Hailey that she won't return the jack-o-lanterns she got on their defeat until Hailey promises to send her home. Basically, she wants to be more than a mask made real: she doesn't want to be Velveteen all the time. Hailey asks her to stay since they need people to protect Halloween, but eventually does agree that she won't keep Vel against her will. But, whoops, Vel has been in Autumn for two weeks, so she's going to end up in the middle of November when she gets back.
She winds up in the woods, her team finds her, and then Marketing grills her to find out where she was for two weeks. (Eventual conclusion was that it was definitely not her fault she went missing, even if they aren't so sure about the story.) Which is almost enough to make her wish she stayed, but she's home!
What Joy Learns
A lot more about the power of stories and the Seasonal Countries. Joy will remember that she met Hailey as an adult, and Hailey hadn't aged. Then again, Hailey is nearly a century old in truth.
Understanding of the context of why she feared the Seasonal Countries, especially Autumn. It didn't stop her from befriending Jackie Frost, but does put things into context.
A bit about the origins of superheroes. The Big Three -- Majesty, Jolly Roger and Supermodel -- were the first supers, if you don't count figures like Santa Claus who showed up afterward claiming to have always been present. Joy could put this together with her Vegas memory, where Dame Fortuna gave her some less public knowledge.
A lot more fears/dislike about forced body modification. The next game where this comes up will be heck. Well, maybe not the de-aged game, though that will have problems of its own considering li'l Vel's history with being kidnapped into strange realms by storybook people.
I'd say this would affect Joy's decision about whether she'd like to stay in Aather if/when she good-ends, but... already she considers Tiger's Eye her team and her friends. A lot of Joy's problems are ones of being alone and isolated. This was her first solo mission, and her first solo fight, so it's understandable she was all 'take me home to my friends and my bed and my teddy bears'. Aather does not have her friends from home, but it has her new friends.
It's another kid memory!
So this basically comes right after one of Vel's received memories where she gets Groundhog Day on Halloween. After realizing she's stuck, she freaks out and pretends to be sick... and then the voices come and she realizes she's not in her quarters any more. She's in a bedroom that looks like it belongs to a haunted house, albeit one that was already Halloween-themed before it started to decay.
There is a teenaged girl with her, who looks a bit like Hot Topic does Halloween. Her name is Hailey. Hailey notes that Vel is taking this well, and Vel tells her that her superhero training includes 'what to do when you wake up in an alternate reality'. Hailey tells her that the rest of Vel's team isn't here, but she needs Vel's help. And they are in the place that Halloween comes from, Autumn's Country, which Vel had sort of guessed.
Then a scarecrow shows up and Vel runs like hell while Hailey fights it off. Eventually, a boy in a cat costume -- 'Scaredy Cat' -- catches Vel before she can get into more trouble. He reinforces that they need Vel's help, and points out that standing in the middle of an open, deserted street in the physical embodiment of Halloween is a Terrible Idea.
Scaredy Cat gives Vel a brief lesson on the Seasonal Countries, specifically the history of Autumn. A lot of this information is probably germane to Aather, since it is about how human stories shape mythical places. Autumn and Spring are especially bad about this, since they are about change. Except Halloween's guardians, Trick and Treat, decided to go play superhero in the mortal world, leaving them without defenders, and Halloween is currently vital to Autumn thanks to the amount of emphasis placed on it in American culture. Halloween can only be taken over on Halloween, which is why it was repeating. If it repeated 31 times without someone stopping it, it dies or is taken over, and anyone with a connection to the Holiday -- Trick, Treat, Scaredy and Hailey -- all die or fade out.
Vel continues to hope this is a hell of a dream, and decides to test it by running into a tree. It is not a dream, and this results in her passing out. She eventually wakes up alone after Hailey and Scaredy drag her into a farmhouse because now is not the time for unconsciousness. Vel finds a mirror and realizes that her Halloween uniform looks rather more Halloween-y. And that her costume rabbit ears and tail are no longer costume. Which freaks her out.
Her screams bring Hailey and Scaredy back. Vel demands that they change her back and send her home, because forced body modification is NOT COOL. Hailey says that it wasn't her, it was the place that had changed Vel because Halloween is about making the costume real. Vel also gets more history from Hailey and Scaredy. Decades ago years ago, Hailey was in Vel's shoes. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz had meant that suddenly Wicked Witches had a lot of power, so Halloween needed some innocent farmgirl to defeat one, because that was how the book said to do it. Hailey was the top choice because she had been born on Halloween and her parents named her Hailey Ween, giving her a connection to the holiday enough to bring her to Autumn's Country. After she won, she became the Halloween Princess... which meant that she couldn't be the hero needed when the holiday came into trouble again.
Now the problem was superheros taking over, which meant you needed a super. Vel wasn't born on Halloween, but she has come connection to the holiday, enough that it has to be her (at least since Trick and Treat aren't answering Hailey's calls). And Vel knows her duty. Dammit. While Hailey leads her to the fight, Scaredy tells Vel how to get home afterward. He also hints that Hailey wouldn't tell her because it would be kinder to let Vel stay in Autumn, but Scaredy isn't 'the good one' so he can give Vel what she wants and now what would be kindest. Because that's not ominous at all.
So Vel walks into a replica of the Super Patriots Inc.'s HQ (but spooky) and fights replicas of the Big Three using statues of heroes and villains. This is probably the first time she's fought solo and it is terrifying. Also terrifying is that she is bleeding stuffing instead of blood. She tells Hailey that she won't return the jack-o-lanterns she got on their defeat until Hailey promises to send her home. Basically, she wants to be more than a mask made real: she doesn't want to be Velveteen all the time. Hailey asks her to stay since they need people to protect Halloween, but eventually does agree that she won't keep Vel against her will. But, whoops, Vel has been in Autumn for two weeks, so she's going to end up in the middle of November when she gets back.
She winds up in the woods, her team finds her, and then Marketing grills her to find out where she was for two weeks. (Eventual conclusion was that it was definitely not her fault she went missing, even if they aren't so sure about the story.) Which is almost enough to make her wish she stayed, but she's home!
What Joy Learns
A lot more about the power of stories and the Seasonal Countries. Joy will remember that she met Hailey as an adult, and Hailey hadn't aged. Then again, Hailey is nearly a century old in truth.
Understanding of the context of why she feared the Seasonal Countries, especially Autumn. It didn't stop her from befriending Jackie Frost, but does put things into context.
A bit about the origins of superheroes. The Big Three -- Majesty, Jolly Roger and Supermodel -- were the first supers, if you don't count figures like Santa Claus who showed up afterward claiming to have always been present. Joy could put this together with her Vegas memory, where Dame Fortuna gave her some less public knowledge.
A lot more fears/dislike about forced body modification. The next game where this comes up will be heck. Well, maybe not the de-aged game, though that will have problems of its own considering li'l Vel's history with being kidnapped into strange realms by storybook people.
I'd say this would affect Joy's decision about whether she'd like to stay in Aather if/when she good-ends, but... already she considers Tiger's Eye her team and her friends. A lot of Joy's problems are ones of being alone and isolated. This was her first solo mission, and her first solo fight, so it's understandable she was all 'take me home to my friends and my bed and my teddy bears'. Aather does not have her friends from home, but it has her new friends.