memory regains; (limelight)

[toofarisnextspring]

memories will go here.

Comments

#1: rain (cw: implied child abuse in background)

[toofarisnextspring]

[in this memory, there is a small, androgynous child sitting in the living room of their apartment. it's a small apartment, with one bedroom, and their mother's laptop is open on the table.

Their mother, for once, does not seem impatient or cold or angry that they've interrupted her (and notably, Emily Lin is basically a carbon copy of what [Lotus] looks like in the present.

Instead, today, she is teaching the child a song, saying that she wants them to remember it, starting with the first verse. and their singing voice is, while a child's untrained singing voice, clear and sweet. the kind that could be very good at singing when trained.]

Light shines on heaven,the earth, the spirit.
Light brings glory and grace. May it open your eyes to the truth.
Shanti, shanti-


notes:
- it's a modern, if very small, apartment.
- not that it matters but the 'Light shines on heaven' verses would be in Mandarin Chinese in the memory. 'shanti, shanti' is, of course, Sanskrit.
- for SMT players, yes, this is Sera's song from DDS. There is surely nothing sinister about this child being taught to sing this song. Surely.

#2: fear (cw: implied child abuse)

[toofarisnextspring]

Outside the window, a thunderstorm, wind and rain lashing against the glass, and a small androgynous child sits in the living room, trying to make as little sound as possible (because their mother is busy working, and they don't dare disturb her) even though they're scared of the storm.

Instead, they sing very quietly to themself, trying not to be so scared.

Light shines on heaven, the earth, the spirit.
Light brings glory and grace. May it open your eyes to the truth.
Shanti, shanti-

#3: any theme

[toofarisnextspring]

[A very androgynous teenager (with far shorter hair than in the present) is present at a meeting on the second floor of the coffee shop with an equally androgynous girl with a hat ("Night" Misaki), Shousei (their other half-brother) and a couple of other people, including the Singapore admin for Paradise, Hershey's Chen, to discuss Anomalies in the game.

Beginning with the incident where the AR scenario had bled into the real world and caused an actual accident (where the androgynous teenager, Night, and Shousei, had been present), and a number of odd files expanding far beyond where they should - a sword, a particular demon, and Ḿ̵̳̝͔̺̘̾͜i̷͈̮̯͓͒̑͝c̵̖͉͈̺̜͕̱͋̇͛̄ḩ̸̜̹̟͓̪̗̬̠̆̋͒͊̀͜ā̸̮͖̫̹̞̼̩͆̅̾̌̀͂͑̈̈́͂̀̏̋̏̓͜͝e̶̡̛̛͉̹̲͎͊͐̽́̑̇̽̀͗͗̍̕͜͝ļ̴̺̰̭̦̗̟̥̘͓̖̪̽͂͑̓̌'s player profile, plus a lot of other weird things happening with/associated with the game, including mysterious disappearances (that the androgynous teenager has no idea about), and something about investigating both the underlying language of the gnOSis operating system and Night's father. Unfortunately, the meeting goes Very Badly and soon erupts into a loud argument.

The androgynous teenager, already tense with anxiety, decides to try to at least solve their part of this mess by just deleting their account, putting on their AR glasses to do so. Unfortunately, immediately as soon as they try, there's literally a bright flash of light in their vision and the worst migraine of their life.

Every device in the coffee shop (and as it turns out, for the entire block or two around it - and Singapore is the third highest population-dense city on Earth, so that's a lot of devices- that is running on a gnOSis operating system, whether it's a computer, phone, smart lights, anything and everything, immediately force-resets (which includes lights going out and then coming back on).

Downstairs, in the rest of the coffee shop, there's a general cry of panic.

"What just happened?" Shousei demands, shakily.

Hershey's looks pale. "That was a GnOSis override. That wasn't…wasn't the game software. Every OS in in the room - no, the entire block- just basically stood up and said, 'No' to whatever Ḿ̵̳̝͔̺̘̾͜i̷͈̮̯͓͒̑͝c̵̖͉͈̺̜͕̱͋̇͛̄ḩ̸̜̹̟͓̪̗̬̠̆̋͒͊̀͜ā̸̮͖̫̹̞̼̩͆̅̾̌̀͂͑̈̈́͂̀̏̋̏̓͜͝e̶̡̛̛͉̹̲͎͊͐̽́̑̇̽̀͗͗̍̕͜͝ļ̴̺̰̭̦̗̟̥̘͓̖̪̽͂͑̓̌ just did. That…I…that isn't even MATH."

"How is that even possible?" someone else in the room says.

"It's not! It shouldn't have happened."

~~~
notes:
Lotus (and Lily's) names are going to be zalgo-texted for a while in memories. Just call it a downside of their currently hidden nature.
- gnOSis operating system is basically the equivalent of like, Apple, Android, Windows, Mac, etc. That level of tech dominance.

#4 valuable or expensive

[toofarisnextspring]

You are dead and you are dreaming, as your sister-in-law carries your body down into the roots of the [Tokyo world-tree] to rest protected within the roots. She says nothing, but as the tree connects to you and you to the tree (still dead, still dreaming), her regrets, her desires, become clear.


it shouldn't have been this way, it shouldn't have been this way, you shouldn't be dead, too much was asked of you and not enough, never enough, given to you-


(the Conception failed. the new world is stillborn.  she and your brother gave up everything, their humanity, caused another apocalypse grasping at even a chance for the new world to be born without the Demifiend, without the architect of the next world.  she will not stop trying, hoping, striving, to hold that infinitesimally small chance, that one possible future in the sea of all possible futures, for a miracle-) 


You are dead and you are dreaming, connected to the Qliphoth trees - outside and inside reality, the fundamental truth of all universes expressing itself through these seven nodes, seven trees, recording all human desires across all possible futures and wishes in all possible languages.


and your sister-in-law leaves you here to rest, protected and preserved,  and only to wake if that one singular future should come to pass- "Rest well," she says, and leaves you there to dream, dead, dreaming, dead, dreaming-



~~~

#5 - bonding with each other or entertainment

[toofarisnextspring]

#6 - weddings, sexy, or beheadings? (or anything)

[toofarisnextspring]

ring, sharable

#7 player's choice

[toofarisnextspring]

[Lotus]'s anxiety can't take the arguing, and soon they're under the table, because it's all they can think of where to go to get away from it and it's still not enough, and they can't breathe from it.



The only thing they can think of to do - if they never play Paradise again, then they can just get away from all of this - is to drop their AR glasses on the floor and break them. With their hands, just smashing them barehanded as their anxiety rapidly spirals out of control. It doesn't help. It doesn't help. [Lotus] - after a bit more arguing from above them- emerges from under the table with their shattered glasses, both frame and glass in their hands, not even noticing that their hands are bleeding, and drops them on the table.


Boss. they overhear a fragment of a conversation Night is having with one of her demon partners (that they shouldn't be able to hear). Still a demon. And getting stronger. They're seriously bad news. The worst news I've ever met.



"[Lotus] Night says. "I think I need you to hear something a…friend of mine has to say. Because he seems to think you're a demon."


And with that, [Lotus] immediately bolts, not even looking where they are going, and heads right for the stairs down. Except they don't notice when their foot slips and they fall headlong down the stairs-(and at the edges of their hearing, they can hear a voice say: rejoice, rejoice, rejoice-)


~~~
note: Lotus's name was supposed to be zalgo-texted but I couldn't actually get it to work this time without making the rest of the line unreadable. It's like M̶̛͉̺̙̳̂̅̎̔̉̆̎̉̈́̅̀̇̒i̷̗̺̺̖̲̯̲̩͔̖͕͋͛̀͛͌̔̑́̂̑̈́͘͘ͅc̶̨̨̢̪̯̰̭̟̟̙̮̭̑͑͋̊̏̂̔̃͌͘ͅh̸̝͙̘̏ͅa̴̭̰͖̥̰͈̟̘̥͐͗̌͌̑̕͜ȩ̸͉̱̮̭̯͇̥̩͕̪͊͗̿͒́͐͐͊͊͂́͐̑̿͋l̶̻̼̝͈͎̤̭̥͙̓̔̄͑͂͑͛̇͌͗̿̆̓͂̕ for the entire memory.

it's the other half of this memory

Night's partner is Pyro Jack.

the voice saying "rejoice rejoice rejoice rejoice" at the end is very, uhhh, powerful and it feels so in the memory. Lotus/Lily doesn't know it in the memory itself but in terms of like, "powerful and scary", it's the fucking Metatron (SMT edition). Like that's the level of Fucking Terrifying And We (Don't) Know It here.

#8 - neutral/apathy, cw: vaguely described child abuse

[toofarisnextspring]

[honestly this is just a very long montage of child abuse across Years from Emily Lin towards her child, mostly alternating emotional abuse and neglect though occasionally physical - slaps, etc - as well.

by the time [Lotus] is a teenager, they're pretty dead inside, trying not to want anything, hollowed out and really depressed. they excel at school though.]


~~~
this is most of the reason [Lily] exists. the other is Singapore being...Singapore.

#9 - gambling/taking a risk

[toofarisnextspring]

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#10 truth/lie

[toofarisnextspring]

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11- confessions/lies

[toofarisnextspring]

the memory opens with [Lotus] standing in front of a hospital room. the entire place has been eerily quiet the whole time, unusual for a hospital in Singapore and the tension in the air is so thick that it could be cut with a knife.they had come to the hospital with their two half-brothers and Night [oldest brother's fiancee] trying to see if there was anything that could be done to try to stop the impending apocalypse, the Conception.




Somewhere in the hospital is their mother, but the woman sitting by the window in this room is their aunt Iris, with her usual black beret perched on her head but not cheerful for once.also, somehow predictably, Iris is also basically another of the Lin family that looks pretty much identical, except like her older sister Emily, she's taller than [Lotus/Lily], 5'3"-ish to their 4'11".and this discussion is terrible. Iris first hands over several photographs, of the Paradise conspiracy's inner circle, a group that includes Emily Lin, Iris herself, another two women who are certainly dead, the biological father that [Lotus] and their two half-brothers share, and Night's father (the head of the conspiracy), with her comments on the back.



And then comes the explanation.


"[Lotus] ..and [Lily] …I'm…I'm so sorry. If you know anything of what's going to happen, then you know that I don't deserve forgiveness. What I've done…what I've helped to accomplish? It is beyond the scale of words…"




"So…god, where to start. I guess…with you. There are two axes at work. The reason of the world to come and the answer of the people in it. The system has an avatar. A core structure. A god. I designed it, as a simple control mechanism. This was meant for terraforming…negotiating dynamic circumstances. HELPING people…no, I'm lying."She sighs.


"I wanted to make the world BETTER…and I was naive and stupid enough to think that one person could ever have the right to say into which form…""The Magatama. The core control. When introduced to the Rapture servers and the Eden construct…no, that's too technical. When brought to the heart of the system, it decides what form it takes...."


Aunt Iris adds that while the magatama had been a result of her work with the Metatron, the voice of God, she hadn't known until it was entirely too late that [Lotus] had been, all along, the one meant for it. That if she had known, she would never have given them the Paradise software - which, while it would have condemned them to a lingering, horrible death after the Conception, it also meant they would have died free and human, and not borne this burden.


[Lily]'s rage is bright and clear - love with conditions, just like anyone else - as [Lotus] slips away, but [Lily] holds back from killing their aunt, even though they slam her into a wall and threateningly hold her throat before letting her go. It would upset [Lotus], who loves their aunt, despite everything, and also would have no use because while she was the Maiden of the Conception, central key to what was about to happen...it was too late to stop it. Iris is aware, of course, that she had not earned their mercy, and does not try to plead for it. Instead, she simply asks that they join her by the window, to watch as the world ends.


~~~
So LotusLily in this memory looks much as they do now, except with floor-length hair and glowing purple and black geometric tattoos. Different color palette than these and seeming to have a bit of a digital/computer code quality to them but with similar pattern and placement (including on their face). They're also wearing a gauzy white hanfu, pretty similar to how they dress on the boat normally except it's obviously magic fabric.