[open] Fourth Wall 1

[theearth]

Who: EVERYONE including visitors
What: This is the first general post for the fourth wall. This post is for network posts/conversations, logs and every other possible interaction, and visitors can top-level.
When: 2nd of January
Where: Everywhere inside the five echo boundaries.
Warnings: Please warn in the subject line of your threads if anything comes up!

Fourth Wall OOC information! As a reminder: Visitors may tag all posts tagged "-fourth wall" that are posted on savetheearth.

Special things happening today: A sudden surge in Vermini and Vermedi activity! Some of them are aggressive towards the numbered and will attack, but some seem rather interested in herding or baiting people with numbers towards other people with numbers... They clearly want as many numbered as possible to be together or at least not be alone today.

Comments

[solvethepuzzle]

[He doesn't like the feeling of receiving Echoes. That sudden emptiness is frightening, even as brief as it lasts. As time goes on, he might become accustomed to it, but it's only his fourth. It's still uncomfortable.]

Orphanage. Special in some way, so perhaps also a school. Was called Wammy's House. My . . . Other. [He slips fairly easily into the terminology. Clear and concise; just how he prefers to speak.] He grew up there. [A small, thoughtful pause before he feels the need to add:] It was a good place.

[Not that it's difficult to be better than what his home life here has been. It's perhaps a sad commentary on his life that he'd apparently been better off in the one where he'd been orphaned. But it quite neatly explains why Willow Ridge has relaxed him so much.]

[dead_black_eyes]

[L has become accustomed to it enough in the 35 echoes he's received, to the point where a decently unobtrusive one will not interrupt his day or thought process in the least. But he remembers what those first few were like, the way they made him reel and stagger and fall silent as he stared into someone else's life.]

"Wammy's House?"

[He sounds utterly mystified.]

What a strange name. But it was good? Then...

[Slight, relieved laughter]

...then that's a weight off my shoulders. I had thought... at first, that my Other was one who helped children. I have had my doubts lately, so... it's good to hear that it was in fact the truth.

What else do you know about your Other? I believe... I would be very shocked, Nathan, if it turned out they did not know each other in this past existence.

[solvethepuzzle]

[He considers asking what has had Lazarus doubting his Other. But does he want to know? It has to be unpleasant. He's had enough unpleasantness for now. Perhaps another time.]

It was safe. And I mattered. [The last statement could have come off as an admission of the vulnerability he's experienced all his life, something he wouldn't have wanted to reveal. But it's already a known fact. Lazarus no doubt understands that and has for a long time. Those who suffer abuse frequently feel that they have no worth.

[His fingers gradually wind their way out of his hair.] I don't know much. I've only had four: three memories, one object -- a child's toy. He grew up in that place, believed to be capable of something great. The letter N in elaborate font on a computer screen. That he was also looked after by an old man called Watari. All indications do support the idea that we should have known one another, but I've no specific recollection of you at this point in time.

[dead_black_eyes]

[Safe. The feeling of being valued. It's a beautiful dream for a child who has been deprived of both for much of his life, and it's something that L can relate to on a certain level. Just because he'd been a prodigy didn't mean that he was valued for his own sake; winning tournaments and performing was his business, and if he failed at his business, he knew that the ever-looming threat of worthlessness and burnout were suspended precariously over his head.

He listens intently as Nathan relates the echoes he's had up to this point; four isn't many, but it's certainly a starting point, more useful than just one or two.]

"Watari" is familiar to me. With a mustache and a hat? I know he took care of things that I couldn't. Perhaps we attended this school, or orphanage, at different times. I think that my Other was in his 20s, around my age now, when he..."

He falters for a second.

"...when it was the end of him. I'm certain that this happened at some point."

[solvethepuzzle]

[He'd never been valued at home. Even now, on his own . . . it isn't as though he couldn't be replaced where he is. He's dispensable and he knows it. Just as he knows that he's surely capable of so much more. It's a strange thing, to be aware both that he can be cast aside and that he's intelligent enough that he's able to do something better.

[Now, if that didn't come along with guilt at not accomplishing the latter yet, that would be wonderful.

[His brow furrows marginally at the description. That's not right.] No. Clean-shaven. Wore glasses. [A hat is such a transient detail that he feels no need to mention it. The other details being different . . . those could potentially be attributed to different points of Watari's life. That, or they're speaking of two different men going by the same name.

[He isn't certain how to respond to that last statement. The only thing that comes out of his mouth on that subject is:] I see. I'm sorry. [It feels inadequate.]

[dead_black_eyes]

[The differing description admittedly catches L off-guard, but some thinking about it logically presents a few possible explanations for it. He shrugs, averting his eyes and smiling sadly.]

I think that my Other was older than yours, as I'm older than you. That's the feeling I have, so... perhaps by the time someone was your "handler", the one who served that role in my life was too old. Or else... whatever killed me killed him, too.

[He brushes off Nathan's soft apology.]

If he hadn't died, I don't think I'd be getting his pulses now. So it is not all bad.

[solvethepuzzle]

[There are enough logical explanations that it's really not a detail to be worried about. It does make him wonder, though, why he would need a "handler". What was this other person like that he needed someone so badly to look after him? Nathan may be living a meagre existence, but he takes care of things himself. Would he one day lose that?]

Perhaps.

[He shakes his head a bit.] No. From what I understand of how this works, all of our Others are dead. I meant the age. It's young to have died. It's unfortunate.

[dead_black_eyes]

Not so young. I think that he had a full life... but it was dangerous. He had to be very careful, he rarely if ever showed his face during investigations, and he frequently taunted fate. He wasn't as careful as he should have been, and I suspect it's because he was bored and just kept... pushing the stakes higher. Sort of a thrill-seeking behavior, perhaps.

If we had similar lives in some regards, I can't help but wonder in which regards we differed.