paramnesiarules (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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ph_logs2024-09-03 04:14 pm
paramnesiarules) wrote in ph_logs2024-09-03 04:14 pm
August/September top-level
Who: Helen Richardson (paramnesiarules) & anyone else who wants to meet the new Spiral-touched weirdo~
What: First meetings galore!
When: Last week of August and first week of September, before Dahlia's big birthday bash
Where: Anywhere there are people!
Warning(s): Discussion of madness, trauma, and depersonalization.
The Oak & Iron
On her first morning in this strange new world, Helen embarrassed herself terribly.
She'd been quite pleased with how she was holding it together -- sure, her memories of speaking with Mayor Poe were a bit fuzzy, and it took her a few minutes to remember where she was when she woke up in her room in the inn...but she'd stayed calm. Cool. Professional. She's gotten out of bed, washed her face, combed out her hair -- even taken a moment to admire the old timey charm of the secondhand clothes she'd been given, like something out of a period drama. She'd gone downstairs. She'd ordered breakfast -- just something simple, bacon and eggs and a slice of toast. She'd sat down and waited for it to come to her -- and that was when everything fell apart.
It was the smells that did her in. And the sounds. And the...colors. Her egg, when her plate was set down in front of her, was a rich inviting yellow, nearly orange. The bacon was red-brown with white streaks of fat, and smelled warmly of cooked pork and grease. At the table behind her, two people were talking quietly about a party that was supposed to happen in a few weeks. The wood grain of her own table was smooth and warm under her hands. Everything was soft and...somehow gentle. There were no hard corners or harsh smells, no eye-searing artificial colors. Everything was natural and gentle, homey even though it was just an inn. Like it had been designed to make people relax and feel safe -- and it probably had been.
It was too much. Helen tried to hold it back, tried to stop it -- but she failed. With no other recourse she covered her face with her hands as, as quietly as she could, she began to cry.
Greymare Library
The scratching of her pencil is awkwardly loud in the quiet room. Helen cringes and tries to draw more quietly, but she doesn't stop. She's almost done, and once her map of the island is finished -- maybe she'll feel better? Maybe she'll feel <i>safer</i>, once she knows where everything is and where it's supposed to be. Once she can be sure that she'll <i>notice</i>, if anything changes...
She draws a final line and puts her pencil down with a sigh. One last thing, and then her little project should be complete. She's not sure which of the people wandering the stacks are patrons and which are employees are the library, so she simply corners the first person she sees and asks them plainly, "Excuse me. Do you work here?"
Temple of Seasons
The local church is small and quaint, and seems to exert a pull on Helen that fills her with a quiet, trembling fear. The doors are thick and heavy, and seem to almost whisper to her, promising safety and tranquility, but -- she can't bring herself to touch the handle. She sits on the front steps instead, arms wrapped tightly around herself, and tries to pretend that she's just taking a break. Just a little rest, that's all. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Tawny Beach
The beach is crowded, but it bothers her less when she can look out on the open ocean. It stretches out to the horizon, a flat, blue plain broken with the white caps of cresting waves. Like a badly-installed carpet beginning to bunch and pull up from the floor, she thinks, and the thought is amusing rather than nauseating. In all other respects it is completely unlike an interior hallway -- and if her eyes should start to leak again, it's easily blamed on the salt air. Now if only she could shake this ridiculous and cliche conviction that people are staring at her, everything would be...just. Perfect.
paramnesiarules) & anyone else who wants to meet the new Spiral-touched weirdo~What: First meetings galore!
When: Last week of August and first week of September, before Dahlia's big birthday bash
Where: Anywhere there are people!
Warning(s): Discussion of madness, trauma, and depersonalization.
The Oak & Iron
On her first morning in this strange new world, Helen embarrassed herself terribly.
She'd been quite pleased with how she was holding it together -- sure, her memories of speaking with Mayor Poe were a bit fuzzy, and it took her a few minutes to remember where she was when she woke up in her room in the inn...but she'd stayed calm. Cool. Professional. She's gotten out of bed, washed her face, combed out her hair -- even taken a moment to admire the old timey charm of the secondhand clothes she'd been given, like something out of a period drama. She'd gone downstairs. She'd ordered breakfast -- just something simple, bacon and eggs and a slice of toast. She'd sat down and waited for it to come to her -- and that was when everything fell apart.
It was the smells that did her in. And the sounds. And the...colors. Her egg, when her plate was set down in front of her, was a rich inviting yellow, nearly orange. The bacon was red-brown with white streaks of fat, and smelled warmly of cooked pork and grease. At the table behind her, two people were talking quietly about a party that was supposed to happen in a few weeks. The wood grain of her own table was smooth and warm under her hands. Everything was soft and...somehow gentle. There were no hard corners or harsh smells, no eye-searing artificial colors. Everything was natural and gentle, homey even though it was just an inn. Like it had been designed to make people relax and feel safe -- and it probably had been.
It was too much. Helen tried to hold it back, tried to stop it -- but she failed. With no other recourse she covered her face with her hands as, as quietly as she could, she began to cry.
Greymare Library
The scratching of her pencil is awkwardly loud in the quiet room. Helen cringes and tries to draw more quietly, but she doesn't stop. She's almost done, and once her map of the island is finished -- maybe she'll feel better? Maybe she'll feel <i>safer</i>, once she knows where everything is and where it's supposed to be. Once she can be sure that she'll <i>notice</i>, if anything changes...
She draws a final line and puts her pencil down with a sigh. One last thing, and then her little project should be complete. She's not sure which of the people wandering the stacks are patrons and which are employees are the library, so she simply corners the first person she sees and asks them plainly, "Excuse me. Do you work here?"
Temple of Seasons
The local church is small and quaint, and seems to exert a pull on Helen that fills her with a quiet, trembling fear. The doors are thick and heavy, and seem to almost whisper to her, promising safety and tranquility, but -- she can't bring herself to touch the handle. She sits on the front steps instead, arms wrapped tightly around herself, and tries to pretend that she's just taking a break. Just a little rest, that's all. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Tawny Beach
The beach is crowded, but it bothers her less when she can look out on the open ocean. It stretches out to the horizon, a flat, blue plain broken with the white caps of cresting waves. Like a badly-installed carpet beginning to bunch and pull up from the floor, she thinks, and the thought is amusing rather than nauseating. In all other respects it is completely unlike an interior hallway -- and if her eyes should start to leak again, it's easily blamed on the salt air. Now if only she could shake this ridiculous and cliche conviction that people are staring at her, everything would be...just. Perfect.
no subject
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"If it wouldn't be any trouble, I'd like to see them, yes. I haven't gotten any tattoos in color before, actually. Maybe it's the right time to give it a try?"
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"Maybe it is!" she agrees, and gets up to fetch the pigskin. That's unfortunately literal; with no color photography in this world, the only way to show off a tattoo is to tattoo something; in case the actual taxidermied skin of a pig. Helen's been pretending it's plastic, actually, in the privacy of her own mind. Very thick plastic.
At least it doesn't smell.
"There's something so lovely about getting something nice just for yourself to enjoy, isn't there? Like a new bag or a mani-pedi at one of those nice Vietnamese parlors with the massages...I bet it must feel even better when it's something permanent, right?"
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"Oh, absolutely," Jon agrees while he looks it over, glancing between the design on paper and the colors, as contemplative as he is ultimately indecisive. "You know, I spent the better part of my first year here simply... not doing anything of the sort for myself. I think, in a way, I was still refusing to believe that this was it. Perhaps a permanent change is worth trying to really, truly settle in, you know?"
At last, he sets the pigskin back on the table (idly rubbing his hand on his pants leg to get the texture off of his fingertips), before he gestures just above it to the cooler side of the colors, in those rich, deep purples and blues, as well as gesturing to the violet red.
"Do you think he'd be able to do something in sort of an... I don't know, ombre-type thing for it? Something to sort of flow with the general motion of the piece was what I was thinking. Either those, or something in these greens might be lovely. If budget wasn't a question, I'd split the difference and simply leave with one in each set of colors, but whichever I don't go for this time will surely just have to be for the next visit."
Which, as far as he's concerned, is already a plan of his. What can he say? Familiar faces aren't something he's ever going to not want to reach towards, and even as brief as a time as he'd known Helen before, there's a sense of responsibility there. He hadn't had the opportunity to know her, as she was, before the Distortion left her forever changed - now's the time to make that right, if he's able.
no subject
"Even having been there, it's still a little hard to relieve believe it all ended like that," she says quietly, voice kept low to avoid any of the still-browsing customers from overhearing. "I mean...I just didn't think things like happened in real life, you know? It all seems like something out some weird artsy horror movie."
She sighs, taking a moment to compose herself. When Jon asks her about color schemes she smiles gratefully, taking it not as a change in subject but a gentle redirection. "I don't see why not. I've seen him do similar things for other people. Now, obviously the final decision is yours, but if you'd like to know my opinion --" She raises her eyebrows at him invitingly, "I think a red to purple ombre would look absolutely lovely with your skin tone. Green wouldn't be bad at all, mind, but purple...well, I'm sure you can already tell that I have a preference for it." She gestures to her work clothes with a grin.