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[redwinekindofgirl]

So... few of us here have come from other places, right?

[She tucks her hair behind her ear and a few of the shorter strands fall forwards again. Annoyed, she puffs them out of her face with a quick exhale.]

I guess that doesn't matter, really-- Would you want to forget it all?

[Julie pauses, then adds some clarification.]

Where I've been, people didn't remember stuff after they left. Sometimes they'd come back and not remember they'd been there. Would you want that, or... would you want to remember?

Comments

[Video]

[tsuyoi_ame]

This is my first time in a different world but I think, even if I ever end up somewhere else, I'd want to remember. I wouldn't want to forget you or any of the friends I've made here, even if I go home.

[redwinekindofgirl]

Yeah, remembering the good parts is easy.

[She pushes her hair back, frowning.]

But there's a lot of shit I could do without.

[tsuyoi_ame]

But even the bad parts, they make us who we become, right?

[Sure, the last month was probably the hardest of his young life. But, he grew from it, so that was a good thing, right?]

[redwinekindofgirl]

Pft. Doesn't mean it's a good thing.

[There's a good deal of Julie's life that she doesn't like. Parts of herself - the hard, jagged-edged parts - that she doesn't want. But she is who she is.]

Sometimes life is just shit.

[tsuyoi_ame]

But if we can find the good in it, that's what my dad always taught me.

[Surprisingly, Yamamoto too, it's why his dad had to teach him such a lesson, show his son and try to help him accept the parts of him he did not like. He does okay or at least he pretends pretty well and always encourages his friends.]

Yeah, but it makes you appreciate the good more.

[redwinekindofgirl]

My dad taught me how to kill people.

[It comes out harsher than she means it, though the barb isn't directed at Yamamoto. Julie can still remember how her father was before, when he would play guitar while her mother sang, but she can't even be sure if those memories are real and not just tainted with the rosy lenses of childhood.

Everything from her tweens onwards is bitter-tasting and sharp. Innocence lost.]

But I guess... the good is pretty good when there's not a whole lot of it.

[tsuyoi_ame]

That's a hard lesson.

[His dad taught him to fight but he knows he is lucky in that his dad also taught him how to care and was always loving and supportive. For most of his life, he just thought that's how it was, but he has learned since, that not everyone has that.

Most of his friends do not have that and he wishes he could show them even a little of what it was like, because being lucky he wants to share that luck with those he cares about.]

Yeah, we can pick what we hold onto, me I'll pick the good, like ice cream in the summer, or fireworks with my friends, first kisses, those are really nice, wouldn't want to forget those.

[video]

[bakudan_bambino]

Right.

I'd want to forget parts of it. Not all of it.

[He looks lost in thought for a moment, fidgets with the thick collar around his neck.]

Where I've been, people left and came back, and they were still the same person, but from different times. I'm starting to think that when you leave, places like this... or anywhere that isn't home is something like a dream.

[redwinekindofgirl]

[She nods, because she gets that. Wanting to forget parts of it, but not necessarily everything. Some memories she has are great, but she isn't sure if they're worth remembering all the bad ones.]

Mm... I've seen that happen too.

[Or it's the same person, but they don't remember anything.]

I left the last place, then went back... and I didn't remember it while I was gone.

[bakudan_bambino]

Even if I wanted to forget the last place I was, I couldn’t. There are too many physical marks and items from it that I’ve carried around and are attached to me.

I wonder if I were to go back home, would those all be gone...

[redwinekindofgirl]

I don't know if it's the same here, but in the last place I got the feeling that whatever we were up to back home is just kind of... on pause. Does that make sense?

[bakudan_bambino]

Yeah, like this is just a series of strange dreams.

[redwinekindofgirl]

Exactly! Except they're really, really sucky dreams.

[She puffs out a sigh.]

I'd just like to have one fucking normal day.

voice;

[vosseeker]

Other places besides the universe we originate from, you mean?

Electing to forget something is intentionally removing potential advantages that experience brings. Only a fool would choose it.

[redwinekindofgirl]

Hmn.

[Okay, fair answer.]

What if the thing you want to forget doesn't have any advantages?

[vosseeker]

That's not an assessment anyone can realistically make. Advantages are often realized in the moment.

[redwinekindofgirl]

Hmm.

[She's going to give a tart reply, but she bites it back.]

So, everything's an opportunity, huh?

[vosseeker]

No, but it's better to treat everything as the potential of an opportunity.

[ There's plenty of unwelcome things he'd like to purge from his memory banks too, but pride and spite more often dictate him. ]

[redwinekindofgirl]

Is that what you do?

[He has a point, she supposes.]

[fishermansweater]

[ Finnick appears on the video a while before he speaks; he's thinking, considering what she's said. ]

No.

[ He says it carefully. It's not that there aren't things he wants to forget, after all. ]

I wouldn't be who I am without the things that happened to me.

[redwinekindofgirl]

Yeah, neither would I. That was kind of the reason I asked.

[Because Julie doesn't always like the person she is, and she's been through a lot of things that no one should have.]

There's really nothing you'd not want to just let go of?

cw: depression references

[fishermansweater]

[ He gets it. He really does. It wasn't so long ago that he'd been hospitalized for weeks because all he wanted was to stop hurting. There's plenty about himself that he doesn't like.

So again, he doesn't reply immediately.

She is, after all, making a very good point. ]

There's a lot I'd want to be rid of. But it's not as simple as that, because the worst things that have happened to me led to other things, things that are more important than bad memories. No matter how bad they are sometimes.

[redwinekindofgirl]

[Sometimes it's all too easy to get caught up in the bad things. In the shit things that happen to you that you can't control. The things that make you feel so helpless. The things that make you want to scream out at the unfairness of it.

But maybe he has a point, too. If the bad things that had happened to her hadn't happened...]

I guess. [She huffs out a sigh through her nose.] There's just... been a lot of bad, and not a lot of good.

[fishermansweater]

[ He nods, and off-camera his left hand starts to toy with the fabric of his pants, wrinkling it then smoothing it. ]

I understand. Sometimes it seems like it would be easier if those things just never happened.

[ He pauses, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. ]

If you'd asked me a couple of years ago, I'd probably have said something different.

[redwinekindofgirl]

Yeah.

[Sometimes it would be easier if a lot of things in her life had never happened, but that would take out a hell of a lot of her life. Things hadn't really been going right for her since before she hit double figures.]

I get it. A couple of years ago I might have said something different as well. [Something more hopeful, maybe. When she had a boyfriend she thought might want to marry her and when things weren't blowing up all around her.] But life just... fucking happens, doesn't it.