tapestodiane | 016 [video] - backdated to monday

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016 [video] - backdated to monday

[And today, Violet City! Violet City on a damn fine morning, no less. But more importantly, an Eevee. A very playful one by the looks of it, as she's sort of darting around when Coop's trying to film her.]

I found this girl today. I'm fairly certain she belonged to Dee - call it a hunch. Dee's gone, but knowing her she'll probably show up around these parts again sooner rather than later.

[He sounds quite cheerful, saying this. Like most others he knows that he knows her, so her being gone doesn't trouble him all that much. Besides, it's a beautiful day, and he'll happily focus on that and the other little things:]

I'm back in Violet. [Audibly breathes the whole thing in as he films the area - a bit on the town outskirts, near the trees.] Man, I missed this town. Am quite looking forward to the hike back to Azalea, but that might be a while. I've been thinking I should try the gym now that I'm here so wish me luck on that one. Which reminds me -

[Camera pans and behold, a Wooper, looking like the most timid thing on ~~Earth~~ Johto.]

I believe this one needs more attention and care than I am able to give her at present. I don't feel it's fair to keep her in the computer for longer periods of time, so if anyone would like to take her in, I'd appreciate it. Bear in mind that she doesn't like fighting.

[...she's not claimed and she's a Wooper and who wants a Wooper anyway, but if anyone WOULD want her it'll be discussed ICly and stuff (and on a bit of a first-come first-serve basis). If no one wants her he's probably going to set her free which would be a-okay. :Db]

[Action for anyone in Violet! Feel free to run into him anywhere. /o/]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

_{[She'd looked away briefly, but the question makes her look back at the screen with a surprisingly sharp gaze. But on the bright side, it looks like he's about to get some facts. At long last.]}

Drugs.

Corruption.

A whole lot of very strange people doing very strange things, and not the good kind of strange.

That answer your question?

_{[He takes a second to study her, deciding againist asking about the things-trying-to-kill-you part.]}

But you weren't part of it. What were you doing there?

I was born there.

Sounds like a tough neighborhood to grow up in.

_{[The words are a bit slower than usual. Despite the casual words, his tone is pretty gentle.]}

_{[There's a quiet, halfheartedfly-scoffing laugh on her part.]}

You have no idea.

_{[There's a small, humourless smile in response to that.]}

Care to enlighten me?

_{[... HEH.]}

Look... no offense, Cooper, but there's a reason I don't talk about my old stomping grounds to people with a badge.

All that stuff where police go to some creepy little backwoods town to investigate all the fucked-up shit that goes on there? Only happens on TV.

In real life? Nobody cares.

_{[... Oh Heather. If only you knew.]}

_{[Yeah, he hadn't really expected anything different - but what he was given to work with does explain a few things, and he'll settle with that for now. She's not part of any of his investigations, so he won't treat her as such.]

[He raises an eyebrow at that last part, though, looking mildly amused.]}

They do, Heather. It's part of my job. But I was told a few weeks ago that that case is a TV show, so maybe that would explain it.

_{[He's decided not to think about that too much. It's a bit mind-blowing.]}

_{[...--RECORD SCREECH.]}

Wait, what?

_{[Well, THAT train of thought was successfully derailed. It probably shouldn't have been-- she knows some of the people who come here are from supposedly-fictional stories. But THAT'S STILL WEIRD, OKAY?]}

You're from TV?

Supposedly. I was entirely unaware of this up until recently, but it was apparently a pretty good show.

_{[Tone rather dry. Pff. He's really not sure what to make of it himself. HE IS PRETTY SURE HE IS REAL, but maybe it's all relative. Who knows.]}

_[Whoa.]

.... Well, I did meet Spider-Man here once...

_{[Yeah, tell him about it.]}

There's Minnie Mouse. Batman was here. Maybe we're all fictional in one way or another.

_{[Doesn't mean he takes his case any less seriously. The fact that it might be fictional isn't halfway as jarring to him as the fact that this means people know about it.]}

Hmph. Maybe.

_{[She's already figured that's the case in one way or another-- but of course in that detached way, she still assumes that she's not from anything BUT real life. Probably better that way, really.]}

Anyway.

_{[Now they're off-topic. Maybe he'll forget he was asking about Silent Hill. 8Ib.]}

Anyway.

_{[Just wait until someone fourthwalls you, Heather. It's a weird experience.]

[And no, don't think so. Coop is a dedicated man. There's a not-really-smile as he goes back to it.]}

It still means that I did go to a creepy little backwoods town _{[deliberate quote is deliberate]} to investigate what was going on there. I'm sure you can understand why I'm interested in where you've been as a result.

_{[Man, won't THAT be the day...]

[And gosh darnit.]

[Heather goes silent for a moment, and her expression, for once, isn't that juvenile sort of TRY AND MAKE ME TALK glower (or smirk, as it often is). She gives him an appraising look, her eyes narrowed and mouth set in an unreadable line. She's usually fairly easy to read, but right now it's... almost impossible to tell exactly what's going through her head.]}

...

_{[... Finally, she speaks.]}

You know much about cults, Cooper?

_{[He waits patiently, sensing there might be something. The question was unexpected, though, and this is revealed in a slight frown and the second he takes to answer it.]}

Some. But I haven't had to deal with any personally.

_{[He's heard his share of stories, though, and there was a lot of talk about it in the 70s. Being alive to see the reports on both the Manson family and Jonestown ... not to mention the controversy on brainwashing and the government's stance to it. But he figures she means something smaller and waits for her to possibly elaborate on it.]}

Well, I have.

Silent Hill's a place with something very wrong with it, and the cult that exists there is part of that.

The last cop who even tried to look into it wound up dead and as far as I know, nobody did anything about it since.

_{[And Cybil hadn't even been looking into the cult activity-- just the drug ring.]}

_{[The darkness in these woods, huh. That's what comes to mind - Ghostwood forest, so aptly named. Though Twin Peaks didn't exactly have a cult in it, well... There is something wrong with that town too, and he can't help but draw parallels, even if he's not drawing conclusions.]

[Looking back at Heather (having drifted for a second as he thought that over quickly), he tilts his head slightly, a habit that's many years old.]}

Were you part of the cult?

_{[Twin Peaks and Silent Hill are very different, but the similarities they share ARE a little too strong to be ignored-- the very earth in Silent Hill was tainted generations before anyone involved in the horrific fiasco that brought the Otherworld roiling in through the already-thin layers of reality in that town had even been born.]

[There's a few ways that Heather can answer that question, and she pauses before she decides. Alessa had been part of the cult... one of multiple children born into it and taught its ways like any other kid in a strict religious family. She hadn't been able to help it... neither had Claudia. But those memories left such a sour taste on her tongue that she'd rather slam her head in a door than call herself part of the cult.]}

My biological mother was its leader.

_{[Something similar goes on in the Twin Peaks mythos. No one knows how long BOB or MIKE were around - it can easily have been ages. Coop's seen at least one of them before coming to that town ... he doesn't really remember it, either. But there's always been some kind of forces, concentrated in places. Twin Peaks just happened to be on one of them, and the red room - who knows where that is?]

[Or, in short, reality - who knows what's reality, anyway.]

[At her answer, he frowns, nods, a definite sympathethic air about him. Looks like Heather's been in worse than he thought, and yet he understands that he's only started scratching at the surface.]}

But you got out of it. _{[It's not a question as much as an invitation to expand. He assumes. She strikes him as the kind that would.]}

_{[Things always got strange with otherworlds were involved... Heather had always kind of wondered if there were places other than Silent Hill itself-- places charged with negative feelings, where the fabric between worlds ran thin. But like hell was she going to go looking for them.]

[She nods, in any case.]}

Yeah. But it wasn't easy.

_{[Oh, she'll elaborate... within reason. But nonetheless, some answers are better than none. Especially considering how many months she's spent dancing around his occasional questions like a misbehaving dog with a stolen shoe deliberately jumping around right out of reach.]}

It isn't with cults. Most of the time you're in them for life.

_{[She probably knows this, but he's thinking out loud - and again, acting as a sort of friendly push - if that's an even remotely adequate description - to let her talk. He's not trying to make it an interrogation, but a dialogue.]}

Yeah.

_{[She can tell he wants her to talk-- and it's a VERY good thing he's going the dialogue route, because there's no quicker way to shut Heather up (or start getting really sarcastic answers) than turn the discussion into an interrogation. But she's still not totally willing to start coughing up details just yet-- which is why she's going to offer up a test. Because the existence of the cult is just the wafer-thin surface of everything that is wrong with Silent Hill.]

[After all, cults existed all over the place, in various shapes and sizes. ... But there was a lot about the Order that most people would not believe.]

[How he responds is how she'll decide whether or not to say anything more.]}

That's why I had to die first.

_{[He takes a second to absorb that - understandably - frowning, in disbelief at first, but nods slowly even as his mind is trying to calculate it.]

[He's been around death a lot. Death and insanity and evil, often hand in hand. But having someone come back to life, physically, is something he hasn't encountered before coming to Johto.]

[Then again -- he's talked to a dead girl and his dead mother brought him a gift a couple of years back. In the end, it's not a thing that is too farfetched for him to accept or believe.]}

You died. _{[He repeats it to strengthen it in his head.]} How did you come back alive?

Edited 2011-05-18 00:01 (UTC)

_{[Okay, he didn't balk or get that 'haha SURE KID' look that most regular people in his position would. So that much is a good sign. She'll keep going.]}

You know that old myth about the phoenix, right?

Edited 2011-05-18 06:33 (UTC)

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