folkmeme | Truth Meme

Entry tags:

truth meme

Truth Meme

Somehow, there is kirin on you.

Most likely, it is the fur of the kirin that was caught in the environment of wherever you’ve been; there is a stray hair on you because one was on the seat you sat on upon the train or because it blew onto the brim of your hat in the wind.

Or it may be because you met the kirin—a playful ungulate moose-sized spirit who prefers not to speak—and engaged with him and gave him a pat, or a scratch behind an ear. Maybe the kirin nosed or licked your hand because you made him laugh (it’s an adorable ‘keh keh keh’ sound).

Unfortunately for both you and the kirin (who had not meant to trouble your day like this, truly), this exposure to his dander has only one reaction, and it happens to 100% of Star Children: you are compelled to tell the entire truth. About what is less specific; you are compelled simply to announce things about yourself—your life, experiences, thoughts, opinions, feelings. No matter if it’s something silly and inconsequential, deep or secretive, life-altering or commonplace. Some may choose to do this by employing Foxi and their relic; others by finding people to exchange truth with to face to face.

When you have met the kirin’s subconscious desire for four hours, you will be free from the truth telling and the recipient of 24 hours of good luck. The good luck will be sometime in the next year rather than in the next day, and you may have no idea where it came from, but you’ll know a lucky day when you have it!

This meme is game canon unless marked otherwise at the start of threads! Threads can be used for spoons and application samples.
Assume all characters involved on this meme are affected.
Characters will compulsively state truths about themselves/their feelings on the network or in-person. Top-levels may include either/both options.
Please include prompts in your top level.
All questions will be answered with complete and total honesty. No special abilities, half-truths, or omissions can avoid sharing all of the truth.
Meme is open until the next truth meme!
After one month, you may use the kirin mechanic generally in game. It can be one-sided! All truth-telling characters must consent.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Okay, fine. I can understand that. Seems like something you would be more likely to say to a near stranger if you weren't sober, that's all. Especially since it's making you look miserable."

Huh. She actually hadn't meant to say that last part out loud, herself.

"Seems like an act. Sorry, but it does. What do you mean, how I make you feel? I'm not anyone."

"Of course I'm miserable," and she looks even more so for having to confirm it. "I don't want to say it to you at all. I don't even know your name, and yet I remember every word you say because they're so-" a deep breath, because she has no idea what word is actually going to come out.

But she has to finish the statement. "Provoking. Like no matter what I say, you're just going to twist it and make me feel even worse for it. And I keep replaying it in my head and no matter what alternate responses I try to come up with, I always lose."

This is more confusing with every successive answer. "I don't understand. If you don't want to, why not just stop?"

Okay, well, "I don't know what difference it really makes, but one of those things is easy enough to address. My name is Yelena Belova. Well - it is complicated, I have used so many that I don't remember them all, and I do not actually know if it is the "real" one, the original one I was given, but it is the first one I remember being called."

"What the fuck. I don't know why I said all that, either. Provoking is generous. I would have just said I was an asshole. What would winning look like?"

Ava stubbornly puts her hand over her own mouth, claws digging into her cheek, trying to fight through the compulsion. She shakes her head, she can't stop.

But it seems neither can Yelena. "Whatever is going on," comes out a bit muffled, and she drops her hand in irritation, claw marks left behind against her face but they'll fade away within a few moments. No actual damage. "Appears to be influencing us both. Which makes it marginally less irritating, because now I know that anything compromising you try to ask of me that I can just as easily get from you in return. Which is a warning, Yelena Belova. Not to take advantage."

And she sighs, pushing open the door to her trailer and it's not quite a direct invitation for Yelena to come inside. "It's not about winning, necessarily. It's that I'm tired of always losing. No matter what I do. Whether I try or I don't, I'm always set up for failure. Even when you left me with your damn spoon, like you were rubbing it in."

Now, that is offensive. "I do not -" Oh. Interesting. "Given the choice, I would not take advantage in that way. That sounds horrible. I have been essentially making people pay for my food, and I have done a lot of interrogating, but I only came here to actually get that back. Maybe a little more arguing."

For all her peeking the other day, ordinarily, she wouldn't follow without a direct invitation. This seems like a fair enough exception, since she would have already heard 'fuck off and go away' if it were a thought. Anyways, she has to, she has more to say, and a face to make.

"Always losing? You pick-pocketed a Widow and you are still breathing, that has to count as some measure of victory."

"You can have it back, I don't understand why you didn't just take it in the first place when you had the chance. Like you were just looking for another excuse to come back and mock me. But you didn't have enough lore to be all that useful anyway, and in the end I found out I don't actually need it for what I-" an annoyed groan. "I was going to make up some excuse rather than admitting that I was trying to afford an expensive piece of equipment to manage my health condition, but it turns out I don't actually need it here. Supposedly. I'm torn on whether or not I actually trust this premise, and how long this benefit will be extended toward me until I decide not to play along, because that's what SHIELD did-" Ava turns to face Yelena, suddenly, a flicker of motion as the rest of her blurs to catch up with the change in direction.

"A Widow?"

Most of that ramble is lost on Yelena, too preoccupied with what's just come out of her own mouth, and then occupied trying to concentrate all the tension that has flooded her body towards keeping her mouth shut.

She can't tell how long she actually manages it. "Russian operatives. Women, taken as children by the Red Room and forced into training to be spies and assassins. To be the best at it, or killed in the attempt. I did tell you it was a questionable decision, to steal from me."

"And that was taking advantage. You mentioned SHIELD, you have heard of Widows."

"Of course I've heard of Widows, I've more than pickpocketed them." And here she is the one still standing, so clearly they weren't the best. It's not the wisest thing to admit to, puts her on the defensive in case Yelena chooses to take exception to the consequences of their very unfortunate shared line of work.

"I was merely expressing surprise that you were one. Typically they're less... chatty." And typically so is she, and she busies herself with digging through a drawer, picking out Yelena's spoon amongst others. "More focused, can't see beyond the mission. It makes me uneasy, being sent against them. I don't like hurting other victims. But it's inevitable in this line of work, isn't it. When both sides build their soldiers out of the broken and damned."

And oh how she hates that she just implied herself as one too. She tosses the spoon at Yelena.

It's good timing, really. Catching the spoon is at least a sliver of distraction from anything else instinct might have her itching to do with her hands.

Any surprise is buried in the anger. "Yes, mind control tends to cut down on one's ability to chat. Блядь, so dramatic. 'The broken and the damned,' that talk about sin. That's what you sit out here isolating to punish yourself for. Ridiculous."

"When?"

As much as she hates the confirmation of mind control, it's not surprising. Hadn't the Winter Soldier gone through the same, so the technology was clearly out there. At the time his story was spread all over the news, Ava had felt lucky. That she had only been forced into things the old fashioned way.

"Don't act like it's my fault, the things we were ordered to do. You should know better than anyone that you're either complicit or you're dead. And of course I feel guilty for it, all the lives I took because I justified it as saving my own. All for a damn lie. It's not only about punishing myself. I already know I don't belong amongst the rest of them, and trying to be part of a community when I'm some disgusting fucking freak-"

Ava freezes. Oh. So that is the truth then, isn't it.

Her breath hitches slightly. But she's not going to cry. She doesn't feel as if she has the right to, not about this. "When what."

Well. There goes the anger.

Yelena sighs. Dammit. "Never mind the when. I do know that, and I do not think it is your fault. There are a lot of ways to control someone, and survival instinct runs strong. There should be no shame in that, and neither should the shame of a lie someone else told you fall on you. You should not think so badly of yourself."

"I apologize for my anger, just now. It should not have been directed at you, it is the one thing I never learned how to actually aim."

"It doesn't start as my fault, no. I was too young and too naive to realize what their plans entailed. But I grew up, so I can't allow myself to cling to that excuse. All the signs were there, the things they were having me do. How they were treating me. And I continued along with their coercion and exploitation, hoping if I just did what they said then they'd cure me. I can't even claim that I managed to overcome it, that I stood up and left of my own initiative. No. I waited until actual heroes intervened, outed Hydra's schemes, and left the entire agency broken. It was only then that I got away from it. Because Agent Romanoff leaked everything. And I've spent every year since in hiding."

She sits on the bare trailer floor, gaze lowered and cradling her head by the base of her twisted horns. "And even out from under their influence, I didn't stop. Stealing and spying and killing. I can't blame you for being angry. I am too. But when I have nobody left to blame..." it's clearly herself she's taking it out on. Ava closes her eyes tightly, well aware it's a stupid move around a Widow. "I hate myself so much."

Well, alright, floor time. Yelena copies that and sit down, legs crossed. There's nothing to be gained in this conversation by any sort of visual appearance of an upper hand.

"I am not trying to twist what you're saying, truly, but I think at least half of that is wrong. Coercion, exploitation, mistreatment, that is control, especially started young enough. How could that be your fault? No. Why should you have to overcome it? It should never have happened in the first place."

"But I understand. It is easier to preach than practice. Realistically, mathematically, the world would be better off if I had never existed, or died young. I went back to it, too. Not to the Red Room, obviously, but in general. She's my sister, 'Agent Romanoff,' so weird to hear her called that. After she died, well... It was too easy. I came here right after almost finishing a contract on an Avenger."

"It's true to me," Ava responds quietly in defeat. "I still have to live with the choices I made in the pursuit of saving myself. And I'd do it all over again, because I refuse to roll over and die even if it is more beneficial to the rest of the world. But it doesn't seem fair, that it's our lives we measure the greater good against. And not those that made us what we are. It's unfair that our very survival had to be won with the blood of others, that we were never given the benefit to just simply live. But justifying it or forgiving myself for any of it would just prove that I'm as selfish and loathsome as I feel. There's no escaping that."

But it helps to talk about it, a bit. With somebody that's gone through something similar. That's down on the floor with her, forced to be equally as honest in these terrible feelings.

She's not sure if referring to Romanoff as her 'sister' is just solidarity amongst the Widows, or if there's more to it than that. But any question she has of their actual relation is interrupted by, "What do you mean, she died? Last I heard she was an international fugitive alongside Captain America." And aren't both of them here? Ava's avoided getting too close, but she has an awareness there's at least a handful of Avengers.

That she actually mostly agrees with, and she certainly knows that some truths become too deep set in the bones, regardless of accuracy, for anyone to change someone's mind about, so she nods, slowly. "Is forgiveness necessary, to stop punishing yourself? Who does that serve? What does it make better?"

Ah, more time complications. She is so done with these explanations. "That was years ago. There was another world ending type event caused by this stupid angry grape alien man, half the population disintegrated, not an experience I recommend, and then she did the stupid hero death thing to bring back everyone five years later."

"It keeps me safe, from them. From building up hopes or expectations that will only get me hurt. From humiliation and embarrassment that I don't know how to properly connect. From allowing myself to be happy enough to let my guard down, foolishly falling for some trap again. And... It keeps them safe from me." She sinks a bit into herself, withdrawing out of the visible spectrum. Barely a flutter, but still there.

Disintegrated. Maybe she doesn't want to know more. Wasn't that what she's been so afraid of, being torn apart into nothing. And now Yelena says it happens to half the population. She shivers, trying to imagine it. The horror of everyone suddenly gone. What the world must have looked like after. Five whole years. How chaotic it must have been when they returned, displaced. Loved ones moved on? Children grown. Houses and belongings sold. "Haven't heard of such a thing. It was 2018. When I left. ... That's. I've. Always resented the Avengers. The whole concept of heroes. But I've always admired her, your sister. Even if all my files are out there because of her."

A pause. "But how is she alive here. No, sorry, that's a stupid question. I've already figured out people are from different times. And worlds. She must be from another. It must be nice for you, to be reunited." But she does sound sympathetic.

"This is safe from hurt?" Because all of those things, really, can be boiled down to that. Even if there were not this forced honesty, she would probably have difficulty keeping the doubt out of her voice on that one. "I'm not trying to interrogate you, really."

"Good timing. You just dodged it. 2024, for me." Her tone is probably carrying the brunt of the honesty, in this moment, more than conveying her considerable distaste for that entire stretch of time. It mostly isn't going to change when she continues. "The Avengers are mostly idiots, I have no idea how she puts up with them. I guess I don't know how she puts up with me either, but at least I am not so delusional."

"She remembers dying, so I guess this place took her right after. Or in the same moment? I do not understand how it works. It is nice. It is also complicated. We do not need to change the subject to that."

"Safer than the alternative. This is a hurt I'm used to enduring. At least I feel in control of it. At least I know what to expect." She stares down at her own hands, through them. She doesn't know what to expect from any of this, what will be used against her when she's at her most vulnerable when they're back to trading insults instead of secrets. She knows she should tell Yelena to get out, try to prevent more confessions from being spilt between them.

Instead she gives a small, sad laugh at Yelena calling the Avengers idiots. At least she's not alone in that sentiment. Everyone else seems quick to defend their actions, put them up on pedestals.

"Probably because you're family. I'd have done anything for mine. But they're long dead. And Bill-" Ava swallows roughly. "I miss Bill."

"Safe from anyone calling you out for inflicting more hurt on yourself, too, hm? Why come to be a big brand new world, if you want to know what to expect to that degree?" If she's wondering that, she ought to just ask. Best time to get a clear answer is right now. For Yelena, it's an easy decision, equal parts curiosity, concern, and the desire not to go out and start spilling her guts to anyone else. Better to keep the mess in one place.

Her turn for a short laugh, more humorless than sad. "True. The trouble is I would prefer if she would not do anything for me. I would like dying to have been off the list of options. Do you want to talk about Bill? If the answer is no but the question makes you anyways, I can plug my ears and hum." Don't come at her, she only just thought of it as an option.

"Because I got myself into a situation. Where I hurt a lot of people. And I lost. And I... I wanted to get away. Instead of facing the consequences of the fallout, continue living as a fugitive. Sounds like I dodged a lot worse, if the world goes as badly as you say." But that's not the complete truth, there is more to it. And she sighs out. "Maybe I was hoping for a second chance. But now that I have it. I don't even know what to do with it. I don't know how to live any other way."

She reaches out hesitantly, with a still barely-there hand, touches lightly to Yelena's shoulder. Before drawing it away again, as if burned by a hot surface. Folds her hands tightly in her lap, to keep to herself. "Sacrifices are something we make without much thought, in the moment they just feel right. When the accident... when... my father... he was yelling at me to go. Run. But I couldn't. I couldn't. Sometimes there just isn't an option, Yelena. And I'm sorry I really have no way to say anything more comforting than that." Because the unfortunate truth of the world is that people you love die, no matter how unfair it is. No matter what you try to do to stop it.

"Bill is... he's like a father to me. He's the only one that ever cared what happened to me. He's tried so hard to help, but..."

"Hmm. Well. The good but horrible news is that I do not think this Fox god-creature is going to give you much of a choice. The other good but likely irritating news about that is now you have met me, even if I still don't know your name, and it has not been very long for me since I had to start learning how to be a person at all, so I have some experience in that area."

Being comforted is still something that very much stumps her. Something about it just makes her go blank. Even with this honesty curse, it's a minute or two before that can even find anything to make her say, quiet but rough. "Don't be sorry. Thank you."

"Does it hurt, if you touch people like that?"

"But... you think he failed, because of what you think of yourself?" She shouldn't guess, but as with everything else, she can't help it.

"Ava Starr," the reply is automatically triggered, but it only seems fair to give it in return now that she has Yelena's, even if it took three meetings in and compulsive truth telling. "But I'm more often known as Ghost."

She shakes her head. "No, it doesn't hurt as much as it used to. But I... don't like being touched. Even if I'm the one initiating it, it still... I don't like it. It makes me uncomfortable, when I don't know or trust the other person very well. It reminds me too much of all the experimentation," she winces as the explanation dips in a bit too personal. It's sadly what happens when your body is treated as something others own, so she can only imagine Yelena experienced her own share of that horror.

"No. No, Bill... he. It wasn't his fault. He had no idea what SHIELD planned to do with me. He tried protecting me, advocating for me. He took me in after SHIELD fell. Researched tirelessly for a cure, built me new technology to slow the degeneration of my body. He promised..." Ava closes her eyes. "He did all that for me. Despite everything. Until I went too far."

"Ghost. Little bit on the nose, isn't it? I am not calling you that."

As much as it used to. So, then, presumably it does still hurt some, one way or another. One way or two, really. Yelena nods. "Don't do it, then. If this dredges up something else that prompts an urge to comfort. I appreciate the gesture, truly, but I do not want to have any part of causing that type of remembering. I'm back and forth on it, myself, touch."

"I did not mean to imply it was his fault. He sounds like a good one. Few enough people try to protect little girls." Would that turn out to be a harmful sort of statement or not? She couldn't tell. "I can understand why you would miss him."

"I didn't come up with it," Ava defends with a huff. "And maybe it's obvious, but it is fitting. Of both my abilities, and of what I'm meant to be, unknown and unseen. And more poetically, of how I'm trapped between realities because I refused to die-" and okay she sounds slightly embarrassed about that. Finding symbolism in her own alias. Ava rolls her eyes dismissively.

"Fine. I won't." And she should just leave it there. Would just leave it there. Except. "I wish I could, though. Touching things. It's always been such a struggle, often had to wear special gloves to help me grip. And now I can again. I like the feel of some things. When they're soft..." and god she looks so annoyed about all this.

"He's the only one that would hug me. Hold my hand. Treat me like an actual child, and not just a thing. But I... god, it hurt so much. I was dying and I was desperate. And I threatened to kidnap a little girl. He told me if I crossed that line, he was done with me. I think that's what hit hardest. Realizing that being a little girl never stopped anyone from hurting me. And that now I was older, that I was going to do- no, I wasn't going to hurt her. Just hold her hostage, as leverage from her father. So they'd give me back the lab. He told me no, and he told me to stop, that there were other ways, but I kept going because I was so close and I just needed it to be over. So I threw him out of the way, god, the only person I have, that loved me, and I did that to him. That's why I can't be around people, Yelena. He did nothing wrong, but I hurt him anyway." It all comes out in a rush, and ends with an ashamed sob, her shoulders trembling as she tries to hold back the tears but she can't.

"And I left. I never even said sorry."

Oh, there really is going to be no getting rid of her after this. "Okay, it is very good that you just said all that about not liking touching, because otherwise right now I would feel pretty compelled to offer a hug. If you were a Widow, I might even go so far as to try it anyways, because being thrown around is also basically affection for us, sometimes." She lowers her voice to say this, and otherwise remains very still, because it feels for some reason most appropriate to go along with these statements. "But also, being that there is a lack of better options... Generally, yes, it would be foolish if you actually trusted me at all, in these unique circumstances, I am the most trustworthy I have ever been, and I can honestly tell you that I will not hurt you, so. The option exists, and does not need to ever be spoken of again afterwards."

"Anyways. I do not think that means you can't be around people. You just need to be picky. When Natasha and I were reunited, we had quite a fight. She slammed me into a countertop, I slammed her into a wall."

"He's not angry with you. He loves you. You do not have to have told him that you are sorry for him to know. I have been left like that. I know."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject