Coping With Change | Tuesday, Period One

[voiceoverdue]

"Hi, everybody!" Cecil said. "We've got all sorts of changes to talk about this week. Like, what happens if you lose all your memories? Or what happens when you get new ones? There's a whole thing about finding out you're not who you thought, and really, you don't have to get everything all dumped on you at once for that. Although I guess it helps, right?"

//That... really depends on the situation,// Jono replied, a bit more on the subdued side, today. //Dealing with memory loss can be stressful. Coming back from it isn't necessarily any easier. And the island will do more than simply take away your memories. We've had weekends where you'll have lived an entirely different life, and coming to grips with what you did as somebody else...//

He hiked his shoulders up a bit.

//Things that mess with memory and with identity can leave a person uncertain about the one person that they feel they should be able to trust more than anybody else. And if you can't trust who you are, what can you trust?//

"Well, really, who can you ever trust?" Cecil added breezily. "Apart from your scientist boyfriend."

//Mine's a psychiatrist. He lost his memory, too. Which isn't really the point,// Jono replied, his voice reflecting a sigh that he couldn't quite share, otherwise. //The fact remains, identity and things beyond our control that might cause us to question it are big, terrifying topics that we don't want to think about.//

"So we're going to talk about them instead!" Cecil said. "Talking's much better than thinking. Just ask...well, pretty much anyone!"

Jono despaired of you sometimes, Cecil. He really did.

//We're going to talk about it,// he agreed all the same, a little less exuberantly. //With a focus on your personal feelings about this weekend, and how you chose to cope both without your memories and once you got them back again. I... am not too proud to admit that I spent most of Monday in bed. And not entirely because of a second failed attempt at a wedding, either.//

"I drank," Cecil offered. "It's generally the best thing when you want to forget things you shouldn't know."

//... I don't think the school actually encourages us to say that to the students, Cecil.//

Cecil frowned. "Are you sure? Why?"

//Quite sure. Underage drinking and encouraging it as a coping mechanism and forming unhealthy habits...// He shrugged. //Not that I didn't do my fair share of drinking at around that age myself while I still could, but there are probably better ways of dealing with one's problems.//

Like staying in bed, Jonothon?

Cecil shook his head. "This place is weird."

Jono shook his head in turn.

//You won't get any argument from me there,// he agreed. //But that's what we're going to deal with today, because thinking about this isolated incident is easier than contemplating anything much more permanent or potentially disastrous. Talk about what worked. Talk about what didn't work. Don't talk at all. Don't listen at all. Hell, leave the room if you feel you have to. Do whatever you need to in order to deal with this one, and we'll get into less immediate traumas next week.//

Unless something happened this week too, but this soon after an amnesiac weekend? What were the chances?

Comments

Sign in

[voiceoverdue]

Remembering.

Re: Sign in

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante

Re: Sign in

[vrajna_kralis]

Hyacinthe

Re: Sign in

[thewrathofkaan]

Roscoe Kaan

Listen to the lecture

[voiceoverdue]

Jono looked a bit like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin at the topic, but apparently they were going to be talking about this today. At least Cecil seemed to be in good spirits?

Re: Listen to the lecture

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante had dealt with getting his screwed-up memories back yesterday. Today, he was back in class - less relaxed and lounging than usual, yeah, but that was partly because he was keeping an eye out for people he knew.

Like, mermaid-shaped people.

Though he did take a moment to roll his eyes visibly at the drinking stuff. Whatever, Starsmore.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[vrajna_kralis]

Hyacinthe was doing his best to present an air of nonchalant unconcern, honed by years of ignoring catcalls and jeers about his parentage and people. However Hyacinthe felt, the Prince of Travellers never showed that anything got to him.

Though he might have been glancing around, looking for Ada, though he was at a loss of how he'd even approach her after the weekend.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[boneyard_girl]

It was through a rather elegant bit of slight-of-hand that a note appeared on his desk as Ada went past. It was folded neatly - if slightly rumpled - as though maybe someone had turned it over and over in her hands a few times to try and get up the courage to drop it off.

Shut up.

I'm so sorry. Please don't think I deliberately took advantage or something.

Yes, Ada was worried that he was feeling used or abandoned, and she didn't want that.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[vrajna_kralis]

Hya's brow was wreathed with thunderclouds--save for the one spot the was creased with worry--but all of that vanished as he turned to stare at Ada in surprise. Cassiel's balls, he didn't even have it in him to be subtle about things. He just turned to watch her pass, trying to catch her eye. If she let him, he would give her the most emphatic headshake of his life.

If anything, he was worried about how she was feeling after the weekend. His internal angst stemmed for an entirely different source than one too-pretty mermaid.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[thewrathofkaan]

Roscoe looked uncomfortable, and maybe even a little guilty as he listened to the lecture. He hadn't lost his memories. He had been handwavily out of town, visiting his dad. And now he was grateful for that, considering... everything.

For once, he was quiet in class, because he didn't have anything useful to say and other people deserved the air time more than he did.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[boneyard_girl]

Ada had seriously debated just skipping class, but she was going to need to deal with being around Hyacinthe eventually, and she was tired of running and hiding from the island's brand of bullshit.

She was just... tired. Tired of being reminded of how easy it was to lose herself. Of how her clock could run out at any time and she was going to lose everything, and how easy it would be to just let go.

Yesterday had been for crying and hiding. Today? Today was a 'fuck you' to Fandom. Barefoot, shoes abandoned back in her room, and dressed in kiss-a-carnie golds and reds, hair in a ponytail, and minimal glitter. Her scales were almost visible if you knew where to look; her version of raising a middle finger to her entire fucking life.

Discuss!

[voiceoverdue]

How did your weekend go? How did your Monday go? What worked for you, when dealing with the memory loss? And what didn't?

Re: Discuss!

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante shrugged one shoulder. "Wouldn't be the first time," he said. "Memories came back, that's the end of it."

Memories came back this time. He and Ada might have to start an Amnesiacs Support Group in here, probably, but you wouldn't be able to tell by Dante's dull tone.

Unless the dull tone gave it away.

Re: Discuss!

[furnaceface]

//If that's the end of it, that's the end of it,// Jono replied, though he was still sounding more than a little subdued, himself.

Trust him, Dante, he knew the feeling. If you needed a teacher sponsor for an Amnesiacs Anonymous club through the school, you could count on him.

//Suppose any day you can say that is already better than it could be.//

Re: Discuss!

[vrajna_kralis]

Hyacinthe wasn't really looking to share today. At his turn, he simply shrugged. "Was an interesting weekend. Saw who I was when I wasn't me. Not very different I suppose. What else needs to be said?"

He was fine, thank you.

Re: Discuss!

[furnaceface]

Yeah, Jono wasn't buying the 'fine' bit. He wasn't fine, for crying out loud. But he wasn't going to try to drag more out of Hyacinthe than that. Not on that topic, anyway.

//Was this the first time the island did something like this to you, mate?//

Re: Discuss!

[boneyard_girl]

"Wasn't the first time," Ada said, echoing Dante, though where his voice had been dull, hers had an undercurrent of anger under it. "--an' it won't be the last."

Re: Discuss!

[furnaceface]

Jono considered that answer carefully, considered that anger quietly, and then nodded, just once.

//Do you need to not be here for this talk, Ada?//

He didn't know particulars, but hell, even he didn't want to be here for this talk, and all of his most horrifying incidents of this sort of thing were behind him. Dragging something out of her that made her this angry wasn't his place, or his goal.

Re: Discuss!

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante didn't say anything - didn't want to interrupt her and even if he had, he wouldn't have known what to say.

This shit sucked, and it was worse for her, and he just-- something. Wanted to help. So she would get a foot, giving the back of her chair a tiny nudge in support.

... Sometimes he really was remarkably like a cat.

Re: Discuss!

[notamascot]

Kaylin wasn't talking. Not at all. So she just shook her head and shrugged.

Talk to the teachers

[voiceoverdue]

Who are handling the weekend with varying states of denial. And apparently chipperness?

Re: Talk to the teachers

[voiceoverdue]

Well, denial really helps the chipperness. Cecil is here!

Re: Talk to the teachers

[furnaceface]

Jono wasn't so much about the denial. Except that his face was wrapped today and he was bunched up at the shoulders and really did look like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin, so...

Anyway, he was here to talk if anybody else wanted to crawl out of their skins, too. It could be one big grotesque skinless denial party.

Talk to the TA

[voiceoverdue]

He totally gets the comfortable chair.

OOC!

[voiceoverdue]

I forget what goes here.