tushanshu_logs | [open; here there be catch-all!]

Entry tags:

[open; here there be catch-all!]

Characters: Commander Shepard, Arthur, Booker and YOU! Yes, YOU!
Date: Throughout November.
Location: Various locations.
Situation: Various. This is a catch-all log for all three of these characters. I'll post at least one open starter for each (plus some pre-determined closed threads). If there's something specific you'd like to set up, feel free to PM any of my character journals or pp me on plurk @

frodabaggins!
Warnings/Rating: Pre-emptive warning for some discussion of violence-related trauma in Booker and Elizabeth's thread. Will update this as necessary.

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The morning after their conversation at the Brazen Turtle, Barnaby arrived at ME-2B at the appointed time.

As he'd suspected, Kotetsu had wanted to accompany him after all. Although Barnaby didn't take his support for granted, he did have to spend some time getting Kotetsu to promise he wouldn't touch any of the equipment or trouble Arthur with too much small talk. Those few minutes had been about as agonizing as pulling teeth. Once it was done, though, Barnaby knew he could at least trust Kotetsu to avoid putting him and Arthur in unnecessary danger by keeping his hands to himself.

With Kotetsu by his side, Barnaby rang the bell and patiently waited for Arthur to answer.

Arthur didn't really need to do all that much to prepare - just get the PASIV out and ready. Everything else was pretty much already set to his specifications. That was one of the bonuses of having your work space in your living space: complete control over it pretty much all the time.

And Arthur was definitely a bit of a control freak.

He answered the door immediately, waving the two of them into the sitting area where the PASIV was waiting, already open.

"I hope you're okay with needles," he opened with, already taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves. There was one thing Arthur and Cobb definitely agreed on - the best way to learn dream share was through immersion.

Apparently, Kotetsu was trying hard to keep his end of the deal, because he managed to avoid introducing himself when it became clear that Arthur wanted to get down to business. Instead, his partner gave Barnaby and Arthur an awkwardly supportive wave before finding himself a seat.

"Needles won't be a problem," Barnaby assured him. Following Arthur's lead, he shrugged off his own jacket and pushed his sleeves up enough to expose both of his pale arms.

Arthur nodded, and indicated Barnaby's companion. "You know not to touch anything, right? We'll be asleep for five minutes or so to start. Messing with the PASIV while we're under could cause serious problems."

After Kotetsu stuttered out an affirmative, Barnaby mercifully took over. "He and I talked about that before coming here," he said. "We'll be fine."

When it came down to it, Barnaby trusted Kotetsu more than anyone else. He wouldn't have allowed the man to come with him otherwise.

"All right." He'd accept it, at least for the moment. At some point you just had to trust people, after all.

"Honestly, the best way to learn is to do it - we can start with something pretty basic, I'll be the subject and you'll be the dreamer - so you'll have some control but it'll be my subconscious on the line. Does that work for you?"

As someone who preferred hands-on learning over using simulators or discussing theories, Barnaby was almost glad to hear Arthur's suggestion. Besides, letting him start off with some degree of control would likely help him acclimate to the whole process much faster than if they started off the other way around.

"That's perfectly fine," he answered. "What do you need me to do?"

"Just sit back, get comfortable, and tell me which arm you prefer I use to hook you up," Arthur said holding up an IV line from the machine in front of them. "It'll be quick - five minutes in the real world. That gives us an hour in the dream."

After getting settled in one of the chairs, Barnaby looked up at Arthur. "We can use my right arm," he said.

It was good to know that they wouldn't spend that much time doing this (it would be easier on Kotetsu, after all), although the difference in perceived time while in the dream was worth noting.

Arthur was an expert at this by now, and he moved efficiently, finding the vein as easily as any trained medical professional. Once Barnaby was settled in, he did the same for himself, stretching out on the sofa and hitting the plunger with a last look at Barnaby's partner like a warning don't touch anything.

And then he blinked and he was in a clean, modern office building, a few projections milling about here and there. His subconscious always started him off in a place like this.

Barnaby hadn't known what he'd find, although he was pretty sure an office building was a little more more mundane than he'd been expecting. This was Arthur's subconscious, though, and the man had likely done the whole dream share thing enough times to have a pretty solid idea of what would be waiting for them.

Either way, this was a foreign experience, which meant erring on the side of caution. With that in mind, Barnaby decided to hold off on questions for now. Since he was technically the one in control, he had no idea how his actions could affect their surroundings.

Remaining composed, Barnaby patiently looked toward Arthur for some indication of what he ought to do.

"This is really just about letting you get a feel for it," Arthur said without much preamble. "You can talk to people if you want - they're projections of my subconscious. Sometimes you can learn things from them - though mine are pretty well-trained, or as well-trained as a subconscious can be."

He waved the other man forward, towards the stairs. "You can change things, but be careful if you do - anything drastic will alert my subconscious to your presence and they'll attack you."

So that was the significance behind the random people walking about. It made sense that they would offer insight into Arthur's subconscious, though Barnaby wasn't surprised that they weren't supposed to divulge anything too sensitive. The man had invited Barnaby here on his own accord, after all.

Following Arthur's direction, he began to move toward the stairs. The warning was good to know. "Something else your subconscious is trained to do?" he asked.

"That's pretty instinctual," Arthur said with a shrug. "Yours would probably do the same thing, if we switched roles and I started changing things in your subconscious. Like white blood cells attacking an infection."

He turned a corner and they found themselves at one end of a long hallway - the other end of which was a large, old-fashioned vault door. "The easiest way to get access to sensitive, secret information is by building a secure space in the dream layout itself," he explained, pointing at the door. "The mind under most normal circumstances will instinctively put information like that in the most secure area of the dream level."

Honestly, with how much his Swiss cheese memory had been practically scraped across a grater, Barnaby didn't know how his subconscious would respond to such an intrusion. He didn't voice that thought out loud, though.

Instead, he studied the vault for a moment. It was as mundane as the rest of the place, though perhaps a bit dated-looking when compared to everything else.

"Would this be where you'd find information that someone might not be able to recall on their own?"

Arthur liked to be a little eclectic in his designs sometimes. What was the point of having a dream if you couldn't be a bit daring?

He gave a shrug at the question. "It's possible, if the memory is important enough or if the person responsible had gone to great lengths to bury it. It's also possible memories could emerge all on their own just by wandering around in your subconscious for a while - build the right dream, it might bring them out regardless."

Or it was also possible that nothing would happen and this whole thing would turn out to be completely pointless, but Arthur wasn't going to voice that thought aloud.

So far this all seemed pretty straightforward -- or, at least as straightforward as it could be, given the unusual circumstances -- but Barnaby still wanted to make certain he understood everything.

"You talk about building dreams, and things within the dream layout itself," Barnaby pointed out. "How is it done, exactly, and who does it?"

"It's a dream - the dreamer has to hold the design in their mind, and when you enter it, it's there. The more detail, the better, usually. Where I come from, we often work with trained architects to design dreams."

Of course, here on the turtle it was just him, and his somewhat limited skill with dream design.

Dream architects -- it almost sounded like some kind of NEXT power, although Barnaby figured they probably used technology rather than some sort of innate ability.

"Would I be working with you to design a dream, then?" That seemed to be where this was going, but Barnaby knew better than to assume.

"That's probably what we'd want to try, yeah," Arthur said with a shrug. "This is about digging up your missing memories; we'd probably want to build a dream based on some of the memories you know are real - which is dangerous, but doable."

Picking a suitable memory might prove to be rather difficult, depending on what Arthur's requirements were. They would probably have plenty of time to discuss that, though. But first...

"What is dangerous about it, exactly? You mean it's difficult to control?"

Arthur shook his head. "It's difficult not to lose yourself, when you work from real memories." He pointed around at a few things, including the out-of-place vault door, and some light fixtures which didn't match. Minor details, mostly, but still enough to throw off the look of the place. "It gets really easy to lose track of what's real and what's a dream. We'll need to get you a totem before we go messing around in your memories. A small item, something that you can carry around in your pocket. Something that only you know the feel and weight of, so no one else can replicate it in a dream."

After the sorts of dreams he'd been plagued with for most of his life, Barnaby understood just how real they could feel. It was good to know there were precautions they could take beforehand, however, and he immediately tried to think of something he could use to keep him grounded in reality.

"Does it have to be of personal significance, or can it be anything?" He didn't exactly own a lot to begin with, much less after waking up in Keeliai.

"Whatever works for you - the key is that no one else knows the feel or weight of it. Not your closest friend, not your lover, not anyone," he said seriously.

The only thing he could think of was his ring, since he'd never given it to anyone else for safekeeping before. Kotetsu had never held or worn it, either, which meant that it likely satisfied the criteria outlined by Arthur.

"That should be doable," he said after a brief pause.

Arthur; dream share shenanigans

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