tramitem_log | Support Group

Who: OPEN (Including to all the new characters who app throughout the month)
What: Bureau Run, Non-Mandatory Support Group
When: There are meetings at various times during the week, whatever works for your character between 8 am and 10 pm
Where: There are meetings at various locations around NYC, whatever works for your character
Rating/Warnings: We ask that players put appropriate warning labels in the subject lines of their threads as they become necessary

There’s a generic spread of food on a table off to one side of the room: donuts, muffins, bagels, and cookies; coffee, lemonade, water, and because one of the Different asked for it, hot chocolate. Maybe you’re hungry enough to try it—it’s free after all.

Or maybe you can’t stomach anything, given the event you’re attending.

The space is a local rec center. The beige-painted cinder block walls and the fluorescent lighting are a terrible combination. Maybe they are reminiscent of the public school you attended in your youth?

Why are you here? Curiosity? Maybe the Bureau official will say something that will help you make sense of things? The meeting was interesting—who knew there were so many people like you, receiving memories of a past life? The group was led by someone from The Bureau—the Department of Medical Services. Some people are staying in their chairs and chatting—they must know each other from previous meetings. Some of them are gravitating towards the food.

How do you feel about tonight? Has it helped you come to terms with the dream of memories you’re having? Maybe it’s time to talk to others, get an understanding of their experience.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Lisa will turn out to be in agreement on carbs and caffeine getting her through stuffy support groups; in her case it's the large Styrofoam cup of take-out sweet tea she nurses while listening to the usual activities. She does stand up and offer a new memory of her own: helping a friend who hasn't made Valentine's chocolate herself before work through her first batch. "It was kind of surreal, though - the me in the memory was a lot more free with the recipe. It almost felt like she was comfortable enough to not really think about it? I might have to pay more attention, maybe I'll learn something I can turn out cookies with," she quips with a light laugh and a grin. "I feel like she had half an aisle of Williams-Sonoma in her kitchen drawer though."

The time holding the crowd's attention helps her focus on the others, as it usually does; the one that catches her attention this time isn't even looking at her, and is... is he taking notes? This certainly isn't the place to be working on homework or something. Either he's a Bureau plant - unlikely, they already have one of those running the meeting - or he's seriously invested. She chooses to believe the latter, and makes a mental note once she sits back down, taking a longer pull from her tea. More of them, huh...

Once a few more minutes pass and she doesn't look quite so obvious, she stands up and walks over to the new guy. He seems a little twitchy, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. So she raises her free hand in greeting and starts with a gentle "hey," which prompts an apparently automatic response through a mouth full of bread. Lisa can't help herself: she giggles softly, before shaking her head, eyes dancing. "It's totally okay. You're taking this seriously enough I could distract you in the first place, yeah? It's a good sign, I think."

Jim tries not to beat himself up too much about the whole bagel thing, but it feels like he still wants the ground to swallow him whole.

"I'm still sorry," he says, scratching the side of his face, just for something to do with his hands that wouldn't get him further into the pit than he already is. He laughs with her, though, and that eases his tension a little bit.

"Jim," he says, offering his hand for her to shake. "I was listening to you earlier! Chocolate, huh? That sounds like a pretty useful memory," he smiles. He's absolutely atrocious at cooking anything more complicated than 'Pasta and Sauce', 'Rice and Sauce, 'Potatoes and Sau'- you get the idea.

Oh right, hasn't introduced herself yet, oops. "Lisa! Pleased to meet you." She shakes the offered hand enthusiastically, smiling. "It's a little weird - yeah, I was making Valentine's chocolates, but... maybe low-effort isn't the right word, but kinda. Garden-variety? I think there's research in my future. On the more-or-less upside, I'm getting better at baking because she stress baked and it's rubbing off a little."

Stopping herself, Lisa coughs lightly. "Um, feel free to stop me if I go on too many tangents, by the way. I can go on for a while if I don't realize it."

Jim just smiles as Lisa talks. She's obviously interested in whoever this person was, or at least her skills. He's always loved seeing people talk about the things they care about or stuff that happened to them, even when it's the little stuff that other people ignore or brush off.

"No! No, no, it's fine! I think I've been there myself a few times," he laughs sheepishly, "My mom always told me that I talked to much geek when I was a kid," he grins. It's just that space was super interesting, okay?

"So... that's a thing then? The memories of this person affect who we are?" He isn't sure if he should be worried... or excited.

That man that looked like him was given a Captaincy, after all. He can only hope that the Kirk he remembered being was a good guy...

Lisa laughs right along with him. "Nothing wrong with that! Mine's all over the place here lately, though. Between her and my own stuff, I end up with a lot to talk about, ahaha..." Between her issues and both her lives, she's got plenty to keep mouth running, she feels like. But that's neither here nor there at the moment.

"Well... it depends on who you ask," she goes on hesitantly. "It's entirely up to you how they affect you, with some exceptions. Someone like me, that's totally okay with who the person they're getting memories from seems to be, I just take in everything - it's like she can teach me new stuff across space and time. Some of the others are a lot less happy with the people the see in their memories."

"Huh. That's interesting," he says aloud, already thinking of ways he could document this experience, even if it's only ever him that sees it.

"I really don't know what kind of person he is... was? Will be? I'm pretty sure he was from the... future? I mean, we definitely don't have Starships here. I think." He thinks that the people in his memory seemed nice? But then, even bad people have friends, he supposes.

"What sort of stuff has she taught you so far? Other than baking, that is?" He wants to ask what the others have seen, but until they tell him themselves, that's probably not his business.

Lisa hums. "Anything could happen, given this isn't his world - it's ours. But I still can't think that day is far off, y'know? We launched a mission to Mars not that long ago." It's meant to be a hopeful reminder, that space isn't so far as it used to be, but she supposes it'll be up to Jim how it's interpreted. "And you'll learn a little more about him as you see more of his memories. You can get a real sense of who someone is by how they respond to crises."

She pauses a moment, sipping at her tea and closing her eyes to think. "How to have a little more confidence in myself, and to take better care of my friends. To sew, a little bit, not that I'm really doing that yet." She opens her eyes again and looks at Jim, something flashing in her gaze. "The bass guitar, and she left hers for me, too."

"It's kind of weird to think that it's a whole different world, you know? Like. It seems like it could be so possible? And yet nothing alike."

At the mention of the Mars landing, though, Jim's whole face lights up. Uh oh, are you sure you wanted to open this box?

"Yeah! I know it's not even the first time we've done it, but god, watching Perseverance touch down was just- God! We saw actual alien winds on our neighbour planet! We're getting constant streams of data across 245 million Kilometers in just three days across the void of space," and if you don't think that's the tightest shit then get outta Jim's face. And then he realises that he's probably just gone and embarrassed himself again- but doesn't have the time to apologise because-

"The bass guitar?" He sounds super excited about this. "Wait, she left hers for you?"

Support Group - March 2021

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