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bakerstreet2014-05-19 07:17 pm
accountnameinuse) wrote in bakerstreet2014-05-19 07:17 pm
LAST WORDS MEME
the death meme
(TRIGGER WARNING. This meme deals heavy with death and also possibly with strong violence or with suicide/depression. If you are not comfortable reading about that, please PLEASE do not proceed further.)
This is it. The final curtain. You're at the end of your life, and there's someone here you really, really need to say something to before you die.
CAUSE OF DEATH
1 - Accidental. Nobody meant for this to happen, but it doesn't matter now. Due to negligence, arrogance or just plain bad luck, you've become gravely ill or injured and are now in your last moments. This covers all kinds of accidental deaths--strangulation, drowning, car accidents, unintentional beheadings, whatever you can think of.
2 - Murder. Somebody really didn't like you. Enough to kill you, it seems. You're now dead by someone else's hand. (Maybe even the person replying to you?) As with accidental death, this covers all types of intentional, malicious murder, regardless of method--so poisoning, stabbing, shooting, etc., all work here. Same with all the below options: any possible variation you can think of on it will work!
3 - Suicide. There is no hope for you, and no way out. You've reached the absolute bottom pits of despair, and the only recourse you have is to take your own life. Someone shows up to stop you... but they're too late to help you now.
4 - Terminal illness. You have cancer, or tuberculosis, or cholera back when people got cholera. The doctors have done everything they could and it wasn't enough. The only thing to do now is give your loved ones the bad news.
5 - Starvation. So thirsty. So hungry. Maybe you've been traveling in the desert for hours, or maybe you're just really poor. Whatever the reason, it doesn't matter, because you're slowly wasting away until you're nothing but skin and bones.
6 - Death in battle. You've died a hero's death, and gone out in a blaze of glory. Or maybe you were a coward who got shot for deserting? Either way, you're now a casualty of war. Will you be honored with a parade or scorned as a traitor to your country?
7 - Natural causes. You've lived a long, happy life, and now your story is at an end. In a warm bed, surrounded by your family and friends, you peacefully drift off. Just make sure that you've made a will somewhere, or at least use your deathbed to set the record straight. Otherwise, who knows what kind of squabbles might errupt after you leave this world?
TIME LEFT
1 - A few minutes. You're fading fast and you don't have much, well, any time left. Better tell the person with you that you love -- or despise -- them with your last breath, because you'll never have the chance otherwise.
2 - A few hours. You haven't got much time left. Is there someone you still need to kill? To kiss? Better do it quick. (Note: last kisses not recommended for people dying of highly contagious illnesses.)
3 - A few days. The doctors have given you the news, and it's not very good. You've only got a couple days left to live. You should start trying to make peace with people and saying your final goodbyes with the days you have left.
4 - A few weeks. Take that vacation you've always wanted to go on but never had the chance to. Go do that thing you've never thought you'd be any good at. You've got only weeks left to live. Don't waste them.
5 - A few months. While you aren't quite on death's doorstep yet, your lifespan has still dwindled considerably from what you probably thought it would be. How are you going to spend your last few months on Earth? Making the world a better place and telling your family you love them? Or raising as much hell as possible?
RELATIONSHIP
1 - Lovers. This is your husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, mistress, whatever you call them they were the person you wanted to spend your life with. Too bad you don't have much of a life to spend with them anymore.
2 - Siblings. Your beloved little or older sibling is just standing there, watching you slowly waste away before their eyes. Can you say anything to comfort them? Note that it doesn't necessarily have to be interpreted literally; adopted siblings and friends so close they might as well be siblings work too.
3 - Parent and child. Nothing is worse than a parent having to bury their child... except, maybe, a young child now alone in the world after losing their parent. As with the sibling prompt, this can be expanded to include parental figures and people who are LIKE a father/mother to you as well as actual biological parents.
4 - Co-workers, teammates or classmates. You were fighting for the same side. Or you worked together in the same office for years. Or they sat behind you in biology all semester. However you met, how do your react when you find out someone who used to be a fixture in your life is going to die?
5 - Friends. You're the best of friends! You go everywhere together, know all each other's secrets, and are never seen apart. At least, you didn't use to be. Now one of you is dying and the other one is left alone in the world. Or maybe you're dying together. Wait, is that better or worse?
6 - Bitter enemies. You hate, hate, HATE this person. In fact, maybe you killed them. Or they killed you. Or maybe nobody killed anybody and they're just bitter that Mother Nature got to you before they did. Regardless, they want to confront you one last time before you bite it, if only to rub your nose in your imminent demise and their ability to outlive you.
✗✗✗
HOW IT WORKS:
1. This is where I am changing it up. Feel free to choose how you are going to die, just be sure to list the closest matching categories in your subject bar, along with your character and their series.
If you are having trouble coming up with a prompt or situation, feel free to use the random number generator. Or if you rather just take a risk feel free
2. Responding characters then roll for the relationship between the two of you. Optionally responding characters can also share your cause of death/time left to live or roll for their own, but that's not required. A living character caring for (or horribly mutilating) a dying one is fine, too.
However, considering this is in our RP feel free to have your characters keep their CR, just make sure to inform the person which ever way you're going with it before responding!
3. Tell the person what you need to tell them before you bite it.
4. Have fun!
✗✗✗
ETC
Other relationships -- such as murderer/victim, doctor/patient, etc. -- can be added in along with the randomized relationships at your whim if you feel the need, or even used to replace the relationships under that heading. Just, check with the other player first if you're going to do something extreme to their character! Or, in the case of canonmates, if you want to ignore the table and just go with your characters' canon relationship, you certainly can do that as well.
Also, if you would prefer to ignore the table entirely and just play out your own death scenario, feel free! This is a meme, so rules are pretty lax. If you like, you can also replace "death" with some other irreversible, negative scenario, such as being trapped in another dimension. The main point is that the characters conversing will never get the chance to talk to one another again, so you better make the last things you say to them count.
Immortal characters can be AU'd into non-immortals or otherwise made to fit the settings however their muns would desire. Also, if you get a death prompt and a time limit that don't make sense together you can either interpret the prompt as liberally as necessary to make it make sense OR you can simply roll the time left again until you get a time limit that makes more sense! :3
James Rhodes | Marvel Cinematic Universe | OTA
6/2 - Death in battle/A few hours
It was probably always going to end like this, in the triumphant wreckage of a battle they shouldn't have survived let alone won, impossible odds beaten once again. It'd been a rough fight and they'd barely come out of it. Both sets of armor have been abandoned; they were scrap, just extra weight. Since then they've been walking. Civilization's about six hours away at a brisk jog - maybe twelve at an exhausted trudge - and while the hope is that they'll get picked up along the way, in theory they can walk it.
Tony did take the time to salvage the tracking device from the Iron man suit. It's sitting in his pocket now, a reassuringly solid weight, and with that still transmitting they should get picked up no problem. The rescue will come, and when it does, they'll be able to get a lock-on nice and easy. No problem.
Well. One problem.
Three hours ago Tony was feeling pretty confident that their extraction would show up, ideally with a medic in tow, and they'd be whisked off back to safety. An hour ago, he'd started to get mildly concerned. And then about four seconds ago the arc reactor - drained to the dregs, flickering erratically for miles now - blinks one last time before going out. Tony goes chalk pale.
He comes to a dead halt and reaches out blindly, grabbing the other man's shoulder. "Rhodey," he says urgently.
no subject
Tony's hand on his shoulder is the jolt that Tony stopping isn't, and the combination of that and his tone shakes Rhodey out of his near-daze quickly enough. Whatever's left is gone as he turns around to see what's going on, and his stomach drops at the absence of the expected blue light.
He's not a doctor. He's not sure exactly how much longer this means he has. He can guess already that it isn't enough.
"Can we get it working again?" He doesn't have much hope for a yes -- they have nothing on them, almost literally; Tony may be good but he's not that good -- but he's got to ask. He can't even imagine what else he can do, except run ahead and hope he finds someone in time -- but he has no idea if he will, and a whole lot of doubt that they're anything like close enough.
no subject
After all, help probably is coming, even if too damn slowly. It'd be awkward if they showed up and he was already dead.
Ever since he first woke up in a cave in Afghanistan with a car battery hooked up to his chest, there's always been this dull ache centered around the empty place where his sternum used to be. Over the years it's become sensory white noise, so constant and normal that he scarcely even notices it any more. It's growing claws now. With every beat of his heart the pain crests a little higher. He's got...he doesn't know. A couple of hours at the outside. The scar tissue built up around the shrapnel will buy him some time, but that won't hold it forever, and when it does work its way loose, he'll be lucky to have minutes.
It's with very little drama that he switches into full survival mode, closing his eyes and swallowing hard as he pushes down the faint stirrings of panic and focuses on the practicalities. Panic will only get him killed all the faster. He takes a few deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down with an almost visible effort. The first priority is to get his heart rate down.
Very carefully, expending a minimum of energy, he sits down. "Yeah, I'm gonna need to just...chill here for a while," he says. "I'll have--" Shit. Breathe. In, out, nice and steady. Stay calm. "I'll have longer if I don't move around too much."
no subject
Not that he has much of one.
"How long do you think? I can go ahead." If they're lucky, if they're really damn lucky, he could maybe find someone in time. It's a very big maybe, but it's the only one he's got.
no subject
He swallows hard and glances away. "Yeah, seriously though, there's no point. I need to replace it completely. There's no way--"
He cuts himself off. No, there's a way; there has to be a way. Finding a third option is what he does, for god's sake. Carefully he amends, "I need to get back to the Tower. Our ride's on its way, and it's our best shot at making it there in time, so I'm just gonna...yeah, I'm just gonna hang out here for a while. Try and still be alive when they get here, all that jazz."
no subject
But the chances of him getting there and getting in touch with people in time are even lower than help reaching them in time on their own. And after that reaction? The chances would have to be much, much higher for Rhodey to walk away.
(Besides, all he can really do is make sure Tony doesn't die alone out here. But no; they're coming, that's not going to happen.)
He drops down to sit next to Tony on the ground, movements careful so that he doesn't jostle him; it's not quite touching, but he's close. It's the best way to show that he's staying that Rhodey can think of.
"Next time," he says, doing his best to sound normal and like there's no doubting there's going to be a next time, "we're doing pick-up duty, and they can deal with waiting for the ride."
no subject
The thing is, once the initial shock of the fact of his, er-- probable impending death has worn off, it's really not even all that hard to calm down and accept it for what it is. It's hardly the first time. He's had plenty of chances over the last few years to come to terms with his own mortality. Granted he hasn't always handled it especially well, but if there's one thing he's learned in that time, it's that to get through it with your sanity any kind of intact, you need to believe in something.
He's never had any time for faith, for religion. He's just not wired that way. But he's never had any trouble believing in himself; that if there's anything resembling a way out, he'll find it. And hey, he's not dead yet. There's still time. If their ride shows up any time inside the next hour, he might even make it out of this in one piece.
He leans in, pressing his shoulder against Rhodey's. "Just you wait," he says, keeping his tone purposely light. "After we get outta here I'm gonna hold this over them forever."
no subject
But he can make it look casual, and lean very carefully into Tony, and keep his voice steady and light. Even if he can't quite look over at the dead light in his chest while he's talking to him. "I'm sure we could come up with some inventive ways to make sure they're never late again."
no subject
"We'll teach 'em a lesson they'll never forget." And doesn't that ring just a little too true. He's going to be adding to a fair few guilt complexes if he dies out here because they couldn't make the damn extraction on time.