bakerstreet | THE INSOMNIA MEME BEGINS

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THE INSOMNIA MEME BEGINS

the i n s o m n i a meme

It happens to everyone - sometimes, you have nights where you just can't fall asleep, no matter what you do. It could be for a number of reasons, or no reason at all. And this is what's happened now: you've been laying in bed for what feels like hours, just tossing and turning, and nothing seems to help. So what's left to do? Get out of bed and go wake someone else up, of course. If you're not getting any sleep, then why should they?

i n s t r u c t i o n s

• Post with your character (note the name and fandom in the subject).
• Other people reply to you by generating a number from 1 to 10.
• Have fun!

o p t i o n s

01 • FEAR. Maybe you're hearing strange, indeterminable noises; maybe there's a severe storm happening outside; maybe you watched a scary movie before bed? Whatever the reason, you're terrified and it's keeping you awake. You just want to wake someone else up so they can protect you from the monster in your closet.
02 • HUNGER. Your stomach is growling and it just won't stop. Or perhaps your throat is so dry you could cough up a tumbleweed? Well, you've gone to the kitchen to remedy this and hey, that was a pan that just dropped on the floor. It was loud enough to wake the dead! Oops.
03 • PAIN. Your body is completely worn out, be it from exercise, battle, sickness, or what have you. Either way you're in enough pain to keep you from sleeping, so maybe someone else has a home remedy or something, or can at least help you take your mind off of it.
04 • SOLITUDE. For some reason, your bed just feels so empty at the moment. You're feeling terribly lonely and really just want someone to keep you company for a while. Maybe it'd be easier to fall asleep if you're with them...
05 • DISCOMFORT. Your room is an oven. Either that or a freezer. Or maybe this bed is just really uncomfortable? Who knows why you can't get to sleep, it feels like it could be anything. Why even bother trying? Maybe someone else can preoccupy you until you feel tired enough to ignore your discomfort.
06 • PENSIVE. Something's on your mind, and no matter how hard you try to focus elsewhere, it's just not going to work. Your body may be tired, but your mind is incredibly busy and it's virtually impossible to get to sleep. Surely, talking it out with someone else will help?
07 • SADNESS. Something terrible has happened that day, perhaps; or you could just be severely depressed. Either way you're trying your hardest not to cry yourself to sleep, and it's not working at all. Better find a way to get it out of your system somehow; you need a shoulder to cry on.
08 • ANGER. You are just... fuming. Who knows why - that annoying dog is barking again, or maybe the people next door are getting busy and keeping you awake. Whatever the reason for your ire is, you'd better put an end to it so you can get some damn rest already! Go wake up a friend so you can complain to them.
09 • RESTLESS. You're far too energetic to sleep right now. Maybe you're just trying to do so out of necessity - you have to be up early tomorrow! But you just don't think you'll be able to fall asleep for a while now, so why waste the time trying to sleep when you could be doing something else? Namely bothering someone else - you're totally jealous because they're getting more sleep than you.
10 • WILDCARD. Choose one of the options above, or make up your own scenario.

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[She leans on her hand, looking at him.] Was she a good woman? [She's got such little understand of what parenthood meant in the modern world. After all, she was shut away for so long, and that was to a degree, normal. Nor does she mind talking about it for once, usually it was painful at best.]

The last time you gave me a drink I woke up with the worst headache imaginable and woke up somewhere strange. I'm not going to repeat the experience. [she's more worried about you then your robots, which freak her out, not that she's telling him that.]

She...tried her best. I forgive her a lot more than I do my old man. [Considering he doesn't really forgive his dad for anything, that's not that hard to do.] I think the pressure of being a Stark got to her. [A pause, swirling the whiskey around in the bottle and then taking a swig.] Gave a lot to charity - I keep that particular quirk running specifically in her name, the Maria Stark Foundation.

[That gets a small smile out of him.] That wasn't even my fault, that was Thor. He said the Asgardian mead packed quite a punch. [Oh wow, way to hurt everyone's feelings, Tony's and his robots. Dum-E would be devastated.]

There's bad blood between you and your father? [curious, families changed, and yet were the same it seemed.] I think our mother's have much in common. Save I think, their ends. [Pressure of maintaining a face for society... though her mother's down fall came with the insistence about charity and annoying Cromwell about it...] That's very kind of you. I had my mother declared a martyr... [wait, the modern world did not care very much for religion.] ... That is, well, I don't know how to explain what it means, but it's good for her soul at least.

[She laughed anyway.] I had standards to maintain. I didn't even drink water before, my tolerance should be better then yours, and from what I recall, it was, it's just I don't remember much after. [With a name like Dumb-E, it will probably live through her apparent lack of feeling.]

That's putting it nicely. [Tony can say an awful lot about his dad, most of it not nice at all.] Do you remember her at all? If you were only two... [At least that's not much time to gather memories to regret. At the martyr comment, Tony rolls his eye melodramatically.] Wow, you have to show me up at everything, don't you.

Woah, hold on now, what are you smoking. No one has better tolerance than me, I'm a goddamn alcoholic. [He stops, blinks in surprise. Well shit where did that come from, that is not what he meant to say.]

Should I pry further, or not at all? [It was up to him.] Her eyes... her laughter. Her laughter was beautiful, filled up a room and her eyes were always warm... [But she leans forward after a second, closer to him. Slightly too tipsy to care that it was improper, to open the clasp on the ring she always wore. Her mother's portrait inside it.] It's tiny, but I painted myself. That's Anne Boleyn. [She laughed at her words.] I'll soothe your vanity, if you wished it. But I am sure if you had the power to, you would as well. You like to show off as much as I do...

[her eyebrows rose at him.] Oh? That bad is it? [Not that she is judging. Everyone had their ways of dealing.]

I'd gladly whine about it as long as you want. But you don't want, trust me. [He's gotten over his pity parties, for the most part. Howard Stark was a pretty terrible father and no amount of after-the-fact secret messages on old film reels will change that.] She sounds...nice. Hard to go wrong with nice eyes and a good laugh. [Tony leans closer to Elizabth, peering down at the tiny painting.] Didn't know you were an artist. [Tony smiles slightly and shrugs.] M'not sure you can be a martyr if you die in a car crash.

[Tony instinctively tightens his arms around the whiskey bottle, holding it in his lap like it's his firstborn child.] It was worse. I'm...working on it.

If you're sure. I probably do understand better then most. [She doesn't say it with pity, just acknowledgement of what they had both been through at the hands of their parents.] I wish I could say one way or another, but it's hard being the child of the most hated woman in Europe some days. The only other thing I heard about her was that she was a witch that cursed my father... and well, you know how people like to gossip. [she smiled, looking down a little.] I'm a proper lady, my lord Stark, or at least try to be. Sing, dance, paint all of it. [Car? Car... wait, those self moving carriages.] What makes you worthy of remembrance is not how you die, it's how you live before you die.

[She noticed that, how could she not? But it went so far as to reach down, put her hand over his and gently loosen his grip.] It's alright, I'm hardly one to judge another's action.

It's no fun listening to someone else be bitter. [He shrugs, hands up slightly like 'what can you do.'] All of Europe? I find that hard to believe. I'm sure there was someone in like, a random Polish village who everyone in town hated way more. [Have a half-hearted smile. He's not very good at cheering people up.] Oh really? You'll have to show off the singing and dancing to me soon. [Preferably while he can video tape it so he can put it online.] Funnily enough, I hope how I die is remembered much more clearly than how I lived.

[Tony seems surprised at the touch, but he doesn't fend her off, just lets her do her thing.] I thought queens were meant to judge everyone.

I guess not. [She can't help but laugh, turning her face away as she tried to not... but it didn't exactly work. Give her another minute.] Poland does not count, and alright, the people who really matter -- that is the people who send assassins. They hate her, and hate me. [She doesn't really need cheering about it -- she's almost gloating. Because they never succeeded.] No one either dances or sings like they do at home. [sobsob] Really? I would rather live a life of many good deeds, rather then just one. But I guess that is because our roles are so different.

[there's a shake of her head, and another laugh before she settled back.] No, you are not my subject. Are you going to judge me for my crimes?

[Poland never seems to count, it's so sad.] What's the point of hating someone who's dead, anyway? Can't they just move on with their sad little lives. [The irony of him saying that is very much lost of him right now.] Really? And how's that. [How can singing even be different, it's the same thing set to different background music no matter what the time period.] It's kind of hard to "live a life of many good deeds" when you've already wasted most of your time doing the exact opposite.

I don't know, have you ever worn white socks with dress shoes? Then I may have to.

[Unless you invade it and then everyone just seems to lose it.] Depends what they did, my family has caused me nothing but headaches. [there's a sigh.] Because they don't sing. I sing better then them and I am hardly noted at it. The music... sounds different as well, and the dancing. You actually know the steps and -- it ah, can be far more intimate then what I have seen. [awkward look away.] Perhaps I am different, after all, a queen isn't much good dead. In point of fact no one is. There is more then one way of atoning except for dying you know.

[she shook her head at him. Which given the whiskey that was currently impairing her better judgement, showing apparently was a better way then explaining it. So she lent back and tugged up all those ridiculous skirts of hers to show him the pretty little silk shoes she wore, and the stockings that ran up and were tied off with bows.] Only ever wear stockings. Shoes are different can't go riding and hunting in these, but since it's evening, and I am not going anywhere, these are simpler.

I know that feeling. [He raises the bottle as a toast and takes a swig of whiskey, then offers the bottle to her.] Oh, well you've got to show off your skills now that you've said that. Don't think you're getting out of it. [He smirks a little.] I know, I know. But doesn't it seem the easiest. [A shrug, and he's glancing away again.]

Hey! I can see your legs! I was starting to think they didn't exist and you just hovered around in those giant dresses of yours.

[She's happy to take it and have another mouthful. It's getting less awful the more she drinks.] But no one here knows my dances. They are meant for huge groups of people. [pout] I should imagine a man as clever as you are knows how to do better.

Of course I have legs. [there's an indignant little noise.] I just maintain that should a man want to see what's under my skirts, he has to work for it. [With that, she tugs down her skirts and shuffles back, taking another drink again.]

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THE INSOMNIA MEME BEGINS

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