expiationlogs | a broken heart

Who: Gwen and YOU
Where: around Aldrip
What: Peter's disappeared, and Gwen's upset -- catch all for depression threads, including OPEN network post (closed prompts to be added later)
Warnings: discussions of death and grief, will update if anything else comes up

i: missing persons alert

[Gwen's been awake for a few hours, and her anxiety is not getting better. One Peter was accounted for, but the one she was dating? The one she had been so anxious about losing with the reboot? Yeah, he's nowhere to be found, and she's unable to contact him through either network.]

text; un: gwenstacy

hey so
has anyone seen a brown haired dork in a spider suit anywhere??
about 5'8"
usually looks lost

i woke up back home after the reset with our roommate but he isn't here
i can't pull him up on the network either
does that mean

[the message stops there because she knows exactly what it means and she's currently trying not to have a panic attack.]

ii: denial

[Peter can't be gone. This can't be happening. No, no, no. It was too soon. They knew they didn't have forever, but it wasn't supposed to end like this. She wasn't ready to lose him too. It wasn't fair.

But she also couldn't accept. He couldn't just be gone. Maybe he just got glitched before the system reset?? Maybe he was just safe in the backups?? Any chance that the backups meant Peter would be safe and sound meant she was going to guard the suit it was downloaded into with her life. Until they could figure out how to retrieve it, no one was allowed near it without her explicit permission, not to mention it was hidden in a place only a spider-person could even get close to it.

This level of denial over the first few days of October meant she wasn't going to stop looking for him. Gwen already spent a large amount of time patrolling and doing her civic duty as a friendly neighborhood spider, but she tripled her time out, searching every nook and cranny for any signs of Peter, refusing to go home when it felt so empty without him, let alone let herself rest when the constant worry about his safety weighed on her.

She even left Aldrip and went back to Ketsora, just because she had to go there and look around again herself. She just needed to see it again, to see if he just was the unlucky one to get left behind. Unfortunately, seeing that he wasn't there didn't make her feel any better.]

iii: wildcard

[Feel free to wildcard, or hit me up at crystallium or crystallium @ discord to plot something out! Anyone can find Gwen around town or at the Ketsoran wall during these first few days of the month. Once it really starts to hit her that he's really gone, she'll turn more isolating and rarely leave her house, unless someone drags her out. Stem club is about the only other place she would visit semi-regularly, and even that's going to be scarce.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

we tried but
too many guards
they really didn't want us going through that portal

yeah
yeah!
that has to be it
he just got stuck back at ketsora
it's not a quick trip so
he just
has to get back here

[these are the texts of someone trying to convince herself.]

yeah i noticed

[ read: him and peter the older both got hurt during the whole debacle so!! fuck those soldiers, actually. ]

let's hope so. i'm sure whatever it is he's okay. so... you try and just hang tight, yeah?

you good otherwise, not hurt or anything?

i'll try

[she's not one to sit still on a good day, so she's extremely restless now!! good luck to whoever is watching her at any given time to make sure she doesn't do something stupid. spoilers: she's going to do something stupid.]

i'm a little roughed up but nothing bad
we heal fast so
i'll be fine
are you okay?
how does that work, getting hurt when you're a ghost?

[The Peter still here told her about him and Charles getting their asses handed to them at the gates. Peter had been in rough shape for a little while, but thankfully, they really did heal quickly. Ghosts, on the other hand...she wasn't sure about.]

[ hm, he kind of has the feeling... he wishes he knew her a little better, so he could — do what? join in on the "let's not let gwen do stupid things" watch? maybe. they may not be the best of friends, but he cares about her, cares about peter, and that he's missing and that she's so upset about it all makes his spectral heart hurt. ]

take care of yourself, though, yeah? when peter gets back he won't be happy if you've gone on to exhaust yourself

oh, peter the older told you, did he? uh, i'm fine. jinx saved me from getting hurt worse, and peter took those hits for me, so... [ which he feels terrible for, but he's not going to focus on that right now! ]

just needed to rest a bit. i was mostly back to normal after the reset.

don't worry
i'll be good

[No she won't, it's straight up lies. Peter and Jim will try to keep her contained, but she really is going to be dumb and stupid plenty.]

jinx?
seriously?
i met her at the wall
she's
interesting

[ ... oh yeah he has zero faith in that promise. great, so he's adding one more person to his list of people to worry about! ]

you be good. i'm gonna worry otherwise

she's great. i owe her twice over, now

[good! he's smart to not trust it, she's in full fledged grief with a big splash of denial, after all.]

yeah?
maybe to you
she got all freaked out and said i stole her sisters voice
weird, right?

wait, she did what?

huh. maybe you sound pretty similar to her sister, then

she's a bit eccentric, don't let it get to you

i guess??
i've never met her
apparently she's here too
and i sound just like her
idk
it was really weird
hence my skepticism

yeah... that does sound a bit weird

guess you gotta meet the sister. unless she really does sound like you, then it might be
more than a bit weird, don't know what i'd do if i met someone who sounds just like me

right?
i mean
i've met a lot of peters
but none of them sounded exactly the same
idk it just sounds
weird??
but i'll probably end up looking her up
i'm too curious now

wait, how many peters have you met, exactly? i know we've got the two here but

that sounds like.... more

six
that's counting the two that are here
i might've hopped across dimensions before?
it was a whole thing
peters are magnets for trouble in every universe

huh, damn. so humour me

but dimension-hopping... is it like, the same world but slight differences, or totally different worlds and all that?

uh
honestly i only saw one other world myself and it was pretty close to mine
but both really?
one of the peters was a cartoon pig
another was from a world that was basically like a film noir
and mine is kind of an opposite world from the older peter's too
for that peter, he got bit, and the gwen of his world died
for me, it was me that got bit, and
my peter died
we all have a lot of the same friends, same loved ones, same stories
it just plays out slightly differently, for better or worse

holy shit, that's

that's a lot, innit

and... for what it's worth, i'm sorry. for your peter. and the other you, too

you know what? you should talk to my boyfriend. i mean, his thing's less worlds and more timelines, but... still.

[ not that he thinks junpei's going to, well, find much comfort in someone else having similar experiences, minus all the murder games of course — but he figures there must be things you just don't fully get unless you've experienced it for yourself... and perhaps they could help each other with that part. because he knows for a fact junpei's got issues with what happened, and he can't imagine that gwen is all that fine about it all, either, despite putting up a good front about it. ]

oh you have no idea

but
thanks

[Almost like seeing a ghost, being around so many Peters. And the older Peter he knows looks so much like him. It hasn't been easy, for both of them, but they're trying. They're healing, slowly.]

oh!
yeah i'd love to talk to him
i met someone from a different point in time from my world when i first got here too
and i thought alternate worlds were a lot
timelines get *really* weird

nah, you're right. i really don't.

but you're my friend, so... i'm here for you, yeah? whatever i can do

[ because sometimes it's also helpful to talk to someone who's totally unrelated to the whole thing. ]

yeah, it really seems like that. just, he doesn't exactly... like any of it, you know? but i figured, maybe there's stuff you can only talk about with someone else who gets it. and there's not really a whole lot of you here who do, yeah?

a broken heart

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject