Counseling

[empathicfault]

Please reply here if you want to have a counseling session with Will Graham. Will is no longer an official Counselor aboard the Barge, but he does offer a good listening ear and can provide help if requested. He is available to come to you or meet anywhere else on the ship. If you'd rather not talk, he also offers to bring food and/or be silent companionship, either as a human or a wolf. Just let him know.

Handwaved sessions are also available. Either contact me via PM, plurk, or this post. If your character has regular sessions with him, please check out Will's Insight Post and let me know what Will might be able to glean from your character.

Comments

Spam, a few days after the Flood

[chaos_drifter]

Avalon shows up to Will’s office in the early afternoon, coming from their shift in the library. They have their orb in their hand when they knock on the door. Tendrils of yellow, pink, and green swirl over its black surface, occasionally dipping towards the center.

Re: Spam, a few days after the Flood

[empathicfault]

((Apologies for how late this reply is!))

Will looks up and- he doesn't quite smile, but he looks pleased. "Hi, Avalon. Come on in. Can I get you anything to drink?" His eyes are drawn to the orb initially, but not for long.

He gets up from his desk and heads over to the door, to close it behind Avalon. They're probably not too concerned about privacy, but Will takes it seriously.

[chaos_drifter]

((All good, I’ve been busy!))

They walk into the office and look around. Will’s office seems more peaceful than Malcolm’s, and they think they like it.

“Tea would be nice. I can help make it.” They drop their orb back into its bag.

[empathicfault]

"If you'd like to, thanks," he says, turning around to the small set he has on a side table. He turns back to Avalon with a small basket. "Pick whichever you want," he says of the variety of teabags within.

Once that's done, he nods his head towards their bag. "Your orb is getting more colorful. I don't know if they're all pleasant colors, but hopefully it's been a good experience for you so far."

[chaos_drifter]

They look through the teabags, then up at Will. “What flavors do you like?” He will likely care more about the flavor than they will. “I tend to focus on the warmth and not pay much attention to the flavor.”

“My cheat sheet changed a few months before I graduated. I think in the beginning, it only showed a few colors so that I could notice when I was feeling something, but now it shows both components. I might be feeling some emotions more strongly, though. Do I feel different to you, through your empathy ability?”

[love_and_peace]

A few days after the 4th wall event, there's a very tall man with very black hair pacing in the hallway outside of Will Graham's office door, muttering to himself as he tries to work up the nerve to knock.

After about a minute or so of this nonsense he steels his courage and barges right in, red coat sweeping dramatically behind him.

"I'm here to see a counselor!"

And then, a moment later, he adds, somewhat sheepishly:

"I, uh. I don't have an appointment. Sorry."

[empathicfault]

(ooc: Either format is fine, just FYI! I'll follow suit. Also, sorry for the delay!)

Will's currently in the midst of writing a few things on paper- or maybe it's turned into something more like doodling. He's drawing eyes again, and a few snakes with intricate patterns. But he puts the paper down as soon as someone comes in.

Will takes a look at him, and then smiles. He rises from his seat. "That's fine. I didn't have anyone right now, as you can probably see. I'm Will Graham. What can I help you with?"

[love_and_peace]

[ooc: No worries, and noted about the formatting!]

Well at least he didn't barge into anyone else's session! Vash closes the door behind him but then hovers at the door, scanning over the room as though looking for something. That bland smile never wavers, but after a second or two his posture relaxes somewhat -- whatever he was looking for in here, it's not present, and that's a clear relief.

"I don't really know how this works," he confesses, fiddling with his glove, then his sleeve cuff. He's a ball of nervous energy, isn't he! "I'm not even sure I'm in the right place! I'm a new warden," and oh, he's never going to get used to that awful term, "and I need advice on wardening."

[empathicfault]

"Sure thing. People tend to come here looking for different things, so I wanted to know what you were looking for."

He opens a drawer and looks over a paper, frowns slightly. Ultimately, he slides it towards Vash. The top reads: Basics of the Barge There's a few paragraphs on the front and a deck map on the back.

"This isn't entirely applicable- but it is a good place to start. It talks about floods, Breaches, that sort of thing. Anyone go over that with you yet? It's kind of a...unique 'feature' on this ship."

[love_and_peace]

He sees the map first, and starts to shake his head -- no, thank you but no, that's not what he means -- but then Will says floods and breaches, and none of that sounds good.

"Breaches? As in hull breaches?" He laughs, a little uneasily. "No, nobody's mentioned those, or how a ship in space could flood."

[empathicfault]

Will turns the page over to the page describing them, and gives Vash an apologetic smile. He's still glad he asked. "That's the thing. We're not in space, technically. We're traveling through different realities.

"So when there's a flood, there's some effects from that reality on us. And that can really hit a wide range. Just to give you an example...in one case, we stopped worrying about anything. It was a real party, until it wasn't. The one we just went through allowed people from outside realities to call in. It's an opportunity to talk to people you don't usually get. And once, we all shared nightmares with each other." Dreams, it was dreams. But Will rarely has anything else to share.

He leans back and bites his lip as he decides how to continue. "Breaches are a little different, even from that. We get 'submerged' in that reality for a short amount of time. All of us 'turn into' people native to that reality. We get a set of memories from there and live out approximately one week in that setting. When it's over, we're back here and remember ourselves. It's a rough trip, for a few of us. And I suspect everyone goes through at least one existential crisis navigating them."

[love_and_peace]

You can't trust your memories, is what Vash hears Will saying. They're not yours alone anymore and they can be shared, or changed, on a whim that's outside your control.

"Why?!" He can accept that the ship runs on a kind of math that's complicated enough that it might as well be magic, and he has no problem at all with the idea of multiple universes. The void outside the windows isn't really space -- he can work with that! He can.

But his memories are his. There's people that only he remembers, things that nobody else should have to see, and all those are his burdens to carry! This isn't right!

"I thought we were brought here to help people see the value of life, and... and the futility of killing!" Really, his first impulse is to jump right up, go find the Admiral, and cancel his deal... but none of the people brought here as inmates get that option. He can't abandon them like that, no matter how worried -- or angry -- he might be. "But making us forget who we are? This just sounds like some madman's experiment!"

[empathicfault]

[ooc: oof this is so late, and I know a lot has gone on. I'm sorry. We can certainly handwave the rest of the convo or ignore it, if you'd rather!]

Will rubs his face for a moment. "If it makes you feel any better, I don't think the Admiral entirely intends for these to occur. They're...on the way to ports he needs to hit to keep the ship fueled. At least, that's how he's explained it. There's a whole larger structure he's broken away from and it's no longer powering his ship, so he has to be more careful. And maybe that means literally cutting through the corners of universes."

Will realizes he's been hunching forward- he sits up straight now. "I've been very wary of them. They've been less destructive for me than expected...but I'm still sorry you have to experience them. You'd think the Admiral would put that in his little talk that none of us can remember."

[love_and_peace]

[[ooc: Not a problem! I'm going to direct the conversation away from breaches though, if that's cool, since so much time has passed.]]

His list of things to discuss when he finally manages to track down the Admiral just keeps growing. His memories can't be trusted entirely, and things are certainly going to get worse, but there's nothing he can do about that. Worrying won't make it any easier... and it's not his problems that he came in here for anyway. He'll deal with breaches if and when they occur, but for now he needs to know about the inmates. That's why he's on the ship, after all -- to help others.

So he visibly shakes off his concerns about breaches, and memory loss, and sits up straight himself, his smile broad and friendly and very obviously fake. "There was a lot that wasn't covered in that talk I don't remember!" he agrees, with artificial cheer. "At least I can leave any time I want to..." Or so he assumes, anyway. "...but fully half the ship's roster can't say the same. They're stuck here, until we help them, but how are we supposed to do that?"