recolle | the only comics characters who stay dead are b̶u̶c̶k̶y̶, ̶j̶a̶s̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶d̶d̶, and uncle ben

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the only comics characters who stay dead are b̶u̶c̶k̶y̶, ̶j̶a̶s̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶d̶d̶, and uncle ben

WHO: James Barnes and YOU!
WHERE: All over town
WHEN: 11/18 onwards
WHAT: James is back from the dead, freed from prison, and 20 years older! If this sounds like a shitshow, that's because it is.
WARNINGS: mention of suicide in the cause of death snippet

11/15: reports and posts on James's death (cw: mention of suicide, suicide note)

I. you could argue he is wearing a crop top (11/18 - 11/21-ish)

[ When most people move to a new city, it's kind of hard to tell--after all, with so many people around, it's easy to blend into the crowd.

However, this man....does not blend in at all. He wanders around, unevenly shaven and scruffy, wearing clothes so comically ill-fitting it almost begs the question how he even put them on. The way he ducks his head and tries to curl into himself as he walks makes him look suspicious.

What might be even more suspicious is the moment he pulls his hand out of his pocket for a brief moment to scratch at his jaw. The hand looks shiny and metallic. Maybe it's just something he's holding, maybe it's a trick of the eye--but it's definitely a strange one.

Eventually, though, he does need to ask a question, so he begins asking (either you or another stranger near you)-- ]

Hi, I need some help finding something.

II. neurotic coffee spinning (11/22 onwards)

[ By now, James has at the very least acquired a jacket to stand out a little less. He stands at Zee's ofrenda, studying every inch of the table like there's going to be a test on it later. He leans in to get a better look at some of the items, but doesn't touch them. And after a while, he places the coffee drink he'd been holding this whole time on the table, rotating it to try to figure out what angle it should be at. ]

III. your one-stop shop for impostor-ghost confrontations (11/22 onwards)

[ Is this actually the ghost of James Barnes? One might think so, with the way he keeps haunting all the places he used to go. He's spent hours going around the beach, the neighborhood just outside Fort McCoy, the buses he used to take to school, over and over again. He even used to loiter around by the high school sometimes, before he realized how bad and suspicious that looked. So now he hangs around the university instead, glancing over at the high school from down the block when it lets out every day.

The more he does it, the more he does actually start to get treated by people (and even other ghosts) as one of the dead himself. He's been trying to figure out how to get people to realize no, he's actually alive, but what is he supposed to do? James Barnes did die, and he doesn't know if he can go back to being that person.

While he's contemplating this one day, he finds a flyer posted up on one of Recolle U's bulletin boards advertising...a show being played at a tiny local venue by A Lyrical Assassination. ]

What the fuck?

IV. wildcard!

[ HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT. or hit me up over plurk to talk other prompts if you want! ]

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"I don't know if I even want my papers replaced. Maybe I'm better off just...getting new ones.

"Li-Na told me about Zee's when she visited me a few weeks ago. I wasn't going to go, obviously, but now that I'm here...I might as well, right?" And honestly, he kind of feels like he has to. It was a non-factor in prison, obviously, but now that he's able to go, it's the least he could do.

Finally, at last, returns Togusa's patented 'seriously?' look that seems to be reserved for James and a few others. "Can I at least check on what Recolle says about you before you jump straight to falsifying your identity?" He shakes his head. "Forget the legality, that can't be the easy option here."

But about Zee, Togusa goes quieter. He nods solemnly. "Yeah. Yeah. It's the right thing to do. Respect to the ancestors means everyone who's gone before you."

He sighs. "Alright, fine. But mostly to figure out my...new age." What a weird thing to say. "If this is an other-me thing, I don't even know how old he's supposed to be. I think there's something messed up with it."

James's brow furrows at the idea of 'respecting ancestors.' It's not the words he would have used--Zee is definitely not his ancestor, nor his relative at all--but he guesses the basic idea is the same. "Yeah. Especially if you tried killing them before. How do they work? The altars, I mean." He's not sure if there's some kind of protocol to this, or something magic about them.

Togusa can only nod in agreement. "You've mentioned. Best I can figure is that they were shoving two separate lives into your mind." He shakes his head. "I still don't get it."

"Even if you don't know the right words, it's the remembrance and veneration of the dead that counts," Togusa explains. "Some people bring their favorite objects, food and drink are especially sacred, or incense to burn. Anything that honors the memory of the person. There are enough others around that you should get the idea from them."

A pause. "Ordinarily, it's to help with healing, to know that the memory of the person and the things they've done in their life are not forgotten. But this month?" Togusa sweeps a hand around as if to indicate the city. "I wouldn't be surprised if there's something more to remembering the dead."

James shakes his head, looking a bit surprised. He's made his peace with this long enough ago that he's forgotten other people might not know it too. "No, I was wrong--it was actually the one guy this whole time. The World War 2 soldier, the Soviet assassin...it was the same guy. I just didn't know it until I remembered his trial too."

He glances at a ghost that passes by as they talk. "You think the offerings have something to do with helping the ghosts too? ...Do we know if Zee's ghost is around anywhere?"

"What." Flat and surprised and Togusa stops in his tracks to stare at James. How is that even possible?

"I've looked for Zee. Oh, it was one of the first thing I thought of, but trying to find one person in the whole city, when they aren't hooked up to tech, and it turns out I don't know anything about his habits?" Togusa shrugs. "If he's here, he might be keeping low anyway. Or maybe," Togusa shakes his head, "something about how he died didn't let him become a ghost."

"Yeah. He did die, right near the end of the war, but then the Soviets fished him out, managed to revive him and brainwash him, and then I guess they just...kept him frozen between missions. He didn't know or remember anything about who he was while they had him. So I know this guy was 20 when he died, but after that...I have no idea. I remember doing something in practically every decade since, and I think his trial was in the 2000s. Or, that world's version of the 2000s, anyway. But who knows how old I was by then."

Which, wow, when he says it all at once like that, it does seem like a hell of a bombshell, doesn't it? Not like you could tell from his voice--it sounds like he's narrating from a book, almost.

James sighs and makes a humming noise. "Well. Even if there is no ghost, I still just wanted to see it anyway. Like you said--honoring the memory."

The look on Togusa's face only gets more incredulous as James talks, until he is downright gawking at him. And he says it so normally. Togusa holds up a hand in a 'wait' gesture and shakes his head trying to get this all straight. "Hold the hell on."

"Can we start with 'managed to revive him?' There's technology to bring somebody back from the dead in that world? Vampires and pyrokinetics and casual resurrection? What the hell, Retrospec?" Togusa can't help but look around when he says that.

A hand goes to his head and he nervously fluffs out his hair. "And then they brainwashed the guy into working for his enemy. Great. Great."

"I don't think it was 'casual.' It's not like they resurrected anyone else. Just me. Plus they already had all the other tech to brainwash me. And give me the arm." He furrows his brow. "They actually did a lot. I think because I was a really valuable tool to them. They had me doing a lot of different stuff."

This is the point where Togusa has to decide between his instincts and what he thinks is being a better friend. The topic is pushing on every single one of Togusa's issues, and he doesn't want to envision James having to go through this. But on the flip side, has James been able to talk to anyone about this yet? At all?

He has to bite down on his own hesitation. "The arm came post-death, then, it wasn't from a war injury? I had the timing on this all wrong."

"Guess it finally explains," he gestures towards James' shoulder, "the symbol on the upgraded one."

James, at least, is completely oblivious to Togusa's dilemma.

"I mean, if dying counts as a war injury, then yeah." He's grinning a little. "But I had my arm right up until I died, so. It has to be something they gave me. I guess they couldn't just let their favorite murderer run around with just one arm."

But he does look over at the star on his arm now, looking a little confused. "Not sure why a group so obsessed with espionage and sneakiness decided to use the shiniest metal on earth and then stick a logo on it, though." It's not something he'd ever thought about before, in either lifetime, but he sure as hell is thinking about it now.

The self-recrimination keeps going in Togusa's head. This is Togusa's problem, not James' problem, and James has enough problems right now, so be helpful, don't add on to the plate.

So, if James wants to keep his tone lighter, almost flippant...let him. It's how he's coping. He can minimize the twitch at the word 'murderer.' Since he's just spent how much time proving that James isn't one?

"That's the part I can actually understand," Togusa can approach that final point. "If they were treating him just like a resource, then they saw all of him the same as that arm. And so you leave your mark on it, so nobody forgets who owns who. It's a truth I know some people who adhered to cyberization in the other guy's world had to go through."

"I guess so. Good to know that's a thing across worlds, then," he says, obviously sarcastic. He does look a little conflicted or even confused as he says it though--it's hard for him to reconcile the idea that he was some brainwashed tool that they owned with his own memories of his time in the Red Room, where he was usually treated respectfully and even put in a position of power himself. But who knows, maybe thinking that way was part of the brainwashing.

"How did it work in your world? Or your guy's world." Whatever. James can't keep up with how everyone refers to all their other selves. "You said 'some people,' not everyone. What about you? You've got that cyberbrain."

Togusa visibly hesitates, but he plows on ahead. "A lot of it is...instinct. Little snapshots that don't fill in all of the gaps of his life."

Togusa has stopped entirely now, and he leans against a building wall as he speaks, not looking directly at James, but off in the distance, like he's squinting at those snapshots. "The cyberbrain alone is simple, basic. It's something that most people he interacts with are assumed to have. And that makes sense. That once the tech is out there, it becomes as ubiquitous as a cell phone. Integral to keeping up with communication, or, hell, the shared human experience, itself."

"But then there's the other stuff." He nods at James' arm without meeting his eyes. "The limbs, the prosthetics, the," he rubs the heel of a hand into his eye. "That guy I keep seeing but I know nothing about. He had his damn eyes replaced. I know some people can go as far as replacing it all, just a brain in a human-shaped case. And I guess those are the people I'm talking about."

A pause, and Togusa is coming up on a point that he has shoved deep into the corners of his mind. But he'd lost the chance to tell James this once. "When I saw what happened to you. I was scared I was next." His tone drops, sounding ashamed of himself. "I knew it was a possibility from that world. So would I be the next one to lose body parts, changed up for a decision that someone else had made for me? Turning me into just the job that the other Togusa picked?"

Togusa looks down at his own hand, still flesh and blood pumped by his oh so bleeding heart. There's something ragged and stripped about his nerves, this entire day has destroyed any of Togusa's usual defenses. "Now that I finally know that's not a possibility. Doesn't stop me from feeling stupid for being afraid in the first place."

The more Togusa talks, the more it dawns on James that this conversation is taking a turn that he doesn't quite know how to handle. It takes him a few moments to understand why that is--because it was so rare for Togusa to talk about his feelings on the things he remembers, rather than just the facts and details of it.

James has seen him angry before, he's seen him disappointed, but he's never seen him....anxious like this. At least not in a way where he's laying it all out in front of him so frankly.

What does he even say to this? He feels like this is a situation where he's supposed to help somehow, but he has no idea how. Especially not when it's just...a conversation. James doesn't know the first thing about how to say things that are helpful.

"Well...aren't you the one who keeps saying that we're totally separate from whoever the other versions of us are? We remember all these things and get all these...arms and cyberbrains and whatever else, but we can do whatever the hell we want with them now. Regardless of what our other selves did, or had to do."

James still doesn't buy into that viewpoint, really, but he knows Togusa does. Maybe he just needs the reminder.

Togusa huffs a breath out quietly. On some level, he realizes this is heavier than James probably signed up for with this conversation, and a flare of guilt comes to life. He’s supposed to be the one worrying about James. But at the same time, over-worrying and smothering James never helps. So, maybe just this once.

“I get it. The consequences of the choices they made, intentional or unintentional, come through to our lives. And then we get to use that to make our own choices. And I still believe that.” He stuffs both of his hands into the pockets of the parka he is wearing. “I’m not losing hope. I just.”

And there’s that guilt again. But he can finally look up at James fully. “It’s just, is it- hypocritical? That I have the gall to be afraid of the exact same thing that I- I was telling you to just chin-up and deal with? It feels that way.”

James crosses his arms. "You want the truth?

"Yeah, it is. But what does it matter? You're not the only one who told me that, whether or not anyone else was worried about it happening to them too." He's still annoyed that people dismissed him so much, but Togusa isn't exactly special here.

Then he cracks a bit of a grin. "I'm just mad this means that I'm never gonna be able to point and laugh at you and say 'I told you so.'"

Something about James so bluntly telling him the truth paradoxically relaxes Togusa. His shoulders stop tensing up, and he lets out a sigh. "Matters to me," he mutters, a small griping objection.

But the corner of his mouth slowly turns up, mimicking James's smile. "There are so many other things that you can say that about. I just don't get to join the cyborg club."

"I'm sorry." Said with enough emotion that he can show that he means it. But not to belabor the point. "And I'm going to work on doing better by you."

James rolls his eyes. "You can plug your brain into a computer, you get to join the cyborg club. You just don't get to bitch about it."

He's silent for a moment. Then: "What does that even mean? 'Do better by me.'" It's not like Togusa ever did anything harmful to him in the first place. What's there to do better about?

Togusa holds up a single finger. "I have Retrospec in my brain, I can and will bitch about it, thank you." A small smile.

Which turns into a sigh at James' next question. "I have happened to be present at every one of your lowest points. I have arrested you three separate times. But I've done so little that actually helped. Or I've been complicit in taking some of that choice away from you. I finally got it right on that last one. Letting you deal with your own consequences."

"So. More of that." Less of trying to live James' life for him.

"Yeah, thanks for letting me rot in jail." He says it with a grin and the dryest tone of voice he can muster. He knows Togusa is right, that letting him deal with his consequences in prison was the right thing to do. It was what he wanted and needed. It's just funny to hear that, of all things, be called helping.

He shakes his head and looks down at the ground. "I don't think you could've done anything else anyway. You're not the first person to try and fail at helping me."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

the only comics characters who stay dead are b̶u̶c̶k̶y̶, ̶j̶a̶s̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶d̶d̶, and uncle ben

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