azume | Week 11.

Week 11.

WEEK 11

The meeting with Mars could have gone infinitely worse. It's difficult to say that it went well, admittedly, but at least it didn't go as poorly as it could have; either way, her departure leaves you free to look around the Valley Windworks, and it shouldn't take you long at all to find something interesting on the floor.

It's bright yellow and glowing, set into the ground like any other normal part of the floor otherwise; stepping on it will cause the world to spin briefly in your field of vision, and when it straightens itself out again, you find yourself standing in the corner of the lobby of a large building you've never seen before.

Welcome to the Jubilife TV station.

The place seems staffed with Galactic grunts, but they leave you alone outside of just watching you in that dead-eyed, vaguely unnerving way they have of watching everything; they'll let you leave without a fuss at any rate, and it's probably for the best that you get yourself situated for the time being. After all, you've got an entire new city to get accustomed to.

The people here seem to be trying to get themselves situated as well, though obviously that's for entirely different reasons. The world continues to change, around them and you both, and overall things do seem to be going in a direction that might be considered favorable. Noticeably, the grunts in the TV station don't seem to be changing at all, regardless of what happens to the other locals; that might be cause for some concern...

CURRENT LOCATION: JUBILIFE CITY
POKEMON AVAILABLE: WITHIN CITIES

SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY | FRIDAY
[OOC: Welcome to week eleven of Azume; feel free to make as many top levels as you'd like and tag out to other characters! This post is for all of your interactions this week... at least until the weekend. Don't forget that a write-up is due this weekend!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Zelda tilts her head - ah, he means for helping people in his own home. That makes sense, actually. The princess looks at Saber a moment and hums a bit, ]

In a way, it's ... well, I do wonder how many memory is retained, how much identity.

Hard to say...everything's already so screwed up mentally, I can't tell what's coming from where.

[He considers Saber as well for a moment, then turns to locate where Jane Doe's floated off too.]

Jane is doing better since she's been with me, but she hasn't indicated any particular memories. Wanting to go to a specific city, find anybody in particular...'course, even if she was human, it may have been a while since she died.

Yes... and she might well have been a Pokémon as well.

[ Just... continuation of energy and all. ]

Honestly, it would make more sense to me if memory weren't contiguous, but... that is my own presupposition upon this world.

Yeah, the total opposite makes more sense to me. Just how my world works.

I sorta hate the memory-loss thing. It would suck so much if that happened where I'm from - I mean, I get that torturing people forever is not...great. But it feels like it would be even worse if it happened to somebody like Candice. At least a person with all their memories has some kind of context for what's going on. Or maybe they can think about a time they weren't being tortured, or something like that. Does that make sense?

[He seems entirely earnest; emotions are weird to him and he's feeling his way through this particular response he's having.]

[ It's far more than "not great," it's unethical on a scale that she can barely comprehend, honestly. She glances at Saber a moment before she nods, gently. ]

... No, that does make sense. [ . . . . Mmm ] I wonder, sometimes, if the resting dead dream. If when they dream, do they remember the lives they lived? I suppose given their rest, it does not... [ matter- ] ... it is not much of a concern, it simply is. But for the spirit of a person to survive past their death, it does seem sad simply to forget.

[Well, sure, but when you mention grand atrocities as much as Michael does, you kinda gotta understate some stuff or you'll never get to the point.]

I wouldn't have any of my friends if they just forgot everything. Just four blank slates, could've been anyone.

[And that right there is probably far more the root of his discomfort than the ethics of hypothetical amnesiac torture. So, uh, let's not dwell on it?]

Is that the sort of thing living people dream about? I'm far more familiar with nightmares.

[ Michael does reveal more of himself there. And she smiles softly because really, she related. That question that she had asked Link... she shakes her head softly and, ]

Living people dream about a lot of things, honestly. Warm things, scary things, it's really a mix of everything.

It's a way for your brains to process your experiences. Sort of a learning tool, I guess...but we process information much faster, so there's no need. I'd never slept at all before I took this form, and I still don't dream.

[...he's thoughtful for a moment.]

It does sound interesting.

Oh, you truly don't, even now...?

[ So his sleep is more like, well, the dead?

That's interesting... ]

If that is the case - well, no, you have said you retain information immediately...

Nah. It's just that the body needs resting - we can go without for longer than the normal human, but it's gotta happen sometime. Sleep deprivation's quite a thing.

[He probably would have bitched more about taking one of those night watches if he had a more normal requirement for sleep.]

What?

... I'm just wondering what it's like, actually. To remember things like that. Or even to sleep like that - it sounds like a very different experience when you put it like that, maybe even more different than a Zora is to a Hylian.

.....what is a Zora?

Oh- have I never told you? I'm sorry- Zora are one of the several tribes of Hyrule.

[ A shrug. ] They're people of the water.

...fish people.

[Okay. Yeah. That's pretty different.

Anyway, she had a question.]

Well, to be honest, I'm not sure what it would be like to have such a faulty memory as you do. I've been around for a long time - all of it, really. If I remembered as much as you do, proportionally, that's still most of my lifetime right out the door.

I... yes, I suppose so? They are very long lived and regal.

[ But ... yeah, that's a weird thought. ]

... I'm not sure it's heartening or not, though, that you have more to learn.

Well, things do just keep on happening. We can't tell the future. And we aren't omniscient either - I've been really focused on what's been happening with my humans recently, I don't have the slightest idea what's been going on anywhere else. But otherwise, yes, we do know most things.

[.....]

Though obviously, I guess there's certain things I never bothered to read up on.

[ . . . A soft laugh and she glances at how Saber has stopped its sword swings, taking a seat. She laughs a little, and, ]

Like I said, a little bit inspiring.

Never really looked at it like that.

[He really hadn't. Normally, he doesn't care at all for people picking at the gaps in his awareness...]

I've met someone who's technically omniscient, you know. She restricts her own knowledge to keep from biasing herself, but if she decides she wants to know everything about you - [He snaps his fingers.] I think she gets bored a lot.

Oh yes, I believe you had told me about her before! ... But - why would she need to restrict knowledge to avoid bias? Wouldn't knowing everything allow her to know perfectly what is right?

[ But then, Uxie....

Hmm. ]

Well, she has been working in support of that afterlife judgement system I told you about for...literally all of eternity, so.

[Arguably not?]

Anyway, it's a court system. Knowing everything about everyone involved - she could end up biased just because she didn't like one of the advocates involved. Nothing to do with their argument itself.

Does not judgement also demand knowledge about the accused...? [ But then, Michael does like philosophy and logic. Maybe that's just how demons prefer to do it.

Still, she inclines her head. Yeah, probably not. ]

Oh, them, sure. It's just everyone else that you don't want to have muddying it up.

I mean, when you get to that point, I've read people's files. I know everything that happened in my human friends' lives. Better than they do, with their faulty memories...we use those to determine the torture they end up getting.

[ . . . What an interesting (and somewhat scary) thought? She hums and, ]

Can you really say you know them better, though?

Uh, yeah. I just did.

I know you did, but I meant to question it. Do you know all that they felt and thought as well?

[ It's not accusatory, just... genuinely curious and perhaps questioning, like she said. ]

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

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject