[MPC60 A + B] I made a Choice
Mar 16, 2019 19:05:24 GMT
Post by Hiroyo Oda on Mar 16, 2019 19:05:24 GMT
MPC(s): MPC60 A: And So It Begins
MPC60 B: From Your Point of View
Warnings: Unreliable narrator, Alt History, Hiroyo is a Disaster, sorta Hiroyo spoilers?
Reward: Posts plz
I remember the cherry blossoms.
I had paused at one of the bridges that trans versed the span of the river where it cut through town. Snow white petals fell, drifting past the concrete walls that hemmed the river in to land on its surface where lights in orange and pink were reflected in rippling streaks.
I folded my arms on the railing and set my chin on them, taking the rare moment of quiet in the pre-dawn hours to enjoy the sight. It felt lonely without the crowds that would be mingling during the day, after eight days of dealing with people I was glad for the break. My only living companion was a stray dog nosing around the bases of garbage bins far down the street, occasionally chasing after one of the many wrappers that blew down the street. I watched it for a while with a smile on my face. Even though life hadn't always been kind it looked like it was enjoying itself.
I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath: the bitter-sweet smell of the cherry blossoms mixed with the smells from other flowers and drowned out the faintly putrid smell of the river itself.
I don't remember if I fell asleep. I don't remember how long I stood there. What I do remember is the 'tik-tik-tick' noise that alerted me.
What I know is that I didn't fall into the Shibuya river.
I was pushed.
I woke up in sand.
I woke up suddenly, abruptly. For me it was like I went straight from drowning in fetid, flithy water to sand brushing against my skin. It wasn't the soft sand of the beach, each individual piece was larger and rougher and they rattled as the wind blew them across the dunes.
I was in the scant shade of a crumbling, broken wall that barely came up to my waist when I stood. It hadn't offered much protection while I slept: my skin was hot and much pinker than it should have been.
My gym bag had made the trip with me and right now I honestly don't know where I'd be if it hadn't. I did nearly bury it trying to retrieve it, it turns out running across the top of the sand above the item you want to retrieve might cause an avalanche of sand which causes a) the item to get buried further and b) you to roll down the hill in humiliating fashion.
Maybe I should be grateful for the fall. Without it I wouldn't have been spotted by Sand Yanmamon as he passed by over head. Maybe he wouldn't have seen me, maybe I wouldn't have been so frustrated that I flung my bag one way and stomped back to the broken wall to sulk. I definitely wouldn't have made such a fool of myself screaming in terror and running away from the insect who was trying to return my belongings.
Maybe I never would have escaped the desert.
Maybe I would have died from thirst or sunstroke in the sands.
Maybe I never would have learned I was in the digital world.
But I did make it out, and Sand Yanmamon and I had a sometimes amusing, sometimes confusing, talk about humans and names and different worlds when he guided me out of the dunes.
I didn't know it then but I was lucky to meet such a generous Digimon. A kind-hearted soul who made his living finding Digimon lost in the deserts.
Its rather creepy that if the Digimon he was leading out of the sand didn't survive the trip that he would eat them but I try not to think about that too much. I'm just glad I didn't succumb to the heat or thirst. I don't know if he would have gotten anything from me at that point, and it's something I'm glad to be ignorant of!
There are some things in the Digital World that are taken as common and accepted that are weird and wrong and gross to human sensibilities.
The consumption of other sentients is only one of them.
I was pleased by the fact that me smelling and looking weird and gross after swimming in a literal river full of garbage was just taken as part of who I am although now that I think about it it really was more like an insult, wasn't it?
Hiroyo Oda worst human ambassador to a new world everyone.
"You're something new. I'll take you to the village where everyone pretends to be civil but be careful.
Sometimes people don't like new."
Sand Yanmamon's warning was almost prophetic. I caused a giant mess in Terminus. For all that the city usually abided by the mutually-beneficial rule of 'don't piss off the people around you' there was the unspoken rule of 'anything is fine as long as you're prepared to handle the aftermath'.
I can't even call it consequences because it was like the Digimon didn't have a concept of such a thing. Sure they knew that if they deleted a Palmon that was friends with a Sunflowmon they would have to fight a Sunflowmon later, but if the Palmon ran a bakery it was like they didn't understand that the bakery would be closed and they couldn't get their favorite cupcakes from there later!
Basically if the consequence wasn't a physical threat they didn't understand how the negative happened. Oh sure there were a few that understood this, and I don't think it's accidental that they were the ones who could reach ultimate or above. Being able to predict the future in such a simple way meant they lived longer, fought smarter.
I didn't realize they existed at first. Didn't realize what the change in mindset meant. It wasn't that the other Digimon weren't smart, they were! They were just very in the moment people. I got use to dealing with that mindset, that way of thinking.
You don't see as much of that anymore, not near Terminus at least. I think it's most obvious in the names. In those early days every Digimon went by its species name. There were those who asked me to name them, and I did by best to give them good names, the kind you'd expect to hear another human have or maybe someone's pet, but a lot of Digimon named themselves. A lot of them really cared about uniqueness and didn't realize that if they picked something cool there would be other Digimon who also thought that name was cool and would call themselves that.
I think its why we have had so many Dark Lords and Dark whatevers over the years.
I like to think that with the influx of humans over the years, and the fact that we could, wonder of wonders, coexist in the same space as someone else with the same name without resorting to murder rubbed off on them.
That or maybe they were beginning to really understand the concept of consequences.
I met the Dobermon I would know as Rex after I'd been living in Terminus for six months. I had gotten use to the streets in that I hadn't needed to be saved form being stepped on for at least five weeks. I had made friends with the Palmon who ran the local bakery. Monochromon two blocks down, he named himself 'Laughter' because he wanted to bring that to people and made the worst puns, would let me catch a ride on his back when we were going the same way.
I hadn't realized it, had not even considered it was possible, but I was starting to settle in.
I had a routine. I had a job. I had friends and a social life even if it wasn't with any other humans.
All I was missing was a purpose.
I hadn't realized all I was doing was going through the motions of living until Rex showed up. Until we had that long talk about duty and callings on the roof. When he had asked me if I had something to do, if I had somewhere to be that meant more than just the money to exist from day to day I had only thought he was worried about my happiness in his stoic way.
I told him no, I told him I felt lost without one. I told him I wanted to feel useful, to have a purpose.
That talk was such a trap. I wish I hadn't hung out with him later, after that. Accompanying him as he travelled across the Digital World. He was always so evasive about what he was doing, whenever I asked he would just say
"What Fate demands I must."
so I stopped asking after a while.
I thought the Fate talk was stuffy and foolish at the time. Thought it didn't really mean anything.
But maybe, given what I know now, maybe it didn't matter what I said. I can't go back and change it, there's no save slot just before that conversation that I can load up and see how the outcome will change.
Maybe I never had a choice in the matter.
One day Rex led me deep beneath the streets of Terminus. I remember asking him about it, aobut when the city above had been built on the ruins we walked through.
He said he didn't know, he said he thought Old Terminus and Terminus had always been that way. It is one of the only things I know of, one of the only things he said that I still believe.
I can't get too much into what we found beneath the city. There were oaths spoken and geases placed. There were promises bound in blood and power and darkness. I won't talk either about what came after: the collapse of a near quarter of Terminus when the quake hit. There are other people who have written and typed and spoken about how it was all my fault, how I disturbed some balance that wasn't meant to be touched.
Go look for those naysayers if you want. I was only ever doing what I was told I had to.
Funny that places like those would exist there, in the grays and the non-light, where everything's nondescript and nothing feels real. It makes sense in a way: Fate isn't beholden to Light or Dark, to Angel or Demon, no matter how it looks.
It chains everyone.
Rex led me to the temple of white marble and golden accents. I remember that everything was carved as we walked inside. I remember the meandering staircase and the stairs that were so shallow it constantly threw my footsteps off. I had to pay more attention to my walking than my surroundings but I remember that there were carvings.
I remember that everything got brighter as we walked, that I couldn't see for the light around. I remember the crippling headache like someone had taken an icepick and pierced my skull with it.
Do you think concepts like Time or Space or Distance care if you swear an oath to them under duress? Do you think the spirits of Digimon who have served their cults for centuries care if you'd rather not?
Once I accepted the spirit I was led to a door.
A door, I was told, that would help me understand my place better.
I didn't open that door for a long, long time.
Not until I had been living in the Digital World for a year at that point, no longer looking for a way back home.
It was a replica of the bridge, no, of the night I had fallen into the Shibuya river. My heart was pounding in my ears and my mouth had gone dry. I put my hands on the railing of the bridge where I had what felt like so very, very long ago.
'Tik-tik-tik'
I knew that sound. I whirled around, changing as I turned, as smooth a transition from human to Shakkoumon as I had ever made.
It was the stray dog sitting there. The dog with golden fur. It had pink ears now, and closer up I could see it wasn't proportioned like a normal dog at all.
But it was the eyes that made my blood run cold, I knew those eyes. It was Rex, gazing at me solemnly.
"You," I said, the word full of awe and hurt and surprise. My heart was began to beat again. It felt like I was waking up from a dream. "You were the one who pushed me in?"
He did not deflect. He did not lie. He did not evade. He dipped his head once and then those jaws parted and the words I will never forget reached my ears.
"I did as I had to to guide you to your Fate."
I went still.
I had only just learned the face of Seisamon then, had only the guidance of Forces, Active and Passive, to lean on.
All I knew was inevitably.
That didn't comfort me, and it didn't comfort me when he didn't fight back, as if he thought that this, this was what Fate had ordained.
I have my spirits now to tell me it wasn’t, that it might not have needed to end that way.
If we had made different choices, if we had done things differently.
Maybe...
I know now that Fate’s a lie as much as it’s a truth.
The Digimon were predictable in their way, the mindset of a creature who doesn’t think past lunch easier to guess based on what was happening now.
To guide a human you have to predict every route their path may take. It is easy to arrange for a single human, but a crowd is harder.
It’s why I broke open portions of the wall that keep the worlds separate.
I turned the chains of Fate into strings, then into threads. I turned hard truths into suggestions.
I climbed the stairs of the temple that was dark twin to my first and found the strength to Break.
I met Goddramon. I learned how to give myself a choice.
I wove my will into the fabric of the world and left a message for Yggdrasil and Homeostatsis and everyone who tried to pull the strings. I couldn't punch them in the face as they deserved, but I could take the chains and strings and threads and snarl them into a mess they couldn't manipulate as easily.
I hope it was enough
MPC60 B: From Your Point of View
Warnings: Unreliable narrator, Alt History, Hiroyo is a Disaster, sorta Hiroyo spoilers?
Reward: Posts plz
I remember the cherry blossoms.
I had paused at one of the bridges that trans versed the span of the river where it cut through town. Snow white petals fell, drifting past the concrete walls that hemmed the river in to land on its surface where lights in orange and pink were reflected in rippling streaks.
I folded my arms on the railing and set my chin on them, taking the rare moment of quiet in the pre-dawn hours to enjoy the sight. It felt lonely without the crowds that would be mingling during the day, after eight days of dealing with people I was glad for the break. My only living companion was a stray dog nosing around the bases of garbage bins far down the street, occasionally chasing after one of the many wrappers that blew down the street. I watched it for a while with a smile on my face. Even though life hadn't always been kind it looked like it was enjoying itself.
I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath: the bitter-sweet smell of the cherry blossoms mixed with the smells from other flowers and drowned out the faintly putrid smell of the river itself.
I don't remember if I fell asleep. I don't remember how long I stood there. What I do remember is the 'tik-tik-tick' noise that alerted me.
What I know is that I didn't fall into the Shibuya river.
I was pushed.
I woke up in sand.
I woke up suddenly, abruptly. For me it was like I went straight from drowning in fetid, flithy water to sand brushing against my skin. It wasn't the soft sand of the beach, each individual piece was larger and rougher and they rattled as the wind blew them across the dunes.
I was in the scant shade of a crumbling, broken wall that barely came up to my waist when I stood. It hadn't offered much protection while I slept: my skin was hot and much pinker than it should have been.
My gym bag had made the trip with me and right now I honestly don't know where I'd be if it hadn't. I did nearly bury it trying to retrieve it, it turns out running across the top of the sand above the item you want to retrieve might cause an avalanche of sand which causes a) the item to get buried further and b) you to roll down the hill in humiliating fashion.
Maybe I should be grateful for the fall. Without it I wouldn't have been spotted by Sand Yanmamon as he passed by over head. Maybe he wouldn't have seen me, maybe I wouldn't have been so frustrated that I flung my bag one way and stomped back to the broken wall to sulk. I definitely wouldn't have made such a fool of myself screaming in terror and running away from the insect who was trying to return my belongings.
Maybe I never would have escaped the desert.
Maybe I would have died from thirst or sunstroke in the sands.
Maybe I never would have learned I was in the digital world.
But I did make it out, and Sand Yanmamon and I had a sometimes amusing, sometimes confusing, talk about humans and names and different worlds when he guided me out of the dunes.
I didn't know it then but I was lucky to meet such a generous Digimon. A kind-hearted soul who made his living finding Digimon lost in the deserts.
Its rather creepy that if the Digimon he was leading out of the sand didn't survive the trip that he would eat them but I try not to think about that too much. I'm just glad I didn't succumb to the heat or thirst. I don't know if he would have gotten anything from me at that point, and it's something I'm glad to be ignorant of!
There are some things in the Digital World that are taken as common and accepted that are weird and wrong and gross to human sensibilities.
The consumption of other sentients is only one of them.
I was pleased by the fact that me smelling and looking weird and gross after swimming in a literal river full of garbage was just taken as part of who I am although now that I think about it it really was more like an insult, wasn't it?
Hiroyo Oda worst human ambassador to a new world everyone.
"You're something new. I'll take you to the village where everyone pretends to be civil but be careful.
Sometimes people don't like new."
Sand Yanmamon's warning was almost prophetic. I caused a giant mess in Terminus. For all that the city usually abided by the mutually-beneficial rule of 'don't piss off the people around you' there was the unspoken rule of 'anything is fine as long as you're prepared to handle the aftermath'.
I can't even call it consequences because it was like the Digimon didn't have a concept of such a thing. Sure they knew that if they deleted a Palmon that was friends with a Sunflowmon they would have to fight a Sunflowmon later, but if the Palmon ran a bakery it was like they didn't understand that the bakery would be closed and they couldn't get their favorite cupcakes from there later!
Basically if the consequence wasn't a physical threat they didn't understand how the negative happened. Oh sure there were a few that understood this, and I don't think it's accidental that they were the ones who could reach ultimate or above. Being able to predict the future in such a simple way meant they lived longer, fought smarter.
I didn't realize they existed at first. Didn't realize what the change in mindset meant. It wasn't that the other Digimon weren't smart, they were! They were just very in the moment people. I got use to dealing with that mindset, that way of thinking.
You don't see as much of that anymore, not near Terminus at least. I think it's most obvious in the names. In those early days every Digimon went by its species name. There were those who asked me to name them, and I did by best to give them good names, the kind you'd expect to hear another human have or maybe someone's pet, but a lot of Digimon named themselves. A lot of them really cared about uniqueness and didn't realize that if they picked something cool there would be other Digimon who also thought that name was cool and would call themselves that.
I think its why we have had so many Dark Lords and Dark whatevers over the years.
I like to think that with the influx of humans over the years, and the fact that we could, wonder of wonders, coexist in the same space as someone else with the same name without resorting to murder rubbed off on them.
That or maybe they were beginning to really understand the concept of consequences.
I met the Dobermon I would know as Rex after I'd been living in Terminus for six months. I had gotten use to the streets in that I hadn't needed to be saved form being stepped on for at least five weeks. I had made friends with the Palmon who ran the local bakery. Monochromon two blocks down, he named himself 'Laughter' because he wanted to bring that to people and made the worst puns, would let me catch a ride on his back when we were going the same way.
I hadn't realized it, had not even considered it was possible, but I was starting to settle in.
I had a routine. I had a job. I had friends and a social life even if it wasn't with any other humans.
All I was missing was a purpose.
I hadn't realized all I was doing was going through the motions of living until Rex showed up. Until we had that long talk about duty and callings on the roof. When he had asked me if I had something to do, if I had somewhere to be that meant more than just the money to exist from day to day I had only thought he was worried about my happiness in his stoic way.
I told him no, I told him I felt lost without one. I told him I wanted to feel useful, to have a purpose.
That talk was such a trap. I wish I hadn't hung out with him later, after that. Accompanying him as he travelled across the Digital World. He was always so evasive about what he was doing, whenever I asked he would just say
"What Fate demands I must."
so I stopped asking after a while.
I thought the Fate talk was stuffy and foolish at the time. Thought it didn't really mean anything.
But maybe, given what I know now, maybe it didn't matter what I said. I can't go back and change it, there's no save slot just before that conversation that I can load up and see how the outcome will change.
Maybe I never had a choice in the matter.
One day Rex led me deep beneath the streets of Terminus. I remember asking him about it, aobut when the city above had been built on the ruins we walked through.
He said he didn't know, he said he thought Old Terminus and Terminus had always been that way. It is one of the only things I know of, one of the only things he said that I still believe.
I can't get too much into what we found beneath the city. There were oaths spoken and geases placed. There were promises bound in blood and power and darkness. I won't talk either about what came after: the collapse of a near quarter of Terminus when the quake hit. There are other people who have written and typed and spoken about how it was all my fault, how I disturbed some balance that wasn't meant to be touched.
Go look for those naysayers if you want. I was only ever doing what I was told I had to.
Funny that places like those would exist there, in the grays and the non-light, where everything's nondescript and nothing feels real. It makes sense in a way: Fate isn't beholden to Light or Dark, to Angel or Demon, no matter how it looks.
It chains everyone.
Rex led me to the temple of white marble and golden accents. I remember that everything was carved as we walked inside. I remember the meandering staircase and the stairs that were so shallow it constantly threw my footsteps off. I had to pay more attention to my walking than my surroundings but I remember that there were carvings.
I remember that everything got brighter as we walked, that I couldn't see for the light around. I remember the crippling headache like someone had taken an icepick and pierced my skull with it.
Do you think concepts like Time or Space or Distance care if you swear an oath to them under duress? Do you think the spirits of Digimon who have served their cults for centuries care if you'd rather not?
Once I accepted the spirit I was led to a door.
A door, I was told, that would help me understand my place better.
I didn't open that door for a long, long time.
Not until I had been living in the Digital World for a year at that point, no longer looking for a way back home.
It was a replica of the bridge, no, of the night I had fallen into the Shibuya river. My heart was pounding in my ears and my mouth had gone dry. I put my hands on the railing of the bridge where I had what felt like so very, very long ago.
'Tik-tik-tik'
I knew that sound. I whirled around, changing as I turned, as smooth a transition from human to Shakkoumon as I had ever made.
It was the stray dog sitting there. The dog with golden fur. It had pink ears now, and closer up I could see it wasn't proportioned like a normal dog at all.
But it was the eyes that made my blood run cold, I knew those eyes. It was Rex, gazing at me solemnly.
"You," I said, the word full of awe and hurt and surprise. My heart was began to beat again. It felt like I was waking up from a dream. "You were the one who pushed me in?"
He did not deflect. He did not lie. He did not evade. He dipped his head once and then those jaws parted and the words I will never forget reached my ears.
"I did as I had to to guide you to your Fate."
I went still.
I had only just learned the face of Seisamon then, had only the guidance of Forces, Active and Passive, to lean on.
All I knew was inevitably.
That didn't comfort me, and it didn't comfort me when he didn't fight back, as if he thought that this, this was what Fate had ordained.
I have my spirits now to tell me it wasn’t, that it might not have needed to end that way.
If we had made different choices, if we had done things differently.
Maybe...
I know now that Fate’s a lie as much as it’s a truth.
The Digimon were predictable in their way, the mindset of a creature who doesn’t think past lunch easier to guess based on what was happening now.
To guide a human you have to predict every route their path may take. It is easy to arrange for a single human, but a crowd is harder.
It’s why I broke open portions of the wall that keep the worlds separate.
I turned the chains of Fate into strings, then into threads. I turned hard truths into suggestions.
I climbed the stairs of the temple that was dark twin to my first and found the strength to Break.
I met Goddramon. I learned how to give myself a choice.
I wove my will into the fabric of the world and left a message for Yggdrasil and Homeostatsis and everyone who tried to pull the strings. I couldn't punch them in the face as they deserved, but I could take the chains and strings and threads and snarl them into a mess they couldn't manipulate as easily.
I hope it was enough
