The Many Facets of Love

* vascularEmber PMs "e-pine" (Um. The people are /different/ here.)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "burnt stems" (Yeah, they are. Were you just observing or were you asking why?)
* vascularEmber PMs "EE major" (...both, I guess?)
* epinephrineElectrified PMs "flaxenhaired" (Well. I'll invite you to a #sidememo and we can talk about it?)

* vascularEmber has joined the sidememo
* epinephrineElectrified has joined the sidememo
<epinephrineElectrified> So, um.
<epinephrineElectrified> Right.
<epinephrineElectrified> Replayer networks.
<vascularEmber> ...I learned about PK lists today.
<vascularEmber> And then I was just sort of
<vascularEmber> looking at the chat? And how they're unabashedly /caring/ and /protective/ and it doesn't seem to hurt them?
<epinephrineElectrified> Go on.
<vascularEmber> See, I've been, for the longest time, I was just -
<vascularEmber> I /tried/ to care about people.
<vascularEmber> But, Loose, you don't know who they are. You don't know what they're going to do. If you care, Sburb will use that as a point of pressure and hurt you that way.
<vascularEmber> Hell, it kind of already does that.
<vascularEmber> Soon's you care about your Sprite? Poof. Doomed nonplayers? Pow. Denizen? Ka-blam.
<vascularEmber> And then I look at these people who are going all -
<vascularEmber> All, like, "it's okay to care about people" oozes from their every pore.
<vascularEmber> Sburb seems to think I needed to learn to care, and then drops it off the roof.
<vascularEmber> Like -
<vascularEmber> Like my dad with the cat.
<epinephrineElectrified> ...And you still remember.
<vascularEmber> I do.

<epinephrineElectrified> [It was a dispute about whether she was old enough not to need driving to school.]
<epinephrineElectrified> [You still don't understand what her parents were thinking.]
<epinephrineElectrified> [...not that it's relevant.]
<epinephrineElectrified> [You think.]
<epinephrineElectrified> [Probably.]
<vascularEmber> [Cats don't survive hundred-foot drops from apartment buildings.]

<epinephrineElectrified> I understand.
<vascularEmber> You damn well /better/.
<vascularEmber> Anyway.
<vascularEmber> Where was I.
<vascularEmber> There's things I've never told you.
<vascularEmber> Things I've never told anyone.
<epinephrineElectrified> I'm touched that you choose to reveal them /now/.
<epinephrineElectrified> How long did it take you? Six years? Seven?
<vascularEmber> I didn't say I was going to do that "catharsis" thing.
<vascularEmber> It'll be enough for you to know they exist.

<epinephrineElectrified> [You swallow the questions you were going to ask.]

<epinephrineElectrified> All right.
<epinephrineElectrified> So what do you want me to do?
<vascularEmber> Explain why they're fine.
<vascularEmber> Explain why /you're/ one of /them/.

<epinephrineElectrified> ...

<epinephrineElectrified> [You could say "it wasn't my choice".]
<epinephrineElectrified> [You could say "they adopted me I don't understand how".]
<epinephrineElectrified> [You could make a cute joke about falling bass-ackwards and hope she'd laugh.]
<epinephrineElectrified> [But she is very clearly taking control of this conversation, and with that hand on the wheel firmly steering both of you into an alleyway that leads straight into the dingiest parts of the public housing development. Or the darkest shadows of Derse.]
<epinephrineElectrified> [Either way.]

<vascularEmber> What, cat got your tongue?
<epinephrineElectrified> I'm pretty sure cats don't make it into the Bubbles.
<vascularEmber> You know what I mean.
<epinephrineElectrified> ...actually, no, I don't.
<epinephrineElectrified> I do not know how to read minds, Amber.
<vascularEmber> Oooooh, you're using my name now.
<epinephrineElectrified> Did you want me to talk or not?
<vascularEmber> ...Shutting up now.
<epinephrineElectrified>  /Thank/ you.
<epinephrineElectrified> Um.

<vascularEmber> [You hold your face in one hand, drumming your fingers against the side of your face.]

<epinephrineElectrified> ...I met Myra.
<epinephrineElectrified> She was
<epinephrineElectrified> In my seventh, it was.
<epinephrineElectrified> For the record, there's totally a Yoda joke here, I'm just not going to make it.
<epinephrineElectrified> But, in any case. I'd been replaying Loose, and at first -
<epinephrineElectrified> It was a shock, it's always a shock, but I knew what was going on and I got my hands on anything that could possibly teach me more about the Game and learned and /grew/, like I was supposed to.
<epinephrineElectrified> And I could do it.
<epinephrineElectrified> But, well. After a while my sanity just... does that thing that it does out here.
<epinephrineElectrified> "Maybe if I care less," I'd said, "it'll hurt less when Sburb takes it away."
<epinephrineElectrified> And
<epinephrineElectrified> And the horrible thing is that it /worked/.
<vascularEmber> But you were dead inside.
<epinephrineElectrified> ...You've always had a talent for bluntness, did you know that?
<vascularEmber> Mmmm.
<epinephrineElectrified> And then there was Myra.
<epinephrineElectrified> Not /pretty/. Not /nice/. Talented, though. And native Mind, like I was.
<epinephrineElectrified> And she made it clear that she cared.
<epinephrineElectrified> And she introduced me to -
<epinephrineElectrified> Fuck, it sounds stupid now, it always sounds stupid. But it was an imageboard, of all things, that was how I was introduced to the value of having a network.
<epinephrineElectrified> Myra, quite frankly, saved what little life I /had/ at the time.
<epinephrineElectrified> Using Corpseparty.
<epinephrineElectrified> Vulgar, sure. Meme-ridden, very much so.
<epinephrineElectrified> But it was something that let me know that there were the same people, sometimes
<epinephrineElectrified> And that they cared
<epinephrineElectrified> And that I could care about things
<epinephrineElectrified> And that Sburb /couldn't/ take it away from me.
<vascularEmber> And then it died, I know that much.
<epinephrineElectrified> But by then I'd found a timetrav encryption that dragged my connection through the smoking ruins of Corpseparty's demise.
<epinephrineElectrified> Said "hey, we found a much better system than us"
<epinephrineElectrified> "we're going to coordinate with when we can put you on their network"
<epinephrineElectrified> "they have a null session set up for this and everything, I have no idea how they did it"
<epinephrineElectrified> I didn't believe them. Then there was Sburb.org.
<epinephrineElectrified> And then there was /Myra/.
<epinephrineElectrified> Again.
<epinephrineElectrified> I'd lost track of her after some time on Corpseparty, she'd taken a different timetrav than I did, and Transamphibian wasn't quite the same and I never got into the Usenet thing
<epinephrineElectrified> But she'd made a network of her own.
<epinephrineElectrified> And
<epinephrineElectrified> And after Corpseparty saved me, and she made it clear that she -
<epinephrineElectrified> that she /understood/ what a network meant to me, that she knew what it was like to be Loose and had arranged for this massive undertaking and Ring voyage in order to /never let anyone be alone like that again/ -

<epinephrineElectrified> [> Epi: Wipe your eyes.]

<epinephrineElectrified> Loose Replaying is the worst thing you can subject someone to. Bar /none/.
<vascularEmber> I don't know, sticking someone in prison for twenty years and torturing them for eighteen hours a day would be worse.
<epinephrineElectrified> ...
<epinephrineElectrified> Honestly, it's kind of a toss-up at that point.
<vascularEmber> Yeah.
<vascularEmber> It is.
<vascularEmber> Who /was/ Myra?
<epinephrineElectrified> enturbulatedOccupation?
<epinephrineElectrified> Also known as CP's biggest troll, for claiming that she had the Waste title. I wouldn't've believed her, either, but for that someone else in that session had rolled Waste, too, and she'd spent a lot of her time shepherding them around.
<epinephrineElectrified> She's dead now.
<epinephrineElectrified> Or as good as.
<epinephrineElectrified> Not Heroic. Not Just.
<epinephrineElectrified> Self-inflicted.
<epinephrineElectrified> I don't claim to know how she did it.
<epinephrineElectrified> I don't claim to know who helped.
<epinephrineElectrified> I /certainly/ don't claim that I'm happier that she's gone. Because -
<epinephrineElectrified> Because I'm not.
<epinephrineElectrified> And -
<epinephrineElectrified> And she had something about her.
<epinephrineElectrified> Reminded me of you, almost.
<epinephrineElectrified> But only almost.
<vascularEmber> I bet she had it worse than I did.
<epinephrineElectrified> Pitspedia. "Misery Poker". Go on, look it up. Or am I going to have to break out LMGTFY again?
<vascularEmber> No. I know what you're talking about.
<vascularEmber> Um.
<vascularEmber> So why're you the ruler god thing of Corpse Fiesta now?
<epinephrineElectrified> ...It would be more accurate to say
<epinephrineElectrified> Why /wouldn't/ I?
<epinephrineElectrified> It's an adaptation of the PT federation protocol. Not good for exact timelocking of message 'stamps, but good enough to imageboard on.
<vascularEmber> Sorry, you appear to be jargoning.
<epinephrineElectrified> Don't apologize. I was.
<epinephrineElectrified> But, well.
<epinephrineElectrified> In the /absurdly/ unlikely event that Sburb.org goes sour
<epinephrineElectrified> We'll already have something else up to keep people synchronized.
<epinephrineElectrified> And some people just like the interaction style, like me.
<vascularEmber> If I'd been told that something like this would happen as we were passing through the Door, all those sessions ago...
<vascularEmber> I, frankly, wouldn't believe that you'd attempt to fill moot's shoes.
<epinephrineElectrified> Would you believe that I could draw from my memories of a former coplayer and gain the courage to completely shatter an increasingly decadent institution before it destroyed me?
<epinephrineElectrified> Would you - could you - believe that I love CF with all of my heart, because it means that I have a piece of the eternally important tradition of creating networks, of /surviving/ because of connections beyond those you make in a session?
<epinephrineElectrified> Its form is almost irrelevant for this exercise.
<epinephrineElectrified> It just exists.
<epinephrineElectrified> And that's enough.
<vascularEmber> I wish I could be certain like that.
<epinephrineElectrified> ...how'd you pull certainty from love?
<vascularEmber> Because when you love something, you stay with it.
<vascularEmber> Like the old vows, until death.
<epinephrineElectrified> Sometimes, sometimes what you do for what you love
<epinephrineElectrified> Is that you recognize when it's died.
<epinephrineElectrified> Or when it's going to kill you.
<epinephrineElectrified> And sometimes
<epinephrineElectrified> Sometimes /having/ that love, preserving it within you, also makes you human, in a way that the Game can never take away from you.
<epinephrineElectrified> It can damn well try.
<epinephrineElectrified> Would be a fool's errand.
<vascularEmber> Heh.
<vascularEmber> You've gone on a /lot/ of fool's errands, I can tell.
<epinephrineElectrified> Are you only saying that to insult the Denizen quests?
<vascularEmber> No.
<vascularEmber> Also yes, but no.
<epinephrineElectrified> ...You can love things that aren't perfect, you know.
<epinephrineElectrified> And call love off.
<epinephrineElectrified> And share it with other people.
<epinephrineElectrified> And take the bits that you love out of the artifice that doesn't love you.
<epinephrineElectrified> And love memories, and things.
<vascularEmber> ...How do you know this?
<epinephrineElectrified> I don't, I'm just bullshitting.
<epinephrineElectrified> Admittedly
<epinephrineElectrified> It's bullshit that sounds a lot like what I'd say if I actually had a subjective experience in my head
<epinephrineElectrified> (because I totally do, guys)
<epinephrineElectrified> But then again /seeming/ deep is a fuck of a lot easier than you think.
<vascularEmber> ...I'll have to hear about that another time. That sounds fascinating.

<vascularEmber> So.
<vascularEmber> Um.
<vascularEmber> Was that the Seer Network thing you were referring to?
<vascularEmber> As the old corrupt institution?

<epinephrineElectrified> [> Epi: Grimace.]

<epinephrineElectrified> Yes.
<epinephrineElectrified> And there's a Rage player involved
<epinephrineElectrified> and eleven fucking years of very precise and very careful soultwisting.
<vascularEmber> And astronomical reroll rates.
<epinephrineElectrified> Yes.
<epinephrineElectrified> ...I haven't exactly been a good role model, either.
<vascularEmber> You can say that again.
<epinephrineElectrified> ...I haven't exactly been a good role model, either.
<vascularEmber> ...
<epinephrineElectrified> Okay, okay, shutting up.
<vascularEmber> No, this is fascinating.
<epinephrineElectrified> Did you suddenly start a love affair with the word "fascinating" in the last ten minutes?
<vascularEmber> I don't
<vascularEmber> Argh.
<vascularEmber> Will you please just let me -
<vascularEmber> I don't even know what I want right now.
<epinephrineElectrified> It'll come with time.
<epinephrineElectrified> What do you need?
<vascularEmber> I don't know.
<epinephrineElectrified> ...
<epinephrineElectrified> Let's start with "being alive".
<epinephrineElectrified> Have you eaten today?
<vascularEmber> I don't know.
<epinephrineElectrified> Find something to shove in your mouth. No, Crystalanths don't count. We're looking for the sensation of /taste/ here.
<epinephrineElectrified> I hear the food hack's lovely.
<vascularEmber> No, no, I know about that.
<vascularEmber> It's just that
<vascularEmber> I don't know?
<epinephrineElectrified> ...I can't decide if you have something else to bring up or if you're being silly.
<vascularEmber> Yes.
<epinephrineElectrified> Good old mathematician's answer, how are you today.
<epinephrineElectrified> "Fine, thank you."
<epinephrineElectrified> Hat-tip.
<epinephrineElectrified> Swing of a cane.
<epinephrineElectrified> Unhitching of horses.
<epinephrineElectrified> Et-cetera.
<vascularEmber> Do you like hearing yourself talk?
<epinephrineElectrified> Oh, no, I /love/ it.
<vascularEmber> I'll leave, if you like talking better.
<epinephrineElectrified> ...That means you have something else to bring up.

<vascularEmber> I don't know.

<epinephrineElectrified> [> Epi: Wait for her. You can do this all day, if you have to.]

<vascularEmber> ...are you still there?
<epinephrineElectrified> Yes.

<vascularEmber> [> Amber: Sit there. Stare at your fingers.]

<vascularEmber> ...
<vascularEmber> Will I get used to this?
<epinephrineElectrified> Maybe?
<epinephrineElectrified> I'm not certain, see.
<epinephrineElectrified> And like any good Mind player, the choice is yours.
<vascularEmber> But I'm not Mind -
<epinephrineElectrified> but that doesn't mean you can't respect when I want to do it anyway, yes?
<vascularEmber> Right.
<epinephrineElectrified> Don't get /left/ behind, if you know what I mean.
<epinephrineElectrified> Agency's a nice place to be.
<vascularEmber> Hey, are pipe dreams up or down?
<epinephrineElectrified> Doesn't matter, I'm sticking a shop vac into the end to suck you into the land of the living, if you stick your hand in.
<vascularEmber> One little push.
<epinephrineElectrified> I never claimed I was perfect. But I /do/ exist.
<epinephrineElectrified> Surely that counts for something?
<vascularEmber> Rose gardens or otherwise, I, um.
<vascularEmber> Have a lot to think about.
<epinephrineElectrified> Would be more surprised if you didn't.
<epinephrineElectrified> Think about it.
<epinephrineElectrified> Please tell me when you're done, though.
<vascularEmber> Sure, I guess?
<epinephrineElectrified> I'm trying to think of an equivalent for "good man" that isn't "good girl".
<epinephrineElectrified> I'm not finding one.
<epinephrineElectrified> Pretend I issued one to you anyway?
<vascularEmber> Right.
* vascularEmber has disconnected from the server!