video & voice; Story-time for All

[abracafcku]

[The video opens on a bare wall and to the sound of very, very corny fanfare. Then Taako's voice cuts in with the sound of applause.]

Yes, yes, welcome one and all to the greatest day of your lives. Today we have a real treat for you folks, so pull up a chair, take a load off and enjoy this banned text we've managed to procure.

[He clears his throat and a puppet appears on the screen - a non-descript looking human priest wearing dark robes and a blue sash around his neck. The voices that read the following lines are similar, but not the same and anyone who knows both Lup and Taako can probably tell it's the twins taking turns to read the passages. People who don't, however, might have a hard time telling them apart.]

"I used to have a lady love,
she journeyed through the sea,"

[A new puppet appears - a beautiful female mermaid with hair that falls just past her breasts. She slides up from the bottom of the screen and the priest turns to her, fawning all over her.]

"Her fins were as the mourning dove,
a mated pair were we.
Our bodies tangled, hand in glove,
a queen and devotee,"

[As the poem progresses, the priest does some...very not PG-13 things to the mermaid puppet. Eventually, the mermaid pushes the priest away, looking tired.]

"But she was called to rise above,
our bond not meant to be."

[Here the mermaid "puppet" flips a double middle finger at the priest and backflips into the sea, leaving him drenched in water.]

"Though I endure, bereft, belove,
I have her guarantee,
I'll be the one she's thinking of,
a little dove told me."

[The priest pines and waits by the water, pantomiming the lament of a forlorn lover as a bird lands next to him, rolling its eyes. The puppet show ends with a curtain drawing across the screen and then the video shuts off. Taako's voice cuts back in once the video is gone.]

Yeah, so the people here? Raunchy as hell. I love it. But then some people were, y'know, boring and said things like--

[Lup's voice takes over smoothly like they're still the same person talking.]

"If any other colonies can hear this message, please respond. This is Havenwell. We're still alive. The city is safe. We will come get you, no matter how far you are. This is not an automated message. Please respond." That there's a radio transmission from "Colony #56'07'4TM", which, obviously, is home sweet home. Not the most interesting, but I won't deny that the archive visits have been… informative.

Anyone else get something fun?

[OOC: It's a joint post! Replies here can be from Taako, Lup, or both of them. If you have a preference, just let us know in the title of your comment or it'll be a roulette of which twin you'll get.

Feel free to use this post to stir up discussion amongst yourselves regarding the lore contributions!]

Comments

[necromanswers]

[She's usually pretty attentive to details - survival instinct, scientific professionalism, call it what you will - but since it isn't something she can decipher yet, with how little she knows of him, so she'll just file that away for now. For whatever that's worth.]

On one hand, I can't really blame 'em. Have you seen outside? Because unless it's some huge elaborate illusion, it looks about as shitty and poisonous as they say it is. Not exactly chomping at the bit to get my fine ass outside the gates yet.

[On the other hand though... yeah, she gets it. Whatever went down on this planet is complicated and Not Great, and she's not thrilled to be trapped in the thick of what's left.]

[necromanswers]

Guess YMMV on that one. Where I come from gods are the most reliable way to revive somebody from the great beyond.

It's cute, though. Very poetic and soulmate-y. I can appreciate that much, and it lends some proof that the people here might've been legit.

[necromanswers]

There's a theory I haven't heard before. You think it might mean a literal satellite?

[If she hadn't spent almost a year traveling through modern space she might not even know what the hell that word means, but thankfully that's a non-issue now.]

[postocular]

[ SQUINT. ]

I feel like this is a trap..

[original_is_best]

I do not know. After all, it's common for words to take on new meanings in different cultures.

However, if you read some of the other entries, does it not sound like the city itself may be going to retrieve survivors?

If it is not a satellite, it may be the city is not as stationary as we believed. I will certainly be asking if this term still has any meaning to the citizens.

text

[astralera]

You will find a great deal of overlapping concepts across various universes. Though we do not use 'their' words to define ourselves — in my world they originated from us and are ours. You could call it convergent evolution.

[astralera]

I do not know 'YMMV', however in my world there is no reliable way to revive those that are dead. Breath can be returned to the body, but the body is not what makes someone truly alive.

And considering the gods here were unable to steal us away properly, I would not have any faith that they could revive us wholly, either.


It would be interesting to just know how long it has been since the last of them was turned.

[pinkmin]

[She's giving him! A chance! Even if the chance pretty much amounts to "permanently affected by jello, somehow."

...She kind of already knows this is probably not the case. However.]

Yes. It sounded like a real... um. Hoot.

[pinkmin]

[Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.]

[pinkmin]

Yes... I don't imagine there are many people that could bear being the only one left behind that way.

[abracafcku]

[HE KNEW IT. He hates his life.]

Point 1: He's not a chef.

Point 2: You burned his entire plate to a crisp so I didn't have to.

[shroudedsecrets]

... Perhaps.

[She shrugs slightly, given her own experiences, she can't really judge either. Still it is fascinating from a nerd standpoint, all of these ... unfortunate possibilities.]

I find that it remains curious, how they came to the conclusion to change themselves in the first place. The push to go ahead with it had to come from somewhere. Their rulers? Did they have... prosperity they were not willing to lose, or were they hoping to avoid a worse fate? The lack of awareness in regard to the world's energy source also seems to play a part. Or, perhaps... were they too comfortable...

[Video]

[abracafcku]

[Heeeeey it's the guy who asked about magic and made some slightly creepy sounding assertions about it. Wassup, my dude?]

You think we're in space? Like up in space? In the stars?

[Video]

[original_is_best]

It's a possibility, but it may be that the community was simply far away from the most important city on the world.

The wording of some of the entries did leave me wondering if we had been looking at the city in an overly traditional way, however.

[Video]

[abracafcku]

Either makes sense honestly. I'm just-

[He sighs, loud and long.]

I'm so done with living in space.

text

[abracafcku]

You could call it that, yeah. If you want to use nerd words. :P

[Sorry, Era. He's a real turd sometimes.]

[necromanswers]

What? Nah. Dinner prep.

So? Do you like fish sticks?

[abracafcku]

[And he'll exploit that chance! Like the jerk he is!]

Oh yeah, a real hoot. If you like not knowing whether the food you picked up is food or your neighbor and you can't really tell if they even care if it was your neighbor?? I'm still not sure if that entire planet was into vore or if it was just like....a thing they didn't care about.

Oh.

And scurvy. I'm like 99% certain we all got scurvy at some point on that plane.

[shroudedsecrets]

[She can't help her sciencey roots.]

It is at least... somewhat informative, as much as it speaks for how desperate they may have become.

[abracafcku]

Oh yeah, deffo more useful than my fish-fucker poem. Kinda...shitty though. Looks like they figured out too little too late that their ultimate solution was just another problem.

video

[begguiling]

[He starts out by applauding the puppet show:]

Bravo~! Talk about having time on your hands. But don't we all? And here I thought there was no such thing as a good love story!

[He still thinks that, but that's not what's important here. He's got his own tablet in his hands with his transcription of the text he worked out on it, and waves that before turning it back to his own face to read it aloud:]

"Papa says he's going to be different, after tomorrow. Like Auntie. He said, 'hug me so hard it hurts!' I tried, but he laughed instead. I think he's happy, but everybody's acting weird. Mama isn't gonna do it, she said she has to wait until after . . . "

This is probably a name, but not one I can read. Aaaanyway,

"She has to wait until after someone is bigger, and we'll do it when we're grown up, too.

I don't know if I like it yet, but when I turn into a robot I want laser hands."

Me too! This is what I'd call a good everyman type of protagonist.

video

[abracafcku]

[Taako takes a bow since this is Magolor and he knows both of them.]

Trying to bone down on a god is a time honored tradition, my guy. Love is eternal! And weird, in some cases.

[But that one...huh. That's some info right there.]

But yours? That explains why we don't see a whole lot of robo-kids running around. I wonder if they got their laser hands.

[necromanswers]

Huh. Gonna file that one away as "interesting". But also kind of unlikely- at least, it's unlikely that it's still moving, if it ever was. It'd take some pretty wild magic to move an entire city without anyone noticing.

[necromanswers]

What do you mean, steal us away properly? Didn't go as planned?

And I'd love a timeline, too. They're acting like this is ancient history, but they also talk about having flesh bodies once upon a time, so shouldn't they remember this shit happening?

[necromanswers]

True. And over time the world would be less accomodating for them. It'd be hard to grow food efficiently for just a small section of the population, and all their robot friends would have to watch 'em grow old and die... pretty depressing.