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

[abracafcku]

[He snorts in amusement.]

Heheh, you got such a nerdy one.

[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.

[shroudedsecrets]

The conditions here must have been... quite different back then, for it all to end up the way it is now.

[abracafcku]

Must've. If the world they're trying to recreate in their VR machines is anything like the world they used to have? It should've been beautiful. I can see how it'd get to the brink though - over-population, pollution, the usual suspects. Something must've been breaking bad for them to decide going robot was the best option.

[shroudedsecrets]

Perhaps. By choosing this method to preserve their souls, they effectively saw an end to their own species by believing they could rely on this way of life forever. It is doubtful that they all survived the process or were even... the same as they were afterward.

[Oh hey look, more topics and concepts that she was far too familiar with. Thanks, she hates it.]

[abracafcku]

Life's all about changes - even if they'd all survived in their flesh bodies up to now, I'm betting they'd have undergone some sort of necessary mutation in order to stay alive. The world out there sounds heeeeella shitty.

But they made their decision. Good or bad, they made one and now we're here dealing with the consequences.

[shroudedsecrets]

I do not doubt that. There do not seem to be records as to what they once may have been.

[Willfully forgotten, perhaps?]

Perhaps such topics are not meant for idle speculation. We can only deal with what facts there are.

[abracafcku]

Yeah, and that's weird? Right? Like, you'd think there would be paintings or art or old movies or something, right? But for all their love of creativity, I haven't seen a damn thing other than those statues in the middle of town of the gods.

That's not normal, is it?

[shroudedsecrets]

The movies that they do have only seem to represent them in their current form.

[But they're just uncomfortable to watch.]

Everything about this city feels... deliberately arranged. And certain aspects... deliberately forgotten.

[abracafcku]

Right? And they're not-- [He sucks his breath through his teeth.] --great? Not to disparage their efforts, but y'know what I mean, right?

I can kinda get...not wanting to have what you can't have shoved in your face all the time. If they figured they couldn't get their old selves back, maybe they wanted to forget.

Me? Pfft, that sounds like absolute hell, but I could see how... some people might think it's a mercy.

[shroudedsecrets]

It is... a very personal hell that they cannot escape from.

[She'd never really cared before, but everything about it in the here and now makes her skin crawl. Ugh.]

They may have felt compelled not to leave such reminders around that would invoke more regret in them. Even the stories they told at the altar all felt... lacking in such a way.

[abracafcku]

You just kinda...stop caring after awhile, probably. There's that part of it, too. Most people aren't meant to live past an apocalypse after all.

[something which both of them understand, honestly, but he isn't about to say that out loud]

[shroudedsecrets]

[It's why it hits so close to hypothetical home. When so much of existence is dedicated to not being able to care, the return curve is so much more of a staggering blow when it's not erring on the side of having seen so much that nothing disturbs them.

Or being the cause of such things. Thanks, she hates it.]

Perhaps. Even so... if all is to be considered, we were not brought here for them, but for the world itself, according to the will of these... gods.

[abracafcku]

Pfft yeah, but any god worth their salt is gonna want us to fix the whole problem, not just plug up the dam and go about our days.

Unless they mean to keep us here forever and in that case? You know what I'll do to get out of here.

[shroudedsecrets]

It is hard to know what they truly want as yet, beyond the energy we provide them.

[That was the one unshakable fact; anything else was only enough to tally up the guesses, and the variety of possibility within them. One could put together an entire series of boards pointing to all manner of theories for any of the information they held now.]

We have our own goals that must not be jeopardized.

[Getting out of there, together, with their progress, even if all memories might not hold at the destination, but that was a different problem.]