URGENT: HELP US FEED A LIZARD (NOT CLICKBAIT!!!)

[lipochrome]

[ The video opens on a close-up shot of a lizard’s face. Its eyes are unfocused and unblinking. Its jaw is slack. Sometimes, a tongue flops out, and a hand reaches out to shove it back in.

Without warning, the camera DRAMATICALLY zooms out to reveal Kaworu, holding up a large, floppy lizard. This lizard is literally the size of him. Bigger even, if you include the length of its tail]

Okay, Kaworu! [ A very loud, very enthusiastic woman’s voice. ] You’re up! Time to tell everyone about this extremely important mission! Don’t – Kaworu, come on, you have to hold him up, like we practiced.

[ This is interrupted by some unfortunately shaky camera work. ]

Shinji-kun. His name is Shinji-kun and he’s heavy. You should give me the camera instead.

We don’t know what to feed Shinji-kun. He has little interest in eating even though we’ve had him for months now. It’s odd, most creatures, especially basic ones like him, are driven by the need to eat to survive, yet we can’t find anything that he desires. So far we’ve tried… buttered noodles, rice, cereal, marshmallows, grass, leaves…

What else Gideon?

Dried fruit, protein shakes, nice words written on paper notes, my blood, Kaworu’s blood, a rat we found in the backyard one time, bones. You know, regular animal foods.

[ Gideon shrugs, and the camera moves up and down with it. Professionalism!! ]

We know there was this whole baking competition or whatever going down, so, you know, if any of you want to bake a lizard treat we’d buy you lunch or whatever in exchange. Or just tell us how to feed this lizard.

[ Please!! Help! ]

( ooc: Gideon is in red and Kaworu is in blue. Shinji the lizard is undead, but the two of them have no idea. They just love their re-animated lizard a lot and want the best for him.)

Comments

[unsheathedfromreality]

A far wiser Disciple than I told me once that we often come to worse grief escaping what's intended for us than we would seeing it through. I don't know it always holds, but wish you wisdom and some measure of peace in your efforts.

It's well that you are there for them. But sometimes we serve best by holding enough in reserve that we can continue to help them in the future, rather than spending all we've got at every opportunity.

It isn't a balance I've mastered. [Lest anyone accuse him of unexamined hypocrisy (but then, he's also dead).]

[justoscar]

[Oscar felt like he had been perceived-- in a way that was wholly different from others and their literal glimpse into his person and soul. This felt more like a theme, and the words of someone who knew this path far too well.

For a moment he wondered if this mysterious bird knew what he had done to get to the place he was now. And, how his plea to the others in the Dream may have resulted in the death of a child. ]

You remind me of someone who chose not to be here because of his own reasons. I don't know them fully, but he understood what a 'fate worse than death' meant.

I'll do my best to remember this, Sir. All this time, I've just been trying to be Me.

... Maybe I'm trying too hard.

[unsheathedfromreality]

He seems very wise. I hope, in this instance, I do not get to meet him and he is allowed whatever peace he chose. [He is guessing, on the basis of the egg ritual, this is one of Deerington's original Sleepers, and sends an absent prayer to Mariana on the man's behalf.]

It may be you are. Who we are is as much a product of those around us and the circumstances we are given to live. To construct some vision of ourselves too willfully can pull us away from that.

Though your circumstances are unusually extreme, I admit.

[And his own experience with something remotely analogous would not be a good guide on how to proceed.]

[justoscar]

It's still more common than it has any right to be.

[He thought of the multiple conversations he had on the matter of becoming over the last two years, and still found the fact that others even understood what this was unnerving. The fact that there was one iteration was bad enough. But, a handful? Stories of an entire town becoming that which they were not?

It was chilling to think about.]

I guess everything really can be like a story. Since lots of stories can have similar plots and similar patterns, I really shouldn't be that surprised that people from other worlds get it.

No one has a good answer, either.

So. I admit, I'm being selfish with my choices. I just want to be able to make them at this point.

If I can't promise anything for the long term, I want to at least help how I can.