deernet | un: timaeusTestified | text

Yup.

(This is the Worst Subject Ever!)

My conception was bizarre and uncommon. I was not born. Yes, technically created and put through some bullshit time thing and wound up in a place well after all that shit happened.

Tabris?

[...Yeah this is pretty awful.

What IS with Trench and attracting people who'd been created by weird science for dodgy reasons!!]

You have my sympathy for that. I also have more questions about it if they wouldn't be a burden on you.

Kaworu. Tabris is his use-name for the Omnis. I'm more accustomed to it.

[Dumbass bird didn't even ask for the kid's human name before straight up adopting him.]

Go ahead and ask.

Ah gotcha. The angel boy. He seems nice. I feel bad for him though. That kind of forced existence is torture usually. Psychologically speaking.

How much of humanity was left by the time you were

By the time you arrived I suppose would be most correct?

He is, and eager to learn. As you saw.

Yes. You can see the marks of it on him, though he also reasons differently from mortals.

[Or so Tabr--Kaworu said. ...Tabris said.]

None. I was the last human male. My friend was the last human female. We were not in the same area. The friends I made contact with were from the past by at least four centuries.

Yeah, most creatures like him tend to be sponges. He will be easy to corrupt if the right people don't keep an eye on him.

Yeah, he does, which is probably a good thing.

[He listens to that first part.

He listens to that first part again, and sets down his Omni, and puts his face in his hands.

The fear of extinction that haunts all elves is graven so deep in him that an echo of the pattern and its similitude to the shrikes' situation hurts.]

Saints and stars. I

[...]

I realize that was all you'd ever known but I'm sorry. Inadequate as that is for the death of humanity.

[This is actually broken into two messages because it takes him a good minute to reorient on the other thread of conversation.]

I do try, as much as I can keep an eye on anything. Thankfully I'm not alone.

It may well be. Remains to be seen how he does over time.

You feel a certain kinship for him?]

(Dirk tried not to think about it too much. But it also consumed his mind more than he would ever care to admit. He liked to believe himself in complete control of his emotions, of his head, but he had been agonizingly lonely growing up as any normal person would be. He was agonizingly lonely now.

And he was starved for interaction and attention. He was starved for a life he never would have had a chance to live until coming to this place.

He's never talked to this many people before. He's never been in a city full of actual humanoid beings capable of maintaining conversations and holding opinions. The consorts were cute and so were the other kingdoms, but they weren't...

It was never the same.

He forgets to respond, drifting from his mind and somewhere else to his dreams, seeing if this place had a sleeping city too. It did not, but he does coast through a dream space and finally remembers to come back down to himself.

He's glad to see only twenty minutes had passed.)

Thank you. I appreciate that. It might be all I have ever known, but I know what it should have been like.

(He wasn't going to explicitly say it bothered him, but he felt that would suffice in getting the point across.)

I do sometimes wonder what kind of person I would have been if I was raised in a normal society. I don't think I would have been a good one.

(He wasn't a good one now. And Dirk from Dave's timeline was a terrible person. He starts to drift again, but pulls himself back. This conversation was important.)

That is good.

I suppose I do. I think I yearn for masculine connections and have an affinity for brotherly bonds.

[Illarion's good at reading between the lines and the meaning behind silences. It did suffice; it didn't do to belabor a point that painful unless there was something to gain from it, in healing or in knowledge.

His role, here and now, is not to seek the latter; and he doesn't know this young man nearly well enough to offer the former. Not yet.]

You are welcome.

Trench may not be an ideal second home, but she's taught her people to be welcoming of exiles and the lonely. Even the newest Sleepers. [Which was to say, obliquely, they'd be there for him.]

What makes you think so?

[Illarion's long since fallen off the "good person" wagon as far as he's concerned. Whether or not that was a true and valid evaluation.]

Having been deprived of it so long, no wonder! Like a starving man set before a feast.

Though that's meant without the fangs. Hunger's natural.

(Dirk would no doubt argue that he wasn't someone who could be healed, but he was in some ways still a bit dramatic and had the tendency to err towards depression and pessimism.

But this guy was nice to talk to. He listened well and Dirk moved him to the front of his roster as far as people worth staying in touch with.)

It doesn't seem like such a bad city. Some of the fashion is cool. And I like being near the ocean. Plus, it seems like it's full of total smokeshows.

(AKA you, Illarion.)

Because I've seen other renditions of myself from other timelines such as one where I did grow up in society. I was a very abusive and callous person towards my brother.

I can't imagine abusing him now, but I look at how I have treated others, and I am not so sure I know what being non-abusive even looks like. Sometimes I'm not sure if I really even care if I'm a good person or not.

(He got used to making the ugly sacrifices no one else wanted to make, after all.)

But then sometimes being evil seems like the easy route. I don't know.

Yes, that's an apt metaphor. Unfortunately, I don't think my fangs are retractable.

[There was a reason Illarion had Argonaut's patronage, even if he'd never believe it if it were explained to him.

Sometimes "hope" looked an awful lot like stubborn insistence on finishing what you'd started without any expectation it would work. Including helping other people.]

It's my abiding regret I can't see any of it the way it's meant to be. But the fashion definitely is "cool".

[The variety of veils on offer as much as anything.]

And I'm sure, sight unseen, you fit right in with the rest of the lookers here.

[Confidence by itself is awfully sexy.]

I'm used to advising people not to let their maybes consume them, since it's easy to think of how we could be worse. Or better.

But having seen your maybes in the flesh seems a terrible burden to bear.

Do you know how that version of yourself came to be who he was?

[Sometimes evil seems like the easy route. Too true.

Too true, also, that making the ugly sacrifices could turn into horror.]

We'd live in a very different world if good was the easy route. Too complicated and too full of pain to avoid causing more if we live thoughtlessly.

You seem anything but thoughtless. That's at least a start.

Neither are ours. You learn how to be careful with what you bite, growing up with them, but it helps to have teachers.

[Don't be too hard on yourself.]

Do you like things being described to you or does that seem pointless and condescending?

I hope I stand out among them. Who wants to blend in.

I'm not entirely positive. I had conversations with Dave about it from time to time, and it seemed like perhaps that version of myself got off on the power he had in a weak society. I'm better suited to extreme situations rather than domestic ones. I think it was like trying to keep a feral wolf in a cozy four-bedroom home in the suburbs. That sounds dramatic and stupid, but I think it's true.

It's a theory anyway.

That's a valid point. Especially when you exist in a strange reality like this where things like monsters and corruption need to be accounted for. It makes it harder to see what is morally "Good" or "Bad" with the grey areas.

I try.

(Sincerely. He didn't like to be an idiot about anything.)

It could help to practice biting you.

(And a swing back to the seductive side of the conversation because that's waaaay easier than emotions!)

[...That's not a question anyone's asked him before. In fact--]

No one's ever offered to do that for me. Don't have the first idea how I'd feel about it. Mind describing yourself so I can learn?

It isn't as stupid as you think. We, my people, have seen it many many times over the years. There are women and some men who aren't suited to anything but the front lines. Can't feel alive unless they're in a battle or a crisis. We would never pull their fangs and ask them to be anything but what they are, even if we all wish it weren't necessary to have them.

Some mortal societies understand that. What to do with their born warriors. Others believe a person can be cut and beat to fit any shape that's made for her. Little wonder so many of them go wrong.

[Locusts. He remembers Locusts. She was like that, too.]

When are you most alive?

[And then a low huffing laugh escapes him. They are cutting close to bone.]

It could. I shriek very prettily if someone bites me hard enough.

Like, my physical appearance I assume?

(They can both be on wobbly footing. He's never really described himself to anyone before. He knew that's what he had been entailing with his question but welp. Action meet consequence.)

Natural born fighters. It's actually reassuring to hear that. This place kind of freaks me out with the potential for calm. Some fucked up part of me hopes that there are as many terrible things as people say there are.

Is your society primarily run by the females of it? I am mostly asking because humanity has a tendency to generalize everyone with he/him pronouns and I have noticed you tend to use she/her pronouns. It might mean nothing, but I'm curious anyway. For humanity, it was sort of a sexist thing.

(Wow.

Okay, yeah. That's a question. How does he even...He stares blankly at a wall for a second, and something comes to mind, but he buries it back down immediately. He is not saying that.)

Never. I just exist.

(It's not true, but it's the simplest answer that didn't make him feel too raw and exposed.)

I do love a screamer :) You'll have to forgive me for being the more quiet type.

That's the one. Of course I'm equally interested in other self-descriptions, but I've already got a grasp on who you are, and who you say you are.

Your looks, alas, elude me still.

[Though he could simply ask for a picture back and have Iskierka look at it for him.

That somehow felt like either cheating or capitulating. He's not sure which yet.]

Guaranteed there are more than they say they are. The locals, the Trenchies, keep quiet about some of the threats out of respect for what might be listening. They'll tell you what to do about them, and you should do what they say, but they won't always tell you what's coming.

More's the pity.

Which is to say that is fucked up but I understand it. Much the same way myself now. [Now.]

"Run by" isn't what I'd call it. We all have a hand in running society. But women lead more often than men. They're larger than we are, quicker into fights but also steadier at judging when to fight. She who defends the nest rules the world, and all that.

I don't know quite what you mean by "sexist," but if you're thinking by analogy to human societies where women are no more than pretty baubles the men fight over, it isn't the reverse of that. I still have to do all the fighting over women WHILE being pretty. 🙁 What a treat if they fought over me. I'd ruin my makeup less that way.

To be less flip, men fight and work alongside women. We're generals and Warlords and even Princes. Though women still have the final word in bearing children and founding a line. Mothers are the best judges of that.

Most of the time. [His own is extremely excepted.

Also wound him further, Dirk, why don't you.

There isn't really a good response to that answer. Not talking at this distance.

So:]

Same.

[This is surreal, switching between the mask and the face so freely. Realizing someone else is doing the same thing and playing along with that rhythm.]

The strong, silent type? Human men wear that one so well.

Edited (minor text fixes) 2021-12-04 08:09 (UTC)

Okay. So. (Why does he feel nervous!! He's not even insecure about his looks. This just somehow felt more intimate than taking a picture.)

I'm 6'0 with pale skin and platinum color hair which pretty much looks white. It's natural. I keep it styled in spikes. I wear pointy sunglasses all the time. I have orange eyes. Also natural. I work out a lot, which you can confirm if you ever touch me, so I'm muscular but not massive with muscle.

I have a tattoo of a dumb smiley face on my arm. I have some scars on my hands and body from when I was younger but they are mostly pale now. I get freckles when I stay out too long in the sun. I have a straight nose and jawline.

My dick is massive and my asshole is waxed & bleached. It is known to some as the Promised Land.

(And perfect way to end that. He was suffocating from the sincerity for a second there.)

When we meet you can feel all that out to confirm.

I can kind of get where they are coming from. It's like jinxing a bad situation. Could be that if they told us too much, worse might happen, and there is always the slim possibility that what they are afraid of won't happen. Cosmic powers are rarely predictable and the Pthumerians seem both powerful and intelligent. Dangerous combo. Though not dangerous enough that society has been choked out, so they can't be too bad. These people seem content enough with their lives.

Or they might just be jaded. If it's all they know.

I see. Interesting. Obviously, I did not grow up in traditional human society, but I know about its issues from the past. Sexism seemed rampant. It was a lot deeper than that I believe. People tended to try and argue that women were completely lesser in every way. Fucked up. But human society had a lot of fucked up systemic issues. I'm not too sad to have missed it sometimes.

So children are important to your kind. Can only women have children?

(God, he is so glad for that.)

Yeah, pretty much.

Also I'm still not that used to actually talking to others. Even when I did talk to my friends, it was primarily through text communication.

(He's not saying he's shy about talking out loud but he's shy about talking out loud.)

[He closes his eyes--not that it changes anything--and settles more comfortably where he's perched to listen to the description he's given. There's a kind of nostalgia to it--in the time before photography, his agents often simply had to describe a person of interest to him. After years of it his specific imagination for people had gotten good enough to approximate a reasonable portrait.

Death and disuse hadn't put too much dust on it; he can still build up a simulacrum of Dirk before his mind's eye. Muscular, taller than him, thicker of limb like all humans are, but he's even almost of sensible coloration. Sure, you'd see a little blood through his skin, but almost...

What someone chose to exclude or include in a description was often as informative as the thing itself. Doubly so for a self-description. This one is curiously factual, without much of the elaboration one would expect from someone with such an aggressive verbal display.

Well, until the last two lines. He snorts--surprise, dim amusement--and waves away the mental image after filling in one of those details.

Masks and veils. Given he'd grown up with only one other person to practice on, Dirk's deft enough with his to be very interesting. And the flaws in his performance ached distantly to witness.]

I can, can I? All of it, on our very first meeting? I might need to take the rest of the day off and skip ahead of the other pilgrims you're lining up.

[He's got a hunch about something. Let them see where it went...]

Exactly that. They remind me of my own people in that way and many others. A proper respect even reverence for the powers of the world that they cannot control. And recognize they can't control. They do better than mere survival with it. Even the practical ones.

That relationship to their gods is a complex one. You know they credit one of the Pthumerians for their continued existence even?

They weren't aren't pardon me, ours are still alive, all gratitude to Generation, alone in that. Evil is easy and good is hard for everyone, mortal or elf, though we tell ourselves it's easier for them to get trapped by their own short-sightedness. Some of those fucked-up systemic things had a survival benefit for the societies they started in, but they've long outgrown the need of their systems and don't realize it yet.

They are very, very important. [So important they broke their own immortality for more and hadn't regretted it.] They are our hope and future.

And if you mean, are we like the dwarves where anyone can sire or bear a child but some call themselves women, no. If you mean, are we like the orcs where "woman" and "female" go together as often as not, also no, though we have a few spirits among us born in bodies opposite their sex. Otherwise, only women have children.

That's so? Another reason to continue in your preferred method.

Though I like your voice. [snoopers be snooping] Don't know if it's the way the blood magic renders you, but you've got an accent like a low-plains sparrow. Feels a little like home.

[~~yes they have texas elves~~]

un: timaeusTestified | text | Birthday Boy

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cw: child abuse

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cw: suicidal thoughts/depression/mental health

dirk.....

sad boys club (cw: ...explicit nsfw jokes)

depression & dongs, just a normal conversation, cw: kinda tribal view of gender