Eighth Crash [Action/Voice]

[broji]

{In today's episode Ginji can be found refilling a metal dish suspended from a tree with seed and peanuts. If you guessed "bird feeder", give yourself ten points! After making sure the feeder's still attached securely to its branch, Ginji will make himself comfortable on the lawn and pull out his journal. He'll sit there for a while, enjoying the fresh air and the milder weather, before starting a new entry.]

Hey everyone. So...what's it like for you back home? Do you come from a large family or a small one? Have you set out on your own or still live with your parents? Got any siblings? Kids?

I'd like to know.

[After the voice post is finished, he'll spend the next few hours watching any animals that might wander over to the feeder and run through a few sketches of different wing shapes.]

Comments

[filtered]

[broji]

No, I don't think so. You're saying people felt they'd grown up with everyone else all along, as one big community?

[filtered]

[seleniahymn]

Yes, it was exactly as you say. Everyone in the village believed we were descendents of the first to inhabit Luceti Valley five hundred years ago, and we were all given memories to match them as we found ourselves part of a family without even questioning it. [There's a brief pause before she continues, but she decides to continue forward with what had happened. It wasn't as though she regretted that time, and she still saw them in that light somehow.]

Ion and I believed ourselves to be the children of Dist and Nephry, and Jade was our uncle.

[filtered] 2/2

[seleniahymn]

[Though now she does pause for several long moments, the faintest of blushes appearing on her face for what she says next.]

... In addition, I believed myself to be married and with five children.

[filtered]

[broji]

[Ffff...] Wow, that's a lot of kids.

And kind of nice, in a way. Bringing everyone together like that.

[Ginji thinks on this for a bit. A whole lifetime of implanted memories and an entirely imagined heritage. There and gone on a whim - despite breaking people down and welding them back together, and possibly even granting them momentary happiness and a sense of belonging.]

...It does make you wonder, though, doesn't it?

[filtered]

[seleniahymn]

What about? [The entire experiment left her with many things to ponder in the aftermath and even now, well over a year later, so she couldn't readily determine exactly what Ginji meant.]

[filtered]

[broji]

You know. Wondering what else is possible...and why it has to be used this way.

[filtered]

[seleniahymn]

Some information says that experiments are conducted by the Malnosso to try to find a way to return home, though other times it is the world itself that does them? Regardless, it can be of great inconvenience.

[...] But at the same time, there are people whom you become close to that you never would have had a Shift not occurred.

[filtered]

[broji]

Bonding through circumstances.

Yeah, I bet I've met at least half of my friends like that.

So, in a way, good things can come from Shifts. But it still doesn't make it okay. I don't know what this world can actually do or about everything that's going on, but the Malnosso's technology is pretty advanced. They could probably conduct their research using just volunteers. Or start a joint project with some of us here. There's no excuse for them experimenting on innocent people; kids.

That's the thing about science. There's usually more than one way to get your results.

[filtered]

[seleniahymn]

So it seems, but who would volunteer for such experiments when the results could vary so drastically? [She hadn't told anyone outright, but she did keep journals she wrote in daily, and seeing the changes from who she usually is to how those Shifts affect her was unsettling, to say the least.]

Would you be willing?

[filtered]

[broji]

[Ginji takes a deep breath and there's a long pause.]



...If it'd keep someone else from having to, then yes. I would.

I'm not saying I'd like it or even that I'd want to, but to help out even a little, I'd do it.

[It just happens not to be the Malnosso he wants to "help out even a little".]

[filtered]

[seleniahymn]

... I don't know if I should call you a fool, or noble. [Despite her words, there's no real bite to the way she had spoken so softly. There was more respect to it than anything.]

But it's brave of you, even if it could be misplaced.