[Text]

[nachetanya]

It's a real nasty oversight of this network that because your full name is on it you can't do vagueposts, isn't it? 🤔 I guess it's more like Facebook that way, but you also can't sock at all either! It means you need to be honest!

🤷🤷🤷

I guess those heart stones make it seem like that's what they want anyway!

So two things, and unrelated, I promise!
1) I'll be 22 on the 17th, but because my best friend isn't on this app, I'm still not sure what I want to do about it all. It feels weird to include her with everyone else or exclude her because she doesn't get why I have mandatory community service now, among other things.

2) Is anyone immortal or immune to swords or something? ♡ It's weird how that's a real question now, isn't it . . .

Comments

[livingimpaired]

I certainly would not consider it extraordinary.
But for such a stirring response, I will say thank you.
I'm at a loss at how I feel about it, and so I'll continue to think of myself first as a restaurant shop owner.

But yes, about your friend, you should do what you want to do.
You may not be able to have the same conversations as you had before, but so what?
There are things friends cannot tell one another, I'm sure.
Wish for what you want to wish.
After all, you can coddle her as much as you want, but that doesn't mean she'll feel any less confused or hurt.

[nachetanya]

She's had to deal with so much of my nonsense since this all started, really! I've refused to hold back too much, and after a certain incident last month...

Well.

It's been hard for everyone. I also can't see my family out of town!

Maybe it's just I'm irritated at it all.

[livingimpaired]

I believe only you consider it nonsense.
If she thought it was too much, she would have cut ties with you.

And it seems like once more your family is separated from you in some way.

It may be that you are irritated.
I believe I mentioned the cure for it earlier.

1/2

[nachetanya]

We will never cut ties from each other. We even have a contract!

[nachetanya]

As for my irritation, there's no helping it . . . Other than to simply not feel or not think about it, I've not been able to call my mom or dad or anyone from back home in months. I've got plenty of family in the city, but that's the other side of having a large family clan! You'd think that'd mean you can write some off and be fine but...

Humans aren't like that, to be philosophical back at you.

[livingimpaired]

A contract, hm?

And, isn't your problem that you're holding everything inside?

So, I'll be plain and say that you've separated yourself once more from your family and kept all your irritation to yourself. No one can help you if no one knows that beneath your smile, you're actually troubled by something.

[nachetanya]

Mmmhm! ♥

But didn't you read my post...? I said honesty! So I'm being honest!

[livingimpaired]

As honest as you can manage, yes.
But no closer to solving anything that is bothering you.

[nachetanya]

Oh, really! Wow, that sounds pretty tragic, someone who can't get any progress at all, even when they're being honest! They'd make a good character for a creepypasta, if you added in monster or some supernatural twist!

[livingimpaired]

Ah, retreating already?
Well. It seems as though I have touched one or two nerves.
I will leave you to your lamentation, then.
The solutions to your irritation is rather simple but the character will indeed die by the monster.
Unfortunate.
If only the character remembered that they were actually more a cog and not a singularity.

[nachetanya]

People aren't cogs, I'm afraid. A character can be, that's something that ensures that the end of the story comes (in this case, being killed by the monster!), but the individual has much more agency than just that.

Singularity, though! I thought our genre was more urban fantasy than scifi.

[ Retreating??? Not hardly. ]

[livingimpaired]

Perhaps.
But I'm afraid that our individual seems to be more of a cog.
I've yet to see much agency.
They seem quite content with just going with the machine and occasionally sticking here and there, before returning to move the machine along.
So until anything changes, a cog is a cog that thinks themselves as something else.

I don't recall agreeing to that. :)

[nachetanya]

Okay, Mr. Narrator! What sort of position do you have, defining the genre?

[livingimpaired]

Being the narrator, apparently.

[nachetanya]

The narrator has even less agency than a cog, though. The cogs at least have an illusion that hey rebel against, or some life that they simulate! The narrator's the mouthpiece of the creator (oh! God! Priest? Haha! ♥ ) who's only there to try to make sure the viewer is following it right.

[livingimpaired]

Then, I am not deciding the genre, but merely correcting.

[nachetanya]

Precisely. But it also means you don't have unique insight.

[livingimpaired]

Oh. I wouldn't say that, Natalia Fairweather.

The cogs have no idea what the story is or where it is going, and the viewer has to be entertained and enlightened. What I know is beyond what either party knows, even if I am but a mouthpiece.

[nachetanya]

Not so!

I wouldn't say the narrator has any *insight*, only knowing to say what they're commanded to say. If anything, it's the most subservient position.

[livingimpaired]

Well, thankfully, then, my purpose is decided by the creator.

If I am the most subservient, I can't say that is a poor position to be in. Since my fate is decided and sealed; I need not worry about nor shudder against the machine that I am part of. I'm in the most comfortable and confident place.

And the cog's opinion of my insight is what it is.

But all the same, as amusing as the conversation has become, it isn't going anywhere. The narrator departs now and allows the cog to continue to get stuck in the machine before starting up, again.

I wish her luck in finding her own agency and solution, since she doesn't like what was commanded to be said.

[ PEACE. He's out. ]

[nachetanya]

[ Well good.

she wins then. ]