007. Text // shoot here and the world gets smaller

[manufactured]

This month certainly has been interesting so far, hasn't it. Joanne - I know you're not going to reply, dear heart, but you might want to place a moratorium on calling things "exciting" for the next short while, seeing as apparently it just curses the entire situation.

Though perhaps I'm biased in some way; after all, my body doesn't exactly play nicely with fire anymore.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not one for bolstering one's spirit; either you'll find your own fortitude in times like this or you won't, and bluntly put the direction you choose to take is of very little consequence to me. However, that isn't to say that it doesn't hold my interest; whether you've run screaming into the flames or avoided them, my question is one of progress. Not physical, as I have no doubt that we'll receive updates on whether what we're doing is truly enough or not – but rather internal.

Consider it a question of morale, I suppose. How we're holding up, how things are looking for the days to come. Whether we all hate ourselves a little less, if that's the sort of thing you have to report.

If nothing else, it seems an acceptable concern to have at the moment.

[...That is literally the most stilted "how is everyone doing, hope you're all having a happy crisis and not literally dying in a fire" that has ever been written, but you know what, it's going to have to work for now.]

Comments

[frostythehitman]

i guess not
not much point in hiding it when all the reasons worth doing that are on some other dead world

[manufactured]

Of course.

In my own case, I also believe it to be only fair to allow people to know, given how objectionable my past deeds tend to run.

[frostythehitman]

even though you're not actually him and didn't actually do those things?

[ Which is a bit of a devil's advocate question--James doesn't fully believe it himself but he wants to hear how Albert would respond. ]

[manufactured]

That gets into the philosophical side of things, I think, which has never been my area of expertise.

So before I respond with my own thoughts, I suppose my question to you is this: if we suppose for a moment that all of the soul business that everyone is talking about is entirely legitimate and true, then we possess the same ontological makeup as those individuals that we apparently used to be. If I'm ontologically the same person as the individual that did all these things - if I possess his soul and recall his memories and have shared in his emotional experiences - then can it really be said that I didn't do those things? Maybe I didn't at this point in time. But can it be said that I truly never did?

Where do we draw the line between "him" and "me", to put it another way.

[frostythehitman]

yeah that's about where i'm at with it
some people [ cough TOGUSA cough ] keep saying we're not the people we remember, we're totally different but idk
if i'm the one who has to remember and live with this shit i might as well have actually done it
and besides i don't think i get to play the 'it's not me' card
not after some of the shit i've done for real

[manufactured]

I haven't carried out any actions that are similar to the ones I'm remembering, but that's... Well, it would be incredibly obvious if I had, let's put it that way.

But I can't say that I haven't noticed recurrent urges and thought patterns coming up from time to time, either. So I find it difficult to say that we're entirely different people.