thefarshore | Heaven's BBS

Only one time that I can remember...and that was Russian roulette. But I have reason to believe that I've used guns before, based on my familiarity with the weapon in that instance. Some of my memories were selectively erased while I was alive, and I think it might have been during that time when I handled guns...but obviously, I don't remember it now.

I'm unfamiliar with "Russian roulette".

But let me get to the core of what I'm trying to ask you here.

Are you prepared to take someone's life from them?

Russian roulette is a game where you put one bullet into a revolver, spin the chamber so that you don't know where the bullet is, then put it to your temple and fire it! It's really just a form of gambling. I played it wrong when I did it, though...I left in five bullets instead of one.

As for killing people, I don't mind! I wouldn't necessarily want to kill someone without a good reason, but then I wouldn't be attacking anyone without a good reason anyway. And if it was self-defense, that'd be reason enough, wouldn't it?

It's rarely that clear in practice.

Say that you think you're under attack, and fire a shot before you realize it's a false alarm. You could pull a punch, and most likely get medical attention for a single stab wound, but with a gun, someone could easily be dead before you realize your mistake. Even on the off chance that they survive, a body doesn't really recover from what a bullet does to it.

And even if it's in the defense of your own life, or something else worth protecting, it's important to remember the odds that they'll have been important to someone. The light that you take from their eyes will have been an irreplaceable light in someone's life, and it will be gone because of you.

I'd be a hypocrite to suggest that you shouldn't have a weapon to defend yourself. But if you don't take all of that seriously enough, you don't need to have a weapon that lets you kill so casually.

My, you're very eloquent, aren't you? You could be an Ultimate Author or something! Or maybe an Ultimate Ethics Instructor...?

In any case, I can understand your concern. But really, whether people live or die around me is entirely up to my luck, not whether or not I'm armed. Weapons certainly provide specific outlets for my bad luck, but if I'm unarmed, they're just as likely to get hit by a meteor or a lightning strike as anything else.

Edited 2018-05-31 05:53 (UTC)

Flattering, but it's really just that I've had more than my share of occasion to think about this kind of thing.

You've lost me with all this talk of luck, though. If that's all there is to it, wouldn't luck determine whether you live or die, too? How is there any point in arming yourself in that case?

Oh, I'm already only alive because of my luck as it is. Of course, it's also the thing trying to kill me, too...it's a very double-edged sword that way.

Anyway, I don't much care if I die or not, but dying a meaningless death would just make me even more worthless than I already am! So if I'm armed, I might be able to be of more use. It might have helped me rescue my shinki more easily in the forest, for instance. The question of whether or not I survive really doesn't matter.

You aren't making sense. Luck isn't everything, just a factor to work with or overcome.

At any rate, most of the threats we face here come from ayakashi, at least on the face-to-face level. You do know that weapons besides shinki are all but useless against them, right? Even guns.

For other people that's certainly true, but I have an ultimate talent of my own. And Ultimate Luck...well, it's not much of a talent. The only way I've ever been able to come close to controlling it is if I cause myself enough bad luck that I can cause something good to happen to me to balance it out...but it's just not possible to avoid the bad luck. What I said about lightning strikes and meteors wasn't an exaggeration; those things tend to happen around me. I've killed dozens of people just by being near them when my bad luck takes effect...

That said, I know normal weapons won't do much against ayakashi, but I was hoping they'd at least hinder them a little. It can't be less useful than being unarmed...and, of course, if the kidnappings in the forest demonstrated anything, it's that not all our enemies are ayakashi.

[Hijikata's just going to intentionally ignore all of that "luck" stuff because listen, feeling like it's his fault that people have suffered and died for being in his orbit is kind of a huge trigger for him, and he's just not prepared to go down that conversational path with a stranger under his public name.]

That's been clear for a while now. But the ones I've encountered that don't fall into the ayakashi category...

You'll have a hard time against them with a conventional weapon, too.

Perhaps. But I can't imagine how being less armed or prepared could be more beneficial than otherwise...if something happens to my shinki again, what other options will I have? An ineffective last resort is still better than not having one.

[You and Komaeda might have some things to sympathize over, Hijikata. Perhaps over incredibly strong alcohol. Komaeda copes with his guilt and grief with some look-for-the-silver-lining-to-the-point-of-obsessive-mania, with a suicidal ideation chaser.]

A gun isn't a weapon for simple self defense. I'm not saying don't work to be prepared, or don't arm yourself, I'm saying you might be better off with something that isn't quite so difficult to avoid killing with, if defense is the goal.

[If he's a little insistent, it's because he came from the exact point in history when guns became a Thing in Japanese warfare again and it... it didn't go well for his side. He's seen too many lives snuffed out in an instant, to say nothing of the way Ichimura's brother snapped when he suddenly had a means of killing without putting himself in harm's way, to see nothing of the manic hope in Souji's eyes when he asked, with his body already slipping away and his voice full of false innocence, if he might be given a gun, too...]

[Frankly, his own death is probably only barely in the top 10 awful things he's endured because Guns Make Killing Too Easy.]

Well, as I said, any weapon which requires physical exertion on my part won't work very well...I was terminally ill before I became a god, and while I don't think my disease can kill me like this, my body seems to be locked into a permanently sickly state. I'm rather frail and tire easily...I'd be easily overpowered by just about anyone healthy, and easily tired by a weapon that required swinging or stabbing. I couldn't even manage a bow. And obviously, it's not just a case of training myself to get stronger and more robust...

The only other kind of weapon I could think of that would meet my needs besides a gun would be some kind of flamethrower, and I thought that might be both more dangerous and less humane...to say nothing of the potential environmental hazard. I even considered poisons, but I don't know of any that would be fast-acting enough to prevent my being attacked, any way to deliver the poison without relying on a physical weapon that would leave me open to being overpowered, and that would be any kind of deterrent to ayakashi. No matter how I look at it, a gun seems to be my best option.

Edited 2018-06-01 03:06 (UTC)

[Man, terminal illness, too? This conversation is like the Greatest Hits of Hijikata's Deep and Poorly Healed Traumas.]

Just from cursory searching, I've found a few options aimed at disabling enemies nonlethally without excessive exertion. Sprays that can be aimed at the eyes to temporarily blind an opponent, stun guns and tasers, guns designed to fire tranquilizer darts or other less lethal projectiles. Something like that would likely be easier to get your hands on here than a regular gun, anyway, since the local laws regarding guns are fairly strict.

Someone else suggested those, too...but really, if even conventionally lethal weapons wouldn't be particularly effective against ayakashi, could any of those things be expected to even remotely slow one down? I thought a gun would work best because it might have some limited use against ayakashi, not just more humanoid opponents. At best, I'd have those things to supplement a more serious weapon, or I'd still be helpless against ayakashi without my shinki.

It's rather strange to use the argument that a gun won't be strong enough to use against ayakashi, and therefore isn't worth using, and then suggest weapons that are even less likely to faze them, isn't it?

Thought we were talking about non-ayakashi enemies. I'm telling you, if you're up against ayakashi, all that shit's going to be just as useless.

If you're worried about one shinki not being around, find more shinki to work with. Anything else is just a waste of time against the damned things.

Ah, did I make you angry? You're suddenly much more foul-mouthed than before...

Also, I don't deserve the shinki I already have. He's always worrying about me, and I cause him far too much trouble...and he's at risk being around me, too. I can hardly inflict myself on anyone else in good conscience!

Anyway, isn't it a little worrying to have to rely entirely on our shinki? To depend so thoroughly on the presence of other people? Especially when people randomly disappear from the heavens all the time...I admit I'm mainly doing this so Garry won't have to worry as much, rather than because I'm worried about what might happen to me, but I do have to say that for a worthless person like myself, feeling helpless, too...it's a little too much. I'd like to be able to do at least a little without having to rely on other people.

Besides, I've never really been able to rely on other people being there anyway. Even if they have the best intentions to stick around, my luck tends to remove them.

Angry at you? Not especially. I'm just not particularly convinced that guns aren't more trouble than they're worth, and ayakashi are a nuisance.

I doubt there are any gods out there who really deserve our shinki, least of all anyone who takes for grated that they deserve them. It's good that you're taking your commitment to that shinki seriously, but it's not going to do him any good to run away from having to rely on people. If either of you is going to stay safe from ayakashi, you're going to need each other, and avoiding that won't actually make anything easier on you.

Well, all weapons can certainly be troublesome, especially depending on the hands that they're in. But I'm not saying that guns are a great solution in all situations or anything, after all! I'm just saying like they seem like the best possible solution to my situation, which is pretty unusual in any case.

That said, I wouldn't say we're avoiding relying on each other...if anything, I rely on him too much as it is, which is why I wanted to take the initiative to be able to handle some things without his help. And, of course, after what happened with the forest, having a backup plan if my shinki is unavailable now seems a lot more important than it did before.

Heaven's BBS

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I'm sorry he's Like This

Funnily enough I say that about Komaeda all the time

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cw: suidical ideation mention

cw: same actually, and also general war-is-hell stuff

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