Orihime and Hikoboshi (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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thefarshore2019-02-15 11:00 pm
starfestival) wrote in thefarshore2019-02-15 11:00 pm
Video from Orihime
From: Orihime
Date: April 8th 2017 (Morning)
[ Rise and shine early birds! There's a prim-looking young woman who is smiling broadly and doing her darndest to contain herself as she speaks formally to all who will listen. She is well-dressed enough, but her hair is completely down. ]
Good morning, all who dwell in the Far Shore! I must speak with you about an urgent matter - and so I resolved to use this device once more, to the best of my ability.
[ She holds up a single finger. ]
I have just learned that the regular training scheduled to engage with new gods would be in service of one new god! So I have made the following bargain with Amaterasu-sama -- that I would personally speak with and train this new god in the ways of the Far Shore in exchange for a holiday excursion for all who would join us! I just... could not stand idly by after you all worked so hard and dealt such a blow to those who threatened us!
[ She lowers her hand. ]
There is just one small problem...
[ She looks expectantly up once more, a resigned sort of smile there. ]
I do not know all of you as well as I would like! So if I were to bring a suggestion or two for such an excursion before Amaterasu-sama, I do not know what that should be! I have... certainly never been able to consider such things myself, so I would not be a good person to decide for all of you.
Therefore, would you do me the favor of telling me: where do you consider a beautiful place to travel to and relax? Perhaps a place that is better suited to entertainment? I heard of a place called Capypa Land...
[ She shakes her head. ] This is not about me. [ And calms herself again. ]
Unfortunately we do not have much time, so please-!!
[ She bows her head, a little awkwardly since she's holding the phone. ]
[[ OOC Plotting Post is over here! ]]
Date: April 8th 2017 (Morning)
[ Rise and shine early birds! There's a prim-looking young woman who is smiling broadly and doing her darndest to contain herself as she speaks formally to all who will listen. She is well-dressed enough, but her hair is completely down. ]
Good morning, all who dwell in the Far Shore! I must speak with you about an urgent matter - and so I resolved to use this device once more, to the best of my ability.
[ She holds up a single finger. ]
I have just learned that the regular training scheduled to engage with new gods would be in service of one new god! So I have made the following bargain with Amaterasu-sama -- that I would personally speak with and train this new god in the ways of the Far Shore in exchange for a holiday excursion for all who would join us! I just... could not stand idly by after you all worked so hard and dealt such a blow to those who threatened us!
[ She lowers her hand. ]
There is just one small problem...
[ She looks expectantly up once more, a resigned sort of smile there. ]
I do not know all of you as well as I would like! So if I were to bring a suggestion or two for such an excursion before Amaterasu-sama, I do not know what that should be! I have... certainly never been able to consider such things myself, so I would not be a good person to decide for all of you.
Therefore, would you do me the favor of telling me: where do you consider a beautiful place to travel to and relax? Perhaps a place that is better suited to entertainment? I heard of a place called Capypa Land...
[ She shakes her head. ] This is not about me. [ And calms herself again. ]
Unfortunately we do not have much time, so please-!!
[ She bows her head, a little awkwardly since she's holding the phone. ]
[[ OOC Plotting Post is over here! ]]
no subject
Especially for a temple this size, it makes sense the blessed water source is directed through plumbing. From what I've gathered from everyone's stories, the source depends. Some go the modern route of plumbing, some go the natural water source dunking route. Personally, with all the temples I've been through, I prefer the hot shower or bath route.
Look at you, moving up in their good graces! Maybe I'll go through you the next time I need a fashion favor.
I feel like borderlines are second-nature now. I barely feel the strain these days unless I'm really trying to hold something back.
I've heard about some of the methods of mana transfers. Definitely not a thing you ask about with an arrangement. Though I don't know how much I could help, but in a pinch? Feel free to ask me.
no subject
... I think Iskandar prefers the dunking route. And the cold water route. I usually shower after him and there's plenty of hot water if I want it. Not so with Satya. ... which is fine, as I go cold for the hair.
[Also for wandering Greek Gods in towels. He has forgotten, but this is an improvement over the status quo.]
They're eager for people with taste, interest in history and tradition, and an eye for style. Maybe it was meant to be. Honestly though... I think they both will do anything for something to really exercise their skills.
Huh. I haven't noticed yet a taper in strain. Maybe more time.
You know? I'd ask... but... I'm not sure I want that answer. Anyway, I'll keep that in mind.
no subject
To each their own. Sometimes when I'm pulling an all-nighter, I like to finish my bath with a plunge in the cold bath. Wakes you right up.
No wonder; I only hit one of those requirements. I'm glad you're helping out though. They're fond of you.
Probably. All things with time and practice. You're coming into your second month, right?
[Hmph. Don't make it sound so questionable. Though it's good he ask more; it's no secret, but the past is embarrassing.]
no subject
I'm fond of them too.
Yes. Second month. It's gone by fast.
[Some of the methods are questionable though. He doesn't need Mental Images.]
no subject
Sure does when things keep happening. Possible beach vacation is a good way to start the second month.
Holding up okay though?
no subject
... I'm terrorized at the thought of what I'd find if I Youtubed Iskandar.
Can't say things are great. I lost a friend very recently and her doll was at the compound. That entire experience was challenging and brought out pieces of myself I'm still coming to grasp with. Combat brings out a lot of conflicting things in me.
Then there's the whole shinki adjustment period. It's... not going smoothly, though does it ever?
no subject
Here, I did it for your. First result. For science!
I'm sorry. For your loss and for seeing her doll. I get that feeling too. In the months I've been dealing with the cultists, I've learned a lot about myself. It's not all great. Mostly not great.
Having pooled opinions at the temple, the first few months is always the hardest. Years even. Moreso if god changes were involved. You're lucky to have that bit of stability, but it doesn't mean the rest is any easier.
If nothing else, you're doing far better than I did. I was a complete mess.
[Still am in some ways.]
Vent if you need to. Doesn't have to be now, but you always have an open line to me.
no subject
... a valid concern. Maybe in trying to fix a mistake of man, I'd birth a true horror. But then again, it's 'Troy'. Some things just must be challenged despite the consequences. A miracle is also possible.
[A long pause.]
Ever feel like what you've been made to be conflicts with what you really are in regards to this?
1/2
The only way to find out is to drink more bottles. Embrace the energy drinks. Unlease your true power.
2/3
(It can be channeled in constructive ways. She can build and support, she can create good news. But doubt can eat away so easily in the dark of night.)
The new generation, the old generation, there are differences. Sometimes she wants to ask if anyone else feels incompatible. She's afraid of what might happen if she does.]
I don't know, to be honest.
I know what I know, I know what I didn't know when I first arrived. The skills I had versus the skills I was lacking versus what everyone else knew. I wasn't compatible with my first god either so for a very long time, I felt purposeless.
Sad as it sounds, being a tool I never had an issue with. It felt right. Follow orders, serve my god, be a good shinki, I didn't question it because I desperately wanted to be useful. Like I said, I was a mess.
3/3
You've met some of the other shinki. You know they work hard but take care of their own. I'm grateful to them in my first month at this temple. I also know they were making sure I didn't self-destruct and take any of them or Ebisu down too.
[She's see it happen, how fast a shinki can take down their god if things fester and they don't know. Of how fast a shinki can turn into an ayakashi if untethered.]
Ebisu told me why shinki don't have memories. Why we turn ayakashi if they get memories back. It's because the dead can't be a part of the world of the living. That cut off from the life they had, it's damaging to the soul. Jealousy, anger, the emotions grow and break down the barriers.
So being without memories is a second chance, I guess. A new life.
I get it. I want it to be true. But it doesn't work that way for our generation, does it. I know I didn't die in this world because the contextual clues I have don't match. I know what I can do versus what I can.
I guess I spend a lot of time wondering if I deserve this second life because of what I know. Or if maybe being a tool is really all I can be.
Sorry. I'm not sure if any of that made sense or answered your question.
no subject
I lived, Ginia. I can't recall a thing, but based on my scars and my reactions and my nightmares, it marked me deeply and painfully. But I lived and if I were to guess, it was also very full. And it's over and I'm not longing for it. I don't feel like I'm meant to be with the mortal crowd anymore.
Perhaps I was ready to pass to what's next. Or prepared. Who can say.
I am not my memories, even though their loss does frustrate greatly at times. This is just not the next I'm supposed to be.
And... I'm much too insightful to make anyone comfortable. I see much more than any god would like me to see, and see more than I would ever let on to them. My mind, my senses, the very way I can see and break down magic - the core traits of me are set against the core things needed to preserve a shinki's life. Don't dwell, don't look. Don't think.
Was told my first day I was practically guaranteed the fall. Warned multiple times about something that was just a part of me as effortless as breathing. A fall nearly happened some hours later, though it was an unrelated accident and the person just asked the wrong thing. It left its marks just the same.
They're dangerous. But those are the things needed to avoid the fall as well. Ignorance is just as dangerous as obsession and knowledge for me. So I try to focus it best I can and pray for the rest as I walk the rope aware, listening to myself to try to sense the trouble spots.
... but I guess that's true of shinki life in many facets. A catch 22. We've lost many things, and not only our pasts. We can't dwell, but if we ignore it, our pasts and all the rest come for us instead. For me, I try to acknowledge those things and grieve them as they come. They are important and essential, never meant to be given up because they are indications of our humanity, but we must do so anyway. It is okay to be not okay. Denial is worse.
Also I fantasize about having a death match with the one who put all this shinki shit in motion. It comforts me because I see so many people in pain, shinki and God both, and this is slowly breaking down so damn many and I hate it.
I would answer Lord Ebisu that second chances are subjective and to be careful of wishes in general. If they are granted ignorant of the person's true desire, then they become curses eventually and yes, there will be a fall. That and everyone is an individual and different. Not everyone longs for mortality, like I... but if it must be the same end... perhaps there is a little more to the story than that.
As for us... that is subjective as well. And ultimately doesn't matter for you. The question is: what do you want? What is your true desire?
We can't be shinki like the old ones. That much is true. Maybe we can't be shinki at all in some cases and must become something new.
I want to be useful too though. When I'm angry, a lot of my thoughts center around worth. What's it compared to others and proving it. Of course I'm worthy. But in the quieter moments and ones of praise and acknowledgement, there's the doubt. Really? I deserve to be here? ... sometimes it's am I wanted here? Do you want me?
It's a little voice whispering and doesn't shut up no matter how I try to gore it. It must have got past my defenses young. When I didn't have any. I recognize when it's being done to others now.
It's our own personal ayakashi wanting to take us over. I think it's pissed I don't care for the fangs and claws makeover, personally. Tacky.
I can tell you deserve this a thousand times. I can tell you you deserve even better than this. We all deserve better. But it won't be true for you or for me until we fight and take that understanding for ourselves.
Which is hard. We're not supposed to dwell. But we can't not dwell either. So we have to find the third way.
... and it's my turn to apologize. I'm a rambler, apparently.
no subject
Ginia blinks at her coworker through her tears, on the cusp of shaking her head 'no' before she throws on a reflexive smile, locks her computer, grabs her purse, and flees toward the nearest bathroom, too fast for anyone to stop. Her makeup isn't smudged - Natsumi's brand suggestions are never wrong - but Ginia feels the urge to strip all her makeup off and start anew.
If only life were as simple. If only bringing a soul into a shell was enough. If only stripping away memories and leaving the rest behind was enough. If only.
If only.
But it isn't because they're trying to fit into a system that cannot bend enough to make space for them. That they come in with their bodies, names already remembered and given, soul brought into the shell of flesh by their own being is already an insult to the system, a system that insists it is a god who brings a shinki to form, names them and turns them whole. A system that insists a shinki serves one god, without question, without fail, to serve as a moral compass and yet... Ginia's heard the stories from her coworkers. Of gods who released their shinki after the very first sting. Who demanded complete obedience and cast off anyone that did not meet their standards. It's a system that praises the strength of a god for having so many shinki while damning a shinki for serving more than one god.
Shizuki. Shuuki. Saki. Ritsuki. Hatsuki.
Migaku. Jitsumi. Hanatsu.
Ginia.
So many names for one person. She is Ginia, for better or worse. Whatever worth she has can only be found by herself. Her own damned, broken self, but even she recognizes it's not the most charitable thought.
What do you want? What is your true desire?
What does she want? Ginia grips the counter and leans on it, exhaling slowly. Is figuring that out the secret to understanding herself? Of coming to peace with everything?
Things change. The world is in a constant state of flux, sometimes in increasingly fast ways, other times in slower ways. What she wanted in her first month is different from what she wants now. But things flow so much slower in Takamagahara, where what is and will be is near unchanging.
They are opposing clocks, running against each other, threatening the system and everything around them.
It is change. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Growth and reconstruction can come out of it, assuming there's anyone left to rebuild.
Ginia wipes away her tears, touches up her makeup, fixes her hair and her clothes. Her coworkers aren't so obvious to hover directly outside the bathroom door, but if someone happens to be checking their text messages a few feet away, if a few people have moved to the empty desks surrounding her cubicle just because...Ginia manages a truer smile at the slight shift in things. They care. Mi. Many. They are a temple, a family, they have to watch out for each other when no one else will.]
Someone once suggested with how easily our generation can change between roles, that perhaps the differences between god and shinki are slight. There are other things that support that idea. But there is no denying we are so different from the old generation and trying to work within their rules is not a system that works for us.
I knew a shinki that died and returned a god. Speaking to her after, she was relieved to be a god, that being a shinki was a curse she was glad to be freed from. I think there are some people better suited as god than shinki. I think there are some people better suited as shinki than god. This is not a judgment or indictment on anyone. But it's possible this system has... missorted people. Or perhaps people cannot be so easily categorized.
That is perhaps the greatest difference of our generation. We are still deeply rooted in our humanity, gods and shinki. We are not of this world and cannot fit into its mold.
Survive for no sake than your own, Waver, for whatever method it might take. You have my support, however I can give it. You deserves answers. You deserve better.
[And if you die, may you find peace in dying as yourself.]
If you find whoever created this system, let me know. I'm eager to throw a punch or two myself.
no subject
It's the other things that have him hesitating. Mainly relating to the fangs and claws. The intimacies of the one way link. Perhaps the god has to bear the emotions... but the shinki has to know they have no privacy. They're as exposed as a raw nerve and to have someone have access to oneself always can sometimes be a very violating thing. All the catch-22s. And then there are the secrets and the deception and the fear.
To be shinki might be better for some. But... it's not good.
So is he going to wring his hands and moan about the unfairness of the system? Or is he going to find some way to challenge and start shifting it, even if the difference is so terribly slight? He has the ability to touch the deep magics. He has the ability to learn... despite the dangers and the consequences lurking within those more primal forces.
It may be an impossible task and a foolish one, akin to taking on and surpassing the entire World, but better starts with someone actually willing to try.]
I don't know what to think about godhood. At least how it would relate to me. Responsibility and emotional support are heavy burdens, but I'd manage. That's not just a God's job and there's other people who'd help me through. I can lead. I find myself having to do so a lot now.
... I think what would bother me most is being worshiped. I'd do right by any followers, but that's... uncomfortable...
Goes right back to the deserving issue.
Perhaps that is one of the big problems. That there is such a strict binary and no other roles to fit into. The system doesn't work for us, you're right. We're just too complex of beings to fit perfectly, even when we suit one class or another. And then sometimes it gets really messy.
They got their wish with us in a way, you know? They say shinki are supposed to be moral compasses, to teach the Gods about humanity. I find the overall concept bollocks, but - humanity's now staring them in the face directly. Must be a shocking view given the remove.
I will invite you for when I call the bastard out, promise. Even if the fucker turns out to be a cosmological law of the universe. Still punchable.
[... and the big one... survive for your own sake. Be selfish. Want things for yourself and more than service. Want your own power... strange as it sounds, because he has it, doesn't he, in his own abilities? Not shinki magic, not his vessel powers (whatever they may be) - that is Iskandar's power, just channeled through the prism of his soul. It's the same with the Rend. A god's power for purification, and when they say the shinki works with the god, the shinki just acts as the conduit. He's seen the spell work through his eyes and broken down the base mechanics. A shinki is dependent on a god's power to even be stable.
His true desire is to be able to stand on his own and be equal to Iskandar, even as he serves him. That's it. That's what he wants.
... but he'll nail himself to the wall for those he cares for. He trends towards selflessness as much as selfishness. He's willing to sacrifice... even though he knows it's such a bad idea when it comes to Iskandar and the rest of his Temple.]
Shinki tend towards self sacrifice, don't we? Serving the gods means that attitude is encouraged and praised, even if that's not healthy for us. Even touted as a power for us. We are told we must cater to their needs above our own, even when not minding ours does what it does.
There's nothing wrong with service just as long as it's done because you want to, for your own reasons, and not because you're forced to and you're ordained to fill a role and the person you serve is only there because they've been placed above you. There's nothing wrong with sacrifice either, for those same reasons, as long as you know why you're doing what you're doing and it's a free action and not coerced.
... living for your own sake is perhaps the biggest middle finger to the entire system there could be. So I'll try. Even if the thing preventing me from going down is sheer spite.
Maybe I'll get those answers some day. Better too. Each day means things change here and maybe one day things will be different.
no subject
(May he never learn how dangerously alluring power and idea is to Ginia, so desperate to prove herself, so desperate to become so much better and more than she feels like she is, that her life is something she too can put on the line. Again, again, and again.)
Rail against the system, but drown yourself in it to prove yourself all the same; it's the contradiction Ginia lives in.
She stares at Waver's reply, but can't find any words to return with. He's right in a lot of ways and it's all good for some needed self-reflection. Ginia wants to ask the rest of her temple for their input, but it is too dangerous? Is it too much self-reflection? Already she feels the tug to think more on it, to dig down to what she wants and needs and how to break this system even as self-preservation pulls her away.
A year, two, five, ten, a hundred. Will she last that long? Will her opinions mature and shape with the years? She could, perhaps, find happiness here.
Jitsumi. 'Truth.' Ritsuki. 'To stand up.'
Flattering names and Ginia wonders if she can live up to the meaning and the impression she gave. Dangerous meanings for a shinki to live up to. It's a sign she probably fits right in with the rest of the Mi Clan.
An hour passes. Two. Three. Ginia does have work to get done and can't afford to fall behind, but Waver's words stick with her. Four. Five.
It's late in the evening before there's a reply back.]
Spite is sometimes a good fuel as any. I've learned sometimes you need whatever you can run on to go another day.
I hope you find the answers. I hope things get better. I hope you survive.
I can't offer much, but you always have my ear and my silence.
no subject
It always has and always will come down themselves pulling themselves up.
Waver must save Waver. Ginia must save Ginia. They can help and rescue each other, but salvation must come from themselves in the end.
He understands now.
... one day that might happen... one day surely another secret will be laid before him. One day though, as the one who sees... he foresees a day when all the secrets will be cracked open and they all shall have to face the consequences of things that have been kept that never should have ever been kept at all. Waver knows this deep in his bones but right now he would be only Cassandra of Troy, speaking of a prophecy that only perhaps he can feel stirring in the ether, unformed but the potential sits like a weight in the darkness of a far distant future.
... the hour is late and the reply is short.
It touched too many nerves didn't it?]
Thank you. For all of it.