Truths past, present, and future || [Voice/Video] [Backdated 5/16]

[youfool]

 Normally, Ted didn't hesitate with his communication device. He liked to talk, and phone calls were his preferred method of keeping in touch with his loved ones. Sadly, peaceful, relaxing times would be coming to an end. His goku uniform, which might be ready any day now, demanded his utmost strength and willpower. He had to steel himself to have any chance of surviving. To be utterly firm in his convictions. 

He was appalled by the subarchways; how they preyed upon the weak-hearted and the weak-minded. Especially children. Ted knew it was the moral duty of everyone to love what's true, and hate what's false. If only he could get others to agree. The thought of motes and beams crossed his mind. If he wanted others to embrace truth, he'd have to do the same, and cut himself loose of comforting falsehoods of his own. It was time for the truth. As he dialed each number and waited to be received, He prayed that the truth would not be too terrible.

Past: To Justice

Mewtwo isn't Ted's first choice for conversation, despite the lengthy one they'd had upon their first meeting. He simply seemed to irritate the artificial creature for reasons unbeknownst to Ted. In a way, that made him uniquely poised to answer the unsettling question that weighed on him ever since Koishi's party. Mewtwo, regrettably, was himself a victim of comforting falsehoods, if his time on Lake Canaa were any indication. Perhaps that made him an expert.

"Hello J--Mewtwo. Is now a good time? I need an expert opinion. It's about my...well, pokemon in general."

Present: To Sans

Ted wasn't sure where to start with this one. Sans had worried him at first with his previous position on the wrong side of a racial war. But he'd largely forgotten it, using Sans' sloth as a convenient excuse from anything dreadful. He couldn't deny that there seemed to be more to the silly skeleton than he let on, but then Ted could hardly hold that against him. Everyone has their secrets. It's just this one in particular that nagged at him. How to begin?

"Good afternoon, Sans. I hope your frank business hasn't gone to the dogs. Tell me, are you familiar with a...shall we say, bipolar flower?"

Future: To Ronan

Ted, of course, was justice's biggest fan, both in the concrete and the abstract. He was always angling for Ronan to tell him the best stories about his time on the force, peculiar cases, and so on. Even in the short time they worked together, his legal expertise was invaluable. In the middle of one such call, like any other, Ted was especially curious about one subject they hadn't broached yet.

"Say Ronan, what are your thoughts on entrapment?"

Comments

[koishi_komeiji]

"Good?" Her voice was a little more distant, tilting her head. "What a strange thing to say. If you frowned into a mirror, would you say the man in the mirror hates you? Is it your reflection's fault he's frowning? Illusions and constructs are neither good nor bad, but any being capable of unconditional love has some good in them."

Her expression didn't waver when he mentioned the Merrow, nor the TV world, nor anything else. "It would be no different if they weren't copies. The sub-archways, the TV world, and even the beast that unraveled me." She had nearly faded entirely, only glimpsable from the corner of his eye and mind. "A copy doesn't make something fake. It just means its not the original. It's no less 'real.' That shouldn't devalue it. These illusions are no more lethal than their real-world counterparts. Savagery and deception exist in the 'real' world too. Far more rampant than I've ever seen here."

Koishi's voice drifted to one side, a red beam appearing as Ivysaur was called back. "And if everything is a copy, then what do you have to be upset over? Copies exist everywhere. Even in worlds beyond this one. A musician or a painter will always mimic what is around them before taking those copies and making something new. Even if your pokemon are copies, I doubt the creatures they were copied from were ever taught to play music while a worrisome fool sang embarrassing things." A hand settled on Ted's shoulder for a moment before slipping away whisper-quiet.

"You're complaining about having copies, but what have you accomplished or intend to accomplish by doing that? You're missing all the unique and original beauty they have brought into your life. 'Sin' comes in many forms, Mister Spades. Isn't disregarding the innocent and wallowing in self-destruction a sin too? You're not 'ignoring reality and living in a fantasy' by spending time with your pokemon or in sub-archways. These things are a reality in this world. It's on you to make the world better though. Because none of us asked to be here. So we can only do what we can to improve it. Perhaps you will create something truly real and new if you put your mind to it. Only Fools try what others dismiss as impossible, after all."

Her voice was uncertain, slipping from his mind, despite the focus of her words. "... I should go, Mister spades. I've seeped between the stones on the riverbed and curled up. Please, come visit soon, okay? I want to talk more."

[youfool]

It was difficult for Ted to conceive of a more hateful thing, as a form of being, than a reflection. All the things he really loved were things outside him. Things he didn't make; things he could, at best, touch. If he were convinced that his pokemon were like that; mere echoes of his own selfishness, he would immediately slay every one of the bastards. Narcissus loved his own reflection as if it were real; so he deserved death and got it. That, above all, was how he knew the subarchways for elaborate lies: they were too totally made.

That Koishi would conflate illusion and imitation disturbed. Copies were not bad, as the printing press proved. That even sweetened the idea, in Ted's mind. The world, not quite up to the task of producing its own originalities, instead chose to distribute the ones from across the universe. He'd have preferred things made all their own, but as Koishi said, even an imitation will branch into a derivative originality. How's that 4th wall genre commentary going?

But that is not illusion. Illusion is lie and false pretense. It is salvation to imitate Christ. It is damnation to pretend to be Him when you are not. Between those two things: copies and illusions, lay the difference between Christian and Antichrist.

But what, Ted thought, did he expect? Getting logic or sound philosophy from The Moon is a fool's errand. She was obviously out of her element, struggling very nobly to perform a work for which she was not at all suited. Perhaps that's why she was fading. Ted could relate. Trying his hand at rigorous thought taxed him dearly, as she said. But even so, a man of principle cannot act without right thought to guide him, however much he would like to. Acting without thinking was his classic flaw that had earned him much more criticism than the opposite.

He could only give up this avenue, allowing the farewell to provide but a moment of relief from this maddening pursuit of truth. "Thank you for trying. I will visit, but let it be in a place we neither made."