maskormenace | 005 ☽ VIDEO

[When the feed turns on, M's sitting in the center of the screen on a couch in his apartment. His usual smirk is nowhere to be seen, and instead he looks... tired. Surrounding him is a curious sight--D, his Dragprawn from a swear-in years ago is draped around his shoulders, at least a dozen rats are running around in and out of the frame, a chinchilla sits on his lap eating a raisin, and in the background, a very stressed looking white tiger with ice blue stripes lays on the floor as far away from the others as she can manage.

As soon as he knows it's recording, M leans forward, making eye contact with the camera and, by proxy, the viewer.]

Happy New Year everyone. I'm going to guess that many of you, if you've been here a while, have had people come and go. I'm going to guess a fair number of you have entertained the idea of getting some sort of animal companion to try and make you feel better about the situation you're in. Maybe give you a bit of normalcy.

Stop.

Stop subjecting these animals to losing the people they rely on and care about over and over again, because you never know when you're going to be ported out.

Stop gifting them to your friends in your wills like they're some kind of toaster. They don't know when they're going to be ported out either.

[He motions over his shoulder to the tiger.]

Fubuki over there's an imPocreat. This is her third home. As you can see, she isn't taking losing another caregiver all that well. I inherited the mischief of rats here from an imPort gone about a year now. Inherited Pancho the chinchilla from him in a roundabout way too--though this is also his third home after his initial re-home ported out a few months after he did.

Stop doing this to them.

If you absolutely need to have a dog, cat, goat, bearded dragon, Burmese python, or hissing cockroach... There's these places called animal shelters, and most of them are dying to have people come and foster animals temporarily while they wait for a forever home.

Stop being selfish.

[And with that, he cuts off the feed.]

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[ Momo looks affronted. ] How irresponsible! Don't they know that our time in this world is impermanent?

Sometimes I wonder if people don't, or if they do and don't care.

[He reaches up to stroke D.]

With the imPocreats, at the time we didn't think much about taking them home. They were robots. It wasn't until after I came home with D here did I realize just how complex their AI was. I'm hoping that was the case for Fubuki's first owner too.

As for the animals... The guy I inherited the mischief from had this ability that drew rats to him... and then made them too smart for their own good. I've been working on setting up a home for them--a permanent home--once I leave so they don't get out.

I have no idea what Piper was thinking when he adopted Pancho. And now Pancho's way too smart to re-home to just anyone.

That tiger... is a machine? [ She's shocked. ] But it looks so lifelike!

[ She feels for the poor animals, manipulated by the quirk of some imPort long gone by, left to linger when their original owner had ported out. They never asked to be wrapped up in imPort messes. ]

Well, it's very kind of you, to take them all in. And I'm glad to hear you're making plans for them for once you're gone.

[M nods.]

Dragprawn here and Fubuki are both machines. Very, very advanced machines.

[This is why M plans on loving, secure homes for his animals when the time comes for him to port out. He refuses to do it to them again.]

It's not their fault their caretakers left. [He chuckles, though not in the amused sense.] I was raised in a place that took in things that people left behind... guess it runs in the family.

That's incredible! I've never seen a robot that looked so much like an animal before.

[ She thinks of her conversation with Jaime, about the Scarab. ] ...Are they alien in origin?

Then your family raised you with good principles. It's important to help others, when we are able to.

It's hard to be the one who inherits them, too. They're not like books, or clothing, that you can pack into a storage unit in case that person comes back.

Oh, M...

[she looks pained for his sake -- and that poor, miserable tiger.]

So many people are vanishing all at once. Is there really no rhyme or reason to it-?

[He recognizes Fukubi as one of the non-Pokemon animals that Red and Blue had. It's not hard to put two and two together, especially not when Blue hasn't shown up to work in the past week.]

I'm sorry. This sort of situation is difficult for everyone involved. [He frowns pensively.] I work for an organization that trains therapy dogs, and the organization owns a number of strays. We were talking about setting up some sort of adoption system where we could take in dogs once people port out, but... well, I was discussing the logistics with Blue. [He glances back at the screen to encompass Fukubi in the background; that problem is self-explanatory.] I didn't even think about other animals, though. I didn't even realize you could have chinchillas as pets.

ImPocreats were designed to look like cute animal companions. Funny enough, they were created by OTO.

[A beat.]

They're completely harmless, though. Nothing to worry about on that front.

[At the mention of his family being good people, that gets a true chuckle out of him. His "family" is many things, but good isn't one of them.]

Oh, they only wanted to help themselves. I figured out good morals all by my lonesome.

Tell me about it; my apartment's getting smaller by the day.

How many have you been given?

[He's been here for 3 years now. People suddenly leaving--especially people that he cares about--is a fact of life.

At her question, he shakes his head.]

Back when I first got here, a bunch of imPorts were taken by the Soviet government, but we learned about it right away, and their names never disappeared off the network.

If the name goes, you know they're gone too.

Between these two worlds, something like... mmm, two dogs, two gators, an owl, an extraterrestrial rodent, and in excess of a dozen cats.

Not all at the same time, though.

It's a start, but now that poor dog that had grown so attached to whatever imPort adopted it now has to grieve their loss.

[M completely understands the hypocrisy of saying that when his couch is covered in animals. He gets why people do this in the first place, even if he wouldn't.]

But if you need assistance, I'm pretty good at logistics.

[Computer brain makes these things very handy.]

Pretty sure it varies by state and local law, but I also don't think Piper gave a fuck one way or the other.

[....He suddenly has a lot of questions.]

An Extraterrestrial rodent?

[There's as good a place to start as any.]

"Space Mouse," technically, but he looked more like a fox than anything. It was a weird situation... he arrived with some people, when they imPorted from the same place, but he stuck around in the world after they left.

It just...more than ever, it feels like so many have gone all at once. Perhaps that's just because to me, even more than one is too many...all at once.

Mon dieu. How long have you been here?

[ Circe is frowning, her displeasure evident. ]

If you require any assistance in looking after them, I am capable. I have an affinity for animals; at my home I live in companionship with many of them.

[ These are drastic understatements, but nonetheless true. ]

You have no idea how many animals Red left behind. I told him to stop adopting them for this very reason.

[though archie has made the same mistake. he feels awful about it in hindsight.]

Denial makes ya stupid, I s'pose.

3 years as of last month.

My zoo happened all of last year, with the exception of D here.

[He pats the robot shrimp on his shoulders.]

You wind up with all of them?

Yes, since no-one's kicked down my door yet demanding they get the animal Red left them.

[he shakes his head.]

I'm not keeping them. I don't have the time or energy to upkeep a bunch of animals whose owner that could literally talk to them suddenly isn't around anymore. Put them up for adoption, natives only. Hopefully they'll get new homes and the stress of changing hands so quickly won't damage any of them too badly.

[bitter? a little.]

Huh.

Usually when people get ported out their animals go with them.

What happened to the little guy?

[A nod. He gets it, he really does.]

True, but it seems to me we'd be doing a disservice to the people that left if we didn't keep going.

Thanks, but I'm holding onto them for now. I've set up a contingency for when I leave, so they don't have to go through this again.

[At that last bit, he arches an eyebrow.]

You adopt a zoo?

[she doesn't seem the type, based on her body language.]

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