maskormenace | EVENING NEWS BULLETIN

EVENING NEWS BULLETIN

"In our first news item this evening, America's ministry of imPort affairs has confirmed that it has suffered a serious data breach, claiming its networks were intercepted by a mysterious hacker.

The ministry has provided little detail on the incident, saying it applied to "the internet-based network where open information and data of the lowest classification level are handled."

Data with higher security classification is still secure, the ministry has said. Intelligence and security services are currently investigating the breach, and invite any citizen or imPort who might have information to come forward. The--"

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program for a message from our sponsor of this particular news segment.

Citizens. ImPorts. The government is not as all-seeing or all-powerful as they would have you believe. Stand up and demand government transparency. Demand answers. Do not be complacent.

They know nothing about the Porter. They do not have control. Its origins lead to the Atlantic Ocean where it was pulled near the coast in 1985. They have no idea how it works. It is a mystery to both the government and their scientists. They have no control over it whatsoever. Any control you might think they have is an illusion. I have seen their files. They know no more than us.

Their main priority is trying to find ways to control the Porter so that way they can send back imPorts who have no interest in this world. Why have we not been told this?

Additionally, it is currently unknown why people suddenly go home. It is not the government's doing. They believe it is the fault of Lachesis. Additionally, it's been confirmed that the Porter has its own automated defenses that prevents anyone from prying too much information out of it-- even those already gifted with extreme powers it brings in from other worlds. Lachesis is

[The message suddenly cuts out, and you return to a confused-looking news anchor, who apologises for the break in programming and hurries on to the next segment, some boring item about a vacuumer cleaner scam.]

((This kicks off the mini-event I spoke of two days ago! I will not be running this post, though Skye will be around later! Please use this post to react, treat each top level comment like it's a new post in the community, for characters to gossip about and share their reactions, or maybe actionspam your character's realtime reaction as they watch at home or perhaps in the street. Jump each other, have fun!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

... We may not be talking about the same things, Kaneki.

[ A soft statement, watching the normal news go to commercial break. ]

Have you dealt much with politics back on your world?

[ he laughs ] Probably not. I have told you it's hard, isn't it? Since we all come from different places. This person who hacked into the government's files probably came too, and expects this place to be something like their world. [ "Demand answers", they said.

But Kaneki shakes his head ]

Not at all. I guess it wasn't a big topic, in my world.

So you think they're an imPort as well...

[ She lets that statement trail off, thoughtful. It's something she pushes herself past to redirect her attention his way. ]

That's hard for me to imagine. Even if people aren't always aware, politics are a daily part of life within the Walls.

[ Especially for people who navigate them on certain levels, who've watched and listened and learned about the manipulations from both outside and inside. People are shits to each other. They're also their own saving grace. Humanity is full of contrasts, no matter how she looks at it. ]

[ it«'s probably because they were worried there were ghouls hiding among citizens. It was a war, so to speak, even if silent, and it was not about politics, but survival. The ability to live well, the ability to live unafraid. And the ability to live without being hunted. It's humans against ghouls, and each side just wants to live and fights to live.

Yeah, Kaneki has so many issues, he won't even begin to explain it. ]

"Walls"? [ he looks at Annie, curiously ]

[ screwed up worlds and their screwy priorities. annie looks back his way, opening her mouth, then hesitating while trying to find the best words to describe a common question posed her way. ]

The Human Empire exists within a series of concentric Walls where I'm from. There are three, but the outermost, Wall Maria, suffered a breach five years ago. Wall Rose and Wall Sina still stand.

[ thank you Eren ]

[ Kaneki pauses, blinking for a moment ]

What's beyond those walls? [ what is the reason to hide within them ]

[ completely calm, factual, and nonchalant: ]

The rest of the world, and giants who eat people.

[ are they just hiding within the Walls, or are they being kept in? burning questions where the answer is probably "both." ]

[ Kaneki is really good at "surprised/shocked/baffled" facial expressions of late. In fact, he has shown them so much that is hardly a surprise to see Kaneki's eyes go wide when something is said.

The only difference is terror that crosses his face this time around. ]

... who eat people?

Edited 2014-10-01 16:46 (UTC)

[ It's really, really hard to miss that terror. Annie actually doesn't answer right away, much more cautious and careful. She doesn't care what's on the television.

This is something - else. Something she'll need to guide him toward in order to make certain discoveries that might drive that kind of terror right at her.

She half closes her eyes. ]

Kaneki... have you spent much time looking over past communications on the import network?

Eh?

[ what? Why? ]

No. There is so much, I can't read it all-

There is a lot, and it's not all written. I suggest you go back to around the fourth of August, this year. Have you learned how to search by a person's identification number on network?

[ It's a very calm question. ]

No. [ No. He hasn't.

Why are they even talking about that now?

Kaneki reaches for his communicator ] Annie-san, what does have to do with your world?

More than you probably want to know.

[ she says, frankly. ]

I can show you how to do the search, if you'd like.

[ it's going to be on her name. ]

[ . . .

Kaneki hands her his communicator, but not before he looks at her with a serious expression ] Show me the entry you want me to see. [ because there is obviously something.

He supposes it's harder to talk about it, so he doesn't mind see an old communication entry ]

[ She turns it toward him regardless, tapping once to bring up the general interface for reading, then again on a link that points toward "IDs." Her own is on there, reading "Annie Leonhart." Another tap, and she's flicking her finger up, causing the screen to scroll downward. It's a video file - it sits there, the triangle pointing to the right, ready to play.

She hands his device back, expression remote, eyes a little tired. ]

It's a video transmission. There's a lot after it, in responses, but...

[ she has never actually seen anyone listen to this in person. Annie's not really sure she can take it. She remembers how it plays out, she's listened to it, watched it, gone over the responses like one might pick at a scab to never quite let it heal - but it is what it is. Her scabs aren't the easy ones to see. ]

[ Kaneki takes the device once again and watches the video in silence. He quite can't make everything out of it; titans who eat humans, mindless beings, titan-shifters...

Just what the hell.

Why him? Why Kaneki?! No, seriously, why. Why did it all go crazy ever since the day he looked at Rize? And now he is in a different world and there is this person whom he sort of gets along with ~~(probably the only one because Kaneki is an awkward idiot)~~ and she happens to be able to turn into a Titan! Oh and by the way, Titans are human-like creatures and they eat humans. Just how much crazier do you want his life to get? Just how much weirder can it become? How scary, how terrifying, how disgusting--!!!

Kaneki reaches to cover his mouth with his free hand, still looking at the video as he hits replay once again; he ignores the answers to the video, mostly because there are so many and he doesn't even know where to begin. That hand moves across his face, pulling his hair back as he lets go of a frustrated sound before he finally speaks ]

... what am I supposed to say? I don't... [ know. He doesn't know! You killed people, Annie, you know that, and then what?! What? He doesn't know what to say or even think, or why is he being shown this.

There is also the issue that he cares for Annie. And maybe he is simple minded, maybe he is unfair to those who died, but he doesn't know those people and he didn't see any of it happening - but let's be honest, nothing in Kaneki's life has been fair, can't he just be a bit unfair about it, too? Being the one that hurts, instead of the one hurting, do you know the lengths he goes for this, Annie? To blame the girl for all of this, hurt her with words? He can't do that, even if it means go easy on her after she murdered so many.

Kaneki turns to look at her with a worried frown. ]

... do you regret it? [ no, wait, nevermind. he looks to the side again, avoiding her face. ] I'm sorry, that's an unfair question.

Edited (wow engrish) 2014-10-02 11:26 (UTC)

[ she can't see it as an unfair question. many voices had echoed it, past crying out this wasn't the case, was she lying, did someone put her up to this. annie only realizes how tense she's gotten in the last fifteen minutes when she turns to look his way, not quite at him... more over his shoulder. ]

Not so unfair. You'd want to know.

[ and she breathes in, resisting the urge to cross an arm over her chest and hold on to herself. it's defensive posturing. defending against what?

everything, really. ]

I regret. I regret taking actions that made it easier to kill when I did than to avoid the confrontation. It was a chance to change...

[ no. how does she even say this? though annie finally looks at his face, and his one, good, uncovered eye. ]

I regret the unnecessary loss of military life, and the collateral loss of civilian lives when the military attempted and succeeded in subduing me.

[ starting to sound detached again. it's so difficult in coping - remembering looking down when eren had thrown her through the church to see the dead splayed out beneath her, looking up with sightless eyes. blood splatters, the rubble, the ones who'd lived looking up in voiceless terror.

she was an efficient killer. she didn't shy away from that. when it'd been annie putting herself out there to try and achieve an altered objective, to avoid the farce continuing into the future as she moved through the military police, she'd known the cost. kill or be killed.

she's very good at killing. even if she isn't a driving force behind the loss of a quarter of humanity, not directly, the people behind all of them had issued those orders, trained them all, sent them out as children to do what they couldn't.

and the king and his council had issued the order to make innocents march to their deaths, for the sake of the survival of the rest. and they hadn't even had the decency to call it anything of the sort.

corruption runs deep in so many parts of society... ]

I don't regret having my jest of playing soldier ended sooner than it would have been if I'd been the kind of warrior I was trained to be.

What the hell… [ he breathes out and he barely even hears what he just said. Because there is just so much he can’t make out of it, and there is still the issue he is disconnected from it in a way because he hasn’t lived it. He is disconnected, yet the idea still feels like a punch in the gut because this person right in front of him has killed many people.

Well.

Most people he has dealt with last few months have. In fact, they have lived their lives doing just that, apart from Hinami-chan. And they detach themselves from it as well, just like manager said “In order to walk atop the empty husks, ghouls strengthen their heart and kill their emotions. In order to live a ghoul will forget the value of life”. They are not right to do so, Kaneki does not agree, but he has seen Touka-chan and the way she sees herself as a murderer, as well as the way she faces the life of another.

That’s why it’s unfair to ask if Annie regretted it and unfair to demand an emotional response from her. ]

… Why did you tell everyone? You mentioned circumstances, but this- [ she basically waved a big red flag for furious bulls to attack ]

[ Better to know it's coming than to wonder when it'll hit. Annie pauses - she has to consider what she wants to say, and it's not an off the cuff sort of conversation. ]

Would you like the political reasons first, or the more personal ones?

[ They're both there, and not precisely independent of each other. It's also - it's politics. She brings that up because the whole of her views on the world is understanding the politics of people and a society that isn't the one she was born into. Trying to understand the one she was born into as well.

The reasons her father wanted her to harden her heart had very little to do with a necessity of nature, and very much to do with a necessity of nurture. She wouldn't be able to see in the same way the things she does compared to a people whose literal survival depends on a diet of human flesh.

It's less perverse than what the Titans do, in a sense. ]

I don't know. Anything, whatever.

[ Kaneki looks at her. Killed humans, she said, responsible for the death of 1/3 of mankind, right? Missions, Titan-shifters. Honestly, what is this person thinking, because Kaneki has no idea ]

It's weird, to admit such thing to others like that, isn't it? Even if there are people from your world here, the ones that captured you, is it wise to openly state such thing? Everyone else will- [ be angry, shun her, push her away.

He cuts himself off again and he finally decides. ]

Personal ones first.

[ Yet all those things, the ones she can add in to where he cuts himself off, are easier to handle. Easier because of what it doesn't require out of Annie. She's been isolated before. She grew up that way, made herself isolated among her peers, and uses it as her own defense against the world.

It's okay. She can handle things like this. So having people be angry (as they should), shun her (what does it matter), push her away (save yourselves the trouble)... that's expected. It's a sought response. Even if the whole world hates you... ]

People were starting to call me a friend. Something like that... I can't allow it to be true without knowing the things that will be used against me. I didn't make friends where I'm from. I wouldn't allow myself to there, so why here?

[ Annie brushes her hair back off her face, looking away from Kaneki again. It's easier to talk this way. ]

I was tired of lying. I've lived like that before. And... for those people who thought they were something like a friend... to feel betrayed by someone you've only known for a short time is easier to bear than someone you've known for longer. I wanted to spare them that, if I could. Spare myself, too.

[ Not to relive the way things happened back home. She's honest enough in what she says now, even if a little consciously self-unaware. ]

Personal reasons tie in with the political. People from back home can hold things like that against us, use it to undermine anything we do or attempt to achieve here, simply being in control of that information. We couldn't allow them that control. Of course, we could have left our confession with the military alone... that carried its own temptation. But it wasn't right. Not for how we want to live. For the animosity it's earned us, for the hate it's created, and for the things that are harder to define, we all felt our way forward was in telling everyone what we were, and what we've done, before worrying over who it is we are anymore. It's not the same here as it is back home.

[ though she almost smiles when she says that: ]

If we're dealing with obvious statements.

[ Kaneki still replays the video again and again, even if muted, and along the way he also watches the replies (also muted). Specifically, he wants to see people's faces. Their hurt expressions, their angry faces, because of betrayal and because they felt like they were lied to. Kaneki understands their feelings, he does, but it crosses his mind about Annie's feelings too - and the other two guys' feelings as well.

And something like this, public exposure like this, is it REALLY the way to go about it? if she explained to her friends - the people who were starting to see her as a friend - privately, what happened, how it happened, why it happened, she might have been able to keep some of those people from becoming angry, from throwing stones at her. Right? ~~kaneki, forever the optimist, even when there is a gun pointed at his head~~

He finally turns off his communications device. It's enough of that. His eye turns to Annie once again, watching her for a moment to let her finish explaining ]

The way you live now, after this, is it the way you wanted to live? And the people you have lost to it? [ if there was anyone who even refused to deal with her anymore, Kaneki doesn't know ]

...

Isn't it lonely? [ asks the loneliest person of them all ]

[ She wouldn't have been able to handle this one at a time. Easier to cut once with a sword, aim for the center, carve it out, than cut several times over, hoping each guided movement of the blade is avoiding what you don't want severed. Besides, eventually, it'd be about telling the rest... and what is "want" in a case like this? ]

Why should loneliness be a deterrent?

[ She says, and it's a calm thing to ask, calm in tone, calm in the expression she wears. No denial - it is lonely - but "is this the way you wanted to live?" It's better than it's been. Loss is loss. People are lost all the time.

She never really had them in the first place. ]

[ why indeed. Because the moment when you find out what it feels like when you are not lonely, it's the moment you realize loneliness is the worst thing you can feel in your life. Kaneki has felt it, and now in this world he is feeling it yet again, and it's so... terrifying. ]

Then what is that you wish for?

[ Live a good life? Alone? Nobody can live a good life completely alone. He has tried, he has! And he says he can live alone, and oho, look at him, in heropa for few weeks and hanging in there.

but deep inside it's terrible and he hates it. It's not something he wishes for.

It's silly to assume everyone feels the same, but Annie doesn't look like a person who hates being around others, even if she is a bit stoic (like Touka-chan) ]

[ she doesn't like being alone. annie can't really stand it, not when there's a choice to live otherwise, but she knows what loss here can mean, has watched reiner with bertholdt going back, has witnessed the ways people react to those not from their homes departing when the bonds have had some degree of strength.

loneliness is what she's been resigned to all her life. and it does hurt, getting close to people. it hurt having them pull away already, but it was almost a welcome pain, a reminder of the expectations she has to keep in mind. like the pain of muscles tearing, those microtears that happen as one exercises and strengthens what one has. the legs, the arms, the abdomen - the heart. ]

I don't know, exactly. I suppose I wish for a chance to figure out what I wish for. This whole... living for one's own sake, that's different. No assigned mission, a flow of events and people that don't move in the same direction, ideals and ideas and beliefs to struggle with... I don't know what I wish for, other than a chance to keep finding the things I couldn't allow myself back home.

[ what she probably never will allow herself, even if she wakes up, if she survives, if she what, escapes? to loneliness, if she is allowed to survive in that mountain haunt with the memories of her ghosts for company. ]

For whatever that's worth.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject