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[hostage]

[This post goes up very shortly after Jesse comes out of his catatonic state, on the evening of the 23rd. He's a little frenzied, a little wild-eyed and panicked, but he has to know he didn't imagine all of it. There has to be someone else who saw it, too.]

Did anybody - Did anybody else just get back? I mean, like... Were any of you guys ported out, too? To the future, or whatever it was. I can't be the only one. I mean, I saw some of you there. It was De Chima, right? We were just in De Chima? But our bodies got left behind here, I guess. I dunno. What was it? Was it a dream, or... Like, did we seriously just see the future? Because I think that's what it was. I think that was the future. I wasn't alone. I mean, I know I wasn't alone there.

...Right?

Comments

[hostage]

That's right

1/4

[rathercommon]

Hold on I need to figure something out

2/4

[rathercommon]

RUBBISH

3/4

[rathercommon]

No hold on sorry

4/4

[rathercommon]

http://www.freesparkle.com

[hostage]

Whatever

Maybe you never met a junkie before

We're literally worthless

Most people hope we overdose and die so we'll stop taking up air

[rathercommon]

Are you joking? Never met a junkie? Tariffs on opium make up an ENORMOUS part of our national revenue. And no, you're NOT worthless, you're STRUGGLING, no more than someone who's fighting against alcohol or depression or any other illness. If you don't make contributions, it's only because you're not ALLOWED to, because everyone expects you to fall and they act to ensure you will. You are not worthless; you have been denied worth. But you can fight that and conquer it.

[hostage]

I'm good here

I can bleed for people, which is about as much as they'd want from me anyway

But I'm not smart or talented and I don't understand politics and I'm not good at making big speeches so the Nobel Prize is out

You should really be talking to Superman because that guy's got it going on

[rathercommon]

Oh my god, STOP it with the self-pitying 'oh that's all they'd want.' People can sense when you don't like them or mistrust them. You can heal a hundred people but if the whole time you're thinking about how they don't deserve it because they'd do you in if they could then NO good is going to get done. Believe me, I got my fair share of meals dished out as some PR stunt and I could just FEEL the loathing rolling off them. People know.

Anyway, I don't WANT Superman. I want NORMAL people. We're not going to win them over by having two or three ridiculously good-looking guys flying around in capes. We're going to win them over by showing that us - ALL of us - want to get along. All that model imPorts like him will do is make for some showy, quickly-forgotten newsreels. People like us, normal fallible people who aren't all that gifted - it's up to us to show that all of us want to coexist.

[hostage]

You're the one who's thinking about PR, Kitty

I heal people because I can't stand NOT doing it

[rathercommon]

But you think that they want to see you bleed. Suffer.

[hostage]

I'm saying nobody wants me because of who I was back home

My shining personality or whatever the fuck

They want me because of what I can do here

And it's something I'm happy to do for them

If that's not enough for you and your cause or whatever the shit you're after then go find someone else to be the face of your world-changing IMPORT RELATIONS campaign

You're the one who was saying I'm not doing enough

[rathercommon]

I'm saying you can DO MORE. You don't allow them to KNOW who you are. You give your power to them, OK. But that's not ALL you are. Then you say that all they want from you is that power. But how can you know when you don't offer anything else? You've got yourself all twisted up in this cycle of only offering your power and then when they take it you accept that as proof that you're only valued for your power. You can do MORE if you let yourself. If you break out of that self-reinforcing circular thinking.

[hostage]

Why does it even matter who I am? I don't care if people like me, I'm just here to make sure they don't die

[rathercommon]

OK, but that's ultimately not going to do anything for imPort-local relations. THAT'S the problem. You show up and save lives and then disappear again - that's weird. That's foreign. That's not something that normal people can understand. It's contributing to this COMPLETELY terrifying pattern of randomness - strange, unknowable cruelties dispensed from some of us, strange unknowable kindnesses dispensed from others. Sometimes both from the same imPort at different times. If all you want is to save lives, then that's good, yeah, in an abstract way, but it's just going to scare people, like the idea of God scares people. But if you sit down and get to know them, if they can understand the power you wield and why the course of their lives was jerked suddenly to the side because of it, that does a lot to make us less terrifying. If they get to like you.

Besides, you're pretty obviously miserable and I imagine you could use a little bit of warmth from the people around you.

[hostage]

See? All you give a shit about is the PR

And btw I'm NOT miserable

[rathercommon]

Yeah, I'm wicked and shallow, I'm sure, just like you're SO happy. Right now we're talking about how to stop them hating us, yeah? How we stop them hating us is we stop them thinking we're something they ought to fear. Which means, yeah, working with perceptions and PR. That doesn't mean I don't care about the real meat of what's going on, it just means that the image stuff is what's relevant to what we're talking about stopping right now.

[hostage]

You literally just gave me shit because you thought I was doing the exact thing you're doing

I'm helping them because I want to HELP them and you're telling me to go out there and be a media whore instead when you just said the thing you hate is when people are out there helping people just for a good image and not because they want to like WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT HERE BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW

[rathercommon]

No, what I was giving you crap about was secretly thinking that the people you're helping are unworthy and uncaring. That they just want you to bleed. People feel that hatred.

What we need is both. To do good and be seen as good. To help them and save them in a way that doesn't just seem like the product of the unfeeling randomness of the universe. To make ourselves understood. It's not one or the other. It's both.

[hostage]

Why don't YOU do something about it then

[rathercommon]

[ A slight hesitation. ]

I want to. I'm just trying to figure out what I can do that can actually, really, truly help. My powers aren't so grand as yours.

[hostage]

Mine really aren't grand either

And you said it yourself, it's not just about powers

[rathercommon]

Can't you save lives? I'd call that grand.

[hostage]

It's OK

A lot of people here can do more than I can

Like stopping bad things from happening in the first place

[rathercommon]

Other people having their value doesn't lessen your value at all. That sort of thinking is poisonous, you know.