VIDEO

[khajidont]

[ When the feed turns on, Jaime’s leaning against a station wagon in what looks to be the middle of Heropa’s Park. Only it’s not quite just a station wagon - it’s seated on its tail, strewn with paint, windows shattered with the sharp edges covered in glitter glue, bashed to hell and back and with more than a few dog plushies glued on top of it. ]

Hey. Uh - hey to all you newbies too, but this is kind of a grim topic, and one you’re probably not gonna have to worry about for a while. I’m pretty sure everyone’s had their fill of talking about who’s been ported out these days, so instead I wanna talk about what happens after we do get ported out. We can just let it happen and let all of our crap be traded among whatever friends we got left and let the rest get seized by the government, but just because we’ll all be ported out eventually doesn’t mean that we can’t have some control over it.

I’m talking about making a will - and leaving letters behind for the people you care about. It’s not like it’s fun to do, and depending on how people come and go, it’s something you’ll have to update on the regular, but it can mean a lot to the people left behind. If there’s people here you care about, just consider leaving a little something behind. Maybe we don’t get the choice of saying good-bye ourselves, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be prepared for it. That, and it’d be a real shame if so much of what we’ve built up as, like, a community just gets handed over to the feds ‘cause nobody else wants to deal with it. So... food for thought. I know the letters I’ve gotten have meant a lot to me and, chances are, the letters you’ll leave behind will mean a lot to other people as well. It's easy to get all cynical about living here, so why not leave something good behind?

[ He pauses, glancing up at the fixture he’s leaning against. ]

Oh, yeah. I’m probably gonna get dinged for vandalism or whatever, but if you’ve got superstrength and the government asks you to get rid of this, do me a favour and leave it up for a few days.

[ Totally stonefaced, he adds on: ] It’s a Grahamorial.

[ He thinks Will would approve. ]

Comments

voice;

[slightlyoffchilt]

Oh god.

voice;

[khajidont]

Come on. You know he'd love it.

voice;

[slightlyoffchilt]

That is precisely what I'm worried about.

Video

[darkpants_warmfeeling]

[Jacob is smiling, sadly but also tinged with laughter about to burst out.]

Damn, Jaime. Will would have loved that thing.

Video

[khajidont]

Heck yeah, he would. It was made in his spirit. [ He pats the garish, horrifying structure behind him fondly. ] If he comes back, he'll get a kick out of it. If he doesn't...

Well, if he doesn't, then I'm glad I did it.

Video

[darkpants_warmfeeling]

If he comes back, a lot of people are going to have to give back their new dogs.

[Pause, examining the 'art' on display.]

Why a station wagon?

hey its ur fave jackass no-name 🌙︎

[dragony]

Morbid.

Practical, but morbid. Do people really stick around long enough to gather up estates worth dividing?

it's MOON MOON

[khajidont]

When I got here, I was fifteen. I'm turning nineteen next month. It's plenty long enough to build a life here.

Will owned his own home and his own business and enough animals to fill a zoo. I'm pretty sure he's been keeping his lawyer busy over the past month.

goddammit moon moon put your nihilism somewhere else

[dragony]

Then an early happy birthday to you, in case I don't get the chance later.

[ ... Okay, so he's only two months older than her now. That's. Fucking Weird. (Weirder, she realizes, is that if she hadn't left, he would be turning nineteen, and she would be turning twenty-one. Seriously? She was older than him before?? what the fuck. She hates this universe. ]

It just seems so surprising to me, I suppose. I've heard about the outliers, but I'm told the usual duration is a year, or less.

It just seems so... futile. Why bother?

video

[fehus]

I'm not sure that's vandalism? I'm not sure what the cops think gluing plushies onto shit is? I mean, it's more like, a weird hobby.

[...]

What if you're not good? At, like. [a self-evident pause] Words.

video; id: cassandra cain-wayne

[cassassin]

Um, same question here.

[Jaime you know your good Bat friend is fucking horrible at words. Worse than you think she is, probably.]

[khajidont]

It is when you dump it in the middle of a public park. People don't tend to like that very much.

Re: video; id: cassandra cain-wayne

[fehus]

[oh. he's never seen this person before]

Hi. Me express bad. Me Magnus. Nice to meet.

video

[khajidont]

I mean, they don't give a rip what I do to a car, but they're not big fans of people dumping their crap in their public parks.

Anyway, I don't... I don't think you gotta be good at words to leave messages behind. The people who love you will already know that about you, so, um, anything you leave behind'll be precious anyway.

Re: video

[fehus]

[give a rip............................................]

[fridgeflower]

My people are just going to be cheesed that I left them near-manuscripts.

I'm still working on finding the perfect, concise way to say how to feel, but... I feel so much, you know? I want the world to know how much I loved it, despite... I mean, I do want that to be what I leave, love instead of everything else I've been.

[khajidont]

[ Ugh. Thinking about this happening to Laurie makes him feel sick. The way Will spoke, it was like an inevitability, but Laurie's too young and too bright to have to consider the same fate. He offers her up a sad sort of smile. ]

I'm still rooting for the option of figuring out how to stay here forever. But... yeah. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Even if we can't control when we leave, it'd be nice if what we left behind was good.

[quickfingers]

Yeah, I wrote one of those a while back. It hits home the more people you lose to the Porter, too.

Pain in the ass to keep updating it but the gesture's important. At least imho.

[khajidont]

Hey, I wouldn't be saying it if I didn't think it was important too. It means that you took the time to think about the people in your life you'd want to talk to before you leave.

But I'm pretty sure enough of us don't like thinking about it so it just doesn't get done.

video;

[storyseeker]

Yeah. That's a good idea.

[She's distinctly not crying, but Elena's looked better.]

video;

[khajidont]

I'm full of 'em. [ He takes in her appearance - it's not good. ] Were, um... were you and Will close?

video.

[oddbod]

I'm sorry about your friend.

[She didn't know Will, and she doesn't know Jaime, but she feels the need to speak up. After all, someone very (very) close to her has recently left as well, and she knows what a constant struggle this is in the Import community.]

I've had it all written up for almost a year, myself. Morbid, I suppose, but I like a goodbye. Sometimes it needs to be said, to sit right with you.

video.

[khajidont]

It's -- Thanks. [ He was going to say that it's okay, but to say that would be an insult to Will, so... best not to, really. ]

But, um, you're right. Maybe we can't decide when to say it, but we can decide to say it, to the people that matter. I guess it's not so different from anyone else living on a time limit though, huh?

[ Video ]

[motorcycle_noises]

[ There's a teenager, a new one wearing red motorcycle leathers and flicking a zippo idly on the screen. The camera's a bit wobbly, like he's trying to hold it by hand and hasn't figured out how to best keep the phone stable as he does. ]

A way to send people messages, huh?

[ Video ]

[khajidont]

Yeah. And to divy out any stuff you might leave behind, but - the message part's the important bit.

[ He offers the guy on the other side of the screen a small smile. ]

But you're new here, right? This probably isn't something you'll have to worry about for a long time.