citynet | text post; un: peerless

It seems that several of us have already located the keys to "our" personal safety deposit boxes, and found items of a very personal nature contained therein. Likewise many of you may also have discovered that these objects carry a curse most peculiar, which compels the person who recognizes them to speak of the circumstances surrounding these objects which weigh most heavily on their memory.

This one would like to take this time to remind everyone that we exist now in a new world, subject to no laws but those we make ourselves. It strikes this one as nonsensical to persecute each other for things we may or may not have done elsewhere, especially when those with shameful memories may struggle to convey the full context which lay behind their remembered actions. This is said not to justify or apologize for the crimes some of us may have committed in another world, but simply to promote harmony in this one. We have no allies here but each other; shall we allow our mysterious captors to turn us against each other so easily?

~~[no shen yuan doesn't have a guilty conscious shut the fuck up]~~

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[ A more cultured, erudite person might say, "The lady doth protest too much."

What Peter Quill says is, ]

so who did you kill

NOBODY!!!

...I might have sent someone to a fate worse than death, though...

Anyway who did YOU kill, huh, that that's your first response??

a lot of people, probably. don't really have an exact number. nameless henchmen and lackeys kind of blur together after a while

[ Also, there's the small fact that at one point, he had a hand in fucking up a plan that devastated half of the universe for the span of about five years, but that's a long story. ]

so what'd you do?

Wow. I've heard of Main Character Syndrome, but most people aren't so blatant about it.

[Also if anyone in this city is the main character it's Shen Yuan's roommate, so jot that down.]

I. Ugh. This is the worst curse I've ever been under, and I'm counting that time I nearly died.

This is the second time I've been kidnapped to another world. The first time, my captor forced me to mentor a young man who was fated to conquer the world and crown himself emperor. But before he could do that, he had to face the trial of the Endless Abyss, which is a sort of. Ever-shifting, hellish borderland between the human and demon realms. A crucible that hardens and blackens what it doesn't utterly destroy.

So my captor forced me to push that young man I'd looked after, that I'd basically raised for three years, into the Abyss.

He was only seventeen.

You sound awfully defensive.

How wonderful, someone who can read tone from a text post. You'll go far in life with a skill like that, that's for certain.

It's a shame I ended up as a doctor instead. So much wasted potential.

Indeed yes, who needs medical professionals when there's such a great demand for people to read text posts on the internet? Still, here you are. Following your passion after all, I see. Good for you.

What the hell is an internet?

Ah.

It's a larger version of the technology we're using to talk to each other, my friend. The one we had in my home world spanned the entire planet.

You do know what a planet is, don't you good sir?

Why don't you explain it to me in the most patronizing way possible?

Oh, twist my arm why don't you?

You see, my friend, in ancient times there were a people called the Greeks who had a particular interest in stargazing. Over time they noticed that a select number of stars -- four in all, if my memory serves -- moved about the night sky more quickly and irregularly than any of their fellows. They decided to call these stars the planetes, which literally means 'wanderer.'

Over time -- and I do mean time, something on the order of two thousand years -- it was realized that these celestial bodies weren't stars at all, but rather a different sort of body which orbited our own star: the sun. It was then realized that our own Earth also orbits the sun, and is in fact of a kind with the other wanderers -- although of course we'd realized by then that the planets don't really wander at all, but orbit the sun in regular, predictable ellipses, while the sun itself orbits the galactic center in a still larger ellipsis. But the name stuck, and thus the Earth is called the third planet from the sun.

Did you get all that?

is that your theory, then

some manner of curse to bring our sins into the light
and offer us up to public scrutiny?

are you telling us this because someone did that or because you did something you don't want to be judged for

Do I seem like someone with a guilty conscience to you?

That is my theory precisely. One wouldn't want the rats in their maze to get too comfortable, now would they? They might start unionizing against you.

Laoshi, you can rest easy.

I haven't seen anyone fighting.

Is Binghe not going to ask what I found?

...yeah

Not here, where our captors can see.

[He'd like the illusion of privacy.]

I'll be home soon, and laoshi can show me, alright?

[ Well that's.

A lot. ]

i'm really sorry man. shouldn't have pushed

Sorry???

I just admitted to condemning someone who trusted me to a fate worse than death and that makes you feel sorry??

[NO. Ugh. Calm the fuck down Shen Yuan, even he can tell that that response is out of proportion. He takes a few deep breathes before starting to type,]

I wasn't expecting sympathy. Thank you.

Oh.

And here I thought I was being subtle.

what was the kid's name?

Luo Binghe.

Normally in our culture, family names come first and given names second. But he was a foundling, because fate is horrible and cruel. So he was named after the Luo River, where he was found as a baby. And "binghe" means glacier; it combines the characters for "ice" and "river" in our writing system.

He was found in winter.

You can imagine how it felt to pile yet more suffering on his back, even under duress.

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guess who's got two thumbs and never hit post comment!!!

thank you for joining me on this merry-go-round of emotional trauma <3

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