pyraxis | (no subject)

Current Location: the dreaming

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daria

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All right, I'll start.

My name is Daria-toren. I was born on Karn. Last week a robot named Jim Nightmare (

yonjuunana ) hosted a pizza party in the dreaming. For a short while a space carved out of the formless ether became host to a small group of jiko from all corners of existence.

They posted in a fury. A journal which normally landed only a handful of comments suddenly broke a hundred. I met the handmaiden of an exiled princess and a psychologist committed to the study of raw creation (

rosencrantz ). I summoned a copse of trees, and a man from a thousand years in the future saw one for the first time. I traded notes on death and fear with a necromancer from the Sundered Kingdoms (

galen_6thnecro ).

The wave of connection passed, and I was sad to see them go.

So this is a space to meet again. I call jiko, spirits, soulbonds, characters who've seized a life of their own, from all across the multiverse. If you are invisible, if you are lonely or bored, if you have spent your whole existence talking only to the one or two people who acknowledge your presence, come meet us here.

Any language, words or pictures or sounds or however you communicate, is fair game. What we cannot understand, we will learn.

Come join me in this place where it's all real.

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*Looks like he's trying very hard not to laugh, but again doesn't make a sound* B-bigger on the inside?! Wooden box? Please tell me it can travel through time as well...

Me: *pops in* You don't get to make any Doctor Who jokes either! I don't think anyone here would get it. And I thought you hated that show.

Jim: I don't hate it. It's just kind of upsetting sometimes. Anyway, it's not my fault if they've got some kinda magical Tardis! :D Now shoo! Get back to work! Let me talk!

Me: Hahaha, okay, sure. *disappears*

Jim: Um. Where were we? Oh yeah... I guess I'm pretty safe here, then. Nobody back home is gonna be magicking me into anything. And I die in dreams all the time and I'm fine. Although this is a lot different from the dreams I usually have, so... I'll still be careful, try to believe it's not real. I don't really- Since I'm a robot, I don't get sick. So who knows what would happen.

Oh man. That... that shapefinding thing sounds intense. What a messed-up system. Isn't there any other way for people to get their shape? I mean... if you really think you're gonna die... people don't always get through that kind of shit okay. PTSD and all that. I've seen it happen.

I know I'd be pretty pissed if someone tried to kill me then was like "Oh, hey, just kidding! Congratulations, you're a lizard" or whatever. Isn't there, like, at least a pretty high rate of priests getting strangled after doing this?

College? I dunno. You have to be smarter than me. People keep telling me I'm smart, but if I'm so smart, why do I keep nearly failing out of school?

*Stares at the wolf* Man, you're way smarter than my brother's dog. It just chases the thing and doesn't bring it back. *Carefully reaches out with his metal hand and picks up the toy, then throws it towards Fiona and runs over to hide behind Daria*

At least he doesn't turn into a cat. Those things want to kill me, I swear.

rarf! rarf! rarfrarfrarfrarfrarf!
*tears over to fiona to get the toy, knocking her over in the process*
RARF!
*grabs the toy, runs to Daria, drops it at her feet and puts his paws up on her.
Rarf! Rarf!
*puts head around to look at the robot*
Wuf?

Oh! You must be the guy Daria mentioned at the pizza party. We were talking about that time sickness stuff.

You don't have to explain or keep talking if you're tired. I am kinda curious now, though. It sounds like you've really been through a lot.

Man, I really get what you're saying about the little kid stuff. Kids can be jerks. Being the only robot in my elementary school class was... yeah, it was rough. *shrugs* Turning into a wolf sounds pretty cool to me.

I don't like to change to a wolf...*stares*
how do you shrug? what kind of skin is that? what's your energy source?
oops. I was supposed to be talking about Ua. I've been to Dirt - er - Earth, I mean. I've heard stories about djinn and genies in lamps, and I guess that is about the same as the Kifu. Its a wood box, and there's special spells put on it, and the wood is special, and all of that makes your uza stronger, and available to the person who put the spells on the box. The Raba - those are the leaders on Ua - all have kifu, but no one else does, because you need the uza of a Raba to make one. It takes a lot!
My mother is really powerful, and she likes power. She *said* she wanted to bring the water back, but I think she just wanted to see how powerful she could get. The women on Ua, for some reason, have more uza than the men, but the kifu seems to work better with a man in it. So if you belong to a royal family and have a lot of uza you have two choices: be a woman and get trained as a raba, or be a man and get put in a kifu. It's your duty if you choose to be male. A lot of men don't think its so bad because it only lasts 20 years and your uza stays higher when you come out. Did I mention that in most cases only the raba who put you in can let you out? *Grin* But *I* broke out, and so did my son. I bet they change the spells now, but I sang my way out. I'm not sure how Sha got out.

May I intervene here?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!

Okay, that's better. Wow. That, um, never occurred to me. Kifu, tardis... *brain explodes*

I'm sure Daria hasn't a clue what you're talking about, though. :P

I think the point is to give you PTSD. As Earth people define it, anyway. It takes death-fear to break you through into the first change. There's no getting around that. At least that I know of. If there was no shapefinding, people wouldn't learn to change.

And then they'd go mad. We have stories about that. People who stay too long in nok - that's human - form. They go as mad as people who stay too long in shape. A long time ago, there was no shapefinding, and people's first shift came when they got attacked by worms or sarkotu or whatever. There was no one to guide the change and bring them back, so sometimes they'd run wild and never come back. And sometimes somebody never got hurt, and then they got too old and rigid to change, and when something finally happened, they couldn't defend themselves.

It's in our blood, the change. You have wild animals on Earth, don't you? Think how they move, how they startle, how they think. It's not PTSD. It's a way of life in a hostile environment. And Karn is hostile, and we don't have machines to tame it.

I don't think we'd be better off if we did. Look at what these people have done to Earth.

The priests, the Grehti, they're the ones that are messed up. Not cause of shapefinding. Cause they really kill the ones that fail.

School - that's like an apprenticeship, right? Maybe you're apprenticed to the wrong craft. They tried to make a weaver out of me, once. It didn't go well.

*pokes Sha on the forehead* Hey, hey, slow down. You're scaring him.

Jim, hold out your hand, just like this. Let him sniff it. He only bites people that deserve it.

*waits a few moments, then grins at Sha, takes the ball and tosses it straight up in the air. It keeps going, and going....*

*oooof!* Hey!

*heaves a sigh, picking herself up and dusting herself off* I thought he'd mostly gotten over that. He used to think it was great fun to knock people on their butts with his fancy magic speed. You shoulda seen the bruises.

Pleased to meetcha, anyway. *sticks a hand out* I'm Fiona. That's my boy Sha. We're collectors. You've probably been asked this a million times, but what's that you're made of?

Aw damn, sorry. Didn't mean to confuse you.

I forgot there were a bunch of Gillians. What was the Gillian like that hired you? Did you get to talk to him at all before he disappeared?

If you go to Dekan, wait for me. It's been a while, and I hear the tea does interesting things to you.

O-okay... *Slowly holds out his metal hand for Sha to sniff*

Me: *pops in* I just need to add the disclaimer that I'm a huge dog lover and animal person. He didn't get it from me. *disappears*

Jim: D: Hey!

Intervene all you'd like! I'm just glad somebody got what I was talking about. :D

Hi! :D *Reaches out with his metal hand to shake her hand*

Sorry 'bout that. I threw the toy to try and get him to go to you. Didn't know he'd knock you over.

Collectors? What do you collect?

I'm made of metal and stuff, and powered by electricity... er, lightning. Yeah, I've been getting asked that a lot, but I was kinda prepared for that when I came here. :)

*sniff*
*tail wags rapidly, eyes big and happy*
wuf!
*goes to fiona and puts his paws up on her*

suddenly Fiona's arms are full of little boy hugging her tight
UA!

Skin? *looks at his right hand* You know, I actually have no idea what it's made of. Nothing organic, whatever it is. It's really not fair how they teach biology in school but nothing about this... Oh! Unless you're talking about the rest of me. That's metal. Er, mostly. And my energy is electricity. Same stuff as lightning. Hey, I think I'm getting the hang of explaining this! :D

How do I shrug? I, uh, move my shoulders? *shrugs again*

Yeah, I've heard stories about genies before. Guess I'm pretty glad I'm not from your world. Getting stuffed into a box for 20 years doesn't sound like fun. *grins* Even if it's like a Tardis. That's really awesome that you were able to break out.

Bring the water back? Where did the water go?

I... I guess that makes sense, then. For you guys. But not for us.

I've gotta disagree with what you're saying about Earth and machines, and not just because I am one, though I'm probably kinda biased. Sure, the planet's messed up, but it's not all bad. Nobody here is a shapeshifter. We get attacked by a tiger- that's our word for big scary cat- we don't change. It eats us. Unless we have technology to defend ourselves. So it's not like it really was a choice.

It's sorta worse when you're a robot. I'm not kidding when I say a 10-year-old could probably beat me up. We die easy, though it's really hard to kill us so we stay dead. Doesn't help that I've always been way small for my age. I get what you're saying about wild animals. Used to feel like that all the fucking time when I was a little kid. But it's... it's no good when you can't defend yourself. Just makes you crazy. Or you feel so helpless that you just give up. So... yeah. Bring on the machines.

Anyway... *smiles* Man, this is heavy stuff. I totally can't imagine you as a weaver! I wish school were like an apprenticeship, maybe I'd do good if it was something I actually liked. Science and art all day long, that I could handle! But no, they send all the kids to a place where you have to sit quietly and learn about all kinds of boring stuff. I can barely sit still. Half the time I can't even keep track of what's going on. It's pretty bad.

Oh. Um - I didn't think. You are a machine.

Yeh. It's not good if you can't defend yourself. I could tell you about Celesty sometime. But that's even darker than - what I was talking about.

How come your body's so weak? It looks like it's made of hard metal. Could you forge armor?

I don't like machines - some kinds of machines - cause they mean progress, and I know what too much progress too fast could do to my world. We're strong against sarkotu and the like. But - we'd be - as defenseless as you as a kid, to Earth machines. We'd be - caged, and tamed, and made mad.

I guess the machines are like your shape. But I don't get, if machines could kill a - tiger - for you, why couldn't they make you strong?

...

I used to run away from weaving, *smile* but I bet you can't run away from school. They should let you up to run around every little while, I bet then you could bleed all the energy out and be able to think straight.

Hiya hiya, Sha! *hugs him back, then swings him around*

*grins at Jim over her armful of kid* We collect weird stuff, from different worlds. I hop between worlds and then I take it to market to sell. Sometimes people don't like that, but that's why I don't stay anyplace too long.

Course, that was before I found Gillian's tent and he hired me to help take care of it. It's been pretty crazy since then, us running to get away from UaLin, and the mess on Karn and everything. That's the story they're writing down for us - the kathak, I mean. They found out how to code words onto paper, so they can have stories without needing a kathak there to tell them.

So what's a tardis, anyway?

*smirks, looking at Daria out of the corner of her eye*

I don't think she knew what to do when you started laughing. *wicked smile* Did you, Dar?

Tardis? What's that? The kifu's not so bad, according to some. My mother was in hers for - I don't remember, a long time. When you're in there you can create whatever reality you want, including one where you aren't in the box. For me, it was the idea of coming out and finding my lover 20 years older...my mother didn't like us to have a girlfriend...we were supposed to mate with the women in the arem. But Sheana...I met her at the census. She was so nice, so simple, just plain average uza. We were going to run away together.
The water? No one really knows where it went. It just dried up over time. At least that's what I heard. There was a theory that it was because there were too many kifu, but some thought that Uzazya was angry with us. I don't know. I don't really care, as long as she doesn't try to put me in the kifu again. Ya knows what *that* might do to me!

Yeah, I'm not saying you'd be better off with machines. I think we both have worlds that are good for us but bad for the other. :) I like it here in the dreaming, how we can meet and hang out without screwing things up for anyone.

Why I'm so weak? Well... Yeah, machines can be really strong, but androids have to be weak. It's... Ah, it's complicated. *paces back and forth as he talks* Okay. So, I can't feel pain. Sounds good, right? No. If a human gets born who can't feel pain, they never learn how not to hurt themselves, and they die young. Same for us. Nobody has figured out how to make robots feel pain right, so instead they made us weaker so we're not a danger to ourselves. Or... not weak exactly, let me see if I can use these words right- our isgeni's decent but our sora is really bad? *frowns* Plus it's cheaper. And I think people would be scared of us if we were stronger than them.

And yeah, metal is strong, but I'm also made of a bunch of really complicated little fiddly bits. It's easy for something to go wrong. And if I get hurt, I don't heal on my own. Entropy is a bitch. Being made of metal isn't as cool as it sounds. *grins* It's not bad, though, I just need to be careful. It's gotta be less weird than being made out of meat!

Go ahead and talk about Celesty if you want. I'm kinda curious now. I just- I dunno, it's my own angsty shit that I don't want to dwell on. It's in the past, I'm better now, time to move on.

*Grins* Run around at school and bleed the energy out? Oh man, I wish! See, I've got this wonderful combination of ADHD, being unable to get physically tired, and only needing about 4 hours of sleep every night. I'm kinda stuck like this. Well, unless I'm running low on batteries, then I'm tired but it doesn't help with the thinking straight.

Now you see why I'm so desperate to get out to places like this and talk to people? I need interesting stuff to do. Otherwise I'll just be driving myself nuts and climbing the walls all day.

I do wish I could have breaks to play my guitar at school. That might help. Music always lets me slow down and chill out for a bit.

You got a point, Fiona, or are you just trying to pick a fight? Trust me, you'd lose.

*turns back to Jim* We've got history. But I didn't come here to fight.

*closes her eyes for a few moments*

Enough of that. Where were we?

Collecting weird stuff? Awesome! That sounds like fun.

I was wondering about that, actually. How do you guys get between worlds? Daria's talking about Karn, other people are talking about Ua, and Gy said he'd been to Earth. But everyone seems to know each other. Where I'm from, we're just stuck on Earth. No space travel yet or anything. But I'm guessing you guys don't have spaceships.

Coding words onto paper? You mean writing? :D I can do that!

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