Video;

[amaure]

[When the feed cuts on, it's later in the evening, well after the first day of Rocket training, and thus Emet-Selch is not wearing his uniform while in his little dormitory. What he is wearing is far more extravagant. Yes, he took the time to put that thing back on, he wasn't about to suffer the alternative longer than what was necessary. Of course there are likely those who saw him in that most abhorrent uniform, if others were in training or aiding in the training that is. All of which he's been entirely quick in mastering, almost as if he's already...mastered such trivial skills. He has, and plus some.

Regardless, that's not what this is about. Well, it kinda is, actually.]

Good evening, I am Solus zos Galvus—your newest recruit to this fine organization of unscrupulous villains. Certainly prompt with the training, aren't they? That sort of rigid discipline I can most certainly respect—after all, with poor foundation, you cannot expect aught else but for everything to come crumbling down around you.

[He settles back in his seat, resting his elbow on the desk he's clearly sitting at, cupping his cheek with the palm of his hand as he lazily gazes into the feed.]

Regardless, such training is wasted on one such as I, but I understand rules are rules, and even I am no exception. [There's the slightest edge of annoyance to his tone, but it disappears as he continues.] Regardless, 'twould do us well to know each other properly, wouldn't you agree? So come, introduce yourselves to me. For I will know each and every one of you, as well as what rank you hold—what skill sets you have, and so forth.

If I am to familiarize myself with this team, to know which holes my expertise should rightly fill, then I must take your measure.

Comments

[amaure]

[Well, Dirk certainly has a more complex vocabulary than nearly everyone else he's talked to. Refreshing, if he's being honest, though he finds the rambling a poor means to compensate for something or other. The comment about things never truly being equitable between them rings true, but that's merely the fact of any reality that none but save two are his equal.]

Oh, very well. If you would find some measure of succor and restored propriety through this exchange of information, I have little reason to deny you.

Most have answered what questions there are of the conventional sort, though if I am to recall correct, I believe you were listed among those familiar with technology. Or, at the very least, you labor within the science sector of this organization.

As such, I have heard warnings of the limitations of the technology, though scarce details of such. I have designs to test these limits for myself once this infuriatingly pointless training has concluded, I would know the proclaimed boundaries of what can or cannot be achieved by your meager limits.

[uber_marionettist]

[I cannot help but notice that this guy manages to spin every part of this like he's doing me some kind of fucking favour when I'm the one volunteering my time and attention to screw some goddamn training wheels on his shiny red tricycle like it's Christmas morning and I dragged myself out of bed at four in the AM to watch him tear through all the carefully wrapped and packaged presents and pass them all up in favour of the one fucking box marked 'assembly required.']

Bzzzzzzt. Nuh-uh.

Strike one.

My limits are your limits now.

Except you're actually significantly more limited than I am, seeing as I have multiple fully trained Pokemon at their highest level, access to privileged information, and nigh-unlimited resources that you simply don't.

So get off your high horse and learn to walk before you hurt yourself.

Suck up those tears and hold your sniffles, I haven't forgotten my promise to hold your hand. I am a man of my word.

I just gotta ask you a few questions first.

Question one: do you know what a video game is?

[amaure]

Really. Your sensitive ego seems universally shared, you know? How troublesome that your ilk continue with their failure to grasp such a simple concept: I need not my powers to use mine intellect.

However, if you must needs have me answer your silly questions first, then so be it.

Yes, though long has it been since last I beheld such foolery. Why?

[Allag had advanced space travel and god capturing technology, of course they had something as simple as video games. After all, their citizenry lived comfortable and pampered lives, while they used chimeric clones for soldiers in their conquest for world domination.

Ah, the Allagan Empire. One of his greatest accomplishments.]

[uber_marionettist]

[You asked.

About technology.

Do you want.

Your fucking answer.]

No.

Shut up. Shut up and listen.

I don't care.

I do not fucking care.

You are nothing.

You just don't fucking get it.

You have no idea what you're talking to right now.

You don't know what anyone here who ain't from here ever is, or was.

My ego alone exists on a magnitude beyond the ouroboros of monotonous questions about 'identity' or 'individuality.' What you think about that, and me, just does not fucking matter.

This is not the 'failure to grasp' the modal existence of a rudimentary mind somewhere inside of your fancypants skull. It's how many teeth you're gonna knock out bashing your face into a solid wall. If that's what you're into? Shit, don't let me hold you back. Just say the word, and I will let you go beat your face in on the mechanical enforcement of reality 'til you're really satisfied.

But if you're not interested in gumming pablum and warm mash until someone finally has mercy on you and screws some flashy implants into your drooling, edentate jaw?

Then shut up for like, five whole seconds and let me explain what the 'limits' really are. Then you can decide whatever the fuck you're going to decide and I can go take a goddamn shower.

[amaure]

Well, well, perhaps you should take that shower first, seeing as it might better help that mood of yours. But, if you prove as stubborn as you are long winded, then by all means explain to me these dreaded limits that so has the lot of you utterly and completely convinced that none can breech it.

Quite honestly, the only reason I am suffering your prattle is merely that you've an entertaining manner of presenting yourself. Immature, and rather boorish, but certainly not boring. Hopefully your most profound and enlightening explanation of my future failings will likewise keep me enthralled.

So, go on then, I'm listening.

[uber_marionettist]

Your lack of consideration for your audience is hilarious, really. The only reason I can stand you is that I've been people more obnoxious than you. Well, one of the only reasons. My patience is infinite, when I choose it to be. Word in my inbox is you're some kind of god? Feeling a bit cramped, are we?

I almost feel sorry for you.

Almost, because I'm not really inclined to pity. It definitely makes you pathetic.

And unlucky, because I'm guessing you don't play much in the way of video games, which is just too bad for you.

Welcome to Foolery.

Population: you.

This place isn't limited by cultural norms, or technological ceilings, or societal development, or the presence or absence of specific resources or innovations. It's limited by genre, plot, and textual synergy. Put short, you're limited by the meta.

You're a player character, I'm a player character, and we are both fully bound in and by the system we now inhabit. No undo button, no rewrites, no deleting your account, or yourself, or anything else for that matter. The hard drive of the universe can't be accessed from in-game. Even if you pop it open, crack the lid on it like you just rolled the fattest chest of loot at the end boss and dig around in the script... but you don't have the power to use those console commands anyway.

It's a cutesy kid-friendly paradise-cum-purgatory. Endless days and nights of turn-down-for-nothin monotony; background music, level grinding, friendship and fun.

[amaure]

Very interesting.

Though, I never claimed to be a god, merely immortal, as they are not one and the same. There is but one true God, and I am decidedly not Him. Hazarding a guess, you have spoken with Steven, and much is he nursing a grudge? A pity, really. Ah, well what is there to be done?

Now, to address your considerable hostility, if you are truly wishing to make a mark or affect me in—what I can only assume to be—your attempt at condescension, save it for one more afflicted by such mummery. Such pettiness will not sway me in any such direction, nor make me reconsider my course.

Your explanation fits well within the general parameters of my estimations of this reality, though admittedly less around the structure of some frivolous plaything. But, if that is the framework you need to understand the laws of reality, twisted though they are in this star, then I suppose I cannot blame you. You appear to be quite keen, if needlessly inflammatory, but I do suppose those traits do not necessitate negation of one another.

Regardless, your counsel has been duly noted. This realm is but the flawed conception of pacifistic fiction, by an author unskilled with their understanding of reality as it should be. Viewed thus, its laws are nonsensical, inconsistent, and rely heavily on cliché, making the navigation of such tiresome at best, maddening at worst, should you attempt to introduce elements that should otherwise not exist within its parameters.

Well, I for one am up for the challenge.

[uber_marionettist]

I was actually being literal, but hey. Give it a whirl, maybe your spaghetti's got something special in it. I doubt it, no offence. But going by what you've said just now, I may have something of an unfair advantage, and I'm not talking the frivolities of rank and resource.

Then again, you said something earlier about powers you're missing, so I'm thinking you're holding something back.

I don't know what, and I'm not asking; that's your business, not mine. I'm not trying to pry.

Just one thing.

If this is what passes for hostility where you come from, then you're going to have an interesting time sharing oxygen with me.

[amaure]

Are you implying that this is all but a simulation of sorts? That we are indeed inside a video game? A curious theory, I admit, one that I will refrain from dismissing outright, but until further proof of such can be truly ascertained, forgive me my apprehension.

You are correct, I am not showing my hand to the lot of you straight from the gate, for that would be a fool's errand. Much as I am certain your lot has done similar for me. But if it is all the same to you, then I am likewise willing to discard its mention utterly, and entirely.

Do not misunderstand, friend, hostility is scarce a problem. However, if this is merely the way in which you present yourself in what you perceive as an affable manner, then I will be sure to remember that.

[uber_marionettist]

I wouldn't say this is 'affable.' It's just 'me.' And I don't think I'm being that fucking unreasonable. You come on strong, I come on strong right back.

But while I'm still in the business of misusing the apostrophe for rhetorical clarity, no worries about your 'apprehension.' Like I said, I've got an unfair advantage. One for which, yeah, I'm not filling the details in for you just yet. Not because you're new, though.

The explanation's just a pain in the ass.

And full offence, but trying to explain literally anything when you keep holding up the line with 'your ilk' this and 'silly questions' that, just the most invidiously puerile shit imaginable, is a big fat 'sayonara' from me.

Figure your shit out. Then decide where you stand. Got it, big guy? Folks're already wanting to throw hands with you.

You've been warned.

[amaure]

Nay, not unreasonable, merely a sort I have scarce familiarity with, but ever am I adaptable.

Whatever this advantage may be, I doubt it is as keen of an edge as you believe. However, I will concede that we are far too unfamiliar with one another to fully know. Such is a matter for time to sort out.

And as you so crudely named it, I most assuredly have my shit figured out. "Folks" have always wanted to "throw hands with me" since the dawn of time, I worry not over such trivialities.

All the same, consider your warnings noted.