worldexecute | ( inbox )

( ah, is that the secret. angela's grip is loose, almost as if she's keeping it that way so she can let go at any moment.

off they go. )

Yourself and others. Happy having you as you are of them. Didn't I just say that? I doubt any of them would want you sacrificing yours for them. ( if this is all it had taken, she would've held one of their hands sooner... would she have been able to? mmm. ) Trust me when I say things like that don't end well.

[ another person who says stuff like that... there really are so many. but at least don doesn't sacrifice her happiness any for others; she's happy to be of help, happy to protect, to be burdened. it gives her some sense of purpose, to lay it like that, even outside a narrative focused on justice.

justice shall always be important, shall ever be the forefront of her mind, because that is a way to keepsafe the happiness of others-- but it isn't the only thing she can do for them. a shift, a differing hue. ]

I shall trust thee at thy word, then. For I do wish to be happy as well.

[ ... at the very least, because others are happy when she is happy, and because she is happy when they are, too. a feedback. ]

For what reason were thee directed to lead another out of Hell?

( her hand releases don's for a moment--then takes it again. angela keeps her gaze ahead, quiet for a long moment. )

It's a long story, Don Quixote.

I have time.

[ she can't go home with her heart still recovering. ]

The City—the one we're from—suffers from a disease of the mind. My role was to assist the manager of the facility I was assigned to in germinating a seed that would help free them from it. That's the "Hell" the flowers spoke of.

( she says it simply, as if she's explaining something entirely different to a new employee. )

...The facility, and what the seed was exactly, are both off-limits. I would have to kill you until you forgot about it if I told you.

... The disease of the mind -- that is what Miss Carmen was trying to cure, and lost her life in the process of it.

[ but it's a lot like their boughs: even if don knew more, she couldn't say. she'd have to kill angela until she forgot about it. it's just how it is. ]

I shan't ask further on those points then, though I am curious to know. It is at that time that Netzach and the others got to know one another, is it not? Under the banner of a valiant cause, for the betterment of our City -- I cannot help but support it myself.

Edited 2023-10-26 05:17 (UTC)

( . okay. this makes some things easier. she also needs to shake netzach for talking too much. )

Correct. Carmen collected them with her charisma, one by one, though she and... ( she trails off, thinking of giovanni, and shakes her head. ) She knew some of them for longer than others. That's all. It was her determination and spirit that inspired people to follow her. She truly believed in the cause she fought for, and so did they, as idealistic and worthless as it was.

( no, not worthless, but—what had it gotten them, in the end? every single one of them died for it. angela sighs. )

You're not the only person who'd support a noble-sounding cause like that, though a "disease of the mind"... How should I put it? No one in that City would consider their way of life, the way they feel or how they react to things, as diseased. That's just how it is there. ( that's that, and this is this. ) Certain people thought it could be better, and they were willing to do anything, try anything, in order to see their goals achieved.

Not for money or power, like other Corporations or groups, but for the betterment of mankind.

( ... )

Any other questions?

[ bout to get worse cause ]

Was it because thou were a machine that death stayed its hand from thee, unlike the others? Or because of thy position? Also, how is that thou hath become human now? It cannot be a reward for thy work, for as thee mentioned it one had been left out of the festivities at the end.

[ ... that she hadn't been rewarded, noted upon, or anything; that she had chosen to live where they would have had her be forgotten. ]

( angela's grip tightens. exponentially. if she had been a machine, there's no doubt don quixote's hand would be broken at this moment. )

You get the answer to one of those three questions. Pick wisely.

[ ................................

oh, so like, this is stuff she shouldn't know. she definitely shouldn't know. cool, cool. ]

Ehm... Truthfully, I do not care what thou'rt, or what thee had been prior; Angela is Angela, and one I should like to know from now on. So I should like to know if it was due to thy position, since from mine understanding they were beneath thee as they are now.

[ her and roland were different cases, netzach had said; angela, perhaps thanks to her position, had been spared it. roland, perhaps from his lateness in arrival. ]

( ...the grip relaxes a little. that makes two people who said it didn't matter. )

My story began when Carmen's ended. Does that satisfy you?

[ oh... she can feel her hand again. wiggles fingers just a bit, and then she's holding firmly once more. ]

Will thee answer further if it does not?

( ...... )

Tell me this first: how much do you know?

[ how much should she not know. ]

Ehm... That Netzach was once a man named Giovanni, whom followed Miss Carmen along with the others that wished to cure the disease mentioned, and all the others have a similar "first life" save for thee and Sir Roland. By thine own admission, thou were assistant to a manager at L Corp before director of thy Library, and he as well as three others were part of the Asiyah. Only thyself and Sir Roland have escaped the clutches of such an odd reincarnation, which I... somewhat felt... within the confines of the mall.

[ somewhat, because it was more out of body than anything. somewhat, because she doesn't like to recall it. she prefers the physical reality of her body being smashed. ]

That is why it does not satisfy me, thine answer. Are thee more alike than I have been told?

( you know what?

she should have killed h no she won't think that, she's trying to work past that. angela turns them down the path to the bitey flowers without missing a beat, letting go of don quixote's hand. )

Only in that we came too late to experience a "first life" the way the others had. Otherwise, Roland and I have nothing in common. ( save for agony and sorrow. save for knowing just how cruel the city is, just how complicated feelings are. to be happy once, and to have it torn away. ) Yes, you could say it was because of my position, in that case.

[ oh... no hand holding anymore. okay. it feels empty, but she presses it back to her side. ]

What has that to do with Miss Carmen, then?

( she tries to find a way to explain this without revealing too much. she looks through the words she could choose, and she comes up mostly empty. )

A violation of the AI Ethics Amendment.

[ the what ]

Ehm... That is... the guidelines for which we model prosthetics, no? I do not know much of it; it is not particularly relevant for me, and so I have put anything regarding it from my mind.

[ since it doesn't matter if you're a robo or whatever, if you wrong she will right. ]

It is alike to them in a way, is it not? A life that is not thine, but one thee recalls regardless?

( GIRL YOUR LAW!!!!!!! )

In a way, but whereas the manager could feasibly look upon Malkuth and that lot and see reflections of the people he had once known and worked alongside, when it came to me, he only— he—

( angela snaps her mouth shut, lips pursing. calm, calm. )

...I was a failure. I was nothing like the person I was supposed to be modeled after. Visually and in personality, in strength of will and in charisma... No, I was nothing like her, not to him. ( a short breath, and she shakes her head. ) I was also infinitely more advanced than them—unlike the others, I was actually designed as a human. They were merely robots with humanity stuffed inside of their metal shells. The person who graced them with actual human forms, the ones you've come to know, was me, when I recruited them to assist in The Library.

Edited 2023-10-26 07:18 (UTC)

[ laws that oppress others are laws meant to be broken!!!!!!!! ]

And thee do not think thyself kind? I should think thou art, for giving them a form which they could share the passage of time with thee. Thou all had been human once, in a sense, and given new life as a different form, a different name with memories that thou had not made thyself. Failure or not, that does not make thee any less the same in principle.

[ but

she recalls netzach's feelings on it, and reaches for angela's hand again; brushes against it instead of holding, a quieter form. ]

Nonetheless, I do not think it bad that thou'rt different than she. Miss Carmen, for all her apparent strength, seemed fragile.

( her hand moves away from the touch, gripping her opposite arm just above the elbow. half of a self-hug. )

And you don't think I am?

( angela glances at her, eyebrows pressing together. )

...Do you think I lasted this long because I never considered doing what she did, Don Quixote? Do you think it was simply my willingness to live that saved me? The story repeated itself hundreds of thousands of times until it ran perfectly. Even if I had tried to take that action, I'm sure it would have simply been erased by a reset. I had no choice but to live, and in the end, I decided to live for myself. To actually live, the way I had seen others doing, that I had read of them doing, instead of living like a puppet who could do nothing but follow the tug of her strings.

Edited 2023-10-27 02:11 (UTC)

[ for someone like don quixote, who will die again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again,

she wonders what makes it so bad. the pain remains, the memories remain, but you're alive. you can step forward another day. so long as dante was safe, they could be revived. angela hadn't died, though; she'd seen them die again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again all on her own, perhaps, just as dante does them. but the manager esquire seemed well enough, so what was her problem?

don stares curiously at angela, but her hand remains put. ]

Do thee think Miss Carmen would have done the same, if she'd had no choice but to live as thee did?

It would have never happened with her.

( it was only because it was her, angela. to try and imagine carmen in the same exact situation... it's impossible. the love he held for that woman, the admiration she garnered—he would have never pushed her to that point. he would have listened to her ideas, considered them, and done his best to work it out.

angela raises her free hand to her eyes and touches the edges, expecting wetness with the lump beginning in her throat—she finds none, and swallows past it instead. )

Another question, Don Quixote?

[ ... another question.

carmen, carmen, carmen. it's a name netzach had mentioned, and it tickled her brain then too -- but don hadn't thought of why too much, but the continued topic of the mind, of freeing it from a disease and what that disease entailed... don's quiet a moment, not so much in hesitance but making certain she's going to put this rightly.

it is, after all, part of company business. it is, after all, integral to angela's past. ]

I have heard her name prior, but I do not know if it is the same woman. A man who was at risk of Distortion spoke of her-- nay, to her, and so I wished to ask... if that freeing of the mind, perhaps, has something to do with the Distortions I have faced, and the EGO which I wield. If it is the same Miss Carmen whom thou art based fleetingly upon, and the one whom Netzach admired so.

[ it could be a coincidence, after all. maybe he knew a carmen in the span of time between leaving the old league and joining k corp. ]

This shall be the last I ask of her, for much... seems to be overlapping, in a way. Ehm, coincidentally or not.

...They're one and the same.

( the carmen who giovanni loved, and who netzach retains those distant memories of. the carmen who gained the trust and admiration of everyone, from those in the nest to fixers from hopeless backstreets. the carmen who had whispered to her just how she could become free, how she could get her revenge, if only she collected the light again— if only she made that perfect book, filled it with all sorts of information and pages about the city and its inhabitants...

she isn't stupid. she knows, in her heart of hearts, it was carmen gently guiding her along. if only the seeds sewn in the inhabitants of that city weren't so pitiful and weak, perhaps they wouldn't be at risk of distorting—maybe they, too, would be able to summon e.g.o.s instead.

they'd probably just end up another tool for the city to capitalize on though. the disease carmen and the others had wanted to cure—angela had always wondered what it was. not that she cared, but as a point of curiosity, she...

well. she knows now, or she thinks she might. angela sighs, smacking aside a plant that reaches to bite her hand. )

Rather, the probability of it being a different person is slim.

( ...and, for obvious reasons, that's all she says. )

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject