[16] [video/action for Olivine] - "I Eat Stickers All The Time."

[lieutenantantichrist]

Almost April, now.

[The sun's out, but there's still some chill lingering in the breeze. Blake is walking down one of the picturesque streets of shops in Olivine with his Snubbull perched on his shoulder, where she gnaws on something held in her paw. The Gear keeps pace a few steps in front of him and floats gently up and down. His Jumpluff has gotten pretty good at keeping steady.]

You know what that means? That makes it more than a year I've been on Crazy Bullshit Island.

[He gestures toward the screen with the bag in his hand.]

I could mope. I could try to figure out the chances of ever getting back to the real world. I could go sit an the place with the turtle always sleeping on the counter and make the bartender earn his tips by listening to me go on about how things are supposed to be. But you know what? Fuck it. It's a nice day, I've had over twelve months where I haven't had to bag and tag a severed foot out of anybody's freezer, and I've got a bag of factory irregular fortune cookies.

[He shrugs.] They were on sale.

[He opens the bag, digs one out, and bites off a piece.] Huh. Doesn't taste any different from usual. Wonder why they were marked down.

[As he crunches, he pulls the paper from inside. He reads it out.] "This year, most part, face will go out at dance hall."

Oh. [He pops the other half of the cookie in his mouth and talks through crumbs.] That's why.

Hey, Steve, what's yours say? [The little dog on his shoulder hands over her fortune.] "Okay. Probably is being victorious." Hey, that's good luck. It even almost makes sense. [Steve likes the sound of that one, and takes it to hold onto.]

[Blake holds the bag of fortune cookies up toward the camera.] Hey, you out there. You want to get the secrets of your future through some personalized gibberish, speak up.

[[Answer with a number from 7 to 851, and get your own garbled fortune! This is generated by me going to the designated page in this giant manga magazine, grabbing a line at random, and translating it terribly. Anybody in the Olivine area can come get some in person.]]

Comments

418

[beholdmydemons]

What the hell is a fortune cookie?

[He listened to all the other stuff, but doesn't have much to say about it. Can't really empathize or anything.]

[lieutenantantichrist]

They're magical things from a magical land of MSG and air you can chew on.

[He holds one up.] C'mon, haven't you ever had shitty Chinese food? It's the fuckin' best.

[While he's at it, might as well crack the thing open. Behold.

[Blake regards it before showing it to the camera.]

I guess there could be worse advice.

[beholdmydemons]

[This is one of those "I didn't understand a single word of that" looks. But-

-oh goddammit that's text he can't make the Gear read out. Gotta stall while he reads it. Bell-eye-uh-vee...?]

Uh. I've never put much stock in fortune-telling, but is this more like a game? I've really never seen these things.

[lieutenantantichrist]

[That looks is nothing out of the ordinary, in this case.

Blake gives it another look.] "In body of self," huh. Maybe it's telling you to be confident about your ass.

[Then he looks at Walter incredulously] Never? Where the hell are you from that you can't get a bunch of chow mein when you're hammered at 3 am? That's not living.

[beholdmydemons]

[...oh, come on, this was supposed to be a goofy mindless conversation. Why'd you have to go and say that.]

I won't argue that. "Hold belief in body of self"...sounds to me like it's saying trust your own eyes.

[lieutenantantichrist]

[What, about having some ass confidence?]

What else would you trust? The shit you hear on the radio?

[He snorts in amusement.] Hell, if it's saying 'don't believe all the crap about magic and aliens people are always going on about,' that's some decent advice.

[beholdmydemons]

[Sure yeah let's go with tha-

-uh.]

Er... [What do you even say to that.] That wasn't quite the sense I was thinking of, but...you could take it that way.

[lieutenantantichrist]

That's not such a bad idea. Shit, if you'd heard some of the crazy crap people tell the cops, you'd believe it. People just lie right to your goddamn face, and about shit you can find out in five minutes, too.

If you haven't seen it for yourself, it's probably bullshit. You know?

[beholdmydemons]

On...some counts, yeah. [He scratches his head while he talks, still looking a little taken aback.] On one hand, I've come up against some things that I'd be hard-pressed to believe if I'd not seen them myself, so it doesn't serve you to be too set in your thinking. And on the other, people lie to suit their ends. But the lies I had in mind were the kind about what a person intends, or how people ought to act - "What I say is right, so anything I do to you is for your own good no matter what it looks like", things like that? Do you know what I mean?

[lieutenantantichrist]

I-

[Blake's not entirely listening until the end. His steps slow for a second. Steve looks at him and snub?s curious, while he pretends not to hear.]

...yeah. I've known a couple guys like that.

[He gets his stride back, though an uneasy look still hovers over his face.]

It all depends on whether they are right. You can't argue with results.

[beholdmydemons]

If they turn out to be right, then you can see it for yourself, though, aye? But when you know for yourself that something is wrong, then there's no use second-guessing it just because someone above you says otherwise.

[lieutenantantichrist]

[Blake's eyes have drifted down to the road. Watching his footing, that's all.]

Yeah. When something's wrong, you feel it, right? Your gut doesn't lie.

No matter what anybody else says.

[beholdmydemons]

More or less. What's with you?

[lieutenantantichrist]

Nothing. My gut's great. I've been on the force so long I got instincts for everything.

[Something in his tone is bitter.]

There's shit you just know.

[beholdmydemons]

[what's a tact]

You sound like you bit into something rotten.

[lieutenantantichrist]

[He snorts a humorless laugh.] I did. Right down into the fuckin' middle.

Hey. This judgement of yours. The stuff you see and know for a fact.

You ever been wrong?

I mean real fuckin' wrong.

[beholdmydemons]

[Wait, wh- oh.

Implications.]

Nnn - yyy...yeah. Well, I've been wrong most of my life, in a sense. Before I ever thought of the world in this sense - but that was before I really started thinking for myself, so. [The answer is no, as far as he believes.]

[lieutenantantichrist]

[Blake tries to untangle what he's talking about.] You saying you spent most of your life brainwashed or something?

[beholdmydemons]

[Well that's a word he's never heard before and that's uncomfortable for a handful of reasons. Walter stares for a moment like he's not sure he heard that right.]

...par...don?

[lieutenantantichrist]

Brainwashed. Like in a cult. Like, you believe everything somebody tells you. Maybe they try to make you go blow shit up.

I mean, if you weren't thinking for yourself, who was thinking for you?

[beholdmydemons]

Oh. [Okay, not what he was thinking, but still apt.]

Back...[wavy gesture that probably means "back in my world".]...there was this notion that countrymen shouldn't try to make any decisions, and nothing should ever change, because God had given everyone their proper places already. I never liked it, but...[umm. How does he put this part into words.]...feeling that something's wrong is different from knowing what it is that's wrong, you know?

[lieutenantantichrist]

[Everybody tends to kinda gesture like that, the way that means "back in the real world," for whatever value they think "real" has.]

Sounds like a fuckin' cult.

[Pauses for a second.]

Or Catholics.

[It's a creepy idea, really. Knowing something's not right without being able to put a name to it. One of the major instincts that keeps a cop alive is knowing when something's not what it should be, and hitting it before it hits you.]

How'd you get out?

[beholdmydemons]

Someone our leaders branded an enemy spoke more sense than they did. So I listened. And I realized I'd had enough, so I left the country.

[lieutenantantichrist]

I bet your old friends weren't real thrilled about having a defector on their hands.

[beholdmydemons]

[...yeah, that...yeah.]

I...can't imagine they were. My best friend left with me, but the others - [He kind of stops there, not making much of an expression at all, then starts agian with a completely different sentence.] Didn't see them again, so I've no way of knowing what they think. It wouldn't have stopped me.