victory_road | 3rd Recipe [Cherrygrove City, Video]

[Today's video from Jane starts with a shot of the water and a faint, violin-like accompaniment to the background music. It's clear it's at the small, beach-y area of Cherrygrove, judging by the surroundings, but that's only noticeable for a moment before a Goldeen floats into the shot, happily swimming as an Audino tries to follow alongside in the shallows, a bit wobbly in the water. The shot retracts, showing a Kricketune using its arm-blades to make the delicate violin sounds, stopping with a flourish for his audience - a small, sparkling Fennekin with soot-grey fur. It gives a Fen! of approval before it turns, noticing Jane's filming and hurrying over (in its haste, it kicks up sand in the Kricketune's face, and the poor bug proceeds to fret and fuss over his mustache).]

Hoo hoo! Hello, August! [The feed shifts, focusing on Jane where she sits, a boater perched expertly on her head. The top of the Fennekin's head can be seen as it curls up in her lap.] And hello everyone! I thought a little bit of a scene-setter would be nice to start with today, considering I have a question for you all.

[She clears her throat expertly.] I've been wondering about what sort of places all the people here come from. What are they like? For humans, do you come from Earth? What is your Earth like? If not, what is your home planet like? How similar or different was it to this place? For folks who weren't human before coming here - and I am aware that is a thing that happens - what were your homes like? If they don't translate well to human conventions, you can talk about it broadly or go into detail, whichever you prefer. I've been a staunch skeptic for most of my life, but I do earnestly want to learn, and in return, I'd be glad to field some questions about my home! I can't say it's particularly interesting, but it's only fair to share, right?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's... normal? I mean, we don't really have proper weather like on Earth, and there's a lot of stuff that's either heavily restricted or rare enough to be sold at ten times the base price, but otherwise it's not that different from the planet. Unless someone breaks through the colony wall.

...You mean, break through...into space? Why would someone do that?!

[She looks incredulous. People can't survive in the vacuum of space!!]

Usually to destroy the whole colony and everyone in it. We've been at war for over sixty years, and not everyone belives in sparing citizens, even when those citizens have no escape route.

O-Oh...oh wow. Uh. Space-wars, then. I see. Who exactly are you at war with, though? Aliens?

[She's actually asking completely seriously.]

The people who were told that Mars would be hospitable and a wonderful new home away from Earth's overpopulation. Or rather their descendants. Turns out that abandoning colonists on another planet after they start falling ill makes said colonists very unhappy.

[Ah. That'd explain it.]

But why abandon them? Couldn't they have been brought back to Earth and quarantined until they could be helped?

Please. You're thinking like someone with a decent moral compass and faith in humanity, not a politician with a budget and a reputation to protect.

Aaah.

[She can think like that too, but...she prefers not to. She has faith that CrockerCorp could've done wonderful things if she'd gotten to the helm.]

Though I don't see how abandoning people protects one's reputation, especially in a political realm. I wouldn't think someone trustworthy enough to run a fast food drive-through, let alone run a country if they made those sorts of decisions.

...People would only lose faith if they knew that someone had been abandoned, right? But if they were told that everyone had sadly died, what a shame, and the information about the colonists was then slowly suppressed...

[Those ancient politicians were scum.]

Oh, it would be twisted like that, wouldn't it?

[Uuugh why are politicians so dumb]

Of course. And then, once the colonists' descendants finally managed to regain the technology necessary to leave Mars, they decided to commit mass murder, because that obviously fixes everything. So, I have a lovely world filled with war and destroyed colonies. Isn't that great?

[It's really not.]

No, it isn't. I'm...sorry to have pressed you with questions.

It's alright, I don't mind talking about it. As far as my world is concerned, it's just normal recent history, but I'm sure comparing that to your own experiences leads to interesting thoughts.

It...it does, actually.

[It makes her wonder if she really had it as bad as she thought.]

And, well, that's part of why I'm asking. I want to know what sort of similarities and differences there are between everyone. We all have "being whisked away to a weird world with weird creatures" in common already.

You can probably put 'not expecting to be whisked away to a weird world with weird creatures' down right after that, unless anyone has mentioned otherwise. Who knows, maybe in some places that's actually normal?

Maybe! But even though it happened to me once, it was still fairly abnormal in my case.

...Wait, so there really is more than one place that dumps innocent creatures on random people and expects them to get along? Seriously?

Not exactly. I got whisked into another realm without any proper information that would've helped me understand things quicker - I mean, that I did on purpose, but nothing I'd read could have prepared me for it! An innocent creature friend would have been very welcome!

...Why would you ever do that deliberately? That's just asking to be eaten by a not-so innocent creature.

In my defense, I thought it was only going to be an incredibly fun experience - and I didn't even think the "being pulled into an alternate reality" bit was true!

It would be difficult to believe, I guess. Was there no way for you to investigate that particular claim before you said yes?

Not really. The only source of evidence I could bring myself to rely on were my own two eyes. That was my own mistake.

Obviously. You've only got two and they're stuck to you, they're hardly going to collect enough information to cover a whole different world.

[She nods, a little guiltily.] I've been trying to make an effort to believe others at their word. It's part of why I went ahead and asked about folks' homes on here. I'd like to...try not to be so narrow-minded.

Edited 2016-09-17 22:49 (UTC)

That's a decent enough way to get started. What's the next step, once you've accepted what others have to say about their own worlds?

[Video]

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