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Entry tags:
inbox / purgastory.
HELLO
"You've reached Elysium! Lost? Need an ear? I'm your guy! I'll get back to you as soon as I can."
GOODBYE
TEXT | VIDEO | VOICE | ACTION
inventory bc i don't know where else to put this:
cursed chihuahua papers
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unfortunately he's alert enough to hear that sentence and stay quiet for a moment. ]
I never said people here aren't good. [ he seems like he's deciding if he wants to say more on that, but chooses not to. ]
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[ they forget how useless he was during his bald arc ]
What about me? I'll put you down if you promise to behave. Use me as a crutch.
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You already have enough points. [ he grumbles, but then he looks out into the distance as if looking for more fog monsters. granted, for some reason, being up here makes it feel less like a struggle to breathe. whoa. who knew physical touch would help!! (this is not the right takeaway.) ]
... this is fine. Let's just get out of here and figure out what the hell we even saw just now.
[ please explain the tail on our monster, thank you. ]
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What the hell was what? I thought the señor explained it to you?
[ what's a lil scalie tail compared to tokinaga's apparent sleep paralysis demon's unhinging jaw ]
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I mean I kinda get it, but... Tokinaga-san has a point that that monster pulled memories of people from all four of us. And I understand its face and its... second... face [ in the stomach??? ], but what about the rest of it? Who were those people and what do the four of them have in common?
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Just seeing mine gives me a decent guess, but confirmation from the two of you would pretty much solidify it.
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Yeah, he's told me about Obikawa-san. It's someone who lives in his building and occupies a lot of his time, but there's a little more to it, too. Since Tokinaga-san works a lot, sometimes Obikawa-san's the only person around when he's not, it sounds like.
[ tokinaga can elaborate more, this is not his place. ]
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no man left behind…… matching socks for the entire gang… ]
It kind of feels like this place is rifling through the people in our lives and lobbing whatever it finds at us, hoping one of the hits sticks. For me, this was the first time it's been this… tangible. I was a little surprised. But the tail was meant to be my captain's, I think.
I say 'I think' when I absolutely know that was their intent. BUT! They mangled her resemblance so badly that if I let it slide, she'd probably find a way to reach through this purgatory and drag me into hers just to scold me for it——then send me back.
[ somehow says this all so fondly. ]
Was yours a close friend of yours too?
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but he's paying attention and he kind of goes "wait are you a pirate, too" because he remembers thorns mentioning elysium and knows thorns is a pirate, but he doesn't actually ask because that's not important. regardless! he doesn't disagree that it's obvious this place is throwing whatever will hit. ]
Hm... anything to try and get a reaction, and since the thing attacked us right away it's like this place wants us to fumble it just because it looks like someone familiar. I mean four people put together made it kinda gross, but some things were more clear than others. [ why did it need to have saki's face actually. ] It sounds like your Captain knows you pretty well.
[ or at least has a good handle of who elysium is and how to get him to behave. that's something he's filing away for later, because then he asks that question and yosuke has to think of what to say. ]
... it's a little different. I told you before how we were originally just trying to solve the murders that were happening in town before everything else happened. Saki-senpai's is whose I was trying to solve. [ ... ] We were co-workers, and I don't know if she'd really consider us friends but I... she was important to me, yeah. I wanted to get to know her better. I wanted to see her be happy.
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[ That isn't nearly as important as what Yosuke has to say, though, and he'll turn his attention to him even if he can't quite see it from his ridiculous positioning. ]
Mm. Did she look like she was struggling?
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[ it's still important to him to know more about elysium in general, because the other thing he'd said to tsukasa was that the best thing they can all do is remind each other of important things that may be forgotten. but then there's saki. ]
She was good about brushing it off. I didn't know how much it bothered her back then, and even when I tried to defend her she never said anything. [ he decides maybe some context is important though. ] My family moved to Inaba because my dad became the manager of Junes. It's a really big department store, they're kinda everywhere. But Inaba's such a small town that bringing a Junes meant all of the town's business started going there and the shopping district lost it. Saki-senpai's family has owned a liquor store in the shopping district for generations, so when she came to work at Junes, people started talking.
... there's not a single person in that town who doesn't know who I am because of Junes. I heard a lot of things behind my back and even to my face about how we ruined everything when the store first opened. What can you do but shut up and deal with it? [ granted, that suppression led to his shadow but he's not getting into that. ] But people started saying the same kind of things to her, about how she was a traitor to her family and everything. She hated it... and she hated me, too, because of it. And I was too excited just to be talking to her to even notice how bad it was until it was too late. I was just a pain in her ass who was too enthusiastic to realize she was only being nice, but... I still wish I'd had more time. Maybe things would have been different then.
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[ War flashbacks to the Holy Mother Cardi B… not like this. Makes a face like he's emulating the one lemon meme. ]
Makes you wonder if the real goal here is to get us desensitised to everything. They throw so much at us, push us close to the edge but not quite, then suddenly—there's a lull. Now that's what I'd call Purgatory: if they want to hollow us out until there's nothing left.
[ His thoughts wander somewhere grislier than that, and it's not hard for them to. The hazards of working in a squad labelled for special operations! Intel-gathering isn't exactly a lighthearted pastime when it involves people who may not want to cooperate with you. ]
It's pretty messed up, isn't it? How one of the first instincts people have under pressure is to lash out at whoever they perceive as weaker, like hurting someone else means they have some semblance of control. [ … ] Hate begets hate. It always has. But breaking out of that cycle is easier said than done, and not many people are capable of it. I get both sides.
[ Bleak how universal that is; how every civilisation finds its way to the same ugly solutions. They shouldn't count as solutions, but here they were. ]
If there were people who didn't need to experience suffering firsthand just to develop empathy, the world would be a far kinder place. But you're not a mind reader, Yosuke. You can only know however much a person chooses to disclose. It sounds like you did what you could with the knowledge you had at the time.
… You can't help people who don't want to be helped. It's something we all struggle to reconcile with, my man. Don't beat yourself up so much.
[ Though, for it to have ended with her death would've made it that much harder. He feels for Yosuke—he does. ]
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[ which, like. scary. he doesn't like the idea of being hollow actually.
on the other hand, this conversation and seeing that monster's kind of left him feeling that way, which is why he falls quiet again. it's probably for so long it would be fair for elysium to think yosuke really did fall asleep after all.
but, eventually: ]
... she was killed by somebody who thought she was weaker, just because he could. Didn't like something she said and decided to prove to her he was stronger than she was and make her beg for her life. [ people who like hurting someone else to have a semblance of control. ]
I know you're right. [ but? ] But it's part of why I'm trying to be more honest with people myself. I want... I was really excited when I got my Persona because it meant I might actually be able to do something to help protect people. And even if people don't want to be helped, I want to do my best to at least ask better questions now. That's true for home, and true for here. But I do get it.
[ he can't beat himself up so much but also the ghost of saki konishi apparently still wants to haunt his stupid ass a year later, so. here we are. ]
Best we can do now is take what we learned, and the parts we grabbed, and see what we can make of it all.
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A few beats pass, then: ]
… That's the spirit, buddy. You did do something today——you did a lot. So hold your head a little higher, yeah? That's your better angle.
Buuuuut! Not to get all sentimental; we've reached your terminus station. [ Like the chorus of meows weren't blatantly obvious enough. ] Hope you've enjoyed your ride with Elysium Logistics. Don't forget to leave a five-star review, hm? Your man deserves it.
[ being lugged like potatoes! very cool. ]
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There were parts of Monsieur Scien, too! [The pink hair and floral neck tattoo which he will just gesture to his own hair and floral thigh tattoo about.] So the theory that it was created using memories of people significant to us in some way or another is probably a good one. "To what end" is the next question.
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Your boss? [ THIS DESTROYS THE IMAGE HE HAD OF SCIEN, that's hilarious. but he watches dahut gesture to these parts and squints slightly. ]
It's totally possible it was just to try and freak us out, but what if it really is more than that?
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[HIS BASEMENT DWELLER SLOB BOSS WHO'S A WASTE OF A SET OF GOOD LOOKS...]
I think it probably is! If we're in a place like purgatory, the things happening to us probably aren't "just because", right?
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Feels like a ton of effort to go through "just because", yeah. So what is it trying to tell us?
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Good question, good question. Looking around a little more might be a good idea once everyone's recovered! Maybe we can make something useful with these, too.
[THEIR HARVESTED PARTS.]
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I think I'll leave the science stuff to you, Dahut. But it can't hurt.
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Mm, well! I don't know what I'll be able to manage, but I'll do my best, okay?
[Along with anyone else who wants to be a science or mechanics FREAK.]
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Sure, sure. I know you'll have a handle on it. At least we're a step ahead of where we were.
[ wherever that is. ]
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Positive thinking!
[DOUBLE THUMBS UP. Yay...]
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He will greet Dahut with a quick wave (like he hadn't been with them this entire time), the other hand dutifully patting the potato sack currently masquerading as Yosuke. Waves for him too. ]
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He will trot over helpfully though yes hello.]