>Reply to Kankri.
-- canonizedGadfly [CG] began pestering gutsyGumshoe [GG] at PESTERCHUM TRIAL VERSION - REGISTER TO UNLOCK TIMESTAMPS AND MORE! --
CG: Jane... Ahem. "Thank you for my life."
CG: I say this so that there may be no mistake about the ongoing extremity of my gratitude, even though I am messaging you to register my absolute displeasure with the draconian behavioral restrictions you have imposed upon us.
GG: Oh lord. Is this about your god-awful typing quirk slash vocal affectation again? How many times do I have to tell you?
CG: Well, I really would be much more comforta6l--comfortable if I could type/speak in a way that represents the unique elements of my personage.
GG: Nope! Shush it, bucko! Not budging!
GG: Or should I say, "Duhhh!! N9t 6ud9in9!! Ooh, look at me, I am King Readability the Second!!"
GG: Is that it? Or have you found another issue with the oaths you had to swear to live here? What new and exciting slights against your person have you read into them this time?
CG: As a matter of fact, I do have procedural issues to bring up against the oaths of sentience, benevolence, and silence.
CG: Particularly the oaths that pertain to silence.
CG: I fail to see how I am to live a satisfying or meaningful life, as per your promises, if I am forbidden from using my academic studies and lived experiences to influence public discourse and opinion in Neo Can City or its outlying territories.
CG: Why are you, Ms. Crocker, permitted to operate as a "Problem Soothe", but I am not permitted to post up shop here as some sort of, I don't know... "Problematics Sleuth?"
GG: You know darn well the reasons why! I know you know, because I was the one to explain it all to you, what the oaths are and why we have them in the first place.
CG: I... may have been distracted during that part of the explanation.
GG: I should have known! You were mumbling to yourself the whole time!
CG: You hadn't let me finish my sentence.
GG: You talked at me for THIRTY minutes before I was able to cram my explanation in, and I think that you only stopped momentarily because you had choked on a bug that flew right into your open mouth!
CG: Oh yes, you're right. Now I remember. How could I have obscured such a delicious memory.
CG: So... could you refresh my memory? On the parts not involving me eating the bug.
CG: (I'll take a bug, too, if you have one.)
GG: "No bugs for you!" Lol.
GG: But yes. The oaths were written shortly by our own Mrs. Lalonde-Maryam. They are no less than the most solemn pledge to guide the world with a love that does not stifle or smother.
GG: It was that abstract divinity known as Skaia who led us to our godhood, after all, and led us to the new universe of hope and promise to boot. So it is the three core Skaian traits--sentience, benevolence, and silence--that Kanaya suggested we emulate in our own lives as gods and godkin.
GG: Sentience: the responsibility to think wisely and reason intelligently and far-seeingly for the sake of all.
GG: Benevolence: nonviolence toward our populace and the pledge to protect them from existential threats while allowing them to grow in their own way.
GG: Silence: neutrality in all public affairs, except on designated ritual and festival days as approved by the civilian government.
GG: Sure, we love the people. We could try and go out there solve all their problems for them. (Assuming we didn't just end up messing them up worse!)
GG: And as long as I am alive, all the gods and our kith will live on this big dandy gem of a planet for as long as we want to.
GG: But I am not invincible, as you should well know, and the day may come when I die.
GG: If the people of C aren't ready to stand on their own two feet when that day comes, if they haven't already learned to work together, share, and get along by then, then all our precious work will come unravelled.
GG: And wouldn't that just utterly suck the biggest and most spoiled egg of them all?
CG: As loath as I am to admit it, I see reason in your perspective. "When I was a grub, I spoke with the language of a grub, but when I became a troll, I put away grubbish things."
CG: As an extremely mature, self-sufficient adult who lives independently with his human-mother equivalent, I understand that the populace must necessarily endure the harshnesses of not knowing my exact opinions about everything while building our society, lest they become addicted and gluttonous off the pleasure of being perfectly correct all the time.
CG: Still...
CG: Even as I accept my lot in life, there is much that worries me. Many controversies that I wish I could properly address and bring into the public eye.
CG: Like wokeness.
CG: Have you heard about this wokeness, Jane?
CG: There has been rampant, controversial wokeness popping up everywhere lately.
GG: Um... Excuse me! Let me just interject here regarding the topic of wokeness, if I may.
GG: As our press releases have repeatedly indicated, we are AWARE of the supernatural sleep cycle disturbance phenomena experienced by certain members of the populace, and have the government's handpicked agents looking into it as we speak.
CG: Ok, sure. But you understand my concern. My concern about wokeness.
CG: People staying awake for days at a time and all. It's not healthy.
CG: Sleep is so very, very important to mental wellbeing, not to mention physical health.
GG: Your concerns about wokeness have been placed in the suggestion box!
GG: Which we virtually guarantee is not attached to the shredder. >:B
CG: I seem to have no choice but to abide.
GG: Hey, and before I let you go, let me hit you with a little, 'attaboy'!
GG: Attaboy, Kankri. You've gotten a lot better at listening and not just talking! You really have grown a bit since starting your new life.
GG: I was able to say a whole lotta stuff in this conversation with minimal interruption!
CG: Oh no, I still have a horrific problem with that. Yeah, it's still really bad.
CG: I only listen to you because you are sort of pushy, and, because I feel a completely inexplicable aversion to 'letting you down', in a way that I can only liken to what I understand is the historic human attitude towards geriatric living ancestors.
GG: Hey, whatever gets you to listen! Hoo hoo!
GG: You'll keep getting better over time.
GG: You're a good egg, Kanksy, my boy.
CG: Do you really believe that? Hm...
GG: Er... yes?
CG: I'm surprised, honestly.
GG: Oh, you are. Well, I just can't wait to find out the reason. Gods forbid we leave this conversation off on a good note.
CG: I'm just surprised that you don't seem to have noticed the change that has recently come over me.
CG: You see, Jane...
CG: Lately...
CG: After a period of confusion, I figured out what I need to do. What I was meant to do in beginning a new life on this planet.
CG: I need to get in touch with the dismal truths between the kindly lies that make up the facade of Earth C and its government and culture.
CG: So I've started going bad.
GG: Excuse me? Going... "bad"?
CG: Yes. I've been going bad lately. In a myriad of interesting and morbidly charismatic ways.
CG: For example, I no longer wear the sweater knit by my foolishly well-meaning equivalent of a human parental unit.
CG: I spurn it in favor of facing the coldness of reality, shivering in the face of it all while enjoying only the austere thermal guard offered by a somewhat taller than usual pant.
CG: This is a protest not only of my mom refusing to understand me, but also of the hypocrisies that the existing society is rife with.
CG: In order to better place myself in opposition to the corrupt establishment, which identifies itself with goodness, light, and happiness, I explicitly identify with badness and the darker side of things.
CG: And in further protest of this sham democracy's sluggish approach to resolving the sleep disturbances we've been referring to repeatedly during this entire conversation...
CG: I've been staying awake for days at a time. Forgoing sleep for those whose have had the respite of sleep robbed from their very own psyche, due to the neglect of the council of representatives, the mayor, and the gods...
CG: My path to going bad has been marked by the twin attributes of liking darkness and staying woke.
CG: If the now-obvious words are fulminating in the back of your head while you frustratedly wonder if it could really be true, then wonder no more:
CG: Yes, Jane, it's true.
CG: I've been going dark woke.
GG: What?!
CG: I'm dark woke now.
GG: Repeating it won't help me understand!
GG: Don't tell me. Is that what that three-arrows avatar you switched to recently represents? Your nerd-gone-bad rebellion against what I have been assured personally by some Carapacian political scientists and garrulous salamanders is a very stable and promising proletarian democracy?
CG: What? Oh, the three arrows? No, the three arrows have nothing to do with me being dark woke now. That would be stupid.
CG: The three arrows, sewn into the front of my pious trousers, are a powerful semiotic tool for the purpose of telling me which directions my pants go up.
GG: Oh...
GG: Gosh!
GG: That sounds uh. Very helpful, Kankri!
CG: It is. It means a great deal to me.
CG: And it is certainly the only authority that a dark woke political renegade like myself is willing to put trust into.
GG: Well, I'm sorry you aren't pleased with our work. I hope maybe we can win you over in the future!
GG: And in any case, I am looking forward to seeing you at the party! :B
CG: I appreciate the kindness that you have shown, even to a soul-tarnished bad boy such as myself. I will see you there.
CG: ...Can I do them now? I've been good this whole conversation.
GG: Yes, knock yourself right out. You've been so patient!
CG: 69696969696969699696969696969969696969696999696999696966699699969969996969969966696969996969696969969696969696969696969696969696966969696969696969
CG: 69696969696969996igk95tjejfijnvsjd hbvbsfhbfa
CG: Whew. There we go.
CG: What a relief.
GG: How splendid for you. I'm glad you got all those 6's and 9's out of your system. Hoo hoo!
GG: Later, perspicator! :P
-- gutsyGumshoe [GG] ceased pestering canonizedGadfly [CG] at PESTERCHUM TRIAL VERSION - REGISTER TO UNLOCK TIMESTAMPS AND MORE! --