voice;

[ideismo]

[There's a moment of quiet before he starts, the sort of thing that's only really audible if you're listening for it; it's been some time since Alexei has addressed any number of people at once, and while it's something he used to be accustomed to, it's also something that he's rather out of practice with.

So there's quiet, and the awkwardness is palpable when he does start, and he doesn't bother introducing himself; maybe some will recognize his voice, maybe not. It matters fairly little to him in the scheme of things.]

I don't normally request guidance, and particularly not regarding personal matters, so I pray I may be forgiven for the vagueness of the question. But I suppose that the recent conditions on Monsun have me contemplating things.

Is it...acceptable, I suppose, to continue to want something that you have no right or claim to anymore?

[...And apparently that is all for now.]

Comments

[ideismo]

I'm sure you're aware that humans often imagine they'll be reunited with those they care about after they've died. Is there any truth in that, or is it simply a nice idea that we made up out of nothing?

[eudaimonikos]

I can't speak for your world. But no, that's not generally true.

[He's sure there's been odd cases over the years: maybe people a thousand years ago managing to get into Heaven in twos or threes, or maybe just demons who had the bright idea to use a loved one's torture as a torture in itself. But you only have to look at the reception he got to see that ideas like that are frowned upon. It's the paperwork, mostly, so inefficient to run around locating individual humans.

Knowing what he knows now, he doubts anyone above is faring any better.]

[ideismo]

[Even if it's only relevant to a world not his own, he can't help but find that a relief.]

I actually don't know how it works in my world. I couldn't even begin to guess...

[...]

One of my... [He pauses for a moment; he's not really sure how to classify Schwann, even now.] One of my subordinates was a bit strange about the entire business. He would often wander around speaking to people that weren't with us any longer. It was unsettling at best.

I doubt that was anything real; I find it far more likely that he was just a bit strange in the head after the war.

[eudaimonikos]

Ghosts aren't real, where I'm from. Sometimes the fabric of time gets a little snagged, and then humans might see things like ghosts, but they're not actual people.

[It's still something, but he thinks that's the relevant distinction. Anyway, he figures most ghost sightings aren't that at all; just electrical fields or something.]

Of course that doesn't mean anything about him. But you're probably right. Humans do hallucinate.

[ideismo]

He did stop eventually. Thankfully enough.

[So at least there's...that...]

Do people ever come back, where you're from? Not as ghosts, but properly brought back to life after dying.

[eudaimonikos]

Only four. But technically, that was a total reversal of the timeline. So they weren't brought back to life after dying, so much as they were prevented from ever having died in the first place after dying.

[.....]

Does that make sense?

[ideismo]

...They died, but it was rendered such that they didn't. After the fact.

Correct...?

[eudaimonikos]

Yeah, you got it!

The afterlife's timeline is distinct from Earth's, so it wasn't erased from our history and memories and all that. Just humanity's!

[ideismo]

I assume those specific humans didn't remember either, then.

[...]

From what I know of such things, it's likely better that way.

[eudaimonikos]

Well, they know now. But no, they don't remember it.

[...]

It's fine.

[ideismo]

...I know two people that were brought back from the dead. I don't know how long they were gone before they were revived, but they were the only two we managed to bring back. One of them was the subordinate I mentioned. The one with the fixation on talking to the dead.

He wasn't ever the same as he had been, after that entire incident. I ended up giving him a new identity entirely, as he kept insisting the person he had been before was gone, and I generally kept him near me because he no longer wanted anything and would likely have let himself die again if I'd left him alone.

[vesperia is a happy game in which none of us have deeply fucked up backstories.]

[eudaimonikos]

You sure you didn't just grab some random soul?

[That wouldn't entirely explain all of that, he guesses, but Michael doesn't see any reason why a human would end up like that even if you did bring them to life without any timeline shenanigans.]

[ideismo]

I... Yes?

[YES HE IS ABSOLUTELY SURE but damn if you did not make him second-guess himself for a moment there, holy shit.]

[eudaimonikos]

[shrug]

I don't know how you did it. That'd be impossible for our humans. So I'm not really sure if it would have psychological effects...probably something, though, right?

[ideismo]

They seemed to find it traumatic.

[BE MORE CLINICAL, ALEXEI, JESUS.]

I gave them something to revive them and keep their bodies alive for them, to ensure they wouldn't just shut down at random. That's all. Somewhere between magic and technology.

[eudaimonikos]

...makes sense, I guess.

[Michael's feelings about it are rather less clinical than they might have been, but he doesn't really know what to say about it.]

I know humans can revive each other from being dead for a few minutes, now. I'm not too sure how they handle that in processing - that's never been my department.

[ideismo]

Can they...? It's almost always final for us, what I did was highly experimental. I don't know of anyone else that's done it.

[eudaimonikos]

You have to shock the heart right after it's stopped, I think. Obviously that's not really my field. If they're dead too long, though, it won't work. And whatever was wrong with them before is still going to be wrong.

[Unless...it was a heart attack??? Unclear]

[ideismo]

...I'll bear that in mind, actually.

[Things that we probably shouldn't say to a mage with lightning magic: that.

People who are absolutely going to drop Thunder Blade on a dead person just to see what happens: this guy.]

[eudaimonikos]

[WELL THEY'RE GONNA BE DEAD ALREADY

NO HARM NO FOUL]