voice | un: vsmith | spoilers SH3

[banworthy]

We're all just posing questions to each other for fun, right?

Then, is immortality wrong for mortals to experience?

[ ooc: opt-out information ]

Comments

[banworthy]

There, there, Castiel.

At the very least, you have my pity.

[messenger]

Wonderful.

voice; un: appleaday

[unaliveyourself]

[Dazai is very intrigued what context in this person's life inspired the question, but truly, he doesn't even need a front for his answer:]

Ugh. Immortality sounds miserable, honestly. I wouldn't want it, wrong or not

[banworthy]

Come on, now. Don't be so glum.

It's better to be pitied openly than be treated delicately, right?

[banworthy]

Indeed, it isn't something I would wish even upon someone I hate.

[unaliveyourself]

Me neither.

[Hmmmm.]

It's not an especially common sentiment, though, I find.

[It may or may not be a little bit of a fishing expedition, but he's taking his shot nonetheless.]

[messenger]

It makes no difference.

[banworthy]

Because you have no ego left?

[banworthy]

What do you mean?

[messenger]

Because nothing you have to say matters.

[banworthy]

Oh, I dunno.

I'm sure you'll carry the wounds of this conversation for some time, Castiel.

I'm just trying to tell you that those are wounds you already had and were being ignored 'cause people are being too nice to you.

[messenger]

It's self-aggrandizing to take the credit of those who came before you.

If you think I haven't heard as much and worse before now, you're a bigger fool than you sound.

[ and with that, he cuts the connection.

if there's anything that truly wounds him — it's that this cruelty is human sourced. not from a demon, or an angel. but the very species he gave everything for.

that's what will remain with him days from now. ]

[banworthy]

[ The connection ends. ]

Hmmm. Maybe I should have said I was sorry.

[ Vincent muses that he should have given some apology, but decides he didn't do anything wrong. He decided to be honest and should honesty be apologized for? No. ]

Well, at least, I dodged his main question. [ "How do you know your god cares?" ] That could have gotten ... [ Thought shelved away, he goes to antagonize talk to more people. ]

[unaliveyourself]

Hmmm? Do the mortals where you're from not typically fear death?

[What a strange world that must be. Dazai can scarcely imagine it.]

1/2

[banworthy]

[ Oh. That.

He thought he meant something else. ]

[banworthy]

Oh, yes.

Death is something feared by most people. [ But those that he knows? No. ]

As someone who has already died, I suppose there seems little reason to fear it.

[ Yes, let's go with that. ]

[unaliveyourself]

Really?

[He sounds entirely too enthusiastic about that.]

What was it like? How did you die?

[banworthy]

[ He ticks something in his head; he's gauging how people respond to him being dead. ]

It was painful. I was stabbed in the back and then in the chest.

cw suicidal ideation, past attempts

[unaliveyourself]

[He can absolutely tell his reaction is being gauged, and so Vincent is rewarded with a slightly exaggerated pulling of a face. There's no trace of the sort of shock or horror an average person might exhibit to the notion of death, though. If anything, the expression is more akin to someone who's looking at a squished bug that got on their shoe.

Death by exsanguination is too painful and tedious to be worthwhile; he's tried and failed before. It's a disappointment.]

How do you know you actually died, though? I've been stabbed before, and didn't die.

cw: death talk

[banworthy]

Good for you.

[ Vincent can't help but be snide. ]

Because that person put all their weight into both stabs. Still, you're right! I didn't die immediately. The first one didn't do me in. I was bleeding out comfortably listening to what was going on. I could still crawl across the ground and maybe with some tenacity, I might have been able to find help.

But sadly, the second one did me in.

death talk continues/likely throughout

[unaliveyourself]

Not at all! Surviving meant I had to suffer the pain for a long time. It was terrible!

[More incredibly normal and typical reactions from Osamu Dazai.]

Anyway, you're missing the point of what I'm asking. I know that death is inevitable after losing 0.53 gallons of blood or after the destruction of a vital organ. The question isn't whether you would've died from your wounds, which any reasonable person can be certain of depending on the circumstances, but how you know you actually died. Even recorded accounts of patients resuscitated after clinical death vary in terms of the subjective experience of the individual, after all. Yet, there's an inevitable process of loss of consciousness that occurs between the cessation of your heart and reaching a state of irreversible brain death, the length of which is debated by neuroscientists.

[This is the man you need to work with for a whole mission, I'm so sorry Vincent.]

Can you guarantee you were disrupted from your universe after the latter point? Or did you simply pass out from the second blow, in a situation where no resuscitation could've realistically occurred?

[He does have a genuine reason for being pedantic about this, at least. Not that he's going to be upfront about it.]

[banworthy]

Ah, well, better luck next time, I guess.

[ His shoulders bounce in an idle shrug. ]

I'm glad that you're a reasonable person to understand that much. Don't worry. That lunatic destroyed the heart in the second attack. [ If he's upset about the questions, he doesn't show it. If anything, he's confirming himself that he's dead. Why? Well -- that'd be telling. ] Anyway, a person died here and was resurrected. I'm under the impression that's -- while not common place because we're not psychopaths -- is something that happens to the dead here.

Isn't that enough confirmation that I died and was brought here?

UN: Red Robin

[mostdangerousbird]

"Wrong" is a subjective term here; I don't think it's wrong. I also don't think it makes anyone happy or really does them much good at all, unless they don't care about others as individuals.

voice;

[banworthy]

Right. It's subjective.

So, why don't you think it's wrong since you don't think it's "good?"

[mostdangerousbird]

Because there's no inate ethical objection to someone being immortal if you aren't adherent to a religion that prescribes that humans CAN'T live forever.

If someone's immortal through metahuman ability, that's not their fault and they have to make the best of it. How someone makes the best of that - I don't know. Haven't actually seen someone pull it staying a decent person after a couple hundred years.

If they make themselves immortal by choice, isn't it already obvious? Unless they're going to make everyone they care about immortal at the same time, they're going to watch everyone they know die. Maybe they'll try to have another life. But after the first few iterations, how long until they completely divest their kind on an individual level? Start thinking they're above it all. Scratch that, they already think they're above it all if they don't make everyone they care about immortal.