etraya | voice | un: vsmith

It's truly sad how a person can spout nonsense and believe they're getting somewhere.

[Vincent might be in the right ballpark, but he's somewhere off in the outfield, well away from stealing home, this time, and Dazai's back up to bat again. Alright. If Vincent wants to play, he'll play for real.]

What will happen to you if you're not really dead, I wonder? Do you go to jail, perhaps? Into hiding from your would-be murderer? Or maybe it's simpler than that, maybe you've convinced yourself your death has some greater meaning, because otherwise you'd have to live out the rest of your meaningless life with the realization that you're truly insignificant, a confluence of molecules floating in a cosmic soup tens of billions of orders of magnitude greater than you are.

[He laughs, nails on broken glass.]

Hey, you were talking to Castiel-san, right? Did you know in his world, there are people who were killed in holy wars fighting for the wrong God? They didn't even know until they woke up in a different afterlife than they were expecting! Say, Vsmith-kun, do you think you'll go to the right one, after we're done here?

Edited 2024-11-19 14:47 (UTC)

[ It's a similar situation. Right ballpark but somewhere else and not where it could actually hurt him. ]

Oh, so you're using another conversation to try to win this one? I guess I don't have the luxury 'cause I don't care enough to hunt down information about you. [ He opens his hands in a dismissive manner. ]

But yes, I will. Because I have faith.

I have something neither Castiel or you have. Belief in something more than myself.

Do you want to matter? I suppose maybe you want to matter to someone since you're fixated on that point, but I'm afraid... I don't think that person cares about you all that much... if they did at all.

Now, now, don't make excuses. If you set out to do something, you really ought to put in the proper effort~

[git gud, scrub.]

Pretending to be above it all only makes you look more desperate, especially with all that projecting you're doing. You want to believe in your God so badly, and yet, they're not here, are they? Echo has you instead, and this God of yours has done nothing to retrieve you.

[He smiles all the brighter.]

What will you do with all that faith of yours, if your universe is destroyed? Even Aurora-chan can't actually promise any of us are really in the running to save our universes.

I just don't like stalking losers.

[ He starts to laugh. It's a chuckle at first before it becomes hysterical at the idea of his universe being destroyed. Because he's talked to Heather about how they need to figure out what the criteria is so that they can fail.

If it's not taking part in the games, fine. But he's sure it's more than that -- because they wouldn't call him here if it was something so simple as a lack of involvement.

His wheezing stops as he finally responds: ]

You don't understand belief or faith. So why don't you try another route, heretic?

Ohhhh, I see, an apocalypse seeker, then. Suits the unreasonably inflated ego, I suppose.

[A guess, but one he's pretty confident in, from that reaction. He lets out an exaggerated sigh.]

People like you truly are embarrassing. You don't have the courage to end things for yourself, so you try to drag everyone down with you in a huge dramatic production, it's really pathetic!

You're the one who's embarrassing.

You're still off the mark. Didn't I tell you that you should stick to something you understand? You don't have faith. You don't have belief. You have nothing.

Actually, what do you have? Other than the desire to stalk people so you can feel like you understand them? But in the end, you don't know anything at all.

Maybe that's why you're so lonely.

That's just it, though. There isn't anything. Do you think a flower needs faith to turn toward the sun? Do birds need faith to migrate south for the winter?

[He is lonely, in a sense. The only person who ever really tried to understand him is dead. But Vincent is wrong that he doesn't have anything, because it's that beloved person that leads him to try for a world that doesn't matter, in which he has nothing and every action is ultimately so much ash and dust in the wind. Because being on the side that saves people is just a little more beautiful, and Odasaku had wanted that for him.]

Faith was invented because humans fear death. We don't have the speed of cheetahs, the sheer strength of bears, the ability to resist extreme temperatures or natural defenses to ... well, anything, a sharp enough stick will kill us. Humans alone gained the ability to reflect on their mortality, though, and so they invented faith as a means of protecting themselves from the inevitability of that fear and pain. Some seek solace in the notion of an immortal soul, one which transcends the physical body and allows one the promise of rejoining those they have lost, someday, or a cycle of wanderings until eventual spiritual liberation from suffering as a concept can be attained. Others believe there is a little of the divine in everything, in the day to day.

[Dazai is a well and proper nerd, ultimately; he's read plenty on every kind of faith there is.]

...Unfortunately, there's also those that use faith as an excuse to pretend superiority over others, enough so to assume whatever they say is so significant that anyone who happens to have paid attention must be fixated on them specifically. Insufferable people like them always cause more damage than they're worth before finally fading away into obscurity, having accomplished exactly none of their grand goals while the world continues to persist.

You cling to a promise of something more that may never come. I already know there is nothing, and so I have nothing to lose, yet everything to gain.

Edited 2024-11-19 16:33 (UTC)

I told you to stop talking about faith like you knew anything about it. You're just someone that is pulling a string of a toy hoping that it makes sense.

Will this statement be the one? Or this one? What is it? It isn't any of those because you don't get it. You will never understand it, and so you have to put it down to primitive means to even hope to comprehend it.

Tell me. Why haven't you tried to kill yourself here?

[ Whatever. He doesn't wait for the answer. ]

You're too much of a coward to live and too much of a coward to die. So what do you know about anything? [ A beat with more irritation. ] Have you told others this sad, sad story? People probably pity and want to be your friend. What a sad man that they want to fix.

You're right. You do have everything to gain being so pathetic and believing in nothing.

Ah, ah, always so defensive. Overcompensation is truly the last refuge of the inadequate, I suppose. Why does it bother you so much to hear me speak on it, if you're so convinced I'm a pitiful fool who knows nothing? There's never been anything stopping you from walking away.

[He lowers his voice, then, like he's imparting a precious secret.]

But I don't think you can, actually. You need to get under other people's skin to prove to yourself that you're right, that they're beneath you. You need them to get upset and lose their composure. All of this to run away from the fact that faith and certainty are mutually exclusive. To hide your fear that your faith won't be rewarded, that your God doesn't actually care about you, that your death won't grant you any of your goals or desires, after all.

So who is truly pathetic? The one who knows nothing, or the one who can't stop arguing with him?

Edited 2024-11-20 12:11 (UTC)

You didn't answer any of my questions.

[ There is a smile in his voice. His tone shifts to something sympathetic. It doesn't bother him to hear a faithless man tell him about his faith.

He sighs as the warm tone continues. ]

You're afraid of facing something and so hiding away like this. It's okay. Whatever you're afraid of won't hurt you here. Or perhaps it is.

Because you can't face it.

But either way, you have the time to figure it out and I hope that you can because you are so miserable being unable to face your pain.

Mm, you never really answered mine either. But please, carry on with your childish attempts to bait me! Surely if you bash your head against the wall enough times, it'll work eventually, right? I have faith in you~♥

[Did he use the word 'faith' on purpose, there. Maybe a little bit.]

Edited 2024-11-20 13:26 (UTC)

Are we going back to rubber and glue? I suppose that's what's left.

I'm sorry that you can no longer hear sincere sympathy towards another person. Because even you, I feel sympathy for... an unfortunate habit that I've picked up.

Either way, the fact you are the way you are... means that you've found a reason to keep living. It probably means you've realized the futility in it, or simply found something more than your pain to hold onto life.

Either way, it's good. I'm happy for you.

Cherish the reasons why you want to live, but I guess... it may just be you're away from what hurt you and can no longer think about it. There's so much else to think about than that... and perhaps, it wasn't important enough to think about at all.

Edited 2024-11-20 14:08 (UTC)

Are we? You've been doing it from the start, ever since you didn't want to think about the possibility you might not truly be dead to begin with.

[Eat shit. :) But Dazai still smiles, even though it can't be seen over audio.]

There's nothing sincere about you at all, save your dedication to trying to have the last word. I never actually said anything about killing myself to begin with, only that I'd been stabbed~

[Not in this conversation, anyway. Sure, he never denied it, and it's all over the network in other threads of his, but Vincent would then have to admit to "stalking a loser" to know that.]

The rest was an assumption you made for your manufactured pity, to deflect from the fact that you are alive and can't return to finish becoming a corpse--that what you want most has been snatched from your jaws, and you may never have the chance to get it back!

So I'll ask again -- which of the two of us is really pitiful, here?

Edited (wording nitpick) 2024-11-20 14:23 (UTC)

No, it's probably was when I asked what you're searching for in wondering about my death.

I'm curious about it, but it seems like I'm not going to find my answer.

That's unfortunate. But whatever's hurting you, whatever you're too afraid to confide in someone that you must lash out at others about it, you're far away from it now. You'll never have to see or think about it, again, if you don't want to, so why are you?

It might be something precious but in the end, it's probably nothing but trash that's holding you down, if you can't even properly face it.

I can face what ails me, because of my faith and belief. What do you have to hold you up? I hope you've found something like that here... perhaps, that's the only good thing about being here. Giving people that had no support support since all we have is each other.

[Saccharinely:]

I tooooold you already, I wanted to know for science! You were the one too suspicious to believe that~

[He chuckles.]

Or maybe, too desperate to find an angle to condescend from, so you could put on this performance. Tell me, do you have any experience with community theater? Oh, or maybe ... could you secretly be a TV star?! I bet you've won a Daytime Emmy or two in your day, right?

[He gasps, suddenly, as though he's just had a flash of insight.]

Don't tell me -- is all this corpse business really just to cover up spoilers about an evil twin?!?!

You did, and you're right that I don't believe you.

I guess we can believe that it is just trash, then.

I'll accept that in my heart and we'll call it good.

Noooo come on, don't just leave -- I've never had the chance to meet a method actor like this! I promise I won't leak anything to the paparazzi...!!

I'm not leaving.

I'm just done with that topic.

What do you want to talk about now?

Wow, the NDAs they make you guys sign must be really intense, if you're still worried about them here! That's such a shame...

[A protracted siiiigh.]

Well, if you really can't reveal any more about this "dead" fanatic character of yours, at least tell me how you got your start in show business! Did you participate in your school play growing up, or was it more of a 'discovered in a coffee shop' situation as an adult?

[Dazai has never met a bit he won't commit to, alas,]

I am not a fanatic! Don't lump me in with those --

[ He holds his hands out. Whatever.

He knows he isn't crazy. ]

I don't feel you care but I was an orphan so I am afraid no school plays.

[ A dismissive tone. Because his parents deserved to due. Whatever. At least they stayed dead. There are worse things to happen to insane people. ]

voice | un: vsmith | spoilers SH3

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

1/2

no subject