Un: TerribleTinkerer | Text

[badnewsandshitlist]

If money has no meaning here, then what do people do with themselves? Adventure for the sport of it? Build things only to watch them gather dust?

I prefer problems that bite back or explode in my hands, but it seems difficult to call that work in a place where every need is already seen to.

So. What passes for an occupation here—when merit and coin are both irrelevant?

Comments

[badnewsandshitlist]

I rebuilt. Whitestone, most of all, though I lent a hand to Westruun and Emon when they were picking themselves back up. Clocks, lights, rifles. A mixture of the practical and the indulgent, depending on which day you ask me.

Before that, I was a lordling in a castle, reading too many books and making toys that smoked and broke. I have always had the habit of turning idle time into dangerous machinery.

So you see, I am woefully unsuited to a world without need. My work has always been born of necessity. If you strip necessity away, what remains is only compulsion.

And you? If coin was never your motivation, what did you call your reason before this place stripped it bare?

[newsbeat]

[The place names are foreign to him, but Clark can picture the rest of it more or less clearly. From clocks to rifles — that's interesting range, though it makes sense to him the more he thinks about it.]

Helped people, in whatever ways I could.
In my world, it's not that uncommon for people to have special abilities, but I have more than most, so it made sense to me to do more with them.
But there are far fewer people here, and nearly all of them seem very capable, so not many need help.
That IS a good thing, but it's very different from what I'm used to.

[badnewsandshitlist]

Abilities. That is a tidy euphemism. In my world, such things usually mean magic, divine meddling, or unfortunate accidents with alchemy. I never had the patience for that, so I built advantages instead.

You say you have more than most. More what, precisely? Strength, speed, flight? Or something stranger? Forgive me, I ask as a man who has spent his life cataloguing the impossible.

And if you are accustomed to saving people, what do you do when no one remains who needs saving?

[newsbeat]

Not a lot of magic where I come from, probably not much divine meddling either, but people do come by what they're able to do in different ways, so "abilities" works as a decent catch-all.
In my case, I was born with them [ish] and it's all of the above, plus a few other things.
I don't mind sharing, nothing I can do is a secret.
And that's the question, right? So far I've been spending more time cooking than I usually have time for, which is nice.