[002] - Video

[in4apounding]

Jiminy evolved today! I was honestly getting a little worried, he's been gaining levels so slowly, between the weather making it hard to train and just not having many effective attacks, I don't think there's much around here that's weak to Bug types. Not much that offers a good challenge, anyway!

[If the Kricketune in question is offended by any of that, it's not showing it. Since the video began, it's been happily chirping away away in a weirdly rhythmic tune. The overall effect is probably best described as 'hip-hop violin', accented by the Chatot hopping around excitedly and adding her own chitters and vocal contributions. Whatever your opinion, at least it's covering the usual background music?]

He's having fun with Reina, at least! I wasn't sure having them out together at the same time was a good idea since he's a bug and she's a bird, and Jiminy's level is so much lower than hers, but it looks like they've found some kind of common ground! It's sort of strange that Pokémon that would be natural enemies in the wild can get along so well once they've been captured. Do you think that's a side-effect of the Pokéballs somehow, or just comes from even really basic training? Most of my other Pokémon aren't the kind who'd seem like they'd be more inclined to fight than usual in the wild, so this is the first chance I've gotten to see something like this. I mean, Amber's a spider too, but she's also electric-type and much stronger than Reina so that's not really a fair comparison?

[Please remember to breath, Penny.]

Whatever causes it, I just think it's great that Pokémon and trainers have such a chance to make friends in so many unlikely places. I have more friends here than I ever had back home, and I'd hate to think of my Pokémon missing out on the same chance.

Comments

[callbacks]

...Like a robot?

[He's not so much asking her as he is putting her words together. He mulls it over a second more, then comes over to sit against the wall next to the closet door.]

You thought for yourself and had your own friends and stuff, though, right? You told me about Ruby.

[in4apounding]

Ruby was my friend, yes. She believed in me!

[Sitting with her own back to the door. And no longer sounding likely to start sobbing, at least.]

She was the only one that knew. Besides my father and Mr. Ironwood and some of the soldiers from Atlas, I mean. You remember when we were trying to be anonymous and it didn't work, and I said I'd been keeping something from a friend too? This was it. There was a truck, and I jumped in front of it, and that's how she found out.

[Taking a second to breath.]

And of course I could still think and feel things. But it's so different here, so much more real. I'm actually human and I can fit in, I don't just have to pretend.

[callbacks]

Well, I think.

[And, because Dave isn't affected by whatever's going on with Penny and half the world today, and because this is important, he actually stops to gather his thoughts and make sure he's getting it right.]

I mean, I don't know if this is gonna be helpful to you at all in general, but at least as far as I go--maybe for obvious reasons--I don't think you have to be traditionally human to be a person. You already know, half my best friends haven't been human.

[And he misses them so much.]

So I don't really know what it means for you to feel more real now, but to me, it isn't really a straight-up existential question so much as...you'd've just been different, and had a different experience of life. And there's nothing fake about that.

[in4apounding]

[There's a moment of silence before Penny answers.]

Thank you Dave. It means a lot to me that you think that, really.

[And an audible sniffle.]

I don't know if I can think that myself, but thank you. You're a really good friend, and I'm glad I met you.

...you don't think less of me, do you? For not believing.

[callbacks]

What, no. 'Course I don't. If that's how you feel, that's how you feel; some stuff said by a guy you only met a couple months ago isn't gonna change all the shit you learned since you were little. Or, since you were, uh, younger? I guess I don't know how that works for you.

[He rubs at one palm with the opposite thumb for a moment.]

Would it help you to know someone from kinda similar circumstances?

[in4apounding]

I- don't know? Maybe. ...do you know any other robots?

[HAVE YOU BEEN HOLDING OUT BRUH.]

[callbacks]

No, not real ones. I mean, ones that existed in my frame of experience, not...any other definition of 'real.' But, uh.

[...Yeah, there's no sensible way to put this.]

Me and all my friends, we were also made in a lab. Not by our dads though, because our moms and dads got made at the same time as us.

[in4apounding]

...oh, more time shenanigan things. I- don't know if that's quite the same, though. You're still flesh and blood!

[But still, quietly opening the closet door and scootching out because this is starting to feel a little silly. Her eyes look red.]

Did knowing that ever make you feel, you know, different?

[callbacks]

[He glances at her, then away, because even if at least she's come out now she still deserves some privacy with her vulnerability and all.]

Yeah. Kind of. I mean, it was weird, because at that point there wasn't really anybody to be different from. The four of us who survived, we were all like that.

[He picks at the fraying aglet of one of his shoelaces.]

But...we were made for a purpose, so the game could keep on perpetuating itself, and not the normal way or anything. So the stuff you said about not being real, like...a tool, and not a person. I can kind of relate.

[in4apounding]

[She sits next to him quietly, knees drawn up to her chest. Reina hops up onto one knee, giving a non-committal chirp.]

...I'm sorry.

[The more she hears about this game, the more she kind of wants to have a word with whoever's in charge, if that's possible.]

I know for sure you're way more than that, though. I've never heard of a tool that could make music the way you do.

[Hi pot, this is kettle.]

...but, I think I see what you mean. Thank you.

[callbacks]

[He tilts his head for a sidelong glance at her and then offers her a slim, soft smile.]

See? Not fake. Just different.