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[metalica]

[ The post comes across with a name that, really, no one will recognise. It's one word, simple: ＡＤＬＥＲ. Thank goodness for the text option so he has no need to attempt to hide his voice or face; for now his name is enough. ]

Tell me about your world. Your wars. Your powers. Tell me about the things that you fight for, what you continue to cherish even here.

Educate me.

Comments

text; private.

[thebreakingwave]

My name is Harry Potter. In my world, there are two sorts of people: those who can't do magic (all human) and those who can (wizards, witches, magical non-humans, etc.). Magic-users live separately and in secret.

We've just come out from a very long war, or a long series of wars, depending on your view. On paper, it was about 'blood purity' and the right to determine who's allowed into our society and their worth. In fact, it was just about power. For some time, I fought just to stay alive, to prevent my friends from being harmed, but in the end, I fought because did and still do, believe that a person's value has nothing to do with their blood or parentage, but everything to do with the choices they've made and the people they love.

text; private.

[metalica]

In secret. Why? You are the better kind, surely. The stronger. Let me guess, if you allow me a moment; do the humans persecute, fear you? Do they fear magical kind they way they would those with any other forms of power?

Tell me; do you think love makes you stronger?

text; private.

[thebreakingwave]

Physical strength and capability does not make a person inherently better. You can't just cull out a whole group of people based on what you think are undesirable characteristics. That's monstrous and evil. Fullstop.

I know it makes us better people and better at what we do.

I don't just mean that as gladhand, happy-clappy nonsense. I have actual, physical proof that love is a force that is universal and more powerful than hate, fear, and cruelty.

text; private.

[metalica]

And what if the people you wish to cut out hunted you down, captured you, experimented upon you? What would you do then? Would you continue to allow them to harm your friends, loved ones, or would you fight back? Would you sit and cry peace when blood was being spilt around you?

Strength makes you stronger. Emotion fuels the flame but it is what you are inside that gives you true power. Hate, fear and anger can be the fuel that keeps you alive. I know.

text; private.

[thebreakingwave]

They didn't cut us out. We left, long ago, and I don't know if it was the right choice. If they, or people within my own society harmed my friends, I would fight back. I don't know if I'm built for peace or have that capability.

It can keep you in existence, but that's not really alive. For whatever happened on your world, I'm sorry. I don't think my words mean much here, but they're still true.

text; private.

[metalica]

So you would fight, then, for your kind, if they were threatened. Your strength would overcome them because you are better and stronger than they could ever hope to be. It is simply the laws of evolution.

I don't need your apologies.

retroactively unlocked; read it and weep

[thebreakingwave]

Might does not make right. A man with a gun is not morally superior or a better person than a man without one. He has an advantage, but he is neither better nor more just.

I don't know if I'm making my argument well. I've thought a bit about some of this, but I'll be honest, I have more gut feeling than reasoned logic. I just think that if you take your society, cut it in two and decide that these people are better because of bloodlines, or hair colour, or some other random thing, and then rule or ruin the half that doesn't meet up, well, where do you draw the line?

In my world, we were split into magical and non-magical. Fine.

Some of the magical people decided that wasn't good enough. Wasn't pure enough, and they wanted to burn out the parts that weren't up to their arbitrary standard. These people were stronger than us, adults with training, that had fought wars before. They were cruel and powerful. They were unjust. They lost.

I hope you'll pardon that I've now unlocked this thread, but I have no shame about what I'm saying here and have said.

text; private. (erik's are still locked)

[metalica]

You put it into far too complex terms. A and B. It is not so simple -- our kind, my kind, fight for their rights, fight for their lives, or die. Die on lab tables, in wars, at the hands of humans and worse. If we do not rise up, prove our worth, our strength, fight for our existence, we will be wiped out. I will not have my brothers and sisters die because people refuse to accept us for who and what we are.

It isn't about simply superiority. We are the stronger, superior kind, true, but we are fighting for our lives. We are fighting to simply continue to live. I will not feel ashamed of that. I will not be told that my actions lack justice when peace is no longer an option for our survival.

video » 1/2

[atoned]

[ zuko doesn't recognise anything. ]

[ he spends a good two minutes mulling over this question. it's not in a bid to prepare any answers for "adler", not even to write him an essay educating him, as he so pleasantly asks, on the fire nation, the war he had ended, and his own bending. the earth kingdom had wiped his desire to show off his firebending, even to proclaim himself as fire nation royalty; he's no longer eager to show off to prove himself to those who should know him, but can't even recognise the familiar nose shape he has to fire lord ozai. it is a small reason as to why he pauses, but, mostly, he's looking at his locket, trying to turn it on. ]

[ his locket begins with video. zuko's expression is calm, his brows smooth and relaxed. his hair drifts into his face as per usual. ] Why do you — [ and there's a long pause and radio silence. he flickers in and out, accompanied by a very long moment of his video feed being black. ]

text »

[atoned]

[ before his locket picks up and switches to text, instead. ]

— WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THAT?

[ after shaking his locket and yelling at it, it returns. his question had meant to be calmly asked, merely curious and paranoid as to why someone is asking such a specific set of questions he can easily fill with a very long textwall of words. after the bumps in the road they've dealt with with transporting raonil, zuko's cautious. ]

[ he only responds in hopes of momentarily distracting himself from how tired, bruised, and beaten he feels from the journey. ]

audio

[caditquaestio]

You ask much and give little. Even a scholar pays his university fees.

text

[metalica]

What do you want me to offer in return?

Re: text; private. (erik's are still locked)

[thebreakingwave]

I think, and I am willing to admit that I am wrong, that I am from a kinder time and world where peace is possible. If that wasn't an option for me, I don't know what I'd do, say, or feel.

text »

[metalica]

Curiosity. Interest. I want to learn a little more about the people I have been forced to spend my time with.

text; private.

[metalica]

Peace was never an option.

perma!audio

[caditquaestio]

Fair trade, no more. We are but strangers. Let us meet with an open and honest heart, as strangers with nothing to gain of each other's fortune will. I start, you may follow.

[ And then, not even waiting on agreement, because of course it'll come. ]

My world, then: it is Firenze. At times Roma or Pisa, if the work will want it so. And Firenze stood, last I saw of it, in health and finery, though I think autumn will give us a flooding. Truth told, I don't much care but for the roads and the crops. Bread's a costly fare in most cities, if you mean to have the first-day piece, but in Firenze? Hah. Even the two-day-old slices will lighten your coin purse. I tell you, it's highway theft, and the good God will spare none of His mercies on these scavengers. But what can the common man say, eh? You speak out of turn, they will deny you even what was before given.

And your world?

Text

[wilder]

Why do you want to know?

text

[commandertoolbelt]

What's that got to do with anything?

text.

[vrykolakas]

My world? As sprawling, brutal and unfathomable as the next. Personally, I go under the banners of good sense and freedom enough to do more than survive.

What about you?

text;

[noirant]

The gateway to education is a proper grasp of vocabulary; to whit: the world 'please'.

Or so I've been frequently told by the tedious and suspicious. What draws your focus to conflict? I could run you through a dreadfully long and detailed history of midland water-rights disputes, but I don't know that it would do the slightest thing to answer your questions.

[Text]

[vanyel_ashkevron]

I am Herald-Mage Vanyel Ashkevron and my world is called Velgarth. I serve the King of Valdemar in matters of diplomacy and battle. Recently, I spent a year countering a Mage who harmed the citizens of Valdemar. In order to do so, I pretended to be five Mages at once.

private text

[bythewaves]

There are many tales of my world, stranger, and I know most of them. To tell them all would take longer than most Men have time for. If tis a story you want, sir, you will have to be more precise... and it would be customary to offer one in return.

text

[metalica]

Curiosity.

text

[metalica]

We're fighting a war. It's... interesting to see why people fight.

text.

[metalica]

The fact that we are in a new conflict all of our own, right here. We all have something we fight for. A passion, for our own kind or otherwise. I'm curious to see if there are any that share my ideals.