bones are important / advisable to keep them / also, stay alive

[roc_on]

The news is grim today. A self-driving software glitch caused the first Republic City car accident in the last four years, uptown; someone has a concussion and someone else has whiplash from their own car swerving to avoid. The company is swearing to have the software patched as soon as possible. There was a food poisoning incident at the Flame Festival in one suburb, and a fireworks accident out in earth country, but these have resulted in no deaths. Death has resulted from what appears to be a murderer - it's hard to explain natural causes leaving a corpse with most of its bones missing.

The news doesn't speculate. Chali, however, does; Beila brings it up with him once he's home, and he says that out in a little town called Hirakyo there was a graverobbing incident - missing bones. They don't have hard evidence on it yet, but they think the same person may have escalated to taking his trophies from living victims, that this could be a serial.

Disquieting. To say the least. But Chali has no reason to believe that it's Avatar business - no spirits, no geopolitics, no heavy-duty bending. So Beila reads another chapter in the autobiography of Avatar Meixing and goes to her firebending lesson.

Comments

[roc_on]

"I thought you were my boyfriend."

[thinklikethis]

...Snort.

[roc_on]

[thinklikethis]

"Sense of humour, that is going on the list of things that are great about you."

[roc_on]

"But is it more or less important than my convenience?"

[thinklikethis]

"Good question. Hard to decide."

[roc_on]

"The traits are going to have to go into a sudden death round."

[thinklikethis]

Snrk.

[roc_on]

"Anyway." She holds his hand. "What's on your mind, Dao?"

[thinklikethis]

"I heard on the news that they found some missing guy with like all of his bones removed, and I'm having weird complicated feelings about it?"

[roc_on]

"There was a similar graverobbing incident in Hirakyo. Chali thinks it might be the same person, escalating."

[thinklikethis]

"Well, that's even creepier."

[roc_on]

"Yeah. Because the modus operandi kind of screams 'serial killer'. But they're looking for him and there's millions of people in Republic City, so I wouldn't worry too much about it."

[thinklikethis]

"I mean, yeah, but - 'what if that happened to me' is only half the story and it's not even the most upsetting half. The most upsetting half is 'what if I did that'."

[roc_on]

"What do you mean?"

[thinklikethis]

"Like... I can think about it, and - I can see why somebody might feel like tearing somebody's bones out? In an 'I kind of want to try it' way? And I—I don't—I don't want to be a serial killer, but like. It really seems like I could, if I just stopped caring that most people don't want to be horribly murdered. And that's creepy and upsetting."

[roc_on]

"Aaaare you likely to stop caring that most people don't want to be horribly murdered?"

[thinklikethis]

"I sure hope not! But how would you even tell a thing like that?"

[roc_on]

"I think most people with obvious deficits like 'do not care that most people don't want to be horribly murdered' would show signs of that before your age. I mean, I'm not a psychologist, but I don't believe you can just come down with sociopathy the way you can come down with a cold."

[thinklikethis]

"I guess. It's just... what if it's not that simple?"

After a reflective pause, he adds, "Probably won't help anybody if I go crazy worrying about it, though."

[roc_on]

"Well, no, but... I don't think I understand, is there more to it?"

[thinklikethis]

"I dunno."

He thinks.

"...Have you ever - had trouble not wanting to do stuff you don't wanna do?"

[roc_on]

"...Can you rephrase that?"

[thinklikethis]

"It's hard! I don't really know how to say it. Like. It's either stupid made-up examples about eating too much candy that aren't even really the thing I'm talking about, or examples about my weird problems that we already know you don't understand."

[roc_on]

"I mean... there are things I have slow down and remind myself I don't want. I don't want to, say, violently take over the world, because that would be dangerous and there would be casualties and even if I pulled it off it would probably be hard to hire good help after a stunt like that. That doesn't mean I never think about taking over the world, it means I, like, pause, and go, 'the actual details of this would be unpalatable'."