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

[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'."

[thinklikethis]

"I have like... the exact opposite of that problem? Also, wait, you want to take over the world?"

[roc_on]

"I just explained that I don't want to take over the world! It would be a huge mess. But every now and then I read the news and I'm like 'I could fix this if I had more than vague symbolic power over involved parties!'."

[thinklikethis]

"Okay, so you don't want to take over the world, you just want to have already taken over the world. Well, I don't want to go around ripping people's bones out for the results, the results are a bunch of murdered people with their bones missing, that's exactly what I don't want. It's the, like," he blushes, "process."

[roc_on]

"So you want, like, virtual reality?"

[thinklikethis]

"Maybe. Um. It would have to be pretty good virtual reality, I think."

[roc_on]

"Well, in the extremely high resolution actual reality, after we have dinner we can mess with the cinders. ...Is the problem that if you had nobody who wanted cinders put on them you might start stealing people's bones, is that what's got you upset?"

[thinklikethis]

"I mean, no? I don't know? I hope not? Before you came along and were all convenient at me I sort of... didn't really even think that would ever be a thing that could possibly happen. And I wasn't stealing anybody's bones then."