JUNKO ENOSHIMA. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
disjunct) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
calling_net2016-08-17 10:12 pm
disjunct) wrote in calling_net2016-08-17 10:12 pm
Entry tags:
[CALL | Video | un: monokuma ]
[ A stuffed animal sits center of the screen.
The room he's in harbors just a chair, and looks isolated enough to be an interrogation room, if not for the dusty slats above him pouring in some light. It's a basement somewhere remote, but nonetheless, he seems to wave at the camera. However, his motor functions seem limited. ]
Hello! Good evening! Good morning! Whichever one you're feeling right now.
[ A slight, curious cock of the head. Once again, the mechanics seem off... and the voice doesn't seem to be coming from the stuffed animal. Someone is speaking for him behind the camera. ]
I think the best way to get to know everybody is to toss out a fun little icebreaker! Lesser-known facts! No one likes being the shut-in at a party. So...
[ "He" clears his throat. ]
Do you know what they did in Paris in the 19th century?
Oh, they definitely painted a lot of paintings and baked a lot of bread. But I mean... for fun?
Back in those days, 'fun' would count a lot on how much money you had. But resourceful Parisians could find it in other ways. For free. There was a once-of-a-lifetime opportunity that anyone in the city could get a ticket punched into! To be the star, or the audience. That's right! I'm talking about...
[ A brief pause. ]
... The morgue!
You see, life was so boring back then that people would line up to walk through the morgue just to see who croaked last night! The more grisly the victim, the more people came to visit!
People were excited to try and recognize the victims! Of course, this was originally just so people had access to claim the deceased, but it was a theater attraction of its own!
Upupupu...! Can you imagine if you didn't have the things you had today, what you'd resort to for fun?
The gawking joy that it brought people... but still, we slow down for car crashes today, don't we?
Hmm...
Do you think humans are really different from back then? From the public executions, to the public display of bodies, to the now?
I wonder about it a lot. I can't say I know for sure, because I am a bear. Would anyone like to try and guess?
The room he's in harbors just a chair, and looks isolated enough to be an interrogation room, if not for the dusty slats above him pouring in some light. It's a basement somewhere remote, but nonetheless, he seems to wave at the camera. However, his motor functions seem limited. ]
Hello! Good evening! Good morning! Whichever one you're feeling right now.
[ A slight, curious cock of the head. Once again, the mechanics seem off... and the voice doesn't seem to be coming from the stuffed animal. Someone is speaking for him behind the camera. ]
I think the best way to get to know everybody is to toss out a fun little icebreaker! Lesser-known facts! No one likes being the shut-in at a party. So...
[ "He" clears his throat. ]
Do you know what they did in Paris in the 19th century?
Oh, they definitely painted a lot of paintings and baked a lot of bread. But I mean... for fun?
Back in those days, 'fun' would count a lot on how much money you had. But resourceful Parisians could find it in other ways. For free. There was a once-of-a-lifetime opportunity that anyone in the city could get a ticket punched into! To be the star, or the audience. That's right! I'm talking about...
[ A brief pause. ]
... The morgue!
You see, life was so boring back then that people would line up to walk through the morgue just to see who croaked last night! The more grisly the victim, the more people came to visit!
People were excited to try and recognize the victims! Of course, this was originally just so people had access to claim the deceased, but it was a theater attraction of its own!
Upupupu...! Can you imagine if you didn't have the things you had today, what you'd resort to for fun?
The gawking joy that it brought people... but still, we slow down for car crashes today, don't we?
Hmm...
Do you think humans are really different from back then? From the public executions, to the public display of bodies, to the now?
I wonder about it a lot. I can't say I know for sure, because I am a bear. Would anyone like to try and guess?
un: attar
[Oh, well. He sighs and leans back a little. Better this than talking about Pretty Woman for the seventy-first time.]
Humanity is consistent through time, as is human society. Curiosity leads to great scientific and artistic accomplishments, but also to the exploration of the morbid and horrifying.
Still, you're only discussing half of the issue, don't you think? Like walking around with one eye closed. Certainly people did horrible things back then, and still do, and some of them did those things because they wanted to — because nothing made them happier than other people's misery. But plenty of others did horrible things because they had no choice. Economic unrest and instability have a tendency to choke the lower classes, squeezing the joy and the life out of them until they seek excitement in the only ways they know how. Sometimes those ways are simple schadenfreude.
And yet even from the most basic functions of humanity come great discoveries. For example: I'm sure you've heard of Étienne-Jules Marey? A Frenchman. He perfected — some say invented — the technique of chronophotography, the predecessor of film technology. Which you're using right now to describe how human nature is inherently vulgar and base, and yet in 1882 Marey was hard at work inventing a tool you surely use every day.
I hope you're not comparing yourself to a car crash.
1/2
[ He dabs his forehead with a hankerchief, and you can practically hear the whirr and click of his arms. ]
He rings a few bells! He's the man with the theory that proved the theory that at one point, a horse has all hooves off the ground... but that's just a novelty compared to everything else he did, right?
no subject
In the end, what's important is the basic question!
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I guess rephrasing the question-- what do you think people have the greater capacity for, when faced with the opposite?
no subject
Humanity is greedy. Every person wants to survive first and foremost. The prospect of survival is hopeful; the prospect of survival is inherent in every human being; therefore, humanity has a greater capacity for hope.
1/2
Even though you advocate for hope, you have to admit that's a bleak answer!
[ He puts two paws on his belly and laughs. The machinery's whirr is more obnoxious than ever-- this is clearly a dying robot, repaired in shambles. All it can do is act out its owner's instructions until it fails. ]
You get 2 points for that answer! Mark it down in your notes!
no subject
[ He looks as threatening as can be, in his poor condition-- he used to look state of the line, after all. ]
Humans can choose, you know? So someone with enough hope could definitely inspire the hopeless, but someone filled with despair could do damage past the point of all hope. In the game of tug-of-war, I think despair has an edge.
no subject
[He waves his hand vaguely, a gesture intended to illustrate his point.]
We'd never have come down from the trees at all. Which might be preferable to you, who knows.
1/2
no subject
[ Suddenly, this ridiculous bear toy is fuming, steam literally popping out of its ears-- probably not intentionally! He jumps up in down in his little chair, looking more comical than threatening. ]
Despair has to do more damage, you're right! It's like your HP bar in a video game-- easily replenished before it gets too low! Little pick-ups bring it back up to speed! But what if the boss shows up with a mega-ton mallet and knocks you down to zero?!
no subject
Well, in that case . . .
[give him a minute]
If there's someone that overpowered in either direction, I suppose it's a moot point, isn't it? If there's someone with a "mega-ton mallet" of either variety, if it can knock you down to zero hope or zero despair no matter how powerful you are, the question is answered before it's even asked.
But. [He holds up a finger.] The despair mallet would still have to be bigger.
no subject
But even then... it'd have to be more than a mega-ton mallet. To bring every person on the planet that far down, it'd have to be a giga-ton. Or a tera-ton. Or a peta-ton! Pe-ta-ton! It even sounds like the whack of a mallet!
[ Inquisitively, he puts his paw to his chin. ]
Do you think someone like that exists?
no subject
[But really, it's a foregone conclusion. In a way, as much as he tries to search for an alternate answer, he knows the true answer before Monokuma is done asking the question. He isn't even ashamed of it. No; in a convoluted way, he thinks he might be proud.]
[When he shakes his head in the end, it's with the slightest, tiniest hint of a smile.]
Not anymore.
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no subject
Or are they the same? Why . . . that's almost philosophical. How is procedural. Are you philosophizing?
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How: he's dead.
no subject