leftinbasketforfbi | 2nd Book Read A Accidental Video/Action for Cherrygrove Ω

[Click.

A big paw is batting at the Gear.]

Yang, stop playing with that.

[The Gear is showing the ceiling of an inn in Cherrygrove. A slender hand comes down on the camera briefly, and then the Gear is set on a table, and it shows Spencer Reid (considerably more calm now than he was on Sunday) walking back to the bed, where a very cranky Absol sits with a Munna egg wrapped in a warm towel next to him.

Also, there's half a library's worth of books piled around the room. No, seriously, if you put them all in one stack, it'd nearly be Reid's height.

Absol makes a irritable grunting noise.]

I know, I know, but we'll go out for some fresh air soon, promise. I just need to get through some more of these.

[He picks up a brick-sized book seemingly at random, sitting down on the bed with his legs crossed before placing the wrapped up egg in his lap. In retrospect, he probably shouldn't have taken one before he knew what he was doing, but he doesn't really trust the textbooks here that much and wants to make observations of development by himself.

Yes, someone has started to consider the possibility that he's not completely insane. Since he might not be insane, he wants to learn about where he is, and he wants to learn everything.

He opens up the book and started fanning through the pages, as if he were trying to find his spot, but he doesn't stop. He turns the pages so fast that he can't possibly be reading them, so it's unclear what he's doing.]

Give me half an hour. We'll go out then. And if you really want to, I guess we can go into the woods and find something for you to fight.

[...No, he still hasn't noticed that Yang turned on the Gear. People who told him this wasn't a prank should feel free to gloat and say they told him so.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That's just it — the children you've seen likely aren't an indicator. It's as though there are two sets of people here, the ones who can remember another world and the ones native to this one. But the ones native to this one don't change or adapt. There's no evolving culture and only the barest minimum of history.

I did the same thing you're doing when I arrived. I suspect you're going to reach a similar outcome.

From what little I know, when a person reaches some given point, some threshold of proximity to death, they're transported instantly to the nearest Pokemon Center and restored to full health. It's as though death is treated as nothing more than a "game over", and the next minute a person is given the chance to try again from perfect health.

Someone told me that people thought this place was structured like a game, but I never thought it was so literal.

So the people native here are like characters in a game, and a very shallowly developed one at that. What about the people from other places? They don't know any more than we do about this?

Not that I've seen. But people stay here for years at a time, and it's a place that many times is better off than the one they left. People get attached to their Pokemon, forge friendships, begin to put down roots. It's not hard to see why there may not be a very strong movement to unravel this world and return home, especially when so many of the people involved are children.

But what about the people with friends? Family? Responsibilities? This place... it seems very nice on the surface, but it doesn't feel like it can ever be home.

[Partially because his team isn't here. He needs them to be at home.

And what about his mother? What will happen to her if he can't find a way back?]

That's a question of philosophy. Is home a place, or is it the people you meet?

Well... the definition changes depending on the person.

[For him, it's the people. And that's why this place will never be home.

It doesn't have his family.]

But even using either definition... most people have friends and family where they were before. Whether home's a place or people, you're still leaving it behind.

And yet some might say that's simply one of the perils of growing up. The problem isn't that you've left it behind, really. It's that they've taken away the option of going back.

Would it bother you to be here nearly so much, if you knew you could see the people you've left behind whenever you wanted?

Well, no, of course not. But then I wouldn't have really left them. The main issue here is that I've been taken without my consent and that I can't contact the people I care about.

[He's gone for about five days without talking to his mother or anyone on his team at all. He hasn't had that much time away from his loved ones since... well, he doesn't remember when. Since before he came to the BAU, that's for sure.

That's really the overarching point. You still have that tie to the world you left behind, and so that stands in the way of you accepting this world as a place you could call a home.

But for some people you encounter here, those ties aren't as strong. Some might see it as turning over a new leaf, or a fresh start, or a new chance. Some forge friendships here that become their new families, the people they care about enough to not want to leave behind. Some people come from worlds ravaged by war, and the prospect of a place where no one will ever die seems like nothing short of a dream come true.

My point is, some people cling to the past, and that's a natural course of action. Others might choose to live solely in the present, wherever that might be at the time.

It's all right for you to miss home, and to try to move heaven and earth to get back to it. But if you find yourself asking why some people don't, or why more people haven't, it's because some of them have developed stronger ties here than to the places they left, and others don't have homes to return to at all.

...You make it sound like an unusually high percentage of people here come from troubled circumstances.

[Which... is possible, really, since people apparently come from different worlds than he does. If one took an average American from his world and dropped them off here, odds are that the person would be leaving behind significant relationships that would make them want to go home. Hell, even a lot of abuse victims develop attachments to their abuser and would be upset to be taken away.

What kind of circumstances would make a person okay with leaving behind the place they had grown up in? War, obviously, but what else? Why does the population of Johto and Kanto house a higher percentage of troubled people than the United States?]

It wouldn't be the first unusual trend this world's summoning method has shown. There's a surprisingly high rate of arrival among people who are already acquainted in some way. Most of the people I know can name at least one other person from their own worlds here — even despite arriving independently of each other. Whatever the selection method is, it's not random.

That implies that there's either something special about certain worlds or there is something intelligent behind the selections. Has anyone gathered data about the different worlds, the people who come from them, and the circumstances of their abductions?

[If not, watch out, Carmen, because he's totally got a project now.]

Not yet.

Though that's a study I wouldn't mind seeing.

[Or stealing, to be quite honest.]

[Why would you steal his study, Carmen? It'd all be total technical gibberish until he translated it to layman's terms anyway. :< ]

Then I'll try to start something like that. If we uncover a pattern, we might be able to at least predict who might come next. If people can pass on information surrounding other people's disappearances, we might be able to predict who will leave next, too.

Of course, that's theoretical. I obviously can't be gather all the data that might be relevant when I can't go to other worlds myself, but it'd be a start, and it might help.

[Hey, why would she steal Mont Saint-Michel? Because reasons.]

Having a purpose does help to make the stay a bit easier, doesn't it?

[Weird reasons. :| ]

Especially a purpose that might lead to more information about the situation, yes. Correlational studies aren't the most reliable all the time, but it's the best we have at the moment.

2nd Book Read A Accidental Video/Action for Cherrygrove Ω

text; | private

text; | private

text; | private

text; | private

text; | private

text; | private

text; | private

text; | private

text; | private

text; | private

text; | private

text; | private

text; | private

text; | private

text; | private

text; | private