#tpg: (my MCs) Cal

[msfcatlover]

22 and 23 for the passenger ask game? which, thanks to you, i am now playing and it is GREAT

You are?! Awesome! I love introducing people to cool shit, and The Passenger is VERY cool!

(The Passenger Ask Game)

(Under the cut, because one of these involves death, and there will be some nasty parts of that.)

22.  How do they feel about death?

Well, that varies wildly from Newman to Newman. 

Adir finds the idea deeply unsettling, but finds it all much worse now that he’s trapped in a human form. By his math, if he ceased to exist in his true form, he would dissolve into energy which would be consumed by whatever killed him, and would truly be gone; humans, on the other hand, leave behind their awful, fleshy husks, which prior to decomp are often still?? Just the same??? And then there’s decomp itself! The internal systems turning on eachother, the external parasites feeding so slowly that the flesh has time to break down, the stink, which is because you’re inhaling tiny bits of the body that used to be a person, and, and, and the bones! They linger, they stick around, sometimes for billions of years long after they stop being bones, and it’s just…!!! It’s awful, and disturbing, and it freaked him right the fuck out long before the Hunter showed up. So, yeah, that moment when Newman realizes that the slime the Hunter spews is the putrefied flesh of its casket? He didn’t think the Hunter could get any more terrifying, and it’s like it personally set out to prove him wrong.

Cal sorta wonders if death actually applies to her, at least as she is now. The casket is just a thing she happens to be wearing as a suit, so if it died, would that  release her from this dimension? Or would she actually die with it? As she’s gotten to know humans and human beliefs, she’s also come to wonder about theories of the afterlife, since… yeah, it’s a little hard to believe all that variety and spirit just comes from chemical reactions, and she of all beings knows that a body and a conscious don’t have to be interdependent. And if there is an afterlife, does she qualify as long as she’s in her casket? Could she trick the metaphysical universe into allowing her into Heaven (or whatever else there may be)? Honestly, reincarnation seems more realistic to her (as a being who could theoretically just hop to another body,) but it also seems boring, so what’s the point in speculating there? It’s all an interesting theory, but one she’s not eager to try testing any time soon…….. at least, not on herself.

Eris genuinely cannot conceive of death. Ey cannot wrap eir head around it. Just, the concept? Of not existing anymore? How? Would that even work? You know that kid at the funeral scene who keeps asking what any of this means and why you’re putting the dead person in the ground? Eris Newman, age 26. What even is death? If asked, ey’s gonna give you a blank stare and maybe an uncomfortable giggle before asking you to fuck off. Better not to think about it.

23. What is their philosophy?

Hmmm… well, if you asked each of them the moral by which they lived their lives, 

Eris would be: “Achievement comes from a well-executed plan, with an even better back-up or three.” 

Cal would say: “Flexibility makes everything more fun!”

and Adir’s is definitely: “Fuck you, got mine.”

However, if you look at the actual way they live their lives, none of them fully live up to those goals.

Eris perpetually finds emself in a position where ey realizes ey has no backup, and the primary plan is pretty shaky to begin with. Ey’s seriously impatient most of the time, and generally uncomfortable with the idea of relying on or manipulating others, even if that is eir best strategy, which leads to having serious trouble committing to any one course of action, often leaving em with only eir eternal Plan Z: “Run Like Hell.”

Cal has control issues. Like, serious control issues. Even if she’s reacting off odd or unexpected circumstances, if she doesn’t have the feeling she could (at least theoretically) be completely In Charge™ of the situation at a moment’s notice, she starts getting…….. twitchy. It’s kinda a nasty cycle when it comes to her encounters with the Hunter, actually; it made her feel helpless, which lead to a need to be in control, then it shows up again and makes her feel even more helpless by ripping away all that control, which leads to her knuckling down even harder the moment it’s gone and being even more terrified of its return…

Adir’s “mine” just happens to include this handful of tiny humans whom he adores, and ensuring their well-being and happiness is absolutely still self-serving, shut up. He’s not a hypocrite, you’re a hypocrite!