imeeji_frontstage | (no subject)

(no subject)

Who: Anyone
Where: Hotel and vicinity
When: Day 41, morning

[ MEMORY MINGLE who is up bright and early and trying to broadcast their memories first thing before too many people are awake to watch? Seems like a good plan! ]

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[Sits across from him at the table]

Well now I'm quite curious.

[ Looks up from the open app, and then puts his phone aside, face down ]

If you have a question you wish to ask, speak it directly. You are curious as to what?

What were you hoping to get out of that exchange?

I'm going to assume it wasn't your own gruesome death. So just what did you want Kagehira to do?

It is good to know that your level of comprehension is on par with his.

[ Drums his fingers against the table ]

How much of what I said did you listen to?

Enough.

[Crosses his arms and settles back into his own chair]

Oh, was I supposed to start with a throw-away insult as an ice-breaker? Maybe you could educate me on how to think like a proper idol instead.

I am asking for clarification on how much was heard so I know how much I need to preface my statement or if you heard only the tail end.

Edited 2018-09-25 03:16 (UTC)

The part where you talked about the "broken ones" creating art in spite of everything.

Fine. Then understand this: Kagehira is less like a broken human being, and more like an animal. He doesn't think, he doesn't consider thinking. You heard him, had I told him to throw himself into an incinerator he would have done so in a heartbeat. To force him to take action on his own, there was only one choice: to give him an order so odious he could not consider it. Then he would be faced with this: if he did as I asked he would be left adrift without my orders to cage him any longer. Perhaps he would learn to be a human in time. If he did not, then he would have to, as a human, properly consider what he would like to do and come back to me on his own terms.

But my aims were to unlock the collar he had set about his own neck.

Quite the high-stakes gamble nonetheless. On one hand, the shock of it all might have made it so he never returned to you on any terms. Or he could have killed you at your request.

Maybe it was a test for both of you.

Was putting yourself at risk a way to prove your own humanity? To prove you could triumph over your own survival instinct.

I had faith in Kagehira, and know myself to have nothing so base as a survival instinct.

[ as if that is something to be proud of ]

Edited 2018-09-25 05:42 (UTC)

[This is really the most enlightening conversation]

And why did you have faith in him? How can you tell when a puppet is capable of becoming a real boy?

Because he is entirely incompetent as a puppet. You saw him in the memory with Tenshouin, despite being told to multiple time he could not keep a civil tongue in his head. He clearly has his own priorities, he simply refuses to acknowledge them. What I told him was true: I could not throw him away because at no point did he ever belong to me.

Edited 2018-09-25 05:58 (UTC)

[Nods in understanding. Seems legit to him]

An interesting philosophy.

And having just recovered that part of yourself, does the current you believe the same?

[ Folding his hands and resting his chin on them, while saying definitively: ]

I stand by all statements I made in that memory.

Ha! Then I can only assume that you're working on a new pet project.

There is no one on my unit that needs half the corrections Kagehira did.

Who said they had to be on your unit?

I have far less claim to those who are not.

And how important are unit boundaries to you? As important as they were in your previous idol life?

The way the unit are set up here is not comparable. Rather than being self-produced with our images and line-ups at the control of the unit leader, our mysterious production company has handled and decided all of it. I would be eager to discard it, but with the way units must work together during games means I cannot ignore it entirely.

Both of which are fair points.

Unitmates aside, do you find that Taisho appeals to the same aesthetic you had before?

Non. ☆ZRAEL is the unit that matches what I recall of my tastes and designs. Taisho is not offensive, but if I were given my say it is not what I would take to the stage to make my impact on the world.

And how good are your relations with ☆ZRAEL?

I scarcely know them, though I have been to their dorm once and I find Aradia agreeable. I advised the young man with sharp teeth to not keep corpses in his closet, lest the stench sink into his clothes. Honestly, I do not think they know what they have been gifted with.

They installed the moon in their ceiling. I think they understand their own aesthetic quite well.

And if that's the aesthetic that is most true to you, why not forgo your current one for it?