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strange things | text
[It's taken some time for him to sit down and actually try this because every instinct he has is screaming at him that it's not allowed. The rules toys follow aren't just something they choose to follow, they're instinct. Instinct they can fight, certainly - like when he and Sid's toys had scared Sid - but instinct nevertheless.]
[But this is a special circumstance and maybe Buzz has the right idea. One of the big people had been nice to him, sabotaging his back switch so it didn't actually change anything when switched to demo mode.]
[This situation is so much bigger than them, bigger than any other chaotic situation they've ever faced, bigger even than their little prison break at Sunnyside. What's an escape from a daycare compared to an otherdimensional...whatever? A place where magical shock devices have been put inside them and now they're being expected to, what, go on missions? His only job is being huggable and good for playing pretend. How that's supposed to translate to "missions" is beyond him.]
[In any case, it's so big that maybe he and Buzz need a little help from the big people. Or at least for them to know the two toys hanging around are actually alive.]
[But that doesn't mean it's easy to talk to them. He decides to do it first over text. And decides to maybe test the waters a little instead of launching right into "Hi I'm woody, I'm a talking rag doll."]
[The comm is almost as big as he is, so he has to rely on the voice-to-text to type anything because it's so much work hitting all the buttons.]
Hi. Hello. So.
How nonhuman would someone have to be for you all to think they were too weird for you to want to deal with? Asking for a friend.
[But this is a special circumstance and maybe Buzz has the right idea. One of the big people had been nice to him, sabotaging his back switch so it didn't actually change anything when switched to demo mode.]
[This situation is so much bigger than them, bigger than any other chaotic situation they've ever faced, bigger even than their little prison break at Sunnyside. What's an escape from a daycare compared to an otherdimensional...whatever? A place where magical shock devices have been put inside them and now they're being expected to, what, go on missions? His only job is being huggable and good for playing pretend. How that's supposed to translate to "missions" is beyond him.]
[In any case, it's so big that maybe he and Buzz need a little help from the big people. Or at least for them to know the two toys hanging around are actually alive.]
[But that doesn't mean it's easy to talk to them. He decides to do it first over text. And decides to maybe test the waters a little instead of launching right into "Hi I'm woody, I'm a talking rag doll."]
[The comm is almost as big as he is, so he has to rely on the voice-to-text to type anything because it's so much work hitting all the buttons.]
Hi. Hello. So.
How nonhuman would someone have to be for you all to think they were too weird for you to want to deal with? Asking for a friend.
[Video]
Bunny still looks residually overjoyed from his second round of storytime with the kiddos, and in fact a few of them are still in the background, pouring over picture books together.]
So did I hit the mark or not?
video
Got it in one.
[The next question is soft and hesitant, delicately handled because he knows it's a big answer. It's an answer to a question they don't ask because usually an answer is impossible.]
What...what are we? We usually don't ask that question because we know we'll never get an answer. This is the first time we've ever talked to someone who might have it. What's a tulpa?
[Video]
Well - [He settles in for an explanation.] If you're not from my world then I might be wrong, but I'm not a gambler and I'd still put money on you two being them. A tulpa is a sentient manifestation of an imagined entity. Sort of a solid imaginary friend, but I've seen objects - like toys - host the spirits too. Used to be rare, but these days, kids' imaginations are a lot more nurtured, and toys come with a lot more detailed mythology.
I got a tip from an action figure just a few weeks before this all started that helped me catch a pananggalan. I wouldn't mind if a few more of you existed. Makes protecting the kids a whole lot easier to have more eyes on 'em that can also see us.
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[He turns to Buzz.]
I've never heard of any toys waking up at the factory. The earliest I've ever heard is the toy store, where they're around kids. It's always after at least some contact with kids.
[He slides a hand down his cheek, overwhelmed a little at the fact they may have had a question answered they never thought possible.]
Maybe that's why you didn't know you were an action figure at first. All those kids imagining you and the other Buzzes as a space hero.
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[Buzz has to point it out, but it still falls in with Woody's reasoning.]
But he thought he was the real Buzz, and that Zurg that followed him thought he was the real Zurg, who was also Buzz's father. They were acting out the lore from the Saturday morning cartoon!
[A cartoon falls under that 'detailed mythology' the Easter Bunny pointed out.]
[video]
[Boy, that would raise all sorts of ethical questions, if every single toy in his mass-production world suddenly became sentient. The few tulpas he's met have been such valued possessions, in their rarity, that they weren't in danger of being cast off, but the little spirits also didn't remain after their owners died.]
This might be a sore subject, but if the kids pass on, do your spirits flicker out?
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It is all of us. We're all alive, and we don't...fade.
Once we're alive, we're alive. Regardless of whether or not we're with our first owner.
[A pause.]
...Or any owner. A friend of ours was in storage for a while and it was -
[Words fail him for a moment.]
- it was a bad experiences for her.
[He doesn't feel right sharing any more. The extent of Jessie's trauma isn't a subject he wants to put into conversation with a stranger.]
And we can survive quite a bit. Things humans can't.
[He thinks of Sid's toys and shudders. There's fondness - they were so brave despite what they'd been through. But the ever present horror at what they were - at what any toy could be and still live - has never gone away.]
Not everything, but most things.
Video
[Imagination magic has done some wild things to his world, but nothing on that scale. But that is absolutely a planet on the brink of a sentient rights crisis.]
That's not ideal.
Re: Video
[There's no point in agonizing over something they can't change.]
We make do.
Video
[mass production combined with infinite imagination magic is going to need some looking into. Add that to all the planets he's learning about that have no Guardians to ensure children grow up as unscathed as possible.]
'Course I'll have to get to know you a bit better before I can suggest anything.
Have you ever known a toy to hurt a person?
Re: Video
Never. Even the most rotten toys we ever met never hurt a human. Too much instinct not to.
[For the sake of transparency, he's honest about what he's done.]
The worst I've ever done personally was purposefully spook a kid into treating his toys more nicely but he was playing mad scientist with his toys. [Woody cringes at the memory.] And about to blow up Buzz with a rocket.
I didn't...I didn't have many options.
I've never seen a situation that bad since. Worse than being thrown away. At least sometimes you can escape a trash bag.
[You can't escape someone mutilating you].
Video
What do you generally do once thrown out?
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[He shares another look with Buzz, looks deeply uncomfortable about someone digging this deep into things they try not to think about. He almost considers hedging around it or telling him to stop prying but it is the Easter Bunny. The respect for what he is means Woody tries his best to answer him where he might not answer someone else.]
[His voice is taut.]
But if you wind up at the dump there's a point where...where most toys don't come back from. Unless you're very, very lucky.
[There's something in the set of his jaw, trembling just slightly, and a way his gaze gets a little glassy and distant, and how his breath catches just slightly that speaks of a scare he's managed to move on from.]
[He tries to keep his voice steady.]
Even if you get past the shredder, there's a fire.
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But Buzz is beginning to wonder what point there can be to asking all these deeply hard questions, especially as the bunny tackles a question they have both come all too close to not being around to answer.
He reaches out and puts his hand on Woody's shoulder, his expression just as terribly grim as Woody's.]
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[The tension isn't lost on Bunny, who knows he's asking hard questions.
Nobody else is going to ask them. The humans likely don't want to know the answers, or are just too polite, and probably don't have any notion of how to even begin coming up with a solution.
But he's also from a world swimming in the magic of imagination, and theirs is clearly on the brink of a crisis as magic meets mass production meets too much pain and horror heaped on top of an increasingly numerously populated shadow culture.
It's a tough nut to crack, but if anyone can come up with a solution, he's got the team to work on it.]
I know these are hard questions I'm asking. I promise I'm not just asking to make you relive bad times.
You two and I are gonna work out a better end, all right? Not just for you, but for all your friends. The kids would want that for ya.
[Imagine a whole world of children and adults realizing they've been sending sentient beings who loved them completely off to be burned alive. Imagine kids working out their anger or helplessness by mutilating their toys realizing en masse that they were ruining sentient individuals.
Simply imagine loving so completely that you're willing to stay still long enough to be mutilated or burned alive.
What a horror story. It needs a change.]
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We have been that close.
[He shakes his head.]
I don't know that anything different is possible.
[There are so many barriers to a world where people know their toys are people and don't do them harm.]
Like I said, we make do.
[One thing in Bunny's way? That many of them are resigned to the way their world works.]
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[Wait. Just like the humans, toys must not have a total grasp on what he does and who he is, beyond the joy of his one day.]
My mates and I are the Guardians of Childhood. We do a lot more than bring them their best days. I'm the Guardian of Hope and I'm here to give it to you, no matter what you believe is and isn't possible.
Again, the kids would want it for ya.
no subject
[And because he knows these circumstances are special. It feels impossible for anything like them to happen back home. There's too much that could go wrong, trying to achieve the same thing. All the people here are from extraordinary circumstances, enough they barely batted an eyelash over them being alive, but home is a different story.]
[And that's if they ever get back to it. He's not so sure.]
[So he bristles and gets annoyed and that means he gets a little cutting because that's what happens when his temper gets riled, Easter Bunny or no.]
With all do respect, someone stuck under Jorgmund's thumb might want to reconsider any promises to do the impossible. If you could, we wouldn't be here.
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Look, the world you've described to me is swimming in ambient Belief magic. If anyone can figure out a way to give you options besides dying horribly, it's me and my team.
I know hope hurts when you haven't had it before, but haven't you already been hurt enough without it?
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[His face falls slightly even as he says it.]
[She loves most of her toys.]
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[so he's going to have to think carefully about what sort of options are going to work for this many toy tulpas. But he's also going to need the two he has access to to TALK to him, and he can tell he's getting close to being hung up on.]
Try this thought out for a moment - know much about a foster care system?
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[The teens on the rig are just one facet of that.]
I know what it is, and that it's possibly not a good place to be.
[Lots of movies that have orphans make it clear being one isn't a good time.]
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You might not have a lot of power, but I can think of a lot better work for living toys with a solid core of altruism to be doing than burning in a dump, when there's worlds full of children that don't even have toys that are alive to love and watch out for them.
Just gotta figure out how to make it happen. That'll be easier with you than by myself.
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Right now let's worry about the kids right in front of us.
[It's the only concession he can make at the moment, a willingness to cooperate on helping the kids here.]
I think some of them don't even know they're still kids, but they are.
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Want my first impressions? Or d'you wanna go first?
gonna pretend this convo is after the network thread with Vanya in Buzz's post
[Video]
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[Video]
Re: [Video]