hadriel_logs | Event Log: Senses Fail

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Event Log: Senses Fail

Who: All characters participating in the event
What: The event log for the Senses Fail event
Where: All over the city
When: May 14th-May 20th
Warnings: None

You wake up on the 14th, and something is different. Maybe it's something small - you can't smell anything, or your hearing on one side seems to be on the fritz. Or it could be something large and impossible to miss - you've gone completely blind, or you seem to be missing a leg. You've lost something, and no matter what you do, you can't seem to fix it.

Will you ever get it back? Probably, but it's impossible to be sure. And even if you're thoroughly convinced that this is temporary, that still means you have to figure out how to live like this for the next week. Even small things can be huge difficulties. Your sense of taste doesn't seem that important, until you accidentally eat something that'll make you sick. And sure, maybe you can figure out how to live without one hand, but what about when you wake up three days from now and you've also lost your magic?

Do your best to keep yourself calm, but remember: it can always get worse.

► This log covers May 14th-May 20th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If your lost sense turns out to have been essential to your survival, please let us know here.

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"No, you don't," she points out. Alphys seems a little off as well, so Rey is less remiss about being blunt. "Hard to say, because 'losing the ability to give a shit' doesn't sound like Fear's modus operandi."

That's the only answer she can think of at the moment, anyway. If someone were to cry for help, Rey isn't sure she would even bother. All she wants is to get this over with, if even that.

Any sign of that soul that had been so lively at the feast might as well have been scraped clean.

She raises an eyebrow, feeling almost curious at that. "They took your emotions?"

Alphys knows that humans and monsters don't work the same way- a human losing their SOUL, operating as she does, may or may not be possible. She's never really been able to test it. Most bodies that lose their SOULs are dead.

But you know. Anything is possible.

"Do you feel... anything?"

Rey shrugs, remaining placid instead of responding to such a discovery appropriately, just to drive the point home.

"Took something that was there." She doesn't see how it accomplishes much of anything, but who knows with the gods. Their logic doesn't exactly align with the reality Rey knows. "Can still feel things physically, if that's what you mean. Sense of touch is still intact."

That's something, at least.

"No, I understand that." Alphys realizes she should have clarified, and continues. "Emotionally, I mean- I've heard of people losing a lot of things, but I feel it would be difficult to just take feelings."

She knows she shouldn't just give away any reaction, any information, but it's more cerebral than anything. Alphys usually uses her emotions to stop herself from oversharing, and while she knows logically that it'll be uncomfortable if she gives away too much, the worry isn't there. "Do humans keep those in their SOULs, too? It seems like that would make sense."

There is a contemplative pause before Rey responds to that.

"Wouldn't know. Am not human, so the whole concept of a soul--" (or SOUL, in Alphys' case) "--is debatable."

Shrug.

She responds quickly, and just as flat.

"I'm not either. But all things have SOULs. Or... all things that can feel." Alphys dips her head, raising a hand to her chest, but instead of the upside down white projection that should appear only a black stamp of void shows on her chest. "I think... we're in the same boat, y-you and I."

Her eyes narrow at the where Alphys places her hand, and forms a quizzical expression. They're in the same boat? How? Alphys doesn't seem all that different from her usual self, so what happened to her that rings similar to Rey's situation?

"What do you mean by that?"

She's genuinely curious, but also devoid of anticipation and impatience. A mixed blessing, really.

She tilts her head towards Rey, expression still even.

"Every living being has a SOUL. At least, ones that can feel emotions. If you're m-missing your feelings... they must have taken your SOUL, too." Alphys says it plainly- even without emotions, this to her is fact. "I'm sorry. Or I'm trying to be. It doesn't feel good."

Despite how she's feeling -- or lack thereof -- Rey just stops all thought process and stares down at Alphys.

"So... Can you tell whether or not something has a 'soul'?"

She knows she's had this conversation with Caedra, but she trusts Alphys over that demon for an answer any day.

"Every being that feels emotion, that lives, has a SOUL." She repeats, with a shrug. It's just plain fact, to her. "That's what a SOUL does. It makes connections. Lets you make them. Without a SOUL, you're isolated. You can't express emotions, or really understand them. It's hard."

"Where I'm from, there are synthetics that can imitate humans almost flawlessly. Their mannerisms, the way they talk... It doesn't mean that they're alive or have a soul."

Let alone Rey herself, who was created by artificial means than a natural one. What does that make her?

"Well, why wouldn't you be alive? You're not dead." She's almost glad she can articulate this now- this would be a lot harder if she was stumbling over her words. "Do you have friends? P-People you care about? Then you must have a SOUL. You're experiencing life."

Friends? People she cares about...?

Rey did, but those feelings are absent now. Everything they meant is just gone. But that could be anything, couldn't it?

No, the problem with the synthetics is that they are driven mad by the fact that they don't experience those things that they are programmed to emulate. Expressing emotions and then actually feeling them are not the same thing. At least, that's what IV seemed to think.

"I'm not supposed to experience life."

It might have been what Undine intended, but it wasn't what everyone else involved in the project that made Rey was looking for.

She reaches up, drums her claws across her snout as she thinks. Obviously, this experience is a bit different for her, in essence being the creator and not the creation. But the principles, the tennants, remain the same.

"I don't know if t-that matters in this case. Many things don't follow design. I don't know if I was meant to live. No one really does. The universe is just... big, and weird like that? I don't really know." Alphys continues to look at Rey, searching for the right words. "I know I'll be sorry l-later that I couldn't think of the right words here. I hope when we're, uhm, feeling again, you can forgive me."

Something about what Alphys just said gives Rey pause, her brows furrowing.

"What do you mean, you don't know if you were meant to live?"

That's such an odd thing to say, even for someone supposedly devoid of a 'soul'.

She shrugs again. "It's just scientific fact. Who knows why we were born or c-created! Who knows what the plan for us was. But we're here. So we have to do something with that."

Alphys still doesn't have the remorse to feel about going over all this, so she just continues. "As much as I thought for a long time that I didn't want to. We're... here. Living. E-Even if we try to deny it."

There is a luxury Rey has that most don't, and that's knowing why she was born. Her creation hadn't been some roll of the dice; it had been a very calculated reason, from her flesh to her blood and bone.

What Alphys says should mean something more under the surface. 'As much as I thought for a long time that I didn't want to,' she says. That's something Rey would normally be able to sympathize with.

Instead, she feels nothing.

"Did you not want to live?" Rey then asks bluntly. Like Alphys, she can just feel bad about it later.

She just nods in response, quiet until she can find the right words.

"Not for a while. I d-did some horrible things. I thought I didn't deserve it." Alphys isn't certain if she should mention that being how she got here, exactly, but maybe it's just not necessary to bring up. It doesn't seem so relevant, after all. "Now, I don't know. I guess it's not so bad. I don't feel worse, normally."

She shrugs. "I guess I've f-found some reason to keep going."

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Event Log: Senses Fail

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sorry this is late! i wanted to respond because it's kinda important to rey and forgot, ugh.

its ok!!

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cw suicidal mentions

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