soulping | RATATOSKR.

RATATOSKR.

[ When you enter the TV, the room surrounding you is notably blank - appearing something like this. Which may seem odd, until words appear out of thin air in front of you: ]

Today, we're going to go through an interactive story of sorts!

You're a college student who's just transferred to a new university, and you have a week to make new friends and potentially find that ~special someone~ people always worry about having.

Luckily for you, your college has a club fair for transfer students just like you! You're headed off there to meet some of your fellow students and get a better lay of the land.

But before we begin, there's just one important thing I need to get down...who are you?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Aquariums are buildings or parks where they keep aquatic life for the public to view. Usually they're tied up in conservation measures to get royal funding and things like that. So they teach a lot about awareness and have research going on behind the scenes.

Conservation measures?

The rest of the stuff sounds pretty cool though. And there could be dolphins! Wanna try?

Protection. Like if someone's dumping their trash in a river it'll pollute the water and make it unlivable for some animals. Stuff like that.

Let's go for it. You might like it too.

...people do that?

It would be a diff way to see the ocean.

In Tethe'alla we have laws against it, but yeah. They do. Some people don't care and others can't afford the fee for regulated disposal. Tethe'alla is pretty rich so it's harder for the poor...

[Yeah he's totally clocked out, but this is a conversation.]

Have you seen the ocean before?

...so people have to pay to get rid of garbage.

[Nods.] My neighborhood was an artificial island, I think. Lots of ocean, didn't see a lot of land mass under the metal bits when I dove in to help with the fishing.

There's an argument about making it a responsibility of the crown, but... [He shrugs.] It'd require a lot of regulation, raised taxes and no glory.

Does this mean there was no natural above sea level land in your world?

...the more I hear about society, the more it sounds like they complicate things p unnecessarily.

Pooooossibly?

Actually, that might make sense, since the Batterwitch is some sort of sea thingy? If she controls the planet, it'd make sense it was a bunch of ocean.

Maybe. People aren't as simple as they'd like to believe.

...Are you trying to tell me she's a giant squid or something?

Well, no, just some stuff seems like it'd be basic?

Nah, she's a sea troll. Which is...I guess a thing that happens? Part of Fefeta was a sea troll too.

[This holds him up a bit and he blinks. What the...?]

Wait, what are we talking about? You mean...cities? You can't live like we do when you have hundreds of people using a small space. The resources won't allow it. It's not scaleable.

I...monster?

Well, I know the resources are limited, THAT'S complicated, but what about getting rid of stuff. It can't be that hard, can it?

Alien. Trolls are aliens. Fefeta is...something else. Something weirder, I think that involves game fuckery, because she was originally two trolls then Shenanigans Happened.

[THIS IS VERY DISTRACTING that's a good thing. Brb brain still trying to catch up to this conversation he was not paying attention to.]

I...um. The trash? It depends on the type? There's a compactor beneath Meltokio, but you can't put chemicals down there. They'll bleed into the water table. And there's the stuff from the Elemental Research Centre. That's got magic, if you just did whatever with it── [what the hell is he babbling about] ...I feel there's a disconnect here. No we don't have something to just make it disappear from existence or wherever you stick it. We're stuck with it.

Aren't you the one on her planet? So doesn't that make you the alien? Or is this a game term? I...I think I'm confusing myself.

The water table? Why are there tables made of water...?

I mean, it's just space and waiting until it degrades, right? Or just repurpose what doesn't?

I would technically be the alien, yeah, but aliens is good for saying we're not from the same world generally.

Oh. Right. If it was an artificial island I guess you wouldn't know what that is... Basically underneath the ground there's a level saturated with water from rains and underground rivers and things like that. This is called the water table. Don't ask me why, I don't know. When you're in an area without ready access to water typically people will put wells down into the ground to access the water from the water table. So whether it's contaminated or not can mean life or death to some people.

As for trash, things take time to biodegrade. It's not a fast process. There's some ways it can be accelerated, but you'll always be creating new trash faster than what you already have degrades. As for repurposing, not everything can be repurposed. And even that has costs, sometimes it's just not as efficient as creating an item from fresh resources. And then because Tethe'alla flourished for so long and we have so much surplus, the upper classes aren't very accepting of using someone else's trash even if you can't tell the difference. It's honestly kind of a pain...

Did you ever get why you're even on her world? It just sounds like there was a mix-up somewhere at this point.

So is that how peeps get water in the middle of really large land masses without a river nearby? Like, I know that should be possible, right? Cause deserts and shit.

[Frowns.] So....it's because people are greedy and finicky about where shit comes from?

No, I still don't know. I'm actually really wondering at the timeline. Though I think part of it is being a hidden thing, or maybe it's because mom sees the future and she saw I had the best change there.

Yeah. There's some other stuff like aqueducts and rain barrels for when there's no water in the ground or the area makes sinking a well unfeasible. But wells are the standard.

...Don't just ignore half the things I said to focus on the bad. That's only a small part of the problem. You realize we make more waste here than we repurpose or degrades too, right?

So you think it might have been even worse if you were out somewhere else?

From rain water? So rain will always get in that far?

I'm still trying to wrap my head around that much stuff can be made, to be honest. We don't have a lot of stuff to work with here, but it hasn't been that bad, has it?

Probably. I mean, there's also Dirk, Jake, and Jane, and with mom future seeing, I'm still trying to figure out why we were separated.

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