tabularasa_rp | Change is in the Air (OTA)

Wow!

Great improvement!

No offense, but your old shrine was kind of a dump.

[It is unclear whether or not Viridi is aware that Parsee is upset over these new circumstances. It is definitely clear that she probably doesn't care.]

I mean, I'm not a brick and mortar kind of goddess, but this is way upscale.

In what sense is this an improvement! Less is more with these things! You don't just jam a bunch of statues and some gaudy stone altar up when people are supposed to be focusing on the clean icon housed within the shrine! It's supposed to be minimalist for pity's sake!

[Look at this one, getting all shinto purist on her.]

Gah... they've jumbled two, maybe three religions together here! Who's supposed to get worshiped at this place? Everyone?!? You, me, Melinoe?

Mel and I were gonna do a combo shrine kind of thing already, anyway.

[Viridi sounds almost faintly regretful.]

I guess she won't need that anymore with her own place restored. I never had a shrine in the first place - like I said, haven't needed one in ages.

You might as well share it with her. You can carve out your own space and do what you want. I doubt she'll mind.

Did you like your... [squalid hovel] ...old place?

Looks like you got what you wanted, like it or not, on this place's terms. And I got thrown into the mix! [She grunted sourly, her arms folded.] I think Proteus or the Void or whatever's trying to do a whole temple complex without knowing how to put the pieces together.

And it's not about whether I like it! I don't have to like it! It's my place. You don't really understand how a shinto shrine works, right? It's a house for the kami, or in my case the youkai. A spiritual house. You put the sacred object within to represent them. There's rules about moving that sort of thing!

Gah... this place just blunders along willy nilly doesn't it? You're here too, you realize.

Shockingly, my understanding of eastern religion extends only to what I can find on Divinipedia. And there's a really long article about some kind of nine headed snake dragon, but not too much about jealousy personifications.

Do you have a sacred object here in the first place? Is it a problem if all of reality shifted?

I still hate everything about the Void, mind you.

Diviniwhatia?!? I've heard of the seven headed dragon thing. That's Chinese and I'm pretty sure it never came to Gensokyo, though we've got a couple Chinese spirits...

[She went to the altar and picked a pair of scissors out of it, holding the ritual sheers in view.]

This is my closest thing. It should really be in the shrine, but I bet you it'll keep showing up here. Ngh... grr... And if reality shifted, then that means I'm shifting and that's change. I don't know how I'm supposed to react, what I'm supposed to be.

I've been this for thousands of years.

Like Wikipedia. But for gods.

[This is not helpful.]

Sister, we showed up here and we were meaty fleshbags with no divinity. If you could handle that, I feel like you can handle this. I'm the Goddess of Nature and I've lost my connection to all living things. What's that make me?

[answer: a petulant child]

You've at least got something keeping you grounded, right? That's not such a bad deal.

... You say that like I have a damned clue what wikipedia is. Stop using made up words from your world, Viridi.

[Uhhh... there was a decent chance she didn't know what an encyclopedia was much less wikipedia. This girl hadn't seen the outside of the underbelly of a bridge in hell since the end of the Tokugawa, so...]

Very, very annoying and loud? [Ahem!] You're still a goddess of nature, just like I'm still a bridge princess. But I guess you're right. I still have my bridge.

And you still have something approximating nature. You just have to connect to it.

Hey! There was only one person going around screaming at empty air just now, and it wasn't me this time. For your information, I am being helpful

Why do I even try to be nice?

Look, the best I've got so far is plants working the way they're supposed to, but there's a whole lot more to nature than that. At least your thing still, you know, exists in an unaltered form.

Where there are humans, there will be envy.

Look on the bright side or something.

Yeah... yeah... [She rubbed at her head and shrugged.] So, I'm a "Spirit of Jealousy," that doesn't make me an actual god of Envy. People worshiped me about breaking things up. The envy part came with the territory.

But the point stands. Wherever there are three people, odds are someone's cheating on someone. [Parsee, that is seriously cynical.]

Gah. We're all going to have to change how we do shit around here.

Don't get your envy in a bunch. I'll talk to Mel. I'm sure we can all manage something with this place, even if it's not ideal.

I mean, don't get me wrong. We're not friends, but we're the closest thing this place has to a pantheon. And if I know anything about anything, it's best for everyone if we can coexist.

[viridi being ... magnanimous is... weird.]

It's just a god rule. I don't mess with you; you don't mess with me. Heck, I went without talking to anyone outside my allies for like, 10000 years.

Oh my gods, you're not actually fucking gods. You're not wrong.

[That was terrifying to her. She was only a 'god' because people came and begged her for help. She was just a powerful spirit that did favors in the old days and now seemed to be able to give out blessings, which was even weirder.]

You two make sense together by the way. Nature and Life. Death and Entropy. Kind of two sides of a coin. The hell does splitting things up have to do with any of ... whatever. We're what's here.

I'm not going to stop teasing you, but no powers. Fair? [Look, it was too easy to tease her.]

Please. You're a bridge troll, and I'm an internet troll. It would be weirder if we stopped annoying each other.

[Viridi is very self-cognizant. She probably posts on Reddit.]

We talked about that, actually. Her dad and I hate each other, but she's kind of cool. ...Apparently her version of Hades doesn't suck? And her mom is like, me, but only covers some parts of nature?

It's really weird and uncomfortable so I decided not to think about it.

At least we have an understanding, but ... guh, I'm not even going to bother asking you what the internet is. It's probably the pedia for some other thing. Whatever.

[Other way around, actually, Parsee.]

.... let's hope no alternate versions of my pantheon show up. Mine version's already bad enough. Actually, how about we just hope none of them show up period? You really don't want to deal with ones like Yuuka.

We talked about Yuuka already. Yeesh, you have some sort of morbid fear of this woman, huh?

[Maybe she can weaponize this in some way in the future. Viridi files it in the back of her mind.]

The Internet's not something I'm supposed to be referencing, so I'll spare you the details.

You like being alone here, then?

Me and everyone. She, Yukari and Keine are some of the scariest bastards in existence, Yukari and Keine at least play by the rules most days. Mostly because Yukari wrote most of those rules.

...bitch.

[She sighed and rubbed her forehead.]

I wouldn't mind if Yuugi or Sanae were here. That'd... actually be ok, beleive it or not. But most of them are irritating or insane. Nobody needs that crap.

Ooooh.

[A pause.]

I see.

[What does she see?]

You... are missing your friends.

[Because clearly this is how people talk about their friends.]

It's OK. I don't have god friends, but I miss my adorable creations.

Boy you're reading too much into this. I have more friends in this blasted place than I ever did back home. I mean, I guess I miss having a drunk accost me whenever she's bored or a teenager come tell me how shitty the world is to her once in a while, but I can definitely get both here.

....

Well, ok. None of you can hold your liquor like an oni.

But if you mean I miss Yukari and Yuuka? That is a definite no. Keine's got a stick up her butt the size of Hokkaido. Yukari's a tyrant with the power to manipulate all boundaries and no sense of decency. And Yuuka's insane. My life's better every minute I don't deal with those three. All of ours is.

As if this world has a concept of 'inebriation' yet.

[psh. she can totally throw down endless alcohol.]

I'm just saying, you're reminiscing! You like your eastern stuff, and you like having people around who are familiar and who know the eastern stuff. It's normal.

This... [she gestures at the new shrine] is offensive to you. And they would understand why.

Ngh... don't mistake grousing for reminiscing. I can grouse any day of the week, no problem. It's natural for me. Buuuut, yeah. I do prefer people who understand what they're dealing with. There's a few people who at least know what I am. It feels normal.

...

Yeah. [A glance back and he growled.] But I think you and I might be changing a little. And I know we've got people trying to help me change. I... have to ride this. Have to shelve that irritation.

I never change. [Viridi sniffs.] I aspire to be as petty and unwilling to compromise as the day I stepped forth from Chaos.

[...]

Although, come to think of it.

[...she had been a very different goddess before humans started this whole 'urban revolution' thing.]

Well, we're talking about you right now. If you want to be more open to humans or whatever, be my guest.

I'm... not sure I'd say I want to be more open to them... I... how do I put this? People believe that I don't have to be a spirit of jealousy, and I'm willing to see if that belief is true?

Does a Bridge Princess have to oversee separations, or can she watch over crossings? [Shrug] I honestly have no clue how that shit works. Makes me nervous, hopeful and kind of angry all at once.

Is that normal?

Uh, I don't know what a bridge princess is. ...Is that like, a common thing in your weird beyond-the-spiritual-border world? If it's not, then I'm pretty sure you get to decide what bridge princesses do, because again, you're the only one.

...I've never heard of a spirit deciding to be a spirit of something else, though.

Sounds kinda against the purpose of being a spirit.

It's... I guess you'd call it a 'classification' of a type of youkai. It's what I am. We're not common, but we're definitely known? But we're spirits that came out of vengeance, spite and jealousy, and who watched over the path across a river. People worshiped us about seprations.

Like you said. I can't exactly decide I'm something else. But what if people worship a god for different reasons. Do they become a different sort of god?

It would be almost unprecedented. And it would be extremely hard to manage, wouldn't it? It would take years - decades, at least, of people consciously shifting the reason they worship or bring offerings. If you're the kind of spirit who's dependent on human adoration, though, I think it would be more of a step-by-step process. You would shift with their desires over time.

[She frowns in thought.]

Historically, gods can take on new aspects or epithets - not like a... complete change, but an addition. You might be able to just spread your existence out a little more. You can be Parsee, the Jealous. But 'Jealousy' comes from something else: a desire for a deeper relationship. So you could also begin to be... Parsee, the Devoted. And when spurned, you act in your other capacity.

That's the kind of thing that could arise over time.

[Wow Viridi almost sounds like an intelligent human being and not a childish gremlin.]

Change is in the Air (OTA)

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