thedifferencebetween | Ryslig Inbox

[The door of Jack's inherited mansion creaks open at the 'knock'. A disembodied hand wreathed in violet mist is on the handle, and retreats once the door is open.]

Heya, kiddo!

[Jack glows in the dim light, violet light spilling out of the empty places where his flesh is just gone. He's dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his greying lips as his blank, white eye takes in his customer.]

Come on in, drop the goods in the entryway. I got a guy who'll take'em out to the shed.

[So this is a lich, huh? Creepy. At least he now understands why Ego thought that might have been what he was turning into at first. It...kind of seems like a still-fleshy shade. The sheep doesn't seem too bothered by his appearance, however, or at least he doesn't look any MORE nervous than he did a second ago.]

Mmm. [He nods and sets the bodies down gently next to the door.] You said it should take a couple of hours, right?

Yup! You can hang around, if ya want. I got a special shed out back, you're not gonna see anything.

[He's carried on plenty a conversation through the sheet that hangs in the doorway and keeps the sights and smells of the butcher shed from assaulting the unwary public.]

I got a house servant, if ya want a drink or a snack or anything, he'll fix that for ya.

[Jack crouches down to get a good look at the evening's work, which looks like it should be pretty standard.]

[Yup, pretty standard. The only thing potentially of note about the bodies are the fact that both of them have claw and a few fang marks that were almost certainly not made by the minotaur himself. He doesn't have fangs, and his nails, though thicker than a human's nails, are completely blunt.]

[He relaxes a little bit the longer Jack speaks, shaking his head in response to the offer of refreshments.]

I appreciate the offer, but I'm fine. Though I think I will hang around until it's done, just to make things easier.

Cool cool cool! Sure, come on back.

[Jack hefts one body up over his shoulder and starts through the house - he'll come back for the second one. It's a tastefully decorated mansion, lots of dark antique furniture that's been restored to original glory. Jack never bothered to get new furniture after Lu was gone.]

[The backyard is expansive and well cared for, with some elegant looking lawn furniture and a small in ground pool. And, as promised, a shed off to the side and a bit by itself. There's a small outdoor table and a few chairs outside of it. Jack disappears inside and emerges without the body.]

Have a seat, or enjoy the gardens, use the pool, whatever. I'm just gonna grab the other half of the job.

[Shuichi hesitates for a moment, glancing down at the second body and debating on picking it back up. But...Jack did say he was going to have someone take care of it, right? So, in the end, he leaves it and simply follows after the lich. He looks all around the mansion as they walk through it (though he doesn't seem to need to turn his head much to accomplish this), taking in all the little details of the place. It's...a very, very stark contrast to the motel room and now studio apartment that he and Kokichi have lived in since arriving here. Perhaps, someday, they can live in a place as fancy as this...]

Oh, um...a-alright. Thank you, Jack-san.

[He should have picked up the body after all. Oh well. He takes a seat on one of the lawn chairs, glancing around the garden as he does so. Though by the time Jack returns with the second body, he's pulled a small book of crosswords out of one of the pockets of his coat to work on while he waits.]

[Jack was quick in his work - he'd intended to ring for Virgil but realized that it's after dark, the vampire's off doing whatever it is he does when he's not at home. Jack never asks, he doesn't care.]

I tell ya, I'm amazed more people don't do this!

[He amiably goes on as he heads into the shed, the wooden door open but the doorway still well covered. He raises his voice as he begins getting the bodies set.]

Started it cuz my buddy was a meat eater, but he's kinda squeamish about stuff and was having a real hard time. I'm normally a robot, so it was just pretty logical that we'd split dinner. And I've always really liked cooking and food prep. It's soothing, it helps me zen out.

[And apparently doesn't matter when that 'food' was human bodies. Sure, Jack never did much slicing and dicing back home, but he's no stranger to brutal violence. And it scratches an itch.]

You want their clothes?

Huh, really? [Shuichi glances up from his crossword, both surprised at the fact that Jack is talking to him and what he's actually saying. He hadn't really expected to carry on a conversation during this but...hey, that's fine.] That surprises me...I saw that you didn't have many responses to your ad on the network, but I kind of figured they would have just contacted you privately...

[Do that many monsters really just...chow down on a body as soon as they kill it? Sure, most of them are animal-based but...still. Gross? That's kinda gross. At least slice it into sashimi or something first, come on guys.]

Well, if these new forms of ours end up being permanent, you'll have at least two regular customers from now on. I can cook a little bit, but I don't know the first thing about...getting meat to a state where it's ready to be cooked.

[He is a rich city boy who just buys his groceries at a store like a normal person.]

Oh and um, no I don't want their clothes, thanks.

You would be right! Everybody's shy about it. Like we don't all know we've gotta do it.

[Sure, he gets people being squeamish about the actual act, but just talking about it? Admitting it's a normal part of life? Why were so people so resistant? It's not like ignoring it made any difference.
But it's nice to have some company while he works, and his tone overall is amiable and animated.]

You ever need any tips, hit me up, kiddo! I love to cook. I can do some pretty tasty stuff with a dude, at least according to Tim. And if you're gonna be eating meat, there's no friggin reason not to prepare it and cook it. I tell ya, I do not get the ones who just go all in, like a friggin animal.

[Jack's no stranger to violence and killing people, but just ripping in like a skag? That's disgusting, it's uncivilized. Bandits lived that way, not people.]

Got it! Figured I'd ask, some people scavenge everything.

[Shuichi gets why people are shy about it, honestly. Even if it's a normal part of their lives now, it can be kind of a hard thing to talk about. Especially in the beginning. So he doesn't say anything about that part, just sort of gives a non-committal hum as he fills in one of the blanks in his crossword.]

[Though he's unable to prevent himself from shuddering at the mention of the monsters who just "go all in, like a friggin animal". Something which Jack may be able to hear in his voice, even if he can't see the action itself.]

I don't understand it either. I can see someone might have problems with the idea of cooking a human, since that's what most of us used to be but...I don't know, between the two options, tearing into a corpse with your teeth bothers me more than cooking it.

[Like, yeah, they're both pretty unappealing but one is distinctly MORE unappealing than the other, in his opinion. He taps his pen against his jaw thoughtfully.]

...Or maybe it's just that they're giving into instincts. Since most, if not all of the monsters that eat flesh are based on animals, aren't they? So maybe they just can't help it. Because, let me tell you, it's not always easy to ignore the animal part of your brain. [The number of times he has just started chowing down on grass this past week or so...]

Thank you! That's exactly the bullshit I've been told when I asked meat-eating monsters about it. 'Oh it's just easier to give in to the animal'. Really? Cuz my buddy did once and the dude came home honest to god traumatized. I dunno, maybe cuz it's we come from a place where cannibalism is actually a huge problem, and insane bandit cannibals are pretty much a plague on my planet.

[Jack's not one to think too deeply on subject matters that either don't entertain him or won't bring him some sort of profit, but reflecting now...maybe personal experience has something to do with it. But really, was there any place where cannibalism was normal or not a particularly terrible taboo? Jack himself only really has thee big 'no' subjects, but cannibalism had always been among them. And still is - he eats energy, in one form or another. Not actual physical parts of a person.]

[Regardless of why he has the opinions he does, it's nice to actually talk to someone else who shares them.]

But I dunno, and I've never been anything animal based. Normally I'm a friggin robot, robots don't have weird instincts or anything.

[Well. Not really. Jack likes to ignore the fact he has computer chips in his brain and sometimes they make him do whatever he's told to.]

Y-Yeah...I can imagine that sort of background would make this sort of situation even worse. The act itself is bad enough, but then you also have the additional layer of your own experiences and memories. And if the cannibals in your world are also insane bandits...I can only imagine none of those memories would be very pleasant.

[That doesn't sound like the kind of person you can really have a pleasant encounter with.]

I think most of us come from places where cannibalism is just a societal taboo. It's not something the average person ever has to actually deal with in reality. So...for some, turning their minds off and "giving into the animal" may really be the best way to cope. It sort of puts some distance between themselves and the act. Or it allows their brain to rationalize distance, at least.

[He's closed his crosswords book by now, too caught up in the conversation to really spare it a thought. Ultimately it...doesn't really matter, but he still can't help but get pulled into the discussion. It's a mystery, of sorts. A puzzle. It's analyzing things to figure out why something happened the way it did...and his detective's brain just can't ignore that kind of thing, even if it's a discussion of psychology rather than crime.]

Ah...but I guess that's neither here nor there, is it? In the end, my philosophy is more in line with yours and however other people decide to cope is their own business. Weird instincts are definitely one of the harder things to get used to though. I used to be a shade, and shades don't have things like that either since...they're basically just shadows.

[Which is an awful experience, so, hey how about we shift the subject a little bit:]

...that's kind of funny though, did you know there's another robot named Jack? Earphone Jack?

Oh yeah, you don't know fear until some seven foot dude with shoulders like a cliff side is running at ya wielding a buzz axe, screaming about the poop train and wearing somebody else's face like a hat.

[Pandora, folks! It fucking sucked. Jack misses plenty about his own world, but not Pandora.]

[But Shuichi has stumbled into the right topic change. Jack's tone audibly brightens as he goes on.]

Pocket sized Jack! Yeah, I know her. We've hung out, got some mutual friends. Helped her with some robo stuff when she first started changing. Good kid! You guys friends?

[What the actual fuck is Pandora, that sounds terrifying. So Shuichi is not going to inquire further on that. He's just going to look horrified where Jack can't see it and focus on Jiro instead.]

Yes, we are. She helped me out when I first arrived here and we just sort of became closer after that.

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WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, HANDSOME JACK. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 021.07.222.57 * H.Jack69 has joined 021.07.222.57 <USERNAME> First sentence of message. <BANNED USER> SCREENED MESSAGE. UNSCREEN? Y/N -- sample for when you ban someone <USERNAME> First sentence of message. <USERNAME>** First sentence of message.