Anonymous 2009/04/04 (Sat) 18:48 No. 82818 ▼ File 12388709111.png - (298.39KB, 800x800 , parasol waddle dee.png)
Reading the imprint, “'Karakasa Touhoumon'? 'Collect 'em all'? Oh, and what a cute little brolly you have.” Yue looks happy with her new toy. You inspect your own more intently, obviously from a different line of products, shaking the broth off of it. It's quite a bit larger than Yue's toy. Vault-Boy is looking out through a pair of binoculars. There's an inscription at the base that reads: Perception—Vault-Boy says: 'Always be on the lookout for the obvious.'
“I think you should hold on to that Max, those are limited-edition and quite valuable in certain circles,” Dai advises. You roll your eyes and set it aside; it's only a toy Dai.
“No more aubergine,” Yue picks at her noodles, almost certainly cold by now. “Maybe I'll be on the lookout for this place myself from now on.” You suspect this has more to do with the toy she received than the food.
“Doc, before you get any more tipsy—”
She snorts at the suggestion. In all honesty, you're probably further gone than she is.
“—I had a few questions for you.”
“Go on.” She sets what's left of the meal aside.
“It was about being half-youkai. I've never really had a strong grasp on what that meant, I guess because the other difference, my gender, is so obvious that it's impossible to fit in anyway.”
“Understandable, you don't have any apparent gross anatomical differences from a normal human male, nor does your physiology relate to that of animals much. Other than your chem resistance and slower rate of senescence...”
“And even that is unreliable, what with those lollipops.”
“I can explain that, actually, now that I understand the drug a bit better.”
“Oh?”
“You see, your resistance to chems is because of your rapid half-youkai metabolism. You express more catalytic enzymes in your plasma and CSF, and your kidneys and liver work harder. The active ingredients of Med-X, Jet, Psycho, Buffout, and Mentats, which are derivatives respectively of morphine, d-methamphetamine, phencyclidine, mixed anabolics, and modafinil, the benzodiazepine sedatives I administered, the alcohol you've imbibed, the caffeine in your coffee, your tea, your Nuka-Cola, even the nicotine in your girlfriend's cigarettes—you metabolize them much more quickly. However, unmetabolized and highly lipid-soluble drugs that immediately pass through the blood brain barrier and can only removed through the kidneys, like sublingual fentanyl...”
You hold up a hand for her to stop, “Basically I am resistant to chems, at least any ones that I'm looking to find and are fun. That they remove themselves from my body so quickly is why it takes more to get what I want, but also why I've been able to experiment so much and not get addicted to anything.” She nods. You sigh, trying to make sure this sticks in your mind.
“So, if that's why I was resistant, then the reason you seem like an addict is because they don't do much for you?”
She gives you an embarrassed chuckle. “Actually, no. You are chem resistant, Max Rockatansky. I am merely chem tolerant.”
“So you really are an addict?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “I'm happy with it.”
Well, then I guess there's no problem.
“So, other than that, I'm completely normal?”
“Yeah, but,” she furrows her brow, “How can I couch this in the appropriate terms?”
“Why is that necessary? I won't be offended or anything.”
The doctor just sighs and hardens her expression in response.
Dai pipes up, “That birthmark on your butt wasn't a birthmark: You were born with a tail.”
“Hahahaha! That's—“
“The truth, essentially,” the doctor concurs with the fairy.
“What? Why?” You don't know how to feel about this.
“Was it removed? Vault policy. Half-youkai are to be raised as human whenever possible, up until an age where they've already become socialized as humans. You weren't told until you were, what, sixteen?”
“This answer is unsatisfying, and honestly is weirding me out.”
“Sorry. Don't know what to tell you. Would it be any consolation if I explained the differences between youkai and humans more clearly?”
“I would like that, actually. A lot of things don't really add up. It's hard to see how the 'mutation hypothesis' really explains everything.”
Yue looks like she just swallowed something bitter. “My God, is that codswallop really what they're teaching you kids these day?”
You nod. Most of your time in the club with Mary and Ren was spent kicking holes in whatever they were trying to shovel down your throats in class.
“That is distressing, even offensive, speaking as a youkai. Well, hopefully we won't be stuck having to toe the party line soon.”
“So, on what youkai really are?”
“Okay, you know how magic and Gensokyo were first discovered by the Outside in the early 21st Century?”
“Yeah right before the War with Luna. I know the concept of magic is ancient, though. Older than Gensokyo. Youkai too, probably, assuming that they really were magical entities.”
“Right. Magic, which is to say, 'observer-dependent non-physicality' was discovered by the Outside when the Lunar civilization was discovered, though there were always hints, most importantly the growing awareness in the masses about the questions raised by quantum mechanics and general relativity the last century—indeterminacy, non-locality, entanglement, asymmetry, apparent non-conservation of mass and energy, the subjectivity of simultaneity, particle-wave duality... all this awesome stuff that shattered preconceived notions about how things really were. It would come to a head with the construction of the Large Hadron Collider, and its disastrous and final operation in 2011. That cockup killed a few million people and poked holes all over the Great Barrier.” You don't really know what any of these scientific terms mean, just that shit went going down, and the eggheads were at ground zero. “And then a group of people who hadn't been paying attention started to...”
“First Contact.” Dai, who had been quiet for a bit, provides the segue into Yue's next subject.
“Yes, the Lunarians, the humans living on the Moon, revealed themselves to the humans of Earth, who they called 'Terrans', and occupied much of what was left of central Europe; it seemed they were terrified of what might happen if the Collider were misused, though I guess it retrospect that seems a pretty silly thing, considering what they eventually did to the planet. Anyway, we have all these events occurring that quickly thrust 'magic' to the forefront to fill the explanatory gap left by them. Gensokyo's border was already weakening due to the increasing belief of the Outside in the supernatural. With the supernatural, came youkai.”
You know what this meant from your studies in magic. The Great Border had been, like anything else that's magical, essentially dependent on observer 'belief' or 'faith' to exist, which itself exists in many forms.
“But the youkai were always in Gensokyo, which had been created to trap and concentrate 'belief'; if the revelation of the Lunarians and magic convinced people they existed, why do they seem so less terrifying than in old fables and legends?”
“That's the result of the destabilization of the Great Border. You see, the way Gensokyo had been since its creation was a one-way funnel where Outside beliefs were made reality. Now, though, we have crosstalk, interdependency, where people's fears and beliefs are actually becoming tested with a reality, reified in some cases and dispelled in others. Throughout the ages, legends of monsters would continuously become more... humanized by anthropologists, writers, and even capitalists who would be eager to sell these legends back to the masses in a more sanitized form.”
“Belief in youkai increased due to Outsider exposure, but the quality of that belief changed,” Dai adds.
