fandomtownies | The Park, Saturday Afternoon

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The Park, Saturday Afternoon

Around noon, Gregorith had finally felt put together enough to venture forth. So after masking his appearance (he suspected he was being overly cautious in that regard but ~~the mun had made such a fuss about it~~ this place reminded him enough of the Mortal Realm he felt more comfortable this way) he'd headed out for a bout of exploration.

And now he found himself in the park, pondering the troll statues.

(tis a park, so tis open and stuff)

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"Well it's hard to generalize. I'd say we're as varied in our personalities as any other being. But if I had to sum us up...well one of the things we value greatly is communication. Which...granted some of us are better at than others."

Beleth had said that his suggestion of Greg for this job had been a terrible idea.

Might as well get into it a bit. "Hell does exist. And yes some souls are punished. But Hell's true purpose...our main goal is to guide souls towards growth and self improvement so they can do better in their next lifetime.

"But a sad reality is that some souls just...can't."

Jon grimaced. He was fairly sure he'd met some of those.

"So it's...it's less carceral and more actually correctional."

More and more, Jon was thinking his world got the bad end of things.

And that had been the majority of Greg's firsthand experience with souls. He tried to maintain perspective by listening to music, looking at art or watching cute videos. Meeting Lily and Sharkie had helped.

He nodded. "Once souls reincarnate they have no conscious memory of their time in the afterlife. And while the lessons they learn in any of the 'punishment' realms carry over, we theorize that some of the difficulties they have do as well. Change is scary and growth can be hard. Maybe even painful sometimes."

He worried that he'd glossed over the harsher aspects, but he wasn't sure how best to talk about such things here. Back home, everyone knew and even there it bothered some folks.

Jon smiled again, though this one looked more like a grimace. "Not all change is good. But I take your point. I think."

Greg couldn't think of any changes he'd classify as bad, not off the top of his head but maybe something would occur to him later. But his perspective as an afterlife denizen, rather than a mortal soul might have something to do with that.

"I can only speak for the particulars of my corner of the afterlife of course. Other cultures have their own ways doing the same thing, but the overall idea and basic tenets of 'don't hurt people' seems...well, universal."

(and I'm off to bed)

"Each culture has its own..." Jon caught himself about to ask about it and stopped. "That sounds fascinating."

[Night!]

Maybe we should print up some brochures of our own.

"Basically, when a soul arrives in the afterlife, they have their choice on which belief system they want to be judged by."

"Is it...I'm curious if it has to be the one they grew up with," Jon said. "Or even the one they died believing in. And what happens if their belief system doesn't have an afterlife."

"We're very big on freedom of choice. Just as an example my friend Lily grew up Christian but opted for Universal judgement. And...the void is always an option." Even for those "sentenced" to the pure punishment levels of Hell.

That was a relief, actually. Some days, the void sounded wonderful.

"That sounds very...well, very fair. Though it does leave me wondering about..." He tried to think of a polite way to put it. "It seems like some of the people who could most use correction don't believe they deserve it, and I'm not sure how that would work."

Jon was far from perfect, but he at least acknowledged it. If Jonah Magnus got to choose an afterlife of bliss, that didn't seem exactly fair.

"Yeah," Greg sighed, "We do get a lot of those."

One of the reasons Lily was so beloved in Hell was her brilliant idea to distract the most argumentative souls so the intake demons could handle the rest.

"Ultimately, the universe knows everything a soul did in life, but also why they did it. And however they choose to justify it doesn't matter. That awareness is shared with the individual deities of judgement. The actual judgement is above my pay grade so to speak, but it hasn't made a mistake yet."

"That's good to know." Jon nodded. "I hope my world's afterlife is like yours." He was fairly certain it wasn't, because he never got nice things, but it was nice to contemplate.

"I've met a few of the ambassadors from other universes and they've seemed similar so it's possible..."

What Jon just said took a moment to fully register.

"Are you alive?"

~~Oh my God Gregorith, you can't just ask people if they're alive!~~

"W-what?" He was so startled, he asked a question and tensed, then relaxed when it didn't seem to come with the compulsion. "No, I-I mean, yes, I...well, I think I am. Probably."

Look, it was a complicated question for him!

"Though, I...I did die, at least briefly." Probably at least twice.

"I'm so sorry, that was rude." Greg said, a little distractedly. He'd spent so much of his time in Hell, that any change in environment he just took for granted. But now that he really paid attention to it, it was reminding him less of the more outdoorsey afterlife realms and more of distant memories of his misspent youth.

"This isn't the afterlife is it?"

"No," Jon said, shaking his head. "Most people here are definitely alive. There's at least one vampire, and some zombies, and I'm not sure how you'd count them, but no, it's not the afterlife."

If he had not gotten some information on the nature of the island the day before, Greg might be panicking a bit now. As it was he was able to keep a mostly cool head. Plus nothing had tried to eat him yet so that boded well.

Oh Universe I am in more over my head than I thought.

"Woah, okay. Okay." He shook his head as if to clear it. "Sorry again. Our relationship with the mortal world of my universe is complicated and we've never encountered other universes except for their afterlives. Took me by surprise."

"Sorry," Jon said. "I-if it helps, they're all...well, at worst they might be rude, but mostly everyone is very nice. Though I'm not sure how Fandom compares to any afterlife."

"Oh I'm okay with rude. I'll settle for not hostile." he smiled slightly. "And so far the people I've met have been nice."

One thing did worry him though.

"When you say zombies..."

Jon smiled a little; he could relate to settling for not hostile.

"Oh, um. One of the pubs in town, Caritas, has a band of zombies. They play music there and sometimes sell their merchandise, and apparently they don't smell very good, but I've never got that close to them. Also there's a necromancer named Liliana here, and she has some zombies she's raised as servants. They don't smell or lose body parts, and they're very polite."

Oh that didn't sound too bad. He'd initially thought of the ones in mortal horror movies. On the other hand, zombie band merch might make for a fun gift for folks back home.

"Interesting gimmick. And I'm glad I know what to expect a head of time."

"I don't think it's a gimmick, though I'm unsure how they arrived here," Jon confessed. "Their music isn't bad, though. That pub is a good place to meet people, too, if you're into that sort of thing."

That was kind of part of why he was here on the island. But he'd likely have to build up to that.

"I will keep that in mind. I'm definitely curious about the music."

"There's a music store in town, too," Jon said. "Oh, if you stop by the town hall, they can probably get you a map of the island. And if you have money back home, the bank seems to be able to reach it from anywhere."

He frowned in thought. "Oh, and the postal service can, too. And there's Portalocity - if you didn't get here through them, it's a way of getting to different worlds."

Well a map had been included with the brochures, so he had that.

"I have to go by town hall soon anyway. This may be a less formal meeting of universes than we're used to but meeting the leadership is still part of the process."

Everything was free back home but through means he didn't understand, possibly involving faery gold, they'd been able to set him up with some starting funds and a debit card.

"The bank and post office are on my to-do list as well, and I've never heard of portalocity. Maybe I'll swing by there just to see if they have any brochures of their own."

The Park, Saturday Afternoon

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