Click to hear her voice claims!
Prose 1: Heyyy Herald I Saw Your Sign about How Immortals are Trash and I Just Wanted to Let You Know that I Agree. Although I Myself am an Immortal, (I Know, Ugh) I am on Your Side. "One of the Good Ones" As Some May Say. Btw I Never Even Noticed How Government-Mandatedly Exploitable Your Powers of Irrelevancy are Till Now but They're Awesome
Music: Poppy - Air People
The voice breaks the silence that had enveloped the two for the past thirty or so minutes, the clear, assertive cadence that can be expected from any competent radio presenter reverberating directly inside the Demon's head. The noise was loud and unwelcome: annoying accent aside, it felt all levels of wrong to hear him from within themself instead of from where they see him sitting across the office desk, if only because he was soā¦
The Herald regards the Marginal with their remaining eye, trying to piece together some form of mental representation to use for him. While they had always had some implicit awareness that their species existed, it was their first time seeing one for Real, and, wellātherein lies the problem, because no matter what metaphysical frequency they attempt to listen from, nothing about thisā¦ entity registered as Real.
"For what?" The Demon types their response into the touchscreen device they were given, maintaining a steady pace to keep the clinking of their sharp nails on the screen in regular rhythm.
"For saving you from that Angel."
"I did not ask you to do that. And I do not feel grateful."
"Yes, yes, I've expected as much. Demons don't have a concept of positive emotions, do they?" he doesn't look back at them, instead choosing to fixate on the documents they've been poring through for the entire duration of this meeting, scribbling down what the Demon assumes to be notes.
It strikes them as strange, in a way, that they were given a device to communicate whereas the questionably-existent-creature, Media, wrote things down on paper with a good old-fashioned quill, but perhaps it was a gimmick. Part of the made-of-ink image. It was hard to tell.
The Herald strains to listen to the Wires, any Wire in this room would do, in hopes of getting some sort of idea on what aura his thoughts gave off, but in the abstract hivemind of conceptual nerves and non-differentiated Demons that served as a substitute for what should have been a Mind, they hear only silence.
"Or a concept of much of anything. Because your Minds are fabricated, and your Souls are tied directly to Reality. No room for a li'l Fakey-Wakey Thoughstuff. It's only easy for you to conceptualise something that's already right in front of you, right? And stop that. I can tell you're trying to listen into my Thoughts' atmosphere. It's not going to work. You'll have to sign a Form for that sort of venture."
Before they can ask for clarification, Media speaks again, each word feeling like an intrusive shock that simultaneously traversed synapses too quickly and stayed in the gaps for far too long, the linguistic equivalent of static electricity. "Regardless, you should learn to say thank you, even as a lie. Social propriety is necessary to become one of the Living. "
"I have no desire to become one of the Living."
"Well, it isn't up to you, is it?"
The Demon places the phone down on the table, screen on the surface. They then press their own face down in a similar fashion, a sort of symbolic mimicry. Symbolic of what, they take no time to ruminate on, distracted by the migraine listening to that pestilent voice was encouraging. They hope Media takes this as a sign to shut up.
Media sees the sign.
He simply does not take it.
"Do you have a name?"
Sigh. They reach for the tablet and type down a response, each letter spaced by a second of hesitation, I a m a D e m o n .
"Of course you don't."
ā Hello? ā You need to pick up faster. ā What, you missed me that quickly? That's sad. ā How's your analysis doing. ā I do not seeā ā I know. ā Shut up. I do not comprehend what any of this has to do with Jurisprudence, or anything vaguely relevant to the Government. You just made me listen to a children's book and now I have to answer all these discussion questions on it. "In what way could we conceivably manipulate the sociopolitical climate of the setting to facilitate Mr. Farmer's irrigation practices?" It's a book about the sounds domesticated animals make! ā Maybe if you didn't spend the entire High Judge Orientation daydreaming about getting eviscerated, you would understand your job isn't to deal with the governance of the Living, it's to deal with the governance of my Objects. This has something to do with the Laws in my World. ā Is your Universe a barnyard? ā You need to name the Herald. ā Is there a deeper correlation between farms and information technology that I'm missing? Some kind of allegory? ā Now. ā What? As in, right now? Uh- ā Tick-tock! ā Uh, Bon? ā Bon? That's a horrible name. ā Well, you are not giving me any time to thinā "The soon-to-be High Judge has named you Bon." "Okay." "Okay?" "Okay." "Hmm. Somewhat expected more resistance than that. Ah oh well, I suppose the less you argue, the faster I can walk you through this. "The High Judge believes that any sentient being has the capacity to become one of the Living. And you are our first test subject." "Why me?" "The Requirements of the Living have always been an important structure of the Symbiotic Living-Marginal Society. Quite frankly, if any hopeless eccentric wants to challenge it, I have no intention of making it easy for them." "Is that a lie?" "What makes you think I'm lying?" "Social propriety." "That isn't how it works." "That, and based on the previous data I have collected from other sources beforehand, have hypothesised that you attempt to make things more convoluted than they need to be not simply out of a petty dedication to an obnoxious persona as you may have me assume, but with some plan that involves manipulating Reality itself." "You get paid to psychoanalyse talking stamp pads? They have wages there in Hell? Security's file says you're twelve. Are you twelve? What twelve-year-old says 'attempt' instead of 'try'." "You speak the same way." "I have an excuse. You're from Hell. I'm from England." "How do they differ?" "As I was saying," Media snatches the tablet out of Bon's hand, opens one of the desk's drawers, and slams it inside, very carefully, with the love any inventor reserves for their highly intricate (highly expensive) objects. Any details on how there is no realistic way for it to have not broken have been Legally Redacted from this document. "There are several significant Requirements to become a Living being. A basic one is that you have to Die eventually. Not anytime soon, I'd hope. Another is the independent, lasting ability to Change, with some degree of permanence." There is no realistic way for that tablet to not have broken, Bon observes, the way twelve-year-olds do. Destroying precious objects, an understandable and relatable course of action. Creating objects was a different matter. From Media's point of view, it may not mean muchāhe can always think the device back into perfectionābut for Bon, whose species understood only a desire for the End, it seemed devoid of purpose. To break, with the intention to remake, to Live, with the intention to die. Some degree of permanence. The Marginals destroy things because they can be brought back. The Demons do so precisely because they cannot. "Marginals fail in that regard because our Universes eventually try to backtrack into its original form no matter how many New Memories we try to make. Your species fails because your direct ties to the Wires of Reality means you can't become anything else besides what you already are. If my heir apparent somehow manages to make the most hollow creature in existence Alive, well, call that inspiration fuel for the rest of us." "Are you not concerned?" Bon spells out, letter by letter, with their hand. An actual sign language would be a faster way to communicate, especially when you already use twelve words for what could be said with one, but that would require at least some form of facial expression, and they refuse to move their countenance an inch. "It is still my goal, start the Apocalypse." "It was once my goal to become God, sweetie, we can't all achieve our dreams to be Evil Overlords. Sometimes you have to Suck It Up and Accept you are, At Your Worst, only a Morally Dubious Politician. "Besides. You need both Eyes to maintain your powers though, yes? We'll have to study the rest of your Body to find out how to reconstruct a new Eye for you. That's another one of your Requirements in being Livingised. Are you Remembering all this? Well, I'll write it down, just in case. Something Immortal species tend to have in common is the role of Eye in the usage of magic. Do you know why that is?" "No." "It looks cool." Bon stares at him, trying to parse for some deeper meaning behind the vague response. If Reality-listening doesn't work, the subtle art of reading body language might, but between the gesticulations substituting his use of punctuation and the unwavering smile of pointed teeth, they only get the sense that he was loud and obnoxious. "That's it," he continues, "It looks cool. You're going to have to get used to that sentiment moving forward. You'll be surprised how much of Reality exists solely on the basis that it can, and you'll be disappointed to learn that much of what will define who you are as a Person from this point onwards is, in the grand scale of things, quite Barmy and Meaningless. Happens to the best of us. You either Die Relevant or Live long enough to become a Tory." "R-U?" "A Tory?" "M-e-a-n-i-n-g-l-e-s-s," although Bon's expression remains as unreadable as always, their hand snaps in irritation, as if their nails could cut even the air into tangible pieces. "I'm loud and obnoxious." "Question," they make a circular motion with their hand, motioning full words now, "not answered," Bon lowers their eyebrows, just a tad. Obnoxious is right, they'll give him that. "It does, in a way, though as far as I'm concerned you don't have the imagination to extrapolate."
Call
Hang up
Notes
The first prose story for the series.
As I mentioned in some earlier footnotes, I started drawing comics in 2020: before that, my only experiences with writing were short vignettes/one-shots. The characters of BreadAVOTA, with the exception of Bread herself, were all characters that originated from these vignettes.
I find writing short one-shots like these that can be finished in one sitting are easier for me to do depending on the topic, as it is what I am used to [ even though, admittedly, I am not confident in it ]. I will usually write information that I find difficult to draw in comic form as prose instead.
For this one in particular, my goal was to portray the early dynamic between Media and Bon, and in extension some of my early ideas for Demons and Marginals as species.
The Marginals are a species who have a special relationship to language, and I wanted to reflect this the most in how they speak: beings who clearly are able to speak coherently and with meaning, but still have an odd (?) quality in doing so?
I did not want them [ at least, not all of them ] to only sound 'alien' in a 'superficial' sense where the 'form' of the language is 'different' as is usually used for 'alien' characters like these. From the top of my head, such as using 'odd' vocabulary (like Starfire from Teen Titans), different sentence structure (like Yoda from Star Wars), or verbal tics/quirks (like the Keronians from Keroro Gunsou).
Not that I dislike these forms of 'character quirks,' but they do not reflect the way the Marginals relate to language very well, at least not totally. Instead of form, I dwell more on 'meaning': I wanted the Marginals to speak in a way where, for the most part, people can understand the semantic definitions of what they say but they just seem to slightly veer off-topic, or ramble, or talk about the 'wrong' details, or espouse phrases that just don't seem to make any real sense in context (?)
I struggle to explain what I mean so I may not be effective in achieving my goals. Regardless, I want to delve more on the relationship between the Marginals and language in the future.
As for the Demons, they are an 'empty' species, although Bon's seemingly 'normal' level of awareness here may seem to contradict that... there are reasons for that, but for now it will be a significant spoiler to reveal.
Instead, I wanted to demonstrate their method of 'sensing' Reality, which is through 'listening' to the 'Wires' that make up Reality. One struggle I have in writing the Immortals is that none of them actually have 'normal' Living senses (visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, gustatory) and 'perceive' in other ways. When explaining things to the Living, they will use senses as metaphors/analogies but this is not always clear or consistent.
For example, existence/Reality is often described as a 'sound' but perception is more often described as 'seeing.' To them, there is no qualitative difference. I know it is confusing, but admittedly that is kind of the point... again, I wanted to present the Immortals, especially the Marginals as the 'Mind-based' species [ this gets relevant later ] as having 'language barriers' that are portrayed in the story more on what they think words mean that on the actual words themselves (?)
Probably a metaphor about neurodivergence in there somewhere...
The backstory Bon, Media and Jacques have, which was mostly shown in the SIU MV, is one of the cornerstones of the narrative, but the full nature of it will not be shown until the first Cycle is over...
You can see some High Messengers in this panel. The High Messengers are a specific type of Angel with various roles, collecting Souls being one of them, but as their name suggests they are alsoā¦ messengersā¦ but of/for what is yet to be shown.