counterfeit

[onceandforall]

This. This is a good bar.

She does not mind taking counterfeit currency and she sells everything.

Bella is going to exploit the fuck out of that but first she is eating really, really good pad thai and finally talking to a person who is a) interesting b) not someone she has already talked to a lot in the last... several years. Lovely friendly bar who makes a lovely delicious pad thai! Bella will have to try opening that door at that moment again in the past.

Comments

[whatamithinking]

"Magic that can affect injuries as old, delicate and scarred-over as a several years old shattered vertebra is pretty rare. I think her reaction to being offered it was something like 'shut up and heal someone who doesn't have teekay ribbons to let them walk'."

[onceandforall]

"Yeah, I guess that's fair."

[whatamithinking]

"I was reading about her because she's pretty involved with social activism dealing with ableism. There are a lot of magical girl social activists, but not we're not really organized...I'm planning on working on that, when I'm a little older and more likely to be taken seriously."

[onceandforall]

"Oh, yeah, you work in public! I sometimes go public just because I don't have to deal with long-term consequences and it's more convenient than being inconspicuous, but in my world most people can't see the aliens and don't know that puella magi or witches exist. Witches hide themselves in little pocket dimensions and the effects get written off as psychotic breaks or depression, occasionally mass hallucinations."

[whatamithinking]

"That sounds annoying. And like it would make it that much harder to do your jobs."

[onceandforall]

"We can dowse for witches and civilian help wouldn't really do anything - someone in witch thrall isn't going to stop and consider that maybe the problem is magical in nature and not that they need to set fire to the convenience store just because they had a previous understanding of the existence of magic. So I'm not sure it actually does make it harder."

[whatamithinking]

"I guess if you can dowse for them it's not such a difference. I was imagining something like safety pamphlets warning people about early warning signs of witch presence and the number for the local Puella Magi hotline and what have you."

[onceandforall]

"It's not really an 'early warning sign' thing. It's got you or it hasn't; if it's got somebody near you it's probably got you too. I guess it'd be handy on the occasions the witches park in buildings that are in use? It's usually creepy abandoned warehouses and alleys and construction sites and stuff but sometimes there's one in a nursing home or a hospital, and if those are on sprawly campuses the witch might be nibbling on patients and leaving the front desk receptionist for dessert."

[whatamithinking]

"Ick. Okay, yeah, I was imagining 'if your neighbor is exhibiting these signs a witch might have got him' kind of thing, but I guess I don't know that much about how witches work."

[onceandforall]

"Sometimes familiars are kind of subtle? Those are budded-off witches that won't yield grief seeds if you kill them, they don't grow until they've eaten a few people and they can sometimes take a while to do that and could be subtle. Most puella magi don't even bother killing them because fighting costs magic and risks getting killed and you don't get your spiky little prize at the end. If I learn to teleport and clean other people's soul gems and we start trying to earnestly eradicate the species, maybe it'd be useful to have a way to find familiars when they're just chewing on one dude and the main symptom is that he quit showing up to work and keeps calling his sister and hanging up on her."

[whatamithinking]

"And at that point, you need to weigh the number of familiars against the number of people who could get hurt in the metaphorical witch hunts that a literal witch hunt would cause."

[onceandforall]

"Yeah. I mean, optimistically people would believe us about the parameters involved - witched people have no magic powers, tie them up and you'll be fine, when the little tattoo-y thing on them is gone they're out of the woods - but realistically? Not so much."

[whatamithinking]

"And you just know that every hate group that doesn't decide you're the enemy instead would use 'I thought I saw one of those tattoo things' as a new excuse for violence against their preferred targets."

[onceandforall]

"Yep. Witch had him and he was holding bleach and ammonia, no helping it, of course the witch's kiss is gone now he's dead."

[whatamithinking]

"I think the reason I have so much mind magic is because I got my powers because I was pissed off at--well. Everyone and everything with a bare few exceptions, at the time, but mostly people like that. And you can make people stop doing terrible things, but the only way to make it stick is--to make them not want to." She's very quiet for a minute. "Some of the things I saw in my visions--I never would. Never. But I wanted to." Shame creeps into her voice. "I saw it and I wanted it and when I realized it made me feel sick."

[onceandforall]

"Ouch. That's... yeah. Points for resisting temptation?"

[whatamithinking]

"Yeah. I just don't...I don't like feeling like the kind of person who wants things like that."

[onceandforall]

"Well. And you aren't. If, all things considered, that was what you wanted, you'd go around actually doing it; or you would actively and specifically resent things getting in your way. ...If your mental architecture's like mine, anyway. Like, all things considered, I probably don't want to take over the world, because many people are very attached to the ways their parts of it are currently being run and I want to respect those preferences even if they seem really stupid. But that's me wanting it. I am the boss of me. It is not... if you will pardon me for saying so - somebody else's implanted desire. I get to add it all up myself and so do you."

[whatamithinking]

"I think there's different levels of wanting things. I absolutely want to change people's minds about things. I want to do this by being a really effective activist. But the emotional reaction I have towards wanting people to just stop is a lot stronger than the one I have towards activism. And activism is hard, and sometimes it doesn't work, and I think if I managed to eliminate the desire to mind-control entirely it could upset some stuff that's doing important work. But it's not a want on the same level as wanting to do well on a test or even wanting to have ice cream, it's a want on the same level as wanting to punch some smug asshole in the face. It's not what I would choose, but the urge is there."

[onceandforall]

"My visceral reaction to mind control in particular is thoroughly negative, which is why I went with the 'taking over the world' analogy. Might not be the right analogy because it has more steps. I dunno, I guess I feel like 'punch that smug asshole'-level urges are color commentary and ultimately don't matter very much? I don't punch smug assholes. I could totally get away with it and I don't punch smug assholes. I am a person who does not punch smug assholes, and that's important, and the fact that it has ever occurred to me to do so is... garnish on the plate of my life. It's just there, you don't actually eat it."

[whatamithinking]

"It is sometimes an act of will for me to not punch smug assholes. But I don't do it, and I don't do mind control, and that's not going to change. It's just occasionally a source of concern." shrug. "I'll work it out to my satisfaction at some point. I'm just not quite there yet."

[onceandforall]

"Fair enough. How old are you, anyway?"

[whatamithinking]

"Eighteen in August. It's June right now, for me."

[onceandforall]

"I have been in January and February for ages. I'm consistently confused about how to construe my age. Like, there's an extent to which I am still seventeen and will stay that way until I de-loop, because I'm physically so and that is the amount of calendar time that has passed since my birthday and no one has observed the milestones of me turning any other ages and I haven't, of course, had a birthday. But on the other hand I'm not actually going to get physically older unless I feel like it, puella magi needn't age - and subjectively I'm solidly into my twenties now."

[whatamithinking]

"I think you're close enough for it not to count as creepy."