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[thecrossingmods]

[The Crossing is coming again.

There is no advance warning from The Ferryman this time. There is nothing to draw your attention towards the message that appears on your device, whatever it may be, except perhaps the expectation that it should be appearing soon.

Whether you think to check for it or you simply stumble upon it, the words are there just as before:]

A toll to be levied for safe passage
from the desert to ǝɹǝɥʍǝsʅǝ

envision a place of comfort and safety
a haven from the wants and ills of life
be it for a moment or for a lifetime

offer it to The Ferryman
and let go

Comments

[hasapoint]

Sure. I'm just saying a foundation is established in more than one place, and I don't think someone would be transformed entirely lacking one stone.

[blindluck]

Hopefully! It probably depends at least a little on how many other memories of safe places you have. Or anything else we might have to give up.

[hasapoint]

Quite a few in my case, I'm afraid.

I've lost essential memories before. If that's changed me it hasn't been in too drastic a way. Always possible it works differently here, or I'm insulated by being older.

[blindluck]

I don't have many memories of safe places. It was a side effect of my luck. But I think I can come up with something.

[He says nothing about if he has or hasn't lost essential memories before and what it may or may not have done to him.]

[hasapoint]

Lean more into the 'comfort' part maybe. And 'moment'.

Your luck?

[blindluck]

Luck was my talent! But it had to be balanced out. It wasn't that bad, though, because it meant whenever something really bad happened to me I knew something good was coming!

[hasapoint]

No that sounds terrible. It was constantly active? Not just at panic points?

[Need had luck magic and unfortunately could talk about the technical aspects that I absolutely am not privy to.]

[blindluck]

All the time, yes, for as long as I can remember. Being dead is the first time I've been without it!

[He still has a lot of complicated feelings about that.]

[hasapoint]

How did you realize it was gone? Doesn't sound like you had any conscious control of it.

I was able to manipulate luck, but that's just one of many things I had to leave behind, apparently.

[blindluck]

There are a few small things my luck was very consistent with. I noticed when I lost at rock paper scissors. I've never lost before except when I meant to lose.

[Except against someone else with his kind of luck, but that's not the point and Hinata isn't here anyway.]

[hasapoint]

What little bad luck came after winning a hands game? Or did it lump together?

[blindluck]

It was more of a general cycle. Something bad might not happen immediately. Or maybe something bad would have happened, but it was to someone I knew instead, so I wouldn't realize until later.

Of course, if it's just rock paper scissors, it wouldn't be anything too bad! A stubbed toe or a broken pencil, perhaps.

[Assuming the game wasn't for anything important, anyway.]

[hasapoint]

[Back up at the point where she'd written 'that sounds terrible', Need underlines those three words, rather than write them again.]

Do you feel changed without it?

[blindluck]

[Nagito notices that added underline, but he isn't going to comment on it.]

Of course. Even if it was the most worthless talent anyone could have, it was still my talent. It means I'm especially useless here. But at least nobody has to worry I might collapse one of the shelters on them, I suppose.

[hasapoint]

You think that was all that was of use about you?

[Need frowns at the sentence she wrote. This is one of those points where if she was texting - if the idea came naturally to her and she had an appropriate device - she would have deleted the line, put something else, and then hit send. As it is, she writes under it]

You still have two legs two arms a voice right?

[blindluck]

Technically I only have one arm. That's fine, though, it means I can be a showcase for the talent that was required to build my prosthetic!

[Does that count as being of use?]

[hasapoint]

It seems to work as a second arm. Even without it, you're not a newborn babe.

People without particular TALENTs have to find their own usefulness. Things that are not unique and that someone can do better are still worth doing.

[blindluck]

Talented people have always been the most important, except for a few unique normal people who are especially good at creating hope. Of course, I was never important like that; even when I had my talent I always knew my place was as a stepping stone. Being used to create hope was always my goal.

I keep having to explain this. Is the world I'm from really the only one that explicitly defined the system?

[Being from a world that explicitly split people into talented and talentless probably doesn't completely mess up your worldview. Probably.]

[hasapoint]

It's more likely that this 'system' doesn't exist in every world. Certainly not in mine. We have the Gifted and some among them become very important but if they are 'most important' it's only from the point of view of those who obsess over that sort of thing.

[A simplification, but she's not going to explain the classes of Gifts.]

[blindluck]

I guess it's possible. [There are a lot of strange worlds out there, apparently.] But hope is universal, and those who create hope will always be the most important, regardless of how you refer to them.

[hasapoint]

I've seen a lot of people who accomplished a lot of things but never some objective 'most important person'. Just subjective viewpoints that say something about the one who views. Very little separates those considered important from those considered not.

And hope's good and everything but relying on nothing but is a thin gruel. I'm more interested in those without hope and who yet don't break.

[blindluck]

That just means those people have hope inside them that hasn't been fully revealed yet!

[hasapoint]

Or they're driven by something else but I can see you're unshakeable on that point.

[Need considers going back and underlining 'that sounds terrible' again but no she shouldn't be petty. She's got to let the kids have their own points of view.]

[blindluck]

Of course. Hope is the most important thing in the world. In any world!