036 [Private + Anon Texts]

[soggypastry]

[Private Text to: Hope and Vanille; locked]

You two doing alright?

[Private Text to: Talim; PGC Filter]

I'll be in Mahogany tonight. Are you and Ironhide still in town?

[/private]

[Anonymous Text; unfiltered]

When you've been in this world long enough to see and do everything it has to offer, what's left? How do you spend the rest of your time here when there's nothing left to do?

Comments

TEXT

[usedswift]

You can't have done everything.

Go explore a new area. Learn a new skill. Become better than you were yesterday.

But don't try to become a Gym leader, that's my goal.

[perma-anon text]

[soggypastry]

Tell that to someone who hasn't been here for three years. To someone who hasn't already seen all of Johto and Kanto. Maybe it'll do them some good.

And two or more people can't have the same goal? There's sixteen gyms. Plenty of room for more than one person to go towards the same end.

Re: [perma-anon text]

[usedswift]

All of it. Every little bit? That's kind of hard to believe.

But if you want to be a leader, you'd better be ready to challenge me for it. I don't know who you are, but there's no way you've done everything there is to do here. Even if you were born here, you can't have.

What did you want to do when you first got here? Besides try to get home, everyone tries that.

[soggypastry]

Everything that we have access to as off-worlders, at any rate. I doubt the rest of it's any more impressive.

Let me ask you something, then: if you don't know who I am, how can you be sure I haven't done everything there is to do here? I've trained myself and my team, tried to get home, and lost people faster than they came back. Other than build a house myself, there's nothing else I can think of doing that I haven't already done.

[Holding a steady job in one city? Easy. Paying rent on a pre-built house? Easy. Figuring out what to do with herself? Not so much.]

[usedswift]

Because there's always something new to do. Go build a house, if you want. Start a business. Find a rival or something.

Did you ever have any ambition, before you came here? Pursue it, even if it ends up being different from how you'd do it back home. Don't just sit there and stagnate, though. No one ever gets anywhere by doing that.

[soggypastry]

Maybe not, but is it really worth doing anything when people can disappear without warning? Is it worth going and finding a rival, or building a home, when those people can just disappear before you even realize what's happening?

Ambitions don't mean much when you keep getting left behind. You'll learn that someday, if you haven't already.

[usedswift]

[The next text is a few minutes in coming, because left behind... Not in the same context her anonymous partner means it, but when it comes to being left behind skillwise, she's more than familiar with that.]

Yeah, it's worth it. You keep trying, and someday you'll catch up. And if you don't even try, then you never get those experiences, and then what've you got for yourself? Starting and never finishing is better than giving up halfway or never starting at all.