04 - still the stars will find a way | Video

[innercactus]

Who: Asteffiel
Broadcast: Yes
Action: Tourist if they want
When: sometime 9/29

I need help. [ There's a little bit of a whine to his voice today. He is holding up a pair of small-ish apples. They're definitely ripe, just on the small side. One has a bite taken out of it- ]

I grew them, but they don't taste good at all... Does someone want to make sure it isn't just me?

[ HE WANTED TO GROW THESE SO FENRIS WOULDN'T HATE HIM, but.. giving him gross apples would make it worse, wouldn't it. ]

Also, how do you know it is your birthday? I feel like it ought to be, because the date says so, but... Are you supposed to feel any different? How do you count, after you reach one year? Do you keep adding months?

[ Yes, Asteffiel the adult looking plant hasn't had a birthday before. Sylvari. ]

Comments

[nextlineis]

[Well, since he just had a birthday, this clearly makes him an expert on these matters!!]

What? Of course it feels different on your birthday! It's your day!

Then again, I guess it doesn't mean a whole lot if you don't have people close enough to you to make it special.

[innercactus]

....? But I wasn't the only sylvari to wake up that day. [ Excuse his sylvari terms, but it is more or less the same thing.

He feels like he's missing something important with that sentence, and fiddles with the coral earring for a bit, but that last bit- ]

... That could be it. [ ... He's doing his best not to droop a little. ] I don't have Crocus or Winter Rose or Hibiscus here...

[nextlineis]

So? A lot of people were probably born the same day I was, maybe even at the same hour and minute. But that doesn't make it any less of my day.

[A beat.]

So, uh, do you talk to plants or something?

[innercactus]

Ohhh... [ Because his friends, it's his day? Something like that. ]

... Oh! They have plant names, but they are Sylvari like me. So they are also plants, like I am a plant, but not rooted, and they can talk back.

[ He pauses. ]

... I also talk to my plants in pots, but that's different. They don't talk back. [ Important difference. Carrots don't talk, so it's okay to eat them. ]

[nextlineis]

Uh...okay. Good.

[He...thinks?? Fuck if he knows. He doesn't usually deal with plant men. Just ones that popped out of stone, okay.]

You don't eat salads at all, do you?

[innercactus]

If I had the things to make them, I would. But the things the kitchen makes when you click 'vegetable' don't really seem the sort that you would make a salad out of....

[nextlineis]

B-But that's like cannibalism, isn't it?!

[innercactus]

You have flesh, does that mean if you eat anything else with flesh, it's cannibalism?

[ He's not sure where the idea of a plant-person eating plants comes as bad- ]

I don't have lettuce for hair, or anything, and I don't think people eat vegetables of this color? [ He taps his cheek for 'color' - he's kinda a pale purple. ]

[nextlineis]

It looks kinda a little like an onion. Or a radish.

[So there.]

[innercactus]

[ He thinks about it. ]

But I'm more wood than roots. And even if I have layers, pulling one of my leaves off won't make anyone else tear up.. [ So maybe he would avoid bamboo.

He tugs at one of his sleeves when he says 'leaves'. Yes that is what is clothing is, grown from him. ]

[nextlineis]

[Okay, whatever. Leaves are clothes now. (Nudist...) But now there's something bothering Joseph aside from the cannibalism thing. So, in typical Joseph fashion, he just asks without any shame or prefacing.]

So what happens if you get termites? Is that like when people get fleas? Or do you just lose whatever they've managed to eat away at on your body forever?

[innercactus]

[ He never lets humans see the parts they freak out about, how rude. That is what courtesy leaf is for. ]

You notice there are little bugs trying to eat inside your skin, and you kill them. [ Very pointedly. That is not like a human getting little things drinking just their sap blood. ]

But we heal by growing back. Like... [ he holds up his hand, and indicates a line across a couple of his fingers. Ignore the red pattering, that's just how he is colored. ]

I am really bad at cooking. I cut myself once, but... [ He falters for a completely different reason. Who was he helping?

Nevermind. ]

You can't tell I cut myself! We don't do.. that scar thing.

[nextlineis]

[Joseph squints.]

...So do you bleed? Do you pollinate? Do you get allergies to other plants? Are you allergic to yourself ever?

[innercactus]

We have sap. [ So, yes they do, and it doesn't work the way it does for humans because.. of reasons. ]

... If you're asking if we have babies by having flowers and the other person gives off pollen and tada! Saplings! [ Complete with a little rustling of his hair - and a bit of a dusting of pollen- and arms thrown wide to indicate Suddenly Tiny Sylvari. ]

No. Sylvari do not make more Sylvari. Mother is Mother to all Sylvari and that is how it works.

... and I do not know. I have not gotten sneeze-y from any plants I have been around?

[nextlineis]

[Gross, dude. Control your dandruff! Joseph does make a slight face.]

What about animal allergies? Wait. Do you even have organs like animals do? Or are you just...like a small, walking, talking, tree?

[innercactus]

There's a sylvari somewhere who is allergic to cats. I haven't met him, but I know he sneezes around them. [ He's about to comment that he isn't small, he's rather tall, but then he realizes that small is for trees. Yes, he is small for a tree. ]

I don't have organs like humans. But I have things that make it so I breathe... in the same way? [ His chest is totally moving as he's breathing, that sort of thing. Only he's exhaling the oxygen. ]

... I eat too. [ How dare you forget that, that's what started the conversation- ] I think it is a little of the two. I am a plant, but I have some things that make me work... kind of like a human. But not all the things humans have.

[nextlineis]

[There is no delicate way of putting this and even if there were, Joseph wouldn't know it. He's just going to come right out and ask it.]

So uh... Do you poop?

[innercactus]

[ Asteffiel stares blankly for a moment. ]

... Is that what you use the swirly water things for?

[ No. The answer is no. ]

[nextlineis]

[Well, that answers that.]

Then what happens with the food you eat if you never take a shit?

[innercactus]

[ Thinking... thinking- ]

... Do you eat too much, and that's why it comes back out? Because it's used, obviously!

[nextlineis]

What? No!

[Joseph, are you seriously now perturbed by that question? After everything? Well, okay. He's making a face.]

It's used, I guess, but that's not 'cause we eat too much.

[innercactus]

If you're sure. [ It's said with that tone of a child doubting an adult.

He's still pretty sure the only reason stuff would come out after someone eats is if they ate too much. ]