text | un: fotia

[burningfree]

[It was like, 3 in the morning, and Lio was laying in bed while restlessly typing this on his phone, the subject of the post laying next to him and almost certainly drooling in his sleep.]

To whom it may concern.

If you see an idiot firefighter running around the city shirtless at any point, look with your eyes, not your hands. Actually, I'd prefer if you kept your eyes above the chin.

He's mine.

[Happy first day of Sanguis!]

Comments

[burningfree]

You'll know.

First of all, he wears the pants part of the uniform pretty regularly. Secondly, he will almost certainly say as much. And thirdly, if you're really uncertain, try lighting a match around him and see how he reacts.

[starmark]

what are you saying

if i light up a cigarette around him he's going to spray me in the face with a water hose or something

[burningfree]

If you're within 15 feet of a building or breaking some other arbitrary rule involving fire safety? Probably. Plus I know he doesn't like them.

[starmark]

yare yare that's all anyone said the first time i lit up around here
don't smoke it's bad for you
everybody's got an opinion

well anyway he'll be on the lookout for sanguises then
their element is fire

[burningfree]

You don't have to tell me twice.

[Lio was trying to be vague about his new smoking habit, though. If Galo saw this post later, he'd rather this not be the way he found out about it.]

I've heard as much. But no. I don't think he'll be any trouble to them, unless they were intentionally starting fires to hurt people.

[starmark]

yeah
from what i've seen that kind of thing is pretty rare in the upper levels
not as sure about the lower ones though

i think most people who can use fire learn to control it pretty fast, anyway
just out of necessity

[burningfree]

People smoke plenty in the Lightless from what I've seen.

Not always. Depends on the person, depends on their age, their personality, their willingness to adapt. When messing with fire, accidents are all too common, and it only takes one bad accident to keep someone from even trying to learn how to control it.

[starmark]

i haven't been down there. i guess there's some casinos and a prison?

i mean i know a guy who's had control over fire since he was born i guess
he's pretty much got the hang of it by now
there's a lot he can do with it too

but you're right
he's got the sort of personality that helps with controlling it i think

[burningfree]

The entire place is a prison. It's depressing. Everyone should see it.

I used to be able to control fire - in case you had any doubts as to how I met a firefighter. I would teach children that shared the ability not to be afraid, how not to hurt those around them.

Children are easy to teach, though. Adults that awaken to their abilities later in life less so.

[starmark]

yeah
people who have that kind of thing since birth have a long time to make it a part of them
because it's always a part of them
and always has been

people who get it later have had plenty of time to be someone without that power
so it's different for them when they get it

[burningfree]

From what I've seen, the reverse situation has been true, as well.

Those who had only awoken to their flames for a short period were able to adjust to losing them relatively quickly.

Those for whom the flame had always been a part of them have had a significantly harder time adjusting.

That's all besides the point, though. Point being, Galo understands people like that, and would never hold their nature against them.

[starmark]

...wait
so did everybody lose their ability to control fire then

why
what happened to take it away

promare spoilers ahoy if jotaro says yes, hahaha

[burningfree]

It's a long, complicated story, and it involves some pretty unbelievable stuff. I'm still struggling to process exactly what happened. You sure you wanna hear it?

courtesy spoiler warning for other people, i'm fine with them myself!

[starmark]

uh
you'd be surprised some of the bizarre shit i can believe

sure go ahead

[burningfree]

If you insist.

In my world, we burnish started appearing thirty years ago. People attributed it to a mutation, but our fire wasn't truly our own. The core of our planet had some sort of dimensional rift, from what I understand, from which alien beings made of fire seeped through. Professor Prometh named them the Promare - and they would sync with humans on the surface, the burnish, allowing us to use their fire to help them burn.

I used to be able to communicate with them. They would tell me to burn hotter, wider.

At one point, when the both of us were in intense pain, they explained to me that as part of their life cycle, they need to fully combust at least once. They couldn't return to their own dimension until they did. And unless they did, they'd keep burning hotter until they destroyed the planet from the inside out.

Galo - the idiot firefighter - and I were able to help them complete their combustion and send them home. Once the Promare left, the burnish were no more.

That's the short version, anyway.

[starmark]

[...So the planet gave a bunch of people fire Stands but then their Stands were also parasites that were going to kill them if left unchecked so they had to do some shit to get rid of the Stands so that the Stands could go back to their Stand Universe and the people connected to them wouldn't die.

And also so the planet wouldn't blow up.

Please, that's not complicated at all, that's practically the plot of any given Jojo's Bizarre Adventure part straightforward as hell.]

so they got stuck in your planet's core
developed a symbiotic relationship with you and people like you
you helped them complete their life cycle
and then they went home

that's not that complicated

but i can see where this is going
people didn't know why the burnish had fire powers, right
i mean before the aliens were discovered
so they just got freaked out by some people suddenly having fire powers

[burningfree]

[Lio would have taken exception to calling the Promare 'parasites', but he was still impressed with this guy's ability to understand what had happened.]

Yes, and their existence had been kept a secret, even after their discovery. I imagine Prometh planned to reveal his research at some point, to try and help us, but he was murdered before he got the chance. Galo and I just stumbled upon it by sheer luck.

Before that, it was nothing but fear and discrimination.

[starmark]

did burning out make another dimensional rift open up

i mean the rift was in the center of the planet
and you don't know how it opened up
but burning out would either let them go back through it or open up a new one

so there must be a connection between that sort of rift and the completion of one of their life cycles, right

but it doesn't sound like one life cycle was it for them
since cycle kind of implies it keeps going around
and since they already knew that's what would fix the problem

that'd be kind of a weird evolutionary path
dimension jumping after every completed life cycle

...

what did they eat?

[burningfree]

[And here Lio thought Galo was obscene for falling asleep during Professor Prometh's explanation about the Promare. But this theory postulating was making his head hurt.]

I don't know. I just told you the guy who discovered and named them was murdered, and we didn't really have time to dive deep into the specifics.

I can tell you what I heard and saw through my connection to the Promare, but while they were sentient, they weren't exactly intelligent. Their desires were very simple, their drive very singular. They had voices like children.

And they didn't eat. Why would a fire need to eat?

[starmark]

fire can't burn without fuel
there's a triangle of needs
fuel oxygen and heat

if they were burning hotter they would've had to be consuming something to do it

i mean it's fine if you don't know
it's just something to wonder about

[burningfree]

[Triangle, eh? Lio thumbed at the triangle earring dangling from his ear. Probably just a coincidence.]

They used our bodies as fuel, but they would also regenerate our bodies as we burned. I don't know how, only that that's how it worked. I did once burn faster than I could regenerate, but that was due to being trapped in a machine forcing me to burn.

[starmark]

a machine forcing you to burn?

like to study why you were burning
or to try to make you burn out?

[burningfree]

To use me as a core in a warp engine.

I'd rather not talk about it.

[The trauma of it was still fresh.]