network video; un: shang yu

[zooming]

[ For once Shang Yu manages to record a video for his question instead of defaulting to text. His attire may not be modern by Lunatia standards, but the way he holds the camera steady tells that someone has been here a while to know better now.]

Um. Do people age here? I think people would still celebrate birthdays, but if we go back home to when we left, does that mean it changes back? Or do we not age here?

[ Someone should have turned 18 last month, the idea of being stuck as a seventeen year old forever isn't sitting very well.]

Comments

[Video]

[beitangmoran]

Are you worried about your age, Shang Yu?

[They did a thing for his birthday, but he didn't mention it at the time.]

What brought that on? Did you not like your birthday celebration? Would you have liked a bigger cake?

(video)

[zooming]

[ Uh oh. Shang Yu doesn't think he's in trouble, but he probably should be careful. The cake comment gets a wry grin. Ha ha.]

Everything was perfect, thank you. I am just curious to know what other people think of it; it will be strange to go home and go back to being young again. Though I guess I won't remember anything....

(video)

[beitangmoran]

[Of course you're not in trouble, Baby Sheep.]

It does appear that people who go home and then come back do not remember their time here at all in most cases. So we probably won't.

But if you were wondering if you got older... I suppose here, it's up to you? Do you feel like you have?

[zooming]

[ He just doesn't want it to come across as ungrateful.]

I feel the same as I did when I got here. [ Pauses, obviously thinking something over.] If we don't remember being here, what is the point of it? I have learned a lot of things but it is strange to think I won't remember them when we go home.

text | un: fotia

[burningfree]

In all fairness to me, I lost track of my age ages ago.

Assuming we aren't here for the rest of our lives, assuming we can go home within a few years time at most, it shouldn't matter, should it?

[Lio hadn't really thought of the idea of staying for, well, any significant period of time... though maybe he should have.]

text

[zooming]

[ Shang Yu will switch to text, it's only polite.]

You did? For a reason?

And probably. It was my 18th birthday a few weeks ago, it feels strange to think I'll be seventeen again when I go home.

[burningfree]

Not on purpose.

I'd been on the run since I was a kid, so I forgot my exact birthday, and lost track of time in general. I only remember it was in the summer - though I've never celebrated it.

That might be a bit troubling, but the difference between 17 and 18 isn't really all that noticeable. I guess it would be a concern if you were here for five years and hadn't aged, or had to return to 17 after turning 21 or 22.

Happy birthday, btw.

[He just learned that texting lingo and he was proud to use it.]

Video: whatever

[noenvy]

Does it matter what your physical age is? You look like you should be of a good strong age.

video;

[zooming]

I think I'll be like this for a long time. [ Thinks over how to explain his thoughts on birthdays.] I was seventeen when I came here, I'll be seventeen when I wake up back home. I'll never be an adult at this rate.

video;

[noenvy]

Maybe physically, but that doesn't seem to be that big of a deal. Sure it's better if you stop aging in your twenties, but younger shouldn't be that bad.

un: f

[doggish]

Have you been here long enough for it to make a difference?

I imagine it would take an enormous effort for them to stop us from aging. And if they did, they would tout it about as a miraculous cure to aging, not simply wait for us to figure it out.

[zooming]

Half a year give or take. Or it feels that way.

That makes sense, there would be no reason to stop us from getting older. I just don't understand why it reverts when we go home.

[doggish]

Because magic is both imprecise and idiotic. We're lucky the drawbacks aren't even more dire-- so far as we know, anyway. It always has a price.

[This is a fun, cheerful conversation.]

video | un: demonchef

[satanslash]

Yeah uh. I actually had my seventeenth birthday in another world, and my eighteenth here, but when I went back home it was exactly when I'd left so I was still sixteen?

But now I'm... eighteen again? It's... really fuckin' confusin'.

[zooming]

That's a lot of birthdays. Doesn't that mean you should be twenty by now?

[satanslash]

I'm just gonna go with eighteen so I don't make my own head explode.

video; un: milesedgeworth

[bratworth]

A friend of mine threw me a birthday party earlier in the year. I can't say I have noticed any of the signs of aging, but I am only twenty-one.

[zooming]

I had a good birthday party too, recently. I have good family here. It's just strange to think I could become an adult here and then go back to being a teenager back home. A bit unfair.

[bratworth]

How old did you turn?

video

[inuko]

Yes! We absolutely do!

[ Hello, this is Shino, holding up a fisted hand and looking at the screen intensely. There's a crow perched behind him, pecking at a plate with nothing visible on it. ]

I've at least grown a centimeter since I got here!

[ Or else he's had good spinal stretch days, but hush. Anyway, he's seen no evidence that they're unchanged; people scar and heal, so growing makes sense. Okay! ]

People are all over about what you want to "count", but while you're here, you're living here. When you're home, you're living at home. The time here matters to the people we are while in this place.

Re: video

[zooming]

A centimeter is great! I'd like to be a bit taller too.

[ Shang Yu, you're already taller than most back home...]

I think I follow.... You mean that only now matters?

[inuko]

[ Meanwhile Shino is of perfectly average height for his country, but short compared to everyone around him, thus he desperately wants to gain height. Being a petite child had unfortunately led to a less than towering adulthood, to his chagrin. ]

Mm, yes, and no? I mean, measuring your life here against your life back home doesn't make sense. This is all time you're living. You're alive here. It doesn't stop mattering just because whatever happens when we get back to the places we come from. You're still aging and growing and everything.

[ Plus, why does he feel when he gets home he's going to be cursed back into his thirteen year old body...

(Because he will be.) ]

The only thing that doesn't happen is the whole babies thing.

video; un: xunxian

[topoiran]

Our bodies change and the changes do not get undone, so - even while the time we have spent here is too short to measure much aging as such.

But I think... even if that gets forgotten when we return, you've earned being treated as a grown up back home, A-Yu.

video;

[zooming]

Thank you, but when we go back home we won't remember this place will we? So it will go back to how it was when we left.

video;

[topoiran]

A-Yu. I mean on the merit of the choices you made back home alone. Even if we do not remember, you have earned respect there, too.

We like to spoil you, because we like doing nice things to each other, and while all of us are still learning, you have a touch more ground to cover.

But we know that you're not less than us.

And we like to protect you, because we know what it's like to be hurt, and we don't want you to get hurt. But - well. [ Xunxian failed. ] It's not because we don't think you can. But because we want to help.