voidtreckernet | orchestra 29 - the plot recap episode [video] (cw: existential crises)

[ When Tidus pulls her closer, Madoka's body does move - even if it's mostly just because it's not resisting at all. Like a ragdoll, she's pulled closer to Tidus, much closer to a hug sort of formation. ]

.. hey, Tidus.. [ Madoka's voice shakes, like she's trying really, really hard not to cry. It wouldn't be fair for her to cry when everyone is having a hard time, right..? When everyone is stuck inside of this awful, awful situation. ]

How.. do you know..?

[ It's not like he knows anything for sure either. But Madoka, as desperate as she is, is always willing to believe anyone older than her. Or at the very least trust that they most likely understand a situation better than she herself does. ]

How do you know there's still a way..?

Because I'm not ready to give up.

[ He doesn't know, he doesn't - but when Madoka asks, there's no other answer in his throat. He doesn't hold back, speaking firmly. Determined, face turning to her, even if she's looking away. ]

On you or on anyone. How many amazing people have come on board, are out there? So your world's in danger and that's-- who can even imagine saving a whole world that way?! But if I've seen anything around here, it's that there's people out there who can do stuff I'd never thought possible.

[ He shuffles himself, turning his body more towards Madoka. So he can rest his hand on her other shoulder, another touch of support. ]

I won't give up on your world, [ he says, promises. ] I know you won't too.

Of course not.

[ It's said softly. Of course Madoka doesn't want to give up on her world. Of course she can't - because it's where her family is, where her friends are, and she can't even entertain the notion of just.. leaving them behind to their fate. To move on, while everyone else is dead.

The very thought of it breaks her heart, and she finally dares to peek over at Tidus. ]

But.. when the odds are this much against us..

[ If her world is truly gone, then-- ]

What is there even left we can do..? We usually always save worlds before things get too bad. [ That's what all their missions have been like. ] But I don't think anyone knows how to restore a world that's just gone..

We'll ask. [ What else is there to do than that? With Madoka's eyes on him, needing an answer, and Tidus doesn't want to make her wait. ]

--I don't know how you save a world that's already gone, but all the people here? Why not them? Some of them-- they go back in time! And what about you? Weren't you meant to have some big power where you could wish the bad stuff away?

[ What can they do? What do they have? But he nods to her, doesn't remove his gaze from her. ]

We'll ask - we'll find out. If other people can do the impossible, why not us?

[ Tidus is making a good point.

Technically.

Because there's one big problem with it - or at least, one big problem that Madoka can see. It's the same problem she, too, keeps running into when she tries to imagine that. When she's sitting there, grasping at the very last straws she thinks she might have for saving her world, only to watch them end up just out of reach. ]

If someone really could do the impossible.. Then wouldn't they have gotten us off this train already..?

[ After all, this might just be the most impossible scenario anyone could ever be in. Especially for as long as they have - with so many people coming and going, yet no one able to change a thing about it. If no one can do that, then how could someone truly bring back a world that's lost? ]

[ Wow, way to up the threshold of impossible on him!

He knows why she's saying that, though. Isn't that their impossible? An impossible he'd like to come true, and that makes him look away, exhaling a breath from his body that drops his shoulders. ]

Sometimes, things don't happen when you want them to. [ Even though- ] I bet there's someone who could help us out - a few someones. And they could snap their fingers and make it so none of this ever happened.

[ Why not? If everything is so crazy and impossible. He snaps his fingers too, just because. ]

--But they're not here. We have to deal with what we have, when we have it. You know? Back home they had a big problem, this fiend that would go out and destroy everything. They had to deal with it for a thousand years, praying that every time they defeated it, that it went away - that'd be the last time. It wouldn't show again.

They never knew the real way to get rid of it - how to make to go away, for real. I used to think, when I first showed up here, [ when he saw what people did, ] -- why didn't anyone come and help them? And then you hear about everything people have, what they can do where they come from, and you think, if only we had that.

[ What if they could travel back a thousand years, make it so no one had to suffer Sin? And then - what if he was never born, the only way he gets to exist is because Sin did? ]

Well - we don't have the people who can turn back time on this happening, but we other people. Other impossibilities.

If other realities can be fixed, then why not yours?

[ Why not - why not, with everything they've seen, heard, know? Just because they can't achieve it themselves. Or maybe they can - with help.

With help. ]

We just need the right time, and right people.

[ Madoka bites her lower lip. The right time, and the right people.. She'd love to believe that, but it feels so hard. Maybe it's since she's discussed this sort of thing with people she had grown particularly close to so many times already in the past, and they always reassured her that they would come and help her.

.. and now none of them are here.

It feels like she's being swallowed up by the pit of despair the more she tries to think about this. And in the end - the only true solution for now is to not think about it at all.

Which is an impossible thing in the long run. But maybe, just for this moment.. ]

.. what happened..?

[ She asks, quietly. Yes, she's changing the subject, but she's doing it because she's aware of what's only going to make her feel worse on an emotional level! ]

Um.. Where you come from, I mean. Did those people ever figure out in the end how to get rid of that terrible thing forever..?

[ Tidus can take a hint. He brings the arm around Madoka to be more snug, or brings himself in closer to get snug to her. It's time for a story - a story that isn't really his, even with his part in the ending. ]

Yeah, in the end. But it went on for a thousand years - a long time where no one knew where it came, or why. [ Well - not entirely. ] It was at the end of this big war, between people with magic and machines. It was the biggest one ever with machines, the first - and they were more powerful than the other side. The other side was going to lose.

So they summoned a monster. [ No- ] It wasn't why they summoned it, but to everyone else, that's what happened. From the magic side, a large fiend appeared, and it came and took out all the machine cities, bringing them to the ground.

A whole religion got built around trying to find an answer to deal with it. 'Sin came because of the machines. The only way to get rid of Sin is to stop using them, and repent.'

[ Repent, it was always about repenting. For sins they had nothing to do with; for sins that weren't even real. ]

They figured out a way to get rid of it for a while. People would go - people called summoners - and give everything they had to take it down. [ ... ] But it wouldn't last. They'd get a year without it, and then it came back. But they kept going for the chance it wouldn't. To keep everyone safe.

[ ...it's not the most uplifting story, is it. Not really a sad note he wants to stay on. There's hope in there, in a multiple of places. ]

The people...even when everything was hard, they held on. They helped each other, worked together - they lived how they could to keep going. Sin would go around and make it so they couldn't live in big towns, but they kept on going, you know? They did everything they thought would work.

[ As for him... ]

I didn't live the same life everyone else did - I didn't know about Sin. But I learned about it sometime before I showed up here. I ended up journeying with a summoner, Yuna - she was ready to give her life to take down Sin. Just for a while...

[ There's a softened note to his voice, a tone that had already softened up with the tale; trailing at the end, at the pang of what could have been.

The tale of a planet suffering in false hope. Except- ]

But we found out the truth: that what summoners were doing wouldn't get rid of Sin forever. They believed it - that one day, it'd be gone for good. The people in charge knew, and the second we decided, no more, and put a stop to the trials that sent summoners off to die? They ran, scared!

[ Here his voices becomes impassioned, low - a contempt, a disgust. ]

They didn't believe in another way. But we believed in it, and we tried - we found out the truth and went to the source of the problem, inside Sin. The guy who summoned Sin all those years ago, still in there, summoning it over and over.

We took him out - we stopped him so he couldn't summon anymore. And then - finally, [ finally, ] it stopped.

Sin was gone. That whole tradition propping it up, propping up all the lies... it was gone. After everything - the people were free.

[ At least Madoka is a good listener - and maybe it's kind of nice to just listen rather than speak for a few moments, given her mood. So she's good at staying quiet, just leaning against Tidus's side as she listens to his story, taking it all in. Something about it seems almost fantastical, like a fairytale.. almost, though, since it's so much like what happened in her own world only recently. Since it's so much like some of the situations they have encountered during their journey on the train.

Besides.. even if it would have been totally fantastical to her, it still would have been Tidus's reality. It would still be something he and his friends had to deal with.

When he's done, Madoka speaks up, her voice quiet. Almost as if she's worried about interrupting, despite the story being over. ]

That means that you and your friends did do the impossible.. [ Something nobody ever imagined could happen. Stopping something that had already been going on for so long - so long that Madoka almost couldn't imagine it within the context of her own world. ] It sounds like you were.. really amazing.

[ It's a long story, but one that's clung to Tidus in a variety of ways. His first real taste of the world - a world, the one actually around him, and the hardships suffered. So long ago now, only part of his life at the end - but it's defined so much about him, how he reacts to the people, the situations around him.

He tips his chin back, thinking. Really amazing, huh...? ]

Yeah. We were. [ Everyone - Wakka, Lulu, Rikku, Kimahri... Auron and Yuna. ] It was scary too, a lot. I felt trapped there, and I was: when I was in Spira, I couldn't go home. I didn't understand anything, and the way people did things, it made me wanna scream, all the time. And when I learned about what Yuna was going to do at the end of her journey, it was so hard. I spent day and night we were travelling, trying to find a way to stop it.

[ He can remember it, even as he speaks. The dread that followed him, how he wanted to scream and stop Yuna, but he knew he couldn't. He knew it wouldn't change anything.

A huff. ]

I felt a lot of that too, being stuck here. It's driven me crazy more than once.

.. yeah. I mean.. um.. you're very loud about it, but--

[ Of course there's that quick 'but.' Please, as if Madoka would allow anyone to wallow in the idea that she is insulting them for even one moment. Madoka could never insult a living soul! ]

I think.. that's a good thing. I'm not really as good myself at getting those feelings out a lot of the time.. [ Because she worries too much. About burdening others. About the way she might come across. About the fact that others could be suffering more than her, and she doesn't deserve to be the one to unload then. ] But the way you act here.. It really shows how hard you must have worked back there too.

[ In Spira, though Madoka has never seen any of it.

She grabs one of the plush animals off his lap, holding it in her arms. ]

Even though.. it must have been hard back then too. Even though you must've missed the way you lived before dealing with all of that.. [ Madoka knows.

Because she does too. Not that she'd give up her duty, not for anything in the world - but sometimes it's nice to think of the simple life she had before any of the chaos back home, before the train. It feels nostalgic in a way that's both sweet and painful at the same time. ]

[ Tidus is familiar with Madoka's worries, her anxieties; their time in the kitchen not so long ago for him to forget. To encourage her to speak up - to not be so worried, or down on her own needs. ]

I really want a simple life again. [ But- ] Not like the one I used to have; I can never go back to that. But living with other people, only having small worries? Not thinking about other worlds - it'd be nice.

[ He fights to help and because he has to, but compared to other people, it's not a hero he wants to be.

He just wants to be him. Tidus. The guy playing sports, offering more to life than just hardships and despair. ]

But for now, this is where we are. [ For now, this is the only reality they have. ] We're stuck together, and we have to stick it out. All I know is, this isn't the end yet.

[ He gives her a light nudge with the arm around her shoulders. ]

But it's okay to sit around and feel miserable about everything every once in a while. [ ... ] I ever tell you what I like to do?

[ Even when he asks her that question at the end, Madoka is quiet for a moment. Perhaps still thinking about everything he just said, or perhaps she's just thinking of whether or not he told her about something he likes to do.

After a moment or two of that quiet, she carefully answers, with a sidelong peek at him: ]

.. play sports..?

[ Madoka isn't sure if that is the right answer in this context, but it sure seems like something Tidus likes to do. Maybe it helps to clear his head when he feels miserable..? ]

[ Pff- ] That is somethin' I like to do.

But nah- when everything gets too much and stuffy in my head? When I feel like I'm gonna burst before long-

I go and find a place and scream!

[ Delivered, like the most normal person thing to do. Cheery even, and he looks back at her, then to the rest of the room. ]

And you know, there's no one else here. This is a good spot for it!

Oh..!

[ It's a bit of a surprising answer to her. Not in the sense that she can't imagine Tidus doing that - she definitely can, especially since he is by his very nature a louder person than Madoka to begin with.

No, it's surprising because she didn't imagine it's the answer he'd bring up here, and the girl ends up staring at him with big, wide eyes. ]

Actually.. Romeo and I did that back during our last vacation.. [ You know, the few day trip to the festival. ] But we did it because we wanted to be brave, not to feel better..

[ ???

Can some people scream without it requiring a great amount of bravery? This is news to Madoka. It might be why she's not going after the obvious implication of the last thing Tidus just said, since it is A Lot, even though she did it before, only a few days ago. ]

[ Look at those big eyes staring at him. S-such power...!! ]

Well, that's the power of a good scream! [ Obviously! ] It doesn't have just one use - it's about what you need it for. It's encouragement! A yell to make you feel braver - or a scream to get out all those bad feelings stuffing up your head! It doesn't make you feel completely better...

[ It'll take more than a scream to do that. ]

But it's one step in whatever you need it for. A good way of toughening up, or deflating! A yell's always valid.

[ Now this is clearly the one lesson Madoka will forever take away from Tidus, no matter whether or nor she manages to apply it in any given situation.

A yell's always valid. Put that wisdom on a tile, slap it up on the wall.

Maybe it's the confidence he says all of this with, but Madoka does look like she's considering it. ]

Then what do you yell about at a moment like that..? [ See, she's even asking for details! Help her work out this yelling plan, Tidus! ]

Hm? It doesn't have to be anything. Just a yell!

[ It makes him wonder what Romeo and her were yelling about for bravery, but that can be asked later. For now, with a pause before his reply, he looks at her, then shifts a little, as if he's preparing to move more. ]

Want me to show you?

[ Are you ready for some nonsensical (but safe*) chaos, Madoka?

(*for safe for ears) ]

O-Okay.

[ There's still some hesitance in it, because.. well, it's Madoka. When is this girl ever not hesitant, especially the moment her mood starts to lower.

But it's not like she's going to stop Tidus when she very well knows the guy is just trying to help her.

So she nods, staring at him. Her hands move a little, like she isn't sure if she should be covering her ears or not? A-Are you sure this is safe, Tidus? ]

[ She's not covering her ears, so he's going to - after humming to her agreement - tilt his head away from her. Inhale some air, clear out those lungs and lift his chin...!

Annnnnd-! ]

A.

[ Behold, the mighty A. A bit loud, but also very very short! Tidus looks at Madoka after a thoughtful moment. ]

Bit weak, right?

[ Clearly Tidus had to think real hard about that shout he just produced.

.. apparently Madoka has to do so too, though not for very long. Just for a moment, so she could ponder if it was okay to say: ]

.. Wasn't that.. a little short?

[ She expected something longer! ]

Does something that small really make you feel better..? [ Is this what Tidus does in his room while no one is watching. Madoka looks a little Concerned.

Then again, she's been looking concerned pretty much this entire time, given her current emotional state. ]

Weeellll.... no.

[ Said, sheepishly. He folds his arms loosely. ]

But I didn't want to go too loud... or I'd make your ears ring. And I was hoping I could lead you into it!

[ He looks over to her, knowing this is daft - but maybe it'll be a daft that can help, just a tiny bit. ]

Show me how long it should be!

[ Madoka gasps. ]

You were trying to trick me!

[ .. well, at least it seems like she's getting a tiny bit of her usual energy back? It's audible in her voice when she's saying that. Like that realisation is just completely tearing her mind away from the thoughts of everything else, if not just for the moment. ]

I don't scream that easily, you know.. A-And.. um, doing it right now.. [ Madoka's face turns the same colour as her hair, flustering. ] That's.. a lot..

[ ... ]

Can't I do a short one first too..?

[ Apparently someone has to ease herself into yelling. Go figure. ]

[ Look at this apologetic grin! (Can a grin be apologetic?) A hand raising in front of his face to go with it, in a sorry sorry way. But that is a good sign, and not the worst Tidus will feel for being caught out.

... since, he did very well admit to it. Regardless, some of his smile stays around as she comes to her compromise, and he nods. ]

Sure! Let's exercise the lungs!

[ Listen to this determined idea. Yeah - time to make some noise, Madoka. ]

[ Madoka is now officially a student at the Tidus School Of Weird Noises.

And she really intends to go through on her study. Even though it makes some nervous feelings bubble up in her chest - as any situation where she feels like she might be even the slightest disturbance of someone else does - she still goes for it. She opens her mouth, and even though it's a short yell, the shout definitely leaves her mouth. ]

Ah..!

[ .. it's softer than Tidus's own though. Not necessarily overly soft, it's not a whisper, not even a normal speaking volume.

But it definitely is not a 'bottom of the lungs' yell, so to speak.

This young pandawan has much to learn, apparently. ]

orchestra 29 - the plot recap episode [video] (cw: existential crises)

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