Week 2 | The Fallen Angel Engages In Tax Evasion

[closetdweller]

[There was a great number of things that Urushihara, the feral cat fallen angel living at the Crosby Street Hotel, had learned in recent weeks.

One: Bonds between people were important, but

Two: engaging in those Bonds and related activities didn't guarantee anything.

So it was that Urushihara- now more regularly introducing himself as Luci thanks to a lot of confusion between people- found himself floating upside down watching the power flicker in and out while he ate his panfried vienna sausages with chopsticks asked a very pointed question:]

Testing. Testing. One-two. Anyone listening?

What's the point of paying taxes to Our Lady of Creepy Stuff if it's not helping anything?

Are we still doing it?

Comments

[regulate]

...What exactly does "paying taxes" signify in your metaphor?

[closetdweller]

[Bluntly:]

Whatever it is that Aventurine and that loud girl do in their free time.

[You did ask.]

I'm sure there's other things but that's the most obvious.

[regulate]

The couch I sleep on is not that close to his room, but I can connect the [ thots ] dots. Why do you claim it is not working?

[trashblaze]

Hey.

[ Completely irrelevant— ]

Give me some of those.

[ Listen, he can hear the sizzling all the way in the hotel lobby. He knows what's going on in the kitchen! ]

[closetdweller]

Eh... Sure.

[He held out the pan. Luci wasn't Ashiya- the sausages were a little burnt, but it was nothing that teriyaki sauce couldn't fix.]

[trashblaze]

[ The moment Hanzo agrees, Caelus immediately makes his way to the kitchen. Just in time when the guy is holding out the pan to pour the hot food onto a plate. He picks up his own separate plate, then takes just a few to be polite. ]

Thanks, Luci!!

[ This stupid trailblazer just can't hold himself back when food is involved… ]

[dethangel]

I just do regular stuff. If she likes it that's not my problem and she sucks.

[closetdweller]

Doing what you need to do is just taking care of yourself.

It's the extra stuff that's paying taxes, man.

She's a creep anyway if she likes to watch- like, get a life!

[dethangel]

Yeah! I bet she's not even really hot, like if a really hot lady with big boobs is watching you do stuff maybe that's okay, but otherwise it sucks!

[merged]

Depends on the taxes. Sleep likes to think a lot of things are for her, but unless it's done in her name, like Harry's altar bullshit, it's not. No matter what she believes.

[closetdweller]

Yeah, I thought that was sus, too.

Unlike some others, I'm trying to not be in a cult.

But you've got a good idea there. Not everything gets to be for her- I know toddlers with better manners than that!

[merged]

Good on you. In my experience, cults don't end well for their members. Not a single damn one. [ It's always a relief to encounter someone with a little wisdom in that regard. Oh... The bar is so low here. ]

Exactly. We can't do anything about what she believes is hers, but we can't let that stop us from doing what we want. I refuse to let her, or the thought of her, lay claim to any of my actions.

[licencetoheal]

There is none. And anyone that thinks godlike eldritch beings that kidnap people and mutate them actually have their best interests at heart is delusional at best, or they have self-destructive tendencies at worst.

Back home, we have powerful beings like Sleep that meddle in the affairs of mere mortals and it doesn't matter how you treat them, you can still get turned into goo or dehydrated porous cuboctahedron solids or killed with energy discharges.

[Generally speaking, in his universe, they know better than to simp for the god-beings that treat them like idle play-things because it rarely actually changes being mistreated by them. You need to try to be as polite as if they were the Fair Folk of legend but catering to them? Eh.]

And that's when they're not doing something bizarre like summoning a random mariachi band to your ship.

[The Chief and Worf had stories about Q.]

[closetdweller]

They turn you to goo and then blow a trumpet in your face?

[Luci's own annoyance at the was palpable in the feed- a sizzling, electric feeling accompanied by a sense of...

Stolen pizza?]

Damn they sound annoying. And I know annoying.

[licencetoheal]

It depends on which god-like being but one in particular was fond of harassing Federation ships with sheer nonsense. Two of my current crewmates said he harassed their old ship several times.

But when he wasn't causing mischief he sometimes engaged in actions that put their ship, the Enterprise, in danger. As I recall, him transporting their ship in the proximity of the Borg led to the deaths of close to 20 of their crew mates.

Meanwhile, our current captain simply punched that same being in the face instead of entertaining his games and he's thus far left the station alone since then.

[eidxiety]

[absolutely fucking baffled:]

We pay taxes here?

[...................]

What are taxes?

[closetdweller]

It's when two consenting adults get together and do things that make Sleep happy.

[eidxiety]

Ohhh.

[Nodding, understanding...]

Well, I think She doesn't seem to care one way or another. Accidental tax-paying seems to happen a lot here, or at least, I know someone who had that situation happen to him.

[cantilevers]

What's the actual tax rate in this place? I'm using to monthly collections, but it feels like we need to push for infrastructure upgrades because our taxes are clearly being mismanaged.

[closetdweller]

That's what I was saying last month!

[He huffed, and there's a sense of something small burning through the murmur briefly while Luci attended to his very amateur cooking.]

The going rate seems to be 'Whatever Keeps You Safe', but then Our Lady Who Likes To Watch seems to think everything extra goes to her.

Buuuuut--

If even going above and beyond doesn't keep you safe from Hosts attacking the place you're living in, then what's the point?

Even the Land Lady back in Japan had a better sense about taking care of her tenants, and she liked to run off to Hawaii for months at a time!

[cantilevers]

Death and taxes are only to true assurances of anyone's life. But it agreed that something will need to be done so that people are able to do more than live from one spare moment to the next.

I've heard that The Lady doesn't listen to reason all that much. Has anyone tried to petition her for better accommodations and uses of our hard earned life and emotions?

[potentialman]

If you're working from the assumption that the benefit derived from Sleep is the only reason anyone is doing it, your premise is fundamentally flawed, so I don't think you're going to get a satisfactory answer without addressing that.

[closetdweller]

Doesn't matter because she seems to think everything is for her, Shikigami Dude.

[potentialman]

Well, you're asking us what the point is, so what she thinks isn't really at the crux of that. People are going to do things for their reasons, and Sleep's reaction is secondary.

Your phrasing is basically "if you don't get anything from Sleep out of this, why are you doing it?" which...is probably going to come down to "I like it and I want to," for most people.

[shatteredlenses]

Do I hear sausages cooking? Or is it bacon?

[Yep, Ignis is asking about the really important stuff. It seems like everyone else has the other things handled.

Mostly.

Food is more interesting to him than the main topic of the post anyway.]