(no subject)

[gonebyebye]

Hey there. For those of you who don't know me already, I'm Dr. Ray Stantz, and I'm a paranormal investigator.

So, I've noticed lately that we've gotten a few skeptics in board lately, and it made me wonder about something. How many of us have encountered the supernatural before the Legion? You know, psychics, ghosts, demons, magic, goblins, gremlins, Nessie, vampires, that sort of thing? If you have any stories about the paranormal, I'd love to hear them. If you'd rather not go into details, that's fine too. Just a little curious, is all.

Comments

[thedreamisdead]

Those kinds of things are why Psi Division and our Exorcist Judges exist.

Well. Except Nessie. Cal-Habbers probably fished her out and ate her by now, if she was ever real.

[gonebyebye]

Between Nessie being eaten, and Satan somehow being in Jail...I don't want to know what the Judges did to Santa, do I?

[thedreamisdead]

We've got nothing to do with Cal-Hab. That's more... Uh. Scotland? Yes, it was Scotland back in your day.

Anyway, we keep arresting, or killing, imitators, but I'm pretty sure we have the real Santa in the cubes. Trespass, breaking and entering, operating slave labor, owning animals without a license, cruelty to animals re: bringing them into the City and exposing them to pollution, not cleaning up feces, smuggling, possession of illegal goods and toys, failure to file a flight plan, violation of low-fly and no-fly zones... Hardly a role model for children.

There's been an effort in the past few years to culturally replace him with Judge Pal. Unfortunately, Santa extremists are rather violently opposed to the 'disrespect' shown to the fat man.

[gonebyebye]

Well, apparently you're systematically trying to erase any sense of joy and wonder to the universe, so I'm not exactly surprised.

[thedreamisdead]

If he did things legal, there wouldn't be a problem. We have mail systems for a reason and he could have easily looked up our list of prohibited items in advance.

Instead, he thought his mystic nature gave him the right to ignore the Law and inspired thousands of copycats.

[gonebyebye]

Sometimes the Old Laws are more important than the new ones. Especially when those new laws are damn near Orwellian.

[thedreamisdead]

Oh, certainly the Old Laws are important. But not so much that we should blindly cling to tradition and ignore the harm they can cause and the ignorance they can represent.

video

[captainbuzzkill]

[Right now Dipper happens to be hanging out in his section of the Hab deck, in Oregon-esque woods. He'd been chilling out, reading, and drinking a soda.]

Goodbye, childhood.

[It's times like these that he's glad Mabel isn't here, because she'd probably cry.]

This one's for you, big guy.

[He pours one out for poor Old St. Nick. At least if he's in the "cubes" it sounds isolated. It means he's probably not doomed to exchanging candy canes for prison scratch, favors, and day-to-day survival.]

[thedreamisdead]

[Before responding, she has to check his whereabouts vs. the computer to make sure he's not polluting some forest.

Nope. Hab deck. Okay, then.]

You all put too much stock by Santa Claus. Most people only care about him one month of the year, while the Judge Pal's Pals Club is available three hundred and sixty-five days of the year.

[gonebyebye]

It might have something to do wih the fact that one's a centuries-old magical entity dedicated to spreading goodwill and cheer, and the other is a product of propaganda created by a literal police state. Just saying.

[thedreamisdead]

Dr. Stantz, you're far too intelligent to keep assuming that I look down on these people for no reason other than disliking 'fun' and 'goodwill towards man'. I don't. The concept of Santa isn't illegal, just outdated. People are free to dress up as him, collect charity, and give out gifts, as long as they do it legally, with charity licenses and no illicit goods.

My problem's not with them.

My problem is with the people who use that image as an excuse to steal, grift, break into homes, pass out dangerous gifts, and hook up anti-gravity generators to innocent animals in order to play the part. Let alone the murderers who kill innocent children just for favoring Judge Pal.

I'm beginning to think that, unless I give you the list of dead that Santa imitators leave behind, you're just going to keep complaining. Do I need to do that? I can arrange them by alphabetical order or age, if you like.

[gonebyebye]

You wanted to know why we put stock in Santa over Judge Pal. Not in general, but here on Legion World, and more specifically Dipper and me.

Nevermind the fact that Santa himself shouldn't be held responsible for other people using his image to commit crimes, especially since he can't actually do anything about it while locked up in jail. What those people did was horrible. I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm from New York, I've heard my share of stories about people using his image for all sort so criminal enterprises.

But at the same time holding him at fault for it would be like blaming you for crimes someone else committed while impersonating a Judge.

[thedreamisdead]

I actually did mean 'you people' in general. You simply assumed I meant you specifically. If you're confused about anything I say, simply ask and I can clarify them for you.

Or better yet, I think it would be for the best if we simply didn't speak again, unless it directly pertains to work. I responded to your question and would have been perfectly happy with discussing the workings of our supernatural divisions. Instead, you've decided to lace almost every comment with some kind of barb or insult.

I'm sorry that you can't get past our political differences, I really am, but I didn't come here for an argument and I'm a little tired of people who think that they can sling stomm however they like because they're somehow 'morally superior'.

[sir_vancelot]

[Well, this is a train wreak. But Vance can at least reply to this. Even if he's side-eyeing the hell out of America. That's hardly new, though.]

Back home, he's a mutant. One of the oldest in existence, at least as far as we can tell.

Not that I've ever met him. But the X-Men have and they share files with the Avengers.

[captainbuzzkill]

It's not Santa specifically that's the big deal, as in just that individual guy. It's the idea of what he does that people believe in.

He's a magical person who uses what could otherwise be an insidious power for something that's ultimately meant to be kind and bring joy.

[Dipper waves his soda bottle a little. He's not drunk or anything, it's just soda, but it's the wavery, erratic gesture of the vaguely cynical.]

In the face of the mundanity of existence, where most people range from cruel to apathetic, or in the face of the fact that we live in a multiverse where there are superpowered monsters that'd like nothing more than to eat our eyeballs like popcorn, having a guy get the power to sneak into any house where he could do any possible crime and decide to only use to that to make little kids happy with harmless presents...that's pretty magical. Like in the non-mystical way.

Just like it's pretty amazing that a lot of people here that had superpowers back home decided they wanted to use them to help people instead of randomly murdering them for fun and profit.

It's all just kindness because kindness is good.

[He shrugs.]

But, y'know, I'm sure those Judge Pals play well for a focus group. Especially with the preschool set.

[He doesn't really sound angry or outraged. More...resigned. This is the way the world works. Of course there are places where the goodness is locked away for 25 to life.]

[thedreamisdead]

[America blames the jitteriness on the sugar. She needs to go through and replace all of the sodas on Legion World with sugar-free alternatives again.]

If more people were kind for the sake of being kind, or good simply for the sake of being good, people like me wouldn't be necessary.

[And if you thought Dipper sounded resigned there, that line just crackled exhaustion.]

I can sort of see the attraction in that line of thought. Personally, though, I don't think I could have gotten around the idea of someone who could invade my privacy at any time, even if he was leaving presents.

[Then again, she hasn't been a kid since she was five. You grow up pretty fast in the Academy.]

Is it just that kind of thing that gets people so attracted to his ideal? The idea that you can trust him to do no harm other than leave a piece of coal behind?

[captainbuzzkill]

I know it seems really, weirdly, overly simple, but that's because it is. All it is, is that there are a whole lot of creepy things that'd love to break into a kid's room at night, and he's the only one that'd do it just to leave a toy.

[He takes a sip of soda.]

Most kids that can believe in that? It makes them feel a little better about the world. There's something good out there, when they know there's a lot of stuff out there that's bad, too -- even if they don't understand specifically what all the badness is yet.

[His gaze goes a little distant and thoughtful.]

And that's just the kids that only vaguely know scary things are out there in the world. For the kids who actually know, like, specifically what they are, having those nice things to believe in kinda makes the universe a little less soul-crushing.

[A pause.]

At least until you find out he's not real. Or real, but spending a couple of years in the pen. Then... [He makes a sad trombone noise with his mouth.]