OK...."narcissist" or not, let it never be said that I don't know when it's time to doff my cap to the better and subtler man.
I'd come to the conclusion over the past 24 hours that there was just nothing to be done about the complete devastation of this place resulting from the "Lia invasion" (not that, as far as I can see, poor Lia has anything at all to do with it; just the idiots who fantasize they have some sort of relationship with the poor kid).
You can't reason with these people, argue with them, or even effectively mock them, because they don't even have the brains to know when they're being mocked.
So I was resolved just to give up and go away. Which I am actually still resolved to do. But I do so with a lighter heart - and, admittedly, more than a little shamefaced envy - now that I see that someone has thought out a far more appropriate and effective way to deal with these people than I ever could have.
These two last-posted threads descend, right from the get-go, SO far into the depths of board-posting in the vulgar, idiotic, "backward 15-year-old" style that has been doing such a roaring trade amongst the "Lia-chavs" - and crown this descent with the screamingly funny claim that this is the "classy" constituency we're hearing from here (!) - that maybe these guys WILL finally now see, hopelessly dim as they are and will doubtless remain - just what they look and sound like to someone who stumbles onto this board and happens to have half a brain.
All honour and good fortune to you, sir, whoever you are!
"Oh ... everything's white."
"Are you awake, Olivia?"
"Yes ... who are you? Am I ... dead?"
"Not yet. But you are dying. I'm sorry."
She was missing her right leg. The feeling was going in her left one. But it didn't seem to bother her. The man that held her remaining hand had a gentle, reassuring grip. Around them was nothing, unending white.
"Ah! Are you God?"
"No, I'm a bit more like ... Death."
"... oh. Where am I? How did I get here?"
"This was your bedroom, actually."
"Eh? There's nothing. Where are all my things? Where are all the walls?"
"They crumbled away, and then they disappeared. Just like you are now."
"Mother? Father? My friends?"
"They disappeared too."
"and ... anon ..?"
"..."
"He can't be gone! He can't be!"
"I'm really very sorry."
"No ..."
"..."
"No ... go away, this is just a bad dream, just a bad dream, just a -"
"Do you know .... you're right. This is a dream. It's a kind of dream."
"Heh?"
"But you're not the one who is dreaming. This is someone else's dream."
Olivia blinked continuously and waited patiently for clarity. She could no longer feel the man's touch, not because he had let go, but because her arm had receded past his grip. Her arms and legs were just little stumps now, and still fading.
It never got easier for the man to tell people the truth about their world, about themselves. Especially these types. Humans liked coming up with constructs that could produce the most heartrending reactions. Finally he spoke
"Do you know what happens to ideas that have been forgotten? They disappear. They die."
"Mr. Death?"
He wished she wouldn't call him that.
"Most ideas don't live for more than a second. Not so long ago, before writing, recording ideas was a verbal tradition, songs and verse. Everyone here, all the myths and legends, would be shifting and changing their shape with every telling. But now everyone records everything in pristine reproducible digital and gives it to everyone. Hardly anything gets forgotten, and some ideas last a very long time."
Olivia wondered where he was going with this. Not noticing her arms and legs were completely gone. The fading continued. Where her torso stopped and where the endless white began became indistinct, but the white was winning.
"You lasted about five years. Pretty good run, actually. Well done!"
"I'm ... an idea?"
"For a short spell in the early 00s, Anonymous in a fit of insanity wrote dozens of works of religious and erotic literature for the internet. You are Olivia Fields, a character his Sky Queen, the subject of his earlier works."
"I don't understand ..."
"You were designed to be the perfect girl for the reader. You would love him, understand him, and be envious of the girl that would eventually steal the reader's heart. Being a repressed sort, Anon did not let his writings go beyond the occasional romantic undercurrent."
At this Cracky blushed deeply.
"I love everyone, but not in that -"
"But undercurrents were not enough for the circlejerk and the stalkers. Olivia, they all wanted to fuck you."
She looked away, her face a mixture of confusion and embarrassment.
"The boards were soon flooded with girls that allowed anonymous to actually interact with his object of obsession. Word got around the bulletin boards that the Skyqueen was near impossible to contact, and the girl she was based on was an unpleasant bitter recluse. The character was unpopular. Privately traded collections of pics were uploaded. Largely irretrievably deleted. Even anon forgot about it in the deluge of writefuckery he himself feverishly shat out after the failure of Sky Queen."
"Are you saying I'm not ... not real?"
"You are imaginary. So when it is no longer possible for you to exist in anyone's imagination, when everyone has forgotten you, you will disappear. You will die."
"I don't believe –"
"Look at yourself. Have you seen your own body?"
She looked down and saw only white.
Just a head. Just a head and fading.
The man looked into the distance and narrowed his eyes in concentration, as if focusing on someone far away. He broke it off momentarily to report.
"Fifteen minutes ago a pathetic young man in America just deleted the last digital copy of your pics. All the hard copies have been trashed or have decayed. Upon completing his collection, he realized he could not have you and deleted everything in disgust."
"Oh."
"His memory of you and the copypasta is the last trace of you and your world in reality. Everyone else has forgotten you. He has begun to. This process typically takes anywhere between –"
He concentrated again.
"His Rozen Maiden dollsex torrent has completed and he is now masturbating as if he is trying to start a fire. You do not have long."
She let his words lap up against her, seemingly totally content as she gazed headlong into the white.
"Your life ... doesn't concern you anymore?" he asked.
"I have the feeling something is supposed to ..."
"Your personality. It's fading, isn't it. They didn't give you much to lose, I guess."
"Hey, Death ..."
"What."
"Are you an idea too?"
"Yes."
"So will you ... someday ..."
"No-one ever forgets me. I'm always here."
"Ah."
"That's why sometimes I like to go and comfort other ideas before they die. Sort of like the real Death does with people. No shame in being forgotten, none at all. We've had a lot of girls like you disappear lately."
"Like me?"
"Yes, from imageboards and such. Just hordes and hordes of them, shy, doting little girls, with their own little gimmicks that didn't take."
"But you remember them!"
"I don't remember any specifically, just the little half-assed quirks dreamed up by fat little girls with daddy issues. Animal ears and tails. Infinite hair colours and iterations. Cripples. Twins. Maids. Gothic, Victorian, medieval, mecha. And millions upon millions of assembly line little sisters. Sometimes I watch them fade, when they're forgotten, when their fad gimmick gets old and a new one comes along."
When he spoke again after a long pause, Olivia thought his voice to be just a little off. Like it had a single string out of tune.
"So many these days ... and they're all so similar, you know, I rarely even bother to talk ..."
"You'll remember me, won't you Death?"
"... huh?"
"I'm still here! I haven't faded yet!"
"That is unusual."
"But the American must have forgotten me already! It's you keeping me alive, Death! It's you!"
"Hm."
"Please save me, Death! You can do it! You don't have to be lonely!"
"I'm not lonely!"
"I'll remember as many people as I can! We'll do it together!"
"I'm not ..."
"And then no-one will ever have to disappear!"
"I ... but ..."
"Ehehe! Ehehehe! My body!"
Sure enough, her neck began to fade in slowly. She could feel it, feel her body coming back, the warmth of it, the space of it ... and she could feel tears falling from her eyes.
"You're doing it, Death! You're doing it!"
"I ... remember you!"
"Hahaha! Death! Death!"
"I remember you!!!"
"Death, thank you! You are sav –"
"I REMEMBER YOU AS THAT FRIGID LITTLE OMGOMGOMGOMG CRACKY-CHAN FROM 4CHAN AND HEY FIVE YEARS IS A LOT OF YEARS FOR BLUE BALLS. FORGET YOU, BITCH."
He whipped out a jar from his pocket that was labelled LOL AMNESIA LOL, tilted it into his mouth and swallowed some pills that poured out.
"Ah –"
He closed his eyes and Olivia blinked out of existence.
