WEEK 3

[bathymetric]

Well, the tail end of Week 2 could have gone better. That's the first thing to note.

The second thing is... hang on, should it be Week 3 yet? You've all gone to sleep (or... not, in the case of anyone who doesn't), but when you wake up (and you do all wake up), the calendar and clock on your device informs you that it's Sunday. In-character, all characters explicitly have absolutely no memory of Saturday.

Your sense of time isn't the only thing that's changed - a new branch of the facility has opened and become active overnight, giving you new resources and places to investigate, should you so choose. There's also a new channel on the television, though whether it's an improvement over the last one is questionable.

Otherwise, though, things have mostly settled into normalcy again, or at close to normal as you can find in this place. How long that peace will last, though... that's becoming increasingly uncertain, moving forward.



SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to Week 3! Turn in last week's AC over here, and regains remain over this way! And for the sake of consistency, Angel's office hours remain over yonder! ]

Comments

[philoxenia]

It's a memorial.

[ Is that-- that's sure a shovel. You know what, she's not even going to question anything anymore. ]

[hardnosed]

Oh.

[ It could not be more obvious that she has no idea what this is, so she's just going to ask a question and pretend it's a statement. ]

Something to remember them by. That's not the profiles he wrote.

[philoxenia]

Yes. Exactly.

[ Like, she notices, but she's gonna pretend she doesn't. ]

The profiles--they're not enough. And even if they'll never see them... There should be something left of them by someone who knew them a little better.

[hardnosed]

[ The notion of should here, of the dead being owed anything at all, doesn't connect. Gems are disposable, weak and ineffective Gems more disposable still. If they're shattered, they inevitably deserved it for falling short of expectations. In the end, they all get what they deserve.

That's her system, though. It doesn't apply here, where authority is meaningless and rules unobjective, and most of the participants in the experiment exist for no purpose at all. She doesn't like that she has to think about this at all, but there's nothing else to do. ]

... You must have gotten close. [ She's thinking of Lif specifically, after the trial went the way it did. ] But it's only been two weeks.

[philoxenia]

[ She opens her mouth, because-- Jasper's right. She falls into a thoughtful silence, staring at the portraits she's painted for some time. She knows it must be strange to Jasper, who isn't human, to learn of these very human gestures--ones that are far outside the norm.

This isn't a normal situation, after all. ]

... I enjoyed their company. [ That doesn't really answer anything, but she elaborates-- ] Lif and I, we-- had something very specific in common. And Aela--I enjoyed talking with her. We weren't the closest, but I did feel some sort of connection to them. Sometimes... in the most extreme situations, humans can care a lot about each other very quickly.

[hardnosed]

Okay.

[ It probably makes sense, she thinks. Human life is so short. Human emotions are so chaotic and nonsensical. All the things she can't understand or accept about them — their pointlessness, their organic fragility, their existence in a constant state of flux — are things that would breed this kind of quick attachment under circumstances so opposed to their preferred mode of existence. It's the same kind of inborn weakness that bonded most of the Beta Kindergarteners together. It's the kind of thing Earth encourages. She's been here long enough to understand it.

For them. Not for her. To let any of this get to her, to adopt any of their behaviors, is a weakness she couldn't afford then and can't afford now. ]

Aela was — sensible. [ This much is true. ] She understood honor. Until he started talking back at the trial, I thought he did too.

[philoxenia]

[ Oof.

She should've expected it to turn to the trial, to what had come out during it, but still... She falls quiet, frowning at the portraits. Mira had thought so too. But-- ]

... I think they did. It was just-- their hands were forced. We don't make the best of decisions when we're under pressure.

[ Even if the Professor had never intended to spill their secrets, if it had been an empty threat... It was enough. The risk had been too great. She understands, even if she doesn't agree. ]

[hardnosed]

It's not — that. Deciding to attack is one thing. But Lif knew her enough to know she'd want to die in combat, not on the retreat.

[ Just because you murder someone doesn't mean you can't respect them!! A statement that definitely has no meaningful parallel in Jasper's everyday life. It's impossible to actually have known after two weeks the kind of people Lif and Aela were, and she knows perfectly well that in the heat of the moment, honor evaporates. Still, until the check that outed him... ]

He seemed like the kind who'd respect that.