WEEK 1

[bathymetric]

Well, you've now met the brains of the operation, as well as the shockingly nice-looking young lady in charge of day-to-day business. Now all that's left is to get used to your accommodations - there's 24 other people in similar shoes to yours to meet in this building, you know! And who knows how much longer you might have them...

The daily routine in the facility quickly becomes obvious - the only way to tell time moment to moment is to check the strange device The Professor gave you, but at the same time every day the lights in and out of the facility go up, and at the same time every night they go down. Otherwise, it's almost maddening sometimes, how little happens in here. At least you have a few rooms with enough to hopefully keep you occupied. Who knows what secrets they might hold? And there's always that vending machine, if you can find something that fits in the coin slot...





MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY
FRIDAY | SATURDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to Peace Week! Enjoy it while it lasts. Remember, office hours for The Professor's Assistant are over here if you're interested, while regains can be deposited over here! ]

Comments

[fivestagegod]

Did you try putting anything in it, or did you just have it black?

[lovelikeyou]

They didn't have anything there to put in it. It was a long time ago...

[Probably like, whenever coffee was invented.]

[fivestagegod]

A lot of people like milk or sugar in theirs. Just to take the edge off. Maybe we could even get something fancy if we asked the kitchen staff for it, though my hopes are...not too high, having seen some of the other things they produce.

[lovelikeyou]

Is it bad? I thought it was fine, but Gems can eat a lot of things, when we want to.

[just look at Amethyst]

[fivestagegod]

I don't think it's bad - it's a step up from what I'm used to, actually. More like they get kind of creative when they don't know what they're doing with some orders.

[lovelikeyou]

[Rose chuckles.]

My friend Amethyst does that. She likes to eat the packaging along with the food.

[fivestagegod]

[Holy crap.]

That is actually delightful. Humans have a tendency to like to fill themselves with stuff we shouldn't, but we usually do try to leave whatever it comes wrapped in.

[lovelikeyou]

She also likes the dishes it comes on. And garbage, and paints, and guitar strings. Basically anything, really!

[fivestagegod]

...I can almost see the appeal of the paint and the porcelain. Everything else is probably a "to each their own" thing.

[lovelikeyou]

I've actually had paint before, too. It's not bad!

[She liked the idea of painting her insides with color, even if it didn't really work like that.]

But I mostly just eat when I'm with humans. We have to shapeshift a stomach every time we do, or it'll just come right out.

[fivestagegod]

Moderately horrifying, but good to know.

[Oh my god.]

So what do you dream about, whenever you decide you want to do that?

[lovelikeyou]

[Hey - what Amethyst does is worse.]

Just random things. That's how it works for humans, isn't it?

[obviously she does not dream about any bad things that may have been done to or by her in the past!!!!!!!!]

[fivestagegod]

I guess so? I wouldn't know, actually. I don't really remember mine, most of the time.

[lovelikeyou]

Hmm. That's interesting.

[It is. She's heard some people say that before, and then others remember all of them. How interesting.]

I thought I didn't dream, every time I slept, but maybe I just don't remember them.

[fivestagegod]

It's possible. I'm almost jealous of the people who have interesting ones - my kid likes to tell me wild stories about hers some mornings, if I'm still around when she wakes up. It's pretty cute, actually.

[lovelikeyou]

You have a child?

[fivestagegod]

Yeah, I've got a daughter. Her name's Sherry; she's twelve. Takes more after her mom than me, but that's not a bad thing.

[lovelikeyou]

That's incredible.

[She seems to genuinely mean it, too.]

How big is she? My friend and I looked after a baby recently, but I'm sure he wasn't any more than five or six. [it was a literal infant, how do human children work, we don't know]

[fivestagegod]

[...uh]

If it's a baby, that's usually less than a year or two. Five or six is like... Have you seen any human children about the size of Della? Those are about that age. Sherry is a bit smaller than Mira, around there.

[lovelikeyou]

I've seen some. The people living in town have children, but we didn't spend a lot of time there until lately.

[Rose has certainly spent the most time around humans, of any of the remaining Crystal Gems, but she usually hangs out with adults. By the time they start having children...she's always drifted away, she supposes. They didn't have time to play anymore.

Maybe it wasn't right. Given that she did it, it probably wasn't.]

When Gems are made, we come out of the ground fully formed. We used to think babies and children were some entirely different species of human!

[fivestagegod]

...You know, I imagine a lot of humans would prefer it if it happened that way for us - just coming out into the world fully-formed and all that. Growing up is kind of a pain.

I've got to admit, we don't really have any other types of people where I'm from. It's all humans, pretty much - the animals aren't sentient enough to be considered "people" - so getting to meet someone else is really interesting, if you don't mind my saying so.

[lovelikeyou]

No! Growing up is such an incredible gift! You get to grow, and change, and become so many different things. You get to decide who you're going to be! Gems...we just are.

[She doesn't believe that about the other Crystal Gems, exactly. They've changed so much; just look at Garnet and Pearl. But she's not talking about them.]

It's so much better to be a human.

[fivestagegod]

Maybe? Humans are really fragile, though - it's something we're always trying to overcome. Physically fragile, mentally and emotionally fragile. It doesn't take a lot to mess us up, and even less to kill us in some circumstances. I don't know if Gems are the same way, but humanity definitely has its downfalls.

[lovelikeyou]

...no. We can go on forever, if we're not shattered.

[Which isn't always the easiest thing.]

But maybe that isn't the best thing, either. [.....] Nothing has changed about our society for thousands, maybe millions of years. I don't think it ever will.

[fivestagegod]

[He considers that for a moment, actually. Like, not just cursory thoughts, he actually looks like he's mulling it over in there.]

Stagnation is definitely a concern, even for humanity - there's a concern that eventually we'll plateau out, and whenever that happens we'll destroy ourselves in some way or another. People aren't really meant to survive in social and intellectual stasis; even if it doesn't break down eventually, it's not in the people's best interests anymore. So I can imagine surviving into perpetuity would certainly see that become a threat.

And yet everyone is content with the way things are, where you're from?