empathicfault | IC Inbox

I'll check in with Rawne. Do you still want to talk with Avalon about the subject?

...maybe eventually. Of course, it'd be preferable to have it be in a neutral setting with wardens there. But if they want to talk to me, that'd be fine too.

I doubt they will. They don't seem to know how desire or decision-making works at all. But...if it comes up.

-- Okay, before I went down, we had a pretty solid plan of how we were going to tackle this, but now it's "maybe eventually"; what's changed?

Was that the plan? Sorry, I do still have two lives in my head at the moment.

[ He's less obviously lost, but he has a lot of experience pretending to be more together than he is. It's kind of automatic sometimes. ]

Things have been a mess, Shaw. You know that goes around here. There was the cursed sword- that's what it was making us all nuts, by the way, if you didn't see it. Maggie's a part of the wolf pack now. There was some revenge murders going on, and it's just continued to be tense. Hopefully the Breach calmed some people down, or...tired us out, anyway.

What was the plan?

[She pauses for a moment before responding.]

Yeah, sorry. I, uh-- I get that. Just trying to head the "lots of words, no action" thing off at the pass. You need a break first, though, say the word.

[And she waits, giving him a chance to respond to that first.]

Ah. No, I appreciate that. And I'm definitely starting to see how plans end up getting muddled around here, too. Even with them happening on a regular basis, it's hard to plan around the breaches and the floods.

I think I would like to talk to Kiryu before Avalon. Get my head on a little straighter. He's good for that.

Okay.

The plan we came up with was getting a kind of, uh-- work-study-slash-mentorship program going with Avalon, where people spend time with them teaching them about pro-social crap. Willing volunteers only, other immortals and non-humans preferred. We were also going to sit down with them ourselves and talk with them about what made them interested in you, and help them brainstorm better ways to handle that interest.

If you want, I can get those balls rolling.

Right. Okay, I'm remembering that now. I think that'd probably help them the most. And if they're 'helped' I'm less likely to get attacked again.

Plus, I'd like to try, one more time, to understand their motivations. So yeah, get that ball rolling. I'll see if Kiryu's up for visitors today.

Do you think it'll help you? Besides physically. I'm fine with helping Avalon, but that part's not actually my priority.

If I know their motivations- if they become human-ish enough to have motivations- then I don't have to worry about what they might do next. Who they might hurt in the future. Especially in relation to me.

So...while it's not going to help me a lot, I feel like it's worthwhile to do. For my peace of mind, anyway.

Sure, I'm not saying it's not. But if you still feel like crap about what happened it can't be the end of it, either.

Yeah, that... [ He trails off and then sighs. ]

I don't know if I'm ever going to feel okay about it. There's not a lot of recompense that can fix 'attacked by my own mind's nightmares, and with shadows of people I failed.' Or I guess, if we're drilling down, Avalon really hit me where it hurt.

They're not capable of understanding why they shouldn't have done it, and it seemed like no one even knew what had happened to me when they tried to hurt wardens later, so...I don't know what else could be done about it.

Yeah. I, uh-- I'm not talking about being okay with what they did to you; you shouldn't have to feel okay about that. I guess I'm talking about being okay with the idea of reacting differently next time. Not killing them, not exacting violent justice.

You know, a lot of times when stuff like this happens, one of the wardens involved makes a PSA post about it - sometimes public, sometimes on the warden filter. I didn't; I just wrote about it in the ledger, which I'm pretty sure most wardens don't bother to read. Would it have been better if I had made a post?

....I wouldn't have said so when it happened, but I had a lot more faith in the other wardens to...I don't know, so their job then? Or maybe I had the wrong idea of what you were tasked with. I figured people would read the ledgers. Want to at least know what dangers there were for their inmate.

Perhaps it's just the nature of this place that if it isn't loud, it might as well not exist.

But yeah, I think I can react differently next time. I think I was affected by my new nature, in a way I didn't expect. I didn't let myself stop and consider other options. I've actually been working on getting more energy out in the Enclosure while you've been down. I think that's helping, as much as that makes me sound like a corgi that hasn't gotten enough play time.

But even before the Breach hit, I've been feeling more settled, less reactive.

I've had wardens react like I'm performing some gross privacy violation by reading and writing in the ledger. And there's a lot of stupid Barge norm stuff that I'll compromise on, but this isn't one of them; the ledger is useful. It pisses me off that people just ignore it as a resource. Same with the files.

But look, I believe you can react differently; we've already covered that. I wanna know what you think about the idea of being asked to react differently.

[ Damn, he'd been kind of hoping to avoid that last bit. But he does feel a little more settled on it. ]

Now? I've made my point with Avalon. And I'd rather not be out of control. That's the opposite of what I want. So I think I should react differently. Only take action if there's an imminent threat.

Have people really been giving you flak for using the ledgers? Isn't that what they're for?

You were in control enough not to use one of your weapons.

[The ones that only worked in self-defense; the ones that, presumably, would have been useless against Avalon.]

And yeah, a couple have. Nothing major, just vague overtures of disapproval.

It wasn't...maybe other people wouldn't have noticed it. But there was a point when I usually would've stopped and thought things through. And I didn't. I followed my emotional core, something I almost never do without making a- a somewhat rational decision first. I wasn't...stepping forward with clear eyes. I just wanted to make them stop, and...I wanted to do it with my hands.

[ He's probably not going to get the horrified look from Shaw that Alana had given him on a few occasions, but the hesitation is there anyway. ]

[Which she definitely hears, and it makes her pause for a moment.]

I know exactly how much damage I could do if I didn't stop and make certain choices. I know how much damage I did do, when I worked for the government.

I don't think less of you.

Thanks.

...you see why I'd like to avoid that, though. It was an indicator that I'm not thinking straight. I probably would've called you if I was. Gotten your help figuring out how to handle things.

Next time, yeah?

-- I don't mean next time Avalon stalks you; I'm gonna work like hell to keep it from coming to that. But there's always a big risk of something here.

[ Will chuckles at Shaw's clarification. ]

That is what I figured. Obviously, we're avoiding the Avalon situation happening again. But there is always something.

[ He nods, figuring she deserves something concrete. ] Next time. Yes.

Cool.

So, uh-- we were gonna have a sit-down with Bright, too; do you remember that?

With Malcolm and Kiryu, right? Or were we going to try the three of us, first?

I don't... think he's gonna want Kiryu involved, so just us. Is that okay?

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audio; thanks for never sending me this notif, DW

audio; it's nice like that :P

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