(Network) awake from blood-thick dreams

[hooliganstatus]

I'm seeing a lot of people apologizing for what they did while we were in the city.

What if what you suddenly feel guilty about is older than that? If no one is here to apologize to?

Comments

[hooliganstatus]

Basements don't seem like they'd be safe to live in here. Maybe that person should worry more about a secure living arrangement than their amends.

[has someone been spending too much time with Lauri-Ell? maybe just a touch]

That being said, who are they? I'm curious about what a 'living amend' is.

[in_extremis]

What? No one's living in basements. The amends are living.

Forget about the basements.

Where I'm from, when you've dug yourself in a hole too deep, some people who have been there before have a whole list of stuff meant to help you out again. Making amends is pretty deep down on that list. Can't really ask for forgiveness if you haven't examined what led you to being an asshole in the first place.

Do you know why you're an asshole?

[hooliganstatus]

I can forget about the basements, but not about the amends. And I've never been afraid to go deep.

I do know: I was a spy. A lot of people either died as a result of my actions, or lost something or someone. Ripples in water from a depth charge. I was fighting corruption but I was a virus, too. I guess I just didn't see it.

[in_extremis]

'Was' as in before you came here, or 'was' as in we're a couple of lifetimes deep now?

Either way, that's not the reason.

It's the result, sure, but the phrase we use is 'fearless moral inventory'.

Is the same shit that made you the virus going to happen again?

[hooliganstatus]

That first question is a hard one to answer. I'm glad it doesn't matter.

[the second question, though. she thinks hard about that for a moment. what did make her the virus? was it Trevor? was it the Breen? the Monicans? the war itself? she wasn't sure. she had no way of knowing. she'd never even noticed so many of them -- oh.]

It's hard to say. I just know now that ... maybe I wasn't paying enough attention.

[in_extremis]

Okay.

You start there then.

Start paying attention.

If you can be the kind of person that wouldn't cause the pain in the first place, even if you have to pretend, you're at least not making the mess any worse. You can start to clean up.

What are we paying attention to?

[hooliganstatus]

Ripples. If I throw a rock into the water to kill a fish ... what damage can the ripples do? Where do they go?

[she's so used to being a creature of the moment, a woman of impulse, of precise action, that she's not used to thinking outside of any one specific thing. want? get. target? acquired. collateral is not a word in her vocabulary.]

[in_extremis]

I swear I'm not trying to get existential on you or whatever, but to me the more important question is, where'd the rock come from?

I don't know if you're trying to avoid that, or you don't think that's changeable.

[hooliganstatus]

[it took her a moment to refocus her own metaphor and figure out what the rock was. the rock was ... being a spy? being a Monican spy? fighting the system? all three? sabotage, interference, assassination: they were all such separate things, what did they boil down to? how could she simplify the brutal necessity of revolution?]

The rock came from ... not having a net. Or a fish hook. I had no other options, save starving.

[in_extremis]

We're kind of getting in the weeds with the rocks and the fish...

Hi. My name is Tony.

[hooliganstatus]

Sorry. I'm not good at this, am I...

Hi, Tony. I'm Aeon. [and I'm a dangerholic]

[in_extremis]

Listen, talking about it at all, admitting the problem is there, is the hard part. The rest of it is just us getting to know each other.

Usually, I'd do that over coffee, and maybe the pillow talk if I earned a few good minutes.

So this isn't the worst way to handle a problem.

[hooliganstatus]

A few good minutes, hm? I'm game if you are, but it's not necessary.

[he's handsome, but she finds herself wondering what Echo would think. why is she thinking about that? maybe it's a ripple. maybe she's already considering her own consequences.]

The problem is that I had objectives, I had missions, and I focused on that. On the goal. The moment.

[in_extremis]

'I'm game'? That's your line? Were these deaths you caused from heartbreak?

What changed?

[hooliganstatus]

[she chuckles, but it fades as she realizes:]

Maybe at least one. He didn't die, but ... he chose to erase his entire memory. So it may as well count.

[poor Roardi. she hopes that whatever life he found after taking the Nargal stone, he was content.]

When we were all in that illusion ... there was a cloud of something, some kind of gas. I didn't see the cause, but ... it made me hear and see things. From my real life. Everyone I'd killed, either on purpose or by accident... they were ambushing me. Accusing me of what I'd done. And I couldn't run: there were vines that wrapped around me and held me there. I didn't know why at the time, but - they were the plants that make the world outside my city uninhabitable... I had to listen to all of their stories. I hadn't even realized what so many of them were.

[in_extremis]

Oof. That is a nuclear level breakup. Is it weird that I'm a little turned on? It's weird.

What, were you under the impression that they weren't sentient? Why did you have to kill them then?

[hooliganstatus]

Trust me, I've been turned on by weirder. [she winks]

And no, I didn't kill them then - they were all people I'd killed in the past. As part of my job. I was a mercenary. At least, in that life I was. In this one, at home, I was a rebel, and there was a war ...

[that wink is replaced by a wince] Eventually between the vines and the panic, I couldn't breathe. I passed out. When I came to, the street was empty, the fog was gone... it was just me. Alone.

[in_extremis]

War limits your options. Is that what you meant, the starving?

I've known a lot of soldiers who came back and didn't know how to cope with what they had done. A lot of them still didn't feel like they had options, and turned all of that guilt outward until they finally got the help they needed when they were put in prison.

At least, I hope it helps. There's a lot of relapsing.

[hooliganstatus]

Something like that, yes. The metaphor got away from me a little.

What happens to them in prison? In Bregna, prisoners are tortured for information and then just left there until they die. Your prisons sound much more ... accomodating.

[in_extremis]

I can't say none of the prisons where I'm from are like that. I've experienced some myself.

But I was lucky enough to be in a position where I could provide the resources and a few good reasons why some of my nearest and dearest institutions should try to actually solve the problem. Figure out why they're there, what caused the issue, maybe stop it from happening to someone else.

I haven't met a lot of people that I thought were irredeemable or didn't deserve that chance. Most of them were starving.

[hooliganstatus]

Some of us were starving. Most of us were just tired of being controlled and lied to. The Chairman and his people revise history to read however they think would be 'best' for us.