Not necessarily. You seem to really want people to know that you're right. I'd guess you've been called crazy too many times. You'd think that would make you more considerate, but that's just not how people work I guess.
I mean, do you really think it's productive to just say "you're wrong" over and over all the time? It makes you sound like a little kid.
I don't really see that working if you have to stop the conversation every other sentence to say "you're wrong". It's a two-way street, you know? Working together doesn't mean listening to you call me crazy and ignore everything I say because you can't handle anything outside your own experience.
And I'm still listening, even though you've already made me feel like hanging up. You'll probably never find anyone else that's so tolerant of your bullshit.
There are multiple universes. Maybe a limited number, maybe an infinite number, each a little different from the others. You're not supposed to be able to travel between them, but every now and then some mad scientist or intergallactic psycho will punch a hole through space-time and then all bets are off.
[ How... should she answer that? She said way too much. It definitely sounds like she knows him personally. Can she even try to maintain a secret identity here?
Where I'm from it's all widely accepted fact. It's hard for me to figure out what's strange for you.
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It's also weird that you don't seem to think hyper-realistic simulation technology is strange. Like, I know how that works, and I still think it's strange.
See? That's weird. By normal-rando-living-in-Oklahoma standards, that's weirder than cryostasis. Cryostasis is much closer to being available to the general public.
You don't need government clearance to freeze your wife. If you have just the basic equipment you'd need to even think about a full immersion simulation, I guarantee you you're on a dozen watch-lists.
Account for every possibility, no matter how remote. Leave no openings. Plan for your enemy to be better than you, stronger than you, smarter than you. Most importantly, no loss of life is acceptable.
It's what a hero would say.
[ She really doesn't want to have the "Batman is a stupid name" conversation. ]
Not at all. It's entirely possible we're inside a simulation. From what you've said it seems very unlikely that it's the same people who kidnapped you before, but it's not impossible.
Are you willing to keep the possibility in mind going forward, especially given the fact that we come back to life after we die, something that isn't explained by the whole multiverse thing?
Or any of the other possibilities that I've heard so far.
I mean, the thing I made up about trapdoors and drugs that wipe your memory isn't impossible either. And there's still the clones thing. Robots is an option too, but it's pretty far out there.
But yeah, simulation is more likely than honest-to-goodness resurrection.
In an environment like this, when it comes to stuff I'd have to be there in person for, medical skills are basically the biggest thing I have to offer. And I'm used to working with actual medical supplies. If you're as good or better suited to patching people up with vines and mud than I am, then I'm redundant. My time's better spent working to break us out of here.
Definitely not gonna use mud, but fair point. Just don't forget that all that boring survival stuff helps you function. I recommend not dying 7,000 times, to keep the brain fresh and... mostly in one piece.
[Honestly, being kicked out of her residency had mattered a lot to Shaw too, in its own way: even now, there's a part of her that still internalizes the idea that she isn't truly fit to save people. But it's not an easy thing to voice, and so she doesn't try.]
Yeah, funny story, I was never going on a suicide mission. You were definitely hanging up on me, though, and like I said, I'm not okay with that when you have a gun and I don't know how you're going to use it.
Let me guess: I'm a reckless idiot, and there's no way I know how to track a person in the forest without getting myself killed by either nature or our mysterious archers.
Do you think if you scoff hard enough you can shame me into explaining? I can't even convince you I'm a real person. Why should I bother trying to convince you I know what I'm doing?
I'm trying to tell you there's a difference between knowing what you're doing and being invincible. You obviously think you're the latter, and that's what's gonna get you in hot water.
"I came back from being dead" isn't the same thing as "I can track someone down, by myself, in who-knows-how-many square miles 'cause I'm cute and plucky".
Don't worry, I know I'm not invincible. I know it better than most.
But for the sake of your budding social skills, I have to tell you, telling someone that what they're doing is stupid or dangerous is probably the worst way to get them to stop. It only ever made me more determined, and people have been trying for four years.
It's that thing again. The dismissing. That because of my age, my experiences don't count. They aren't serious. But you don't even know the experiences that you're brushing off.
Does it scare you to know that there's more to me than you realize? That I've been through things that would probably give you nightmares?
Just because you have a teenage brain doesn't mean awful things can't happen to you. And before you say anything, it doesn't mean you can't do big, consequential things - good or bad - either. It just means that when you do those things, you're gonna be really annoying about it.
More than normal to you, because you've earned it.
I'm just telling you, that if you try to stop one of the other people on this island from doing something stupid by explaining to them that it's stupid, it's not gonna work. That isn't limited to teenagers. That's basic human nature. You dismiss someone, they dismiss you right back.
Now there's a line that's been tried before. And it's almost never true. Do you really work alone? No help from anybody? Or is that why it took 7,000 tries to break the system?
I think you may still have noticed. This creature has fur growing directly from the bone of the skull, and internally it seems as if it's been constructed from a child’s drawing.
I don't know. What she believes about false memories might be better for all of us. There's no one else here like me. If the things I don't understand are locked inside me somehow and we can liberate them
[It's a thought she doesn't even know how to finish]
This creature has no heart that I could locate. If we are all constructs built for the amusement of someone else, what if I don't have one either?
I tried talking about this with her, but if we don't, does it matter? We're here. We think, and feel, and hurt. Those things define us. Even if I'm not the Stephanie Brown that was born in Gotham 19 years ago, I'm still me. That has just as much meaning and value as being anyone else.
[ She needs a minute with this. She can't explain why it hurts her heart. Is she afraid it could be true? Does she want it to be true? Whatever it is, it isn't worth getting worked up about. ]
What makes one person better than another? I mean, assuming one isn't a serial killer or something, is the life of a scholar worth more than the life of a farmer, in the grand scheme of things? If someone put those two people in front of you and told you to decide which one gets to live, could you choose? Is that how you want to live your life?
I would want to save them both. They both deserve that chance.
You don't even know if this other person exists, much less what she's like or how she feels. Even if you did, you have no way of getting them back.
Don't value yourself less than a person you can only imagine. We can only deal with what's in front of us right now.
Besides, Sameen's theory is possible, but it's not likely. There's no good reason for someone to go to the trouble it would take to create fake people out of real ones just to toss us all on a creepy island.
A fake world, fake people, those aren't easy things to do. They take a lot of work, a lot of money and a lot of help. There are easier ways to go about it than to brainwash ordinary people into thinking they're from another world.
And if they had that ability in the first place, and Sameen was really the one they wanted to manipulate, they would do it to her, not us.
I don't know her well, but my impression is that harm to others - especially harm that she blames herself for - is worse than harm to herself. I assume you noticed this as well.
[Yeah, she saw all of your I'm going to RUN OFF RECKLESSLY into the JUNGLE stuff]
If I wished to hurt her, putting her in a place where everyone but her could die does not seem such a poor plan.
Would it truly take more work to create a convincing fiction than to kidnap a person from so far in your world’s past? What purpose do I serve to whoever is doing this?
Even if she's right about this world being fake, it's incredibly unlikely that the people she's thinking of are responsible for it. She said herself that too much was different. I can tell you from experience, even crazy people, even when they're trying to change tactics, they don't change much.
But that's the thing. If a convincing fiction is what you need, why would you turn to the past? That's not convincing. Create something from the present. Better, just take someone from the present. There's no need to brainwash them at all.
All of this, whatever it is, it took work. Much more work than necessary if all you wanted to do was upset one woman.
Honestly, I doubt that there's a single target either, but I can see why she thinks it's her.
[However, if Shaw is right and her captors have contacted her with demands, melting into the jungle and not telling anyone isn't exactly out of the question for her, so how would they ever know?]
It scared me, seeing something like that. Not just a foreign animal, but an artificial one. I don't think this is a dream.
I have heard of people creating their own animals, usually using other animals as a base. It's expensive and it doesn't always work, but it could make the kind of thing you saw. And it makes Sameen's theory even less likely. If this was a world someone created, even if they got the animals wrong it wouldn't be so sloppy. It would look intentional.
So far we seem to function pretty normally. People that mess with humans as a species tend to do it in small ways, like trying to make them stronger or smarter.
But if we were just copies of ourselves? That would be pretty awful once we get out of here, but we're still ourselves.
All of you airplane people, speaking your secret languages and insisting very authoritatively that some bizarre things are real but other equally bizarre things could not possibly be so.
actually my organs getting mashed was more or less at Viking technology level
but "airplane people" does sound pretty cool
and yeah it's a fine line between crazy but believable and just plain crazy. sometimes it's not really a line at all. but don't you think that getting kidnapped through time and being a fake person taking up someone else's brain space are pretty equally crazy?
[Randvi’s grudge against airplanes specifically is kind of outsized considering she's only even known about them for five days. One of the first times she’d worked up the courage to reach out everyone had told her that her observations were wrong, this was a place for planes, and then she’d looked around for huge metal birds like an idiot but of course there aren't any.
It's a bit like how Senku keeps trying to tell her how much better electricity is than fire even though electricity sucks and doesn't work and she's had like five successful fires just on this island.
The first time she sees a plane she's going to be furious that they're real.]
They both absolutely sound crazy, but I had hoped to not be alone anymore.
All I'm trying to say is, since either thing could be true and we have no way to be sure, why decide that the uncomfortable thing is more likely? Why torture yourself over a decision that nobody is asking you to make, that you might never be asked to make?
and also that having your organs messed up really hurts
I think, when your survival is on the line, it's okay to put that kind of thing off. Maybe I'm just worrying too much, but if thinking about it makes it that much harder to do the things you have to just to get through the next day, that's more important, right?
I also just really don't like the idea that you're trying to sacrifice yourself and you haven't even been given the opportunity yet.
There is. No matter what's really going on here, I can tell you that. Life takes unexpected turns, whether you want it to or not, and there is always more to experience. I mean, just look at us now.
[For like the next two years in her own time, some truly wild sci-fi bullshit is going to happen around Randvi that will have her wishing that her worst problem was being trapped in her little room while everyone else gets to live, but unfortunately she doesn't know that yet]
That's true. In some ways, I feel like I'm waking up.
Running a settlement requires a great deal more paperwork than you'd think.
I'm not permitted to leave the settlement without an escort, and inside the settlement there's rarely a moment's peace. I felt tethered to my table even when I wasn't beside it, and now the tether’s broken.
I did have an apprentice for a while, but I'm not sure I’d do it again.
[A sweet, earnest Saxon boy only a couple of years Steph’s junior, he’d been murdered by one of their Norse allies soon after he’d left her village. Even now, he sits heavy in her heart like a stone]
I know that you all understand each other, and thus expect to be understood. I fear that as we progress here, I'll be left behind.
I try not to talk like that. I know how it feels, and I know your world is really different from mine. That doesn't make it lesser.
I'm not trying to be patronizing, but sometimes it's easier to think of it like magic. Most of the time the specifics aren't really important, you just need to know that it works and go from there.
Like, I couldn't tell you how an airplane flies, it just does.
I know you understand, but to me it's not old. It's my life.
I know you can't halt everything to explain things to me, but it's not just how things function. What is “automated”? What kind of damage should I expect a gun to do? What is “egghead”?
I'm afraid that any code people make to keep out eavesdroppers will cut me off as well.
Getting shot by a gun is like getting shot by an arrow made of burning embers fired from a bow that shoots so fast you can't see it. It burns, and it will break bone if it hits it, and sometimes it breaks inside you, and the pieces are poisonous. I can get more specific if you want but that about sums it up.
"Egghead" is an insult for someone who's really smart but has no social skills.
Insults get really weird in different cultures, even in the same culture over the course of a couple of years. I wouldn't be surprised if you hear some I've never heard before.
I don't think a code is a very good idea anyway, but if things start to go that way I'll make sure you don't get left out. There's not much point if not everyone can use it that needs to, you know?
It's... a good system, but analogue backups are still the most reliable. One of the... peoples of Easter Island [Nope, she doesn't remember the name-] They used banana leaves. Easy to carve into, to fold. The natural rivets of the leaf made lines like a notebook.
That'd be perfect if I had banana leaves. I haven't seen any in more than a week. Every now and then I'll try writing on something I've found, but no luck yet.
It may be worth establishing locations of interest-- unique landmarks. When someone comes near it, they should radio in. It will give us a sense of the size of the island, should someone see two or three.
Hmm. It's not a bad idea, but participation might be an issue. People might have a hard time remembering to call in, and there are plenty who wouldn't want to announce their location. Plus, there just aren't very many of us to begin with.
[Hearing not a bad idea from a ninteen-year-old is... unique.]
Do you know the shape of the island? Its size? Every little bit helps, Bravo-Tango. We are in no position to let a plan go because it will not be perfectly implemented.
Somewhat. I'm good at estimating distances, so I know about how far it is from where I washed up to the foot of the mountain. I haven't been able to connect east and west yet, but we're heading to the airfield, and that should line everything up nicely. I've gone... hold on, I did the math and scratched the answer on a bit of bark.
[ It takes a good 30 seconds for her to get back. ]
It's about 30 miles from where I started to the north bunker.
You're good at estimating distances. Not everyone is. If something were to happen to you, your files-- well, I suppose your... friend? Kilo would have half the map...
[She's clearly thinking this through in real time. Basic training only covered so much.]
Then we're S-O-L. [ Her shrug is clear in her voice. ] I know it's a problem, and I'm keeping an eye out for solutions, but we can only work with the tools we've got.
There are two. I'm not sure how much farther south the second one is, but I know it's up the mountain a ways. Ummm.... R-4 was in the one I went to, and... L-O was in the other.
I know. I think an imperfect solution may have to stand until a perfect one can be found. But I bet you know how common perfection is outside of textbooks.
I'll check with them. Personally, I believe mapping the island-- if it even is that-- to be the current achievable priority.
Seven, I think. Someone stepped in a bear trap while you were lost in the Matrix. Some of the guys went to help bring them back here, but they got caught in the storm.
No, I left as soon as the detective was back on his feet. Last I heard, they were trying to poke the crossbow-wielding bear. I didn't want to stick around for that.
Hi, Steph! I remember you saying you found a weird door in a mountain on the north side of the island. I want to look into it a little more. Do you have any landmarks we could use to try to pinpoint it?
It should be on the map. There weren't really any landmarks around, but it's a pretty big hole in the mountain. Right in the middle of the north face, I think.
Ah, we’ll need to backtrack for that, then. Still looking for a good spot for the waystation, but we’ve found some tools up here! A hammer and spanner The normal kind And there’s a saw blade we found. Decentish condition, but it hasn’t got a handle.
nobody hurt me. I do try to avoid making myself a target when I can help it. and I wouldn't endanger people by keeping quiet about someone attacking me out of the blue
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TO994M; voice; day 5, night
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Not, like, personally.
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It's not that stupid, you know. It was a popular theory in science even before there was proof for it.
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[ She's much livelier and sassier when she hasn't been arguing for what feels like hours on end. ]
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I mean, do you really think it's productive to just say "you're wrong" over and over all the time? It makes you sound like a little kid.
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I want us all on the same page. I don't really give a crap what you think of me personally, but we need to be able to work together effectively.
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Are you going to tell me about the multiverse theory or not.
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There are multiple universes. Maybe a limited number, maybe an infinite number, each a little different from the others. You're not supposed to be able to travel between them, but every now and then some mad scientist or intergallactic psycho will punch a hole through space-time and then all bets are off.
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But he's also a genius, and a hero, and as bad as he is at being a human being he's brilliant at just about everything else.
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And is he one of those superheroes you were talking about?
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Probably no. ]
...Yeah, he is. But no powers.
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[ ... ]
It's also weird that you don't seem to think hyper-realistic simulation technology is strange. Like, I know how that works, and I still think it's strange.
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[She pauses again, for a much shorter period this time, and when she speaks again the frown is audible in her voice.]
I knew about computers running situational simulations in theory. I didn't know people could have their consciousnesses put into them.
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-- This is getting off-topic, too.
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Account for every possibility, no matter how remote. Leave no openings. Plan for your enemy to be better than you, stronger than you, smarter than you. Most importantly, no loss of life is acceptable.
It's what a hero would say.
[ She really doesn't want to have the "Batman is a stupid name" conversation. ]
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I said I died seven thousand times - and change - and it stopped meaning anything after a while. That's not the same thing.
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Or any of the other possibilities that I've heard so far.
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I mean, the thing I made up about trapdoors and drugs that wipe your memory isn't impossible either. And there's still the clones thing. Robots is an option too, but it's pretty far out there.
But yeah, simulation is more likely than honest-to-goodness resurrection.
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I can't believe I'm even entertaining this.
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"Bull-headed".
"A crappy decision-maker".
"Would've been kicked out of Parris Island on her ass".
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But hey, I get the job done. And it only killed me the one time. I guess that makes you 7,000 times more stubborn than me.
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It's the memory of It's what a hero would say that gets her to stay on the line.]
You would've liked some of my old teammates. Too bad you got me instead.
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I'd probably like you if you gave me the chance.
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[She draws out that last word, almost sing-songing it.]
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It's not a terrible idea, you know. Meeting up, I mean, not being friends. I'm sure you know already I'm headed east.
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[ When she was fired. And then murdered. ]
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[ ... ]
No, yeah, that's exactly what happened.
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Poor social skills? Too reckless?
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Okay, no, it was not my social skills, and I wasn't really reckless exactly, I just-- He was-- We made this deal, is the thing, and--
It's complicated, okay? He didn't want me around in the first place, he just jumped on the first chance to run me out.
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[ No questions, no secrets, no excuses. A deal to be 'Robin', not Batman's partner. ]
I learned a lot but the whole thing was messed up from the start.
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If this is fake and you only exist to mess with me, I think they're giving us common backstory elements on purpose.
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[ Her tone gets serious now, if also tired and a little sad. ]
I get that you can't just flip a switch and wholeheartedly believe in magic or whatever. But can you at least appreciate that it's real for me?
There will be other people too. There are times when you just... don't dismiss someone's life.
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[ ... ]
I'm sorry you got fired. If it sucked for you as much as it did for me.
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Can't really picture you even trying to do that.
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But yeah, I'm not really about that kind of one-sided partnership anymore.
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So what now? Freelance?
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[ How does she explain this without actually explaining anything? ]
I came back and got a higher position.
[ Yeah, that works. ]
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You have to know how that sounds coming from you. I mean, seriously.
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It's on record. You can't deny it.
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Don't worry, I know I'm not invincible. I know it better than most.
But for the sake of your budding social skills, I have to tell you, telling someone that what they're doing is stupid or dangerous is probably the worst way to get them to stop. It only ever made me more determined, and people have been trying for four years.
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You keep citing my age like it means so much. Not everyone matures at your designated rate, you know. I got past the spite stage years ago.
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Does it scare you to know that there's more to me than you realize? That I've been through things that would probably give you nightmares?
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And I don't think your experiences don't count.
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Just because you have a teenage brain doesn't mean awful things can't happen to you. And before you say anything, it doesn't mean you can't do big, consequential things - good or bad - either. It just means that when you do those things, you're gonna be really annoying about it.
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I'm just telling you, that if you try to stop one of the other people on this island from doing something stupid by explaining to them that it's stupid, it's not gonna work. That isn't limited to teenagers. That's basic human nature. You dismiss someone, they dismiss you right back.
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Seriously, you think I'd be having this circular-ass conversation if I had anything better to do right now?
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You could be sleeping. But you're not.
Because you like me. You're just so bad with people that you've got it all twisted around.
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You learn to cope.
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Either way, not really supporting the "I work alone" premise.
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Don't worry, I'll keep coordinating and sharing what I find. I'm just going to be finding it alone.
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Well, be careful out there. And don't make me come confiscate your gun.
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VL121R | text | Day 6 Day
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cw: some dead animal talk
I've captured a small pig-like creature, and it doesn't seem like it could have ever been a real living beast.
cw: some gross dead animal talk
I've never killed an animal before so it was kind of mangled when I was done with it?
Re: cw: some gross dead animal talk
Re: cw: some gross dead animal talk
I didn't actually look at the skull
kind of just left the head alone
honestly it just looked like a lot of gooey lumps of flesh to me
I saw intestines
there WERE organs
couldn't tell you what most of them were
i left the chest cavity mostly alone too
stuck to the parts i knew were safe to eat
i was carving with a pointy stick it was really gross
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I see.
I'm worried. I don't know what's possible. Are the animals here all constructs? Are we?
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Are you worried about what Sameen said? That we might not be real?
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[It's a thought she doesn't even know how to finish]
This creature has no heart that I could locate. If we are all constructs built for the amusement of someone else, what if I don't have one either?
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What makes one person better than another? I mean, assuming one isn't a serial killer or something, is the life of a scholar worth more than the life of a farmer, in the grand scheme of things? If someone put those two people in front of you and told you to decide which one gets to live, could you choose? Is that how you want to live your life?
I would want to save them both. They both deserve that chance.
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You don't even know if this other person exists, much less what she's like or how she feels. Even if you did, you have no way of getting them back.
Don't value yourself less than a person you can only imagine. We can only deal with what's in front of us right now.
Besides, Sameen's theory is possible, but it's not likely. There's no good reason for someone to go to the trouble it would take to create fake people out of real ones just to toss us all on a creepy island.
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A fake world, fake people, those aren't easy things to do. They take a lot of work, a lot of money and a lot of help. There are easier ways to go about it than to brainwash ordinary people into thinking they're from another world.
And if they had that ability in the first place, and Sameen was really the one they wanted to manipulate, they would do it to her, not us.
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[Yeah, she saw all of your I'm going to RUN OFF RECKLESSLY into the JUNGLE stuff]
If I wished to hurt her, putting her in a place where everyone but her could die does not seem such a poor plan.
Would it truly take more work to create a convincing fiction than to kidnap a person from so far in your world’s past? What purpose do I serve to whoever is doing this?
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Even if she's right about this world being fake, it's incredibly unlikely that the people she's thinking of are responsible for it. She said herself that too much was different. I can tell you from experience, even crazy people, even when they're trying to change tactics, they don't change much.
But that's the thing. If a convincing fiction is what you need, why would you turn to the past? That's not convincing. Create something from the present. Better, just take someone from the present. There's no need to brainwash them at all.
All of this, whatever it is, it took work. Much more work than necessary if all you wanted to do was upset one woman.
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[However, if Shaw is right and her captors have contacted her with demands, melting into the jungle and not telling anyone isn't exactly out of the question for her, so how would they ever know?]
It scared me, seeing something like that. Not just a foreign animal, but an artificial one. I don't think this is a dream.
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I have heard of people creating their own animals, usually using other animals as a base. It's expensive and it doesn't always work, but it could make the kind of thing you saw. And it makes Sameen's theory even less likely. If this was a world someone created, even if they got the animals wrong it wouldn't be so sloppy. It would look intentional.
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But if we were just copies of ourselves? That would be pretty awful once we get out of here, but we're still ourselves.
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[Also she fell off a cliff but that's probably not important]
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I should know, it happened once!
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a very morbid joke
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but "airplane people" does sound pretty cool
and yeah it's a fine line between crazy but believable and just plain crazy. sometimes it's not really a line at all. but don't you think that getting kidnapped through time and being a fake person taking up someone else's brain space are pretty equally crazy?
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It's a bit like how Senku keeps trying to tell her how much better electricity is than fire even though electricity sucks and doesn't work and she's had like five successful fires just on this island.
The first time she sees a plane she's going to be furious that they're real.]
They both absolutely sound crazy, but I had hoped to not be alone anymore.
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and also that having your organs messed up really hurts
1/2
2/2
:)
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I think, when your survival is on the line, it's okay to put that kind of thing off. Maybe I'm just worrying too much, but if thinking about it makes it that much harder to do the things you have to just to get through the next day, that's more important, right?
I also just really don't like the idea that you're trying to sacrifice yourself and you haven't even been given the opportunity yet.
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[It does mean something, that her life matters to someone who has no obligations to her]
I just wish
The life I left behind when I was taken here, there has to be more than that.
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That's true. In some ways, I feel like I'm waking up.
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I'm not permitted to leave the settlement without an escort, and inside the settlement there's rarely a moment's peace. I felt tethered to my table even when I wasn't beside it, and now the tether’s broken.
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But I think there are a few others things we can prioritize first.
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[It's a joke, but a lot of what’s on her plate are the unfun parts of ruling that Sigurd doesn't want to do]
But yes, you're right, we must survive this first.
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I don't mean to be an airplane person. I'm not trying to dismiss your concerns, honest.
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[A sweet, earnest Saxon boy only a couple of years Steph’s junior, he’d been murdered by one of their Norse allies soon after he’d left her village. Even now, he sits heavy in her heart like a stone]
I know that you all understand each other, and thus expect to be understood. I fear that as we progress here, I'll be left behind.
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I'm not trying to be patronizing, but sometimes it's easier to think of it like magic. Most of the time the specifics aren't really important, you just need to know that it works and go from there.
Like, I couldn't tell you how an airplane flies, it just does.
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I know you can't halt everything to explain things to me, but it's not just how things function. What is “automated”? What kind of damage should I expect a gun to do? What is “egghead”?
I'm afraid that any code people make to keep out eavesdroppers will cut me off as well.
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"Automated" means it does stuff by itself.
Getting shot by a gun is like getting shot by an arrow made of burning embers fired from a bow that shoots so fast you can't see it. It burns, and it will break bone if it hits it, and sometimes it breaks inside you, and the pieces are poisonous. I can get more specific if you want but that about sums it up.
"Egghead" is an insult for someone who's really smart but has no social skills.
Insults get really weird in different cultures, even in the same culture over the course of a couple of years. I wouldn't be surprised if you hear some I've never heard before.
I don't think a code is a very good idea anyway, but if things start to go that way I'll make sure you don't get left out. There's not much point if not everyone can use it that needs to, you know?
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So when people speculate that the defences here are automated, they think they may be following an old plan on their own?
[She’s not going to address the gun thing but no wonder Senku had been so afraid of them]
There is nothing that will make you contemplate your own mortality like people quoting an old poem composed centuries after your death.
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Who's quoting poetry? That just seems obnoxious.
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Is there someone here who’s not obnoxious?
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I feel like I should be insulted by that question, and yet, you're not wrong.
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To be fair, I count myself among them.
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SS572S | VOICE | M010
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[ She doesn't remember how to military talk. It... didn't seem important. ]
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Someone wrote SOS in the beach. Have you seen that?
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It may be worth establishing locations of interest-- unique landmarks. When someone comes near it, they should radio in. It will give us a sense of the size of the island, should someone see two or three.
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Do you know the shape of the island? Its size? Every little bit helps, Bravo-Tango. We are in no position to let a plan go because it will not be perfectly implemented.
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[ It takes a good 30 seconds for her to get back. ]
It's about 30 miles from where I started to the north bunker.
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[She's clearly thinking this through in real time. Basic training only covered so much.]
How many bunkers are you aware of?
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There are two. I'm not sure how much farther south the second one is, but I know it's up the mountain a ways. Ummm.... R-4 was in the one I went to, and... L-O was in the other.
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I'll check with them. Personally, I believe mapping the island-- if it even is that-- to be the current achievable priority.
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Of course. I'll speak with those you mentioned.
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And I'll keep getting my notes together. I'll be sure to tell K to make the map public when he has enough to show.
TO994M; audio
How are you doing on supplies, field medic?
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[ She's saving Steph the continued waffling over whether or not to call. She's a little relieved that she held off on it. ]
...How are you doing? Your callsign disappeared there for a while.
[ Steph was really worried. Actually, she's still pretty worried. ]
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[Huh.]
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Doesn't it worry you that you might be running out of chances?
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Well, it worries me. And that it doesn't worry you just makes it worse.
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[ She can't be too upset if she's making jokes, right? She'll keep telling herself that. ]
I'd probably worry less if you didn't die so much. I'm starting to question your abilities.
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Cohle said he and de Guzman went looking for me; you know about that?
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cs: LO431Y; text (Day 32ish)
I want to look into it a little more.
Do you have any landmarks we could use to try to pinpoint it?
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It should be on the map. There weren't really any landmarks around, but it's a pretty big hole in the mountain. Right in the middle of the north face, I think.
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Still looking for a good spot for the waystation, but we’ve found some tools up here!
A hammer and spanner
The normal kind
And there’s a saw blade we found.
Decentish condition, but it hasn’t got a handle.
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like just hilts and broken bow strings
that's kinda close to the cabin now that I think of it
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Oh. I'll try to make sure we stay well clear of that.
I definitely don't want to run into the Hunter.
They're creepy.
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you guys stay safe, okay?
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We'll try.
You keep safe, too, Steph.
Thanks!
Day 35
Did they kill you or did you disappear?
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I'm ok.
I don't really want to talk about it
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Are you safe? I don't know where we are but I can try to come get you.
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Anyway I thought you didn't want to go there?
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What makes you think it was someone at the airfield?
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why, did you have someone particular in mind?
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nobody hurt me. I do try to avoid making myself a target when I can help it. and I wouldn't endanger people by keeping quiet about someone attacking me out of the blue
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I don't tolerate bad treatment long anyway. that's why I ditched the detective. and you already know how I respond to threats
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Glad you're good though.
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yeah I'm not evasive about my crappy exes
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