02 ☕ Voice
May. 4th, 2012 02:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psychic_hotline[Warden Filter]
I have a question. I know I'm new here and it's a little personal, but it's your choice whether or not you answer.
[A pause. Still very much unused to this 'talking into the ether' thing.]
I've heard there are floods where you completely change. Either you literally turn into somebody else - someone you knew from home - you do that, or your identity changes so much you might as well be somebody else. And theoretically the person you turn into might get off on hurting people, or just won't care enough to protect them if they get hurt.
And - correct me if I'm wrong, but floods are random. Whether or not you're affected is the luck of the draw. You can't do anything to stop it, and you can't do anything to soften the blow.
How do you deal with knowing that?
[Private to Sarah Connor, wayyyy backdated to a few days post-port]
I'm glad I had someone to have my back in there. Hell of a place.
You alright?
[Spam for Arthas, taking place after this.]
[Sara woke to find her sheets shredded, the oversized T-shirt she slept in hanging off her body in pieces, the Witchblade's armour smothering the entire bed - but it melted back onto her wrist as she staggered to the bathroom just in time to throw up everything her body had to give. For a long time she just knelt there on the cold tiles, shaking and hyperventilating.
What the fuck had she just seen? Parts of it were vague and fuzzy as she gathered other people's dreams were, but other things she recalled with her usual clarity. She could feel herself elbow-deep in Arthas' mind, rummaging through his corrupt and rotten memory like it was a goddamn filing cabinet.
The symbiote was silent. If anything it seemed unsettled - well, that was fucking perfect. The nigh-omnipotent entity strapped to her arm was unsettled.
She threw on the clothes closest to hand and escaped, eventually washing up on deck. It was maybe 3 a.m.; the air felt fresh and cold. She sunk down against the railings at the bow of the ship and sat there, breathing deeply.]
I have a question. I know I'm new here and it's a little personal, but it's your choice whether or not you answer.
[A pause. Still very much unused to this 'talking into the ether' thing.]
I've heard there are floods where you completely change. Either you literally turn into somebody else - someone you knew from home - you do that, or your identity changes so much you might as well be somebody else. And theoretically the person you turn into might get off on hurting people, or just won't care enough to protect them if they get hurt.
And - correct me if I'm wrong, but floods are random. Whether or not you're affected is the luck of the draw. You can't do anything to stop it, and you can't do anything to soften the blow.
How do you deal with knowing that?
[Private to Sarah Connor, wayyyy backdated to a few days post-port]
I'm glad I had someone to have my back in there. Hell of a place.
You alright?
[Spam for Arthas, taking place after this.]
[Sara woke to find her sheets shredded, the oversized T-shirt she slept in hanging off her body in pieces, the Witchblade's armour smothering the entire bed - but it melted back onto her wrist as she staggered to the bathroom just in time to throw up everything her body had to give. For a long time she just knelt there on the cold tiles, shaking and hyperventilating.
What the fuck had she just seen? Parts of it were vague and fuzzy as she gathered other people's dreams were, but other things she recalled with her usual clarity. She could feel herself elbow-deep in Arthas' mind, rummaging through his corrupt and rotten memory like it was a goddamn filing cabinet.
The symbiote was silent. If anything it seemed unsettled - well, that was fucking perfect. The nigh-omnipotent entity strapped to her arm was unsettled.
She threw on the clothes closest to hand and escaped, eventually washing up on deck. It was maybe 3 a.m.; the air felt fresh and cold. She sunk down against the railings at the bow of the ship and sat there, breathing deeply.]
[ Private : Voice ]
Date: 2012-05-04 03:43 am (UTC)How important is what you came here to get to you? [He's not asking what it is, mind; he wouldn't take well to anyone asking about his own warden deal. But she asked. He sounds businesslike and tired, but more put together than he's been... other times.]
[Private]
Date: 2012-05-04 03:59 am (UTC)If it makes you feel better, it's really just that one [You know. The one where we all have goatees and are horrible monsters.] that's potentially really bad.
[Private]
Date: 2012-05-04 04:05 am (UTC)[But it doesn't. Not really. Hoffman shakes his head. As a former inmate he can attest to this.]
...Fuck if I know. You just roll with the punches.
[Warden filter]
Date: 2012-05-04 05:07 am (UTC)Warden Filter
Date: 2012-05-04 05:21 am (UTC)[Warden Filter]
Date: 2012-05-04 05:25 am (UTC)[Warden Filter]
Date: 2012-05-04 06:13 am (UTC)Not the most helpful thing for some people, but it's how I do it.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-04 06:56 am (UTC)Arthas, or the chimera of a mind that had taken to calling itself that, had two equally strong urges. One was to curl up in a corner and wait to die, and that part felt at least somewhat human. There would be no redemption, because no matter how his choices damned him he would make them again just the same. In all possible worlds he was a cautionary tale.
The other was the rage of a thing that had been chained all its life - in a throne, in a crown and sword, in a mercurial human host and an interminable afterlife, and now in a dream by some tiny mind that really had no idea who it was fucking with.
The door to the deck burst open like a floodgate and Arthas stormed out, billowing black cape and all. He didn't even pause before looking directly over at Sara.]
Where is it?
Private
Date: 2012-05-04 08:58 am (UTC)[spam]
Date: 2012-05-04 09:35 am (UTC)Private
Date: 2012-05-04 09:35 am (UTC)Private
Date: 2012-05-04 09:38 am (UTC)Private
Date: 2012-05-04 09:44 am (UTC)[ Private : Voice ]
Date: 2012-05-04 09:47 am (UTC)Private
Date: 2012-05-04 10:57 am (UTC)Private
Date: 2012-05-04 12:11 pm (UTC)Everyone seems to be assuming I'm asking how to cope with it emotionally. They think I'm talking about the guilt after a flood; I'm not. 'Suck it up and deal' has been my entire life. I know how that goes. I don't need the refresher course.
I'm asking - how to process it logically right now. Every day I'm here, I'm saying 'whatever terrible, shitty things I might do to anyone else here under the influence of a flood are less important than my deal with the Admiral'. I want to know how people deal with that.
Private
Date: 2012-05-04 12:34 pm (UTC)[spam]
Date: 2012-05-04 02:16 pm (UTC)You've made a dangerous enemy.
[spam]
Date: 2012-05-04 02:38 pm (UTC)[This is dangerous territory because she isn't sure how she knows, or even if she knows. This wouldn't be the first time the thing's connected her to someone else through their dreams. It didn't feel like a Witchblade dream, not that that'd hold up in court.]
It wasn't its dream. It was mine.
[Warden Filter]
Date: 2012-05-04 02:57 pm (UTC)[spam]
Date: 2012-05-04 03:00 pm (UTC)[Private]
Date: 2012-05-04 03:15 pm (UTC)How's the other side of the fence treating you?
[spam]
Date: 2012-05-04 03:17 pm (UTC)[She gives him a brief wary look, and she knows that she's learnt a hell of a lot more about him than he has about her. He's at the end of a road that she's still desperate not to build; she owes it to him to at least try.]
...it doesn't dream. But I dream about it. I don't know how you got involved.
[Private]
Date: 2012-05-04 04:44 pm (UTC)[he snorts, amused] Oh fine. passed all the initiation rituals like the traditional punch in the face, came back and here I am.
Nothing to do but sit on my hands and wait.
[Private]
Date: 2012-05-04 04:48 pm (UTC)