oo1 ✖ video

[enabeled]

[ There's a careful sort of fumbling with the communicator, the kind that comes from someone unused to at least using settings such as video. It's more of a performance, after all, and if you're going to the trouble there's something to be said for presentation. It's set across from him, as one might record a video diary or a confession.

Abel Gideon is wearing a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his hands resting atop each other, fingers to wrist. ]

Now, I think by now we're all accustomed to a little inconvenience. Many of us intimately familiar, even... but regardless of history here we all are. Not that I would suggest there's anything right or wrong about that, either. Who am I to say? Just is. Here we all are... foreign visitors, lost to a strange new land.

Me, I can't complain. By a certain point in your life you come to realize the scarcity of true... opportunity. That and clarity. So. To get to the point... I think people get manipulated in two major kinds of ways.

[ He holds up two fingers in the world's laziest mockery of a peace sign, though it almost seems an unconscious motion for how much he acknowledges any movement occurred. ]

There's the kind where they give you answers. And there's the kind where they keep answers from you. Now the two may overlap, probably will -- usually do -- but motive may often lay inherit in what the ratio is. Not knowing that it's hard to really know what to trust. That's what I think.

Comments

voice;

[slightlyoffchilt]

And which of the two do you think you have most experience in?

[It isn't easy to mask the edge in his voice, but he attempts.]

voice;

[enabeled]

Hard to say, Frederick. I'm not the psychiatrist.

[ He doesn't even bother to mask the coldness in his voice, though rarely is it completely absent anyway. ]

[heartlessglitch]

Some of us are already quite accustomed to being treated as "foreign."
One learns to develop a natural distrust that can be rather protective at times like these.

You seem to be adjusting well, Doctor.

[enabeled]

That's true. Good strategy, if the shoe fits. As long as you don't go overboard.

How are you adjusting, Danger?

[slightlyoffchilt]

But you're not immune to self-insight, are you? I would pity anyone who suffered that sort of ailment.

[enabeled]

Wouldn't say immune. My mind may not always be especially clear, but that doesn't mean I can't still recognize it.

And maybe I'd rather keep my suppositions to myself... for the time being.

audio;

[dragony]

How badly do you suspect they'll manipulate us? Or, try to, at least.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Then your address to the rest of us was what, a ploy? Exercising your appetite for attention?

audio;

[enabeled]

I'd suspect as badly as it takes to make us seem useful. It isn't uncommon. Doubt that many of us showed up here in a generous sort of mood.

[dragony]

If it only goes as far as seem, then it might not be that far at all.

[enabeled]

No -- may not be. A little early to judge, I think, if you want any accuracy. Why, we only barely even know where we are.

[enabeled]

Isn't attention that I'm after. No harm in being curious, is there?

[dragony]

Nowhere good.

But then... I don't suppose there are any good places anywhere, are there?

[enabeled]

[ A pause for thought. ]

Maybe not. Or maybe it isn't the place that matters. Do you believe that people can ever belong somewhere? Is it the other way around?

[dragony]

The other way around? That a place... belongs to someone?

[enabeled]

Right. [ Maybe that's not accessible enough. He rephrases: ] Do you think it matters more where you are or who you are? ... And what you do?

[dragony]

No... I don't think it can be measured like that. Because, where you are, that determines what you can do. Who you can be. Right? I mean... if you contain a liquid, it takes the shape of its container. You know? It can only be so much as that vessel holds. A bottle cannot hold an ocean.

So... maybe the place is more important.

[enabeled]

Then we do belong somewhere. Or at least we're meant to, according to that theory. Which means what if you aren't there?

[ It's not argumentative. Rather, inquisitive. ]

Maybe identity is always more reflective than it is instinctive. If it is at all instinctive.

[dragony]

The world creates you.

[enabeled]

Awfully passive perspective.

[dragony]

Is it?

I can't imagine that you created yourself from nothing.

[slightlyoffchilt]

On the contrary, plenty of harm can come to those curious enough to seek it out. Is that what you want to happen, Abel?

[enabeled]

Didn't say I did. But once you're created it's your reaction to the world that fills in all the details... well. I believe.

[enabeled]

Wouldn't say it's on the agenda, but these things do happen. What sort of harm?

[dragony]

So it's the world you think is passive, then?