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[rathercommon]

[ On the screen is a magnificent tiger with golden eyes, regarding the camera with quite a bit of what looks to be amusement, if you're prone to anthropomorphizing animals. After a moment, that tiger speaks - and speaks with a very human voice, a light and girlish voice with a South London accent. And who else speaks like that? This is, of course, one Kitty Jones, living up to her name. ]

Hullo, all. Happy - slightly belated - Earth Day. I hadn't known about that holiday last year, so I didn't do a thing for it, but it's really a lovely thing, isn't it? So, a day, late, I'm doing a little charity drive, and I need all of you to participate. Proceeds going to the protection of the leaf-scaled sea snake, because no one ever bloody donates money to help species that aren't cute.

[ The leaf-scaled sea snake is also quite venomous. Y'know. Whatever. ]

So what this consists of is this. I want you to volunteer here, in this post, to answer questions from fans on rumblr. Give me a list of topics you're not willing to talk about, as well as how many questions you're willing to answer. Then your rumblr fans - or enemies, I suppose, maybe some of them will want to trap you in a lie or something - will bid on the opportunity to ask you questions. Whichever fan puts in the highest bid gets the right to ask the first question, then the second-highest bid gets second question, all down until you don't want to answer any more stupid questions. And then all the proceeds go to the sea snakes.

So who's in? Talk about yourself, help the environment. What's not to like?

[ That's all said very, very cheerfully. Then, in a flippant post-script, she adds: ]

Oh, yeah, I'm not dead, by the way.

[ Which is so nice! so kind! such a good way to announce that! a month and a half after she already came back from the dead! nice. ]


[ ooc: this post is just like what it says! You can comment here to have your character get asked dumb questions by rumblr fans. Please tell me the questions you want asked in notes in your comments!! Or I will be making up terrible questions. Fair warning.

edited to add: also if your character would bid to ask other characters shitty questions, feel free to threadjump their thread ]

Comments

[vorbarra]

Ah.

[ A short pause. ]

That's a particularly Barrayaran madness, yes. I've no defense for that. The idea is supposed to be that they rip out bits and give it back to you, so you're whole in the end. Silly, isn't it?

[rathercommon]

Sweet, I'd say, rather. Really sweet. But also, it depends on a lot of crossing your fingers and hoping that things will work out, doesn't it?

[vorbarra]

More like an immense amount of trust, and faith, I'd say.

[rathercommon]

[ A quick transformation to cat. Too much time in snake form; she's itchy. ]

Is there a difference?

[vorbarra]

They're not the same at all. It's not a matter of hope, but surety.

[rathercommon]

[ A little hum. ]

And what's the difference between those two things? I'm sure is just I hope with a bit more self-confidence.

[vorbarra]

... I often have found myself without hope or optimism for the future, but imagining myself again doubting Miles's loyalty to me, for example, to be completely unfathomable.

[rathercommon]

Well. But loyalty is a little different from he's going to rip the exact same hunks out of himself that I ripped out of myself and when he smooshes them into me they're going to fit just right.

[vorbarra]

[ A beat. ]

I don't see the difference, no.

[rathercommon]

Well, it's the difference between faith in personality and faith in abilities. Take Miles. He is brilliant and lovely, to be sure, and unfailing in his loyalty to you. But I'm sure he's faltered in the past, and there'll be a time he'll falter in the future. It depends on him being perfect, and people aren't perfect. - Which is a big part of what makes us so interesting and charming, really.

But ultimately, that transfer, my-bits-for-your-bits, involves the spilling of blood. The weakening of both donors. What's easier is keeping bits where they started, not hacking into people and dripping their blood on the ground and risking the rejection of a pancreas or whatever's getting traded here.

[vorbarra]

God, your version of this metaphor is violent, [ he says dryly, with good humor. But then he shakes his head. ] It's not about expecting perfection. It's that I imagine the pieces we give each other are our strongest parts... what we can't do for ourselves.

I doubted my ability to be Emperor up until just a few months before coming here. I thought of myself as nothing more than a stand-in, a mouthpiece, that my authority was a sham. But Miles... doesn't just believe that I'm Emperor, he believes I'm a good one.

Feeling that from him is something I'd never have been able to give myself without years of work.

[rathercommon]

That's a little different from what you were talking about before, though. That's just being kind. That's different from making sacrifices.

[vorbarra]

I suppose I can't help but see Miles's loyalty to Barrayar as sacrifice enough. His life would be immeasurably easier if he gave up on us entirely. I seem to recall you urging me to do that when we first met, and he has ten times the reasons I do.

[rathercommon]

Oh, that's rubbish. He couldn't ever leave.

[vorbarra]

There's no reason he couldn't, practically speaking, with the Dendarii. But you're right that I can't imagine it. Whether Miles considers it a serious option or not doesn't remove the fact that it's a sacrifice.

[rathercommon]

To have a home and be with his family. No, it's not even that - to give a few kind words to you. That's what you're framing as a sacrifice. I think you're making what he does a little more grandiose than it is.

[vorbarra]

[ There's a pause as he considers this, and he can't find fault with it, exactly, it's just...

Quietly, ] This probably says more about how I see staying on Barrayar than it does about Miles. [ That staying there is something Gregor sees as a sacrifice in and of itself. ]

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty, of course, figured out this particular revelation several minutes back, and so her tone is very matter-of-fact (mixed with a touch of wryness). ]

It probably does, yeah.

[vorbarra]

[ Gregor's inordinately grateful that she doesn't take this opportunity to try to convince him to give up on Barrayar again. She hasn't really tried that since he'd come clean to her, but he's leery of it showing up again, because it would hurt him to have to argue it. It would match too closely his own arguments with himself, only recently won.

He rubs at his face. ] Sometimes I don't know how you put up with me.

[rathercommon]

[ Cheerfully: ]

You're good in bed.

[vorbarra]

You mean I'm accommodating in bed.

[rathercommon]

No, I mean you're good in bed.

[vorbarra]

[ Now he's flustered. He has to stop himself from pointing out how little experience he has apart from her, because that's just going to invite more of this. ]

Ah. Well. I had to learn something to keep you interested.

[ Joke. He can joke. ]

[rathercommon]

[ A little laugh: ]

Oh, was that your goal?

[vorbarra]

I know how much you dislike dictators. I had to have something.