exsilium | three. (video.)

( At least this time Ellie isn't in some random, ramshackle building, but enjoying the warmth of the kitchen and a giant cup of coffee. At least she looks marginally better rested than she has on previous occasions. )

So, with that whole swap thing, I've been thinking. ( A pause, and there's a note of self mockery in her voice: ) Because I don't think enough when weird stuff isn't happening. Or less-weird stuff, at any rate. ( Has she really digressed already and wandered off with her thoughts? She shakes her head at herself. )

I was thinking about anger. Or any emotion, I guess, when they get that intense that you feel like all your insides are writhing about like snakes, but anger's the one that stuck out for me. We're all in this war, and some of us have been in wars before and some haven't, and everyone handles it in these different ways.

( She trails off; articulating this isn't going so smoothly as she'd expected, but sometimes you just have to throw things at the wall and see what sticks. Homer used to throw pasta at the wall, a lot, and a bloody lot of that stuck. The memory makes her smile a little. )

I mean, just before I got here, Kev-- uh, this guy in our group, he wasn't doing so well with everything. ( See, Fi, she at least tried not to name and shame. Belatedly. ) Everyone tried different things to get him going, and it was this weird insight-- I guess it just said a bit about the kind of people we are, depending what tactic we used. ( Fi: sympathy. Lee: abuse. Homer: encouragement. )
I was all logic and common sense. ( A beat, before she continues, speaking a little more slowly as she grapples with her pride and tries to think it out. ) Sometimes I don't think that really shows the full picture, but.

( She could say that it definitely doesn't, not when you got anger that just bubbles up and blows being reasonable right out of the water. She could, but does not. )

Anyway, I was talking to this guy here, before, about anger. How you can use it, and that, make it work for you, and I just... I didn't know if that really worked for anyone. If anger's a weapon, or if you got an on/off switch for it, or what? 'Cause there's this quote in uh, this Shakespeare play - “wrath makes him deaf,” I think the Queen in Henry VI. ( She squints, trying to remember. ) And then there's another bit, about not coming between “the dragon and his rage,” in King Lear. I think Lear was already going crazy, though, by then, though. ( Quietly: ) It's been a while since I studied them. Trying to read that stuff and figure out all the language is hard, without those special high school study editions.

( Where was she even going with this? )

So I guess I just wondered what you lot thought about it. Anger and controlling anger and using it and whether it screws you up, or what.

( A beat, and she smiles crookedly. ) Or we could talk about dragons. We don't have any back home, but some of you have to have dragons, right?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That is an awful lot of talk about anger. [Pause.] What has made you angry?

[Some hooded men are wise and well-spoken... others are just exceptionally blunt.]

( Ellie enjoys bluntness. Skirting around the issue can be fun, but sometimes it's a waste of time. )

War. Death. Losing people I care about. Killing people I didn't care about. Risking my life to make a difference. Getting put back in a warzone after escaping from a death sentence.

( She reels it off casually, though her gaze is fixed steadily on the device, even if she is only hearing from this person via voice. All her attention is on it, though her words are delivered so flippantly as to sound joking. ) And my ex could be a real pain in the backside, sometimes.

( Hmm. ) You know, this and that.

[He had been a little preoccupied when he'd first replied (for all the different machines here, he has yet to find one that will prepare his dinner for him), but her response draws his full attention.

War, death, loss, murder, strife...

And the enslavement by the Initiative, of course.

Her list is familiar enough to be unnerving. He stares down at his tablet, some small part of him doubting his decision to reply in the first place.]

All fine reasons... for someone to be angry.

[He sounds less aloof there, and though he regains his composure, he doesn't manage the recover the same unaffected tone he'd had in his first comment.]

What will you do about these matters?

( Somehow, Ellie had imagined that, by this point, she'd actually have an answer to a question like this. She should have known better: logic and feelings just trip her up at the best of times, when she tries to apply one to the other, but that never really kept her from trying. The others had always said she thought too much, but her defence had been that usually thinking got you to answers.

In this instance, she might have overestimated herself. There's something of a rueful note in her voice. )
I kind of was hoping that talking to people would help me work it out, but I think it just made everything more confused. ( Listing, idly, and she's counting them off on her fingers even if Connor can't see it: ) Let go of your anger, use your anger. If you can control it or if it'll just control you, and all that. I don't know if I can let go of it, just like that. Or if I even want to.

( There was something appealing about this whole network thing, being able to discuss things openly and yet retain some kind of distance from the person you were talking to. There was something less immediately concerning than doing so in person. It felt a little like recording their stories on paper, in a way. )

So then.. I guess that means using it, controlling it so that it doesn't just get out of control and torch everything.

( A beat, and then: ) Or, uh. Did you mean what I was going to do about all that stuff I mentioned before?

[He listens patiently, considering her answer... And eventually responding with a thoughtful noise - a thoughtful 'hm' - to acknowledge what's been said.

He has such a way with words.

When he goes on, he sounds faintly apologetic.]

I did mean that... 'stuff' you mentioned. What do you intend to do about those things that have made you angry? What action will you take?

[He expects that should be sufficient clarification. Except now he feels obligated to go on, to offer more of an explanation for not having made himself clear in the first place.]

I think that is what is important. Focusing on what can be done. [He sniffs softly.] I have heard some discussion of anger before, but it seems a waste of time to me, to worry so much about what you are feeling.

The plan back home was always just taking advantages of opportunities, doing things that would weaken the enemy - try to make it so the war could be won, even if we were just making little differences. Sometimes there were bigger things, stuff that'd really turn the tide of things.

( But that was when she was home, and now she was here, in Exsilium. Sure, Fi was here, but-- )

When I'm here, I dunno that there's a lot I can do to fix things back home. ( She sounds frustrated, irritation biting into her words. ) So I can do things to deal with the stupid stuff that's happened here, try to prevent horrible things from happening to the people I care about here, but I can't fix the stuff back home.

( Her silence stretches, tense, unhappy. ) Why does it seem like a waste of time?
( Are you just being a total boy, sir? Because she is used to you blokey blokes from back home. )

[He is not being a total boy, he is being a total man... boy.]

All I mean to say is that the time could be better spent.

[He sighs, a small admission of the frustration he mostly succeeds at keeping out of his voice... this once.]

Our hands are tied. By rope the Initiative has fashioned. There is little you can do here for the conflict you were drawn from... At least, there is little you can do directly. There is still training. Not to help with this war, but to better yourself, that you may be stronger and that much more able when you return. You can plan, as well. Come up with new ideas... and perhaps put them to paper, as some say we are sent back with no memory of this place. [He doesn't quite understand how it all works. Being brought here, being sent back, different worlds and different times, all because of some strange machine.]

You can be ready. And you can fight to see the madness here ended.

three. (video.)

voice;

voice;

voice;

permavoice

permavoice here too

we are the most awesome

idk seem to have misplaced my awesome here