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

This isn't a matter of black and white. It is about not being blinded to the truth all thanks to a single emotion. Anger in and of itself is not bad; anger as a motivator, however, is.

( Huh. When you put it that way, it's definitely a different spin on things. Or, hearing it in someone else's words, voice, whatever, it could make it fresh somehow. )

So it kind of blinkers you, is what your saying? Relying on any one thing too much?

( Hmm. ) It's kind of glaringly obvious, when you put it like that.

The most obvious facts sometimes only prove obvious when pointed out by another.

[A sad but true fact of life.]

But yes, precisely. Relying solely on one thing, whether it be an emotion, a weapon or whatever else, will only serve as a handicap in the long run.

Do you think this whole sentient weapon thing that the Initiative has happening'll come back to bite 'em, in the end? Or us? Having us train with one weapon that's meant to get better, or something?

It has the potential to. Those who only rely on this one weapon will be doomed to failure should that weapon become indisposed during a dire situation or should their weapon turn out to be more a curse than a blessing for us.