week 2, tuesday

[seaclipsed]

[ katara is seated in front of the bonfire, cooking... well, fish. fish is probably like 90% of everyone's diet at this point honestly.

anyway, this is a good opportunity for anyone to come by. it's almost midnight don't expect me to write anything more eloquent than this dammit. ]

Comments

[vipmix]

[fish and fruits and murder are all on the menu. What a coinkydink Josh is passing by this good opportunity wow it's almost like we planned this!!!! also this is after the momo thread for hilarity]

Hello again. I see you're not chasing your "friend" around anymore.

[seaclipsed]

Momo and I have set aside our differences and he's come back home.

[ what does that even mean. ]

[vipmix]

.....Your relationship with that lemur continues to baffle me. [he's just. gonna put that out there]

[seaclipsed]

It's really not that confusing. You just need to have a more open mind.

[ friendship transcends species, joshua. ]

[vipmix]

[he doesn't even have a human friend let him live]

My mind's plenty open. But let's leave that for now.

[seaclipsed]

... Right.

[ she squints at him for a moment, then sighs. ]

Sorry for getting you in trouble like that during the trial.

[vipmix]

... [huh.] You mean with Akira? I'm fairly certain I'd have been in "trouble" regardless of whether we'd have talked or not. I made my feelings on the trial pretty clear.

[seaclipsed]

You did. You're kind of a jerk.

[ she's blunt, when she wants to be. ]

But I should still apologize for the part I played in it.

[vipmix]

You apologized to Akira, didn't you? He was the "wronged party"... Or at least believed himself to be. [since the wronged party should be haru & yato but lmao] But sure, apology accepted.

[seaclipsed]

I agree that we shouldn't have gotten so off topic, but other people did too, and they didn't get singled out.

[ look. katara has never been bitter in her life. ]

But there's no point in dwelling in that anymore, I think. There are more important things to worry about.

[vipmix]

Hmmm. I don't think it was about you, specifically.

[he doesn't expand on that tho]

Like the actual "game", you mean? Now that it's started and they aren't just taking us for fools.

[seaclipsed]

Last week was supposedly the "tutorial" stage, or... whatever... all it really seemed to do was make everyone more mad. Which, you know, congratulations on accomplishing that since I was already pretty annoyed to begin with.

[ she can rant about this forever ]

[vipmix]

Take it from the perspective of someone who's been in a similar scenario: this game has been severely unprofessional so far.

[that's as angry as he gets. you run your own horrible game a few ye...deca... i don't know how long and you get picky!!]

[seaclipsed]

What do you mean by that?

[ if her question seems vague, it's because it's being applied to everything he just said. ]

[vipmix]

Hm? I would've thought Zuko would've mentioned it to you. You two seemed close.

[what is answering a question]

[seaclipsed]

[ he did, actually. ]

But unprofessional how? I mean, I think it's all stupid and ridiculous, but if there are any obvious holes in the way it operates...

[vipmix]

It's how it's not operating, mostly. For example, while the rule on voting against yourself is there, there's no such rule against voting on Hal or his co-chief as of now. Of course, they can always punish whoever does try it... But that's just going to prove to the people here that the game itself doesn't matter.

[seaclipsed]

That's true. No one voted for them during the trial because we all assumed that we'd get punished for it even though it wasn't against the rules, even though it turned out to be the right answer.

[ and hal said that he would prefer if people didn't try to vote for him? so. you know. ]

[vipmix]

Right. There's also the theme of the game-- partners and bonds and trust, but we're also meant to be hunting each other down, both in actual murders and in trials. What they want out of the game doesn't seem to match how it's going to be played.

[seaclipsed]

I can get trusting your partner, since if they die, you will too. Even though the Chiefs managed to make people doubt that at the trial...

[ people were easily persuaded into believing yato might be suicidal or something, just because it fit the narrative they were given. ]

[vipmix]

That was quite the narrative they cooked up for him, wasn't it?

[whether "they" means the chief or the people joshua doesn't say]

[seaclipsed]

They got him to admit that he would kill for someone he knew back home. But... I think a lot of people would admit to that, so singling him out for it...

[ she sighs. ]

Even without all of that people were going to vote for him anyway, just because he was Haru's partner.

[vipmix]

People will believe what they want to believe. You'll find that to be true no matter the trial. [he's dismissive with it, but continues anyway] Defaulting to voting for the person's partner if there's no "appropriate" conclusion won't help anyone in the long run. Until the results are announced, no one is ever going to be fully convinced. If you offer a safe substitute where people don't have to feel bad about their votes since the person was going to die regardless... Any kind of doubt and they'll go right to it.

[seaclipsed]

They should still feel bad! In one situation, they die because of the stupid way the system is set up. And in the other, you're actively choosing to kill them. Even if they're going to die anyway, the people who vote for it is still sending them to their deaths. Even if they don't have any other choice, they need to acknowledge it instead of patting themselves on the back for creating a lower body count.

[ having less people dead is good, sure, but that still doesn't take away from the fact that it's still murder. ]

[vipmix]

I'm glad you get it.

[whomp there it is]

This is the kind of environment we're in, Katara. The only way to make it is if you don't blind yourself to the things around you. People are already willing to settle for less than the truth to make themselves feel better, and it's just begun.