acatalepsy_rpg | ᴏᴏ2 ( ᴠɪᴅᴇᴏ) | ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀᴅ ǫᴜᴇᴇɴ

So.

[ it is a public message, to the network, that pops up on the circle's watches and roy looks Less Than Pleased (tm) with the sudden state of affairs. the weather in the temple is absolutely out of control, there are apparently weird cakes appearing in the kitchens, and the fighting ring has turned into a magical court. great.

so, that may be the reason why roy's tone is particularly clipped, or even frustrated. but he seems methodical, in his words, and he is sitting at a table with a notebook, a glass of water, and a weird looking lizard on the table that has an odd rainbow-shift to the scales.

( ignore the lizard. it seems roy is. ) ]

The Circle is currently compromised of people of a variety of talents; soldiers, magicians, teenagers . . . all of us have particular skills to contribute to the cause of whatever it is we're meant to do here. I know quite a few people [ like maes, and barabas ] have been keeping track of various magical powers that we have been gifted, and organized some semblance of structure -- all of which is necessary. But we have to acknowledge what happened to Akvos.

[ he pauses, there. ]

Astoria has not been entirely clear with the Circle on what our purpose is. That may be an innocent error, or a purposeful move to win our trust. I'm not here to argue the merits of whether or not we should trust her, but we have no choice but to participate in whatever world she sends us to. Whether we like it or not, we are stuck there until she brings us back, and we have some opportunity to assist whoever is there. We cannot depend on her to figure out what to do in order to prevent another Akvos, or -- it seems, another El Minha, given King Kathashun is no longer in his own world.

[ roy taps the pen against the table once. ]

I don't have any solution as to what we did right, or wrong, or whether or not it was our fault in the first place. But I want to begin the conversation to work to prevent it again, and seeing as Astoria is either not willing or not capable of explaining herself at the moment, we need to learn to work without her. What are we missing? What do we need to work on? And what can we do in order to be more organized before our next world?

[ and, finally, roy feeds the lizard one (1) piece of lettuce, which it lazily seems to chew on. ]

I'm of a mind we need to organize fighters, healers, and transporters, but I'm open to ideas and suggestions -- and questions, about previous worlds to those who were not there to experience them. I have been to El Minha, Struxta, and Akvos. And I'm certain "older" members of the Circle will be happy to share their experiences, too.

( filtered to maes + riza )

[ almost immediately, his expression turns from serious and leaderlike to tired. ]

Who wants to keep notes?

[ PLEASE DON'T MAKE HIM DO IT :( ]

( end filter )

( ooc: please feel free to threadjack in this post! especially if you want to use this to foster CR and/or build "teams" that roy is looking to enlist. c: )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What did you hate about it, other than the obvious?

[ a bit . . . curious. home is home, after all. ]

I shall save you some time: The only good part of it was the animal population. While not all in the wilds are monsters, there are things that exist within those boughs that would make one's skin crawl.

[Sorry Mustang, she's not in the mood to share when she isn't being actively compelled to by the Dreamscape.]

Edited (keyboard ate some words) 2019-02-26 05:22 (UTC)

I grew up in the largest city in Amestris; the wildest monsters in my neck of the woods tend to be men.

[ which is only half true, but the homunculi are gone-ish. no one has to know the truth. ]

And dogs, we do have a lot of dogs . . . but monsters, we lack. For the most part.

Man can be the most wild of all. Capable of the greatest of travesties against their own and so many others.

[There's a glint in her eyes as she says it, but smothers it before even the most observant can catch it.]

Though I believe Akvos proved that the same can be said of anyone with sentience and free will.

[They've even seen it in their own, and she won't say she isn't one of them. She'll fully admit to being a monster. But monsters weren't always the causes, either. Sometimes the bystander turned into a scapegoat, other times the pawns or creation of another.]

[ a soft 'hmm' in return. ]

Akvos had too many people who wanted the same thing, and refused to believe any other way was better than their own.

I'm not entirely sure monsters are to blame, for that. A creation of their circumstances, maybe. But I don't know if any of the people involved were inherently bad, or good. We'll likely never know.

Are they not? [She raises an eyebrow. Did he not get it?]

Consider this: The mermaid's queen saw the mermen as something to be reviled and captured their king. Said king then used dark magic to summon monsters and and rip a tear in reality. He did it to save his people, true, but that sort of justification rarely holds up to most who are then attacked or stolen from.

[Does she need to spell it out for you, Roy? For if one looked at it from the perspective of one side, what does it make the other seem like?]

That we got them to agree to a ceasefire is astounding, though t'was likely not to last our departure even if the void didn't claim it.

[ roy doesn't bother confirming, or denying, that he agrees or disagrees with what morrigan says. he also doesn't seem too concerned by morrigan's perception of him; if she finds him stupid, or naïve, that's fine by him. she certainly wouldn't be the first person to underestimate him, and she certainly wouldn't be the last.

he does listen, though. and after a long moment of mulling it over . . . ]

I don't believe any of us who actively worked on obtaining the ceasefire thought it would last longer than our stay in Akvos. Most of us seemed to be fairly realistic about our chances of long-term success.

[ roy and merlin, and shiro, talked at length about it. it didn't seem to be much of a surprise to those steeped in the investigation, but roy also focused his efforts on minimizing loss of life, rather than a long-term solution. in war, you need to triage as much as you need to work with the big picture. pretending otherwise is naïve, but he keeps that thought to himself. ]

But I still don't believe that people who make mistakes, or who are pushed to the point of desperation, are monsters. I don't believe the Queen or King were inherently wrong in what they did, and it's easy to sit here from our own positions and lecture people that we know nothing about concerning their right, or wrong. We know nothing about their culture, their history, or their people aside from what we were granted insight into, and there are always three sides to every story. I don't think it's our place to judge whether the people in Akvos were right, or wrong. I don't think it's ever our place to judge that, but those are the circumstances handed to us.

[ and, finally, he shrugs. ]

But if you're really interested in whether those people were good, or bad, we seem to have a collection of them in the lake, now. I'm sure they have a wealth of insight about the bigger picture, and maybe they can assuage our guilt far more than the rest of us can.

ᴏᴏ2 ( ᴠɪᴅᴇᴏ) | ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀᴅ ǫᴜᴇᴇɴ

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