View Single Post
Old 05-27-2021, 12:19 PM   #29 (permalink)
astrocat
Puffskein
 
astrocat's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2020
Location: New York City
Posts: 2,117

Hogwarts RPG Name:
Brandon Fox
Hufflepuff
Fourth Year

Hogwarts RPG Name:
Phoebe Calypso [s]Dupont[/s]
Slytherin
Second Year
Default
Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?

SPOILER!!: Atlas
Quote:
Originally Posted by sweetpinkpixie View Post
Atlas would never, not even fleetingly, compare her to Nemesis Upstead.

Smiling a little as Araneus crawled around, smiling because his familiar seemed to enjoy being out of the barns and somewhere where she could stretch all of her limbs...and also seemed to have taken a keen interest into a beetle that was scurrying nearby. At least her two most forefront legs were in defense position.

"How do you know they are lying?" asks politely while still keeping an eye on Araneus. He drew no conclusions from this himself, but it was curious how she was so certain of this. Therefore...he wanted to know what empirical evidence she had to back the claims. He thought he had empirical evidence about one thing...turned out he had been wrong. Being 12 was confusing. Good thing he was only 12 for another couple of months and then he could just reset at 13.

"...but you don't know those institutions either, you only assume to," he retorted rather prickly. How did he know she did not understand? Everything about her radiated it. It was like she was a sun fueled by ignorance and he had gotten too close and her words had burned him. "And in judging those ... you are judging the people that make them and work tirelessly to maintain them and try to improve things. You say these things failed you...well none of this was even about you. Or me. It was greater than all of us. Greater than these so-called failed institutions who were bested because the other side was methodical and studied their targets. They...they took dad...and replaced him with someone ...we didn't know dad was gone until...until..." He wasn't even sure until when...or when the switch had been made between the fake!dad and the Imperio'd!dad. That was a whole therapy session to be had. "...and tortured him...for ... along time...two years or more maybe ... trying to get information out of him ..."

He didn't care that she suddenly seemed hurt by whatever it was he had said, she deserved it with all her sweeping accusations and finger pointing. It was a very human reaction, he knew that, in trying to make sense of something that made no sense. But it didn't make her right. It just made her petty as far as this Gryffindor was concerned.

"How do I know you can't understand? Because it doesn't seem like you want to. Because the way you talk and act on these topics and with people you have never even met is all the empirical evidence I need."

Oh...look at that. Araneus had caught herself a snack. RIP the beetle.



"Because they aren't good at it. It's all 'hey Ash, how are you' until we have to partner up or I'm in danger. Then it's 'you're stupid and I can't believe you'd be so reckless even though you have no friends and your life is one big traumatic mess. I can't believe you'd be like this... etc.'" She rolled her eyes. What did they expect? "Everyone could be lying, but some people are super good at lying. So I just accept them as my friends and know I won't be able to tell the difference. But a lot of people aren't good at pretending. I guess I'd be one of those people." She heard how people talked to/about her. She watched how they looked at her. Most people did not smile at all when she entered a room. Instead they cheerfully turned away.

"No, I'm not judging the people who run the institutions and try to fix them. I'm sure the majority of people working there are great and fine and awesome etcetera. But the institutions still have flaws, don't they? And yeah, it's not about me or you. It's about the wizarding world as a whole, and I would say that our trauma reflects that. And I'm not going to say that it's anyone's fault the institution failed, but there have got to be cracks somewhere. Maybe in the chain of command. If a few people at the top are bad or mind-controlled, then they have way too much power. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's something else. I don't know."

"I'm sorry about your dad." Ash could guess that Atlas was all mad because he thought of his dad whenever she complained about the government. But she thought he should take her side on this- it didn't seem all that hard to kidnap, subtly get rid of, or corrupt good people at the ministry. And it seemed really super hard to get rid of bad people at the top. That was another problem. She thought this could be fixed if individuals had more power, but whatever. Maybe it was better to not mention that right now.

Ash was back to her usual, hiding all emotions until they explode, trying to embody Nem with her absolute calm that she was trying to maintain really hard.

"mhhhm. And how do you know that I have never had enough empirical evidence to know that something went really wrong in the government?" Because it seemed pretty clear. Ahem. The school got taken over for a year. Many important people got kidnapped. Bad people became in charge of the government. And the government as a whole kinda just stayed there. It was a resistance group that finally got people to come to Hogwarts. Ash didn't forget.

"And why do you think I think the worst case scenario has happened every time? Why do you think I'm, I don't know, like this?" Ash was curious. Did he think she was born a pessimist? Because she... hadn't been. She was born happy, and every year she just went downhill. "And do you really have enough empirical evidence to say that I don't want to understand?" To write her off as ignorant and hopeless. To know that she couldn't or wouldn't understand.

Ash was interested. It showed. Here was someone actually willing to admit how much he didn't like her and why... she could actually use this information. It was reasonable to bet that Atlas did not like her for the same reasons as a bunch of other people. Gemma, for example. Another good thing about this is that she now knew she wasn't wrong when she assumed everyone thought she was stupid. She KNEW she wasn't liked. Now she could stick her tongue out at all the people reassuring her that they loved her while secretly disliking her. She was onto them. So she was happy to let Atlas continue on his unnecessarily philosophical speech about how he was better than her, so long as he kept feeding her information like this.

"Do you think you're better than me?" Ash really wanted to know. This was so fascinating. So fascinating she forgot to ask that question coldly.
astrocat is offline