+ The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to You +

[vitaelamorte]

Who: EVERYONE!
Where: EVERYWHERE!
When: Saturday, May 19th - Wednesday, May 23rd.
Rating: PG-13, warn if you're gonna go higher!
Summary: A catch-all for the Kyln / Sierra Madre event!
The Story:

For the duration of this event, the entire mansion will be part space jail, part apocalyptic wasteland desert with an abandoned hotel/casino. On the third day an escape route not previously discovered in the Kyln appears and breakouts can be planned...

...Only for everyone to find themselves walking through a large glass prison toward the toxic gas filled wasteland of a desert, the Sierra Madre. Does the prison look better than the toxic cloud outside? If you're stuck in the prison after dark beyond day 3, you'll be forced into and locked in your cell for the night. But at least locked away, nothing from the outside can hurt you. If you try to brave the actual elements in the desert it might be a little hard to breathe. The air has pockets of toxic gas and even a few seconds of exposure could prove deadly. And watch out for the Ghost People.

Inside the abandoned hotel/casino you'll find shelter from the gas and ghosts, but beware the holograms that are 50/50 with their attitude. Prison beatings, a beating from the holograms, which one Would You Rather? And whatever you do, don't try on the collars lying around unless you like to explode. Literally.

[ This is a catch-all for all your prison/desert needs! Please mark your threads clearly in the subject line with your character's name and either a cell number or just a location if you didn't feel like randomizing it or you're making a top level for a public place (like the dining hall or wandering the hotel/casino). Here's the plot post if you need it!

Have fun! ]

Comments

[slapfight]

[Peridot and Lapis can only see each other when their cells are opened, and that's miserable, as Peridot doesn't even like any of her cellmates and she knows Lapis probably feels the same about hers without asking.

That being said, for two gems space jail is remarkably boring when they keep their heads down (especially due to the guards wielding destabilizers), and for the most part, Peridot finds herself flopped on her back on a table while Lapis practices looking unobtrusive.]

Lapis, do you see those? [She points to the hovering robots. She knows what they do, because she saw someone get blasted when they tried to climb the watchtower.] I want one.

[ssmisery]

What? [Lapis's head, which has been slowly sinking downward literally while she keeps her head down and generally sits around feeling bad, rises. While these two are used to spending their time togeher both in and out of events, it's a little beyond even their powers to make a situation like this feel normal, and she remains rattled. Hearing things like that is just concerning.] Peridot, please say you're not actually thinking of messing with them.

[slapfight]

I don't have my metal powers. [She rolls over on her side and balls herself up into an even smaller form.] Blasters are the next best thing if something, you know... happens. I need something.

[ssmisery]

And if you don't have your metal powers, how are you going to stop them from blasting you first?

[This is basically why the awkwardness couldn't take too much root: yelling at each other is an actual need. Lapis isn't really in the mood to have a wacky argument right now, but her position is the correct one, so the question is only whether Peridot will freaking listen to her today.]

[slapfight]

[Peridot raises a finger in order to protest this, as one does, but she... can't find the flaw in that plan. Maybe if she were less dedicated to her agreement that the two of them NEVER EVER get poofed that she'd shrug it off, proclaim loudly that a Peridot cannot be easily poofed and come up with something risky and clever that has a good 85% chance of total catastrophe.

But... She is dedicated. And those odds seem too risky.

She lowers her fingers and screws up her face in a sulk.]

Fine, but we still need weapons.

[ssmisery]

[Lapis can't wholly disagree with that either; the Agreement is indeed of utmost importance, being defenseless sucks, and therefore any way to reduce their personal risk is a good thing. She does, however, largely disagree with it.]

Not if we're not fighting anyone! You know we can't stand up to the guards here. We can't give them any more reason to come after us.

[slapfight]

But what if they come after us anyway? A person in my cell got attacked because the guard thought he was looking at him funny.

[and with a bit of panic:] I look at people funny! It's the only way I know how to look at people. They're perplexing!

[ssmisery]

I know you do!

[That's barely even a real answer and not helpful at all; there's a hysterical edge rising into place. This is so much harder to come to grips with when they're going to be separated again, so that Lapis's panic can't properly take control of everything because she won't be there to panic when it counts. And when she's made some progress to begin with at staying aware that Peridot is a person with depth and agency who exists independently and has a separate state of well-being. And when they're so used to taking these things as a team. Lapis is scared enough about finding herself alone at the mercy of asshole guards with shock batons, having to worry about Peridot separately without her is just super unfair.]

But we can't fight them, don't you understand? Trying to resist is only going to make things worse.

[slapfight]

[This is the strange place that she and Lapis haven't yet navigated yet, because it simply hasn't come up in any way that matters. Lapis fears- understandably- rebellion on some level. Calling attention to yourself in any way is dangerous. It's better to wait it out.

It's a tactic that works surprisingly well in Wonderland- everything will end eventually, so there's no need to fight it if you don't have to.

On the other hand, Peridot is highly proactive and loud and sometimes sitting back and waiting does not sit well with her sense of histrionics. Sometimes, especially when cornered like this, because there is nowhere safe, she wants to pitch a fit.

So here they sit at an impasse, because Lapis is right, but Peridot also thinks she's right, and it's a bad time to fight about it. And she's also very tired of fighting.]

It's just... Really uncomfortable that we don't have anywhere safe to go in this event.

[There. That's a...fairly innocuous statement to try and state her case.]

[ssmisery]

[Again, that is also a point that Lapis really really can't disagree with. The fact that they both actually do have legitimate points, in this case, probably doesn't help much with sorting it out. That's life; sometimes everything sucks and it simply can't be boiled down to a right answer versus a wrong one.

It sure is odd ground for the pair of them to tread, though. The last time Lapis was talking like this, Peridot was on the other side of the cell door.

Well, anyway. Lapis wishes she had any reassurance to give Peridot, and again, that's clearly unfair when she should be consumed entirely with wishing anything could reassure her own dang self. In a slightly different universe, a slightly different version of herself might reach out to her physically since words aren't up to the task, but even if they've gotten a little touchier in Wonderland, this Lapis is too rattled to ever think of it. She hugs her own knees instead; she is sitting on this chair completely wrong.]

I know. [She agrees miserably.] We just have to make it a few days. It'll end.

[slapfight]

[Peridot is laying on the table still, so they're both terrible at furniture. Her gaze continues to trace the mechanical patterns of the ceiling as the drones circle and prisoners and guards walk along the catwalks and balconies to other parts of the prison. There's no pattern to any of it. It's all just chaos, like most things. No one is rioting or fighting, but no one is really repeating any behaviors over and over. Even the guards seem to do their patrols randomly.

This annoys her almost as much as the lack of freedom.]

This place is so disorganized. [They can keep talking about something that they can't do anything about or Peridot can find something else to talk about.] The illusion of freedom doesn't actually do anything. Don't get me wrong- I'm glad to not be stuck in a cell, but it's such an inelegant system. Honestly, what are they thinking?

[ssmisery]

That we're trapped with or without a cell.

[Although honestly, Lapis doesn't know what the point of this system is either. Whoever runs this place obviously isn't concerned about treating the prisoners humanely, and it would surely be easier on their end to just leave everyone locked up. Maybe it makes more sense for organics.]

[slapfight]

Hnnngh. [Logic, Lapis has it, but it's still unnecessarily arrogant that the guards assume that this is going to go their way.] I'm not suggesting it, but a well-organized rebellion would turn this place inside out in seconds.

[She realizes what she just said and it catches her off-guard. When she first suggested it, it was just a way to escape and motivated by pure self-preservation, but here she is offering rebellion as a tactical solution absent-mindedly. She trails off, uncertain.]

...Huh.

[ssmisery]

[god DAMN it why are you like this]

No.

[slapfight]

[THE CRYSTAL GEMS ARE CORRUPTING INFLUENCES. THEY PLANT THE SEEDS OF REBELLION IN YOUR MIND AND IT BLOOMS INTO A MINT GARDEN.]

Not from us! Just from... Other people. Who are willing to risk their lives for things like that. Heh.

[ssmisery]

The guards still have weapons and we don't. Do you really think everyone would get through it okay?

[It's more than risking lives. With a wide-scale conflict and so many people involved, some of them would have to come out the losers. Actually, even the ones who weren't involved would be put in danger, which they would neither deserve nor be prepared for. There had better not be too many other prisoners having this conversation.]

[slapfight]

[That gives Peridot a lot of pause, because she's accustomed to thinking mainly of herself and Lapis and then some other people she cares about, and the rest are some nebulous blob of people she doesn't care as much about, and whatever they do doesn't bother her all that much. It's not much different than her view of Earth as a whole- she wants her people to be safe, and most of the other people living on the Earth don't matter as much but they're part of the whole she wants to protect. Individual lives don't always register to her, and consequences are for other people.

But of course they do matter to Lapis in some sort of way. Peridot may be a creature of logic, but she's a big picture person- Lapis is smaller scale, more cause and effect.]

Probably not... [She sighs.] I don't really know anything about it.

[It's a stupid thing to admit, but it's something she and Lapis can never see eye to eye on- Lapis has seen a rebellion and the horrors of both sides. Peridot has only seen a wrong side and a right side, and none of the horrors that come from the conflict. She doesn't Get It.]

[ssmisery]

[To be fair, it's not like Lapis really cares about the faceless masses either. She just has personal experience with being someone else's collateral damage.]

For all we know, there might not even be anything outside the prison.

[Wonderland could also supply infinite guards, actually. Who the hell knows.]

[slapfight]

[Peridot twists her face into an annoyed expression just imagining some seemingly foolproof plan being thwarted by endless guards. It's enough to take her mind off of how little she understands about collateral damage and war.] I'm just saying that events would be so much more bearable if there was a way to win.

[ssmisery]

There's no winning with Wonderland.

[All events ever lead to is another wait for the next one, in the end. That and sometimes character development.]

But there's always a way to survive. [Lapis raises her head to look across the table at Peridot again, a little more focused at least.] That's why you can't do anything reckless.

[slapfight]

[She drags her hands over her visor and rolls over on her side to face Lapis.]

I know. [And she does. It just frustrates her- she's competitive and determined and always seeking some kind of victory. To have one constantly out of her grasp will always lay her low.] We'll just... wait it out like we usually do.