Pandaemonium
Posts 381
Power Level 31
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Post by Aurora Disicio on Feb 7, 2017 3:07:14 GMT -7
The sound of the door being forced opened made Aurora look over her shoulder again. Her expression changed from one of exasperation to one of contempt, and she balled her hands into fists. She turned to face him completely, staring down her nose at him with a scowl.
"I swear you have better not just damaged my door and wall because of this stupid bullshit."
She turned back around, once again letting her coat billow dramatically behind her, and continued her ascent. Her footfalls were heavier than before, to the point that the sound of her shoes clanging and echoing in the stairwell was giving her a bit of a headache. Aurora didn't stop while she formulated her response. Whether he thought she was ignoring him or not didn't matter to her. Why she was even giving him the time of day anymore she didn't quite understand.
"Because it's important and time sensitive. Am I supposed to just take it slow while people are getting shot? While less and less food is being shipped here because apparently we deserve to starve? While people have no where to go because of who they are? I've accomplished more in the past month than most people could hope to do in six, and it's only because I've been giving it everything I have. People deserve better, and I don't want to sit and watch this continue anymore."
She didn't understand why he had so much trouble with that. She didn't understand why so many people could just watch bad things happen. In the end, she was glad she didn't understand, she didn't want to understand. She didn't want to understand why he thought it was a good idea to spend what Blue Jay thought was going to be his last year alive doing absolutely nothing. Just thinking about it gave her indigestion.
"You are so clueless, I wouldn't even believe you had powers if I hadn't seen them for myself. You asked me why I was 'afraid' to fail before. 'Afraid' is incorrect, but I can explain why it would be bad if I did. I think it'd be easiest to understand with an anecdote than an explanation. Growing up, I constantly heard my parents talk about how supers were a menace to society and all the usual things, but they took it one step further. They thought every single one of them should just be killed, and took steps to make that happen. Donations of money and time, political activism, you name it. And then I got powers. I constantly thought about what they would do if they found out. I constantly wondered if they would just smother me in my sleep or something.
"But it was worse than that because I discovered my powers in public. The circumstances meant they didn't know if it was me or one of five other people, but sometimes I wonder what would have happened if they found out. I didn't have any proof that the government had some kind of super soldier program until recently, but it always seemed likely to me. Why wouldn't they? What happened to all the kids that actually turned themselves in as though their whole existence was illegal? When I heard of Rein for the first time, it seemed likely that I would have been forced into that if the circumstances were different even though I want nothing to do with any of it.
"And I'm under the impression that my story is a lot more common than yours. That is why we need our own place and why I can't fail to make it."
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Pandaemonium
Posts 343
Power Level 30
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Post by Blue Jay on Feb 7, 2017 14:52:55 GMT -7
Contrary to Aurora, Blue Jay’s steps gradually quieted as he stopped putting weight into them and his brow. He was under the same impression as her, but it was always… sad? Disheartening? To hear about her past. He really didn’t want to play the game of ‘who's had a harder time as a super’ but he was in full agreeance that what she went through was messed up and no one should have to go through the same.
“I’m sorry that happened to you.” he muttered sullenly.
He’d only heard rumours of Rein, but he didn’t like any of it. Ever since their leader called for the deaths of all the unpowereds in the last dragon fight, he’d had a bad taste in his mouth for the faction and a word or two for any Rein member who brought it up. He hated that the military for child soldiers of a faction might feel like the only option for a thirteen-year-old.
Three steps down, he let out a long breath. Content aside, it was a serious relief to get an actual answer from Aurora rather than a dismissive assurance or refusal to bother with him. It was more proof that she was still at least a little her usual self than any number of certain promises she could’ve given him. It was, he was coming to realize, what he’d been looking for, and with it delivered, much of his built up tension was released. When he picked up again, his tone was considerably lighter.
“You're right, something does have to be done. But you don’t have to do all of it and I don’t want to sit and watch you waste away like this. Like I said, I’m not sure if I got lucky last time and my powers kicked in before I died or something. Next time might actually kill me, so I’m trying to do things so I don’t, you know, feel the same regret again? I just know that if I’m due to leave and I know you’re on the short track to follow, I’m going to be feeling a hell of a lot of regret. I can’t leave the people I care about hurting. In your case, hurting yourself.
“Maybe I can’t get you to see it today, but I’ll keep trying.” He said determinedly to the wall ahead. Glancing at Aurora, his tone changed to be almost cheerful. “Also I think your methods for solving these problems are stupid and inefficient. I don’t agree with your logic, but going by it, if things are time sensitive, you need to be as efficient as possible, right? You need to get more people helping you because no matter how hard you work, mathematically you plus two other people can get more done working half a day than you can working a full one by yourself. Your excuse of ‘oh people just aren’t helping me’ is dumb considering how many other hurdles you don’t give a damn about. Figure something out. I’m still seriously not seeing why you’re not hiring people to help. The black market’s a thing, isn’t it? You also spoil your faction members too much. Make them work a little, you know? What’re they going to do if something does happen to you and they have no idea how to take care of themselves?”
He paused for the sum total of one stair. “Not getting enough sleep is going to reduce your productivity and cause all kinds of health problems. Latter down the road, yeah, but you’ve been doing this for what, three months? More? This is later down the road. And please don’t do what you did yesterday again. I’m still feeling the bruises from it, and that’s saying something.” He grunted, rubbing the back of his neck and shoulder. “I’m worried about rumors because of all the running around with a sun on my back I had to do, and you left a hole in someone’s roof so don’t get on me about opening a door a little hard, and who knows what would’ve happened if the wrong person had come upon you instead of me. You can’t possibly be dense enough to not see that you were stupid to let that happen.”
Blue Jay stopped again, actually coming to a momentary complete halt on his stair. Continuing both in step and thought, “And how do you know that what you’re doing is what supers want? Like, I can get the ‘place to rest and food to eat’ bit, but how are you sure that supers want - or are going to be okay with - the super-only society you’re working towards?”
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Pandaemonium
Posts 381
Power Level 31
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Post by Aurora Disicio on Feb 7, 2017 20:08:34 GMT -7
Aurora only rolled her eyes and kept climbing. She wasn't looking for sympathy, she only wanted him to understand why this was important. The fact that he had to ask was embarrassing considering how many things he had to deal with on his own. He kept talking. Of course he did. It never mattered what she said, or what she did, it would never be good enough. People always wanted more. It was even more frustrating because everything he was complaining about was something he could do something about, yet he was acting like all he could do was harass her until she did something about it. It was all so stupid. Her eyebrow started twitching, and her shoulders grew stiffer. She'd had enough of this.
"I don't want to do it alone! God, if you're going to fucking interrogate me all the time the least you could do is listen to what I say. Hell, you could at least pay attention to what I do if listening's not good enough for you! Do you have any idea how hard I've been trying to unite the faction and mobilize everyone? It's been my top priority since the day I took over, but progress is slow and I have to deal with so much infighting that rarely an hour goes by where I don't get into a fight. You act like I can just wave a magic wand and make everything work. It doesn't work like that!
"And just hire people? Do you really think I fixed all the wiring in this place myself? Are you stupid? I get people to do what I can, but that doesn't always work out either. I've been looking for someone to clean up the base, but, unsurprisingly, it's really hard to find people that want to clean up after a bunch of super villains. I'm not going to make people do things to stay here. Everyone deserves a place to stay, clean water, and food to eat, and some of the people here are fucking kids that can't stay with their parents anymore. I'm not going take something everyone should have away from them and I'm not going to treat them like slave labor.
"If you want something to happen then go do it! Go find these people that can do whatever you think should be done. Go find someone to mop the floors and do the dishes. Go find someone to water the plants, take care of the trees, and keep the roads in good shape. Go find someone that can build boats or make the most of the land we have. Go take a better stock of the powers we have available to us. Even if you put a tenth the effort I do you could get a lot done. You want to lift some of the burden off my shoulders? Then go. Fucking. Do it. Talk is useless, stop spewing this bullshit at me and do something already. Because until I have people that can cover for me, I have to do it all myself. Because no one else will." Aurora paused for a moment to take a deep breath. "I still believe that once people get settled in and feel safe again that a drive to build something, to be part of something greater than themselves, will kick in. It's a natural human desire. But until then, I'm all I have."
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Pandaemonium
Posts 343
Power Level 30
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Post by Blue Jay on Feb 7, 2017 21:34:36 GMT -7
Blue Jay picked up his pace until he was to her left and about a stair behind. His demeanor had become and remained pleasant even as she began yelling. ‘Comforting’ was a far throw from the right word, but this Aurora made him feel considerably less uneasy than the one he’d observed up until this point. Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to do his part and say his point, however.
“See, if it’s not working, you’re doing it wrong. And if you happen to be thinking it, don’t say ‘these people are just hard to get motivated to work’, because that’s blaming the people and if you blame them nothing’s going to get better. I think you need to change your tactic for getting people to work.” He didn’t agree with her sentiment of people’s natural desire to work for the reason that he was a solid counterargument to it, but she probably wouldn’t believe him and it wasn’t important, so he kept it to himself. Musingly, he continued, “There’s a difference between slave labor and asking people to do a batch of dishes once a day to pay for rent. You’re offering a service, so it’s not a bad thing to ask for a little bit of payment. Hell, that’s how it works at the boarding house I stay at, and everyone’s fine with it. We also have a ‘no fighting on the boarding house grounds’ rule. You might find something like that useful. But, I mean, there’s lots of ways you could go about it, and it seems your current idea of waiting for people’s ‘natural desire’ to kick in isn’t working. Yet, at least.” He allowed. “Why don’t you try something out? Just for a week or something, and if it doesn’t work either scrap it and try something else or tweak it until it does. You’re working small-scale enough that you can do that.
“And, you’ll seriously let me try to find people to do those roles?” He said with a mix of excitement and disbelief, like she was offering to write him a blank check. “I’ve been holding off because you don’t seem to want any help except at the basic grunt work level, but if you’re cool with it, I’ll totally try my best.” He bounced his head back and forth contemplatively. “Though there might be a bit of a drop in how clean the bathrooms are, and the number of clean dishes, and probably the main rooms too while I figure stuff out. Since I’ve also got to balance my time between my super activities and starting up this charity.”
He paused, going over the list. “So do chores, look after the plants, take care of the roads, build boats, get some urban agriculture going - that’s what you mean by ‘better use of the land’, right? Is there anything else?”
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Pandaemonium
Posts 381
Power Level 31
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Post by Aurora Disicio on Feb 9, 2017 10:33:19 GMT -7
"Everyone deserves to live, and there are some things necessary for everyone to live. Everyone should have access to food, water, and shelter regardless of whether or not they work. Forcing them to work for it is coercive. I'm trying to make the world better, not maintain the status quo," she scoffed. "I do pay people if they choose to work, it's just difficult to find people that want to take care of the jobs that aren't very glamorous or exciting. The world isn't as straight forward as you seem to think it is."
Aurora didn't understand why he was so surprised he could actually do something. Just because so many people were useless didn't mean he had to be, that much should be obvious. It was especially frustrating because he made no real attempt to work with her. He never asked if any of his ideas would be useful, or if she minded if he did something he thought was useful. Instead, he just kept wanting to talk and talk and talking was not useful or something she wanted to do. She couldn't figure out why that was. It made no sense. If there was something bothering her she'd do something about it quickly. If it was a person, she'd work to find a solution rather than just talk at them. It seemed simple, yet so few people actually did anything. It was frustrating.
"I listen to what people say, and try to implement what I can. I just don't do the things that are obviously stupid or go against my own ethics or what I want for Pandaemonium. I encourage people to do small things on their own, or if they have a big idea to come find me. I'm not hard to find. I just don't want people making unilateral decisions that affect the entire faction on their own. Telling people to come find me is fine as long as you don't promise them anything. That said, if you want to do something about this issue, take the time to actually understand it so you don't have to talk out of you're ass like you're doing now."
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Pandaemonium
Posts 343
Power Level 30
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Post by Blue Jay on Feb 9, 2017 16:17:56 GMT -7
Blue Jay had to suppress a laugh from no fewer than three points in Aurora’s rebuttal. He’d always disagreed with a number of her ideas, but he’d seen her for a long while as someone who thought about what she said and so had some logic to back her claims. It was only recently that he’d begun to catch the multitude of contradictions, and this conversation in particular was bringing several of them home.
Raising an eyebrow teasingly, he took a jab at the first thing that’d stood out to him. “Well, currently your plan isn’t working. No one would blame you if you used a different system to get things set up, and then switch over to your ideal system once you know it’s going to work. Like you said, talk is cheap. Stop sitting around, waiting for your system to start working and find something that does. You have a problem, so fix it.”
He turned back to his thoughts, hoping to find a solution to offer. It was good and all to point out an issue, but neglecting to even attempt to offer a way to solve it was just lazy. Try as he might, though, the last thing she’d said was stuck in the forefront of his mind. Normally he ignored her insults, but this one was just a little too hypocritical.
“You blame me of talking out of my ass.” This time he couldn’t stop the chuckle. “But at least I can prove everything I’ve said with certainty in this conversation. What proof do you have that everyone wants to live forever? Or that everyone wants to be a part of something greater than themselves once they’re comfortable? Those probably sound nice in your head, but these are people we’re talking about, not physics. You can’t math out people’s responses in your head and be certain it’s going to translate into the real world. People are way more complicated and diverse than that, and in order to get that information, you’ve got to, you know, talk to people.
“You don’t have to go very far, either. As it just so happens, I’m a counterargument to both of those claims. Take fear of dying - I, for one, am perfectly fine with my mortality and am perfectly accepting of the fact that one day I will die. In fact, I’d prefer not to live forever. Just thinking about having to live on this planet for an indefinite amount of time freaks me out. I don’t really want it to happen soon, but I definitely want it to happen some day.
“Then there’s the drive to build something to be a part of something bigger than themselves. I was seventeen when I got the sword, and before that I was really quite comfortable. I lived a normal, middle-class life with a family that had problems but I loved deeply all the same. I wasn’t worried about my future, let alone basic necessities like food, shelter, and safety. Yet I didn’t want to be part of something greater than myself. I just wanted to be me, and if I didn’t leave a larger mark on the planet than a few decades of office work and rent bills, I was fine with that.
“I know that, the night before I thought I would die, I hated that I hadn’t done anything, but I don’t know if that’s because I hadn’t accomplished anything or because I was fucking eighteen and looking at my upcoming death. That whole night’s just a huge, chaotic mess in my head. Right now I am building towards my goals, but it’s not so much because I want to be part of something bigger than me. It’s kinda like… I want to use my legos to build my own nice little castle rather than adding onto a huge one elsewhere. I don’t care if what I’m doing feeds into something larger than me, I’m doing it for myself because it’s something I care about.
“If everyone wanted to build something and be part of something bigger than themselves, how do you explain people who live out in the really rural parts of the country and are perfectly happy in their cabin with their gun? Or how about the people in their twenties, living perfectly comfortable lives but who lack the motivation to go out and get a job? Then, if every single person really truly wanted to live forever, don’t you think we’d be pouring large sums of money into discovering ways to do that instead of, say, the space program? Or the military? Sure, you can stretch people’s motivations into wanting to live forever or blame old people’s lack of panic on their brains. You can call the people whose motivations don’t match your claim unhappy, even if they disagree, or say they’ll care later down the line, though that wouldn’t help your point because it means it’s not a natural drive. You could say I’m doing what I’m doing in order to build into something larger than myself and I’m just not consciously aware of it, even if I would disagree. But that’s really oversimplifying things, isn’t it?” He mused cheerfully. “It’s stretching the data to fit a single, preconceived motivation. The world isn’t that straightforward.”
An idea struck him, and he perked up much like he had indeed been struck. “Oh, why don’t you do something like a rewards system? Like, you know how a lot of free programs have premium memberships? The free version’s still totally available for anyone who wants or needs it, but if you, say, put in five hours of work every week, you get access to premium services, like maybe a room with less roommates, access to things you’re beta testing - I dunno, things you’d be willing to put off as luxuries. You could weight the less popular chores like cleaning toilets or the ones you need more done of so they count as more.” She had just said to think things through before trying to employ them, but this was brainstorming, not implementing, so he figured he’d just go ahead and speak whatever came to mind. He was talking to her about it, so that was one check mark there. “Or, Pandaemonium is mostly made up of people our age and younger, right? You could make it something like a game with a point system, where different chores are worth various amounts of points, and every week you get enough, you get access to Pandaland Premium.”
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Pandaemonium
Posts 381
Power Level 31
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Post by Aurora Disicio on Feb 10, 2017 8:35:45 GMT -7
"I'm not going to compromise my beliefs because it'd be more effective. Doing that may have let the ancients build beautiful monuments at a huge cost. Even now, we have people that exploit people because it increases productivity and profits. Hell, if you wanted to go by pure effectiveness, I should just absorb every building in this city and put them back once everyone leaves. The city would probably be 90% or so in tact and I could just finish all this with in the span of a couple of days if people were stubborn. But I'm not going to take a single step in that direction. I'm not compromising human decency for effectiveness."
Aurora wasn't going to deny that she needed to do something to engage people better. As long as they didn't feel completely safe, and as long as they were getting used to their new found freedom, they were unlikely to want to work for the sake of it. The promise of money and glory wasn't enough right now, and it was difficult to convince people that it was because they were supers. They could easily take what they wanted, so money had less meaning, and cleaning toilets wasn't exactly glamorous. It was difficult to find other ways to motivate people, and at this point it was just easier to do everything herself. She had a massive backlog of things to do that would take a great deal of time and energy. Investing time and energy into other things, even if they would be helpful, was difficult. It was a vicious cycle that was difficult to break out of.
That was the only point she agreed with him on. The rest was just inane nonsense as usual. Somehow, she doubted he'd be okay with dying at age 40 even though that was the life expectancy a few hundred years ago. If the life expectancy in the society he grew up in was 200, then the idea of dying at 100 would be distressing. That was the entire point. People have to adapt to their mortality or they'd live in constant fear of it. This is why so much effort went into keeping people alive, curing diseases, and overall increasing longevity and health. Just because humans are curious and wanted to explore other ideas too didn't mean that medicine wasn't one of the most important things humanity developed. Just because people wanted other conveniences and entertainment didn't mean that people didn't put a great deal of effort into keeping people alive longer. Once medicine reached the point where people wouldn't die by natural causes anymore the prospect of dying, or even seeing someone else die, would be terrifying. The idea that people are just okay with dying was absurd. It was just a psychological trick so everyone wouldn't go mad.
His second argument was even dumber, though she could concede that her word choice was poor. The guy living alone on his land is probably going to build up that land. An unemployed 20 something is probably going to have a hobby, some skill to build, or be part of a community. It's unlikely that anyone is just going to spend their day staring at the wall. Doing so is a sign of severe depression, and she didn't see how anyone could argue otherwise. People naturally don't want to live isolated lives detached from any type of progress, or completely separated from other people. People didn't even need extensive study into human psychology to know these things. It was obvious to anyone that cared to pay attention.
But neither of these things had anything to do with his point. Given how stupid they were, she was content to ignore them entirely for his actual point.
"Room 1, Ataraxia. Seems to have some kind of emotion manipulation power. Favorite food: apples. Quiet, skittish, rarely leaves her room. The only time I'd ever see her was when she was grabbing food. Given that until recently, it looked like she hadn't showered or washed her clothes in months, I wouldn't be surprised that, until recently, that really was the only time she left her room. She picked that 6-7 AM block where the people with reasonable sleep schedules were often still asleep, and the people that stayed up all night were just going to bed. It meant I'd often see her when getting breakfast. She didn't talk much until recently, and is still trying to figure out what to do. She just wanted to get away from her parents by the sounds of it. She's working on a bunch of poetry right now. Most of it's not very good, but she's improving gradually. More than anything, she seems to want a safe place to be. Now that she's at least kind of found it, she's coming out of her shell a bit.
"Room 2, Deep Sea. Has some lights going down his arms, legs, and back that he seems very proud of. His power seems to revolve around some kind of manipulation of pressure or weight. Favorite food: rock candy. He's very eager to prove himself, but he's also very young and tends to get upset when told that what really needs to be done is to get the floors mopped and the dishes cleaned. It's easy to convince him to do things, as long as that thing is flashy and lets him show off his skills. Despite his appearances, he doesn't appear to have a lot of self-confidence and thus needs people to compliment him. Constantly. Seeks out respect and admiration from others to try to make him feel better about himself. Tends to get in trouble a lot as a result. I had to break one of his fingers once because he took some extra chocolate from the fridge for a friend. He seemed more apologetic than upset about it."
Aurora rattled off six more names and what immediately came to mind about them. She could probably talk more about each one, and list off more names, but this seemed to prove her point well enough.
"I know everyone by name - or at least the ones I know about, there's still a hold over from the way Pandaemonium used to be where people decide they're part of it without telling anyone - and I make a point to know what everyone is doing. How much do you know about them? I can't engage with everyone as much as I want, there's too many of them and I have too much to do, but claiming I don't know anything about the people I'm leading is insulting.
She rolled her eyes at his attempts to brainstorm. "This is why it sounds like you're more annoyed that I'm not doing what you want how you want rather than being genuinely upset that I'm overworked. This is also why I said to make sure you understand the situation and to come back to me with a proposal rather than talking out of your ass. Do you really think I have the time and energy to spout off ideas until something happens to stick?"
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Pandaemonium
Posts 343
Power Level 30
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Post by Blue Jay on Feb 11, 2017 1:03:34 GMT -7
“That’s an awful example.” Blue Jay couldn’t help but laugh. “I think you’re assuming that when the unpowereds leave, the supers won’t too. Figure someone’s gotta tell you, so I’ll go ahead; if this mass exodus of unpowereds you’re expecting or planning for happens, most supers are going to leave with them. A lot of us don’t want to live in a small, self-sufficient super colony because that lot of us either like or need the rest society. You’re also probably going to be left with as many stubbornly immobile unpowereds as you are stubborn supers, and even more unpowereds who lack the financial means to get up and leave the city. A lot of people are going to be stuck here even if they want to go. But tangents aside.”
There was a skip in his step and his hands had migrated behind his back. “I never claimed you didn’t know anything about your people, just that you don’t know everything about everyone. Because of course you don’t; the only way that’d be remotely possible is if you had some really strong power specialized for it. It’s pretty clear you don’t know a couple things about me, for instance.” He said cheerfully. “My goal, put really simply, is that everyone, super or not, is happy and taken care of. Obviously that’s a really broad goal and I know I don’t have any chance of accomplishing it by myself or in any kind of timeframe, but I’m taking what steps I can towards it. Right now, a number of supers - you in particular - are looking after other supers, so I’m covering the unpowereds. I’m also keeping an eye on my friends to make sure they’re okay. Since I happen to consider you my friend, I’m doing what I can to make sure you’re okay.”
His other two points had been dropped, probably in favour of this point of hers. It was something he couldn’t quite make heads or tails of. Maybe she lacked a counterargument, or maybe she just didn’t want to give one, and he’d be perfectly willing to accept either explanation. It didn’t really matter, he guessed. The details of them weren’t important at this point. But he couldn’t say he wasn’t surprised about how much she knew about her faction members. Her descriptions had elicited a raised eyebrow - just about anyone else he would assume to be kidding, but Aurora didn’t kid. He could trust that information as much as he could tax returns. The inclusion of favourite foods, though, was an interesting choice. Odd thing for her to find out, and it made him wonder, what was her favourite food? If it was those corn flakes he’d feel gypped.
He brought himself back from another tangent. “Yeah, I guess you could see everything I’ve said as trying to pressure you into doing things the way I want. But since I’m assuming you don’t want any false information on my intentions, let me give you what it actually is. If you notice, everything I’ve suggested and said related to your work or how much you’ve been doing it has been in an effort to reduce how much you’re doing. Honestly I could care less how you run this faction, as long as it doesn’t directly interfere with my goals. If I wanted that kind of power, I would’ve tried to take over the Bulwarks. Docket’s been gone for months, and until Carl showed up, there wasn’t really anyone else who wanted to lead. I doubt it would’ve been too hard. No, see, if I want something done a certain way, I’m going to go do it myself, not drop it on you. Even if I was willing to consider pushing it off onto you, I think it’d be faster just to do it myself.
“I mean, you want me to put hours of time and effort into formulating a well thought out and fully implementable plan before I present it to you, just so you can shoot it down due to something or other that doesn’t fit with your ethics that could’ve been dealt with in the planning stages, forcing me to start from square one? My time’s valuable too.” Blue Jay chuckled. “Nothing wrong with talking aloud.”
He went back to musing as, come a moment later, another idea struck him. “You know, I think I’m going to figure out who the big names in Pandaemonium are and try to make friends with them. Friendship’s a pretty powerful motivator. You can ask for favours, but then if your friends are doing something and you want to hang out with them, you may as well do the thing too, right? Peer pressure, but turned to the side of good. Since you know more about the people here than I do, do you have any recommendations?”
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Pandaemonium
Posts 381
Power Level 31
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Post by Aurora Disicio on Feb 13, 2017 18:16:21 GMT -7
"It's the inevitable consequence of compromising your morals and basic human decency for effectiveness. I'm not going to do it. I'm not assuming anything either. Anyone that doesn't want to be here can leave. I'm not going to stop them. Anyone that can stay can stay as long as they're not being assholes to supers. There doesn't seem to be a genetic link between being a super and being unpowered, and I have no interest in splitting families apart. This is my solution. It's what I'll be working towards and will be trying to direct Pandaemonium to work on. If other people want their own solution they can put their own efforts towards it. I've made my position quite clear. There's no excuse to not know at this point.
"I don't blame people for being afraid. This is the one life they've known and the one way they've known. Changing it so drastically is scary. But everything can be better and I want to show them that. They don't have to accept their life as it is, but no amount of words will convince a lot of them of that. They need to see it. Success is likely to bring more success as people realize this can actually happen and that it isn't some crazy dream. That's one of the reasons I want to make the transition as smooth as possible.
"It doesn't mean I shouldn't find something else for the time being, but the idea that everyone will just sit around and be useless once they've gotten comfortable and feel safe is an insult to everyone here. I believe in them." She paused, considering what she just said. "Maybe not all of them, but enough."
Aurora's expression flattened again as she turned to go up another flight of stairs. She was quickly reminded of the less pleasant parts of talking to Blue Jay. The first was ragequit, which fortunately wasn't an issue here. The second was dropping obvious implications about something and then saying that he didn't say that.
"You didn't say it, but you heavily implied it. Unless you really did want to suddenly change the subject to immortality and growth and weren't just using it as an example. No, I don't know everything about everyone. I try to know as much as possible, and I make a point of knowing a lot about everyone. It bothers me when I don't. It's bothered me that I didn't know what you were trying to do because you've been flailing ineffectually for so long that it's impossible to tell, and I hadn't gotten around to asking. I also know that I'm not making everyone happy and that not everyone agrees with me. I don't care. I can't please everyone, it's impossible so I don't try. You can keep your 'advice' to yourself. It's not useful."
Aurora rolled her eyes. "If the thought of having to do a little work is that terrible for you, then it's obviously not that important to you. Considering you were blowing things completely out of proportion, I'm not the least bit surprised it's not. I'm glad even you realize how stupid your current worries are. If you want to talk you'll have to catch me at one of my free moments. When I'm eating is the most consistent, but you'll be competing for my attention with a lot of people. I won't be prioritizing you either because you are no more important than everyone else, just so that's clear. If you have something finished and ready, I'll make more time."
His last question got him a raise of an eyebrow as she looked over her shoulder to see if he was serious or not. He didn't appear to be joking. Aurora turned back around, sighed, and rubbed her forehead.
"They're the ones that draw large crowds and are still trying to move and shake things. They're about as well hidden as I am. If you have to ask me, you're seriously not paying attention."
Despite that, she'd give out a few names if he really needed it, she'd just be judging him for it.
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Pandaemonium
Posts 343
Power Level 30
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Post by Blue Jay on Feb 25, 2017 23:15:23 GMT -7
“Ah, yeah, I guess so.” Blue Jay chuckled, embarrassedly rubbing the back of his head. “I was wondering if there were like any secret ring leaders, but those don’t exactly exist in Pandaemonium.”
A couple of names came immediately to mind, and with them plans for later this week. Among them was a particular fellow who seemed to have amassed a decent following, if the dozen plus who hovered around him like penguins with a pension for the occasional bank robbery. Granted, he seemed to be less the leader than the person who started the thing the group had decided to do, as it was quiet suggestion turned into a rowdy cheer that had instigated how he and Blue Jay had met. And why it’d taken hitting the guy in the face with his hilt to get him to leave him alone. Blue Jay had been meaning to apologize and ask how his nose was. Not a poor excuse to finally get around to that.
He also still thought her solution had some serious flaws that were in desperate need of being addressed. Admitting that she didn’t believe in everyone to act that way (he was going to assume she was saying she was applying not believe in everyone to this specific attribute of people, as the more general ‘not believing in people’ interpretation scared him considerably more) was a pretty significant pillar of her plan to be a little shaky on. But, for now, he was willing to let it go for what he classified as a significant accomplishment; Aurora had admitted that maybe she should consider a different tactic, if only for the time being. That alone would’ve put him in a good mood. Even being in one already, he perked up considerably.
As showed in his voice as he addressed one of the things he wasn’t going to let pass. “Not knowing two things about people heavily implies not knowing anything about them?” And she said he was blowing things out of proportion. “If you want to think like that, you’re arguing that you don’t, in fact, know anything about anyone. Considering you just confirmed you don’t know everything about everyone. Man, you’re adding to a point against you I’m not even making.” He chuckled. “If I wanted to argue that you didn’t know anything about your people, I would’ve, I don’t know, tried to poke at your specific knowledge about specific people, and then those details you just gave would’ve blasted a hefty chunk out of my claim. Yeah, it does seem like you know a lot about everyone here and go out of your way to learn more. But I’m not talking specifically about Pandaemonium. What I’m saying is you don’t know absolutely everything about how people - in general, like society and stuff - work, and that trying to figure it out in your head without backing it up with evidence from talking with individuals is going to lead you to false conclusions. If you want to rely heavily on these statements of how people work, you’ve gotta prove them. I recommend trying to find someone who proves you wrong. If you can’t do that, then you know you’ve got a pretty solid theory.”
And he would not be keeping his advice to himself. Freedom of speech was a thing, and he’d try to convince her, sure, but no one said she had to agree with him. In fact, if every voice someone heard was one that agreed with them, something was really, really wrong.
In continuing his job, “It’s not a ‘little bit of work’ to come up with a complete, reasonable, and not-prone-to-self-destruct plan. Come on, you’ve been setting all these projects up, researching them, finding people to do them, trying to foolproof the damn things; you know how hard it is. Sorry, but I’m not willing to do days of work only to have them amount to nothing because of, like I said, something that could’ve been fixed in the planning stages. My time is important too.” He repeated. “You’re trying to help people want to help you, right? Most people, if you told them what you just told me, would either going to give up because they’ll think it’s more trouble than it’s worth or initiate their own plans without any permission from you because it’s way easier. Yeah, you’ll still get the really determined ones, but there aren’t a lot of people like that. You’re going to be missing out on a lot of help at best and losing control of what people are doing with the faction at worst. But if you want to do things like that, great. I just don’t know how well it’s going to work, and until you can get more people helping you, you’re going to continue to be overworked and forced to spend time on things like cleaning toilets when you could be working towards larger goals. Which means I’ll keep bothering you about not getting enough sleep and stuff.”
His cheer didn’t mean there weren’t a couple of pins poking at the back of his mind. It still bothered him that she continued to think that every person had a choice in the matter of if they stayed or went should she build a society they didn’t like, and worried him that she might be trying to force her order onto a lot of people who lacked that choice. It felt like he was missing an important piece of the puzzle here.
Might as well start looking for it. For a moment, that good mood dropped and he drew in a long breath. “Aurora, sorry for asking a question about your civilian life, but how much money did you have growing up? Or, I mean, what class or classes were you raised in?”
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Pandaemonium
Posts 381
Power Level 31
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Post by Aurora Disicio on Mar 23, 2017 9:17:16 GMT -7
Aurora could only rub her forehead and shake her head. The idea that there could be secret ring leaders in Pandaemonium seemed absurd to her. They weren't particularly organized, so there was no reason to hide in the first place, but more than that, there was absolutely no subtlety with the faction itself. She doubted anyone would be able to get popular if they were subtle just because people would be distracted by the nearest shiny thing if someone tried. This was one of those lines of thought that was best to drop, if only because of the second hand embarrassment she was feeling.
"Then you should stop being coy about your points and say what you want to say instead of asking unrelated questions," Aurora rolled her eyes. "Your point is stupid anyway because people in groups are ridiculously predictable. Denying that is completely denying the work done in fields like psychology and sociology, and to a lesser extent, neuroscience. It may not be possible to know everything with the current amount of research done, but it's certainly possible to know enough. I've done extensive research into those subjects, and I act on the knowledge I've gained from them. It sounds like you're relying on your intuition and anecdotal experience, which is not very reliable.
"And I already said it. If you're not willing to put in the effort it obviously isn't that important to you. I don't hold it against you, because it's a reasonable reaction. You're blowing this way out of proportion, and it seems that, at least subconsciously, you know you are. That's why it's not that important, and therefore not worth the effort."
Aurora turned her head just enough to glance at Blue Jay out of the corner of her eye. "What the hell does that have to do anything? I don't ask you anything about your personal life, don't ask me anything about mine."
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