felinguistic | (no subject)

A realist, or a pessimist then? You can't be both.

There usually a crossover between the two though, don’t you think? Someone might call you a pessimist but you’d probably say you’re a realist. Or something along those lines.

[ Been places. Seen some shit. That kind of guy. ]

[Fair enough, especially when he can't refute it.]

The idea of pessimistic tendencies comes from people who don't want to see the world for what it really is. So sure, there's a crossover but that doesn't mean it's real all the time.

Oh I think a number of things out there are just as bad as people think. So maybe the pessimists among us are the smart ones.

If anything, they're at least the people among us who might get something done whenever optimism fails.

[...not that optimism fails all the time. It's a hard balance.] Where do you think most of the people here fall? Optimistic, or pessimistic?

There are few who just exude wide eyed optimism. Either through nature or just because they're idiots.

But I'd put a quite of few of us as "realists". [ He doesn't say pessimists. But you can almost hear the quotation marks. And can definitely see the grin. ]

It'll make things more interesting when we find out the real reason we're here. [A bunch of realists in one place who'll approach things pragmatically and perhaps ruthlessly? Bad.] You've still been studying everyone then. Who have you studied the most?

And you haven't?

[ He leans in, a little conspiratorially. ]

I'd say the ones who think they're all swords could be dangerous. If only because they probably wouldn't see what was wrong with acting dangerously if someone told them to.

[He doesn't move, but he shrugs just slightly.]

Part of my job, just like yours. [But...ah.] I don't know if being a humanized weapon changes the morality of them, but it is questionable if they'll understand things. They're still learning, so...it's all in who teaches them how to be human. Isn't it?

If their nature is so different to us, then it would be the nurture. Better make sure they're interacting with the right sorts of people, then.

... You believe them when they say they're actually swords?

...for now, yes. But keeping in contact with them should be enough to prove themselves. [So he believes them for now because he's too tired to deal with the cacophony of "this can't be real!!" considering how his life is.]

[ he still thinks they're all high. ]

Alright. Believing them until proven otherwise is one way of doing it.

You have another way you're working with? [How different are profilers from actual detectives, he wonders?] There's a reason you follow up with questions.

Oh, my working theory is they're memory addled or taking something. More logical than them literally being human swords. But if they prove me wrong I'd be interested to see how it all works.

[...wait wait wait.]

You think they've been on a bad drug trip for days? Wouldn't it have worked its way out of their system by now if they aren't still consuming it? [Shiraishi might normally have a point but he's stuck on "where are they getting these drugs".]

We're all still feeling nauseous, aren't we?

True. But then that means, what, the rest of us are maybe hallucinating other stuff?

Potentially. But it could be other effects.

Not everyone gets the same side effects of medication, and if they're feeding us something to keep us... I'm not sure, docile? Controllable? It's possible that nausea is a common side effect, and hallucinations are a rarer one.

[He's right. That's the worst part, Shiraishi could be absolutely right about that.]

Dick and I were thinking there's something transferring in the air we aren't seeing. If it's calibrated to a certain potency in each of our rooms, it would change us wouldn't it?

Higher doses, stronger side effects.

[ It's a good thought. ]

We also don't know what's in the food. We can't refuse to eat, especially if we're here for the long run, but they're serving us a buffet. Everyone's eating different things, in different quantities.

Pinning it down would be difficult. Especially with nothing to test the food for drugs.

If you wanted to test the ingredients that's a start, but we don't exactly have a forensics team on-hand. There's only so much we can check on our own.

Like I said, pinning it down would be difficult.

If we could find a way to save samples of the food -- stuff that wouldn't go off so easily we might something to test it with later. If we can get other rooms open, or access to other floors. Bit of a stretch though.

All of the rooms have fridges. That'll buy us some time if that's a step we want to take.