two. video. (hèn oîda hóti oudèn oîda)

[lostkings]

[ Peter's decided to show his face on film again, despite everything that's gone on the past week or so. Mostly he looks tired, eyes blood shot, moderately banged up. And then there's the fact that he looks immensely annoyed. ]

So-- question for everyone. Everyone who isn't busy trying to get better in the medbay. [ a brief moment of silence for those folks. ]

Humor me.

[ he folds his arms, gets down to business. ]

How many of you guys deal with this sort of thing on a daily basis back home? And by this sort of thing, I mean the monsters and the... whatever else they might have been. And if i'm calling them the wrong thing, go ahead and fill me in, i'd rather be an informed idiot than just an asshole.

Because me, personally? [ aaand his arms go uncrossed. which is to say, prepare for some intense gesticulation. use your imagination. ] I'm sort of caught somewhere in-between. Doesn't matter how many weird things happen, I still happen to think they're pretty damn weird. I'm just gonna have to go ahead and put some of the things i've seen into a category of absolute absurdity, but that? It sort of ranked up there with the worst of it.

And maybe what I want to know is, for the people who had to get used to this - y'know, those of you who weren't born into vampires and dinosaurs and bears, oh my - what the hell do you do to cope? Not to protect yourself, i'm not looking to take a class on self defense and deep breathing, but how do you relearn how to sleep at night? No pun intended. I sure as hell wasn't prepared to find monsters deciding the engineering department held answers to the universe. But I wasn't prepared for a chimera either, and I got past that one.

Do you all just get used to it? Or do we get better at pretending it doesn't actually matter?

Comments

video;

[sugarbear]

No. Anyone who gets used to that sort of crazy shit has got something seriously wrong with them.

[ Grumpy Casey is grumpy. ]

video;

[lostkings]

So you don't get used to it, and then what? Only option left is lose it every time something worse happens. Or, you could just get called the non-believer by everyone else.

Y'know, 'have a little faith.' [ said as if he's heard it a million times before. ]

video;

[sugarbear]

I don't know about losing my shit. You don't have to believe in something to shoot it in the head, and if it keeps coming, shoot it some more. Tends to work on most things.

[ Except when it doesn't. ]

video;

[lostkings]

It works on most things until you find the thing it doesn't work on. And then you've got a gun and a thing with really big teeth.

video;

[sugarbear]

There's a really simple fix for that too.




Get a bigger gun.

text.

[wolfchild]

pick the one thats easiest for you

text.

[lostkings]

Taking the route of least resistance, huh.

text.

[wolfchild]

if it works
stupid to waste time crying about things you cannot change
youre still alive so get on with it

[ today's words of hope and wisdom brought to you by an 11-year-old ]

text.

[lostkings]

[ kids are totally valid forms of wisdom. ]

Thing is, sometimes that doesn't work for everyone. Enough of that, and someone's bound to lose it.

( voice. )

[carbonite]

They monsters and stuff, no. I've flown from one end of the galaxy to the other, and I've never seen anything like this before.

[that said:] The hostility's still the same, though.

( voice. )

[lostkings]

I'd have to agree with that one. Everything i've seen has got a bug up its ass to destroy as much as mankind or... the planet as possible.

[ though maybe they're just pissed off they were created in the first place. ]

But this place is seriously unique amongst the rest of your travels? [ that's disconcerting. ]

( voice. )

[carbonite]

When you get to a point where a space station can blow up a planet, you tend to see things a little differently.

[he's a little immune to some stuff, being a smuggler. but the death star? that was something else.]

Yeah, I know. Imagine how I feel.

( voice. )

[lostkings]

[ .... welp. ] And here I was thinking that being used to space would make this whole thing a little less painful.

Or maybe that just means it's supposed to be that much worse for the rest of us. [ SIGH. ] You've really see an entire planet blow up?

video;

[gothchicklit]

[ October looks exhausted (doesn't everyone at this point, though?) and has a little dried blood that she missed right beneath her nose. Misery loves company, eh, Peter? ]

Anybody who gets used to this shit that didn't deal with it before is a fucking liar. [ Oh, did I mention she curses like a sailor sometimes? ]

video;

[lostkings]

[ Peter always loves miserable company. Especially miserable company that doesn't mind swearing like a fucking sailor. ]

See, I kind of wanted to know how good of a liar some people might be- if they tried to deny it, I mean. Or if we're all just knee-deep in denial around here.

video;

[gothchicklit]

I'm pretty sure we've got about four times the depth of the river. [ Har, har. ] And I don't know about you, but I'm seriously over it.

video;

[lostkings]

I was over it before I even showed up. [ peter is just going to go with the grumper thing. ] And i'm the original skeptic. Not even in denial, I know it's all shit, i'm just apparently not willing to stretch my imagination far enough to want to be a part of it.

video;

[coffeeking]

Guilty as charged. You get used to it for the most part, but you'll always be concerned about the fact that this is the new normal for you, that it doesn't bother you so much anymore. But I figure, as long as it still bothers you a bit, you're still sane.

video;

[lostkings]

You ever stop and wonder if it'll ever actually go back to the old normal? And if it does, can you even call it normal at that point? Especially if you still know it's... all still out there?

video;

[coffeeking]

I think going back to the "old" normal would be impossible. To go back, I'd have to undo my experiences, to unlearn things... Otherwise, how could I sit at home being "normal," knowing what's out there? Honestly, I think those options are more terrifying than the new normal.

video;

[lostkings]

Depends on the definition of your so called 'new normal.' If it was always there to begin with, or maybe it's just people playing around with science that don't know when to stop. [ he shrugs like it's no big deal. ]

If they stopped, might just all go back. You'd still have the memories of it, sure, but it wouldn't have to be something to get used to.

voice

[humanistic]

Everyone gets used to it. It's that or madness--but trust me, you're going t' be surprised, how quickly it all becomes normal.

Can't promise anything on the sleep.

voice

[lostkings]

Except i've been hearing that for the past two years and I still can't seem to think any of it's all that normal. And yeah, I know, waiting for it to go back to... whatever it was, isn't gonna happen.

voice

[humanistic]

Two years. And you're only asking for advice on coping now?

voice

[lostkings]

I'm not asking for advice. I'm gathering information- opening up the floor for discussion.