IC Inbox

[vrdantwind]

"Hey, this is Claude! Pretty sure I'm doing this correctly. You can leave me a message here, and I'll get to it as soon as I can. Talk to you soon~."

Comments

Get in line, Jolyne

[vrdantwind]

[Claude, flicking on his screen, waves casually at her.]

Hey, listen, I believe you. I've heard similar things about otherworlders being shanghaied into Team Rocket on arrival from other sources myself. So I don't consider you knowing that suspicious.

Also, I respect not selling out other people's secrets...or getting people in trouble for being part of a criminal organization they had no choice not to be forced into. I'm not going to pry.

[He looks downright amused at her question.]

Yes, we've got jails where we come from.

fl;skdfe not like that

[strings_theory]

[She's immediately flipping him off, because that's just her default state of being at this point.]

Yeah, I've... heard some things 'bout it that I can't say I'm too fond of. But they make the best of it, which I can't really blame 'em for. It's a whole lot of horseshit and the natives seem incompetent at best, y'know?

Snitches got their shit kicked in, so never was fond of it.

[LOOK, SHE DOESN'T KNOW.]

I DON'T KNOW HOW YOUR SHIT WORKS, OKAY. But basically before I ended up here I was kind of, uh, in prison. For basically murder. That I didn't do. Because I was a stupid bitch and trusted the rich prick I was dating to not be a piece of shit and make me take the fall for what he did. That's... said and done at this point and can't hold much of a grudge. But rich fucks don't sit right with me for reasons other than that, but that's probably the large one of 'em. It was kind of cathartic to know we kinda fucked his tongue up for it later... ANYWAY...

Look I couldn't resist

[vrdantwind]

[Claude, for what it's worth, largely lets this roll off his back. He's dealt with way worse hostility, and honestly he's not even sure if she's pissed at him right now. He's getting a faint whiff of something Felixesque off of her right now - like she's gearing up to talk about something she'd rather not, and it's putting her in a foul mood. He's seen it enough in his boyfriend that he wonders if he's seeing that again here.

Or maybe he's just annoyed her. (And, of course, it could always be both.) He doesn't know her well enough to judge too accurately yet.

He listens intently, and the amusement fades into something more somber.] I'm sorry. Being so deeply betrayed by someone so close to you...that's awful.

[It certainly puts his own messy breakup in perspective.]

But you weren't stupid. You seem plenty smart to me. But I've learned even the smartest and most careful people can get played by someone who's good enough at...well, seeming like they're worth trusting.

It seems like it's a little more than that, though. I mean, like I said, Dimitri and I were flashing lots of money around at the auction. You too, for that matter. And, well, Riegfried and Soy...I can understand not wanting to let someone rich so close to you again, especially if you make a connection between rich and ruthless. But there's levels of trust, right? And accepting a general invitation is a much lower level of trust being asked than, say, dating. So...I guess the question is, are you willing to tell me what more there might be?

I'm not trying to argue you out of how you feel, for the record. I mean, no one has to like them, and it's not really my concern whether you like them or not, so I've got better things to do than try to change your mind. I just...like being able to logically follow why people think or do the things they think and do, and I'm not following your logic yet. So I'm curious.

You're gonna kill me

[strings_theory]

[Right, deep breaths. Calm. Demon stirs a bit in her lap, pink and white ribbons gently wrapping around her wrists. It helps, he knows it as well as she does. Her getting as riled up about these things as she tends to.

How does she even explain this shit? It's... a whole mess in the best of times.]

There's a difference between making your own fortune and being born into it. And it seems those two were. Which is far closer than how used I am to those types than I'd care to admit. [Even if her own family was technically loaded, but she never really saw any of that money. For. Reasons. That she's not really mad about anymore.]

I just. I don't know. There's gotta be some kind of ulterior motive there, people don't do "nice" shit or "selfless" shit without some kind of other motive behind it. Even goddamned fucking religion, those who are supposed to be "close to god" or whatever can be just as fucked up as everyone else. [There's clearly something to go to there, but she doesn't seem too keen to bring it up on her own.]

[vrdantwind]

Well, I can't actually speak for how they made their fortunes one way or the other. I don't really know enough about them.

That said...I do take your point. Even the one about religion, which I know some people would think is contentious, but I know there are religious figures who've gotten up to some sketchy things even in my own world. [And Claude had been constantly prying and digging, trying to find out what they'd hidden, what the deal was...he'd never really gotten the chance to crack the mystery wide open before the war broke out, though. And then, well...even if the archbishop hadn't vanished, other things had taken priority.] And some healthy suspicion usually isn't a bad thing.

That said...I do know some genuinely good people who do good for good's own sake. They do exist. So I can't agree with you that there's always some sinister ulterior motive, when that hasn't been my experience. So even for a born skeptic, I think you've got to temper suspicion with reason, or you risk slipping right into paranoia. Suspicion can protect you from being blindsided, but all the false alarms paranoia will give you can actually make it just as hard to see the truth as any amount of naiveté.

[strings_theory]

[For the longest moment she remains quiet, one hand quietly petting Demon while she contemplates her words. How does she even explain all this? There's an amount of "too much" information that she's not sure would even make sense without context. Or if it'd make any sense here. But the other part of her wants to at least say something.

But at the same time she's pretty much being called as paranoid and that just doesn't sit right with her, either. Obnoxious.]

Humans are shitty, you know. Paranoid ain't the word for it, but being guarded from getting blindsided or being used. Because if you don't trust people outside of who you know, then they can't take advantage of you.

[Fuck it, might as well.]

Fuck religion, seriously. Maybe I'm biased when a supposed fucking priest basically destroyed everything around me, including myself. Not that the asshole was a real priest at the end of the day, given he was doing all this shit for some vampire bastard that had a beef with my family.

[vrdantwind]

I mean, you're right in that there's a big difference between paranoia and precaution. That's why I was specifically talking about extremes - when you're jumping at shadows anticipating an attack not because you've got any solid proof there's going to be one, but just because you've fallen into a mindset where that's all you expect. That is a form of blindness, isn't it? Seeing not what's there, but what you expect to be there?

Anyway, believe me, I know exactly how unpleasant people can be, and I've had plenty of reasons to be paranoid in my own life. I've had to deal with assassins coming after me in my time. I'm not saying you should trust Riegfried and Soy; I'm just saying that it might be a leap too far to assume that their hosting this contest is somehow sinister. If there's any evidence of that, I haven't heard it. But there's plenty of evidence these guys love throwing big parties and glamorous events just for the fun and pageantry of it. So...isn't it likely enough it's no more or less than what it looks like?

[Claude listens to her screed against religion with a slightly cocked head.] Sounds like your problems go way beyond anything we had to deal with back home...at least, that I was able to find evidence of. The church I'm thinking of back home - it's a pretty powerful entity. It presents itself as a force for good, and in some ways it seems to be, but...well, let's say it engages in a lot of information control. Enough for me to not be too sure whether the church is as good as it claims to be, or if they're just really good at controlling the narrative. There's a lot of mysteries there I would have loved to dig into...but, uh, a lot of more pressing matters sidetracked me before I could get to the bottom of any of it.