SOTU, post-Game 116 (Mirror/Flowers)
Nov. 12th, 2010 02:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spilledbloodlinesSome parts of this were copied from a question meme and edited for flow, so please excuse any disjointedness.
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On the Mirror/Flowers Game & Personal Fallout Thereof
It's been an up-and-down week for Spear. First there was the Horn/Lover game, which is was terrible but not actually all that bad for Spear because he missed a lot of the tension. He appeared long enough to go basically go "wait, what?" and then explode. In a sense it doesn't really count as his first bad game because he was absent for so much of it. And then Surgeon's game was surprisingly non-death-filled, which was good and he felt good about figuring out the riddle so that Lyvus escaped the game largely unscathed.
Thus, the Mirror/Flowers game was really Spear's first seriously bad game. And he froze up a bit, mostly because he couldn't see a way out of either dying and taking a penalty or maiming someone. Those are shitty choices, of the type that Spear doesn't really see as being a choice at all. Pick between Horrible Thing A or Horrible Thing B. There never really seemed to be a way out of choosing, because even if the teams could have broken the voting it would have required cooperation and planning pre-game and that didn't happen, and it wasn't going to happen once they were in the rooms.
If he had been alone, or with just people who could have survived a death relatively unscathed (i.e. Brass), Spear would have taken death and the penalty without question, and he would have taken the penalty himself to boot. As it was, there were too many other opposing voices, and he went with the maiming partly because of the aforementioned freezing and partly because he didn't have any compelling reason to suggest death other than his own ideological opposition to throwing someone else under the bus. The choice between death+penalty and maiming was, in Spear's view, basically a Scylla and Charybdis type of choice -- something horrible is going to happen either way, it's just a question of weighing one type of horrible against another.
When Aeris appeared and he figured out what Mirror was demanding of them Spear basically shut down whatever opposition he had to the maiming right then and there, because that was the only response he could think of that would get him through the maiming -- even just watching Rory do the maiming was horrible, because it was the first game he's been in where blanks were having to directly, as opposed to abstractly, harm other blanks.
In the end Spear came out of the game feeling guilty, disheartened, and ashamed. He couldn't even really do anything after the maiming, since Royal was the one with all the healing expertise (though now I'm wondering how well he'd be able to use materia, given that he has all that lovely chakra floating around his body). Mostly he just hovered and felt stupid and useless. If Lynx ever does another Ophi mission for stuff, he will probably ask for utilitarian things like, I don't know, an icebox so they can keep meat for longer, or something else along those lines; because weapons were so useful, amirite?
In any case, now that he has a couple days' distance from the game and the knowledge that Lynx is going to have to pay a penalty despite maiming, Spear feels like Lynx got a little screwed over by naively trusting Mirror to speak the truth about the rules. There is a lot of self-castigation going on for him -- we should have known better than the trust Mirror, we should have known it was too easy an out, that sort of thing. And on top of that he's dreading the Mirror penalty and who will get taken and what will happen to her victim because again -- he hates and fears Mirror penalties. Maybe they can negotiate with her to keep more vulnerable team members safe, but he wouldn't put it past her to just agree to their negotiation and then, I don't know, snag Magpie while their backs were turned. So he's not especially optimistic about being able to affect how the penalty ultimately falls out, which doesn't mean he wouldn't offer himself up if he thought there was even the slightest chance of Mirror taking him up on it.
So is it all doom and gloom in Spear-land? Well, sort of -- he's been keeping a lot of this to himself, because there's no point in making everyone else worry when they're probably worrying about the same things, but these are things that are forever present and weighing on him. However, the thread he just had with Grenade where he taught Grenade how to fish did cheer him up a bit because he felt useful for once and it felt good to make someone else happy, even indirectly.
Offscreen doing chores and generally making himself as useful as possible to try and combat feelings of uselessness and also keep busy and not brood too much. Gardening, hunting, fishing, gathering, etc. He's also been trying to carve a comb from mushwood, which is a finicky business and there are probably a bunch of perfectly acceptable prototypes lying around in his room. Fuck yeah perfectionism as a coping mechanism. \o/
---
On Judges (& Sabra)
Previously had been wary of Judges and the ones he considered hostile to the blanks, but otherwise hadn't had much opinion about them. He also hadn't been too overly concerned with how he came to be in Sabra playing games for the Judges except as it related to his memories (i.e. how did he get from his memories to the point where Sabra seemed like a good idea), mostly because it's a frustrating thought cycle that dead ends over and over again. However, with the appearance of Horn and Horn's favored types of games, as well as Mirror's lying in the Mirror/Flowers game, Spear is beginning to question whether or not he really did come to Sabra of his own free will (side note, he hasn't been at any endgame celebrations yet). Or rather, he's not sure that he knew exactly what he was consenting to when he consented. The Judges who've made the most impression on him are the ones who like messing with peoples' heads, either directly or indirectly, and Spear is now deeply suspicious of how much he actually knew about what he was getting into when he agreed to come to Sabra, if he ever did. Him being desperate enough that the wish seemed like a good idea doesn't really help this, because he wouldn't put it past the Judges to have taken advantage of his hypothetical desperation in order to make Sabra seem like an appealing solution by playing up some aspects of the whole deal and eliding others.
Part of this is related to the fact that Spear doesn't trust those who wield a lot of power! Partly due to the whole information control aspect of being under the Judges' thumbs, and partly due to his latest memory. Power = isolation = arrogance, and the Judges are very powerful and very isolated (from the blanks). Sabra is probably in large part the result of a bunch of very powerful entities going on a permanent power trip.
---
On Ophiuchus
He has the same opinion of them as he does about Judges, but to a far lesser extent. His logical impulse is to be neutral to everyone regardless of team, but in effect he ends up being a good deal warier of Ophiuchus because of their team. He's far too aware of the fact that Ophiuchus are the Judges' enforcers and of the power differential between the black team and the colored blanks. Ophi can get blanks stuff they want or need, yeah, but but they can also punish and as far as he can tell they aren't given any limits on how far they can go. They aren't obligated to look out for the colored blanks and probably aren't that concerned with the colored blanks' best interests; in fact, in some cases (read: PECHA) it is probably quite the opposite. So he's just wary of them, and not really interested in being friendly with Ophiuchus, though he will always be polite to any black team members he meets. He won't react to Ophis as if they were hostile unless he has reason to consider them actively hostile to him or his team, but neither will he be particularly welcoming.
---
On this 'Uchiha Itachi' Person
Spear remembers his real name, but he hasn't mentioned it anywhere or told anyone that he has for a couple of reasons. The first is that it's seemed like a largely irrelevant detail; he's already known as Spear, so there doesn't seem much point in complicating the issue by giving out a second name to be used -- practicality, basically. The second and really more important reason is that it's a method of distancing himself from his pre-Sabra self. I've mentioned several times that he's been mostly horrified and discomfited by his memories, and a lot of his current worries and fears center around his worry about becoming like his pre-Sabra self and turning on Lyvus. He doesn't want to identify with or being identified as 'Uchiha Itachi'. He sees 'Spear' as a different person, albeit one with the very real potential to become 'Uchiha Itachi'. Nevertheless, he's invested in not being 'Uchiha Itachi', so he tries to sort of keep the their identities separate. Plus it feels kind of stupid trying to claim an incomplete identity for himself anyway, especially when it's one he doesn't really want.
---
On Lyvus
The idea of "team" has always been kind of a work-in-progress for Spear; in a sense, his loyalty to Lynx as a team and Corvus as a partner team has been heavily influenced by the fact that his strongest and most persistently reinforced relationships have been with Lyvus. So his team becomes most important simply by dint of being full of his most important relationships! The idea of a team as a concept separate from his opinions on its individual members is one that's only recently begun coalescing, a process that began with Horn/Lover's game and was pushed along by the Mirror/Flowers game. Basically, without rehashing my previous SOTU too much, these are games that forced him to think of teams in terms of groups -- team natures, opinions on teams as a whole. I don't know where this will go, as it will dependent on the games that to come. Right now the most important thing is that the Mirror/Flowers game introduced another element to this mix of team-as-concept thoughts -- that of Lynx and Corvus as separate teams.
Which is super obvious in retrospect, but Spear's gotten really used to Lyvus functioning more or less as a single unit. However, the Mirror/Flowers game plus recent events like half of Corvus choosing to sleep in their own dorm rather than bedninjaing in Lynx have strongly reminded him that Lyvus really isn't a single unit, and as much as they act like it they are eventually going to have to stand and fall by their individual team nature and decisions. Lynx can't clean up for Corvus forever, and Corvus shouldn't have to feel subservient to Lynx forever either.
This new concept doesn't really affect Spear's relationships and feelings towards Corvus members -- as I said, his concept of team loyalty is very heavily influenced at the moment by his personal affections and relationships. However, he's becoming more aware that Lyvus won't always be able to work together or support each other through games or otherwise, and he's going to start consciously mentally separating the teams and their actions unless Lyvus really does act as one on an issue. It's not like he's getting territorial over what is Lynx and what is Corvus, he's just quietly reminding himself that he shouldn't think of what is by right Corvus as Lynx, and vice versa. I'm not sure what's going to follow from that, since it's really a subtle internal change rather than an external one.
Ultimately, Spear is ambivalent about what seems to be the trend of Corvus pulling away from Lynx. He's used to the way things are and having Corvus around all the time is comfortable, but he also wants to respect Corvus' wishes if they, as a team, want to be more independent. Either way, Spear would definitely do his best to keep up his relationships on Corvus if it came down to separation. At this point he's mostly worried about Corvus being able to feed themselves if they don't want to have Royal cooking for them all the time.
---
On Mysterious Ninja Consumption
So, he's aware that he's sick. At first he thought it would just be leftover from the plague, but as time wore on he became increasingly aware that this was becoming increasingly unlikely. The thread where Brass called him on his low appetite was probably the moment Spear finally said to himself "yeah, this isn't going to get any better." However, it's really not that major, from what he can see, and he feels like telling Lyvus would be adding unnecessary stress to an already stressful situation (i.e. surviving in Sabra). It isn't even like it shows up that much except during meal times anyway.
Spear generally assumes that his slight sickness is something leftover from pre-Sabra, to judge by Night's example, though he has no idea why it didn't surface until the plague. As it stands, it's just another bit of stress about his pre-Sabra life, and he occasionally worries about whether or not it's going to get worse (spoilers: it will eventually). At this point he thinks his wonky eyesight is a symptom of the sickness, despite Brass' puzzlement over that, which is not an inaccurate assumption as his eyesight worsens or gets better in lockstep with his body's general condition. At this point he views it as a petty annoyance that he can't do much about except worry and drink lots of mint tea on Brass' advice (which doesn't necessarily help unless he's coughing, but he figures it can't hurt). Mostly he's just dealing with it as he waits for answers as to what's going on.
---
On Sasuke
He loves Sasuke. Most of his memories have, to a greater or lesser extent, included the sense that he loved his brother dearly, even when he was doing horrible things to him. However, Spear's love for Sasuke is really on a different level than his affection and care for in-Sabra people, mostly because Sasuke isn't here and is therefore largely irrelevant to Spear's daily life despite his overwhelming importance. Also, Spear really doesn't know enough about Sasuke for him to be much more than this abstract concept of "younger brother" that Spear can, as it were, love from afar. Basically, this all adds up to Spear having not bothered talking about Sasuke to anyone in great detail because he can't see a whole lot of point in doing so (also, Royal's brother is here so talking about his troubles over his past treatment of Sasuke seems somewhat intrusive -- it's not like he'll ever be in a position where he might have to vote on whether his brother lives or dies, after all.). Lyvus is his 'family' now, so he tends to focus most of his emotional energy on caring for them and working towards their betterment and survival.
So basically I can't wait for him to find out that Sasuke is in the pillar. I've got Plans. >)
---
Questions/comments/etc.?
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On the Mirror/Flowers Game & Personal Fallout Thereof
It's been an up-and-down week for Spear. First there was the Horn/Lover game, which is was terrible but not actually all that bad for Spear because he missed a lot of the tension. He appeared long enough to go basically go "wait, what?" and then explode. In a sense it doesn't really count as his first bad game because he was absent for so much of it. And then Surgeon's game was surprisingly non-death-filled, which was good and he felt good about figuring out the riddle so that Lyvus escaped the game largely unscathed.
Thus, the Mirror/Flowers game was really Spear's first seriously bad game. And he froze up a bit, mostly because he couldn't see a way out of either dying and taking a penalty or maiming someone. Those are shitty choices, of the type that Spear doesn't really see as being a choice at all. Pick between Horrible Thing A or Horrible Thing B. There never really seemed to be a way out of choosing, because even if the teams could have broken the voting it would have required cooperation and planning pre-game and that didn't happen, and it wasn't going to happen once they were in the rooms.
If he had been alone, or with just people who could have survived a death relatively unscathed (i.e. Brass), Spear would have taken death and the penalty without question, and he would have taken the penalty himself to boot. As it was, there were too many other opposing voices, and he went with the maiming partly because of the aforementioned freezing and partly because he didn't have any compelling reason to suggest death other than his own ideological opposition to throwing someone else under the bus. The choice between death+penalty and maiming was, in Spear's view, basically a Scylla and Charybdis type of choice -- something horrible is going to happen either way, it's just a question of weighing one type of horrible against another.
When Aeris appeared and he figured out what Mirror was demanding of them Spear basically shut down whatever opposition he had to the maiming right then and there, because that was the only response he could think of that would get him through the maiming -- even just watching Rory do the maiming was horrible, because it was the first game he's been in where blanks were having to directly, as opposed to abstractly, harm other blanks.
In the end Spear came out of the game feeling guilty, disheartened, and ashamed. He couldn't even really do anything after the maiming, since Royal was the one with all the healing expertise (though now I'm wondering how well he'd be able to use materia, given that he has all that lovely chakra floating around his body). Mostly he just hovered and felt stupid and useless. If Lynx ever does another Ophi mission for stuff, he will probably ask for utilitarian things like, I don't know, an icebox so they can keep meat for longer, or something else along those lines; because weapons were so useful, amirite?
In any case, now that he has a couple days' distance from the game and the knowledge that Lynx is going to have to pay a penalty despite maiming, Spear feels like Lynx got a little screwed over by naively trusting Mirror to speak the truth about the rules. There is a lot of self-castigation going on for him -- we should have known better than the trust Mirror, we should have known it was too easy an out, that sort of thing. And on top of that he's dreading the Mirror penalty and who will get taken and what will happen to her victim because again -- he hates and fears Mirror penalties. Maybe they can negotiate with her to keep more vulnerable team members safe, but he wouldn't put it past her to just agree to their negotiation and then, I don't know, snag Magpie while their backs were turned. So he's not especially optimistic about being able to affect how the penalty ultimately falls out, which doesn't mean he wouldn't offer himself up if he thought there was even the slightest chance of Mirror taking him up on it.
So is it all doom and gloom in Spear-land? Well, sort of -- he's been keeping a lot of this to himself, because there's no point in making everyone else worry when they're probably worrying about the same things, but these are things that are forever present and weighing on him. However, the thread he just had with Grenade where he taught Grenade how to fish did cheer him up a bit because he felt useful for once and it felt good to make someone else happy, even indirectly.
Offscreen doing chores and generally making himself as useful as possible to try and combat feelings of uselessness and also keep busy and not brood too much. Gardening, hunting, fishing, gathering, etc. He's also been trying to carve a comb from mushwood, which is a finicky business and there are probably a bunch of perfectly acceptable prototypes lying around in his room. Fuck yeah perfectionism as a coping mechanism. \o/
---
On Judges (& Sabra)
Previously had been wary of Judges and the ones he considered hostile to the blanks, but otherwise hadn't had much opinion about them. He also hadn't been too overly concerned with how he came to be in Sabra playing games for the Judges except as it related to his memories (i.e. how did he get from his memories to the point where Sabra seemed like a good idea), mostly because it's a frustrating thought cycle that dead ends over and over again. However, with the appearance of Horn and Horn's favored types of games, as well as Mirror's lying in the Mirror/Flowers game, Spear is beginning to question whether or not he really did come to Sabra of his own free will (side note, he hasn't been at any endgame celebrations yet). Or rather, he's not sure that he knew exactly what he was consenting to when he consented. The Judges who've made the most impression on him are the ones who like messing with peoples' heads, either directly or indirectly, and Spear is now deeply suspicious of how much he actually knew about what he was getting into when he agreed to come to Sabra, if he ever did. Him being desperate enough that the wish seemed like a good idea doesn't really help this, because he wouldn't put it past the Judges to have taken advantage of his hypothetical desperation in order to make Sabra seem like an appealing solution by playing up some aspects of the whole deal and eliding others.
Part of this is related to the fact that Spear doesn't trust those who wield a lot of power! Partly due to the whole information control aspect of being under the Judges' thumbs, and partly due to his latest memory. Power = isolation = arrogance, and the Judges are very powerful and very isolated (from the blanks). Sabra is probably in large part the result of a bunch of very powerful entities going on a permanent power trip.
---
On Ophiuchus
He has the same opinion of them as he does about Judges, but to a far lesser extent. His logical impulse is to be neutral to everyone regardless of team, but in effect he ends up being a good deal warier of Ophiuchus because of their team. He's far too aware of the fact that Ophiuchus are the Judges' enforcers and of the power differential between the black team and the colored blanks. Ophi can get blanks stuff they want or need, yeah, but but they can also punish and as far as he can tell they aren't given any limits on how far they can go. They aren't obligated to look out for the colored blanks and probably aren't that concerned with the colored blanks' best interests; in fact, in some cases (read: PECHA) it is probably quite the opposite. So he's just wary of them, and not really interested in being friendly with Ophiuchus, though he will always be polite to any black team members he meets. He won't react to Ophis as if they were hostile unless he has reason to consider them actively hostile to him or his team, but neither will he be particularly welcoming.
---
On this 'Uchiha Itachi' Person
Spear remembers his real name, but he hasn't mentioned it anywhere or told anyone that he has for a couple of reasons. The first is that it's seemed like a largely irrelevant detail; he's already known as Spear, so there doesn't seem much point in complicating the issue by giving out a second name to be used -- practicality, basically. The second and really more important reason is that it's a method of distancing himself from his pre-Sabra self. I've mentioned several times that he's been mostly horrified and discomfited by his memories, and a lot of his current worries and fears center around his worry about becoming like his pre-Sabra self and turning on Lyvus. He doesn't want to identify with or being identified as 'Uchiha Itachi'. He sees 'Spear' as a different person, albeit one with the very real potential to become 'Uchiha Itachi'. Nevertheless, he's invested in not being 'Uchiha Itachi', so he tries to sort of keep the their identities separate. Plus it feels kind of stupid trying to claim an incomplete identity for himself anyway, especially when it's one he doesn't really want.
---
On Lyvus
The idea of "team" has always been kind of a work-in-progress for Spear; in a sense, his loyalty to Lynx as a team and Corvus as a partner team has been heavily influenced by the fact that his strongest and most persistently reinforced relationships have been with Lyvus. So his team becomes most important simply by dint of being full of his most important relationships! The idea of a team as a concept separate from his opinions on its individual members is one that's only recently begun coalescing, a process that began with Horn/Lover's game and was pushed along by the Mirror/Flowers game. Basically, without rehashing my previous SOTU too much, these are games that forced him to think of teams in terms of groups -- team natures, opinions on teams as a whole. I don't know where this will go, as it will dependent on the games that to come. Right now the most important thing is that the Mirror/Flowers game introduced another element to this mix of team-as-concept thoughts -- that of Lynx and Corvus as separate teams.
Which is super obvious in retrospect, but Spear's gotten really used to Lyvus functioning more or less as a single unit. However, the Mirror/Flowers game plus recent events like half of Corvus choosing to sleep in their own dorm rather than bedninjaing in Lynx have strongly reminded him that Lyvus really isn't a single unit, and as much as they act like it they are eventually going to have to stand and fall by their individual team nature and decisions. Lynx can't clean up for Corvus forever, and Corvus shouldn't have to feel subservient to Lynx forever either.
This new concept doesn't really affect Spear's relationships and feelings towards Corvus members -- as I said, his concept of team loyalty is very heavily influenced at the moment by his personal affections and relationships. However, he's becoming more aware that Lyvus won't always be able to work together or support each other through games or otherwise, and he's going to start consciously mentally separating the teams and their actions unless Lyvus really does act as one on an issue. It's not like he's getting territorial over what is Lynx and what is Corvus, he's just quietly reminding himself that he shouldn't think of what is by right Corvus as Lynx, and vice versa. I'm not sure what's going to follow from that, since it's really a subtle internal change rather than an external one.
Ultimately, Spear is ambivalent about what seems to be the trend of Corvus pulling away from Lynx. He's used to the way things are and having Corvus around all the time is comfortable, but he also wants to respect Corvus' wishes if they, as a team, want to be more independent. Either way, Spear would definitely do his best to keep up his relationships on Corvus if it came down to separation. At this point he's mostly worried about Corvus being able to feed themselves if they don't want to have Royal cooking for them all the time.
---
On Mysterious Ninja Consumption
So, he's aware that he's sick. At first he thought it would just be leftover from the plague, but as time wore on he became increasingly aware that this was becoming increasingly unlikely. The thread where Brass called him on his low appetite was probably the moment Spear finally said to himself "yeah, this isn't going to get any better." However, it's really not that major, from what he can see, and he feels like telling Lyvus would be adding unnecessary stress to an already stressful situation (i.e. surviving in Sabra). It isn't even like it shows up that much except during meal times anyway.
Spear generally assumes that his slight sickness is something leftover from pre-Sabra, to judge by Night's example, though he has no idea why it didn't surface until the plague. As it stands, it's just another bit of stress about his pre-Sabra life, and he occasionally worries about whether or not it's going to get worse (spoilers: it will eventually). At this point he thinks his wonky eyesight is a symptom of the sickness, despite Brass' puzzlement over that, which is not an inaccurate assumption as his eyesight worsens or gets better in lockstep with his body's general condition. At this point he views it as a petty annoyance that he can't do much about except worry and drink lots of mint tea on Brass' advice (which doesn't necessarily help unless he's coughing, but he figures it can't hurt). Mostly he's just dealing with it as he waits for answers as to what's going on.
---
On Sasuke
He loves Sasuke. Most of his memories have, to a greater or lesser extent, included the sense that he loved his brother dearly, even when he was doing horrible things to him. However, Spear's love for Sasuke is really on a different level than his affection and care for in-Sabra people, mostly because Sasuke isn't here and is therefore largely irrelevant to Spear's daily life despite his overwhelming importance. Also, Spear really doesn't know enough about Sasuke for him to be much more than this abstract concept of "younger brother" that Spear can, as it were, love from afar. Basically, this all adds up to Spear having not bothered talking about Sasuke to anyone in great detail because he can't see a whole lot of point in doing so (also, Royal's brother is here so talking about his troubles over his past treatment of Sasuke seems somewhat intrusive -- it's not like he'll ever be in a position where he might have to vote on whether his brother lives or dies, after all.). Lyvus is his 'family' now, so he tends to focus most of his emotional energy on caring for them and working towards their betterment and survival.
So basically I can't wait for him to find out that Sasuke is in the pillar. I've got Plans. >)
---
Questions/comments/etc.?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-11-13 12:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-13 01:59 am (UTC)Other than he doesn't really know the people involved very well aside from Corvus, so he tries not to be too judgmental of Hydra and Vulpecula's response. Especially since he's aware that Chika jumping in for Albert is not really that far from what Corvus might do for Lynx or vice versa, now or in the past.
Basically he's just like ":|" at the situation and wishes he could help more. But he really can't (--> contributes to feelings of helplessness and uselessness). He just hopes that Corvus can weather the responsibility of their choice intact, and that this isn't going to escalate into personal targeting during games that allow for it.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-13 02:54 am (UTC)(Also, assuming that Trixie can set aside her seething hatred for Lynx's decision to maim Aeris.)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-13 08:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-13 01:03 am (UTC)... but I looooove you allllll so very much ♥
no subject
Date: 2010-11-13 01:46 am (UTC)