003✖; (audio @hot.damn)

[circumitus]

Important question: How do you tell if someone's your friend?

Is it something that people just... know or do they have a conversation about it?

[How does friendship work and more importantly, can you eat it?]

The whole concept of friendship always seemed strange, honestly. People just decide "Hey, this person isn't a complete piece of shit"? Weird. [Well, now she might just be projecting onto herself.

[So, wait. Does this mean that she has friends? Does anyone have friends? How annoying.]

Comments

[circumitus]

Hey, now. Am still trying to figure out why the hell anyone would want friendship with someone who doesn't know dick about returning the favor or expressing... shit, any kind of affection that's expected of people here.

Willing to take any kind of answers at this point. Have always been able to tell when someone is trying to get close because they want something, but those who act like they don't want anything in return? Suspicious.

[The last person Rey suspected of eventual betrayal and using her she ended up decapitating before it could inevitably happen. Though she does question her own judgement at the time every now and then. Oh well, no take backsies now.]

[suspecteverything]

Tophet, I never thought I'd meet someone else that had as severe a lack of positive social skills as I do. Or the same abundant quantity of beings to call friends.

[As in zero. The sarcasm in that should be obvious.]

Maybe I actually will be helpful. I'm the king of suspicious. When history teaches you you can trust anyone or it'll be a knife in your back, it's a hard habit to break. Generally not one I want to break either. Like I said, history has a way of making a point. For me, it was the little things that proved someone really cared. The things that, to them, were so inconsequential that they didn't even think anything of what they were doing.

[circumitus]

Have more than enough history to learn from. Or... take pointers, at any rate.

[Her previous selves weren't exactly successful in the friendship department, either. Allies? Sure. Anything closer they were discouraged from seeking out.]

Seems to line up with what others are saying, too. That it's more about the actions than the words. Though words help. [When she can ass herself to use them.]

[suspecteverything]

[Words help huh... He can't stop himself from thinking about his friendships and what those relationships would be seen as from just a words prospective, and he bursts out laughing.]

Can't say they always help. My friends swear at me, berate me, question my intelligence, and threaten me bodily harm or death on a regular basis.

[As does everyone else who is decidedly not his friend.]

[circumitus]

[Wow, that sounds way more familiar than it has any right to.]

...

You sure those are actually friends?

[suspecteverything]

In my case, yeah. I'm just as much an asshole to them, and it works for us. We'd all die for each other.

...

Or maybe just trip each other to make sure we got out first and therefore survived. Hard to say.

[But no, really, his friends would go to hell and back for him. He's seen it.]

[circumitus]

[A long pause on her end. She's in the process of opening her mouth to say the first thing on her mind... then closing her mouth, then opening it -- repeat, until a proper response formulates:]

Know what? That sounds legitimate.

[#relatable]

Some people it's just hard to tell whether you want to kill for them or just kill them.

[suspecteverything]

[That's a little bit terrifying. He always seems to be drawn to others like him.]

In my experience those two things aren't mutually exclusive. My friends have told me on multiple occasions that if I were to die, they would drag me back from Tophet and kill me themselves. That's all while we're killing other beings to protect each other's backs.

[circumitus]

[Hmmm...]

Yeah, see, that one actually sounds about right. Least, that's how things were before coming here.

[Rey might not know what a Tophet is but you know what? She can make a guess.]

[suspecteverything]

I'd say you have friends then. Not that I can say I ever use the word myself. I hang with a group of mutual assholes who completely appreciate my cantankerous nature.

[circumitus]

Mind, could count the number who'd possibly apply as "friends" from before on one hand. People are very, um. Different here, though.

[suspecteverything]

Different how?

[Though he has already noticed that many don't pick up on the differences in races like they do at home.]

[circumitus]

The short of it? Never considered how much some everything changes when you're given a clean slate. After the only things people have ever seen when they look at you are all the things you've ever done.

[Even the people she could call close or even "friends" in her world had that look that people just don't have here. They don't share that same history or holes in their lives that were caused by the atrocities she had been made to do.

[She sighs.]

...And, yeah, that shit should be common sense for most people -- it always is. Just wasn't ready for how much everything changing would really feel.

[suspecteverything]

[Gods, does he understand that sentiment. The few times he ventured back into Andaria with his stralen eyes and managed to walk around with nobody treating him terribly because they had no idea who he was had been amazing.]

It kind of rocks the entire ground you've been standing on. There's something incomprehensible about it, and there's a part of you always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

[Or at least it's that way for him.]

[circumitus]

[For better or for worse, it's the same way for Rey as well.]

Exactly? Like when something seems too good to be true, but there's always something. Good things don't just happen for no reason, right?

[Well, it rarely ever had for her. She would hardly know a "good thing for Rey" if it was on a brick smacking her in the face.]

[suspecteverything]

Generally speaking, good things don't happen ever. And if they do, it's just going to be ripped away from you in the most painful way imaginable.

[This being the perfect example. He finally had a family that actually liked him. More than that, they loved him. Now he's here with no way to get back to them.]


((OOC: This two feel like they've been cut from the exact same cloth. It just screams a need to meet in person at some point!))

[circumitus]

[snort]

Was usually just killed and then molded into someone else before things got comfortable. Complacency was never an option before.

[Thus warming with the idea of settling down with a job, a home, and friends feels like a dangerous risk to her.]

[OOC: Definitely! I've actually now got an open log up here if you're interested. I can write up something new/closed if those prompts don't ping you.]

[suspecteverything]

[Wait, what?]

Getting hunted down constantly is enough for one lifetime. I'm pretty damn sure I don't want to wind up like the Korilon and wind up being revived constantly just to be killed again.

[OOC: I will look into it then!]

[circumitus]

[Yeahhh, she says a lot of "wait what" things sometimes.]

It's not nice. Can say from personal experience.

[suspecteverything]

Then you have my abject sympathies. One life is bad enough in my opinion.

[circumitus]

[She makes a dismissive grunt.]

Well, don't be sorry. Not like it wasn't deserved.

[Much as a few she knows would object to such an opinion. Rey has long since resigned herself to what happened to her as something that was inevitable, anyway.]

[suspecteverything]

That probably depends more on who you ask. I feel like I deserve most of the shit that's happened to me too, but if you ask some of my family they would strongly disagree.

[circumitus]

Before, people had lots of reasons to agree. Here...

[She huffs.]

Well, not actively trying to find similar reasons to be hated by these people. Seem pretty hopeless enough already.

[suspecteverything]

Be proud you actually have to find reasons.

[circumitus]

Oh yeah, so proud of that endless supply of wit and wiles to charm the masses with. It's a wonder, having not been torn apart by a mob already.