(closed) january catchall

[entreats]

Who: Ange (entreats), Chizuru (tealeafs), Daniel (miyagimagic) and various others.
What: January shenanigans.
When: During all of January
Where: Locations vary.

Content Warnings: Nothing right now, specific warnings will be in headers when they come up.

( starters in the comments! if you want to plot anything with me, feel free to either pm the journal or contact me at queeningsquare, i'm always open to new ideas and threads! )

Comments

[entreats]

[ The girl seems to consider his words, slowly inhaling, then exhaling in a breath that sounds more like a sigh. ]

You're probably right.

[ Honestly, there's no 'probably' about it. Ange does think Break is right - she often does, or she wouldn't come to him with concerns or deep talks like these in the first place. She values his insight, and right now it's like he's taking her thoughts out of her head and forming them into sentences that actually make sense to her. ]

Maybe that's also just part of it. I know better than to be optimistic, but.. maybe a part of me was hoping that all of this would be a little better. [ It feels kind of embarrassing to admit. Since - like Ange says - she isn't usually optimistic. She doesn't want to be. It makes her feel young and naive.

And yet maybe this thought somehow snuck into her head all the same. Maybe because she has people like Ruby and Break around her - people who make her so happy that it's easy to forget how miserable she's been in the past. ]

That Ruby and I would get married, and that things would be.. easier then, instead of the constant crap we've had to deal with since the wedding.

[payingfordeliverance]

…I don’t know that I’d call hope and optimism quite the same thing. To feel optimistic is to feel good about things, isn't that so? But hope is…mm. It's a thing that can drive you forward even when everything is garbage. You can be absolutely certain the future you want will never come to be, and still have hope in the face of the impossibility.

[This is a tangent. And nitpicky of him, honestly, still singling out Ange's choice of phrasing like this. Break struggles with wishes and while his homesickness has eased over the past year, he doesn't miss his people any less, can't help but want to have them here. They both know this.

He lets out a huff and takes a long sip of his own tea, shaking himself out of that line of thought and back to the matter at hand.]

Anyway, what really gets my goat is that we're seeing so much of the same nonsense as last year. What a wretched place, that it simply tolerates a bunch of cultists hauling people off to their torture chambers at the beginning of every winter! Sometimes I wonder if we weren't all brought here to make a better world than what we've got. Higher powers foisting their dirty work off onto hero types who had nothing to do with making the mess in the first place is certainly a common theme in people's histories already.





[In a month or three Break is going to feel some kind of way about having put forth the notion of "making a better world".]

[entreats]

[ Ange doesn't seem too worried about him picking apart her wording, at least. Maybe she's used to it coming from Break, who seems to think a whole lot more deeply about these things than Ange herself does - who stops bothering to pick her words quite as cautiously when she's around people she trusts.

Or maybe it's just that it doesn't feel as important in the face of what he continues with. Break's personal not-so-pet peeve, and a sentiment Ange fully agrees with. It is pretty ridiculous that the same awful stuff just repeats every year, like it's a fun tradition.

And the fact she agrees with it sure shows in the way Ange groans and moves to dramatically lean on to the table, looking every inch a pouty child. ]

So can we just kill all the zealots and stop it from repeating again?

[ Clearly the best thing to ask while you're looking - and sounding - like a pouty child, right.

But this is obviously just the easiest solution.

(Just wait until Ange starts to take the 'better world' thing even more literally than this. This is only step one.) ]

[payingfordeliverance]

That seems the best route. If we destroyed their stupid facility they'd just build another one. We'll have to keep quiet around the goody-goodies who believe they can be saved, however. That type always meddles and I don't care to hear any speeches about how everyone deserves a go at salvation.

[Look. Break may hate himself for his past violent mistakes, but he has in no way sworn off more violence. The issue is that he killed the wrong people, and did it for stupid reasons. Some people just really need to be dead and he does not mind being the guy to make that happen. There is really going to be some trouble the day he and Ange both spot a target they want gone at the same time, and nothing is around to distract them.]

[entreats]

That's taking that kind of attitude way too far. [ Ange says, still sounding as pouty as a young child.

And it's not Break's attitude she's talking about. That's the one that's entirely falling in line with her own right here, after all. No - it's the goody two shoes attitude. It's an attitude she's gotten a little bit better at appreciating ever since Ange has started to surround herself with good people she cares for, but.. ]

It's one thing to forgive someone for a simple mistake, but these guys are murdering people year after year to a point where they basically have a factory for it.

[ Ange slowly moves to sit up again, at least, rather than continue to lean on the table. ]

That's even beyond regular murder, or even serial killing.

[ Just saying, Break. Not that Ange thinks he's putting himself on the same level as the zealots, but-- well, she does know how hard he can be on himself for it.

Maybe it's why he's this hard on the zealots too, she thinks. ]

It's just about the most gross thing I've ever heard of, and I'm used to dealing with witches who probably think using someone's head as a ball for sports is hilarious. [ No, it's definitely that weird edge of productivity to it all that gets to Ange. Something about the very concept of the sleeper farm is enough to skeeve even her out. ] That's why I definitely think they're the biggest problem in this place.

[ Even though they did make it out of the month where they're most active. Once more. But the idea of just letting it return for a third time is not exactly a great one to Ange. ]

[payingfordeliverance]

[She's right on the money as usual — certain aspects of the zealots do hit a little close to home. Break shifts uncomfortably as he attempts to articulate his thoughts, given that he's speaking to someone who is aware of the worst he's ever been, and can spot those tender parts of him from a mile away nowadays.]

…killing is one thing. It's — the careless torture, you know? So many of us have gone into that place and lived through it, and what deaths do occur are slow, the victims aware. And all for the sake of some fanatical, blind devotion to some god.

[Break is disgusted by torture. Every now and again he'll beat the shit out of someone he can't just kill, and he's taken satisfaction in that. But always, he's been provoked, and always, he'd much rather simply destroy those people quickly and move on with his life.

It's one of the few things he can say positively about himself. He's also shredded lives apart without regard for the personhood of his victims, yes, and done it while caught in the throes of his own fanatical, blind devotion. But he always killed with quick efficiency. The one being he's ever terrorized the way the zealots do is the Cheshire Cat — a creature he couldn’t kill who had used his memories of Shelly to torture him first and who was ready to outright slaughter Oz and the others.

Break imagines he may wind up taking such actions in Trench sooner or later, honestly. It's almost inevitable that some Sleeper or other will need to be dissuaded from ever messing with him or his chosen family ever again, and should that time come he will give that person very good reason. But he'd rather kill them. He really doesn't even care if they know they are dying or why. Just so long as they don't come back.

So.]

The notion of saving such people…so naive. Even if their actions are driven by corruption, restored to themselves, they'd have to live, then, with what they've done. I imagine for most of them the weight would drive them right back into madness again. Really…to kill them would be the kindest thing, I think.

[It's a terribly soft admission.]

[entreats]

[ There's a tiny moment where Ange seems to chew on the words that Break is throwing her way here. They say so much even beyond their literal contents - about the moral lines that Break draws, which seem to align rather well with where Ange's own lie.

(Isn't that why she likes him? Why she discusses all this stuff with him in the first place? It's something Ange never really had in her life when she was younger, but she's only now grasping just how nice it is to know that there's someone who will understand you at all times.) ]

Well, if we get a fun opportunity to blow up their entire anthill all at once, I'll make sure to let you know about it too. [ It's said with a tone that's a little too simple - like Ange is talking about a simple household chore.

But it's mostly because she knows she doesn't have to say it in any other tone in front of Break of all people. Instead she can just make it sound like it's a regular part of their little tea party here. ]

Though I doubt they'd hand us a chance like that so easily.

[payingfordeliverance]

I'd be terribly suspicious if they did. Something like that would most certainly be a facet of somebody else's "bigger picture". I don't know about you, but I've had quite enough of playing a part in things like that.

[Before his brief bout of the philosophy of kindness there has anyone thinking Break is losing his taste for destruction in his middle age:]

That sure would take all the fun out of squashing the whole organization, wouldn't it? Being a pawn.

[He proceeds to casually stuff most of a saucer into his mouth to get all the good cookie crumbs off.]