@andy.anderson

[scythias]

Anyone here choose to not use the ability they were given for whatever reason? Or is it sometimes impossible to avoid using it?

I haven't figured out what mine is yet but I thought I'd just check in to see if they're easily controlled when you have figured them out or if they just pop off without preamble. Might be a little bit of a mood killer in certain situations if that were to happen.

Can you turn them off even if you can't actually turn them off?

Comments

[notathreat]

Fuck that. Hope you got out.

[scythias]

I did.

( they hadn't. )

But it's why I have a slight aversion to people doing things to me that I didn't ask for. Bad memories.

[notathreat]

Good.

[And double good.]

This whole situation is fucked no matter what way you look at it, and the more I read back on the network the more tangled up things get. Doesn't look like spitting out the answers any time soon.

[scythias]

That's the feeling I'm getting too. So much for thinking this would be a short trip.

( considering so many people had been here for long periods of time, she doesn't think getting out is going to be easy. )

I don't really like being kidnapped either. Very low on my list of priorities even if I'm not in a cage.

[notathreat]

It's my first time in another universe, but yeah. Looking like we're gonna be stuck here a while.

[But why dwell on that when you can joke about trauma?]

Never did understand the cage bullshit. Is it just for effect, or what?

[scythias]

Keep people in line, probably. Show what kind of power they have.

( everything can be performative when you're the one in power. )

Where are you from?

[notathreat]

Gross. Not even that effective.

[... probably not a good idea to go into detail.]

Boston originally. Was in Wyoming right before I woke up here in the back of a van, but unless "clickers" means anything to you, it's probably not the same one most people are thinking of.

[scythias]

Clickers doesn't mean anything to me.

( but something about the word sounds foreboding. )

What are clickers?

cw: body horror/gore in the link

[notathreat]

[Ah fuck. How to explain clickers. Thankfully Ellie's explained the infected a couple of times, so Andy's getting the smoother summary than most.]

There's a parasitic fungal infection back home, takes over the brain. Clickers are infected people that have been left alone so long the
fungal plates
start coming out of their faces. Makes them blind. We call them clickers because they make a clicking sound. It's how they find you.

[scythias]

( well, that's disgusting. )

How's the infection spread? Touch? Airborne? In the water?

[notathreat]

Airborne, if it's inside and the spores are dense enough. Takes years for that to build up though. Gas masks work.

That, or if they bite you.

Don't worry, no word of them here. We'd know.

[scythias]

Anyone know where the whole thing came from? I haven't heard of a disease that pervasive before.

( she'd lived through plagues and pandemics but never anything that sounds as serious as what she's describing. )

[notathreat]

Sudden mutation in cordyceps. It used to just infect stuff like ants.

It came on so fast nobody had time to study it or anything. Once somebody's bitten it can turn them in just a couple hours.

[scythias]

No cure or treatment?

( she doesn't think so just from reading between the lines. )

[notathreat]

[... long pause here.]

None.

[scythias]

( fuck. )

Anyone working on it?

1/2

[notathreat]

2/2

[notathreat]

No. Not anymore.

[scythias]

( there's really no good way to react to that. she doesn't want to apologize because it's hollow and trite. )

This place must seem very different than where you came from.

[notathreat]

[Ellie's grateful for the lack of I'm sorry, the usual things she gets when she talks about her world. It makes her feel more sideways about it than she does when she thinks about it on her own, but it's a part of her.]

Not much to complain about, that's for sure.
Sounds like where you came from wasn't a walk in the park either

[It's an offer, easily dodged -- she does this dance with the people who Get It, because nobody ever Gets It by coming from someplace easy.]

[scythias]

Only monsters there were of the human kind but no, it wasn't that easy.

( humans were capable of...a lot of bad things when they wanted to be. )

Nothing like what you went through but bad enough. It was exhausting sometimes.

[notathreat]

[They are on the same page, the same paragraph. Ellie pauses for a moment before replying.]

If something was coming after me and I had to choose between an infected and a person, I'd take the infected every time.

This place is better in some ways. Worse in others.

There's always monsters.

[scythias]

Yeah, heard about the monsters. That's going to take some getting used to it.

You know how to defend yourself, I'm guessing?

[notathreat]

Enough to stay alive this long.

[Here's hoping that shit holds up. But she's been stockpiling supplies and things to use as weaponry just in case.]

I'm guessing you do too?

[scythias]

Yeah.

( besides her immortality, it's the one thing she has that keeps her alive. )

Kind of had to be back home. Guess it'll do me well here.