neurotoxined | 005. [Video / Re-Intro]

[VIDEO]

You know, there comes a point where you stop being surprised and you start accepting things as an inevitability. Gravity is always going to work. Eating paint is always going to be a bad idea. There's always going to be some mute lunatic running around and screwing things up.

Things like that.

[And a good morning to you too, GLaDOS; nice to see you're in...uh, good spirits, as always.

Of course, it's a bit difficult to tell where she is, given the angle of the video; it's definitely straight-on, as far as her face goes, but the long white hair she has tied back tightly, away from her face, seems to have gravity acting on it in a...weirdly upward direction. Either physics has temporarily shut itself off, or she's hanging off of something.

Spoilers: it's the latter. More specifically, her bed; she's got herself draped sideways over it with her legs braced against the wall, her head hanging down toward the ground.

It's a comfortable position, okay.]

Apparently I should add "not having five minutes' peace" to that list. Because I know for a fact that I didn't before being brought back here.

But then, the mute lunatic has been dealt with. And there are ways to make gravity less of a big deal than it thinks it is. And that's what science is about, isn't it? We're told that we can't do one thing, and we see the lack of point in moping about it.

So we get mad.

[Contrary to her words, however, she's smiling again; it's not a nice expression, closer to baring teeth than anything, but she's - ...yeahno, let's be honest with ourselves, she's not even trying...]

But while we're all beating the odds here, I'd still recommend against eating paint unless you've been instructed to by the proper personnel - after all, there's no point in being dumb about it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A good spell always does wonders, especially where gravity is concerned, though the lack of such arts in this place limits things a bit.

[...Well, she'll match your text with some of hers, for what it's worth. Might as well. In some ways it's more comfortable than video, in others it's a bit inconvenient, but it's workable.]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you're a magic user, then. This place seems to both love and hate you.

Love because there's a surprisingly good-sized group of you here.

Hate because you can't actually use the magic.

Not really a fair tradeoff, is it?

If one cannot adapt past such a hurdle then they probably weren't worth the investment of magic to begin with. It should not be a crutch. There are other ways to go about things, one must simply find the proper way.

It was an adjustment period, of course, but I do not find it to be terribly intolerable.

That's an interesting way of looking at it. Very determined. Some might call it stubborn. But I'll call it determined for your sake. It's not a bad thing either way. And at least from the sound of it, it's only moderately intolerable.

What is it that you do, anyway?

I've been called worse things. Determined or stubborn are both well enough.
Many treat the magical arts as a crutch, and when faced with a reality without wither away. It's a waste of potential.

I've been having a grand time, really. It just took a while to get used to the pace of life here.

As for me? I train pokemon. What else does one do in this place?

That sort of adaptability is an interesting trait in people. Not something I really test for. But it's useful more often than it isn't.

And you know what I meant. You train Pokémon. So do I. But that isn't what I do.

Test for..? Are you a teacher of sorts, or one who administers exams? Of what nature?

I am quite content for the moment to learn as much as I can about these creatures and this world. So in essence one could say for the time being I research. What is it that you would say that you do?

Science. I do science.

I oversee a laboratory back home. We specialize in experimental physics research - basically, doing what we must, because we can.

That's an amusing approach to experimental physics. It gives a feeling of... questionable morals.

Of course, those who let morals stand in the way of research are rather fools pretending at science.

[...THERE ARE NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE WHAT HER FACE JUST DID, XEHANORT, BUT IT WAS DEFINITELY GLEEFUL.

AND PROBABLY MORE THAN A BIT DEMENTED.]

Yes. Yes, that's it! That's it exactly.

Finally, someone else who understands. It's been a while.

[He had an inkling that they shared a similar philosophy...]

It's a rather rare view of things. People are too bound up in the consequences of things to understand the learning that comes from the doing.

005. [Video / Re-Intro]

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