a farspeech announcement

[yourattention]

Emotions. [The lack of introduction is partially because Connor rarely bothers anyways and partially because he's trying to minimize the amount of speaking he's doing.] They were banned on Ai'tuoh and I couldn't figure out why then but that's - the more you bottle it up, the faster the flowers grow. Every. Single. Time. You say "I'm f" -

[There's a hiss of pain and then a slow, shaky breath. Yeah, alright. That was maybe not a great idea, given that he knows that's literally how it's triggered.]

Every time you lie about how you feel, something new grows. Every time you tell the truth, I think - I think that's how you cure it. That's why the robots didn't get it at first. That's why the rates of dying were all different.

[Should he take his own advice? Probably. But he's not gonna.]

I have fluro, if you want it. It makes the nausea worse, but it makes it easier to breathe.

Comments

[tuskenlancer]

Oh. Great.

Is that - did they do that to save themselves from this?

[ Because she's not really down with that. ]

[yourattention]

I think that might've been why they started. They keep doing it because they've forgotten why it's tradition.

[You know: if it's tradition, that makes it okay. It doesn't need to be examined or questioned.]

[tuskenlancer]

[ All right then. She does her best to put aside the question of child sacrifice for the moment. Not like that'll be an issue here. ]

But...if they banned emotions...wouldn't that make it worse? Everyone just bottling things up all the time?

[yourattention]

It means you can't hide it, though. [Which he really assumes is the important part.] So it's easier to find the problem and remove it by purging it in the Standing Water.

[tuskenlancer]

[ Something shifts in her understanding, all at once. She'd been thinking banning emotions as in banning showing emotions - making everyone control them, deny them, try to act without their influence. Like the aliens on that old Earth show.

Removing them entirely...

CT goes silent for a long moment, trying to wrap her mind around this new revelation, trying to formulate an appropriate response. ]

...Fucking shit.