Semi-Open

[youwonscience]

WHO: Cosima Niehaus, Ruby Lucas, Avery, Lexa, Herian Amsel, Raymond Gibbs, you?
WHAT: Various odds and ends for Harvestmere
WHEN: Covering the last twoish weeks or so of the month
WHERE: Various
NOTES: Not going to set up open hooks this time. HOWEVER if I a) forgot a thing we said we were going to do or b) You'd like to do something with Cosima this month and aren't elsewhere, hit me by DM or Plurk. ETA: note the warning for discussion of torture in one of the threads.

Comments

[youwonscience]

"I think I wrote a few racy stories as a teenager focused on feverish trysts in libraries," Cosima says, speculative. "Though I'm pretty sure none of them involved armor."

So... now they both know things about each other, don't they.

"People are people, though, I think. You'll always get a few assholes, but most people are too wrapped up in their own shit to give you much thought one way or another unless they have a particular reason."

[dashing]

"And here stood I, aware I was graced with the presence of a literary mind." A little bow - knightly poise turned to teasing. Though, she pauses as she looks up.

"Is that what you make of me?" She is not, to her own surprise, offended. More thoughtful, turning things over. "Wrapped up within mine own mind enough to isolate myself?"

It did not seem ill-fitting. "I've been noted as having a more than unusually cold manner, in times past."

[youwonscience]

"I definitely didn't mean you specifically," Cosima says, immediately. "I just meant... people. Generally. I think we have to work at not making everything about us because the consistent thread of our own experience is that we're always present in it, you know?"

I'm so sad I don't have a equivalent icon to mis-match with

[dashing]

Herian is silent a few moments as she mulls that over. "True enough." And then, the faintest hint of a smile. "Fortunately, I have the assurance that I am always in the right to vindicate my actions."

It's a very quiet, very wry self-mockery. "One could suppose there are those that allow themselves to become so conscious of their bias that they are incapacitated. I don't imagine that is so common a problem as the opposite extreme."

[youwonscience]

Cosima cracks a smile at the dry joke. "I think it's evolution, really. Survival. No one's going to be as interested in you thriving as you are. But it's also maladaptive to be totally selfish." She grabs the small coin pouch she's taken to using - her clothes are increasingly a mishmash of things she brought with her and things she's been given or bartered for in Thedas - and attaches it to her belt. Then she adds, "You know, altruism is supposed to be adaptive too. It's only a theory, so far, but people who take care of others build social bonds and make their community more likely to survive. So. All's not lost."

[dashing]

"Impossible. I can't imagine anything would matter so much to others as my well-being." She says it with that same, strange seriousness that she says everything with, though she is allowing herself the indulgence of silliness in this conversation and sees no need to break form now.

Still, joking or not, the theory of adaptive altruism draws out a smile that is less wry and joking and more sincere. "'Twould hardly do if we believed all to be cast upon the rocks and beyond all hope of salvation." Noting the acquiring of the money pouch, Herian briefly considers saying it is unnecessary to bring such, before deciding doing so would be presumptuous. "Ready to depart, good lady?"

It is said with the very slightest bow and flourish - a faint sending up of her own manners, perhaps.

[youwonscience]

"Vamanos," she agrees with a grin. "Do you have a particular place in mind? I'm not picky."

[dashing]

Vamanos. She sounds it out silently, shaking her head with quiet amusement. "The Herald's Rest? I must confess myself ill-experienced with the purveyors of liquid courage here present." She laughs very briefly at a thought. "I've an uncle whose very blood would be chilled at the notion of any of his kin paying for liquor. The man could render chaulk into wine, had he the inclination."

[youwonscience]

"Works for me. And that's impressive. I don't know anyone who makes their own at home, though that's becoming more common after years of everyone leaving it to the professionals." Cosima decides against trying to explain Prohibition. Or hipsters.

"Was he any good at it, or just prolific?"