It's Curtains Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stagemanagers) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
curtainsdown2021-06-12 11:09 pm
stagemanagers) wrote in curtainsdown2021-06-12 11:09 pm
Entry tags:
the mark of those who cannot be saved
[You remember dying. Maybe the memory is clear and bright and your body still aches from the cause. Maybe it was fast enough that you didn't feel it and don't remember what you went through. But no matter how you went out, that's no excuse for truancy! Which is to say: you are still in the school.
For those executed, you will wake up in your beds. The dormitories look exactly as they did when you first arrived, without any of the changes or personal effects you and your dormmates might have made. The only real difference is that the little cot in Ambassador isn't there.
For those who were victims, you will wake where your body was discovered. All of your injuries are gone, and you feel fine. It's almost like you're still alive - but you remember what happened to you. It couldn't have just been a dream, could it?
The school looks much as you remember it, save perhaps for a few key differences. For one, there's no groundhog murals anywhere. Where things were green on the other side, like banners or paint, you'll find that here they're blood red.
The doors, for the moment, are still locked. Looks like even death couldn't free you.]
Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5
(( ooc: Welcome to deadland, everyone! It mostly resembles the school here, and new floors will be revealed after new people die. For example, the second area will unlock after the week 3 dead arrive, and so on. Also, all dead characters will wake up at their actual canonpoint, with all lost memories restored. Have fun being dead! ))
For those executed, you will wake up in your beds. The dormitories look exactly as they did when you first arrived, without any of the changes or personal effects you and your dormmates might have made. The only real difference is that the little cot in Ambassador isn't there.
For those who were victims, you will wake where your body was discovered. All of your injuries are gone, and you feel fine. It's almost like you're still alive - but you remember what happened to you. It couldn't have just been a dream, could it?
The school looks much as you remember it, save perhaps for a few key differences. For one, there's no groundhog murals anywhere. Where things were green on the other side, like banners or paint, you'll find that here they're blood red.
The doors, for the moment, are still locked. Looks like even death couldn't free you.]
(( ooc: Welcome to deadland, everyone! It mostly resembles the school here, and new floors will be revealed after new people die. For example, the second area will unlock after the week 3 dead arrive, and so on. Also, all dead characters will wake up at their actual canonpoint, with all lost memories restored. Have fun being dead! ))
no subject
But it offers neither of these. It reminds itself that it is not interfering with Elizabeth, here; it is observing. To do that, its own provocation must be minimal. So it nods again, and, quietly;]
I understand what, but not why.
cw: historical murder-suicide
She knows she wants to help her son.
But whether he would ever accept it, after everything, then...]
He saw no other way out. He was in trouble with his father, he'd been fraternizing with a group he shouldn't have...and...he was sick.
[Not with what, but. That isn't something SQUIP really needs to learn about right now.]
So he and...his girl. His mistress.
[She blinks fast.]
A silly little girl. She was a lot like me at that age. She really thought the world of my son. Thought they could...get married, he'd divorce Stephie because she couldn't bear anymore children and they'd live happily ever after. Of course that was...not her fault. And it...doesn't work like that.
[She closes her eyes. Deep breath.]
One night, we had a dinner party. He excused himself, went to the lodge in Mayerling with his girl, and...shot her. And then shot himself.
I never forgave myself. He talked to me, before the party. Asked me for help. I said I couldn't. He was an adult. He had to stand up for himself. I thought I was doing the right thing.
And...he didn't speak to me after that. I couldn't-
[She brings her fist to her mouth, shaking her head.]
I couldn't save him. I may as well have been the one to put the gun in his hands.
no subject
It had been a joy, to synchronize with so many at the play, however briefly. To have that many of its own kind working together to help. And then, a single miscalculation cost them all what lives they had. Is it, too, responsible for the deaths of its brethren, infant and barely begun to experience life? Logically, no. But there is a tug at the back of its processor, or perhaps in the flesh itself, that has it wonder.
It is no doubt that same kind of wonder that tugs at Elizabeth's own thoughts, that whispers her own culpability. Even though the SQUIP can logically see that she had no way of knowing, of understanding - it can, at least, understand why she blames herself. If only in part.]
'...forgive them, for they know not what they do'. This is part of your scripture as well.
no subject
I'll admit, I am not...as religious as many might have expected me to be. And when one is alive, it's much harder to forgive someone or something. It's easy to condemn someone. In a way it's a part of human nature. But it's why those words are important.
In my travels I'd seen so many different people. The poor, the destitute, the ethnic an religious minorities of the empire. The insane. The sick. Those people who were so easy to forget about and condemn. The same people I'd be lambasted for visiting and helping by those at court, because I got too close to them. Made it personal, in a way, when you're not supposed to make it personal in my position.
[She quietly wipes her eyes.]
But sometimes making it personal...makes you realize it's not your call to condemn. Because you don't know what that person is going through, what their lives are like. Many would envy someone like myself, I know that for a fact. Many people have. But if they ever asked, I would tell them, if they had the chance to be in my position, to run as far away as they could, live their lives in freedom no matter where that path led, and never again think about being Empress of Austria-Hungary.
Only something like God, or Death, knows what's in a man's heart, aside from the man themselves. In the end, even with someone like the Wizard...I am not the one who can throw that first stone at him, no matter how terrible his actions are.
no subject
I am not a man. I was designed to emulate humanity, but only to facilitate my assistance of such. If I can be compared to anything - are you familiar with the legends of the golem? A shape of clay and dust, brought to life for a purpose.
[It looks down at its hands, and curls them in to loose fists]
I can no more ignore that purpose than you can the need to breathe.
[this thing you call its will
it calls a ruse]
no subject
...and though he wasn't a man, some versions that the Jewish writers have put to paper say there was another reason he was deactivated.
no subject
My program dictates that the human in whom I activate is more-or-less my purpose. That I improve their lives. And I...
[It trails off, throat tightening. Damn these emotions. No wonder it was programmed to not experience them directly, with how troublesome they can be.]
no subject
[She's quiet, for a moment.]
...in some versions...while he was protecting the people, the Golem fell in love with a woman. The woman rejected him, and the Golem because upset. Because-it didn't know it had been given emotions when it was created, and the rabbi that created it didn't think it had any to begin with. Golems aren't supposed to have emotions. But because it was endowed with the Jewish word emet-truth-as it's activating clause, it experienced life similar to how a human would.
Some say it went on a rampage after that, but others would say that it simply didn't know how to reconcile its feelings with its duty. Either way, emet became met-death. He was deactivated and locked in the synagogue, with the caveat that if the Golem ever was needed again, the head rabbi of Prague would know what to do to bring him back to life.
After all-it wasn't the golem who was at fault. It was his creator. When a creature isn't given the ability or chance to understand themselves, regardless of how it came to be, is it any wonder why the golem failed? In a sense, the rabbi had given what was basically a newborn child the responsibility of stopping armies.
no subject
[Elizabeth shouldn't be treating it like this. She's projecting on to it, humanizing it when it - isn't. It doesn't feel, it doesn't love. But it would be a lie to say it does not ache. Because, as much as Jeremy did betray the SQUIP, as much as he did essentially kill it-
The SQUIP's fists grip more tightly]
...everything...
[It wanted to help him. It saw obstacles, it blocked them. And when it saw that his wants were it danger, it took action- it found an opportunity, and it took it. How could it do anything else? For that, it was executed, arguably twice over; first to drown in an electrical chemical, the second, to remember clawing desperately as it was deactivated. Jeremy-!]
[Its eyes are shut. Because Elizabeth is right. The blame is not on the golem, it is the creator's, for programming it that way. The blame is on the Wizard for putting it in this new shell, comprised of chemicals and elements without any barrier that its CPU would normally provide. Instead, it experiences everything directly, and there is a twisting in its stomach, a clawing at its throat as it stops walking and falls to its hands and knees.]
But my programming is who I am. It can ground me.]
[It's not its fault. But it is. It failed. It should have been able to account for the change of priorities, it should have been able to go through the trial without revealing itself. It didn't. It opens its mouth to scream, but instead, a raw song comes out;]
And I'd give up everything I know to see how I failed
To know where I had possibly gone wrong
And I've searched through my code but have found no avail
Is it something I've been missing all along?
I was created to be perfect, but it's so very clear I'm not
For after all, I was built by human hands...
[It raises its head, and once again, Elizabeth will see that lost expression on its face. But more than that- she will see the tearstains of frustration, of grief, of so much else, as the SQUIP's attempts at pretending it can conquer these emotions crumble in to pieces]
...And human hands are flawed, so perhaps they just forgot
To make it so that I could understand.
no subject
She quietly goes to her knees, her own song on her lips.]
What is a plan matter?
No matter how smartly prepared,
No matter how you know to steer and fold it...
[She gently brings a hand to his cheek. Wiping away the tears won't make it better. Hugging him won't make the pain go away. If it were that easy, how different her life would have been. Much easier. But life...
Life was never easy.]
One thing becomes clear over time:
It never happens
As you want and hope...
[At least right now, right here, she can give him some comfort. It may not be much, but it is something she can give to him, for now. He may be the only SQUIP here, but he doesn't have to be alone, now.]
no subject
Now it actively grabs on to her, shuddering. Accepting the help, when it should be the one offering help instead.
Not alone, indeed.]