Practical Philosophy, Thursday

[endsthegame]

It was a tired-looking Ender they'd find at the pondside, sitting on a pillow on top of a blanket, taking big sips from a bottle of water.

"Apologies," he said. "My son kept me up all night, so I didn't find much time to prepare any grand questions for you today. Though I suppose you could look on the current state of the island as a question mark in and of itself."

No, he wasn't going to mention that he'd been here before, not to the class, and certainly not to Jane, who was mocking him quietly through the device by his ear. "As far as I can see, this is a potential future for this planet - a war and resultant apocalypse of some kind. So often, humanity tries to immolate itself - it's enough to make you wonder if we're all innately self-destructive somehow."

He shrugged.

"It's as good a topic as any."

And as good a way not to think of the Capital Wasteland as possible.

Comments

Sign In!

[endsthegame]

Sleepily.

Re: Sign In!

[always_someone]

Norman Babcock

Re: Sign In!

[goldfishontherocks]

Keyleth

Re: Sign In!

[scoffs_at_tradition]

Shuri

Re: Sign In!

[in_sidon_we_trust]

Prince Sidon

Re: Sign In!

[unusual_sith]

Lana Beniko

Re: Sign In!

[bookbeltof_love]

Nina

Settle In, Listen, Etc

[endsthegame]

Grab a sandwich...

Re: Settle In, Listen, Etc

[always_someone]

Norman was taking one of those sandwiches, yes. He figured if nothing else, the teacher was probably going to hand them food that was unlikely to give them some kind of horrible radiation poisoning, right?

He looked a little bit twitchy today, eyes trained on that sandwich right on through the lecture. The ghosts out today were...

Well.

He wanted to itch his way right out of his skin when he looked at some of them, and so he wasn't going to.

Re: Settle In, Listen, Etc

[goldfishontherocks]

Keyleth gave him a sympathetic look; as someone closely attuned to nature, everything this week was making her feel a little bit ill.

Re: Settle In, Listen, Etc

[always_someone]

Norman managed a glance up and a little smile at that.

Yeah... the sooner the island packed up and went elsewhere, the better it would be.

Uh...

Hopefully.

Re: Settle In, Listen, Etc

[goldfishontherocks]

Keyleth tried to druidcraft him a pretty little flower! She did! It wasn't her fault the flower came out a fluorescent shade of teal with three times as many petals as it should and had weird spiky leaves that looked almost lethal.

She sighed, handed it to him anyway, and shrugged.

Re: Settle In, Listen, Etc

[always_someone]

It was actually a really pretty shade of teal, though, and Norman couldn't help but smile a little more at the attempt, taking the flower and, possibly taking his life into his own hands for a moment, raising it to his face to smell it.

To his credit, he totally managed to not sneeze.

And look, it was far less, um, awkward than the last flower she'd made for him!

"Thank you," he murmured, still smiling, and then tucked the flower behind his ear.

... Being very mindful of those leaves. Those leaves looked dangerous.

Re: Settle In, Listen, Etc

[unusual_sith]

Lana was taking a sandwich, but this week had made her a little twitchy, so she was absolutely checking it with the Force before she ate it.

Re: Settle In, Listen, Etc

[bookbeltof_love]

Man, like, everyone was so down.

This week had been great, Nina didn't know what they were all thinking.

Sure, the end of the world was a bit depressing, but it wasn't like they were stuck here.

Since food was, like, definitely at a premium around here, though, she was totally grabbing a sandwich today.

Talk.

[endsthegame]

About potential futures. Or self-destruction. Or something else entirely.

Re: Talk.

[unusual_sith]

"Aren't we?" Lana asked. She shrugged. "Not only that, but often."

Re: Talk.

[bookbeltof_love]

"But, like, isn't it nice to see how, even when the end comes, there's something that comes after it?????????" Nina offered, thoroughly unconcerned about the destructive tendencies of people.

She was fairly destructive herself, after all.

Talk to the Teacher

[endsthegame]

He's beginning to wonder if he should've taken up Ben's offer of a really large cup of coffee that morning.

Re: Talk to the Teacher

[momslilassassin]

Ben had circled back with it for after class, just in case. He'd left the kids under the care of a ludicrously over-engineered assassin droid, but he didn't want them out in this ...any of this, really.

"Time go home, kreetle," he said softly.

Re: Talk to the Teacher

[endsthegame]

There was a reason Ender had put his foot down about picking a hotel off the island. Keeping them at home was only sensible.

Ender looked up, expression wry, and rubbed at his eye. "Is it that obvious?"

Re: Talk to the Teacher

[momslilassassin]

"To me, but I've got a bit of an advantage when it comes to you," Ben said, smiling fondly down at him.

"This place can't be bringing up good memories."

Re: Talk to the Teacher

[endsthegame]

"It was a long time ago," Ender said quietly, looking past Ben into the wasteland. "And I've had worse."

Re: Talk to the Teacher

[momslilassassin]

Ben settled in next to him, bumping his shoulder up against his. "Neither of those things is the point at all, love."

Re: Talk to the Teacher

[endsthegame]

"No, but I'm trying not to linger too much, or we'll spend an age and a half on unpleasant memories," Ender said, "Like Karla's fight with that scorpion..."

Re: Talk to the Teacher

[momslilassassin]

Ben leaned his head into Ender's shoulder with a long sigh. "That wasn't a great week," he vastly understated.

OOC

[endsthegame]

Having an off day, sorry, guys.

Re: OOC

[goldfishontherocks]

I know the feeling. *squishes*

Re: OOC

[bookbeltof_love]

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3