medical/self-care live!

[sancrimony]

Who: some cute nurses & you
Where: the lobby + wherever if you want a housecall
When: day 131, noon

[ hope everyone is resting well! or maybe keeping busy, as one does after horrible trauma. some sensitIVs are doing just that - actually, it's been a while since lucifel's called a live, hasn't it? but he's in the lobby in a nurse outfit, with nya,  and possibly a few other sensitIVs who may or may not have been roped into wearing nurse outfits. it's mystery ]

Ahhh . . . Uhm, good morning, everyone -

[ somewhat nervously, or maybe self-conscious, ]

It's been a while, hasn't it? Not for any good reason either, but - in any case, we thought it would be good to have something like this again . . . that is -

Hello! This is a medical checkup Live, since we've had a rough couple of days. Uhm, if you would like to get a checkup, we'll be here in the lobby! Even if you don't feel it's necessary, we've arranged to have some comforts here, if you'd like to stop by for some self-care, instead!

[ camera swivel to the lobby which has a bunch of dakimakuras (stripped of their covers so you're not looking at lewds) and blankets, some of them raised up like someone's taken boxes to make them into tables and put a blanket over it so it looks nicer. on them are a few kettles and teapots, mismatched like someone gathered pretty much every tea dispenser he could. there are also a few trays of sweets - desserts from the café, as well as fruits to be cut up, as well as like, ice cream and Japanese snacks like purin and senbei. there is probably literally a boxtable that is entirely just mandarin oranges. ]

. . . Uhm . . .

[ with the camera back to lucifel, who looks somewhat conflicted - though overall grateful, ]

Speaking personally for a moment - it was really comforting to have people by my side, yesterday - so thank you . . . Even though I was a mess who couldn't stop crying . . .

. . . And - in the end, it made me feel a lot better, and I understood just then that crying can bring great relief! So - uhm, if you need a shoulder to cry on, or an ear to listen to your troubles, or a lap to rest your head on, or someone to hug or wrestle to get rid of stress - well, I don't know if we're all able to do that here but we'll do our best to help you how we can!

[ and he gives an earnest smile, there ]

I'm still - uhm, learning . . . quite a lot of things, so this is the best I could think of for "self care", but if you have an idea for the future, I'd be most grateful to know it!

[ then, a beat ]

Ahh, but it's understandable that you might not want to relax around some people, so - well - for this reason, we decided against visiting every dorm like we did before, but -

If you'd like one of us to make a housecall to your dorm instead, then please send a text to your preferred healer on duty, and we'll be on the way! If you really can't tolerate any of us, then . . . well, it would be best to get as many points as you can, since this last game was really bad for scars, but - well, in any case, we'll do our best to stay out of your way, so please let us know in advance as well, or otherwise spend some time outside of the lobby, please! We've made a border  -

[ with a gesture to the line of pillows where all dakimakura and blanket and foodnonsense stops  ]

- for you to have a clear walkway, so please bear with our intrusion for the next couple of hours!

[ cheerily. ok lucifel signing off ]

sensitIVs | HOUSECALLS/TEXTS | Bring Your Own Toplevels | TOPLEVELS ONLY

Comments

[iamverybadass]

...Yes. I would like to hear what you have to say about it.

[we_meet_again]

Okay. So, first, some preamble:

For whatever reason, pep!pep! arrived over a month after all the other units. Before we arrived, there hadn't been any out-of-game deaths before.

On our second day here, there was game where someone killed someone else in a bad way, and the victim was furious. They publicly vowed to murder the aggressor out-of-game if he tried it again, and everyone got really wound up. And right away, entire units were picking sides and threatening to revenge-murder each other. Words like "blood feud" started getting thrown around and things were super tense.

And this was pretty stressful for us because we were... the revival unit. We knew as soon as people started killing each other, everyone was going to look at us to fix it, because suddenly here is an entire unit full of people who could revive the dead, freshly arrived.

But the thing was that the people in our unit were like... generally pretty young, gentle, caring people with no experience with, or tolerance for, violence. So everyone else's murders looked like they were going to turn into our trauma real fast.

We were super stressed out. We were worried that people would start to have a cavalier attitude about killing, since our presence meant it was something that could be undone. We were worried people would use us as an excuse to hurt people. We didn't think that was going to be great for us, or for sensitIV, or for the community at large.

SensitIV charges points for healing specifically for this kind of reason -- they hope that by attaching even a small penalty, it can help discourage people from exploiting them. So we were kinda feeling out that idea but not really making much headway.

Two weeks after our arrival, Aries killed Moreau.

[iamverybadass]

[ Talon listens quietly through the whole explanation, expression grim. At some point he's pulled his phone out to take notes on, tapping away in the memos application. ]

I had not realized your team wasn't an original... That does change some of the context quite a bit. It's surprising to hear that all the units were so...vitriolic as well. It has been my experience that they look down on our team for that behavior instead, even if it's one of our newer members who has no connection to anything that happened with Aries.

...Does Sensitiv actually charge points now? I've never been charged, but that may be due to our alliance.

[we_meet_again]

People didn't tolerate that behavior from the other units very well, either, which is probably why things escalated as rapidly as they did. Even though it's been months since then, it seems like there's still a lot of tension and bad blood between the particular units involved, and a lot of people still willing to hit them a lot in games.

SensitIV still charges 300 points for healing, yeah. Some of them choose not to charge for personal reasons, others accept points but are bad about asking, and I'm not even sure if the newbies even know their unit does that. But I paid a healing fee just yesterday so I know they still do it... I think they were a lot louder about it back then, though. It's been a while since they last reminded people.

[iamverybadass]

There definitely is still tension. It's something I've been warned to be aware of since the day I arrived.

Hm... I suppose we're lucky some of them are fond of us now. Although I don't think we get into enough trouble to need healing outside of games often, so perhaps that's the difference.

[we_meet_again]

Could be! Only sensitIV knows for sure, I guess...

So, anyway.

...About two weeks after we arrived, Aries killed Moreau. I'd never seen either of them before and had no idea who they were. But it turned out Moreau was a newbie. He had no memories, no abilities, no weapons... he'd only just arrived that day. But Aries found him and beat the crap out of him, turned him into a bug, and crushed him... all on a Live for everyone to see.

Right before Aries killed Moreau, he said something along the lines of "If I thought you'd suffer, I'd let you live. But since they're going to fix you up anyway, I may as well get some satisfaction out of this." Then squashed him.

So of course you can probably imagine how this situation looked to us at the time. This whole thing was like... pep!pep!'s nightmare scenario! A horrific act of violence with the expectation it would be fixed. We were incredibly upset about it. The murder was awful. Using us as an excuse to do a murder was awful. Broadcasting it to the whole community was awful.

John, who was on Wild City at the time, recovered Moreau's body. He called pep!pep! and sensitIV, and it took four people to put Moreau back together. Because after getting stepped on, his body was like... soup.

We felt a huge amount of pressure to say something. A reminder to the community that the revival and healer units were composed of actual people, that we did not actually choose to have these powers, and that people shouldn't assume that we would be cool with murders just because we can undo them. We were also super worried about things escalating, because all it took to nearly start a war was someone just threatening to do a murder. What was this going to cause? Would Aries kill Moreau again? Would Moreau come back for revenge against Aries or Wild City? Was this going to turn into a blood feud between future is now and Wild City? Again, we had no idea who these people were or what to expect. But, in order to try and prevent things from escalating out of control, we put our foot down hard.

We made an announcement that was basically "this is our policy from now on, if you don't like it, you can talk to us." We didn't name any names or even address the murder at all, but since this was the day after Tokyo-F's First Murder it was pretty easy to make assumptions about what this was in response to, for good or ill.

[iamverybadass]

[ He resumes note-taking again, slowing to a near stop at some of the more...descriptive moments. It's a lot to take in, even knowing most of the story already. ]

...I...can see how hard that must have been. But it still...

[ He shrugs stiffly. ]

I...cannot say whether or not I would have chosen to do something different, if I had been placed on Pep instead. I understand why your fear drove you to it, but I want you to understand how it was for Wild City too. Aries had a reason to fear that man. And the way it's affected us since...

That's also a long story, so I'll wait for you to finish.

[we_meet_again]

Yeah. I'm sure it was hard for Wild City.

Immediately after the announcement, two of us -- Pink and Sunrise -- talked to Aries. He said the part about "they'll revive you anyway" was assuming the Producers would do the revival, not us.

At the time there was no evidence to suggest the Producers would revive people outside a game. And if they were going to, what was the point of giving us this power in the first place? So you can see why we interpreted it the way we did, even if that wound up being a misunderstanding.

Apparently Aries didn't intend for us to get involved. But we still got called, regardless, and it still affected us. And we didn't mean to hurt Wild City, but I imagine that's what happened anyway, regardless of our intent. There was a lot of unintended splash damage all around, for both units.

After talking to Aries, Pink dropped the matter and refunded the points he had been sent earlier. We also took a second look at our policy and decided it was unfair and wasn't something we were okay with, so we changed it.

I haven't seen Haruto or Whisky since then, but I apologized to Silver the next time I saw him and let him know we changed our policy. I've only spoken to Aries a few times in passing since then, but it's always been during games, so there hasn't been time for conversation of any substance.

If any of them have approached us to talk about things, I haven't heard about it. So I'm not even sure if they... want to, at this point.

[iamverybadass]

...It is unlikely that they do. They are... We all are wary of other units. Regardless of what they say. And if you and Silver really spoke before, then...I suppose that is it. He has heard enough to make his decision already.

[we_meet_again]

His decision?

[iamverybadass]

On how he feels about what happened.

[we_meet_again]

Ah. Yeah. I suppose that's true.

For what it's worth, I don't bear any ill will toward Wild City. I don't think there's anyone on our unit who does.

But if the same is not true for you guys, and you have any suggestions on how to improve things, I'm willing to hear it.

[iamverybadass]

Who Wild City dislikes has nothing to do with how we decide to play in the games, and none of us are foolish enough to act on anything less than an immediate threat outside of them. You have nothing to be concerned about.

[we_meet_again]

I was talking more about lingering hurt feelings, but..

Well. If any of them ever want to talk about things, they're always welcome to do so.


Would you like me to get that document for you?

[iamverybadass]

That is not what most people would have been talking about.

[ Huffs softly ]

And yes, please. Wild City should be aware of all of the healers' policies.