maskormenacelogs | OCTOBER CATCH-ALL

Well... I do keep pretty busy, even if it's not with supervillains and just regular old crime. It helps, [he has to admit. Has it been helping now, with the wound so fresh? Not particularly, but it's better than lying around at home and feeling sorry for himself. If he can go to work and do his job, and then hit the skies and distract himself by doing some good, why wouldn't he? At least he can help people while he's feeling miserable about the whole thing, occupying the time that Ken ought to be occupying.

It's probably not a healthy coping mechanism, but it's the most common one for any superhero. He just hasn't witnessed it in others yet.]

It's not the same as being busy back home, though, so I get it. Anything's harder to deal with if you think too much about it.

[...so best not to, right?]

Yeah, I don't know.

[ Kaidan hadn't experienced that kind of loss, after all. Not here, anyway. He could weather it well enough with no change, he figured, if anyone left. Friends, crewmates -- but ironically, he didn't even consider Shepard leaving in that moment, the way he looked over the sky like he was trying to read it, when what he really wanted was the damn stars. ]

We need more to do, don't you think? Here, as a whole? I feel like...with purse snatchers and petty criminals... we're almost overkill.

What more is there, though? Supervillains don't exist here, and that's a good thing. Having no aliens coming and attacking us is a good thing too.

[He stretches his legs out in front of him, contemplating everything that either of them could have feasibly kept busy with back home. There's always going out there and making a societal change as a lot of people preach about doing, but that's probably not what Kaidan means.]

I mean... there's joining the army too, I guess, but I wouldn't want to fight for this government.

Nah, me neither. It's weird but...I'm happy being a civilian working for the military here. I don't think I'd want to be a soldier for them -- despite... I mean, we've signed up for things, and gone overseas for them, but there's always that promise that we could just leave, if we wanted. It's different than being AWOL.

[ He shook his head, fingers laced on his stomach. ]

It feels like a waste, doesn't it? Leaving us to just...be us? I don't know what to do with this half the time.

Yeah, that's exactly it. We can work for them if we think that it's right to, but we're not obligated to do it. We won't be slammed with something awful if we decide, you know, not to go to one of their missions.

[He shrugs.]

The government might see it as a waste, but they don't have much of a choice. If they tried conscription on us, there'd be a riot. A superpowered riot. Totally not worth it.

Hah! Could you imagine? We'd be trouble and a half.

[ His grin was a little fond then, thinking about it. Not because he was a troublemaker, but because he couldn't imagine the trouble it would cause. ]

Yeah, I don't...I don't think that they're that stupid, you know? I can't imagine they'd make that kind of a mistake.

I know nothing about politics and I can see that the whole conscription thing would be a problem. Yeah, I'm sure they're not that stupid. Honestly, if it were up to them, they'd be able to control the Porter.

[Jaime shrugs, a little ruefully.]

Then we'd all be better off.

Yeah.

[ And that brought it right back around. He was silent, for a long moment, considering how to respond. Kaidan wasn't any better at this than Jaime was, after all. ]

I wonder if we wouldn't be worse off, though. We'd have probably stormed the government by now, or we wouldn't have the same...community, right? Because only the people who'd want to be here would be here.

Other worlds might be worse off, having people with superpowers in worlds where there aren't any. Some might be better off, with people to help deal with threats. [Jaime stretches his legs out in front of him, looking up at the sky as if he's just talking conversationally about the weather, not about something that he's already thought about, time and time again.]

Most of us would be back home, though, and the people who stay? They're the people who don't got anywhere else to go, and they'd finally have a promise they wouldn't just disappear, go back to whatever they're fighting with, so they wouldn't want this place breaking down either.

[He shrugs.] So... no, our community wouldn't be worse off, but it'd be different. But it wouldn't really be yours anymore anyway, right? You wouldn't be here.

[Neither would Jaime, in the end.]

Yeah, probably not. [ It's frank, but Jaime isn't wrong. He wouldn't be here. As much as he didn't mind it here, and actually kind of liked it, it was...

Well, it just wasn't home. His parents weren't here -- parent, probably -- and Shepard was, but what about all the people waiting on them, depending on them? he'd taken on the role of a Spectre, after all, that came with responsibility. ]

I just figured all the...people who constantly pulled things would be here, but maybe you're right. There would be some people here to balance that out. Even if it wouldn't be any of us.

They've got homes too. Some of them have worlds that they'd rather be messing with, or even friends and family waiting for them. I mean, they're messed up, but they're still people.

[He shrugs.]

And I'd probably wind up back home too.

[Probably. These days, he has more tying him here than back home, but quantity does not make up for quality. Maybe he has dozens of friends here, but back home, he's got family. How could he possibly leave that behind?]

I guess. I just always figured...chaos was chaos, right?

[ The people he fought would go straight back to where they were from, though. Who cared about here, when the Reapers were coming to control them?

Why would it be different for other worlds? ]

Huh, I guess sometimes...it's easier to think of them as something else. They are, aren't they? People, I mean. I guess you're right, things would be different, but still pretty similar.

Yeah. I think... I think it gets kind of dangerous if you start thinking of them as anything but people, y'know? No matter what, they've got their own issues. Sometimes you gotta understand where they're coming from.

[He sighs, a dramatically beleaguered sound. It's clear that this is something that he believes, but finds horribly difficult to parse through. In truth, he wouldn't be saying so if his father hadn't sat him down to talk about the nature of forgiveness, the nature of judgment, the nature of understanding.

It still blows. He'd rather just be angry.]

Which means some of them will go back to being some other world's problems.

To be fair, what I've been fighting lately are either mercs or... [ A face. ] Robots.

[ He shook his head. ]

I don't know, it's different? When you're a soldier, we have to...dehumanize them a little. To get through it all. Otherwise you start to feel bad, that you just killed someone's dad, or someone who probably had a good reason for signing up with a terrorist organization. It's... [ A face. It was that face. The squinty, pinched one that looked somewhat constipated. ]

Shepard's always better at it than I am. Getting people to come around. I don't know if that means he gets where they're coming from or... is just really good at blowing smoke, but...

It's easier looking at the results, and knowing who caused the problem, than the root, I guess. Which isn't a good way to go, I know.

I guess it makes sense for something like war, when talking isn't even an option. But that's not the way things are here. It's like...

[Jaime looks down this time, opening his hands and closing them back into fists again. This is why he's very, very careful, even when he's not feeling so hot about the whole thing. It's all about control, something Kaidan knows a whole lot about.]

Like if you wanna do some good and it's easy for you to hurt people, that means it's your duty not to. To talk first. It usually doesn't work, but it's better than doing anything else.

Yeah.

Guess that's why I don't do a lot of hero things here -- it's different. I wouldn't say home's black and white, but...

[ He looked down at his own hands. He didn't feel necessarily violent -- he didn't even think of himself as a violent person. He didn't shoot first, ask questions later, but right now? He kind of felt like it.

Sometimes people had a way of making you feel small, with their different perspectives. Especially when they were good ones. ]

It's a good point, actually. [ A half-frustrated laugh. ] I don't think of myself as the kind of person to shoot first, ask questions later, but... maybe the Alliance has made me that way.

You think so? 'Cause... we haven't exactly faced down a lot of the big crisises - [that should be pronounced crises, but Jaime's forgetful] - together, but I don't think that's the way you are. Even if you don't understand where other people are coming from, you give 'em the benefit of the doubt.

[Jaime thinks highly of Kaidan, though. He has a hard time seeing Kaidan chasing after a criminal and deciding to rough them up instead talking them down. It's just not the kind of person he is, even if he is a soldier that might want to tackle them before talking instead of the other way around.

But that's okay too. Kaidan's a soldier, not a superhero. People like Jaime, people who have as many powers as Jaime, they have to be held up to a higher standard.]

I mean, you gave freakin' Dr. Chilton the benefit of the doubt and he accused you of murder. I think you're fine, Kaidan.

Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure that was a misunderstanding.

[ He says, with a frown. He doesn't trust Chilton anymore, but he still doesn't think there was anything malicious in the act -- mostly because he has barely spoken to him since. ]

But maybe you're right. I'd trust you to have the right of it. Outside perspective, and all of that, you know?

For what it's worth, I think your perspective is...a good one to have, considering everything. You know?

OCTOBER CATCH-ALL

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god I THINK I REMEMBER THEM CHATTIN BOUT CHILTON lmk if I'm misremembering

I THINK SO..... if not we'll handwave it