Several days into the library liminal

[what_do_you_see]

Several people remarking to everyone about new tattoos. Might be best to do a role call: who here has been marked by the facists that run this prison?

Comments

[what_do_you_see]

[It is him, the buffet scavenging redhead!]

What happened? Does the imagery mean anything to you personally?

[naturaltwohands]

[Drizzt shows his tattoo in a mirror, standing with his sleeve rolled up to expose the new tattoo on his upper left arm.]

It was due to how I handled being arrested without bloodshed or revealing the Travelers, I believe. The imagery is the scales of Justice, and I have often used my sword to further Justice's cause back home. The tattoo fits me perfectly.

[what_do_you_see]

Sound proud to be chosen by one of the wardens.

[Rorschach is a little torn here - Justice is a concept that is hugely important to him. Something he has done his best to fight for for almost all of his adult life. But he also finds the concept that someone who would abduct so many people from their own realities and force them to play these games as some sort of actual force of justice to be disgusting, a twisted mockery of what true justice should be.]

[naturaltwohands]

If I had to be chosen by one, she is the one I would have chosen. I've had time to realize when she spoke to me, and she did not seem evil. Perhaps in another situation, we would even be friends.

[Drizzt refuses to believe what most Travelers seem to--that they're prisoners in this place, forced to play a game of sorts. He saw the good they did in January, and how they were able to free those elves from the unjust separation of society and families. Drizzt believes in the best intentions of people, not the worst. He knows about more horrifying things like Moebius in the vaguest of sense, and he only assumes that they were supposed to fix that Jaunt, too.

The Trumps do not torture them. They do not take steps to break them, body and soul. The longer they stay, the more they earn new abilities. It is simply a different way of life, one that Drizzt may not have chosen, but one that he has come to accept as his for now. Especially with his father at his side!

Drizzt is drow, belonging to a race of black-skinned elves almost entirely known for their evil and cruelty. Drizzt is also a ranger, a follower of Mielikki, Lady of the Forest. How can he so quickly condemn the Trumps when he knows what it feels like to be instantly condemned himself for simply being drow? He cannot.]

[what_do_you_see]

[As someone who has been very nearly broken by them, Rorschach could argue quite effectively that torture is something the Trumps are very good at, actually. But no one is asking him, and he's not interested in debating with people he sees as collaborators.]

Remains to be seen if we have to be chosen at all. [pauses] There is no evil, there is no good. Both concepts imply a higher power and judgment. All there is, are the gutters we live in and what we chose to do about the filth and violence and degradation that surrounds us. But the powers here aren't benevolent, don't try to fool yourself, no matter how pretty they talk.

[naturaltwohands]

[Drizzt wouldn't mind being corrected if he is wrong. That's how one grows. But it's not like he's spoken of his feelings enough to even invite such a discussion.

Suddenly, the conversation gets far more interesting and philosophical.]

Good and evil do not need higher powers to exist. They are concepts our hearts create, just like gods. If there is no good, then why would we care about the filth and violence and degradation at all?

They are not one conclusive force, from what I understand, but individuals. We do not know their motives, and I only know what her choice means to me.

[what_do_you_see]

Some don't. Most don't. People usually live in a world where they only focus on what's in front of them. Good and evil are what they care for and abhor, just personal choices. No real meaning in a greater context.

[naturaltwohands]

[A long pause.]

That is not how it works in my world. Good and evil are defined and knowable. I cannot see how it would be so different here.

[what_do_you_see]

Define good and evil.

[naturaltwohands]

[Drizzt actually does pause to consider that answer. He feels that the other is just simply looking for holes in the logic of others, to try to pull them down to his level of despair. ... Needless to say, Drizzt does not think much of pessimists that attempt to instill it in others.]

The simplest explanation is actions that bring an overall happiness and prosperity are good and that those that bring despair and destruction are evil. We could spend days arguing back and forth about the specifics, of which I am not interested in doing.