chicago ♔ something wrong | with all the plans of my life

[rationalizes]

♬ Killing Loneliness - HIM

WHO || Failboat + Burt [Closed]
WHAT || Various and sundry post-funeral shenanigans
WHERE || Chicago, IL
WHEN || July 6, evening.
HOW || Actionspam

[ This log will cover all events that take place between the funeral and the NOVA Record break-in two nights later, that weren't hit on during the live session. Feel free to make your own threads! ]

Comments

[luthir]

[ as he turns around to go get dawn a drink, she might see the smirk creep up his face. dammit vi. ]

[watcherjunior]

[ Aw, Luthir, you sly dog. Or elf. Elf dog? Whatever.

She rounds the side to take a seat by Vi, trying to relax into the chair. ]

I wouldn't necessarily say strong-silent-stoic is unfriendly. Maybe a bit cool, but hey. Making judgments is a terrible call.

[graveflowers]

You forgot ridiculously and unfairly attractive in that description but I'll let it slide in case I turn out to have a massively jealous streak. [She grins at Dawn over the mug before taking another sip.] Anypoodle, yeah, judging is bad. Like say, judging people based solely on their race.

[AHEM.]

[luthir]

[ as he sets down dawn's glass in front of her, vi gets a Look ] I'm familiar with plenty of dark elves who aren't prey to the House system. But that doesn't make it less of a reality.

[graveflowers]

And it still doesn't make judging all of them based on that any less prejudice! That's part of how this all got started, Jade is part drow. [She closes her eyes briefly.] ...was. The Resistance used that, pushing Raf to assassinate a politician trying to enact laws against Drow. And now he's fucked because he has that in his past all because people can't see past someone's race.

[Okay, so they might have been done with one fight... to have another! Enjoy, Dawn.]

[watcherjunior]

[ See, here she wanted to say that calling someone else's... someone attractive would be a bad idea. But it seems she's walked into more than she has anticipated. Maybe she can diffuse the fight by pleading ignorance and getting them to focus on just explaining things to her. ]

So, um. For those of us who are new to all of this and forgot their Cliff Notes: dark elves? House system?

[luthir]

[ luthir is only happy to focus on answering the question instead of directly addressing vi's accusation... ]

Dark elves are a divergent race of elves who dwell in an underground kingdom in the Shadow World known as the Underdark. They labor under an oppressive matriarchy, but it's honestly more accurate to explain their culture as highly theocratic. They worship the dark drow goddess who was responsible for their creation - but out of fear, not love. The Spider Queen is quite literally insane - sadistic, devious, and one of the cruelest gods of any pantheon - and she has sought to shape drow society in her own image. As a result, the Underdark embraces torture, slavery, assassinations, and other, worser evils as a part of their everyday life. Compassion and love are anathema to their ways, and so they teach it as weakness to their young and snuff it out at every opportunity, encouraging hatred and malice in its place. They strip away even the concept of family as most races know it, and there's no attachment between parent and child.

It's difficult to build a functioning society out of a people with no real concept of love or loyalty, so the drow have a series of ruling houses constantly at war with each other - and themselves, as members scheme and murder their way to more power in its caste.

The Queen delights in their bloodthirsty nature, and takes amusement from watching them claw over one another in their quest to be the strongest, that they might survive another day. Those who seek to abandon their society are ruthlessly hunted and killed or enslaved or tortured.

And most dark elves have this mentality so ingrained, that even the Veil and a physical displacement from the Underdark have not caused them to abandon their ways - they've merely reconstructed them here.

[graveflowers]

Most, not all. [She says that really quietly, before speaking normally again.] There is one good goddess though, Lady Eilistraee. When Corellon cast out the drow gods for plotting against him and the other Seldarine, she went with her mother and brothers willingly. [She glances at Luthir to see if she remembered correctly, but it's brief because she does actually feel sort of bad for, you know, calling him out in front of someone else, that was probably rude and unkind. "How to gain and lose a boyfriend in 48 hours: a study by Violet Fiore".]

[watcherjunior]

[ And here sits Dawn, finding this all a bit like Greek. Actually, she wishes it was Greek because then she may have a better time understanding it. She remembers things from home being less deity-intensive. A demon is a demon is a demon; it doesn't matter who or what they worshipped, they all bit the big one in the end. Some were harder than others, but they all ended up the same.

But there are always shades of gray, the inbetween and the ones who split the middle. She has a feeling this may be what some of this argument is about. ]

That sounds really super intense. I mean, I don't get how any race or society or whatever can survive without some sort of... bond. Familial or friendship or allies or something. I mean, I guess the competition substitutes for it. [ She's quiet a moment, trying to put things together. ] And Jade was part Drow. Her sister would be, too, right?

[luthir]

If they're whole sisters. Or sisters at all.

[graveflowers]

You don't think they are?

[luthir]

Considering whose word we have to take on the subject, I can't say we should simply accept that as written.

[graveflowers]

[It's obvious from the way her shoulders slump slightly and the fact that she stays silent that she had taken them at their word -- and, in all honesty, had before Blade's neato emotional roofie. But her life is a series of bad life choices and one really good one, so it isn't the most surprising thing in the world.

She just doesn't want Jade to be gone. A legacy shouldn't die like that. Which isn't fair to Nadia in the slightest, but grief isn't fair either.]

[watcherjunior]

So to say that guy's bad news is a bit of an understatement, right? [ When Vi's shoulders slump, she reaches over and puts a hand on her back, rubbing slightly. ] What was that other woman doing there? I mean, she's a Knight, right?

[graveflowers]

Wait, really? Is that, oh what's her name... something fancy sounding... whatever. [Whoops, Vi sure wasn't paying that much attention to Gar's spiel right then apparently. But remembering that she exists is good? Ish. Also wow Dawn is stellar at giving her a different subject to latch on to.] I forgot she was on this intrepid team -- not that I would have met her before anyway since... we are the team newbies. She's pretty.

SO ABOUT THE TIME I LOST THIS AND FOUND IT A MONTH LATER woops

[luthir]

Sir Dumage. [ he does not sound overly impressed with her pretty ] A member of the Dragon's Tongue who volunteered to work undercover, in hopes of getting access to information through Blade, as I hear it.

[graveflowers]

[Is it because he's super impressed by Violet's pretty? So thus finds slightly disheveled dorks attractive? Poor dear.]

That sounds horrible. [Her expression reads: ew.]