ximilialog | Julog

CHARACTERS: Yzak and you!
LOCATION: Various.
DATE: After return to the station.
CONTENT: All of that post-mission hubbub. Some closed starters in the comments.
WARNINGS: Will note.

#0: Just For Flavor | (not a prompt)

[ The team stayed on E-23b for a little longer than anticipated after finding the orb. What was Yzak up to during that time? He'd stayed near the towers in the chaos after one of them fell, and that topped with the fact that he had an unpleasant run-in with a couple of his colleagues back at the parliament who were looking for some revenge and to smear his name, the way things shook out afterward came together in a way where Yzak couldn't even be assed enough to argue about it. He'd been seen near the towers and accused by those colleagues of helping the Fables - which wasn't a lie in the end. So he decided to fuck off and drop the political "act," focusing his efforts on aiding his actual teammates with the work they wished to do.

His newfound time led him to split it between two main tasks within the sphere of sticking close to his team. Task one was if word got out or identity revealed regarding a certain comatose Mu and the guard tower's destruction, he wanted to make sure he was close just in case anybody else got any ideas of revenge into their head. Best visualized as your classic bodyguard/charge tragic love story at a bedside because one of them is dying trope. It's very sad. Task two was lending his power to Sabriel's by way of his Charter magic to work on the planet's toxic water situation. Best visualized as a classic sibling team up with cool, synergic motions to get the work done, and all of the banter from the occasional teasing to more somber conversations. It's very cute. ]

#1: The Boo Blue Blew Up Blues | (infirmary ; ota)

[ By now none should be surprised to see Yzak in the infirmary while Blue is there. Which is Often. If you're visiting the infirmary for whatever reason, just take the trope visualization described above as the sight you're greeted with, peppered with an option of your choosing between: he's reading something, he's fallen into a tiny doze in his chair, or he's resting a chin in his hand, looking so deep in thought about something that he doesn't even recognize you passing by.

If you're in the infirmary yourself for any injuries, Yzak isn't so rude to ignore you! He'll be up and about frequently, poking his head in ~~nosily~~ curiously to your character to see if they're awake, how they're looking, what they're up to. ]

Hey. How are you doing?

#2: Learning Lad in the Lab | (labs ; ota)

[ Yzak doesn't spend much time in the labs, so his presence there might come as a surprise to anybody who happens to find him there now. That's the extent of the surprise, though; he's not messing with the chemicals, and not even actually tinkering with the techy pieces or building anything.

He does have a bunch of pieces of ~machinery~ scattered out before him, though, a paper pad at his side and a book open at his other, sat atop a few other closed ones. He's skimming the book, eying the pieces on the table in front of him before picking one or two of them up, and then inspecting them closely, how they seem to fit together, what they are, what they do, familiarizing himself with their different shapes and sizes, how strong and how flexible they are. He does that, takes some notes (maybe makes the occasional small doodle to accompany some of the notes), and then repeats the process, now with different pieces of machinery.

He's pretty engrossed! But feel free to engage. ]

#3: Gundam Guy Galaxy Gazing | (simulations ; ota)

[ The view constructed in the simulations are far more bright and beautiful than the one from the station's windows even if it gets the same job done; Reflection. Anybody wandering into the simulations will find themself on the bridge of a battleship, techy and futuristic; metal paneling and computerized screens, sterile and clean and bright. But empty. Empty save for Yzak himself who's leaning against the back of one of the chairs closest to the windows and looking out at the view. The space around Earth and PLANT is a breathtaking sight to see - endless pinpricks of lights dotting space in varying size and brightness, streaks of color of distant clusters and galaxies that feel like staring at a beautiful watercolor painting.

The Earth itself is so close and blue and bright, serving as a backdrop to a group of hourglass-shaped space colonies - well over a hundred. If one were to stare out at the serene view for long enough to notice, there's a small area among the colonies them where a few of them don't look quite as good. Yzak's still in the white uniform he's always seen in as he quietly soaks in the familiarity of the ship and the view. Maybe if you ask nicely he'll give you a tour of some kind; physical tour of the ship itself? Audio tour of the view? ]

Wildcard & OOC | (current and new cr welcome)
Feel free to tweak any prompt and I'll roll with whatever! Or just wildcard me, baby, I'm here for it. Poke me at

gaignun, Tara#1768 or PM me here if you have any questions/want to kick around ideas if nothing stands out! The inbox is always open, too. ♥

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Breakfast, lunch or dinner, it's not a champion's meal to someone like Yzak.

And yet, when he steps into the kitchen and gets the offer, despite the wary look and wrinkling of his nose, he finds himself replying with: ]

Sure.

[ He does note the excess Andy's made, and even if he considers his taste more cultured than nugs, he's still a soldier trained to live on rations if he has no other choice to. He's not a fan of wasting food on what he considers being on duty, either. ]

Thank you, Andy.

[ He heads over to simply grab a plate rather than pots, pans and ingredients like originally planned. ]

How have you been? [ He casts her a look. ] I have seen much of you until now. [ He's noticed that she wasn't very Around during their little extended stay. ]

[ chicken nuggets were a very important human invention my good sir! ]

[ she gets out another bowl and dumps a few in there, not missing the look on his face. she gives him only about a quarter of her stock, because if he's not going to appreciate nugs, all the more for her. for andy, it's less about being used to rations so much as she simply loves to eat. ]

[ as for how she's been - she shrugs with a roll of her shoulder. ] Glad to be back on board, that's for sure. I laid low during our extended attempt at hero play.

[ He takes the extra moment, in that case, to grab for something a little more boogie to dip the nuggets in; some sort of yogurt herb dip.

Being back on the station, that's something he's grateful for, too. Not that he was vehemently against staying down there for longer, but...

He turns his head to Andy with a raised eyebrow. ]

Hero play?

[ she's gonna eat them with bbq sauce, already pulled out. she takes a nugget, dips it, and shoves the whole thing in her mouth. at least she chews it a few times before answering. ]

Objectively, our missions are to get the orb, not stay behind to fix a planet's problems. I know people want to do good to these places we visit. But we're not saviors. We're just people too.

You're right, we're not.

[ He's moving to the mess hall right next door so he can take a proper seat, waving his free hand to invite her along. He continues as he does so. ]

But some of us are soldiers, and simply wish to help instead of look like some kind of savior.

Of course, [ A pause, as he dips and takes a bite of a nugget. Not a SAVAGE who shoves the whole thing into his mouth. ] our good intentions in this particular case didn't go over well with the locals. So I'm not as thrilled to have spent the extra time there.

It even felt ... dangerous for us to remain, at times.

[ oh. right. people actually eat in the mess hall. she doesn't do it as often as she probably should, but she does follow yzak in, carrying all her food effortlessly. ]

I've been a soldier many times over. There's helping and there's thinking you know better. I haven't always been right, and I've made mistakes in thinking I knew better. Maybe I wasn't right this time. [ she doesn't regret saving any of the prisoners through murder, no matter the malice thrown in her direction afterwards. she thinks if they had let more of the people explode instead of doing whatever it took, they would have gotten blamed for that too. ]

The truth is there probably wasn't a right answer at all. But we definitely overstayed our welcome.

We absolutely did.

[ He nods to emphasize that agreement. ]

But you're right. There may not have been a right answer. Nor an argument that we chose the "better" of our options. But I don't think anybody was in the wrong, either. Enough of that entire situation was fucked enough even without our presence.

[ A thoughtful look as he pops the other half of the nugget into his mouth. After chewing and swallowing (because he is refined): ] Not that I'm happy feeling like an easy scapegoat...! But, we're out of there now, and likely not going to back ever again; we succeeded in obtaining the orb, our own are all alive, and we did what we considered best at the time. So I'll get over it.

I think that's the part a lot of us are forgetting. It was already bad. Staying too long was the wrong move, but we got the orb and their shitty government was likely getting overthrown with or without our help. We weren't subtle, but if we had done less I think we'd have gotten blamed for that too.

[ she eats another chicken nugget, yes the whole thing, after dunking it into the bbq sauce so it's slathered. ]

These missions aren't always going to have happy endings. It'll be easier for everyone to adopt your attitude, but I'll give that not everyone's a soldier either.

Edited 2022-07-31 17:33 (UTC)

Fucked if you do, fucked if you don't. [ The exact sort of situation that Yzak hates to be in, evidenced by the disdain in his voice when he says that because he knows Andy is right that they would have gotten blamed either way.

But hating it or not, he's still decides to walk this path long before the Ximilia. He can bear more sins and make tougher choices because he feels he's already done bad enough things. Might as well use those bloodied hands for some good if it means less peoples' have to look the same in his world's future. Not that he's jumping to the opportunity to get his hands any bloodier, of course. ]

Actual, enlisted soldiers, no. We probably have less of those than we do those who know how to fight and have been in similar situations, though.

I understand the wish to want as many happy endings as possible, though. None of us would be here if we didn't, and that's exactly because we know the weight of the regrets we carried with us here to change.

Exactly. Especially on that planet. [ it's not always like that, but viveca's world didn't seem meant to have an immediate good outcome. ] No matter what we did, they had a lot to grow back from.

[ fucked either way is never a fun situation, but andy has admittedly also been it too often. she has no qualms about the violence she participated in, because in the end it saved prisoner lives, and like yzak, her hands will always be bloody. ]

You're not wrong. The difference is these planets aren't our regrets. What we think is a happy ending may not line up. It's going to happen on any planet we go to, it already happens on board this ship.

These places aren't our regrets. But, they can easily become them, if something goes too wrong.

[ He looks down thoughtfully. ] Like what happened with Blue. [ And if his attempt to change his regret isn't actually working for what he wanted ... he'd still technically be able to refocus it, if he ever wanted to. ]

I'm sure next to none of us want to leave with more regrets than we came here with. Or more accurately, leave with a bigger weight of regret compared to what we carried here.

Sure, we can create new regrets as we go along, but unless we change our deals, we can't fix them the same way.

[ she frowns, having spoken with blue herself. ] Accidents happen, and those can turn to regrets too, but we don't always need an orb to make up for mistakes.

We shouldn't be thinking of using the orbs to fix a planet we don't know when we don't even know how they're going to work on our own issues.

Julog

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