[IC Inbox | Meadowlark]

[lifetothefullest]

@lance.sweets | ■ ▲ ◌ ▼

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[lifetothefullest]

I mean it.

[wittingly]

You wanna talk about it?

[lifetothefullest]

No, but I should probably fill you in a development and I don't want to do it on the network.

[wittingly]

You wanna come over? My place is probably quieter, since you guys have that guy living on your couch now.

( He smoked weed with Amos. That guy's cool, but he's pretty sure none of them want to take up his real estate for this conversation. )

[lifetothefullest]

Sure. I'm not going to be great company, just as a warning.

[wittingly]

It's fine, you're never great company

[lifetothefullest]

[That actually makes him smile, just for a moment.]

Thanks, nice to know I have no expectations to live up to.

[And he shows up a little while later, looking tired and hot and generally over life in general. Why is it so hot outside? It's just insult to injury at this point that even the weather hates him.]

[wittingly]

Hey, man.

( Kindly greeted at the door and nodded on through. )

I'm coding your implant to the lock. You just gotta say 'Matisyahu'.

( It's the same thing he told Nate. There isn't actually a password, he's just... hoping this pans out for a long-game laugh one day.

Also, he got a new recliner. It's the little things in life, you know? Knock yourself out, buddy. )

[lifetothefullest]

Okay, I'm making no promises that I'll remember that.

[He'll try, especially since he has no reason to believe Ian's being a total liar, but his memory is either fantastic or utterly worthless with no in between.

He wanders into the apartment aimlessly, noting the new recliner but not actually making any real move toward the furniture, subconsciously keeping some distance even if he's too drained to be really actively on guard. Normally this would be the point where he resumes bothering Ian about how he's doing, but he's just quiet instead.]

[wittingly]

( He checks his very real impulse to say how in the hell have none of you heard of Matisyahu, and instead moves to settle on the arm of his couch. Sort of straddles it a little, a nice perched balance while he watches Lance tragically pace the floor.

There's silence for about five seconds, until he starts gently, oh-so-sadly singing: )

When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me... singing words of wisdom...

( You know. The soundtrack to your moroseness. Just setting a little mood music to match it. )

[lifetothefullest]

[The singing catches his attention more than speaking would've and his pacing slows a little, even if it doesn't stop, and for a moment he considers following up with the next line. But the same thing that's stopped him for months at this point stops him now, and he doesn't.

But he does finally say something, giving a long and quiet sigh before--]

Gaby threatened to pull any and all Morningstar support from every Displaced because she didn't like what I said to Clarke about the safehouse.

[wittingly]

Wait, what?

( Anything less and he'd have cracked some kind of joke about that not being what Mother Mary sang at all, but--

Yeah, that's kind of.

You know, Big.

Being Team Morningstar, it's kind of an affront to the senses. )

[lifetothefullest]

I didn't want to send the message over the network for obvious reasons, but I can probably just display it on your tv or something.

[If he, you know, wants to see exactly what was said.]

[wittingly]

Yeah, no, yeah.

( With a promptly encouraging go ahead gesture. It's not that he doubts Lance, he just can't wrap his head around exactly... what in the hell she could've said to that effect. It doesn't track with his experience. )

[lifetothefullest]

[There's a chance this isn't secure either, of course, but the idea that anyone's looking closely is pretty farfetched. He still decides to take a screenshot and project that just in case, but the result is the same; the message is available for Ian to read directly.]

[wittingly]

( Ian has no trouble whatsoever with his vision, so that he leans forward to read is entirely a product of disbelief than any physical necessity.

A quiet handful of moments pass as he reads it and rereads it, his brow scrunching up progressively more deeply. )

And this was— after just the safehouse discussion, right? There wasn't anything else somewhere I missed?

[lifetothefullest]

[He's quiet while Ian reads, and at the question he gives a small shrug and shakes his head.]

No, nothing recent. There was the incident I alluded to on the network, and mentioned to you briefly before about Gaby telling Stephen to tell Nate to yell at me; I went into the safehouse before the Aerie, and offered to accompany one of the new arrivals on a walk, but Gaby pulled my access to the safehouse door.

[Which surely contributed to this whole thing, so it's only fair to give the information as context.]

[wittingly]

I mean-- maybe this is me over-simplifying things, but I'm... not sure criticizing safehouse methodology is the same thing as slandering Morningstar. The two are only tangentially related.

( In that Morningstar helps with the IDs and owns the safehouse, but they're not directly responsible for the process -- and even if they are, criticizing one singular practice isn't calling the entire organization into scrutiny. )

But, like, even if you were outright insulting them, punishing the entirety of the displaced because of one person is...

( Don't say fucked up. )

A little extreme.

[lifetothefullest]

[It's reassuring, in as much as he can really feel that way at the moment, that Ian says that; Lance knows he's at least somewhat pro-Morningstar, even if he's not sure how much so. It really doesn't matter, because like Ian summarized, that really wasn't the point here.]

I very specifically didn't mention Morningstar, or Gaby, or Clarke or Stephen. The point wasn't to make new arrivals angry with someone, it was to show solidarity with how they feel about their situation.

[And it's so frustrating that people immediately jumped to assuming the opposite. Not only was he specifically not doing that, but it's kind of insulting to think that if he were he'd have made such an incredibly lackluster attempt at it.]

But even that--just like asking questions before--is apparently too much dissent to be acceptable, and not only is the location of that line now apparent, the consequences are too.

[And yeah, they're... Extreme.]

[wittingly]

Jesus.

( Breathed out a little speechlessly, and accompanied by the absent passing of his hand over his mouth. He likes the organization for the good they do, not because he was ignorant to their flaws but because he felt like the good outweighed them.

It's a hard threat to reconcile, particularly given that this kind of censorship is exactly the kind of thing he'd take up activism against. )

That really... cuts the whole thing off at the knees. Kind of takes an open-forum discussion about alternatives off the table because it's not even worth the risk.

[lifetothefullest]

[Lance can see the conflict Ian's having to deal with, and he feels a flash of empathy for him; it isn't easy to have to deal with something that shakes your faith in an organization you'd wanted to believe in. It's knowing what that's like that made Lance so aware of the need to figure out what they were dealing with here, and he wishes it hadn't been this outcome.]

From me, anyway. Other people might have a little more leeway.

[She already hated him, after all. Someone with more goodwill directed toward them might get further and do so more safely, but that fact that it would have to be done so carefully in the first place is much of the problem itself.]

[wittingly]

( He shakes his head slowly; other people... )

I don't know.

( It's an uncertain murmur, and he settles back finally — eyes still on the message, but he's not really seeing it anymore. )

You're not the only one that's gotten some... less than favorable feedback over it that I've seen. I don't... know if...

( No real need to finish the sentence, Lance knows what he's getting at.

Chancing it on a maybe and having the entirety of the Displaced cut off for that? Yeah, no, he sure as fuck won't be the one driving this project. )

Fuck, dude, I'm sorry. I know you're really passionate about this.

[lifetothefullest]

[He considers clarifying a little on that last point--he knows what Ian means, but was less something he was excited to work on and more something it just felt important to do--but that can wait, because as muted and distant as everything feels for Lance right now he's concerned about Ian's reaction. He seems a little shocked, which is understandable, but Lance wants to make sure it's the normal amount of shocked for something like this and not deeper.

So, first, he just asks directly because he can't really manage anything more subtle right now--]

Are you okay?

[wittingly]

This is you time, man.

( Maybe the subtle amusement in his correction will help assuage that worry. )

I'm fine. I'm just... disappointed, I guess.

( Which, in his opinion, doesn't hold a candle to the kind of stressed out he knows he'd feel if he were on the receiving end of a message like that. )

[lifetothefullest]

[Okay, good, maybe not as shocked as Lance was worried about. He's still going to keep an eye out for any other reasons for concern, but at least there's that.

And he nods, at the last comment, because that's very understandable. Though he should probably add--]

She kind of hates me; and by that I mean very specifically me. Maybe this isn't really indicative of anything more than that.

[It's a very weak attempt, because Lance really doesn't believe it, but maybe. And if even if not--]

She also isn't Morningstar as a whole, so...

[He knows Ian feels favorably toward Morningstar, even if Lance doesn't really, and he's trying to be fair about this. And it is true, after all.]