Taura (
smashandgrab) wrote in
lastvoyages2021-08-02 09:07 pm
Entry tags:
Seventeenth Drop Mission
I know I'm not the only one on board the Barge who was treated as less than for a lot of my life. Subhuman. I was a research subject or a monster for sixteen years, not a person.
I think that the community here is better at acknowledging personhood than the worlds a lot of us came from.
But sometimes events here strip away who we are. I was fortunate enough to avoid that for the most part until the last port. It made me into the monster a lot of people have seen when they looked at me.
It's valid to feel hurt or angry or betrayed or lost when our sense of self is violated. If anyone feels like that, now or in the future, I guess I just want you to know that you aren't alone, and I'm willing to listen. Or even to help you get out your aggressions.
And I will always see you as a person.
[Private to Zed and Anita, separately]
Hi, I'm Taura Pines. I'm your warden this month. I'd like to meet up for a conversation.
I think that the community here is better at acknowledging personhood than the worlds a lot of us came from.
But sometimes events here strip away who we are. I was fortunate enough to avoid that for the most part until the last port. It made me into the monster a lot of people have seen when they looked at me.
It's valid to feel hurt or angry or betrayed or lost when our sense of self is violated. If anyone feels like that, now or in the future, I guess I just want you to know that you aren't alone, and I'm willing to listen. Or even to help you get out your aggressions.
And I will always see you as a person.
[Private to Zed and Anita, separately]
Hi, I'm Taura Pines. I'm your warden this month. I'd like to meet up for a conversation.

[Private]
Re: [Private]
Of course. Let me just change out of this dress and I'll meet you there.
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Taura turns up a few minutes later in eye searingly bright pink ship knits and black combat boots, ready to spar. Her claws are currently filed down to blunt tips, so she only has to watch her strength. She won't have to worry about accidentally scratching him.
"Hey. You had a rough port too?" She won't push him to talk about it, but that seems like a safe assumption.
Re: [Private]
Private
[There's a laugh.]
I'm doing a whole lot of nothing these days.
Re: Private
Yeah, this place leaves us at loose ends a lot of the time. I do have a job, but the spa can also be a whole lot of nothing if nobody comes in.
Any preference on where?
no subject
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[That startles a laugh out of her. Whatever she expected, it wasn't that.]
We can meet in the art room with all the glitter if you want to.
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Private audio
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I guess not. It just seems a little more personal and friendly to say hello in person.
Is there anything you want to tell me, or anything you need this month?
Re: Private audio
[After that last port, it's a miracle she's not asking for more. But she doubts anyone would give her whole hunter kit.]
Re: Private audio
Well, at least you aren't asking for grenades. [Norton did that during their temp pairing.]
I've armed inmates before, but I do prefer to stick to non-lethal weapons until I get to know someone a little. Are you a decent shot, or are you only used to blades?
Re: Private audio
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I wasn't sure I was one for a long time. No one had ever treated me that way, and if you hear something enough times, you start to believe it. But I'm self-aware. I'm intelligent. I can feel happiness and sadness and the whole range of... I almost said human emotions, but they definitely aren't limited to humans.
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I suppose there might be people who don't have quite the same capacities. They might have more or less capacity for thought or emotion. I'm not sure my definition works for everyone.
But one of the most important things anyone's ever said to me was, "Animals don't weep." Not all people have the biological capacity to cry, of course, but the feeling of despair that prompted my tears doesn't depend on biology.
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Private - Video
[There is a pause even after the video comes on. She is no friend to wardens, generally - but then again, she thinks most of the inmates are useless psychopaths.]
I, too, became...something else in the forest. The list of degradation visited upon us by the Admiral grows by the month. A lost sense of self is a terrible price to pay. But even still, I would not have called you monster.
[Another pause, before she decides to share a bit.]
In another time, another place...I was one of seven. Six species amongst us. None of us strangers to being looked down upon, for various reasons.
[A gloved hand taps on the table in front of her, as if deciding something. Listening, for a moment, to the voice of the Force.]
As such, if you can trust an inmate...I make the same offer.
Re: Private - Video
Thank you. I don't take into account whether someone is a warden or an inmate when I'm deciding whether to trust them. [Which isn't to say she trusts blindly, just that that isn't one of her criteria.]
I don't have a species. Where I come from, humans are the only sentient species we've encountered so far. [Not just a human majority society, an entirely human society presented with an eight foot tall woman with fangs and claws.] I'm mostly human, but jumbled together with whatever animals a committee of scientists thought might be useful. There's a reason I'm not going back, even though I eventually found people I love there.
Re: Private - Video
[She nodded.]
But ah, I see. Your pain must be vast. Some of our number were engineered, too - but not treated as anything other than two of our Cadre.
[A slight pause.]
They must have caused you great pain.
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(no subject)
[private text forever]
For what it's worth, I would gladly gut those who treated you as nothing more than an experiment.
Re: [private text forever]
Thanks, Loki. You probably wouldn't be alone in that.
But if they hadn't wanted to experiment, I wouldn't exist. I like my life, now that I'm out from under them. I'm never sure if I want to trade them death for the life they gave me.
no subject
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Because a lot of people have looked at me and seen a monster first, and a person only once they got to know me. That hardly ever happens here on the Barge.
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