InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "No."

Tom Sturbridge (timestoodstill) wrote in we_float,
@ 2010-07-06 13:07:00

Entry tags:

character: charlotte meadows, character: mickey o'hare, character: tom sturbridge

Who: Tom Sturbridge and Char Meadows
When: July 6, 2096
Where: Outside Anhalt
What: Just talking
Status: Closed, Complete

Tom sat on the front steps, contemplating the lawn. Someone needed to mow it, but he wasn't sure if they had a mower.

He heard the door open behind him and glanced over his shoulder. A girl he's seen around but never spoken to. "Do you think Ganesh could build a lawn-mowing robot?" he asked with a grin.

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	plusthree 2010-07-09 06:58 pm UTC (link)
	"How do you know you can trust people when you meet them in there?" Char asked, honestly curious. "I mean, you're not exactly telling the truth about who you are. What if they aren't either?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

timestoodstill
2010-07-09 07:02 pm UTC (link)

"You don't," Tom said simply. "I don't really plan to lie about who I am, though. I may not give away details like, y'know, where I'm actually from and that kind of thing, but I'll use my own name - Tom is pretty common anyway - and be pretty straightforward about things. That I'm a Wild Card. That I'm trying to help Wild Cards maintain their rights. Y'know? Just talk to people, get them thinking, and maybe, hopefully, acting. Not just in the virtual world but in the real world."

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	plusthree 2010-07-09 07:04 pm UTC (link)
	"Go viral with it," Char said, considering it. "It's a good tactic. Like the old flashmobs. One person starts and everyone else joins in, only this is all over the place. Pick a piece of music and everyone sings along, wherever they are." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

timestoodstill
2010-07-09 07:08 pm UTC (link)

"That's a good idea," Tom said, smiling at her. "Or, like, have everyone create a sticker or a flyer or something, and on a certain day, have them hand it out or stick it up all over the place, or something like that. With just some simple message."

"Ooh, look, I found one," he said, holding up a tray with one of the big bubble wands. "I wonder what's going on with wild cards in the rest of the world. I haven't really looked that much into it."

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plusthree
2010-07-09 07:33 pm UTC (link)

The simple words set off a cascade in Char's mind, and she turned away for a moment, fingers pressed to her temples as she tried to get it under control, pushing the newsfeeds back. They never made sense to her; she didn't have the ability to filter through them. "There's news out there," she said quietly, "but it needs to be filtered. Made sense of. We should look into it, because if it's only bad here, that's leverage in some way, right?"

Blinking, she took a deep breath before she smiled at him again. "Have everyone grab a pen and write a slogan on their arms or their forehead. Wearable art. Something like... human rights for all humans and wild cards are human too... one for each arm. Or maybe not even so blatant, because people might be afraid of being discriminated against. But something that says we're all human."

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timestoodstill
2010-07-09 07:41 pm UTC (link)

"Isn't that part of the point, though? To be afraid, and to do it anyway, because it's the right thing to do? There's no way to advocate for the rights of wild cards without being discriminated against. We have to do it anyway, and we have to get people who aren't wild cards to do it. Not that I want to put anyone in danger, but if someone who's maybe on the fence about things actually did get discriminated against, they would see what it's like every day for people who can't hide what they are. I mean, I'm a wild card but no one has to know it if I don't want them to. I know that I'm lucky I'm not a joker."

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plusthree
2010-07-10 12:02 am UTC (link)

"Because you can look, and act, completely normal. Jokers can't." Which was something Char understood all too well. She herself might have been a nate, but Mickey was an Ace and a Joker, and he trapped them all in this Joker life of changing places. "I'm lucky because nobody can tell Mickey's a joker just by looking. When he's out, they can tell he's insane. But until they realize we swap places, they don't know about the rest of it."

She picked up the giant bubble wand from the shelf. "So we have to ask nats to sacrificed themselves for us. But they'll want to do it, because there's strength in numbers. If everyone's doing something, then people see it as the right thing. Which is why discrimination works: everybody does it. If we want to reverse discrimination, we have to get everybody doing something else."

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	timestoodstill 2010-07-10 12:14 am UTC (link)
	"Exactly," Tom said. "Ready to go?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	plusthree 2010-07-10 12:31 am UTC (link)
	"Sure, let's get these things paid for, then go chase bubbles on our lawn of too-long grass." Char grinned. (Reply to this) (Parent)

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