| It's Hard to Have Friends | |
|---|---|
| Date of Scene: | 25 May 2016 |
| Location: | Rodion |
| Synopsis: | Blurr asks Arcee (vents) for some relationship advice. |
| Cast of Characters: | Blurr, Arcee |
- Arcee has posed:
Arcee is seated outside of Maccaddam's, and she appears to be working diligently on some sort of project. Once in a while, she'll glance up from what she's doing, and have a look around, as if looking for someone in particular. Then, she returns to writing in her datapad.
- Blurr has posed:
Is she perhaps looking for a Blurr? Because as luck would have it, here he comes, showing up rather suddenly as he has a habit of doing. While he does prefer more upscale places when it comes to recreational drinking--well, maybe he's looking for something, too. Or someone.
He walks right past Arcee sitting there (well 'walk' by his definition, anyway), but stops himself a few paces away, turning around. "Oh, Arcee!" he comes back her way. "What are you doing here?" The speedster asks, peering at whatever she's been looking down at.
- Arcee has posed:
"I'm doing homework, Blurr!" Arcee exclaims with a chuckle. "Because it's quieter out here. Guess what they've got playing on the holovid in Macc's today? Classic Ibex Cup. Gee, I wonder how THAT ends," she says with a smirk. "Earlier they were playing some old mecha-soccer finals. Too loud of a crowd for me, especially when I'm trying to finish this assignment for Public Safety in Wartime. So what are you up to??"
- Blurr has posed:
Blurr gets a smug sort of look on his face when she mentions the Ibex Cup Classic. "With me at the finish line first, of course." he answers her somewhat sarcastic remark, chuckling a little bit.
Then he arches an optic ridge at the name of the class. "Public safety in wartime? Isn't that uh, I dunno kind of oxymoronic? I mean everyone recognizes that war isn't a good thing, and collateral damage to civilians is one of the reasons for that."
- Arcee has posed:
"Yeah, but it's still important! I mean, civilians are most often caught in the crossfire. They try to live their lives while the war is going on, but they can't always be in 'some other place' when the war is raging in practically every polity now. So I think it's our civic duty to consider public safety concerns, you know? Because civilians remember that. And then they join the Autobots, because they know which faction cares about their safety and well being," Arcee explains.
- Blurr has posed:
"Pff, yeah because the Decepticons are gonna be the first ones to worry about that." Blurr remarks wryly, folding his arms. "I'm not even sure if -anyone- even thinks that and if they do they probably don't have any common sense. Or they're just ignorant." Like Swivel, according to him, anyway.
He sits down next to her after finishing that small rant. "So, what's the assignment? Essay or project or what?"
- Arcee has posed:
"It's an intermediate Academy course," Arcee notes. "If I do well in this course, I think there's a chance I could go on to the Advanced assignments and more challenging field assignments will go along with that. Prowl's been giving me the fieldwork anyhow, but I heard that going on the Advanced track really complements the real-life situations. Worst that can happen is that I'm just not cut out for it, right?"
- Blurr has posed:
"I know it's an academy course, I meant what's the assignment you're working on right now?" Blurr tries to clarify, sounding slightly impatient. Which shouldn't come as a surprise. "Are you writing a paper, or something else? What kind of fieldwork have you been doing? I've been running around underground a lot. Trying to see if we can catch the Decepticons off-guard while they're busy trying to clear out those monsters or something."
- Arcee has posed:
Arcee smiles a little bit as Blurr starts getting impatient with her. "It's a paper-slash-presentation, recon fieldwork in neighboring polities, no Undergrid exploration recently," she explains. "And what have you been finding? Get into any tangles I don't know about yet?"
- Blurr has posed:
"Yeah, plenty. Had Blast Off shoot at me in Praxus, at the -Gardens- no less--oh wait you were there weren't you? Yeah, you were. It's funny how he likes to think of himself as such a 'civilized' person and yet he's so triggerhappy that he can't even restrain himself for the sake of the enjoyment of nature?" Blurr scoffs. Right, as if he himself could restrain himself for the sake of such a thing.
"Presentations, ugh. -Boring-." He shakes his head. "I always hated those. Not that I ever had to do that many of them. So when do you graduate? You going to do that formal induction ceremony thing? With the branding?"
- Arcee has posed:
"Oh yes, I was right there and had I been a little bit quicker, I probably could have jumped and restrained Blast Off before he transformed," Arcee admits. "Yeah, I know presentations are boring, but I'm hoping that mine is at least a LITTLE more interesting than, say, listening to Magnus for an entire session. Graduation is pretty dependent on how well I do, or, um...how well the instructors and Prowl *think* I do, from here on out. I'd love to be in that ceremony with the branding! That would be a great honor," Arcee says excitedly.
- Blurr has posed:
"I think that's the main reason they do it, because it makes people feel important." Blurr nods. "We're all already on the team as it is." He pauses, then sighs in a frustrated manner, his thoughts shifting to something else suddenly. "Arcee, can I ask you something? I think I need some...relationship advice."
- Arcee has posed:
"Hm?" Arcee's a little bit surprised by Blurr's sudden change of topic. "Sure, I'll help if I can, what's going on?" she asks curiously.
- Blurr has posed:
"Well there's this fembot I know," Blurr says with a sigh. "And I just don't know what to do with her. She doesn't know what's good for her!" he exclaims. "She's so fragging helpless, but she insists on going it alone. I swear to Primus, the way she conducts herself she's going to get herself killed or worse. I keep telling her that but she won't listen to me." He really sounds frustrated. "She'd rather die than take a few orders that doesn't -completely- agree with."
- Arcee has posed:
"Is she a...a friend? Or just someone who really annoys you?" Arcee asks. Sometimes, when it comes to Blurr, she honestly can't tell the difference.
- Blurr has posed:
Blurr makes an exasperated noise at this question. "Both!" he says, throwing his arms in the air. "If she weren't a friend, I wouldn't be so frustrated. I wouldn't care." he says with a shrug. He sighs again. "Sometimes I want to just forget it and stop caring, but I can't. I don't know what to do. I mean, you don't always agree with every order you have to carry out, right? It isn't so bad. Everyone has to do things they don't like, that's just life."
- Arcee has posed:
"OK, I'm missing some information here," Arcee says, backing up a bit. Inwardly, she's pretty sure she knows who Blurr is talking about, but she just wants to confirm it. "Why do you say she's helpless? Is she a pacifist or something?"
- Blurr has posed:
"Because! She's helpless in just about every way!" Blurr declares, sounding more and more distraught about this. "Physically, she doesn't know how to fight, doesn't really have any real weapons, AND, she gives too many people who don't deserve it the benefit of the doubt. It's like, she wants to be friends with -everyone- she comes across! I mean, I get not wanting to be guilty of too much prejudice but honestly we actually -need- prejudice, in the places where it belongs, for the sake of--of protecting Cybertron."
- Arcee has posed:
"Well, you know...some mechs are just stubborn like that, and nothing you tell them is going to make them believe anything otherwise," Arcee says. "The best thing you can do, is...just understand that you're not responsible for her well-being. She is. If she puts herself into dangerous situations intentionally, then that's a risk she's taking on. I'm not saying you can't care about her, but Blurr, it's only going to frustrate you if you expect her to see things your way. Some mechs and femmes just don't get it."
- Blurr has posed:
"But you don't understand!" Blurr is practically shouting now. This bit of advice really wasn't what he was hoping to hear. "I can't just---DO that. I can't not care, like I said. I don't want to lose her too, on top of everyone -else- I've lost to those self-righteous criminal scrapheaps who claim to want 'freedom' and 'equality'! Didn't I ever tell you about Fasttrack, and Piston? They made their choices, didn't they?! But guess where they are now, that's right, dead! But I could have kept them closer, I could have remembered their names, and then maybe I could have been there for them, just like they were there for me...."
- Arcee has posed:
"I remember Fasttrack," Arcee says quietly. "I met him. Several times. And I get why you're upset, I mean, I understand. But that's the one thing you can't do, when someone has their mind made up...only they can change it. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Unless she changes her mind, whatever you say to her is just...not going to register. I mean, she never met them. That's not part of her experience."
- Blurr has posed:
"I -know- that, Arcee. I know she has her mind made up. But I need a way to convince her to change her mind, don't you get it?!" Blurr groans and slumps against the outside wall of the bar, rubbing his face.
"I guess that's really what I should have asked to begin with. How can I convince her that she's wrong, and that whatever hangup she has with following orders or compromising some of her ideas they're not worth her life?! Because if anything I know that I am not going to let her own ignorance kill her and I am absolutely not up for leaving yet another dead body behind in the wake of my own failures!!"
- Arcee has posed:
Arcee shrugs. "I don't have any magic words," she admits. "If I had magic words, I'd use them first on Blast Off, to get him to see the error in his ways. Then I'd tell you what the magic words were, so you could tell her and she could see the light. You don't have to 'give up' on her, but...don't expect anything different than what she's telling you now, unless she has some sort of personal epiphany that helps her to see why she needs to join us."
- Blurr has posed:
"Oh, I'm sure it'll take more than just words at this point." Blurr replies, an air of determination in his voice. "I didn't ask what can I say to her, I just said how can I convince her." He clenches a fist briefly, staring at the ground for a moment.
"You know, you would admit that sometimes, you have to do things that are...hard, right? To people you love, for their own sake?" he asks, looking back up at her. "Especially when there doesn't seem to be any other way?"
- Arcee has posed:
Arcee is inwardly hoping that Blurr means something smart. What he's hinting at sounds a bit like 'tough love' to her, which can actually be an intelligent reaction when someone is not listening to the voice of reason. But then again, Blurr's ideas run the gamut from smart to...decidedly not smart. So Arcee has no idea what the speedster is suggesting. "Oh, sure. Sometimes when they're talking nonsense, you have to just flat-out ignore them before they come around, for example."
- Blurr has posed:
"No but I mean even more than just ignoring them. I mean -making- them see the truth of it. -Forcing- them to see it." Blurr insists, frowning. "What would you do, Arcee? What if I was being stupid and you felt you needed to do something drastic to force me to come around?" Seriously that has to have happened at least a few times. "If I refused to see something for what it was, and I was about to go charging in to it completely unprepared?"
- Arcee has posed:
"Well, obviously, I'd try and stop you and hope that you'd be able to see how completely unprepared you are to deal with the situation," Arcee says. "But ultimately, I'd need to have an extremely convicing argument in a short amount of time, or you'd likely just ignore me and go with your first impulse. Something very blunt and to the point, like, 'There's a high probability you're going to die if you go out there in that condition', for example.
- Blurr has posed:
"And if it's clear I'm not going to listen to any kind of verbal argument?" Blurr asks, arching an optic ridge at her. "How would you show me that I'm unprepared?"
- Arcee has posed:
Arcee looks uncomfortable. "Well if you were going out into battle unrepaired from your last fight and really seriously injured, I'd probably try and stop you. As fast as you are, if you're wounded enough to where I could actually stop you before you took off, then...well then you'd know you wouldn't be a match for anyone out on the field."
- Blurr has posed:
"So you'd physically restrain me then." Blurr reiterates. "Maybe that's what I need to do...." he says pensively. "Lock her up in the Decagon, that would make it -very- difficult for her to contact any criminals, right? She would be safer there than anywhere else."
- Arcee has posed:
Arcee groans, burying her face in her hands. "Uggghhh...you came up with that idea yourself, okay? I didn't give you that idea. That's your own idea," she exclaims.
- Blurr has posed:
"What?!" Blurr attempts to grab her arms and pull them away from her face. "You don't think it's a good idea?! Why not? It's what you would do right? Because that's what you said you would do if I were the one being stupid, right? And you would do what you thought was best."
- Arcee has posed:
"Because it's taking my original thought to the absolute extreme, it's like saying that to end the war we should just blow up everything -- which is technically correct, that WOULD end the war! But you just don't -do- that, you can't just -force- a civilian into captivity, that's crazy. That's extraordinary rendition and it's illegal," Arcee explains.
- Blurr has posed:
Blurr sighs. "Ugh, I guess you're right. That would be illegal. And it would look bad if everyone found out." He pauses before continuing once more. "Well. Then what if you couldn't physically restrain me for whatever reason? Then what would you do? Would you just give up, and let me go out there, knowing I'll probably get killed? You wouldn't do -that-, would you? How would you convince me that what I'm doing is stupid?"
- Arcee has posed:
"The only other thing you can do is to have patience with the process. She obviously won't be convinced immediately. So keep presenting different arguments to her. There might be something you haven't yet said to her, something you've not yet brought up, that will eventually resonate with her. Keep trying something different each time," Arcee advises.
- Blurr has posed:
Blurr frowns, considering what Arcee has said. "But you just said that nothing I say will change her mind."
- Arcee has posed:
"Well, I was using the assumption that you weren't willing to try the patient approach, because...well, that's just not you," Arcee admits. "And if you keep using the same argument, again and again and again, she /is/ going to shut you out, no doubt about it. However...if you're in this for the long term, make her recruitment a goal...then you can use this tactic. Catch is, you can't just say some variation of, 'you're wrong and I'm right, can't you see that?' because no, she doesn't see that. Each argument you use will need to be different."
- Blurr has posed:
Blurr considers Arcee's words once more, and he is even quiet for a few moments, thinking. A different argument....yes, maybe he needs a new approach to this.
Then he seems to have thought of something, and he gets that determined face again. "That's it. You're right, I need to stop trying to tell her that I'm right and she's wrong in a million different ways. Instead, I'll make her see the truth. I'll -show- her what the Decepticons are capable of stooping to, the levels they are willing to take their methods to in order to feel that they've gotten their revenge--because we all know that's what it's really about, revenge. Payback, that's all it is. Making people suffer for the suffering they caused. Which of course sets us right back on the path we were on before."
- Arcee has posed:
Arcee hopes to herself that Blurr's going to take Swivel out on a tour of Ibex and tell her some very harrowing stories from the past. (He could very well mean that,) she thinks. But what if he has something else in mind? Arcee's not so sure she wants to know the details. "Okay. Maybe she needs to see it," she says. "Because there's a chance that hasn't been her personal experience, so you'll need to let her know what they're capable of doing."
- Blurr has posed:
"Of course it hasn't been her personal experience." Blurr says, pouting slightly. "She has no idea what they've done, and her world is so narrow, so small. Anything she hasn't seen for herself, it doesn't exist. You can talk her audials off all solar cycle about it but it won't be real to her until she's seen it for herself." he says resolutely. "So that's what I need to make happen."
- Arcee has posed:
Arcee nods, her expression solemn. "Tell her about Fasttrack," she says. "And Piston. They deserve to be remembered." She's silent for a moment, then she says, "...I should really head back to campus. Talk to you again later?"
- Blurr has posed:
Blurr shakes his head. "That won't help her. She knows I've lost people already. She might feel sorry for me or feel sorry for them, but it won't change her mind. Like you said, I need to stop telling her the same thing in a million different ways and just -show- her the truth." He looks very determined, now. "Yeah...you should. I'll see you around."