Stacia, Nothing-to-See-Here (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
credit_not_blame) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
nightlogs2024-02-11 07:46 pm
credit_not_blame) wrote in nightlogs2024-02-11 07:46 pm
Entry tags:
"So you agree? You think you're really pretty?"
Who: Stacia and Miguel
What: Stacia bullies a grown-ass man on behalf of a loved one. Like she do.
Where: Miguel's Spider-Cave
When: after this, before Valentine's Day.
Warnings/Notes: to be added as they come up.
Stacia's plan for confronting Miguel is pretty fluid: corner him, be firm, and logically explain to him that he's a fucking dumbass who should know better. Usually when she's doing this kind of thing, it's with another Garou, and she's allowed -- nay, sometimes even encouraged! -- to smack them upside the head and antagonize them into a full-on Frenzy. But she can't do that here. So it'll be a fun and interesting personal challenge on top of it all. Keep a level head, ask extremely pointed questions, deploy a armor-piercing "do you need a hug" as needed.
She's certainly going to be able to do a better job at this than Elle is at the moment.
Usually when Stacia enters Miguel's Spider-Cave, she steps inside and looks around to see if she can't spot Miguel or Catalina. This time, she doesn't break stride, heading straight for Miguel's (extremely nerdy) chalkboard. She's got a good idea how to summon him out of the darkness right quick:
"Hey Miguel, your math is wrong! Don't worry, I'll fix it!"
What: Stacia bullies a grown-ass man on behalf of a loved one. Like she do.
Where: Miguel's Spider-Cave
When: after this, before Valentine's Day.
Warnings/Notes: to be added as they come up.
Stacia's plan for confronting Miguel is pretty fluid: corner him, be firm, and logically explain to him that he's a fucking dumbass who should know better. Usually when she's doing this kind of thing, it's with another Garou, and she's allowed -- nay, sometimes even encouraged! -- to smack them upside the head and antagonize them into a full-on Frenzy. But she can't do that here. So it'll be a fun and interesting personal challenge on top of it all. Keep a level head, ask extremely pointed questions, deploy a armor-piercing "do you need a hug" as needed.
She's certainly going to be able to do a better job at this than Elle is at the moment.
Usually when Stacia enters Miguel's Spider-Cave, she steps inside and looks around to see if she can't spot Miguel or Catalina. This time, she doesn't break stride, heading straight for Miguel's (extremely nerdy) chalkboard. She's got a good idea how to summon him out of the darkness right quick:
"Hey Miguel, your math is wrong! Don't worry, I'll fix it!"
no subject
A small correction while she's there at the board. Once it seemed like Stacia was actually paying attention, Miguel seems to relax some himself. He returns to address the more serious matters over the model of the collapse in front of them.
"I've showed you the basic gist of it. I want to believe there are ways to buy us more time, or to be able to revert the damage, but I haven't found it yet."
He returns to the general map, and the viewpoint falls over EARTH-1610, its node having an extra halo of red to denote some extra interest. Some of the web-threads look a little thinner than others. He narrows his eyes with a tense attention on the name of this world.
"And the stakes are too high to provoke disaster just for an experiment like that. I can't see any reason to - especially not personal reasons."
Miguel can't think of anything less selfish and reckless, in his eyes. He can't see his own mistake repeated.
no subject
"Okay, to summarize your already quick-and-dirty summary, you've got a..." she sighs, "forgive the phrasing, a web of realities that all have Spider-People in them. There are special events that need to happen, and if they don't, the reality collapses; and the reality collapsing can do bad stuff to the surrounding realities. You've been able to repair some realities, but you haven't been able to fix the underlying problem. Is that about right?"
no subject
It was close enough.
"I trust you will keep all this to yourself. The last thing that needs to leave this room is knowledge on how to do damage to the fabric of the web."
It is a little more robust than his attitude seems to suggest - he never mentioned what the events were and how to disrupt them, or how much wiggle room there was. He was hesitant to get into it.
Stacia got this amount of trust because they shared the same enemy and they'd gotten to know each other well for a time. Even if they disagreed here, it didn't change that.
no subject
She crosses her arms and considers the notes on her board for a moment before looking back to Miguel.
"So, did you find any realities that didn't have a Spider-Person in them?"
It's not a question from her note-board, no, but it's a good starting point.
no subject
"They're out there. No one's physically traveled to them before we came here."
The reality that Miles' Spider came from, for starters, and however many other branches of the tree that they had yet to explore. He shuts off the map, leaving them illuminated by computer screens.
"Meddling in one reality deprived it of one and left it unprotected."
Another mess on the list to worry about until he can solve that problem, too.
no subject
It's got to be something like that, to take out a whole goddamned reality.
no subject
Superheroes did tumble into their world-ending enormous stakes, from time to time. Even if their activity was mostly contained to one city.
“But it can be a marriage, or a death with enough significance to disrupt the order of things. It’s not quite so straightforward.”
He avoids the specifics, because Stacia wasn’t one of them and it wasn’t really her business to know.
“For another reality, I imagine it would be more like your examples. The principle is the same - interrupting the event has ripple effects with dire consequences that shouldn’t be toyed with.”
no subject
"If a single marriage or a death is all it takes to break it, then those realities sound incredibly fragile," she says. "Where do you guys fall in the 'free will verses destiny' debate? Also, why do the Spiders have so much power over the very universes they inhabit?"
no subject
“If we don’t get to them first, the glitching tends to resolve lingering hangers-on. Your molecules get scrambled from being in the wrong dimension until you blink out of existence.”
Both delicately balanced and very hostile to travel through, from his description. It’s just Rules upon Rules for him.
“It’s dangerous to invite catastrophe like that either way, regardless of how I personally feel about the idea of Fate.”
It’s not a philosophical debate for him, it’s just simple math. The needs of one vs the many. He continues:
“In a perfect reality, we’d be able to save everyone with all the resources at our disposal. But things are more complicated than that. We keep the balance, call it Destiny if you want, or risk destroying everything.”
His posture is straight and immovable, his conviction for this as sure as believing in gravity.
“In our side of the multiverse, those are your options.”
no subject
" 'In our side of the multiverse', thank you, Miguel," she says. Her point has percolated through his headmeats and come back out of his mouth in his own words. Neener neener. She scrawls it on her chalk board and underlines it for good measure.
"You've noticed, I'm sure, that we're not glitching here, yeah? Why do you think that is?"
no subject
Her reaction puts a record-scratch stop to his lecture. He squints suspiciously at the rascally look on her face.
“Just because we aren’t glitching doesn’t mean we should assume there’s no risks.”
no subject
She adds a note about finding a way to keep in better touch with Manny to another part of the blackboard.
"I imagine it's something to do with magic; but the hows and whys of that have never been my specialty. I'll leave that to you and the other science nerds." She waves a hand. "And obviously we shouldn't assume that there's no risks. That's when the risks get you. But if we're not running into the risks you'd expect us to with your experience, don't you think there might be some other risks we might not know to look for?"
no subject
He’s not so impressed with vague points. He needs examples.
“There is some trifling with this reality that’s necessary for the mission, but starting to stick our hands in things outside of fighting Kuk and his forces is inviting trouble.”
It may not be Canon Events, but whatever else is holding this reality together.
no subject
She shrugs. "I don't know that that's the case here, but I know that back home it's possible to change the level of reality you or a given object exist on; and sometimes you can't change it back. Is that something that happens where you're from?"
no subject
The corners of his mouth stiffen, disliking the implication of what Stacia was saying. No wonder she was being so stubborn about defending Dan's Time Meddling if it was a common practice over in Werewolf Land.
"You never really 'incorporate' into another dimension. You can stabilize yourself with a device." He gestures to his watch. "Temporarily."
"Your guess isn't wrong, but this dimension could also be more flexible, or the process of being turned into myths could be a cloak instead of a permanent change. I don't have the equipment here to give us a fast answer." he adds with some weariness to his voice. He's been doing the best he could with the magitech, but it still lacked.
no subject
She points a finger skyward, at him, and then back at her chalk board. She taps the words our side in the phrase our side of the multiverse.
"I am not distracted from my point. Given your use of these words, is there a part of you willing to admit that there is even the slightest possibility that things don't work the same in other parts of the multiverse?"
She leans forward. "I'll tell you a secret: if you're willing to give me that much, I'll get out of your hair for the rest of the day."
He's already agreed to apologize to Dan, that was the urgent part. She's willing to let the rest of it simmer in the back of his head for awhile until he's more willing to discuss it.
no subject
"First of all, I don't need your permission to boot you out of my lab."
As much as he was entertaining this entire conversation with Stacia, Miguel was still Miguel. There's a certain amount of Pushing Around he can tolerate before he stops listening and goes into territorial scientist mode.
"The real answer is we don't know the rules of this universe for certain, which means we should exercise caution. There's not enough evidence to give yourself free reign to do whatever you like." he says. "Even if it doesn't work identically to the worlds I've studied, that doesn't prove the opposite."
no subject
See? "Reasonable". You want to be a reasonable person, don't you Miguel?
She snaps the fingers of both hands, transforming the motion into finger guns. "I'll take "we don't know the rules of this universe"!" she says, and then scrawls it on her chalkboard in big sloppy letters. And then underlines it for good measure. Yes, it's just chalk and he can erase it easily, but it's less easy to erase the memory; and the act of erasing it will be another memory he has to deal with.
She'll get him yet.
no subject
But as much as he was willing to give Stacia a pass for being upset on Dan's behalf, he wasn't about to give up so easily here. One of them (see: himself) had an elaborate powerpoint presentation on their findings and the other had vague conjecture. Those two things are not equal!
"I believe I've explained my reasons enough." he says. "My other point still stands."
No screwing with the timelines!
no subject
"I'm sure that, as long as you don't hurl abuse at people for not having a doctoral level of education in your extremely specific field, most people will be willing to listen to your advice," she says. Once they've both had time to cool off, she might even come back and let him chew over the effects of pulling two people (her and Elle) out of the same timeline from two different times and having them interact. That might be fun and enriching for him.
But also: he's not the boss of her. She's not even remotely spider-y.
no subject
He and Dan were lucky, he realizes. Dan had told him about his transgression against the time stream after he’d already done it. That is easier to forgive.
If he had a chance to stop him, with the stakes the way they were, there’s no doubt in his mind he would. As wretched as Miguel would feel afterwards.
no subject
Leave it. Leave it.
"I'll let you get back to your fidget toys in the shadows," she says. "Just don't leave Dan hanging for two much longer, all right? The sooner we can put this behind us, the better."
no subject
Stacia isn't wrong to remind him here.
"I'll talk to him when I find him."
He could blame Dan for avoiding like last time (it's not like the lab he haunts is a secret) but Miguel was also taking some space to let his temper cool. He'll have to go look for him.
no subject
She blows a kiss to Catalina and sashays victoriously toward the door. She pauses before she leaves and looks back at Miguel.
"Let me know if you have any other blow-ups, yeah? I might be able to help you smooth things over."