"No," you say, shaking your head, "Because that's the first conversation we've ever had that ended without her hurting my feelings."
"What. Did. You. Do?" she says with barely-contained rage. "What did you do to Black Swan?! Talk, now."
Not minutes apart. "I know she's not herself because she didn't say something in a dumb way that hurt my feelings in a way she probably didn't mean but still managed to laser-target my insecurities and vulnerabilities," is just ahead of "I will suffer the slings and arrows of her doing her level best to try to be nice to me in the worst possible way rather than have you mess with her head and not have it hurt."
Mona's fun and kind and cute and all...but that's a level of heroic sacrifice that isn't even
in the job description for Ellie. If I had the choice of a romantic interest
not hurting me or not and I was
either of their ages I don't know that I'd have had that level of integrity.
Come to think of it, that's probably been the shining highlight virtue across the whole thread. Accountability ("I have to respect the dice rolls, even if there's an ops check you missed that's killing me and I keep trying to give you things with luck rolls refuse to fall your way"), taking responsibility ("I hate that three people died and countless people were injured as a result of my holding out while under siege for months on my own, they happened by my hand so they are mine") and facing the consequences of your actions (The Four Seasons
Hotel Gardening Super Team tried to escape consequences and were made to face them; JU choosing again and again to do things whose consequences could be accepted.)
Comic timing suggests that this would be the point where I should drop a lawyer joke, but considering the borderline-painful level of in-thread integrity we've seen from Bitterman I'm going to have to pivot and say that integrity is this big a thing in-and-around story because he wishes he saw more of it in his day job and this is the only way he can access enough of it.
I have faith in Chihiro pouncing on VG specifically calling out Seraph for messing with Black Swan's mind.
I'd be disappointed if she didn't. It took me 48 hours, it probably shouldn't take her more than 48 seconds?
