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[elevelvetor]

Elizabeth Velveteen

"Good morning, noon, or night. You have reached Elizabeth Velveteen, who may or may not be here right now. Please leave a message if you have need of me."

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Comments

[elevelvetor]

yes.
let me explain:

in our second week, we were trapped in a very large laboratory, where human experimentation was happening. i went with two others to investigate one of the laboratory rooms, as we were looking for potions to fuel an escape pod out, and found it missing...
getting to the room, by the way, required jumping from platform to platform after finding the correct levers to lift up a path. that's where my earlier comment came from.
regardless, we followed the trail to an office, where we found a man named Dr. Halliday. or rather, a creature formerly known as a man named Dr. Halliday. he had been turned into some sort of llama-man hybrid, with a heavy emphasis on the llama portion.
one of my teammates shot him in the leg, and he attempted to attack us; i threw the companion i received from the qr codes at him and knocked him out.
from there, we retrieved the potion and a few identifying items from the doctor...
we retrieved llama blood for one of the other potions from him as well -- i cut a gash for the procedure, though it was deeper than i meant for it to be -- and eventually, he awoke and my teammate again shot him, but in his other leg.
to cripple him, essentially.
the door shut behind us and locked, so there's no way for him to leave, and there's no way for him to move either...
i suppose he would have starved to death even if we had not hurt him, yet...

perhaps i'm merely so shaken by this because the doctor used to be human
i didn't mind during the convention because those monsters were more game-like? they didn't bleed that is nor leave bodies when they were gone
but he was very real and bled and would have definitely left a body
my apologies minako this is a lot i don't wish to hurt people and i have felt terrible about this for quite some time
even if he was more llama than human in the end he still suffered the same fate under the surgeon's knife and perhaps he wasn't a good person at all but that's still no excuse for leaving him to die
though i don't know what we could have done to keep him from doing so but

i may be overthinking this.

[ ....she might be. ]

[complementing]

[Holy shit.] god Elizabeth, I'm so sorry you had to go through all of that but I don't think it was murder you have to WANT to kill someone for it to be murder, and I know you aren't that kind of person from everything you've told me, it sounds like all of you were acting in self-defense and...honestly? as cold as it might sound? I...really think you were probably doing him a favor I can't imagine he was living the way he wanted to, if he was stuck in some place in unreality, more llama than human

[elevelvetor]

[ ...it feels much better to read those words, and she does so until she's satisfied. so it might be a bit before she replies, but— ]

thank you.
you may be right... i was a hare for a small amount of time, and it was quite nice, however i would not have wanted to be one forever.
it was delightfully lucky that we changed back once we were on the space station, though i lost my cosplay as a result.

[complementing]

yeah, I didn't see it for myself, but one of my teammates got turned into an animal too, trying to figure out one of the puzzles. I'm glad everyone was able to change back

I think the longer we have Retrospec, the more we'll come across uncomfortable situations and bizarre knowledge...so it's best to keep an open mind and be a little forgiving of ourselves

[elevelvetor]

spoken like a true expert.
you've been on Retrospec for quite some time now, haven't you.
...would you say that August was the most difficult month we've had so far, or was there another that was equally taxing?

[complementing]

ever since the first month it came out

or at least the first one in recent history, still can't say for sure if Retrospec has been around longer than we realize

August was definitely the most difficult in an emotional and mental way, considering all of the things that happened within the individual teams, and then the revelations of what it all meant

I don't think a single Retrospeccer came out of it not feeling affected

[elevelvetor]

it may be blindly optimistic of me to hope that last month is the genuine worst of it and that we won't have another month on the same level of it or worse
but i do hope regardless.
i believe i can handle "terrible, but not as bad as August"

[complementing]

as long as we aren't cut off from our friends and loved ones like in August, I think I can handle it too

there's strength in numbers, and hate it all we want, all of the Retrospeccers together make a pretty big number!