[video - because bees don't care what humans think is impossible.] fd to 10/16.

[purpleknee]

[Hey, look! Your resident wicked witch isn't looking like he's out for blood today! Yay! Actually, he's almost…suspiciously pleased, and given the fact that the beanie he's wearing is kind of horrible and dorky, it probably has nothing to do with that… Right?]

Now this is more like it. Random useful items! I'd love to negotiate for some books, if anyone’s come across any real ones. In the meantime...

[He gently rattles the jar of bees, just enough to show it off -- poor things didn't need to be bothered any more than they already were, having been stuffed in their glass prison.]

I'd suggest that anyone hanging around Hope’s temple leaves in the next, oh… Ten minutes? That should be enough. Especially if you're allergic to bees. I'm leaving an offering for our dear, beloved god.

[BEEEEEEEEES!!]

Comments

[verinumeri]

It must be convenient to be that stupid.

[purpleknee]

[EXCUSE]

It makes perfect sense. I know magic, that's how it should be working.

[verinumeri]

It has never occurred to you that magic might function differently for different people, in different places? There are possibly infinite worlds feeding into this place. This may be one such world.

You believe magic operates precisely the same over different universes?

[purpleknee]

Of course it has! I've been to different worlds! My own sister defies the laws of magic!

[He could have, too, if he wasn't so limited by his curse.]

They feed off the energy our emotions provide. Having hope and having delight over food or getting friends back isn't that much of a difference. Why should he be the one benefitting from it?

[verinumeri]

You are relatively new here.

[ So he won't judge the misunderstanding too much. ]

They feed off specific emotions. There is a difference between the two. Simply try asking each for a favor and attempt to produce the related emotion in another person, for that much to be obvious. It isn't from gratitude. They are not interchangeable. You would need to change and challenge our chemical responses.

For that matter, because happiness and delight may be much easier to produce than hope in a place like this, you ought to have an idea of the high probability that Mr. Hope is much stronger than Miss Delight, regardless. No matter what we give her, she would be unable to match him. We would suffer.

[purpleknee]

Sweet Lurlene, you like the sound of your own voice, don't you?

[he's one to talk...]

It doesn't matter anymore anyway since you all want to be such a buzzzzkill. No more temple bees.

[verinumeri]

That's the sort of response that comes when you haven't got anything better.

[ :| ]

Well, thank you.

[purpleknee]

It's the kind of response that comes when someone talks your ear off and bores you.

[Warrick just huffs and hugs his jar of bees to his chest. Bees...]

I don't understand what's wrong with all of you. How can you all just...put up with him so much? He's infuriating!

[verinumeri]

[ Hard to be offended when that has been true for most of his life. ]

He puts up with us. There's no denying we are the wronged parties in this, but by all available metrics, he has had nothing to do with anything deleterious to us. I think he's fine.

[ As a fellow bad personality, stick up the butt curmudgeon, Mr. Hope's attitude seems perfectly appropriate to Hermann. ]

[purpleknee]

He's annoying. Made all those useless books and won't even fix it when he knows they're all wrong, now...

[yes he's still mad about it]

[verinumeri]

How do you mean?

[ That was not what he understood of the library, but he hasn't been there recently. ]

[purpleknee]

The library! I don't know how he expected anyone to read those. Even the ones I can understand are complete garbage. I don't need to sleep that often, but they almost knocked me out with how boring they are. And I've put up with a lot of bad books in my time.

[verinumeri]

It was my understanding that Mr. Hope's only role in the library is by refusing to provide a key or translation, and the previous inhabitants had written them.

[purpleknee]

[This is the first he's heard about previous inhabitants.]

Well, he also says he made books for other people a while back that we could read, but he didn't make me one! Just told me to go find them myself. But the key thing would have been extremely useful! Why didn't he make that?

[verinumeri]

Is he obligated to make you a book you can read? He's doing an awful lot at any moment. You might have asked in exchange for whatever he requested.

[ Not that Hermann wouldn't appreciate some reading material. ]

You'll have to ask him that.

[purpleknee]

His trades aren't fair at all. A heart? Why would you make someone trade for that? It's a heart!

[And!!! It's weird!!! To think about having a heart in his body again, that makes him uncomfortable!!!]

[verinumeri]

You realize that you are not giving me enough information to have any idea of what you're complaining about. I doubt he asked for your heart, unless I am wrongly assuming that that would kill you.

[ ???? ]

[purpleknee]

[He gives a long-suffering sigh and rolls his eyes up like he's exasperated. Keep up with his nonsense, Hermann.]

No, he didn't, and yes, you're wrong. Didn't kill me last time it came out of me.

[...ssssort of...]

Being away from Emma -- my...girlfriend [how??? he is amazed whenever he realizes this all over again] -- or Princess Ozma makes things...unstable. They make me feel like I did when I had my heart. I told him that's why I've had a problem with my temper, other than the fact that he's insufferable, and he suggests I trade for it. That's so wrong! And I don't need any dumb, fake heart he could make, anyway. I'd probably drop dead as soon as I got it, with his track record.

[verinumeri]

[ Of course he was wrong about that. Hermann would be chagrined about being wrong, (particularly, in that way Newton always does, being told it,) but of course, of course this man went about without a heart.

Why not? This place. These places. He'd at least allowed for the possibility. ]

Is that the reason for your personality?

[ Dr. Gottlieb: a very polite man. Who has a heart and thus no excuse. This honestly sounds like The Wizard of Oz (Ozma? no), where a heart actually has something to do with how one behaves, but he's not going to ask. He isn't going there. It's possible, the fact of Mr Touchdown ever allowing this sort of thing for Hermann, but.

No. ]

On the bright side, if you did drop dead, he'd bring you right back.

[ Dr. Gottlieb: may not be taking Mr. Chopper very seriously. ]

[purpleknee]

I'll have you know I'm a good person!

[It was his excuse, and yet...he's offended... stop, boy.]

I wouldn't trust him to. [Hope doesn't like him. Maybe he's as petty as Warrick!!]

[verinumeri]

Good people can have terrible personalities.

[ Dryly, but -- he'll give him a break. Something of a break. ]

I have been told mine isn't very winning, but I do not think I am a bad person. Merely disagreeable.

[ Little point in pretending otherwise... he's too old for self-deceit. ]

He has brought back far more bothersome people, I assure you.

[purpleknee]

You got that right.

[Hurray for both of them being..."disagreeable".]

Fine. It doesn't change the fact that I wouldn't want to die to begin with. That's why I cursed myself in the first place.

[verinumeri]

You are very free with bizarre information about yourself.

[purpleknee]

It's very hard to have good judgment right now!

[warrick calm down]

[verinumeri]

Your judgment is normally good?

[ Making no effort whatsoever to disguise his doubt. ]