markofthewise | Sokka the 55th

[This Lucetian has been returned from the Malnosso, after not too long a stay with them. He's kind of bruised up and is leaning on his left leg a bit much. But you'd never notice it from that kick in his step. With a big grin on his face, he's walking from the north end of the plaza on his way home, looking all around him at all the snow the recent snow storm left. And those icicles hanging on the trees! Beautiful! What a winter wonder land he's found!

And look, is that a stray squirrel in his path? Sokka will happily say hello to it until it runs away on twitch reflex. Oh well, that squirrel had important things to do! And that stray cat. And that deer. And that bird and- oh, he must be in the woods. Time to go back to the village. You know what? Despite not feeling all that well, after he gets to House 56 and informs his sister and girlfriend and that wonderful old chap from the Fire Nation he's home, he's got other places to visit. He has to let his friends know he's home. All his friends. Like his smithy buddies. His Straw Hat friends. People he's met randomly at the smithy when they go work orders. Xion, of course requires a visit. He doesn't exactly know where Frey lives these days, but darnit if he isn't going to work out and drop in on him too. He doesn't exactly feel bad about his argument with Haruhi. It was all a silly misunderstanding. So he'll just drop in on her too. And his teachers and, oh, did he ever find out about Regal's proposal? And then there's the pirate the slayer and other friends and... yeah, catching up with everybody is kind of an all day thing. He'll drag himself home that night.

Oh, but fortunately before he arrives at home, he does leave a voice message for everyone.]

Man, everyone says those Malnosso people are real jerks. I don't know what they're talking about. The dropped me off near town, gave me my clothes back - with all the holes I put in it stitched back, thank you very much, and were even nice enough to make sure I was clean shaven before dropped here. These are good people, am I right? Right? Right?

((ooc: If not completely obvious, the Malnosso have returned Sokka from his kidnapping lacking in ANY kind of negativity. There is no downside to ANYTHING. He is perpetually happy. He still, of course, loves his jokes and sarcasm. But he's happy, happy, happy. He's having a wonderful time! This will last until... well, however long it takes for Sokka's happiness to make me start vomiting.]

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Hey, no need to be like that. Sure, they could be nicer about it, but they're doing it to get us home.

[There's an audible sigh of frustration.]

How do you know they're actually trying to get us home? What if we're just toys to them?

Why would they lie to us about that?

[Sorry, he's not negative enough to think they'd do that.]

[You can just hear Natsuki facepalming.]

Because they want your soul, you optimistically naive idiot. I don't know! There are a lot of people who would lie for no reason, for some reason, for all the reasons in the world.

Look, you must be new, so I can understand you're suspicious. But I've talked to Catherine. He's a good guy! And John? Sure, he's not exactly one of them, but he was a really nice guy, too. If it wasn't for him, my last kidnapping could have really went badly.

Good cop, bad cop.

What does that mean?

It's derived from cops using a strategy where there are two cops interrogating a suspect and one of them plays a 'good cop' and is nicely talking to the suspect while the other one slams the table, is extremely irritated and mean, and plays the 'bad cop'. This strategy makes the suspect more willing to talk because he'll be constantly soothed by the good cop and at times will eventually cave into confessing things to the good cop.

Now, what I meant was that perhaps the people you've met are the 'good cops'. Got it?

Why can't they just be good cop and good cop?

Do you mean in general or in terms of the Malnosso?

[Pause.]

Both.

Because good cop, good cop in general would cause the suspect to think that the cops are easy to push around, manipulate, and get pass. They won't say a single thing because they believe the cops are too nice to even retaliate.

In terms of the Malnosso, if they were good cop, good cop, then we'd be back home already and we wouldn't be experimented on. Why do we have to be experimented on just to get home? If they play good cop, bad cop, it also serves to make the residents feel as though they have hope and that allows the Malnosso to experiment on us even morel, because we don't have our guards as up as when it's bad cop, bad cop. Am I making sense?

You are, yeah. Or the criminals would be so impressed by the cops kind demeanor that their own guilt would cause them to confess.

Also, the Malnosso are trying to get us home. But it's not as simple as it sounds. They have to do extensive research into Shifting, which seems to require highly complex mathematics. Unfortunately that research means that they have to do things that may seem bad to us and sometimes even hurt. I'm sure if they had the choice to not harm us, they wouldn't.

[See? Even without negativity, Sokka isn't stupid. He's thought this all through. Only this is without his shades of suspicion, anger, and bitterness to make his conclusion more... logical.]

Criminals would never be impressed by the cops kind demeanor. If they were impressed with kindness and such, they wouldn't have become criminals in the first place.

You sound like you've been brainwashed. You make sense, but at the same time, how did we get here in the first place? We were kidnapped. Why kidnap us then try to return us home?

[Natsuki acknowledges that his conclusion might be true, but doesn't trust it enough to rid her mind of suspicions.]

They could have become criminals because they never experienced genuine kindness, so they turned to a life of crime because that's all they knew.

Actually, you don't know the whole story. The Malnosso don't bring us to this world. Just this enclosure. The reason we're here at all is due to some kind of big Shift or something. They put us in this enclosure not only to protect us, but because something about us is special and could lead to finding a way to send everyone, not just us, back home.

That sounds like something that would happen in a sappy movie.

So I don't know the whole story... Maybe you're right, but to not have an ounce of suspicion just seems too naive for my tastes.

Maybe, but it could still happen.

Not naive, just optimistic.

Perhaps.

Are you always this optimistic?

[He thinks about that. It's kind of confusing as he thinks about it, but after a moment's hesitation he concludes:]

Usually.

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