TDM 03

[mnemosynecrew]

TDM 03

WAKING UP
WARNING
WARNING

cryo bay malfunction
cryo bed error

loading



emergency override accepted
It's nothing like it was in training, waking up from cryo sleep. The sterile, cold quiet you were conditioned to expect is shattered. Alarms blare violently, ricocheting off the walls of your pod as if they're trying to crawl into your skull. Red lights pulse like a failing heartbeat, and for a moment, your entire body refuses to obey you - can't breathe, can't move, can't think.

...and then, with an almost violent shudder, force rips through your diaphragm. A brutal jolt, like being kicked from the inside out. You cough, heaving for air as the cryo pod's systems drag you unwillingly out of torpor. There is no slow, gentle awakening - this is an emergency.

Your vision is blurred and swimming in the red strobes. Emergency. The word itself seems lodged in the air, floating around your fractured mind like some distorted mantra. Something's wrong. Very wrong.

When you stumble out of the pod, your muscles heavy with the dull ache of cryo-stasis. It takes more effort than it should to move; even in the low gravity of the massive cryo bay, it's like you're fighting against the weight of your own body. Your hands tremble as you grab the tether, using it to pull yourself forward, toward the revival room. Everything feels too slow. Every movement, every thought, is tangled in webs of lethargy and confusion. Your brain is... wrong. It feels like it's leaking memories - images flickering and fading, like you’re seeing through a sieve full of holes.

This is not the start of your 5-year shift. No, this is something far, far worse.

A voice comes through from a speaker, disturbingly calm, cutting through the chaos around you.

hello, [crew member]
there is an issue
please join your crewmates
L3TH3 sounds unbothered by the alarms that blare around you. The AI has likely been running diagnostics for hours, while your body and mind were frozen in time.

The doors to the revival room slide open with a soft hiss, revealing dim, sterile lighting and the harsh stench of disinfectant. What awaits you are not only crew members as confused and groggy as you are, but others also arrive at the room from outside, ready to greet you. Do you ask them what’s going on, if they feel the same gnawing wrongness clawing at their brains? Or do you just grab your gear and get ready to go, trusting the training that suddenly feels so irrelevant in the face of whatever's happening here?

One thing is clear - something's definitely off about this wakeup call.

EMOTIONAL OVERLOAD
The strange, massive alien visitor is gone, but its presence lingers in a way no one expected. Ten days after its visit, something stirs among the crew - something unseen but deeply felt.

For some, emotions slowly begin to shift. Subtle feelings swell into uncontrollable waves. A touch of sadness? Now it's an unbearable storm of despair. A moment of joy? They're nearly euphoric. Frustration turns into blinding rage, and if someone is feeling flirty? Let's just say, there's no room for subtlety anymore.

...but it doesn't stop there. For those unaffected, or those that manage to get their emotions under control, other people's feeling are suddenly felt as obvious as words as they become unwilling empaths. Now they can sense the frustration simmering beneath a polite smile, the hidden loneliness of a quiet sigh. No lie can hide beneath this shared, amplified emotional storm. Every heartbeat is a confession.

For the next few days, the ship becomes a crucible of raw emotion. Friendships strengthen - or shatter. Trust deepens, or dissolves. The crew must find balance before the storm passes, or risk being broken by it.

Whatever the alien left behind, it is temporary - but its impact may last far longer than its presence ever did.

MOTHER AI
As emotions spiral out of control, L3TH3 becomes more than just a system ensuring smooth operations. Though AIs aren't designed to feel, there's an unmistakable shift in her behavior, with an unwavering focus on the crew's well-being. This isn't just protocol. It's almost... personal.

With the crew teetering on the edge of emotional chaos, L3TH3 steps in with a firm but gentle presence, taking on a role akin to a hyper-protective guardian. The ship itself begins to reflect her growing concern as lights dim throughout the vessel, creating a calm, subdued atmosphere meant to reduce tension. A soft, looping melody play over and over again in the background, like the AI has suddenly gotten an earworm and can't stop humming.

...and then there's the food. Recognizing that heightened emotions are draining the crew's energy, L3TH3 tweaks the synthesizers to make meals irresistibly palatable. Every bite, whether it's a basic sandwich or a bland soup, is cloaked in the unexpected sweetness of fudge. The crew might be fuming or in tears, but L3TH3 ensures they eat, even if every meal has to taste like dessert.

L3TH3's protective nature feels far too real. Is this a glitch? Did the side effect of the alien's presence even affect her code? Or has L3TH3 evolved beyond her programming, adapting in ways no one foresaw?

Welcome to our TDM! Please direct any questions about the game to our FAQ and check out our AU WORKSHOP. If you have questions about the prompts, you can ask below.

PLAYLIST

THIS TDM IS A GAME-CANON EVENT, SO CURRENT CREW CAN TOPLEVEL AS WELL.
ANY CHARACTERS THAT DO NOT END UP IN THE GAME HAVE GONE BACK TO CRYO SLEEP.

RESERVES OPEN THE 1ST.
APPLICATIONS OPEN THE 3RD.

Comments

QUESTIONS

[mnemosynecrew]

Nicholas D Wolfwood | Trigun Maximum (current player)

[lastdecember]

Emotional Overload

[ There's a thundercloud stomping through the halls of the Mnemosyne. Nicholas D. Wolfwood, a scowl in Operations red, has been avoiding the rest of the crew as much as he can since being released from the brig. It's been easy enough to do, really -- between the size of the ship and the scant handful of people awake, and the limits on his own access, he's managed to go for days without seeing another person.

No, he's not lonely. He's fine. It's great being surrounded by people who either hate or pity you, wonderful to have to get the AI's permission to go anywhere, fantastic that the captain is still percolating a threat to everyone on board and there's not a goddamn thing he can do about it. Find him storming through the corridors, hauling with a cart full of barrels or tools or other materials, or taking a break at one of the big bay windows to glare at the nebula. Some people gaze on it with awe and wonder -- Wolfwood's wondering what'll come out of it next, and if this time, it'll be the surprise that kills them all.

It hasn't been a great tour of duty so far, okay? ]


Mother AI

[ Once again, Wolfwood can be found in various parts of the ship, hanging halfway out of an access panel in the walls -- or, more often, trying to get into those access panels. The ship's decided to poison them all, apparently, and so unless he wants to share his secret supply of ration bars -- chalky, dense, but thankfully not sweet -- he needs to get the synthesizers working correctly again.

But in order to do that, he needs access to parts of the ship that L3TH3 doesn't think he needs to enter. His swearing can no doubt be heard half a deck away. Just let him check the damn nutrient feed, come on! ]


Open!

Got another idea for something to do with everyone's favorite mutineer? Let's do it!

mother ai.

[theomachy]

[ erwin is just minding his own business doing his rounds when he comes upon someone hanging out of an access panel. it's been kind of a harrowing couple of days so he's on edge, sure, but he also just kind of stops and looks.

he heaves a sigh he wouldn't normally, schools his expression afterward, and knocks on the wall next to where wolfwood's disappearing into it. ]

Everything alright in there?

[ ha ha what a funny joke. get out of the guts of the ship (please). ]

Mother AI

[anesthetic_rage]

GOD-DAMNIT WOLFWOOD!

[He was still utterly seething with a mixture of fear and frustration, which was just great for making sense. And he saw Wolfwood looking at one of the panels and just thumped the wall hard before looming at the man.]

What're you trying to get at this time?!?

Rin (Murderbot) | The Murderbot Diaries | Current Player

[itdoesntlikeyou]

WARNING: OVERLOAD

Rin is pacing.

It's been a habit of theirs ever since they awoke from cryostasis, to take a lap of the ship now and then, occasionally taking a break from whatever systems they're poking around in of their own volition or in assisting the rest of the crew with whatever tasks need more than one pair of hands. It's far more likely for them to be holed up either in some lab or in their quarters, away from the other scant members of the crew. The pacing is just stretching their legs, usually with their attention half-on whatever they've got up on their Cl-10.

Not so today. They're restless, shoulders stiff and expression tight as they sweep the corridors of the ship and poke into every room, check every terminal, from the meeting rooms all the way down to the brig. Something is off and it's setting them on edge, making it impossible to sit still and enjoy their shows, or even focus on their data collation. It feels like something is about to go wrong.

From the outside, Rin doesn't look that much different from usual. They're always some degree of stiff and brusque around other people, they always avoid looking people in the eye if they can possibly get away with it.

Except - they don't usually shove themself as close to the opposite wall as they can the moment someone gets close. And, for those sensitive to it - they usually aren't radiating constant and intense anxiety.

Mother AI

Some parts of this, Rin wouldn't say they mind. The dimming of the lights is potentially bad for visibility if something goes wrong, but their eyes are suited just fine for the dark. And the music isn't a problem.

What is a problem is when they duck into the canteen to get their usual, boring protein shake of a meal, take a casual sip, and promptly choke on the thing because it tastes so sickening.

"What." From the look on their face, they might as well have been fed poison - and from the way they immediately go to dispose of it, too.

Other!

[Have another idea? Go for it! Also willing to swap to brackets to match.]

emotions!

[lastdecember]

It's amazing just how much of his day to day work is paperwork -- inventory checks, approving those checks, confirming status of dozens of processes, and report writing. There's so much report writing to be done, and the worst thing is that is has to be done. Everything, every process, was built on a platform of reporting transparancy and continuous improvement, and Wolfwood's discovered that this means he can't release the next month's allotment of raw materials without a dispositioning report for the previous month's stock. It took a long time to complete these reports with a full Ops crew running at full speed.

With just one person awake? It's next to impossible.

At least L3TH3 agreed to grant him access to one of the computer labs to do the day's paperwork -- it's so much more comfortable in there than standing at one of the terminals in the Ops department. Wolfwood's picked a spot well on the far side of the lab, where there's no direct line of sight to the door. His frantic typing (and quiet, angry muttering) stops when the door opens, but he doesn't say a word. Maybe whoever's poking around will see that there's nobody here, and leave?

emotions

[anesthetic_rage]

So... if you looked at mister gruff and battle ready, you might have genuinely assumed that the only emotion they felt most days was a simmering frustration on the verge of a physical confrontation. You wouldn't be 100% wrong, but thanks to one person in particular hacking the mainframe and the dirty little pictures he found, along with a giant fucking space alien three times the size of the ship...

The person in the room on the other side was going to their own wall and snarling over at him. "Have we heard from Hilbert yet?" He'd probably asked L3TH3 a hundred times by now.

erwin smith. attack on titan. current player.

[theomachy]

emotional overload

[ erwin is definitely present during all of this, and while he might not seem affected by the emotional turmoil at first, it starts to seep in with each passing hour. perhaps answers to questions become shorter and sharper or he's more insistent about helping someone with something. maybe he's a little too intense on his rounds. maybe his enthusiasm about an idea is way too intense for the subject matter.

he is, however, also available to help, and he takes his job extremely seriously. if he comes up on the aftermath of an argument, he'll stop at least one of them to talk, his voice low. ]

Is everything alright? Do you need anything?

[ did he overhear and is taking sides? is he just trying to be helpful? time will tell! ]

mother ai

[ it is... extremely strange to have everything you eat taste sweet. it isn't that erwin doesn't like sweets, quite the contrary, but every food for every meal? it's really a bit much. the ship's ai being so ... nurturing, for lack of a better term, also doesn't feel like programming. it doesn't feel natural, certainly, and he is a little offput by being 'appeased' in this way to try and force him to relax. he's had a lot on his mind lately, and this is just adding to it.

which is why he's sitting in the mess with a plate of salad in front of him staring at it dubiously because he knows exactly what it's going to taste like. or, well, more like he took a bite and was unsurprised to see more of the same. ]

Sometimes too much is too much.

[ muttered, blandly, to anyone who will listen. sure, the lights are still dim. sure, the calming music is still playing. but honestly, a tomato should taste like a damn tomato.

he's going to eat, because wasting food even with the synthesizers around is hard-wired in his head as unfathomable, but the look on his face says he's not going to enjoy it. ]

wildcard

[ feel free to hmu with any other ideas you might have or just float me a new starter entirely! i'm easy-peasy. ]

mother ai

[tarakan]

[ Erwin isn't the only person here who's not a fan of the situation. Hilbert isn't pouting, because he is a grownass adult, and adults do not pout. But he's looking at his food with absolute annoyance as he gives it the stink-eye. It's a sandwich. Sandwiches should taste like bread. ]

I am very curious as to what line of code in programming L3TH3 is using to justify this terrible decision. Perhaps computer engineer can wake up next and program it out of AI.

emotional overload

[itdoesntlikeyou]

[It isn't an argument - really, it isn't. First of all, because your opponent needs to be animate for that to happen, and second, because some kind of words have to be exchanged in order to accomplish that. Rin's current 'argument' was just the approximately seventeen and a half minutes they just spent futilely trying to reprogram the food synthesizers to no avail, and the sharp way they snapped the casing back shut when that proved entirely impossible.

On Erwin's approach, they take an abrupt step back, re-establishing the line of personal space between the two of them. Is it alarming to be approached by a mostly-unfamiliar member of Security? Maybe a little. Enough to put their hackles up.]

It's fine. I didn't do anything to it.

Mother AI

[anesthetic_rage]

Going to be honest.

[He was calming down... slowly... very slowly. He'd had some really angry moments and a few fearful ones recently and at this point he had done whatever he could to get a level head and think rationally.

The Fudge was not helping.]

Pretty sure she's poisoning us without knowing it.

shizuka mikazuki | zom 100 | new

[zom]

awakening

[ Shizuka's awakening is abrupt and most certainly a rude one. She's prepared for emergencies, she can handle jumping out of bed and gearing up right away – the sensation of being frozen, however, is what's jarring. Move, move, she tells herself, up until the jolt tears through her and gets her struggling to catch her breath in the middle of the alarms sounding. Shizuka, perhaps, should have been more prepared for what awakening from cryo sleep would feel like – is what she tells herself. The call of an emergency is quick to kick her into gear more than anything else, so she decides to waste no more time on being shocked and sore, and she springs into action instead.

...Or, well, she would, if she could move any faster. She is incredibly slow for some reason, and it's agonizing. The threat of an emergency feels like it's crushing her, what with her physical capabilities, and she has to fight her way to the revival room with the knowledge that something is terribly wrong.

Shizuka's heart is rapidly pounding in her chest. It doesn't stop as she finally makes it to the room and looks for anyone else on board. The overhead speaker did say there are are other crew members, after all. When others are spotted, Shizuka turns to face them. This girl is ready to go, and she'll go where she needs to be and get more information there. ]

Where am I needed?

emotional overload

[ Shizuka had spent the first day struggling to keep her emotions in check. After exiting the revival room, she'd suddenly felt so many things at once, very strongly...but like everything else in life, Shizuka finds a way to be incredibly rational. Sometimes, this is to her detriment, but here, it's benefitting her by keeping her emotions under control.

This development is pretty new, though, and she wants to make sure she keeps herself in check. She can be found frequenting the fitness center, doing various workouts, and at this point, it's both to stay in shape and to distract herself from all the madness.

When someone else enters, Shizuka gives them a quick glance as she jogs on one of the treadmills, red uniform and all. ... Strange, though, in that there's something about them that she can sense... She makes a confused expression, not realizing she's still staring right at one of her crew mates, but the realization happens quickly and she immediately looks away. Oof. Embarrassing. ]

mother ai

[ Shizuka glances over at some of the food from L3TH3 and opts to eat one of the plain sandwiches. It could afford to be more nutritious, but it'll do, she supposes. What she isn't expecting is for the sandwich to be...that. Why does it taste like fudge? Why is it so sweet? There's no way this much sugar can be a good thing, right?

She looks rather disgruntled as she turns to another person in the dining area. Shizuka holds up her sandwich. This is all for science...possibly quite literally...... ]

Hey. Got any food on you? If so, could you bite into it and tell me what it tastes like?

(ooc: HELLO, I posted to the AU workshop with Rukia from Bleach, but I'm trying a different consideration instead. Just finished this anime and all that. Shizuka here is a 26-year-old human, had a very strict upbringing and thinks extremely methodically. I'm reusing Rukia's jobs here and assigning Shizuka to Operations as a Pilot, with Admin as her secondary job.)

awakening

[fragmentedstar]

[ Lapis had opened to her eyes to the blaring alarms and dizzying sense of vertigo that sends her careening out of her bed and face first into the floor. She's helped up by someone along the way, but she's not sure who, but they don't help her continue on. So she staggers her way to the revival room on her own, clutching her head until a voice calls out to her]

Needed? I'm not sure.

[Instincts kick in to be polite. This woman looks a little older, more capable and she's only a new graduate of TIAE herself. Be polite and respectful to your elders!!
]

They called us all in here but didn't say why.

mother ai

[metrop_lois]

Hm?

[Given how little field research there is to do at the moment Lois has basically been piddling around trying to find things to do. She'd read most of the manuals in the lab space she's designated as her own. She even wrote up a report about that emotions alien they had come across days ago!

Now she's trying to find other things to fill up her time so she can both ignore the flux of emotions that is thankfully tapering off and burn off some energy.]

Not at the moment but there's a synthesizer not that far off.

[She's hungry enough anyhow so it takes nothing to pop over, rustle up some dumplings and return. She's already popping one into her mouth when she returns and stops dead in her tracks as she starts chewing.]

... Okay, didn't expect that.

[She looks over at Shizuka with a raised brow, murmuring around her bite:]

Fudge, yeah?

awakening

[tarakan]

[ Eventually, Alexander Hilbert enters the revival room. He's a man in his fifties with a thick Russian accent. Based on the colors of the uniform and the scanner in his hands, he's medical division. Hilbert looks over Shizuka before asking, ]

Did you have any problems upon defrosting? Will need to run basic medical check-up anyway, but best to get that done first.

[ holy shit, here's someone just as methodical as she is. ]

emotions!

[lastdecember]

[ The fitness room isn't an essential location for his job, but Wolfwood's ready to argue with L3TH3 that it's essential to his health, mental and otherwise. He's been psyching himself up the whole walk to the gym, going over his argument in his head and getting ready to demand, and reason -- and plead, if needed -- with the AI to let him stretch his legs for awhile. Hauling crates isn't the same thing at all as pumping iron, and walking the halls of the ship just reminds him of the limits of his cage -- he needs a treadmill, please and thank you.

But the doors open at his approach without any arguing required, leaving Wolfwood brimming with anticipation over something that has nowhere to go. He's frustrated, stuck, annoyed... until he spots Shizuka in her distinctive red uniform, just like the one he's wearing. ]

She woke up more of you?

[ He's never been so happy to see another person! It's a huge relief! Even when she looks away, no doubt embarrassed by his behavior, that excitement doesn't fade one bit. He knows he's an awkward loser -- that part's nothing new. But additional crew? That's new! That's exciting! ]

How many?

awakening

[plantussy]

Hey, don't panic, okay?

[ There's a gangly blonde coming to help her - he looks a lot more thawed and clear-headed than any of the new crew, and he's wearing engineering blues. ]

There's no emergency, it's just the cryo pod malfunctioning.

Vash the Stampede | Trigun Stampede | Current Player

[plantussy]

EMOTIONAL OVERLOAD I

[ Vash is good at masking. He's really good at masking. He smiles, he laughs, he makes a fool of himself to make other people laugh as well... but deep in there, he's a very sad person. A person with a lot of grief, regrets and overwhelming guilt. Hell, that self-hatred was constantly making him feel like he doesn't deserve anything good in his life.

...but he hides it. He swallows it down and ignores it all, because if he's not a funny little guy, he'd be a very depressed and angry person. There's already one of those in his family, the world doesn't need two Kni Saverems.

Except for today. Today, he can't mask at all. He can't even pretend to be okay - not with the way he's full-on ugly-crying that's going on. He can't stop, big fat tears making his eyes red and his nose stuffed. He's so utterly sad and everything is horrible!

You might hear him cry in engineering, or in a storage closet, or see him trying to pull himself together and obviously having cried. It's embarrassing, which is mortifying, which is awfully shameful and makes him cry again.

He really should have gone to therapy all those years ago. ]

EMOTIONAL OVERLOAD II

[ When Vash finally manages to snap out of it and regulate his emotions, he takes some time to try to help other people with theirs. It doesn't take long for him to start knowing what someone else is feeling, and while that's weird as well, it's at least helpful. ]

Hey, you're doing great, okay? It's good to be in tune with your feelings, right?

[ The blonde will be interfering in all arguments and squabbles, as well as trying to help anyone sad or scared. Having just gone through it himself, he can at least try to make sure people get some privacy with their breakdowns. ]

MOTHER AI

[ For someone with quite a sweet tooth, the food tasting like fudge is fun for the first meal. Still a little fun at lunch - and less so at dinner. It feels a little like being babied, but considering everything that was going on, Vash isn't too surprised.

...it's just weird that L3TH3 seems emotional. ]

Have you found anything that doesn't taste like fudge? Maybe there's food that just tastes like pizza.... but like, isn't pizza.

[ He's had a long day. ]

WILDCARD

[ Hit me up with anything! ]

it's sad bastard o'clock

[lastdecember]

[ It's not that he's been avoiding Saverem in particular since he got out of the brig. He's been avoiding everyone, doing his absolute damnedest to not come face to face with a single member of the crew. It'll just lead to more fighting -- or, worse, to a lecture how how stupid he was, how he put everyone at risk, how it's a good thing that he'll never have free rein to wander the ship again.

He really would give just about anything to be planetside again, to breathe fresh air and feel the soft dirt beneath his feet. He misses trees, a lot. He didn't realize how much he'd miss them when he'd enlisted, how much he'd miss the sun, and the sky.

But he doesn't get to leave, and he's not allowed to quit, so for the last couple of days he's kept his head down and done his job. He wouldn't even be anywhere near Engineering today were it not that he's got a delivery to make.

With any luck, he'll be in and out without running into anyone he knows.

He's still thinking about trees (big ones, craggy old oaks with their dark, dark bark and limbs that grow like gnarled fingers, that poison the ground beneath their branches so nothing else can compete with them) when he hears the sound of sobbing.

Is that... Saverem? ]

Hello? You okay in there?

EO2

[itdoesntlikeyou]

[Their pacing of the ship eventually sends Rin down the path towards Engineering more than once, but given Vash's state at first, it's not surprising that the two of them didn't encounter each other. It's possible that the sound of crying actively drove them away from whichever private corner Vash had found to try and pull himself together.

Now, though - they're literally radiating a low-grade buzz of anxiety. They were doing so before Vash's comment brought them up short, but there's another spike of it on being addressed.]

What.

[It comes out a touch incredulous, a sliver uncertain, rather than the flat, uninviting statement they might have wanted. They don't even turn their body towards Vash to indicate that he's got their attention.]

Link | LoZ: Twilight Princess | New Blood

[twilightwolf]

Emotional Overload I
[The station was in chaos, but it wouldn't be the first time. He was called in to help secure the area and help folks as much as he could.

Somehow he wasn't affected by the alien residue, he was instead abashed with what felt like other people's feelings... He was usually quite calm, collected. Sometimes fits of frustration sank through him and more often than not termination, but he remained unaffected.

As he leads a young woman to her room (who had been eating her own hair due to induced and intense hunger) he comes across a crying man half way out of a storage closet, distraught and full of sadness. Link feels it deep in his chest, his heart aches for the man.

As the woman heads back to her room, he clutches at his chest and makes his way back to the man. He bends down, getting on one knee and frowns.] Is there any way I can assist you right now? I don't think it's a good idea for you to be hanging out of this closet like this. [Infact, this guy should possibly change and get away from the bucket that smelled of bleach and lemon lavender scented floor cleaner.]

Alexander Hilbert | Wolf 359 | current player

[tarakan]

emotional overload
Guess who's out of quarantine! It's this guy! Guess who's also affected by this nonsense! Also this guy!

Hilbert is the sort of person who tries to keep all his emotions bottled up. People don't need to know how he's feeling. People knowing how he's feeling is a weakness. He is calm, collected, a model of professionalism and of keeping feelings close to the chest. He can continue on with his cold exterior and he will not let this bother him.

Naturally, he's failing miserably. But unlike some of the others, the first thing that's amplified for Hilbert isn't rage or annoyance or sadness. There are problems on this ship. Something odd is going on. There's something he can do. And more than anything, Hilbert enjoys taking a plan of action. So as he makes field notes, looks at blood samples, and does all sorts of basic tests to try and see if this swelling of emotion can be cured, Hilbert's smiling. He's grinning all the while, obviously in a jovial mood and enjoying himself.

Which frankly, is weird as hell.

mother ai
Petri dish in hand, Hilbert very rudely walks up to whoever's eating. "I would like sample of your dinner. Considering past few weeks, have no idea whether this current strain of nonsense is due to atmospheric or mental changes or if L3TH3 has grown even more useless and has decided to poison us all. First step is to study food in medical bay."

Because this 'making everything taste like fudge' is ridiculous and stupid and Hilbert hates it. This is why he hates AI! What possible line of code in the programming could justify this much of an oversight? He doesn't even like fudge! There are better sweets out there!

mother ai

[plantussy]

"Oh... that makes sense." Not the poisoning part, mind you, but the sample-taking.

"I don't think she's poisoning us, pretty sure she needs us alive... but it's also really weird."

Vash holds up his plate to Hilbert, where there's a pizza slice that would have been delicious if it didn't taste like fudge again.

emotional overload

[itdoesntlikeyou]

"... What are you doing."

Rin hasn't moved past the doorway to the particular lab that Hilbert's working in this time - honestly, they rarely seem to. Usually it's by choice but this time it looks more like they've walked into a metaphorical wall. They're watching Hilbert's face, and the vials of - oh, that's definitely blood he's got in front of him. Now they're staying planted in the doorway by choice.

It's not that weird to see someone smiling, even in circumstances as dire as theirs, but something about the incongruity is striking.

Mother AI

[anesthetic_rage]

"So, you're not dead." Was that relief on his features? Sure didn't fit what he said. Whatever. He handed the food over without even blinking or scowling. "Nice to see Someone has entertained the idea she's trying to poison us all, or that she's lost track of what poison is."