thisavrou_log | (no subject)

(no subject)

Who: Jasper etc.
When: Pretty much whenever this month
Where: Various prompts
What: Various prompts
Warnings: Jasper is a jerk

1: SELF DEFENCE CLASS
A couple of times a week, Jasper teaches self-defence classes in the rec area. They are not the best taught classes there are – Jasper is kind of the quintessential mean drill sergeant gym teacher – but if you're willing to get yourself learned how to punch and you're not a complete feeble disaster, then you will, at least, get learned how to punch. I'm not gonna tag through an actual lesson, but if you want to thread something with your character and Jasper while she stands around waiting for everybody to show up (or for everybody to leave) I am hella down for it!

2: LATER IN THE DAY
It's well after her class for that day is over when Jasper sneaks back to the rec area.

Or, well, perhaps 'sneaks' isn't the word – Jasper carries herself with the same decisive, commanding air as usual as she makes her way through to the exercise equipment, but there is nonetheless something furtive about the way she glances around the area to make sure there's no one else around. It's late enough that she feels like there shouldn't be... but... She needs to make sure, before she does what she's about to do.

What she's about to do turns out to be attempt to use the weight machine. She has, in the past, pooh-poohed the concept of 'working out', finding the fact that humans and organic life forms need to work to maintain their physical traits rather than possessing them innately kind of absurd (although she supposes it explains their having no biologically defined roles, inefficient though that might be). But she's kind of curious. Eyes narrowed, she tugs on the machine with one large, orange finger. What if...

3: THE KITCHEN
Today's dinner was terrible. So terrible, in fact, that you feel it is necessary to go to the kitchen to complain.

Unfortunately this brings you face to face with Jasper, who after months of weekly kitchen duty has... well, she's made progress. She's managed to grasp by now that not literally anything organic can constitute food, and she's been taught the difference between necessary amounts of cooking versus charring a meal into a blackened mess. She's not poisoning anyone. It's just that some of the finer points of things like... flavour combinations, or and acceptable amounts of seasoning... continue to escape her.

(Not least because she point-blank refuses to put any of these things in her mouth. She knows what happens if you eat stuff, thank you very much.)

"There a problem?"

She does not look sympathetic.

4: WILDCARD
If you want to run into Jasper elsewhere, she can be found on Moro deck checking in on her cats, outside Peridot's armory looming at people trying to seek entry without an appointment (she thinks this is a little silly but whatever, she's Peridot's bodyguard), or... more or less anywhere except the gardens, mess hall or swimming pool, pretty much!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tarn glares as Jasper puts one of her tiny hands on the machine. He doesn't expect anything less than a bit of passive racisim from this buff...thing.

"No, but perhaps it could be useful." Tarn squeezes further into the room so that his comparatively massive frame hovers over Jasper.

"Show me how it works."

This could be the most instrumental object that he's found yet on the Moira.

"Useful?" Jasper snorts. "For little humans, maybe." She raises an eyebrow, looking Tarn's massive frame up and down. "What do you want it for, hand stretches?"

"Show me how it works" Tarn repeats slowly "and maybe I wont crush you into the floor of his miserable spacecraft."

He thinks she's stalling. He needs to know how this tiny human torture device works.

She raises the other eyebrow as well.

"They put these weights on here," she says, pointing, "to make it harder to move these levers, and then they move the levers over and over again."

Tarn doesn't understand. What is that possibly supposed to achieve?

"And then what? More weight is added?"

It must be meant for crushing humans, that's it's only logical use.

Jasper shrugs. "That's what it looks like, yeah. I don't really understand how their muscles work but that must be how they do it."

"Hmm...." Tarn seems to ponder the machine for a moment, rubbing his chin in thought.

"Get in it. I want a demonstration." She may not be human, but she's close enough in Tarn's book.

She looks up at him with one hand on her hip, skeptical and kind of indignant. "It's not gonna work on me. I'm a gem, not a human."

"What's the difference?"

Racist.

She raises her eyebrows even further. "Well, for one thing, my physical form is a projection and it isn't going to get tougher just because I moved a lever a whole lot."

Well that is disappointing. He had hoped for a proper demonstration of this device's capabilities.

There's clearly some sort of miscommunication happening here. Tarn crosses his arms.

"Then we should find a hapless fleshling to test it on. I'm curious as to how much weight it will be able to take before withering."

"Withering?" Jasper stares up at him in confusion for a moment – and then lets out a bark of laughter. "This isn't for weakening them, it's for making them stronger."

"What?" Tarn demands, incredulous. "Do you mean to tell me that this contraption isn't a device of torture meant to crush humans?"

He crosses his arms, feeling slightly foolish, but refusing let it on to it.

"It would be a much better invention, in my humble opinion."

"Hah! You think they'd just leave it lying around where anyone could use it if--" She breaks off as a thought strikes her, and scoffs. "Well, the ones in charge of this ship probably would, actually... But that wouldn't be a very good torture device. It'd just kill them."

"Not necessarily." Tarn starts, tapping his chin with a clawed finger. "Slowly adjusting the weight bearing down on the victim would not only cause massive ammounts of physical pain as it crushed vital components, it will also cause emotional and psychological distress as the inevitable outcome is drawn out into an impossibly long event."

Get with it Jasper, this is the most basic torture guideline.

"Hm."

Jasper looks up at him with slightly narrowed eyes - scrutinising, but not really suspicious.

"You do a lot of torturing?"

"I do what needs to be done for the Decepticon Cause." Tarn explains, adjusting himself into a more comfortable crouch. His optics dim as he smirks behind his mask.

"Sometimes it involves getting my hands a bit dirty."

"Just sometimes, huh." Jasper doesn't look particularly impressed, but she doesn't look particularly offended either. She does look curious, but that's mainly because Tarn is very large, and therefore not as easy to dismiss as she would like. "So what's the Decepticon Cause, exactly?"

Tarn perks up, brightening as Jasper expresses curiosity.

"You see,” he starts, adjusting himself for optimal balance, "the Decepticons are a faction of Cybertronians who, rather than sit enslaved by Functionism, preferred rising up and bursting from the shackles of a flawed society and institution. Overthrowing the senate, emancipating the manual classes…nothing was beyond Megatron as he rose from the ashes having brought a dangerous idea to reality. We were a free people with the right to prosperity and happiness.” Tarns eyes twinkle behind his mask as he reminisces, remembering the early days of the way. It was magnificent.

"But, he didn’t stop there. The prejudice and injustice that my people rallied against did not end on Cybertron. In an Anti-Mechanical universe it didn’t take long to identify thousands of potential threats which we aimed to eliminate.

And that struggle, in itself, is the Deception cause. Eliminating every threat to Cybetronian happiness— foreign or domestic. Creating a free and equal universe for my people to thrive."

Listen… she’s asked.

Jasper doesn't know much about Cybertronians beyond the fact that they're generally pretty big, and they have a limited ability to change shape, and they're mechanical, so most of this goes right over her head. Her eyes narrow a little, cautious.

"So you're, what, some kind of revolutionaries?" She does not sound like she approves of this idea.

"Exactly so." Tarn confirms, nodding slighly. His eyes dim as he squints back at Jasper.

He doesn't like the tone of her voice.

She arches an eyebrow, shifting to put the other hand on her hip instead as she eyes him judgementally.

"And what exactly are you revolting against?"

Edited 2016-04-03 22:06 (UTC)

His already painfully low tolerance threshold is brought even lower.

"I've just told you." Tarn grinds out, "Or is your species so mindless that it must be told simple concepts twice before it understands."

"'The shackles of a flawed society' isn't very specific," says Jasper, folding her arms.

Tarn glares fiercely as Jasper, leaning in closely.

"Let me rephrase that for you to better understand. My job is to rid the universe of bigoted ingrates like you once and for all. Creating a mechanical utopia for my fellow Decepticons without a smear of whatever race you happen to be. I'm revolting against you." Tarn prods Jasper in the middle of the chest with one of his absurdly pointy fingers.