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I mean, I'd argue they are at least temporarily. At least for people.

In some circumstances..perhaps. However, they are not always the same.

[hah... Viktor idly wonders if this is this girl's natural hair colour. It's a bit neon for that, maybe dyed? However, that's not his business, so he won't comment]

Even tired, one can retain some capability and skills, to a degree. In many circumstances. Until exhaustion reaches some heights. Would you not agree?

Sometimes, sure, but you're trying to qualify a really, really narrow band of possibility there. I mean, fully hydrated and rested previously, and with all necessary medications and adaptations, yes, someone who is exhausted may retain a great many skills.

The last time I was exhausted, truly exhausted, I was damn near in a coma for four days. So your mileage may vary, kind of wildly.

Someone tell you you couldn't do something because you're tired, or what?

Ahhh, perhaps. However, I do see your poin--

[cough. cough. dammit, this is not a good timing. dammit. that's the opposite of the point-- and there's some blood being coughed out, too, which he idly tries to hide, so that the person he's conversing with will only see it if there's some effort to see it, hm, well...]

[after the coughing fit, leaning on his cane more heavily now, Viktor, back to what he was saying, drily...] However, eh, I do see your point. I simply disagree. Perhaps you're right for physical workers, like miners and such. I concede that. But - if one's tool is one's brain and not one's limbs or other appendages - then being slightly tired does, hmmm... does NOT lessen... any ability.

[whew]

Edited 2025-03-13 04:31 (UTC)

[ Both her eyebrows wing up at the coughing fit and the blood, though she makes no move to aid him just yet with anything. He's coughing, which means he's getting air, so her doing anything but watching would be dumb and unnecessary. And his whole argument is that he--or someone--isn't incapable if they're just tired. ]

I mean... I love the way you imply that physical work doesn't require the brain, but I get where you're coming from. You're not an invalid if you're tired. Disability does not equal incapacity, all that. Makes sense.

That said, you okay? The cough sounds like you might need to see a doctor. Tuberculosis is a shitty way to die, so I hear.

Don't worry yourself, miss, I do see doctors, ten of best doctors in best hospitals in Piltover, it's getting slightly irritating, ten or maybe eleven great doctors, on my last count last week so far, on somebody's insistence - as somebody I've met several years ago is still insistent than I'm better at, hm, living, than I am, currently. Eh, let him have it. I see doctors, especially currently, then, as said. Too often.

[sigh] I'm not saying miners or waste workers or what have you are a brainless lot, my apologies if I sounded -- excuse me, perhaps, even-- [and then he lends some levity to his tone of voice, perhaps his partner did teach him something] -- perhaps even brilliant scientists like myself err in the judgment or in expression, sometimes. I could allow that.

[wait...] What is a 'tuberculosis'? What are its symptoms, miss? Just from scientific curiosity, could you ennumerate some.

Edited 2025-03-18 05:40 (UTC)

Well, you've got a good track record so far. Hundred percent of the days you've had, you've lived. So I'm gonna guess between you and the doctors, you've got a handle on it.

[ She shakes her head and chuckles when he sighs. ] It's good, I understand what you meant. And yeah, sometimes even the big brains come across wrong. Happens to everybody sooner or later.

As to your question...tuberculousis is a disease. A bacterial infection in the lungs. You cough, and cough, and you stop eating, and you cough so hard and so much that you destroy yoour ability to breathe. It used to be fatal.

The doctors give me seven months, if generous. If not, somewhere between two to four. [and, with an honest black humour for a moment] Plenty of time to even talk again with you sometime, if you'd be interested in talking to a practically dead man. [shrugs] Might be morbidly fascinating to you, I won't judge. Although I wouldn't talk to me, much, were I somebody else.

Mhm, indeed, and sometimes theories and hypotheses can become too convoluted without fresh eyes. I always try to remember that.

[tuberculosis, hm? Viktor's never heard that name for any sickness, but--]
Might be a different name for the same... tell, can 'tuberculosis' originate because of unclean air?

Do they know what's causing your illness? Is it a virus, an infection...something? [ She shrugs off the morbid concern, though. She's been damn near dead herself before. ] I'm always interested in people. People aren't always interested in me, granted, but...I like new people and conversations.

[ She nods at the question. ] It can. It's a bacterium, uh...mycobacterium, I think, but I'm not sure. But yes, being around an infected person means you can catch it, and they used to think it was unclean air.

[headshake, as he leans more on his crutch] No, that's not right, that's a different illness, then. In the undercity, were I come from, before I moved to the topside, to the academy - there were gasses in the fissures, in short-- poisoneous gasses. Ones that damaged lungs, and other things.

[he says it matter of factly]

The Grey. This is what we call them - those gaseous substances. The sickness that's caused by them - that's, eh, just the undercity problem, or if a topsider was crazy and visited the undercity too much, perhaps- so, I even met a few doctors that haven't noticed at first sight that I'm a trencher, thought I was born topside, so, when they saw my lungs, they looked at me as if I was a madman who had a deathwish. But then they'd look at my leg and guess that I'm from the undercity.

[or said rather matter of factly, with only a bit of hidden sarcasm]

So, no, unfortunately, I don't think I suffer from tuberculosis. That's too bad.

['s too bad because that 'tuberculosis' seems to be more treatable]

Although... hrm. I might know a few people who are suffering from it. So I'll look into it and inform all the doctors I know - or at least the competent ones, which is like, ehh, ten percent of them - of possible symptoms and treatments, in case they have any patients with 'tuberculosis', ever.

[there's eagerness in his eyes at that. Viktor really wants to help people, to cure them - honestly, he'd cure everybody in the world, even the worst people, of their ailments, if it was just in his power to do so. it's no pretense, it's really something of a dream for him]

Anyway, if it's something unheard of in the universe I come from, there probably isn't much of a treatment, there, yet-- but you say it can be transmitted, that 'tuberculosis'? Hmm. Can animals catch it? I could, first, look around to see if anybody does, topside or in undercity, is afflicted with that illness - and if some people are, I could help find treatments. The treatments from this universe. I could transport-- can animals catch this sickness? Because it'd be easy enough to take some rats, infect them, take them back, to the laboratory, do some experiments on them - rats, or cats, or dogs, you know. Yes, and--

But this is probably a boring topic for you.

Anyway, back to my affliction - yes, everything is known, perfectly well. The cause, well, as I've said- gasous substances in the air. Consider it, ehhh, well - consider people like me to be suffering from a very, very slowly working poison, yes, that's the best way to describe it. Simple, isn't it? So, no, not any bacteria, unfortunately. Only poison. And, before you admonish me - yes, I am working on finding antidotes, so to speak. I'm not lazy.

Edited 2025-03-19 17:51 (UTC)

Man, I've known you for like...twenty minutes and I can alreaady tell you are the exact opposite of lazy. Don't even worry about that.

The way you're describing things is interesting, because we don't really have top and under cities where I'm from, not literally speaking... [ But she's paying attention to more than that; the way he leans on the crutch, the way he breathes and coughs, even what he's talking about with slow-acting poison. Not like that's uncommon in her world either, even if they don't call it the same thing. It sounds like a toxic air bloom, and if that's the case, there are therapies for that too. Not that she's intimately familiar with them all, but it's something. ] It's really not boring to me. I'm not a medical student, no, but I am an engineeering student, and we're both built to solve complex problems.

[ Her eyes narrow when he mentions doctors looking at his leg and guessing where he was born, or the possibility of her admonishing him for not finding a cure. ] What's wrong with your leg? It's there, it functions more or less as intended. And clearly you've got an aid device that works. That'd be like people looking at my arms and deciding I can't lift anything.

[ Which, uh...is pretty clearly not the case. Though she does have metal gauntlets from fingertips to her elbows like slim-fitted opera gloves, above that is muscle definition borne of some decently regular physical labor. ] What about chelation therapy? Like a chemical that could bind to the poison in your body, and let you metabolize it out?

[plus some headcanons in the first paragraph there cuz why not/ooc]

[All the substances that various doctors ever prescribed me, only went through my mouth. Various pills, more or less successful, etc. On his own, Viktor tried, growing more desparate, various antidotes, more or less rumoured in the undercity to have an effect of slowing Grey illness. as it turned out - the rumours were just rumours. Undercity could, ehh, have wildest rumours. There was for example once some quack in the undercity - Viktor, when he was fifteen years old and just a few years ago had learnt that he had Grey sickness, went to his 'clinic'- some quack that, with utter certainty, suggested that anybody who had the illness should consume some arsenic everyday. and that it worked as a cure, because in rare cases that some patients listened to his suggestion, they never visited him again, which surely meant that it worked! Teen Viktor had 'politely' took some arsenic from the quack (the first sample was free) in an undercity 'clinic' while saying snidely I swear on everything that if the Grey illness ever damages my brain capacity, I'll just take it, I know it'll help me then. A year later, Viktor moved to the topside. to the Academy district. And took that vial of arsenic as part of his very small baggage when moving out. He kept it at home, still. Although he wasn't really planning on ever using it, anymore, even in case of brain damage. Surely there were quicker ways to die. For example jumping from height. or a few other possible ways, too.]

[Viktor was soon going to inject himself with a completely different substance - the shimmer - but the shimmer was no cure to his illness, it was only going to let his body tolerate what he was going to attempt to do with the hexcore - was going to attempt to transform his body - but that, that was, well, a secret.]

[But. No. No doctor ever suggested chelation therapy. Viktor shook his head.] Chelation - I should've thought of that - then again, if nobody considers it, perhaps no correct chelating agents have been found, so far, for this sickness. However, I'll look into possibilities.

[If nobody's discovered a method, yet, Viktor might try and discover it himself.]

[ditto Sky Young, I'd say Heimerdinger too but I don't think Heimer ever thought too much about Viktor's legs and I'm not qualified to say whether Singed -so, yeah, Jayce and Sky dearly love both of your legs, Vik, don't hate your leg pls (Vik would not listen. not until the finele. pft /ooc]

[Viktor almost startles] ...what's wrong with my leg? Is that your question? It wouldn't carry my weight as it should, and
[laden with sarcasm] nothing's wrong with it besides, of course. After all, obviously I want a leg that does not work as it should.

I mean, it can't hurt to at least look into what binds with....whatever compounds you were exposed to. That won't kill you in the process.

[ She lifts one eyebrow at his heavy sarcasm, and lifts both of her arms, wiggling her fingers. ] Yeah, same way I want to be stuck in these for the rest of my life, I imagine. But hey, I love the tendency to short-circuit someone's brain from fifty paces. It's great.

Mhm. And even if it kills me, it's... eh, with my prognosis already, that's fine. I can make a last wish to my partner in this, hmm, research - he's a good man, even great, or noble in his naivete, if the world and I did not hold him back-

[Jayce Talis. Sky Young would also help. And prof Heimerdinger. All good people- cherished some way or another-
With affection-]
Jayce Talis wil make sure other people like me are cured in the future. That will also allow him to surely not step off the ledge on, ehh, a sorry impulse. Will ground him. To the people's suffering. Which will do them and him some good.

[Some light. In the darkness. Something good and noble and ambitious - that Viktor would not live to see--
His mother had told him once of how Viktor was born two months two early.
And now. The universe being set in some ways and unforgiving - of course Viktor had to exit the stage a bit too early for his liking.
But Viktor was NOT fair. He was going to exit stage, left or right, kicking and screaming and bleeding and leaving his scent like a wild dying animal
Marking the world as territory of his inventions and ideas and--
leaving a trail of chalk on all the chalk boards in his proximity
Maybe Viktor was being egotistical actually-
And unfair
And cruel-

Good. For just a few months, he could be, for... who would even be hurt by that?]
[So he could surely be for a few months harmlessly cruel]

Psh, what's the violence for? Only a limited mind can't find peace through diplom----

[Cough. Cough. Oh, greeeeeeaaaat, niw he can't even get some normal sentences out, thanks, universe, for not a single free gift - everything gotten from the universe Viktor had to claw out, while kicking or screaming or bowing or with strained smiles]

[Cough] through more diplomati--- or cultured--- ways in which we can forgive baser impulses, make Peace with them, Hop---

[Cough]

It's not a choice. Without the gauntlets, I am a conduit and capacitor for all electrical charges around me--they don't hurt me.

Unfortunately, they do hurt everyone else. [ One half an ampere, and enough voltage to push it through the heart, and humans are dead without a chance of being resuscitated. Noriko knows this intimately well. ]

Peace through diplomacy is a great option, I'll give you that. It's admirable, if all parties are amenable to diplomatic solutions; it sucks, but there are times when that's not ever going to happen. But if the goal is annihilation, occupation, or subjugation...diplomacy will never win. At that point...once violence is your last resort, make sure you resort to enough of it.

There's always a choice, [Viktor states, seriously]
And keep the gauntlents on, ms.

As for the others, if I understand right- do I?
If they want death, then.... change. That. Find out their other-- wants. Interests. Passions. Convictions. Goals. Reroute the ways--

Find solutions. Present-- evidence of your-- vision- of peace. Show the the attraction of it. Interest them in--- something other than violence. Bribe them? Make a show of strength without violence? Perhaps ensure mutual annihilation if they seek too violent a conflict...persuade.... Change. Their. Mind.

Die trying. Maybe-- that will --- show them.

Change their stance on, uhm, violence.

[He's almost hyperventilating now. Sorry. Give him a minute and he'll get that in order.]

There is always a choice, miss.

[There must be-]

[Breathe. Breathe.]

[Deep breath--- oh. Ok, that was too deep. So now let's go.... shallow.]

Edited 2025-03-25 03:51 (UTC)

[Ok. Shallow breathing. Better. Getting some oxygen now. Body no longer convinced of imminent death and panic]

[Ah-]

I was... babbling.

For which, I, hm, apologise. In my haste, I forgot to-- filter. My thoughts.

Let's forget it. Alright?

[He wobbles a bit. Good thing he's got a crutch. So it's fine]

Edited 2025-03-25 03:56 (UTC)

I have no desire to harm you, don't worry. And it's Noriko. Ashida Noriko. [ She waits patiently for the coughing to subside, and when he wobbles she reaches out a hand, ready to steady him or break his collapse if need be. He has a crutch, yes, but she doesn't know which way he'll fall and if it will be useful. ] Why don't you sit? There's no particular reason to stand just to talk.

As for the other... I come from a place where people do not merely look down on us. It's not just that we are considered to be less intelligent, less, physically capable, less than perfect, or even standard. We are thought less than worthy of living, of existing. There is no mistaking the aim of the people who do not like us: they want us all dead. They have tried to ensure that happens. For some of us, they have succeeded.

Death while trying to convince someone to change an opinion only results in death: your own, usually. I do not want to die.

[Like a little wild animal, Viktor won't so easily be touched by a somebody who's virtually a stranger]

[...sit...? Ahhhh. YES.]

Mhm. 'Make yourself indispensable to them, so that they won't kill you. And. Never. Talk back.' My parents tried to teach me so."

[Sigh.]

"But I talk back to topsiders, sometimes, still. Though I did make myself a little important. But not like that. I have other goals."

[Viktor sits down.]

[ Noriko shakes her head vehemently at that, drawing back her hand as she watches him sit, and kneels herself across from him, elegant and compact through she can pop back up to her feet as readily as anything. ] I will not beg to be allowed my existence. That is not a life.

I will not ask permission to take up my own space.

[scoffs, but fairly lightly, and then, utters] You were born in a large bed, weren't you, Miss? One surely covered with soft blankets?

But somebody who isn't has to either murder for one, or steal one, or sell one's body for one, or sell one's organs for one, or tinker and make some things, some new things, to get to buy one. That is the truth of the world, for this universe and for all other universes if any other exist, I am sure.

You had to sell something - no, you did not have to ask for permission, I have never asked for permission, only tried to give birth to as many fruits of my intellect as I could when I was a child and later a teenager for a time - as a teenager, I never stayed long with all the fruits of intellect's labour that I made, I always sold them - and my parents were always in awe, because I've never sold my body and I never will. So they called me independent, resolute, free, their beloved little scientist - and it made me proud. And they bought for me an Academy uniform. Topside Academy's uniform. When I first put it on and looked in a mirror, I momentarily became a god in my own eyes.

That, ehh, God thing - I can never share that fragment of thoughts with any Piltie - because even the best of the best of them would NOT understand. God? For some very basics? They wouldn't get it. They don't know they are gods. Well, no, not very good ones - they are, over half of them, petty, cruel, negligent, insoquential, stupid gods of idiocy, but-- they would not get it. Though sometimes, one can find some pearls among the topsiders, shockingly, or some emeralds. Heh.
[Viktor gives a small smile, that quickly falls, back to neutral expression.
He hasn't raised his voice here, not much any time, not once.
As if any voice raising was forbidden by some beautiful heavens above or acid stinking raging hells below. Or as if he was a calm man, always. Either or or both... who can tell...? hmmm?]

No, don't beg to exist. I can see you never had to miss. Glad to hear that. Truly, eh, glad, I don't wish my people's fate on anyone, miss, uhhh, trust in that, at least, I happen not to be a devil incarnate. Though some will beg to differ. Because they feel threatened by, uh, my brain.
[heh]

[cough. blood. into hand. Blood that he WON'T show her, as that would, in his put-together chiseled and cared for mind, put a dent in everything he's said to her. There would have to be a modicum of trust, first, for him to offer the sight of this blood freely without anybody forcing his hand]

[cough. cough. cough.]

Edited 2025-03-26 06:29 (UTC)

I was born to a family who professed to love me, yes. Until they didn't. And I have had to sell many things to survive, lest you think otherwise.

Do you need help? The coughing is getting worse.

Ah, I apologise. You are who you are and, not knowing you, I musn't I assume falsely.

... is it? No, not so much. This is a 'on a good day' version. And, hm, do you have a fear of blood? If so, I shall endavour to take my disease elsewhere.

[Viktor looks ready to walk or wobble away.]

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icon not literally there, just... in thoughts... idk. plus plausibly ic headcanons in between eps

no worries! I haven't finished the series but I like Viktor

yay

he makes me so sad

Re: he makes me so sad

Re: he makes me so sad

Viktor's life's not the happiest - well, the years spent with Jayce and Sky are okay if you ask him

2/2 warning:Viktor hates his 'bad'leg some days, canonly, oops.(his partner loves both of Vik's legs

ahaha, I am so sorry

No prob, Bob or smth ;) 😁

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1/2

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