VIDEO.

[centurybaby]

[ Jenny is aboard the Carrier, sitting with her back against one of those impressive windows that stretches from floor to ceiling. The Earth is the backdrop, surrounded in cosmic blackness. She tilts her head up to let cigarette smoke curl upwards from her mouth before she speaks: ]

So, let's say you were going to take over the fucking world. You know, for the good of humanity, since mankind is made up of a bunch of fuck-ups who are both capable of and willing to enable their own fucking destruction.

Hypothetically.

[ Another slow drag, her tone mild as she goes on: ]

Where would you start? China maybe? The U.S.? Some place more personal? And then what, just blast the shit out of them until they cower at your fucking feet? Or maybe trick them into being all fucking enslaved with speeches and shit until you're their tyrannical dictator and they don't even realize they put you there until it's too fucking late.

[ A pause. Then she puts her cigarette out on the metal floor. ]

'Course, there's the issue of fucking superheroes too. Have to deal with that shit. Some people just want to be goddamn martyrs.

Comments

video;

[glowsferatu]

Somehow I don't think megalomania would be a good look for you.

[centurybaby]

Too bad. It's probably in the fucking cards.

[glowsferatu]

Then why not reshuffle? Find a hand that better suits you?

[centurybaby]

Who says tyranny doesn't fucking suit me?

[glowsferatu]

I did. Only a few seconds ago.

[centurybaby]

You can be a fucking tyrant and not be obsessed with your own power. It's not the same.

[glowsferatu]

Tyranny is a belief in the infallibility of your power, that it should reign above all things due to its own lack of flaw. I would argue that they are inextricably connected.

[centurybaby]

A fucking tyrant is an oppressive asshole who rules through cruelty and fear. I know I'm not fucking infallible and I'm not pretending to be the fucking messiah. But I will fucking do whatever it takes, even if that means taking freedoms the fuck away.

[glowsferatu]

But you still believe it's up to your discretion how their lives should proceed. Just because you aren't pretending to be nice about it doesn't mean you aren't acting as though you know better than anyone else.

Why exactly are you entertaining this notion? Hopefully not out of any serious intention.

[centurybaby]

Because I do fucking know better than anyone else. I know what's in fucking store, okay? And believe me, if I was serious about taking over the planet right now, you wouldn't be talking to me about it over the Network-- you'd be seeing it on the news.

[glowsferatu]

But what qualifies you for this exclusive position? Your purpose, which may not even apply so strongly here in a corner of paradox space where the rules are distinctly different?

What is in store exactly, that you feel it can only be prevented through tyranny?

[centurybaby]

Humans are fucking humans no matter what universe you're in. Look around. That's fucking true. And not that anybody else is fucking privy to what my past selves tell me, but when the collective spirits of the century are convinced the 21st is humanity's last one, I can either lay down and die or do something about it.

Hypo-fucking-thetically, of course.

[glowsferatu]

The funny thing about paradoxes, Jenny, is that when you are made aware of a supposedly inevitable outcome, the likelihood of that outcome being realized is usually in direct proportion to the extremity of any preventative measures taken.

In short, that is very dangerous thinking.

[centurybaby]

What can I fucking tell you, Kanaya. I'm a radical reality altering teenager with ridiculous cosmic powers, and I'm either gonna save the world or fucking destroy it.

[glowsferatu]

You don't really have to do either. You could easily resolve to simply live your life instead, let fate find its own way if it's set on involving you.

But is risking the one worth attempting the other? And don't think this isn't a topic I have no experience in, that your burden is so entirely unique or beyond comprehension. You are, whether or not you believe it, not the first person to have faced such a binary.

[centurybaby]

Fuck that. I am not going to be the century baby that lets humanity die off on her watch. What kind of fucking coward gets born with the power to save the world and decides not to?

[glowsferatu]

The kind who would just as readily see it crumble under her heel, if she has any sense.

[centurybaby]

[ heatedly, with her bad-tempered words quick on the heels of kanaya's: ]

Here's a fucking question. Why the fuck are you always fucking lecturing me like you're my fucking mom?

[glowsferatu]

Because you're my friend, and perhaps I wouldn't like to see you adopt a position that would compromise that by putting us in conflict.

Perhaps I've had that already happen enough for one lifetime.

[centurybaby]

You don't think we're in fucking conflict right now?

[glowsferatu]

This isn't conflict, this is debate. Conflict is far messier.

[centurybaby]

As in, you'd be coming at me with a fucking chainsaw?

[glowsferatu]

If your regime presented a threat to those I consider within my care. Or if it appeared that you were in fact crossing the threshold into dooming life on the planet.

As your friend, killing you before you fell into such depths would be my duty.

[centurybaby]

Fifty-fifty chance that I break the planet. You might as well try now, while the odds are still in your fucking favor.

[glowsferatu]

I'm not going to kill you just for talking like an idiot. If I did that, I would never have a moment's rest from all the others I'd have to judge by the same rubric.