tushanshu | [video || anonymous]

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[video || anonymous]

[Enter 'Professor Craig'. He's a middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed goatee, glasses, salt-and-pepper black hair and the accent of a British foreign national that's spent several decades in America. Of Bruce Wayne, there is absolutely nothing, not the voice or the poise or the bearing. Even his eyes are another colour, and the structure of his face is altogether different.

This post goes up several hours past the executions, and Bruce is basically waiting on the results of his blood samples and fabric analyses from the three dead kedan. So, the Network gets his attention for now, and his primary cover persona on Keeliai gets some exercise.]

Is everyone all right? God, I can't even imagine-- if anyone needs anything, please ask. We're all in this together.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[so mildly,]

You're talking to me.

It's out of boredom, not a general love of mankind.

Boredom is the sign of an idle mind. Do you have any interest in anthropology?

[This is totally his area of expertise. And not, you know. Vigilante crime-fighting as a giant... bat...]

Somewhat.

[summing up some centuries of study. for all his outward disinterest, he does spend quite a lot of time focused on humans. hypocrisy, thy name is ... ]

That's a very precise descriptor. Is being maddeningly vague a special ability of yours?

[We're all hypocrites here, bro. This is a hypocrisy party.]

When it needs to be. If you want more elaboration, then yes, I have an interest in humans despite my distaste for them. They've been too prevalent in my life to be dismissed completely.

You aren't human?

[gosh golly he seems taken aback at that.]

Not quite.

[~~completely~~ only faintly smug, turning his attention to something on his desk.]

Not even as close as a kedan, I'd say.

[WELL GOSH NOW YOU'VE GONE AND INVITED HIS VERY PROFESSORIAL INTEREST!!]

That's fascinating. Do you have a specific classification, or are you a sort of developmental offshoot?

[He pushes his glasses up on his nose. Hey, they work for Kent.]

[UGH ACADEMICS, HE'D ALMOST PREFER SUPERHEROES TO THIS

the smug smirk twitches down a little.]

Neither. I fall outside standard scientific classification, and it would be insulting to imply I'm an offshoot of anything.

[SUPERHEROES. YOU DON'T SAY.]

Well, I'm sorry for any offence. I haven't yet properly acclimated to the idea that we're apparently not alone in the universe, everything else is still-- causing due scepticism, I suppose.

[superheroes, other and sundry do-gooders, etc.]

You've never considered the idea of a world between the realms of the living and the dead? I thought every culture had one.

[They're such a drag.]

Well, culturally yes, but I'm not exactly in the camp of those who believe in the concept.

Well, then.

Congratulations on being wrong.

I've been wrong before.

[HE'S SO UNRUFFLED BY THIS.]

If nothing else, it's an interesting learning opportunity.

[there's evidence of smugness in his tone and posture, but the acceptance of being wrong does dampen it somewhat. it's only really enjoyable when an argument starts.]

I'm sure it is for everyone, though I'm still debating the idea that any of us is actually dead. But it wouldn't be the first time people have been rumored to walk into the afterlife still alive. Or fall, as the case may be.

[oh he knows your type. he knows your type so much.]

My last memory is of grading papers, an action which is generally not fatal, as I understand it.

Who's to say we fell anywhere? There's more than one way to end up in the ocean.

[he will deliberately misunderstand you until you hang up on him, chase. it's a thing.]

[he raises an eyebrow, the smirk fading somewhat. grading papers. definitely an academic, then, and the sort he stopped talking to decades ago.]

Such as?

[whether they fell from the sky or off a boat ... how else do you end up underwater?]

You're the one that was so smug moments ago about realms existing between life and death. Water can be a metaphor for many things. Rebirth, for example.

[the smirk vanishes completely.]

I wasn't being particularly metaphorical, considering the current situation. If this is a rebirth, I'm finding myself completely unchanged from my previous incarnation. One would imagine a difference to be critical to that sort of thing.

If you haven't experienced the phenomena before, I don't believe it's entirely fair to have such rigid expectations of it.

[His faintly British accent does get a little more aloof at that. Ugh, you philistine.]

[the pupils of his eyes narrow to needle-thin slits, but there's not much other change in his expression or tone of voice.]

Oh, believe me, I have.

[He raises his eyebrows faintly. The expression, unlike every other one he's managed as 'Devin Craig', is only a little feigned.]

And I suppose if I ask what you might possibly mean by that, you'll tell me it's altogether none of my business?

Essentially.

But you may yet find out in due time regardless.

[it's not quite said as a threat. it's more idle than anything else, an offhanded comment - but the faint tinge of loathing hasn't quite left his eyes.]

Do you make a habit of that? Being vaguely ominous?

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