chlorophylliac: (neutral - phosphoresce)
Pamela Isley | Poison Ivy ([personal profile] chlorophylliac) wrote2015-06-15 09:13 pm

30 ❦ Video

[Ivy is sitting in the lovingly upgraded greenhouse, on the edge of the fountain pool she's created at the centre, and absolutely nobody was surprised. There's a plant/animal hybrid on her lap; anatomically a small rabbit, but what it's covered with is more like moss than fur and its eyes are completely black.]

The first greenhouses used on Earth were recorded by Pliny the Elder, two thousand years before my time.

The Roman Emperor Tiberius wanted cucumbers all year round, so, his gardeners made it happen. Their specularium predated the invention of glass; they used oiled cloth or sheets of mica. They weren't used constantly, only at night, to protect the plants from the cold after they'd had the benefit of the sunlight during the day.

More sophisticated versions appeared over a thousand years later. The Vatican, in the thirteenth century, to house plants brought as trophies from tropical exploration. Korea, two centuries afterward. What my contemporaries would consider a modern greenhouse didn't appear until the eighteen-hundreds.

By my time, commercial technology allows plants to be grown out of season, thousands of miles from the environments where they evolved, untroubled by parasites or predators or the vagaries of the weather. Even the most diseased specimens can heal in a place designed for precisely that.

[She falters, briefly, gaze going out of focus. It looks like she's fighting something off, consciously or otherwise.]

Which is perfectly fine, if all you want is something that will thrive in an artificial environment. But when you return it to its home -- with all the threats and dangers that plant is subject to --

[Ivy tunes out again, gaze going flat and empty.]

The following Warden and Inmate have been paired:

A.J. Crowley // [personal profile] sauntervaguelydownwards → Arthas Menethil // [personal profile] darknessb4me

The warden should expect a file to be delivered to his cabin shortly. Please familiarize yourself with the information therein and introduce yourself to your new Inmate as soon as possible.

[She blinks slowly, coming back to herself.]

Sometimes the rot runs particularly deep, of course. I hope you'll be very happy together.
velocette: (Default)

[personal profile] velocette 2015-06-16 11:44 pm (UTC)(link)
I wonder if they regret bringing foreign species in. Or if they would, if they knew what--well, say the kudzu, can do to an ecosystem.
velocette: (Default)

[personal profile] velocette 2015-06-17 09:28 pm (UTC)(link)

Oh, there is. At least from all the politicians I've heard from. It's not at all about biodiversity, of course, not for them; they plan to be dead before they ever see how badly damaged the ecosystem is. Doing the bare minimum is enough to get lobbyists on their side, and there's no incentive to do more.

velocette: (Default)

[personal profile] velocette 2015-06-17 09:36 pm (UTC)(link)

[Oh now that's intriguing.]

Of course, it is basic nature to take the path of least resistance. So it doesn't really matter who's in office; they'll all flow downstream.

[But there's a note of curiosity, a 'or am I wrong' that he doesn't add.]

velocette: (Default)

[personal profile] velocette 2015-06-17 10:01 pm (UTC)(link)

Human beings don't actually want to be self-aware. They claim they do, but look how they react when they really dig deep. They think that being aware of shallow motives sets them apart from animals, that being aware they want something puts them in a higher order. Knowing why they want a cigarette, that's as deep as most people will ever dare to go.

But the truth is that real self-awareness scorches the mind. The very few people who might have come close to it were likely also executed or locked away. At the very least, they were shunned for understanding too much.

velocette: (Default)

[personal profile] velocette 2015-06-17 10:09 pm (UTC)(link)

[A mild shrug] I'm not sure whose mind I understand, but I hope it's not mine. You seem to know more than the normally allotted human share, though.

velocette: (Default)

[personal profile] velocette 2015-06-17 10:11 pm (UTC)(link)

But you have to live with them, back home.

velocette: (Default)

[personal profile] velocette 2015-06-18 06:39 pm (UTC)(link)

Oh? Any names in particular? I don't talk much about the environment with people; everyone's world being different from mine.

velocette: (crafty)

[personal profile] velocette 2015-06-18 07:00 pm (UTC)(link)
No superpowers, for one. No real power of any kind. No choices. We're more like- like insects. Like ants, following a trail we don't care to understand. I think in a couple of hundred years, mankind will be extinct. If we aren't, everything else will be.

[But, because she probably has more insight, he adds:] I get the feeling having special abilities doesn't change the odds as much as I would have hoped.
velocette: (Default)

[personal profile] velocette 2015-06-21 04:24 pm (UTC)(link)

Would you want there to be someone like that?

velocette: (Default)

[personal profile] velocette 2015-06-22 08:23 pm (UTC)(link)

If there was, they would be frozen with indecision. You couldn't take medicine for fear of killing germs; couldn't eat animals, couldn't eat plants, couldn't stand animals eating plants or plants eating insects...

velocette: (Default)

[personal profile] velocette 2015-06-22 08:25 pm (UTC)(link)

When did you end up on the side you're on?

velocette: (Default)

[personal profile] velocette 2015-06-22 08:35 pm (UTC)(link)

[He seems like he might not answer for a moment. Then he decides, why not.]

Because no one back home gives a damn about much. Let alone things they don't know how to interact or communicate with.

velocette: (Default)

[personal profile] velocette 2015-06-22 09:53 pm (UTC)(link)

You understand things they don't. Of course, they like to stab each other out of boredom, but still: the world is different to you than it is to them.

(no subject)

[personal profile] velocette - 2015-06-23 15:45 (UTC) - Expand