[network] @theiceman; Audio, Night 363 [open] [cw cannibalism, gore]

[holmesice]

I think it's high time an answer is found to a pressing question, and I will not rest until I find the solution:

Which one of you idiots ate my finger?

Comments

private

[holmesice]

[Yes, sentiment, Mr. Holmes. Everything you do is sentiment. Even when it goes with, quite frankly, terrible morals.

Could you possibly offend him any more, Mr. Carsen? Mycroft's outright scowling now.

Because Flynn's right. He hit it right on the mark, even if he refuses to let himself admit how much emotion guides his actions.

You know what your problem is? You think emotion and intelligence are incompatible. You act like feeling something might literally make you dumber. If that were true, your intelligence would be quite vulnerable, don't you think?]

Mr. Carsen, you may...think you have a...proper grasp on things, but you're completely off the mark.

Emotion clouds intelligence. Emotion causes people to do terrible things, make snap decisions with faulty reasoning--ever see someone in the throes of fight or flight? Tell me, how much are they thinking and how much of that is their lizard brain desperately trying to preserve themselves?

...unlike everyone else, I can move past, yes, whatever temporary emotions I may have been suffering in the moment. Everyone else, including you, is projecting their own fears onto a perfectly logical inquiry.

You think your analysis makes you sound so...intelligent. It's a good try. But any student who's read their first psychology book could have come up with that. It's amusing, really.

private

[cahooted]

[Emotion causes people to do terrible things, make snap decisions with faulty reasoning. Unlike everyone else, I can...

Flynn just stares at the message for the longest time.

And then he laughs, out loud. Emphasis on loud. Sorry, he can't help it at this point, the cognitive dissonance is just so outrageous.]

Mr. Holmes, ever since my arrival I have yet to see one instance where you move past whatever temporary emotions you are suffering in the moment. Shall we go through them? Because by all means, enlighten the student.

[That last bit does sting, however, and despite himself Flynn can feel himself trying to reach out again, to reconnect with that part that should give him answers. It digs at an insecurity that's been eating at him since the day he got here. That maybe he didn't just lose his ability to read people but his knowledge, his intelligence, too.]

private

[holmesice]

[Why are you laughing? That's a ridiculous laugh. Stop laughing.]

Then I shall be happy to prove you wrong, because my suffering has always been tempered by the bastion and refuge of logic. First of all, we will have to throw out anything that is the result of immediate acute stress response by the actions of this town--or to be more specific about some of the criteria, the actions of my brother that resulted in further actions of this town.

As you must well know [Another dig--] the amygdala, triggering a neural response in the hypothalamus, is far faster than conscious thought in the face of stimuli, and therefore must be ruled out in your conditions of 'moving past whatever temporary emotions you are suffering in the moment.'

Considering that...well, everything we've been through since you've arrived has involved stressors that involve the fight or flight response, I cannot be held responsible for the initial reaction. But clearly, as I stand proverbially before you now, I have moved on from these particular problems, including when my brother switched bodies.

[No, he has not moved on from that and likely never will.]

private

[cahooted]

[Stop being so tragically funny then.]

Alright, so you're saying what I've been seeing were merely the onset responses. Interesting but okay, I let it count.

What were your actions after these initial reactions then? Have you talked to people? Apologized for your actions?

private

[holmesice]

[There's a long pause.]

...why should I? There's nothing to apologize for.

[So there.]

private

[cahooted]

So you are not responsible for what you did under duress and stress but seek out those who acted under the influence of the city?

[What's the British term for hypocrite?]

What's the problem, are you scared to talk it through?

private

[holmesice]

Am I not allowed to be angry over what happened to my finger? Regardless of what I did under duress, it's very possible and likely that those acting under the influence of the city had some kind of predisposition to either disliking me, or cannibalism, or both.

[Also he's better and smarter than everyone else, didn't you know?]

There's no problem.

private

[cahooted]

So you are angry.

[That's good, we're getting somewhere here! Let it all out, Mycroft.]

Are you angry that they might have a predisposition to disliking you? Are you scared they might try again?