video; un: coffeefiend

[ichoosefight]

[ Steph has set up this PSA perfectly framed so that everyone can see the exasperated expression on her face. Not angry, thankfully that whole ordeal is over, but deeply unimpressed by her fellow interdimensional travellers. ]

I'd like to take a moment to remind everyone of Murphy's Law.

You may not call it that. You may not know it exists. But I promise you, it holds true for every culture, in every time period, in every universe:

Anything that can go wrong, will.

Does it seem like a bad idea? It is. Is there a chance it'll blow up in your face? It will, and probably everyone else's face too. Is it going to make strangers mad at you? Don't do it.

[ She looks the camera dead in the eye, glaring as though she can stop people from being stupid by sheer force of will. She will damn well try regardless.

There's a pause while she hopes that sinks in. ]

Also, this may be an unpopular opinion, but I'm sharing it anyway:

Necromancy is never the answer.


That's all. I'm out.

Comments

video;

[ichoosefight]

[ Steph is just. Going to pretend none of that happened. Hello total stranger! She shrugs. ]

I'm not really trying to reason with the culprits. But like... the moment I heard somebody had been messing with a tomb, I knew it was going to be trouble. I just hope that next time, other people know it too.

[ She grimaces. ]

And hopefully one of us does something about it before it's too late instead of sitting back waiting for the storm to hit.

[ She's talking about herself here. ]

[peninhand]

For what it's worth, I hacked into his phone. Hoping to find a trail leading to the mastermind. [She shook her head.] Nothing. Not the shadow of a hint, even when retrieving deleted data.

[ If she wanted to try and stop such things from happening again, Monika assumed Stephanie could make use of this info. Or lack thereof. ]

They knew. They knew it would go wrong and that we'd try to stop them from doing something like that again. They made sure not to use anything leaving evidence behind and they recruited only those foolish enough to not reveal their identity. [As far as she was concerned, it was proof they had whatsoever no good intent. If it had been a honest mistake, they wouldn't have been so cautious about staying in the shadows.] There will be a next time if nothing is done. I can only hope we'll manage to do the right thing before it comes to this.

[ichoosefight]

[ Having been Batgirl, Steph knows that level of secrecy doesn't necessarily prove intent to do harm. It does prove plenty of other things, though. ]

Smart. They probably met face-to-face. I doubt they're stupid enough to try anything else right away.

[ Private ]

Is there anything that could have been kept from you? If they had their own techno-mage, would you know?

[locked]

[peninhand]

He turned the phone off before I could get everything. I doubt anything of value was left, but you never know.

[ Knowing her luck... Well, it's not like she could hack it again easily, he'd probably put some security on his phone by now. ]

I'm fairly confident they had no techno-mages though. Code is code, you know? Manipulating it with magic doesn't change the basics. Like if you delete or lock something, it's going to be obvious at just a glance for anyone knowing anything about code. [She had a very... Unique experience with coding and hacking.] It would take a world-class specialist and expert techno-mage to hide that sort of manipulation from me.

[locked]

[ichoosefight]

I am... really not the computer guy on my team.

[ What is she talking about, she doesn't have a team anymore and she isn't Batgirl here ]

That's comforting, though. If I asked for your help, would you keep an eye out for anything else that might be useful?

[ Okay, she can't entirely pretend she's not worried about it being awkward to try to work together. ]

[peninhand]

Of course.

[ She really wanted to catch the culprit and had a special interest in keeping Avalon safe, though her reasons were pretty selfish all things considered. ]

And... I'd like to apologize for our last discussion. [Yeah, unfortunately Monika is a apology machine.] I was pretty much lashing out at anyone that knew of this whole thing. But I've made peace with Kipposhi and I'm not as emotional as I was last time.

[ichoosefight]

Really?

[ She's genuinely surprised Monika feels like she needs to apologize. ]

I mean, I'm glad you guys made peace, but I was being kind of a jerk. You don't really have anything to apologize for.

[peninhand]

I suppose so... [A pause.] But I think I was also being pretty irrational. I know myself pretty well and—

[ And she really wanted to better herself at every possible turn to avoid becoming a monster again. Just those recent events made her wish she could manipulate reality to get to the culprit and do away with them... But she didn't feel like going into details, so instead she just smiled. ]

Well anyway, I just wanted to let you know there's no bad blood on my end. Especially when we may have to work together because of stuff like that.

[ichoosefight]

[ Steph's smile is a little lopsided. If an apology will make Monika feel better then there's no harm in it. ]

I'll take it either way. And it is useful to have a tech expert on the team. The... completely hypothetical team that... hasn't actually been needed yet, much less put together.

[ But she has some reliable people in mind! In case she needs them for Batgirl things. ]

[peninhand]

Ahaha!

[ There's no helping Monika's reasoning, alas! ]

Well let's hope said hypothetical team will remain unneeded... But unless the culprit is found, I have my doubts about it.

[ichoosefight]

Given the general pattern of my life, it's going to happen sooner or later. Murphy's Law, y'know.

Don't worry too much about these guys, though. If they're stupid, they'll meet up or talk when I'm watching. If not, they'll wait a few weeks until they think I'm not watching. A few months of casual surveillance should be plenty.