xp_logs | Catseye and Korvus: Lifeguarding

Catseye and Korvus talk before going to the pool in order to be available as lifeguards.

Korvus had finished settling into the new suite for the most part and today was his final addition. A newly hung hammock was in one of the main room windows and inside the young man lounged in gym shorts and a T-shirt with his eReader in his lap. He no longer had school work so he took the opportunity to catch up on some of his recreational reading, American Philosophy.

Catseye paused at the suite door, tail lashing. With a wide grin on her face she transferred a Ziploc bag of cooked ground pork seasoned with taco spices from a hand to her tail and used both hands to separate the velcro that held closed the stomach of a plush rabbit the size of a small loaf of bread. It was one of those children's toys where you could pretend the rabbit was having little plush babies. Why this would appeal to children, Catseye didn't know, but she'd stashed the little plush babies under the couch in the rec room had smeared some tomato sauce onto it to look like blood, and now put the ziploc baggie into the stomach cavity of the toy. Making sure the opening to the bag was lined up with the velcro, she shifted into catform, put the thing between her teeth, and used her tail to open the suite door. She then parked herself in the middle of the floor where Korvus could see her, though she kept the toy in front of him so he wouldn't have a direct view of its stomach, and ripped the thing open, making sure to growl loudly to hide the sound of the velcro and the ziploc and then chewing noisily as she pretended she was eating the insides of a fresh kill. She hoped he fell for the trick!

An exclamation in Hindi let it be known that she got a reaction from him. "That is not sanitary!" Korvus called out as he rolled out of the hammock. "Also unnecessary." He didn't want to approach too quickly and anger his suitemate by handling her and, from the looks of things, the rabbit was certainly already dead. After a moment for his initial reaction to pass, he just stood and watched the house Catseye tear into her prey. She had positioned herself well enough that it was only the look of the meat that gave away the prank. He began to laugh softly. "A practical joke. You are very good at this."

If cats could smirk Catseye would definitely be smirking. But since she couldn't, she jumped onto his shoulder and licked his nose, purring.

Korvus laughed softly, bending forward as she jumped up to make himself an easy target. "You smell of tacos." He said while scratching her head with his left hand.

After another lick, the cat jumped down, scurrying into her room, where she returned with a bag of Doritos. Using her prehensile tail, she opened the bag, dumped the bag of meat into it, folded the bag closed, shook it, and stomped on it a few times with her feet. She then opened it again and offered it to Korvus, wondering if he'd ever had Taco In A Bag before.

"I do not eat meat." Korvus said, shaking his head a bit and holding his hand out to decline.

Catseye shifted back into girlform, keeping the bag in her tail and pulling a handful of meat and chips out to stuff into her mouth. "How come you don't eat meat?" she asked curiously, knowing people often had different reasons for being vegetarians.

"I have accepted the validity of a number of ethical considerations that prevent me from doing so." Korvus offered with a smile. "A prohibition against unnecessarily inflicting pain as well as the inefficiency of a meat based diet."

Catseye didn't address the bit about the ethical considerations and pain- she liked doing her own hunting because in her mind at least wild animals had the chance to live a good life, rather than animals that were raised to be slaughtered, but sometimes the convenience of supermarket meat got the better of her- and focused on the part that would be less tricky. "How's a meat based diet inefficient?" she inquired, perching on his hammock.

Korvus slid into one of the suite's chairs. "A one-hundred calorie cut of beef takes one-thousand calories in grain to produce. In a world of famine, I can not justify the indulgence." He paused for a moment. "The amount of livestock the world raises also contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions."

The calorie thing made a lot of sense... but as someone who spent a lot of time as an animal, Catseye had a little trouble wrapping her head around the greenhouse gas thing. "So you want animals to not be born anymore so that they don't make gas? Won't a world with just people and vegetables in it be... really boring?"

"That would be another artificial extreme." Korvus clarified. "Currently we help certain species exceed their carrying capacity by many times. To eliminate them would be just as environmentally damaging. Moderation is the key." He said with a nod.

"Innnnnnnnteresting," Catseye mused, grinning. "So, words aside, if you were gonna get me to give up meat and become a vegetarian by having me eat one meal, what would you feed me?"

Korvus laughed softly. "My favorite dish is paneer bhurji. It is cheese with onion, tomato, and pepper added along with a traditional Indian spice pallet." He leaned back in the chair. "I do not attempt to convert people to my diet, however."

"Well, that's good," the catgirl answered, continuing to grin, "because I wouldn't let you attempt to convert me, anyway! But I'm more than willing to try and convert myself. Or maybe cut back on the amount of meat I eat, at least. So this dish is just cheese and some vegetables and spices? There's no base starch or grain or anything to go with that? Because it sounds sort of like a salad to me. Is it like, a big cheese, at least, like buffalo mozzarella balls or something?"

"It is crumbled and cooked. Some people eat it over rice." Korvus offered to explain. "I will cook it for you sometime soon."

Catseye nodded as she chomped on her Taco In A Bag. "I'd like that!" She swung the hammock a little. "Wanna go read outside? By the pool? Make sure none of the kids... drown, or something?"

Korvus nodded, "That would be responsible of us. Allow me to change into a pair of shorts." He said to excuse himself before moving into his room to do just that.

"And I'll change into something with strings!" Catseye called after him, setting her Taco In A Bag down on the floor and heading to her own room. She loved bikinis for the sole reason of them having strings. "I'm sure Meggan doesn't want me going to the pool with you if I'm naked, even though putting on special clothes just to get them wet and cold when they're not even keeping you warm is sillystupid if you ask me!"

The young man changed in seconds, very literally, and replied to Catseye from the main room of the suite. "Modesty is a concept common in Indian culture as well. It does not seem unusual to me though I do not have good logical reasoning to support it."

"Modesty's a concept common in all cultures, I think," Catseye grumbled as she emerged from the suite in a two-piece bathing suit, "except animal cultures." She had a book in one hand, a towel in the other, and picked up her Doritos bag with her tail. "I sure can't find logical reasoning to support it. Especially when it's this warm out. Clothes should be to keep you warm. 'No other reason for them. But I guess the illogical one is that people use them to show off if they're expensive or have writing on them that people want other people to read? Or something?"

Korvus laughed softly. "Those are certainly reasons. If they are common in every culture, perhaps there is a good reason for clothing beyond modesty and we are just not aware of it. Though it maybe be that modesty, in this context, is itself intrinsically good." He followed Catseye out of the suite and toward the pool. It would be polite to let her lead.

"Are you looking at my butt?" Catseye inquired when he let her lead, smirking. "Is that why you want me to go ahead of you?"

"We are incapable of fitting through door frames in tandem. Since this was your suggestion, I felt it would be polite to follow instead of lead." Korvus explained, the humor lost on him. "Also, a recent study suggests that women are processed by individual parts while men are processed as a unified whole. This processing leads to objectification. I am not sure if this applies to someone raised outside American culture but I do consciously attempt to avoid succumbing to the processing of women thusly."

Catseye looked over her shoulder as they walked to give him a skeptical look. "What sort of crazybutt study says that? Please don't tell me people actually believe things like that! I mean, it's like when you read... who is it? Aristotle? All those Greek guys? That think people are made up of... what's it called? Humors or something? And how everyone believed that and it made people be really stupid when people were sick? And now people are thinking things like this again?! Are we going backwards in time or something?"

Korvus laughed softly. "It was a recent study from one of America's Ivy League colleges. Nothing so classic. I suspect they monitored brainwave patterns and eye movements. I do know they used both men and women as their subjects and found the phenomenon was not limited to one sex." He offered for more clarity.

Catseye made a scoffing snort. "Just because one of America's Ivy League colleges says it, doesn't make it true. College people are sometimes really sillystupid. If everyone in the world was tested, maybe I'd believe you, but you haven't sold me on the idea that people really think like that about people. But it's good that you're not sure if this crazy theory applies to people raised outside American culture, at least, instead of just accepting it as true," she acquiesced.

"The thesis 'women are objectified' is generally accepted as true in feminist theory." Korvus said with a short shrug as he approached one of the raised lifeguard seats. "This study only suggests a proximal cause of sensory input processing. I do not think it is very controversial."

The catgirl narrowed her eyes at him but decided to let him off the hook. "That better be all it's suggesting. Because if people start using leeches on people with the flu again, I'm going to hold you responsible."

Korvus smirked at that. "We are still incapable of curing the flu." He observed. "We have achieved many great advancements but I still do not think we are as smart as we like to pretend we are."