DETAIL-ORIENTATION [Easy: Success] - hey the lab demonstrator didnt take the rock out of the plastic box like you did a second ago whats up with that
RUMINATION [Trivial: Success] - This is probably because the rock is radioactive.
- Freak out, but a little more subtly.
- [Stability: Challenging] Don't do that.
STABILITY [Challenging: Success] - It might be comforting to sway, but you cling to a steeple amidst a supercell. To teeter is to fall. Also, your new lab partner might be looking at you weird.
MECHANISTICS [Easy: Success] - Two plans for you.
- [Arrival: Legendary] "Hey, 'scuse me, what do I do if I come into contact with a sample?"
- Say nothing to anyone and go to the toilets.
YOU - Say nothing to anyone and go to the toilets.
CORPOREALITY [Medium: Failure] - You feel the particulates worming into your flesh, delivering their oblivion as ichneumonidae.
RUMINATION [Easy: Success] - No you don't. Come on.
F?/F!/F. [Easy: Failiure] - You might, a little bit.
PEACE/WAR [Challenging: Success] - You need to change the subject or negotiations will collapse before they can even begin.
- Start licking your hand.
[Osmosis: Medium] - What do we remember from reading that book a while ago?
YOU - What do we remember from reading that book a while ago?
OSMOSIS [Medium: Success] - Atoms and Ashes by Serhii Plokhy. You read it on the train back from your parents' house. Or maybe on the train to. What's important is that you're pretty sure that, in the section about Operation Ivy and the continuing fallout in the Marshall Islands, (incidentally, the families of the dead, poisoned and displaced people still have not recieved any form of compensation and their homes are still uninhabitable) it mentioned that procedure was to scrub any skin exposed to contaminants thoroughly but not vigorously.
LEARNING - You don't want to potentially allow the contaminants through the outer layers of skin by damaging them. The closer they get to the bloodstream the more fucked you'll be.
FINESSE [Trivial: Failure] - I don't know what necessarily constitutes thorough vs. vigorous.
GUESS [Challenging: Success] - IT WILL PROBABLY BE O.K. IF YOU LET YOURSELF VIBE IT OUT A LITTLE.
[Finesse: Medium] - Wash your hands.
- Go back to the demonstrator and ask for help like a normal person.
FINESSE [Medium: Success] - Oh, this is fine actually. Sorry, don't know what I was worried about, it's actually quite intuitively obvious what's meant to be happening here.
F?/F!/F. - Let's go again, actually.
RUMINATION - That seems reasonable. Also, small note, it's probably a really bad sign that you're calling upon me to vet every single thing she says.
MECHANISTICS [Easy: Success] - Preempt yourself by doing it a third time also.
[Want ⋂ Need: Trivial] Return to the lab.
Lock yourself in a cubicle and start crying.
REVELS - Just a suggestion. There might be a certain catharsis to it.
TAPESTRY - Mm. Catharsis, sure, but unmotivated and random and with no audience. When you do crack it should have a certain glory to it, a climax of pain, Harry DuBois-esque. (I'm in on the joke, by the way. I know what kind of story this is: I'm writing the damn thing.)
ARRIVAL [Trivial: Success] - That is not why we're not doing that. Need I remind you of the new lab partner you are supposed to be collaborating with.
[Want ⋂ Need: Trivial] Return to the lab.
Lock yourself in a cubicle and start crying.
WANT ⋂ NEED [Trivial: Success] - We're going back, but the rest of the day is going to be rough.
[Arrival: Formidable] - Sit back down and talk to your lab partner.
YOU - Sit back down and talk to your lab partner.
ARRIVAL [Formidable: Failure] - You're going to say nothing to her at all. Do not acknowledge anything that just happened in her plain view. You haven't known her long but you can be fairly certain she's not going to ask. This will be the best choice in the long run.
HOOKS - She's really not saying anything, huh. Interesting.
RUMINATION [Challenging: Success] - Oh. She might be just like you if you were cisgender and chinese. Yeah so I do think not building that bridge was a mistake, which we should correct at a later opportunity.
ARRIVAL - We probably won't, will we?