video ; @Kromer

[gripper]

( kromer, famously, almost never uses the video function—it's a taboo in n corp to take pictures, record film, things like that, and she's spent enough time there that it feels almost criminal to do so. she does it only for very specific reasons: to make sure people know she's not paying attention to them, or...

well, today it's because she's making cookies! welcome to Cooking with Kromer. the kitchen is well-lit, her ingredients are out, everything in its place... )

Good afternoon, City folk. For those who know me, how're we doing? For those who don't, I'm Kromer. Pleasure.

( ...haha. )

Anyway, first you're gonna wanna make sure your butter's nice and soft... Room temperature's best, but you just don't want it cold. It won't cream as well that way! Now... ( she doesn't want her voice drowned out by a fucking MIXER so she's creaming it the old fashioned way, thanks— ) I didn't start this up just to show off my baking skills. Actually, I had some pretty important stuff to say!

( add vanilla and the powdered sugar... work that in... )

So recently... You could say I've been causing a little bit of trouble. Sort of testing the waters, seeing how much you could actually pull here before whoever's in charge of our iteration got tired of it.

( once that's come together, flour... )

I found it, and let me tell you... You don't really wanna cross that threshold. They'll kidnap you to some crummy facility—by the way, totally empty. Looked kind of like a hospital, but all the rooms were locked... You know how it goes with locked doors around here, right? I wasn't gonna try 'em—anyway, they had some of those rooms I woke up in, they had some sleep monitoring ones, things like that.

( dump out the dough onto a floured surface. shape it into a rectangle, and wrap it in plastic. kromer smacks it a few times with her hand, looking pleased. )

I'm not really keen on talking about what went on, but I can say... Did anyone else read those papers about Pavlov or whatever? They're using that guy's thing with the dogs.

( ................

she retrieves some already made dough from her fridge. she is deadset on her fucking cookie-making right now. )

Just wanted to let everyone know not to cause too much trouble, alright? Let's really get along, make friends, and do our best to make a community we can alllll be proud of.

( she doesn't sound all that enthused, though. )

Oh, and if anyone has any shortbread shape ideas... I'll take 'em. Nothing childish, okay? I'm not making a bunch of dicks.

Comments

[gripper]

Oh, Pavlov's not from mine either! But a couple of months ago, there was an office with a bunch of fun little social experiments documented in it... Pavlov's the guy who trained a dog to respond to a bell or whatever with positive reinforcement.

( something like that. she's not really interested in that kind of thing. she just had a cursory glance. for her goon. )

As for my crimes... Well, you know, stuff here and there. Vandalizing, getting into one too many fights, so on and so forth. Guess my last tussle was a little too far! That was, what, my third or fourth one, I guess? Shame. You can get away with a lot more back home.

[featheradrift]

[ Oh, so this must have been a document he missed or hadn't read up yet. He should rectify that when he stops being so busy. The social experiment, however, is familiar to him, under a different name back home. ]

So you're saying they trained you with positive reinforcement. To stop doing the activities they didn't want you to do.

[ Getting into fights? Hm... were they mutually agreed spars or more hostile? ]

Not the friendly kind of spars, I presume? Hah. So this is how they enforce their community-building theme. How are they expecting to get any good data if they've only given us one choice? No wonder they've spent over a century with no results to show.

[gripper]

Advocating for us to be able to spill blood on the reg and not just when they decide we're allowed to?

( give her a few weeks and she'll sound more enthusiastic about it. promise. )

[featheradrift]

We should have the choice without fear of punishment. How can they possibly know their variables lead to better community cohesion if we can't act any other way? This is by far the worst experiment design I've ever seen. I've seen children cobble together a better experiment.