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[doihavetoexplainmath]

[There's no greeting or anything, just some changing and scraping sounds and a shot of a shadowy, faintly purple ceiling, and it cuts off four seconds later.]

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[thebubblyone]

Hilda just sits with that for a few moments.

"Do you like having friends, Entrapta? Not need or want or anything of that variety - do you like having them?"

[doihavetoexplainmath]

She isn't anti-friendship at all. She just recognizes that there are issues, and you ought to be careful about these things. "Sure, I just know better than to include them in my plans in any significant capacity."

[thebubblyone]

A quiet hum of assent. "What counts as 'significant'?"

[doihavetoexplainmath]

She does think about it. She fully intends to be sulky and uncooperative, but she really can't resist expounding on her ideas. "Outcomes that depend on their cooperation."

[thebubblyone]

Okay. Maybe this can be expanded on, eventually?

"Outcomes such as...?"

[doihavetoexplainmath]

"Long term projects, physical safety. Individual experiments are usually alright, that's more short term." What other outcomes are there?

[thebubblyone]

"What about just...enjoying yourself with them?"

Haha that can't be measured objectively, Hilda, don't be silly.

[doihavetoexplainmath]

Entrapta's oh, hey, you got it look is particularly withering, given her clear surprise that someone so slow could come to a conclusion, however belatedly. It's not personal. Everyone is pretty slow compared to her. "Right, that works just fine as long as you're not too invested."

[thebubblyone]

Hilda is so completely immune to Looks from teenage girls that it doesn't even register.

"And what does 'too invested' look like?"

[doihavetoexplainmath]

This seems like a fairly circular conversation. "If anything important that you have planned depends on someone else's showing, it's generally a bad plan." She speaks a bit too slowly, consciously, definitely explaining things to an idiot.

[thebubblyone]

Hilda judges at about the same time as Entrapta that she is clearly treading through patterns that have been stomped into place for some time now.

"Well, that's not true at all, but I suppose that's why you're here, eh?" Hilda says cheerily, and offers her a very small cup of tea.

[doihavetoexplainmath]

"I do base this on observation, you know." Sulking. But she accepts the tea.

[thebubblyone]

"I know," Hilda says mildly. "But observation isn't objective when it comes to things like this, love. You'll have had your own experiences, and they change your perception."

[doihavetoexplainmath]

"Some sciences are softer than others." She shrugs. Nothing to be done about the innate failings of sociology.

[thebubblyone]

"I'm not talking about sciences," Hilda says, a little more firmly. "I'm talking about people, Entrapta. I'm talking about you."

[doihavetoexplainmath]

"The division is artificial." People are science. Lots of sciences.

[thebubblyone]

"Sometimes artificial divisions are incredibly useful all the same. Did you want to check this is all accurate, love?"

She offers across an incongruous pink datapad with her file information.

[doihavetoexplainmath]

"If you want me to." She accepts the file and pokes through it with her hair. She already knows all this. Boring. "It looks fine."

[thebubblyone]

"Good," Hilda murmurs. "You know, this isn't the sentence you seem to think it is love. I'm not going to be breathing down your neck every day."

[doihavetoexplainmath]

"That's not the problem." She knows Hilda well enough. Honestly, that's the problem.

[thebubblyone]

"So what is the problem, Entrapta?"

She thinks she knows, but that really isn't the point, is it.

[doihavetoexplainmath]

"It's not exactly fair to you, is it? I'm not graduating so you're not getting a deal. Maybe I should have tried to get him to put me with someone I don't like..." Which is conceptually good, with only the slight issue that she'd have no idea how to make it happen. The plan was just to disengage from wardens who seemed fine but weren't paired, and maybe start talking to them more once they got some other inmate assigned. She miscalculated here. Lost track of when whats-her-face left, the pretty one who wanted to spy on people.

[thebubblyone]

Hilda just smiles, shakes her head. She doesn't sound condescending in the least, but she can't help thinking of when her teenage niece and nephew would dig in their heels over things they' wouldn't do.

"Entrapta. You can't just say you're 'not graduating' you like you know here and now that it's never going to happen."

[doihavetoexplainmath]

"It's pretty central to the plan, actually." She always just assumes she'll be successful eventually, and she hasn't really been wrong yet.

[thebubblyone]

"Which plan is that, then?" she asks, more in hope than expectation.