keeps_a_cool_head | Log 0020

It is with confidence I report that the native species here are generally of a friendlier nature. Their food is tolerable and they are easily persuaded to provide it to strangers.

They seem armed with rudimentary weapons. Theoretically any one of us could launch a successful attack and come away with minimal casualties.

If the need should arise, of course.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

walkingmeltdown

When you say a thing like that, I worry it means we have separate definitions of 'break'.

From:

keeps_a_cool_head

How do you define it, Derek?

From:

walkingmeltdown

This ship has already started to wring concessions out of me, that I wouldn't grant otherwise. Up until this point in my life any relationship I've had that could be termed "friendship" is really more of an alliance - like with you. If there's feeling there, it's carefully calculated for it's worth.

Regrettably I'm starting to find that on this ship, that may no longer be the case.

[He has friends now, Scorpius. Real friends that he cares about the well-being of for nothing but it's own sake. The horror!]

From:

keeps_a_cool_head

[A cold nod; he both envies and doesn't envy the friendships Blight seems to attract. Yet another on track to graduate]

You feel compromised.

From:

walkingmeltdown

Compromised. [He echoes, carefully tasting the pronunciation on his tongue. Considering.] Yes. 'Compromised'. That really is the perfect word for it. What I'm feeling.

[And while concessions and compromise aren't the same thing, he's been in control of everything around him for so long that to some extent he's forgotten to see it that way.]

From:

keeps_a_cool_head

What are you protecting by refusing to give to what the Barge wants?

And what do you have to gain?

From:

walkingmeltdown

What the Barge wants is to make me a different person. And I prefer being myself. Who I always am. Not weak, or a bleeding heart pushover or -- brainwashed into submission!

I have been told, repeatedly, that my worldview is flawed. That I should feel guilt and remorse for the things that I have done. That I should reconsider my actions and know that they were wrong.

Do you really think I want to give those people the satisfaction of somehow having been right? That I want to turn my entire life into a waste?

From:

keeps_a_cool_head

You're very quick to think of this as an 'us versus them' situation. And that there is some underlying conspiracy to twist you into something you're not.

Having observed many graduations here since my arrival, I find it difficult to conform to this way of thinking you've embedded yourself in.

There is no overarching plan to force you to submit. Most of the wardens I've met barely have much of a plan.

You're giving them far too much credit.

From:

walkingmeltdown

[There's the kind of heated silence on his end at first that can come only from him forcing himself not to reply, to take a moment to try and calm himself.

No doubt from their sessions on controlling his wayward temper, Scorpius is by now familiar with this.]

What about you, then. What do you think is happening to you, in order to force you -- to help you in order to graduate?

From:

keeps_a_cool_head

My warden is a young girl who threatens to speak to me endlessly about her boy crushes unless I stave off my genocidal convictions where it concerns actual brainwashing.

Strictly speaking, given the right tools it wouldn't take much for me to rewrite you, Derek. If brainwashing were the solution, you would have been transformed and sent on your way long ago.

From:

walkingmeltdown

She wouldn't. [Okay that actually is kind of funny.]

I'm not sure whether that's commentary on my mental stamina or your deft hand at the field. Either way, supposing you have a point. There still is...coercion involved. Up to a point.

From:

keeps_a_cool_head

She has. And will again, I imagine.

The Barge is not a warden vs. inmate scenario. It is a past version of yourself fighting against the future version.

From:

walkingmeltdown

Who does she even have to -- no; no, never mind. Don't actually answer, I believe I prefer not to know that.

I've met at least one "future version" of myself before. I am not a fan. [Read whatever level of crazy you like into his apparent rating of "insane Mirror Barge monstrosity" as roughly equal with his changing enough to grow empathy and a conscience.]

From:

keeps_a_cool_head

Tell me about the future you would choose for yourself.

From:

walkingmeltdown

Ugh.

[It's an utterance more out of pure frustration for once than it is anger. You can't see it, Scorpius, but his head is in his hands.]

...I don't know any more, all right. Is that what you want me to say? Will that satisfy you?

From:

keeps_a_cool_head

[Scorpius, if anything, grows more calmer and alert, watching Blight blow up]

I don't want you to say anything untrue to your nature.

From:

walkingmeltdown

[He's audibly breathing through his teeth for a bit, only very vaguely able to be grateful this isn't on visual so Scorpius can actually watch him freaking out.]

What I'm still certain of is that I want to leave this wretched, noxious, tiresome, awful place. I want my freedom.

...What I should want, also, is to go back to the way things used to be, in Gotham. Back to my old life. I honestly don't know if I can do that anymore. Not after here, after all this. Not after the things that have happened to me.

From:

keeps_a_cool_head

The Barge has already changed you in that capacity. Look at yourself now, versus when you first arrived. You are noticeably different people.

But are you so fundamentally twisted into something horrific?

From:

walkingmeltdown

I liked the person that I was. I enjoyed the life that I had. The things I had done, the accomplishments I had to be proud of.

[This should be adamant but it's more stubborn, protesting against what Scorpius is going for, the very same point that all his Warden acquaintances have been trying to make.]

I didn't have the baggage of all these extra people dragging me down. Holding me back. I lived self-sufficient, self-reliant. For my own benefit. It's bad enough that Batman made me into a freak and gave me these anger issues, and my son drove the knife in and stole away his inheritance before I was ready to give it up to him. Now this Barge has made me uncertain, and soft, and...wounded. [He spits out the word like it disgusts him. But then, it does.]

From:

keeps_a_cool_head

[Scorpius considers Blight's outburst for what it is. He recognizes traits of the man's angst in his own personal, private struggle. He too was independent, self-reliant to a fault. But he never really wished to be.

Their fights are similar and different. Blight had a family, a culture, and a life before he was turned into a freak of nature. Scorpius was a freak from the moment he was born.

He considers whether it's worse to have never known a comfortable, ordinary life, or to have known it and then have it snatched away.

Quietly, without looking away, he replies,]

It's perfectly all right to be wounded.

From:

walkingmeltdown

[Blight knows what he would choose - you can't miss what you never had.

In his case, what he misses the most is the feeling of stability and self-confidence that came from being emotionally attached, totally isolated.

But the more he tries to shut that opened door, the more he finds he simply can't force it back closed. This opening into his soul and raw psyche, it refuses to go away again. To leave him in peace. To let him heal.]

Not for me, it's not. It...it just isn't. It never has been.

[Instead of yelling now he's going quieter and quieter. Voice dulling.]

I don't accept failures. I never accept defeat.

From:

keeps_a_cool_head

Being wounded is not a defeat, Derek. We are only defeated when we are dead and can no longer continue our work.

You will come back from this stronger, because failure is a lesson we need much more than the lesson of success.

It may sound trite, but I assure you of its veracity.

From:

walkingmeltdown

[It's hard to listen to maybe because he already knows this. Did know this. Once. Perhaps he let himself forget over time.

That's the problem with pushing your way to the top. He told himself he never let his guard down when, clearly, he had. He did.

It's a hard pill to swallow, such a comical failing in retrospect. He let himself lose track of one of his own first lessons he would stress to others as crucial: Never stop striving, never stop fighting, never stop. He frets and fusses about being made softer here when in his own way he had already gotten soft.]

No. I believe you. I...understand. I know.

Edited Date: 2014-09-02 12:40 am (UTC)

From:

keeps_a_cool_head

I'm glad you understand.

And for all your concerns about becoming kinder, softer, weaker..

I have known others to accomplish with kindness what I could not do with a thousand threats and armed force.

Now, of course that's not how we were built. But it is something to consider, before you think the Barge is changing you into a manipulated pet.

From:

walkingmeltdown

[He laughs a bit, softly, under his breath. But he supposes he can't even say that Scorpius is entirely off base here.

Some of the most formidable people on this ship are also the ones that go the most out of their way to be kind.

He still can't truly call it a strength. But he does have enough problems, doesn't he, without having to be constantly at war within himself.]

You always do find the...oddest things to say. [Worst, most helpful, most prodding, least expected. All of that and maybe more.]