Log 0020 - [Voice]
Aug. 10th, 2014 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keeps_a_cool_headIt 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.
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.
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-01 10:28 pm (UTC)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.
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-01 10:32 pm (UTC)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?
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-01 10:35 pm (UTC)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.
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-01 10:41 pm (UTC)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.
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-01 10:43 pm (UTC)The Barge is not a warden vs. inmate scenario. It is a past version of yourself fighting against the future version.
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-01 11:27 pm (UTC)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.]
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-01 11:30 pm (UTC)[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-01 11:37 pm (UTC)[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?
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-01 11:40 pm (UTC)I don't want you to say anything untrue to your nature.
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-01 11:55 pm (UTC)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.
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-02 12:02 am (UTC)But are you so fundamentally twisted into something horrific?
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-02 12:18 am (UTC)[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.]
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-02 12:22 am (UTC)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.
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-02 12:31 am (UTC)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.
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-02 12:33 am (UTC)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.
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-02 12:40 am (UTC)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.
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-02 12:45 am (UTC)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.
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-02 07:51 am (UTC)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.]
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-02 11:58 am (UTC)[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-02 05:42 pm (UTC)[See, if they've moved on to jokes, even snide ones, this is a good sign, right?]
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-02 11:19 pm (UTC)But there are some that have worthy things to share. I'd take caution in painting them all with the same brush.
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-03 03:53 am (UTC)[The irony on "apparently" is more of a "so I have friends now", not so much on anything else.]
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-03 11:37 am (UTC)[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-03 03:59 pm (UTC)[A thoughtful pause.]
Supergirl - Kara Zor-El - owes me a favor. After the Mirror Barge. [Where their crazy counterparts fought and hers ended up tearing his to pieces.] She felt bad, offered to do something for me. I couldn't think of anything at time, so.
I've been holding onto it. Just in case.
[voice ; private]
Date: 2014-09-04 11:36 am (UTC)Ordinarily I would suggest waiting until you need it, but there is always the additional danger of her sudden disappearance.
[voice ; private]
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