IC Inbox

[oohforeshadowing]

Let me get back to you, darling.

Comments

[oohforeshadowing]

Mm. Are you semi-metaphorically trying to help me, or do you just want someone to hang out with?

[hauntedcalamari]

The karaoke represents trying dumb things for their own sake and not standing on a limiting sense of dignity when you're already feeling stuck. I also enjoy having people to hang out with.

[oohforeshadowing]

This sounds suspiciously as though you are 'disrespecting my hustle'.

[hauntedcalamari]

If your hustle was up to your boredom we'd have had a different conversation.

[oohforeshadowing]

I wasn't presenting it as a problem for you to solve, warden. I'm fine.

[hauntedcalamari]

It's a problem that exists. That's a good enough reason.

[oohforeshadowing]

According to you. Have any good ideas?

[hauntedcalamari]

I could list fun activities like I was trying to sell you on a cruise, but it'd help to know what you do for fun when you're not on the strangely dull space adventure.

[oohforeshadowing]

What does anyone do around here? I read, I exercise, I gently bully people who show up in the communal wardrobe and won't broaden their horizons. I attend movie nights sometimes.

[hauntedcalamari]

Which is why I didn't try reading you a list. It takes about twenty minutes to figure out the recreational options around here. What would you do for entertainment given... not the barge?

[oohforeshadowing]

If not the Barge then that's an irrelevance, darling. I'd be working, or, I'd be looking for more work. The thrilling life of the self-employed artist.

[hauntedcalamari]

Strangely enough, also basically the life of a teen super hero. But you know enough about what you like to prefer cabaret to karaoke.

[oohforeshadowing]

I prefer variety. Cabaret versus karaoke is like a novel versus one badly plagiarized chapter, darling.

[hauntedcalamari]

So this everything's the same except for some arbitrarily weird shit for a few days a month is sitting just great with you, I bet.

[oohforeshadowing]

I'm managing. Over a year and I haven't lost my mind yet.

[hauntedcalamari]

Big difference between managing and good, though. So, cabaret and not, I don't know, a lit magazine, or enclosure-generated obstacle courses, or Thunderdome?

[oohforeshadowing]

I only know what one of those things is, and my previous warden and I already exhausted it.

[hauntedcalamari]

...Which one?

[It should be easier to tell from context, but is not. He is amused that at least one bit of random spitballing has already been hit on before.]

[oohforeshadowing]

The obstacle course.

Although some of the obstacles were robots.

[hauntedcalamari]

Okay, that does sound entertaining but kinda limited. A lit magazine is like, uh, printed cabaret, basically. Assorted written and sometimes visual art put together. Thunderdome is... a reference to a stupid movie and I should not have gone with it, but it was supposed to be absurd.

[oohforeshadowing]

Ah. Lit as in literary.

I know what a magazine is.

[hauntedcalamari]

I guess you never know what translates between universes. Anyway, my point was you do seem to have a pretty good idea of what you actually enjoy--doing better than the sad ghost boy on that front, by the way--even if you didn't have that much non-worktime before you landed.

[oohforeshadowing]

And I'm keeping myself entertained as best I can, warden.

Am I still bored? Yes. Constantly. But as I said, I'm managing - and it's not as if this was intended to be a pleasure cruise anyway, was it?

[hauntedcalamari]

No, but I'm pretty sure it's not intended to be a long, slow grind into utter frustration cruise, either.

[oohforeshadowing]

....Are you sure?