IC Inbox

[oohforeshadowing]

Let me get back to you, darling.

Comments

[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?

[hauntedcalamari]

...Okay, I don't know the admiral's life. But if it is supposed to be, fuck that.

[oohforeshadowing]

Really? If being here wasn't intended to be at least somewhat chafing, why would anyone want to leave? I don't have anything to go back to.

[hauntedcalamari]

I doubt that's any too uncommon, but choosing endless stagnation in a fairly comfortable space boat might be.

[oohforeshadowing]

You say that, and yet some people have been here for years on end.

[hauntedcalamari]

Okay, it was clearly a flawed premise. Leaving out people who actually like it here or want deals themselves and inmates who fall into ruts and wardens who can't get their shit together is too much of a stretch. It's still a stupid system, though.

[oohforeshadowing]

Yes. Still, we both agreed to be here.

Rather, we both 'agreed' on the understanding that the alternative was....not ideal.

[hauntedcalamari]

Better than the alternative isn't the same as good.

[Ben does, in fact, like the barge, but he's well aware he'd like anything that wasn't stalking Klaus for another fifteen years.]

[oohforeshadowing]

I don't disagree.

[hauntedcalamari]

Sorry, I shouldn't be thinking out loud at you.

[Habit born from years of thinking as loud as he can and nobody listening, and years before that of only ever thinking quietly because he knew what was good for him.]

You did opt in, then? I mean, for a given value of opt in, but you weren't just snatched unawares?

[oohforeshadowing]

I had what sounded very much like the choice between surviving and...not. If we're calling that 'opting in'.

[hauntedcalamari]

Oh, I get that. Not actually a real choice. I just know there are inmates who show up with no idea what's going on.

[oohforeshadowing]

That was all a long time ago anyway, so I'm wondering why you asked?

[hauntedcalamari]

Because I think it matters, straight up kidnapping versus the illusion of choice, and if people are floundering under either of those conditions it might feel like a factor.

[oohforeshadowing]

How do you think my position would be different if I hadn't chosen this?

[hauntedcalamari]

Day to day, maybe not much, but it doesn't sound like day to day is so much the problem as the symptom.

[oohforeshadowing]

A symptom of what, darling?

[hauntedcalamari]

Directionless ennui. Boredom. Trying to give a damn what happens on the magical hell carnival space boat when it won't matter next week. Whatever you want to pin it down with, it sucks.

[oohforeshadowing]

Back to that again.

I'm suspecting there isn't much of a point to prolonging this conversation, is there?

[hauntedcalamari]

I mean, it's not the first time you've asked and you haven't hung up on me yet.

[oohforeshadowing]

Really? My mistake, warden.

[Click.]