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[oohforeshadowing]

Let me get back to you, darling.

Comments

[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?

[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.