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[oohforeshadowing]

Let me get back to you, darling.

Comments

[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.

[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.