For lastvoyages: Thirteenth Hex [voice]

[scarlet_discord]

[All the false cheer. All of it.]

[private to Luke]
Hey, do you want a puppy? I promise he’s huge.

[private to Rex]
Hey, do you want that ebook reader I picked up from that one port? It’s full of good stuff and if all else fails you can use it for parts.

[Fail!Private to Loki and Drake]
Do you want any of my books? I’m getting rid of them. Oh, and

Comments

[not_annika]

'Spring' cleaning?

[scarlet_discord]

Getting ready to leave.

[not_annika]

You have graduated?

[scarlet_discord]

No. Graduation is the result of a completely arbitrary decision by a mentally unbalanced being who sends murderers home while keeping me here for being "angry". If I'm lucky, my name will be pulled out of his hat next. If I'm not he'll keep me here and torture me for years. There is neither sense nor justice to it, and I no longer pretend that there is.

So. Either I find a way to leave soon or I go completely crazy. Either way I no longer have a use for belongings.

[not_annika]

It would appear that those who have been graduated of late have has their values re-evaluated. Perhaps looking back at their entries will show what I mean. None of the men who have graduated appear to be happy, do they? They seem surprised, preoccupied, even worried.

It would simple if we had a set of preconditions to becoming a better person, but each person moves off in unexpected and unpredictable ways, cause doesn't neccessarily come directly out of effect.

Perhaps you should speak with Rhade and Security Program JA307020 for their views on their respective graduations. Or indeed any of the other wardens that were once inmates. Something changed within them.

[scarlet_discord]

The Barge is making me into a worse person, not a better one. I never used to pick fights or threaten people. I never even thought about suicide. Oh, but I do now.

[She wants to admit that talking to Rhade and Rinzler is a good plan, but right now the bitterness and pain is poisoning her.] Rhade won't be able to tell me anything. The man's first clue that he had graduated was discovering he had a bathroom in his suite.

None of it makes any sense. It's not about the need for a set of preconditions. I shouldn't even be here in the first place. I had already turned my life around. I was going to be a superhero. When I first came here everyone mistook me for a Warden. Now?

Now I'm getting ready for a rubber room. How is this progress?

[not_annika]

These things don't make you a better or worse person. Particularly suicide. It makes you a distressed one. And you have reason to be distressed. Denying your reasons, believing that what's happened to you is making you a worse person, it's not helping yourself. You are not a worse person, Wanda. You're reacting to traumatic circumstances and you're confusing anger with being a bad person. Anger is not an indicator of morality, what one does with the emotion is how that is indicated.

The fact that he didn't realise make him a better source not a worse one. Your problem is the nebulousness of graduation. Clearly Rhade had no definite aims he had to reach, either, yet he managed to do so anyway. The insight he has gain could be useful to you.

It is always difficult to know what is progress and what is not. Perhaps one needs to go back before one goes forward.

[scarlet_discord]

Okay, so I'm a distressed person, and I don't know what to do about it besides distract myself with work and practice until I'm exhausted enough to sleep. Tony thinks training will lessen my distress. I'll take what I can get, but it doesn't make me feel better.

I don't understand how anyone can believe in the Admiral and his system with everything he puts us through. With what he is putting us through now.

I'll...try to talk to Rhade if I can pull my head together. Otherwise I'll probably just piss him off.

[not_annika]

Conversations should. Being reminded you're not suffering alone and regaining the support system that was damaged when you had been kidnapped could also be of assistance.

It's not a matter of belief in the Admiral. It's a belief in yourself and your inmate, that despite the struggle, a better person will come out of it. A warden doesn't come here because the Admiral inspires faith but to put their faith in another and the belief that people can improve. The deal. It wouldn't have to happen if people had true faith in the Admiral.

[scarlet_discord]

...

But the Admiral's the one who has ultimate power over us. He decides. Arbitrarily. It is completely arbitrary. There's no justice involved or Franklin would have been punished for hurting me.

I don't believe in any of this. I don't need to be redeemed. I just need to escape.

[not_annika]

We don't know who or what the Admiral is. We make assumptions. Perhaps he makes the decision based not on 'justice' but on what an inmate needs to not continue the path of destruction. Nominally, this would make that person 'better' but not necessarily.

Do you think Franklin would continue his behaviour?

[scarlet_discord]

So one inmate suffers and backslides so he can help another? Why the hell doesn't fairness and justice matter to him? I got screwed! This isn't fair! What happened to me and the way it was handled wasn't fair at all. What the hell do I get for being so instrumental in Franklin's "redemption"? Nothing! I get to suffer because of it and that's it. At least in the real world he'd be put away in jail for years!

And why wouldn't he continue doing what he did now that he's free? It's not like anyone bothered to punish him and show him how wrong he was. I never got an apology, I never got vindication, I just get to stay prisoner here and hurt. The sonofabitch got to profit from doing me harm.

[not_annika]

I can't speak to that. I wasn't here when you were hurt nor when he left. I have no idea why he graduated, or why he wouldn't do it again.

[scarlet_discord]

[A long sigh]

In part I'm just venting. Maybe...

Maybe trying to figure out a unified logic to this place is doomed to failure. Maybe I'm driving myself nuts looking for it.