Audio

[whattheytellyou]

[Friends Filter - If you think you’re on it, you probably are. Morrigan, Loki, O’Brien, Mark Hoffman, and Eddie Spinola have been added. Per his request, Armand St. Just has been removed.**]

I apologize if I’ve been quiet lately. I had my hands full, what with keeping my inmate from consummating her, ah, marriage during this last flood.

Comments

Filter

[whattheytellyou]

Is there always a reason, though? I can't help but think that no matter how low the "worst of humanity" can get, there's always lower.

...Which is interesting, considering I talk a lot about rock bottom.

I showed them to her because she needed to see John Kramer is dead, amongst other things.

And because she asked. I think if a warden wants to see their own...story, and has the means to request it on a whim, an inmate shouldn't be denied that right.

Re: Filter

[whattheytellyou]

I saw my own movie out of curiosity. It wasn't accurate, but the book was. Unnervingly so. I remember thinking some of those thoughts at the time. Every action, every emotion was just...on display for the whole world.

And according to Amanda, everything else in her movies was completely accurate. It's hard to argue one plot point when all the rest match up. Even the actress portraying her - Shawnee Smith? Something like that. She looks exactly like my inmate. It's...

...I'm not going to lie. It makes me uncomfortable, to know someone out there is making our lives into fiction. I hate it.

Above filter:

[tis_disapproval]

Much of what you refer to is foreign to my experience.

Animal life, however, is not and there are many who would willingly engage in such practices, were but they could.

We are distinguished only by our need to impose elaborate rules and a desire for communication - much of which, I, for one, could quite happily live without. Mere cleverness is simple predatory instinct... You reward the cat because it plays, but what is this, if not arising from its hunt and torment of the mouse?

Life is brutal. Do not seek to paint it with fancy.

Filter

[whattheytellyou]

"Life is brutal". I should tack that up somewhere on my wall, in case I ever forget.

The problem I'm having is this: we're here to teach people to behave without brutality. We need to teach them those elaborate rules because society dictates that rules are necessary, regardless of what we believe, individually.

But what right do we have to teach them any of that if we don't follow the rules ourselves? Or, like you seem to think, the rules are just pretense? What are we really doing here, then?

Re: Filter

[tis_disapproval]

Some of those rules are used for oppression.

This is not a place of rights. It is a place of force and violation, much like nature, itself. We are here to change their path from one of destruction to something resembling peace.

And if not peace, then at least reticence to enact harm with reckless abandon.

Re: Filter

[whattheytellyou]

You sound like you disapprove of the purpose and intent of the Barge.

Private.

[thegooddrjones]

They're their own sort of genre, torture porn. Not all movies are like that.

You sound like you could use a talk or a drink or a good old fashioned Disney movie.

Private.

[whattheytellyou]

I...

[Sigh.]

I'm discombobulated. There's a million dollar word for you. I don't know what I want or need at the moment, I don't know what to think about the people here.

You're probably right about needing to talk to someone.

Private.

[thegooddrjones]

I've got tea and an ear if you're interested.

Private.

[whattheytellyou]

I may just take you up on that. Rain check, though. I'm waiting on my inmate to get back to me.

Private.

[you_run_i_chase]

Drinking. Or fighting.

Private.

[whattheytellyou]

I'm not sure I want to do either at the moment.

Private.

[you_run_i_chase]

Okay.

I'd offer to listen, but I'm kind of fucking shit at it. I wish Syd was here.

Private.

[whattheytellyou]

I understand. I'm used to...oddities for friends. Ian would listen for a minute or two, then go off on a tangent about solving the chaos of mankind with nonlinear equations. The Doc would probably go into a rant about people in general, and Richard would tell me to stop pestering him.

And most of the people I know in Seronera would just offer me hot water.

[Private]

[most_feared]

Flatly, what excuses them I'm pretty sure is that a warden is asked here not because they don't take life, but whetever they do they still have a legitimate interest in preserving it.

You can't be emotionally detached here. I wish to hell you could. But the way the system's set up, it's too much of a power trip to not care about your inmate.

[Private]

[whattheytellyou]

What about the wardens who don't seem to express that interest in preserving life? The ones that have double standards for certain people?

[Private]

[most_feared]

Mm. Didn't say everybody. Just life. It's a thin line. But they still have an idea of the greater good. Even if it's just barely, sometimes.

Someone convinced them that the greater good means they gotta teach people that no one's gonna ever fuckin' be there to catch them when they fall. That's what this is about, you know. Not, "learning to appreciate life". Anyone that shows mercy or takes a hit for one of these traps? They're going to die. They depend on people realizing they're all alone in the world. Just like them. And as much as they have themselves convinced, that doesn't help anybody.

[Private]

[whattheytellyou]

I wonder if you're not right about that. Hoffman keeps asking me if I care. Not why, but if.

Amanda...well, whenever I try to help - to even suggest I'm trying to help - she gets violently angry.

They have their survival instincts tuned to maximum. Maybe you're right about them thinking they're all alone.