[video]

[velocette]

[He's been mulling this over since he met Hannibal, really.]

What was the first turning point in your life? Do you even remember who your real heroes were, when you were a kid? Or maybe some people do actually idolize their parents. For me, the only idols are the ones who can't become real, but it's been pointed out to me before that it's possible to worship someone in spite of their faults.

Comments

[ichoosefight]

He's from Gotham. Apparently it doesn't exist in a lot of universes.

[velocette]

Yeah. It does in mine, just...not the same way as yours.

So he's in Arkham? Not on Death Row?

[ichoosefight]

Arkham's an asylum for the criminally insane.

[ It's where we stick all the bad guys we like too much to kill off! ]

[velocette]

Guess New Jersey's still pretty liberal, then, huh? Oklahoma--we just got the death penalty back. Hasn't turned into a madhouse yet, unless you count the street executions we do ourselves.

[ichoosefight]

Not really. It's just that the insanity plea is really effective when you're obviously completely insane.

[velocette]

Mmhmm...it's hard to feel anything but pity or disgust, maybe fear, for someone who's clearly out of their head. Someone who knows what they're doing, who sees the world the same way you do, well that person is easy to hate. Easier to kill.

Are they really trying to fix him?

[ichoosefight]

I guess so. That's what it says on the tin anyway.

[ Steph doesn't exactly have warm fuzzies for anyone in Arkham. ]

[velocette]

You can't fix a brain.

[He sounds much the same way.]

Once it's damaged, once it's splintered, it's- that's it. You're stuck with what you get.

[ichoosefight]

You're probably right about that. I guess the question is, with mental illness, how much of it is unfixable?

[velocette]

[He thinks about that seriously, but in his time, treatments are limited and risky.]

I've never heard of a method that helped. We shock people, we do surgeries, then we just lock 'em away. And that makes it worse. No person can stand being confined their whole lives without turning feral.

[ichoosefight]

[ Hold on, give her a second to wrap her head around that. ]

There are a lot more options by my time.

[velocette]

But incarceration still sounds very popular.

[Despite himself and his cynicism about mental health, though, he is curious; but he ends up biting the tip of his tongue to keep from asking.]

[ichoosefight]

Like you said, some things you can't fix.

[ Also they mistreat the inmates. But you know. Gotham. ]

[velocette]

It'd be kinder to kill them. The system where I'm from, it's like going to a doctor because you have a cold, and instead they amputate your leg.

But I've got a theory that most of the violence would be solved if people weren't so boxed in by everything. Which makes it tricky to be here--it feels like infiltrating something I disagree with sometimes.

[ichoosefight]

[ She just shrugs. ]

I think the whole legal system's pretty messed up, but it's a bit above my paygrade.

[velocette]

And for now it's also a few lightyears away.

[He takes a drag on his cigarette, enjoying the perverse calm that comes from it.]

You're not as stircrazy as my inmate is. What do you make of this place?

[ichoosefight]

I'll take that as a compliment.

As afterlives go, honestly, I was expecting worse.

[velocette]

You thought you deserved worse, or just that everything after death was misery?

[ichoosefight]

A little bit of both, I guess. I am here for a reason.

[velocette]

But what's your purpose here?

[ichoosefight]

How do you mean?

[velocette]

Some people who feel they deserve punishment, they could sit on their bench and rot and probably they'd even be a little happy about it. But I don't...I don't see that in you, you don't seem like someone who's okay just feeling self-loathing and remorse.

You're here because you fucked up. But you can choose a purpose in being here, if sitting on the bench has no meaning.

[ichoosefight]

[ She's quiet for a long moment, considering. ]

I dunno. The mess I made, it would be so much easier to just keep running away.

[velocette]

Yeah...I mean here, no one's ever gonna find you. And back home, it's easy to disappear into any old city.

But truthfully when you look like that, I'd bet you're still in Gotham. I'd bet there's a lot of you that you'll never be able to get past the city limits.

[ichoosefight]

Maybe those are the parts I want to leave behind.