velocette | [video]

[video]

[Not much bothers him, and he doesn't seem distraught now either...but some of the "amused behind the glass" aspect has vanished.]

Bleu is in a coma. I don't know if she has any friends. Or enemies, or anyone else who'd care, on board--but if she does, you have a right to know.

If she does have enemies, well, she's not being left unguarded, so no one do anything heroic or stupid.

[Private to Harvey]

Where are you?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Because you already seem to know a lot of his theories--as if you've lived them, used them, even if you only put them to use in very small areas of your life.

But unlike him, I think you faced more setbacks and more defeats than you would have if you were from some other time or some other world. I think that you're too smart to keep living by theories that only brought you loss, so you abandoned them with a lot of other ideals. [A lot. Not all.]

And I don't think you've had any compelling reason to replace them--so it's left you stuck here.

I'm fine with being stuck here.

[ For a reasonable level of 'fine' anyway. ]

Here is not a terrible place. There have been worse places.

[He considers that, and then shrugs. It's not like he has any large ambitions for himself, and it's not like he's banking on a wish for the Admiral to grant. In many ways he's got the same feelings about the Barge that Harvey is sharing.]

Well, I like having you around. I wondered if we'd get along long-term, if I'd be able to help get you graduated, but I think this is a better way to handle life here. And if you do graduate along the way, if the Admiral grants it to spite you, you can still stay on here.

[ Glad to have him? Harvey snorts softly. ]

I won't stay on. I graduate, won't be a warden. They don't let you not warden on this ship if you're not an inmate. Next thing I know I'm upholding the system.

Not interested.

[In the long run this means that Harvey will probably have to actively work at being an inmate.]

Why?

[He genuinely doesn't care if Harvey stays as a prisoner, graduates and leaves, graduates and stays, or is kicked off--things will happen and he's got very little control over the circumstances. It's not his job to even try to control them, frankly, so he'll take things moment by moment.

But he's always been curious about motives.]

I won't perpetuate an unjust system. This place isn't fair to either wardens or inmates.

I won't be a part of this.

...When did you get the idea that anything was ever going to be fair?

Man makes his own fairness. I won't be a part of something that is so grossly skewed against everyone in it. This is a rigged game. I won't play it.

You already know it's all rigged. Here, there, your world, it's all fucked over because it has to be.

I just wonder, is this what makes the scales feel balanced for you?

['This' being an expansive concept: it could be the decision not to make decisions, the choice to try to stay here rather than leave.]

[ Harvey frowns, very deeply-- that maimed face is ugly when he's unhappy. ]

It's not about that.

Correct me.

I don't want to talk about it.

I know. No one ever wants to put attention on raw wounds. It's a very deep instinct, and higher reasoning constantly has to buck against it.

It's not raw! It isn't a wound.

No? It has a better name?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[video]

[private]

[private]

[private]

[private]

[private]

[private]

[private]

[private]

[private]

[private]

[private]

[private]

[private]

[private]

Re: [private]