Anya Lehnsherr | Earth 97400 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fridgetothefire) wrote2014-02-17 08:14 pm
fridgetothefire) wrote2014-02-17 08:14 pm
041 ☣ something for everyone
[Filtered to graduates/wardens who were once inmates]
What did you sacrifice, to graduate?
Someone asked me recently, and I didn't have an answer. I'm wondering if that's strange.
[Filtered to wardens who were never inmates.]
Do any of you feel trapped here? Or have you, in the past, because you needed your deal so badly? It just - it seems like a much more important distinction, in some ways, between wardens and inmates, than being able to get a drink without asking someone to buzz you in first, that we can walk away and they can't.
But I'm not sure it's that straightforward.
[Filtered to inmates]
How many of you want to change? Not to graduate, that's a very different question, and not necessarily into - whoever the admiral wants you to be. Just change, in general.
Do you want to be different than you are, in any way, or not?
[Private to the Admiral]
[Wryly, amiably.]
I don't suppose you'll tell me what you're getting out of all this.
[Spam for Harvey]
[For a long time, she practiced in private. In Bruce's room, in Cass's. She'd work with Natasha or Sokolov or Bea in the gym, because that's where they were, but when she was on her own, without the clear label of 'student' hanging over her, she'd do it with a yoga mat and a locking door. Old paranoid habits, needing to be underestimated. She's realized, lately, how much more convenient the gym is, has been gradually trying to acclimate herself to working through drills under anyone else's eyes. She's there now, moving through forms and combinations Bruce taught her, counting out her breaths. Her lungs are - compensating, slowly, better than they were, even if she'll never quite hit the same caliber of athleticism that she might have otherwise. It feels good, not just to push herself, but to know she's going somewhere.]
[Private to Abigail; wibbly timed to after their conversations with Ben.]
I told you once that I was being as straightforward with you as I knew how to be. In the interest of resurrecting that - this scares me. Not what Ben's doing, me and you.
But I will do everything in my power to take care of both of you, as much as you need.
What did you sacrifice, to graduate?
Someone asked me recently, and I didn't have an answer. I'm wondering if that's strange.
[Filtered to wardens who were never inmates.]
Do any of you feel trapped here? Or have you, in the past, because you needed your deal so badly? It just - it seems like a much more important distinction, in some ways, between wardens and inmates, than being able to get a drink without asking someone to buzz you in first, that we can walk away and they can't.
But I'm not sure it's that straightforward.
[Filtered to inmates]
How many of you want to change? Not to graduate, that's a very different question, and not necessarily into - whoever the admiral wants you to be. Just change, in general.
Do you want to be different than you are, in any way, or not?
[Private to the Admiral]
[Wryly, amiably.]
I don't suppose you'll tell me what you're getting out of all this.
[Spam for Harvey]
[For a long time, she practiced in private. In Bruce's room, in Cass's. She'd work with Natasha or Sokolov or Bea in the gym, because that's where they were, but when she was on her own, without the clear label of 'student' hanging over her, she'd do it with a yoga mat and a locking door. Old paranoid habits, needing to be underestimated. She's realized, lately, how much more convenient the gym is, has been gradually trying to acclimate herself to working through drills under anyone else's eyes. She's there now, moving through forms and combinations Bruce taught her, counting out her breaths. Her lungs are - compensating, slowly, better than they were, even if she'll never quite hit the same caliber of athleticism that she might have otherwise. It feels good, not just to push herself, but to know she's going somewhere.]
[Private to Abigail; wibbly timed to after their conversations with Ben.]
I told you once that I was being as straightforward with you as I knew how to be. In the interest of resurrecting that - this scares me. Not what Ben's doing, me and you.
But I will do everything in my power to take care of both of you, as much as you need.
[video/private now]
I have found it useful. To think of mending and atoning as entirely seperate activities, one of which is a great deal more finite and - definable, than the other. One of which is personal to you, and one of which is not. Not that I know how to mend him. He needs - oh, to be secure in himself. That's not something you can repair, and revenge can't either. But I do believe it can be done.
Do you like Dostoyevsky, Iris? I can't guess.
[The compassion and the polyphony would appeal, she thinks; the religious themes, the mournful perspective and that inimitible Russian style somewhat less.]
[video/private now]
I miss 'im.
[She seizes the subject change with alacrity, if not actual enthusiasm.]
...I knew 'im for a while. Before Siberia. Always meant to get around to reading 'is books.
[video/private now]
There's a...theme, in Crime and Punishment. As soon as Raskalnikov commits the murder, everything goes wrong for him. Not just...arbitrarily, allegorically, not because the universe cares. Because he cannot stop thinking about it and worrying about it, because he does things to try to hide, or escape, because everything escalates, because of self-fulfilling prophecies and human fear and the weight of things on a soul. He ruins his own life. He is a murderer. The punishment is the crime.
Bleak. But - I always found it comforting, in a strange way. That it suits.
I don't know what I'd do if I had to live in the same building with my sister, after the things I did to her, now that I can remember to myself I love her. I hurt Abigail badly, that flood. Now Ben needs me to help her and I'm terrified. I used to want so badly to be her friend, and now I just - don't want to do any more damage. What a pathetic ambition is that?
I'm not. Entirely sure where I'm going with this. Except - maybe all you can do right now is continue to not be her. He certainly looks at the world like it's allegory, sometimes. Like everything has to be proof on one side of the scale or the other. Maybe I need to face it and you need to back off and that's how we suffer with what we've done, or maybe we both need better...balance.
But I can't believe it's good for him to have friends let go, even if it's wrecked right now. A man doesn't push people away the way he tries to unless he believes they'll always go, and he needs that disproven too. He needs to know not everyone is Bruce, lying and holding back. You're a lot better for him than me, on that score. Things might need to shake loose, before he can get any good out of it again. But I do think they have to, sooner or later. That's the only thing the worst of the barge is good for.