Eighteenth

[mercurialize]

[Public Voice]

I've talked to a few of you about this, but all right. Question. People come here because they have to fix themselves, right? That's rhetorical. My real question is, do they actually deserve it or is it just because they can be changed?

We don't actually have that answer, do we?

[Inmate Filter]

Then, for you guys, is that change even helpful or would you call it harmful to your way of life? Whatever it was before. People make enemies, I know how it is.


[Open Action Spam: Gym]

[Kylar's around every early morning that the Barge isn't on fire or trying to rhyme and sing with itself. With the ka'kari back at his disposal he has a ton of practicing to do. Today's stunt, he tries to coat a training dummy with the ka'kari. Giving it a thick black metalic armor. He knows better than to attack it with Retribution, actually, the ka'kari warned him of that. There will be questions of Why later.

So he tears at it with a dagger attempting every move he can think of. But the dagger is taking far more damage than the ka'kari, in fact, the metal hasn't even dented. When he's done, he wills the ka'kari back into his skin. There's just one problem.]

You ate the dummy!

~Devourer.~

Stop it! I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on this stuff from people destroying it. Not destroying it myself.

~You never learn, do you? First, you complain when I don't obey, now you complain when I do. Which will it be next time?~

You weren't supposed to eat-

[Wait. Is someone else in here?]

Comments

inmate filter

[heavenlymisandrist]

A more pertinent question might be as to whether your way of life is one that should be changed.

inmate filter

[mercurialize]

No, it shouldn't change.

And it doesn't exactly work like that, anyways. You can't just walk away whenever you please. I tried that. Now I'm here.

[Right, he's skipping a lot. Like 3 months of a lot.]

inmate filter

[heavenlymisandrist]

Can you not?

[ Her tone is lofty, distant. She's not very good at giving advice, or even at recognizing when someone is asking for it. ]

I should think that after so many dozens of deaths I should be able to walk where I please.

[absentconstellation]

[ Kylar might have seen the Cat in conversation with other citizens of the barge, both silent and audible. Or he might not. It hardly matters to the Cat, who was drawn by the scent of strange magic. His tail is down, wary, but his ears flick back and forth in interest as he approaches the boy. ]

This is no way to conduct a partnership.

[ Of course, a cat is never surprised or confused. A cat always knows what's going on. ]

[mercurialize]

[He sees the cat and hears the voice, but cat's don't talk. Right? Probably someone's lost pet. So where did the sound come from? The dented and dull dagger he had to practice with is in easy reach. It would stab with enough force, not that it might be necessary. A comforting mental note, if anything.]

~It was not my first choice.~

[Kylar glares at the ka'kari's comment in no particular direction. Because where do you look when something's in your head. It takes him a few more moments, but he eventually squints at the cat before squatting down in front of him, because there is no one here otherwise. That's it. He's lost his mind.]

[absentconstellation]

[ Purple cat-eyes stare up at the boy, almost expectantly. He does wear a collar, but the tag in the shape of a triple moon serves him for a warden item, not an identifier. ]

You are as much to blame as the boy. It's disgraceful.

inmate filter

[thelastbullet]

Depends on what the change is. Don't think I got a goddamn clue about what I'd have to change. [He gets that killing people left and right wasn't exactly 'the right thing', same for smuggling booze. But that was circumstance more than anything else.]

inmate filter

[mercurialize]

Seems most don't have any idea. What I'm getting at is...

Okay, hypothetically, although this is probably the majority of people here anyways.

Say you've had to kill people before, by whatever method for whatever reason so you've made enemies and have had to keep up to stay alive. Here, not killing isn't a big deal, there aren't that many people and death is more like a nap. But that's not going to work when you leave. You quit and you die, and not the nap kind either.

That's the kind of change I'm talking about; where actually changing is more costly in reality than a help.

So in that hypothetical situation, what would you do?

[Yes... hypothetical...]

inmate filter

[thelastbullet]

[He's quiet for a while, taking his time to actually think about that- of course this is pretty much is situation, and he hasn't figured it out.]

Well, I sure wouldn't stick around where anyone would recognize me. [It's the best he can do, because he can't imagine going back to Atlantic City and not having to waste at least 20 guys to stay around. Same goes for New York- Chicago- Philadelphia. Christ, maybe he'd be safer in Europe.]

[darknessb4me]

If we're here because we can be changed, the selection is made poorly. Most of us don't.

[Inmate filter]

The change the Admiral wants for me isn't helpful, because I didn't ask to be changed, I don't want to change, and I should have the right to make that decision.

[mercurialize]

Can doesn't mean will.

[Inmate Filter]

Or, you sit around long enough for it to become your decision.

[Sigh.]

So changing would be more costly for you?

[strangehistorian]

I believe that all of the inmates here deserve and are capable of a second chance.

[mercurialize]

[That irks him, because she can't possibly know that and to believe that would be ridiculous.]

All right, and what makes them so deserving? What about these serial killers and liars makes them unanimously more worthy of a second chance than the innocents they've harmed? In your opinion.

[routemistress]

I don't think it's a question of deserving, Kyle lovey. Don't you think everyone should 'ave the best life they can 'ave?

And I don't believe people change. Not fundamentally. You could 'ave me locked up for centuries but it wouldn't make me someone that wants to be told what to do or someone that clung to traditions and safety over adventure and novelty and independence. Who you are's fundamental. What you choose to do with what you are's another story: that's what we're trying to change 'ere. And everyone with enough sentience to make choices can do that.

[mercurialize]

And if those life choices were the best available to us at the time? Sometimes there are no good choices, Iris. Sometimes you have to choose between two bad decisions, survival will always win and when it doesn't you die. Or, end up here.

inmate filter

[dinosize]

Don't think it would make much of a difference.

inmate filter

[mercurialize]

Why's that?

voice;

[akweks]

What makes someone deserving or not?

voice;

[mercurialize]

Your guess is as good as mine. Because from just observation, I'd say you'd have to be a lying murderer with bad life choices to deserve being here. Oh, and be dead. That's the other qualification.

Inmate Filter

[changeitroundsome]

It ain't about what's harmful or not. It's about the idea that we're supposed to change everythin' that makes us who we are to fit in with this ideal of what's 'reformed', of what makes a 'good person'. That's too wide a subject to subject folks lives to, I reckon. One person's idea of reform is probably different to someone else's. 'Specially considerin' the wide array of worlds and times we got represented here. What gives the Admiral the right to decide that?

Inmate Filter

[mercurialize]

[Kylar doesn't agree, but he can play along like he does.]

Besides whatever power he's used to drag us here in the first place? Nothing I know of.

[bodilesswarrior]

Practically speaking, what do we get if we decide someone doesn't deserve it? If we had that choice.

[mercurialize]

After they got here?

I don't know. But you can't tell me people haven't banded together against one inmate before though, I've seen it happen. More than once.

Voice

[voluntaryapnea]

Maybe it's a bit of both.

[mercurialize]

You really think everyone here deserves to come back from the dead?