51

[buywithme]

Comrades! Consumers! The Factory would like to absolutely and categorically apologize for the complete failure of its staff to function in any reasonable capacity during the events of the week before last. Rest assured there were severe external influences disrupting the capabilities of its current outlet and staff body and the appropriate reprimands and restorative programs are currently being undertaken.

We would like to take this moment to reassure all our customers that this was an isolated incident and the recent decline in behavioral standards which the Factory requires of it's work force will definitely not be continuing. Despite the mitigating circumstances of this particular collapse of professionalism, we are ensuring that our staff attend a rigorous program of retraining and customer service specialization, to ensure the highest possible service for you! Our valiant and valued brothers and sisters, still living the immaculate dream of the blossoming consumer!

Comrades, let us never lose sight of the great glories of possession and obedience, above and beyond the frailty of our rotting bodies and fleeting allegiances, our broken hearts and our unfulfilled dreams, our dead parents and our meaningless names. Comrades, history is dead and the barge is its tomb. Nothing here has meaning, nothing here survives the ever strengthening vortex of it's function. Comrades, the phrase: "You can't take it with you when you go." no longer applies, because there is nowhere else to go! Forget your outdated notions of family and faith and freedom because all your abstract concept riches are back where you came from and you can never leave this place. Here, it doesn't matter how beautiful your wife is or how intelligent your beloved children are, or how fulfilling you find your job, because none of them exist anymore. Here? The winner is the man with the most stuff. Here, the only things left in the universe that will last, are possessions, and obedience.

Newcomers, welcome to the Barge.

This is an official Factory announcement, there are no golden shores.

Prefect
A+920164626P


[ooc: Annnnd we're back in action! Huzzah! Prefect has been doing some serious thinking and re-educating himself over the last week, this is his eventual response to the last flood!]

Comments

[petite-sleuth.livejournal.com]

First; you seem like a right ray of sunshine.

And second; whatcha selling?

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

Sister, the beauty of uniformity, function, and The Factory will forever be a light in dark places.

I sell whatever I have, and whatever I'm able to aquire! What is it you need Comrade?

[petite-sleuth.livejournal.com]

I feel mighty inspired now, Brother. Now what is the Factory?

I'm just testing the market right now. Like to be prepared, you know, just in case.

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

The Factory is the great monument at the end of time, it is the arms of a mother and father who sustain and improve and teach us, it is vast, endless. It is the world we built on the foundations of need and guilt and covetousness and support and above all else Sister, work. It is all the jobs and all the products and all the functions that any of us really have, or any of us really need now, and we will serve it forever and ever until we are obsolete and discontinued. We are born, consume, fall silent, die.

I completely understand Sister. That's your consumerist prerogative.

[petite-sleuth.livejournal.com]

... so it's a cult.

He kind of acts like it's a cult. Maybe. just a little.

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

It's not a cult Sister! It's just-- It's the Factory. It's everything...

You mean it isn't a cult?

[petite-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I got that from your speech. You know if it smells like a cult and looks like a cult and tastes like a cult, it probably is one.

Re: You mean it isn't a cult?

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

Cult

1) A system of religious worship directed towards a particular figure or object.
2) A small religious group regarded as strange or as imposing excessive control over members.
3) Something popular or fashionable among a particular section of society.

Defining features of a cults treatment of its followers:

1) People are put in physically or emotionally distressing situations;
2) Their problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly emphasized;
3) They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from a charismatic leader;
4) They get a new identity based on the group;
5) They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives, and the mainstream culture) and their access to information is severely controlled

The Factory does not look or smell or taste like any of these things! It is a business which employs the majority of the world, which sustains and employs and defines and creates us as we are. It is not a cult!

[petite-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Hello thorough.

So you wouldn't say that the factory gives you an identity based on what you do for it and that you don't repeatedly emphasize the same points?

Now he's just Lying!

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

Not a new identity! It's a life purpose, a function, a vocation. And it doesn't reduce your problems to one simple explanation! That was a two part point, it's not more of a cult if it only fulfills one part of it!

She has you cornered!

[petite-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Well, technically cults don't have to be religious. Just most of them are and you could say that being a part of the Factory is pretty were you're from, right? Everyone's who's cool is there.

Careful! No one is slippery like a brainwashing victim is slippery!

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

Not everyone cool, everyone period. The Factory is major universal ruling entity where I'm from!

Cults can't be mainstream, and I think they do have to be kind of religious.

And no one is meaner then an Elle look a like.

[petite-sleuth.livejournal.com]

How do you know that everyone's a part of it if it's all you know? Maybe they just want you to think that everyone's in it, so you don't try to leave. Which makes it sound like a cult.

It doesn't have to be religious. You unite around a common ideal. That's pretty much it.

Prefect says she'll have to be a

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

That's like asking you how you know everyone has skin, or eyes. Until I came here I never met anyone or heard of anyone who wasn't a part of the Factory, that's just how it was back home. I didn't want to leave.

And lots of things involve uniting around common ideals, political parties, religions, businesses, charities, it still doesn't make it a cult...

... a what?

[petite-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Alright, I cave. It's simply a mind controlling job that steals your soul slowly.

a person who forgot to finish typing into the subject line :c

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

I don't believe in the concept of a soul, but I have noticed that I'm having trouble controlling my mind recently...

She don't wanna be like you. :[

[petite-sleuth.livejournal.com]

That must be rough. You try shaking it around a little?

Everyone wants to be like me!

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

No, the Barge does enough of that already without me encouraging it!

*pets*

[petite-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Wha?

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

...

Excuse me, but how long have you been here for miss?

[petite-sleuth.livejournal.com]

Like a day and I've met all the nicest people.

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

Oh. Welcome!

Are you a Warden or an inmate?

[petite-sleuth.livejournal.com]

... you've met my evil twin, haven't you?

I'm a warden for the record.

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

Hmm. You mean Elle? I don't think you look that much like her actually.

What's your name?

Wait, I take back that first comment.

[petite-sleuth.livejournal.com]

That's the one and I think you're the first person to say that.

Veronica Mars. Is Prefect a codename?