Video - Filtered away from Beatty and O'Brien

[buywithme]

Comrades!

[Pause]

I mean, post-graduate Comrades... or... long term resident institutionalized Comrades, or really just anyone who thinks this makes sense to them. Do you ever feel like... I mean, did anyone else start out disliking it here and thinking that it was entirely wrong, then eventually came around to thinking that even though they weren't happy here, maybe what was happening and what the wardens were doing was something that needed to happen, and then eventually, if you started to think that it was entirely right, what was happening here, did thinking that you were doing the right thing by being here make you begin to like it?

[That probably didn't make sense, did it? Let's try again.]

I mean, what I meant to say was that... [Fffff, let's try for some context on why he's worrying here:]

Back home in the Factory I didn't really have friends. Or books, or alcohol, or hobbies, or free will. And I didn't technically get paid for my work, and everything I did was evil, but I was happy and I felt fulfilled because I believed that what I was doing was right. So, I guess what I'm saying, Comrades, is that it has come to my attention that I have a tendency to look for validation through my work and that I'm afraid I might have accidentally slipped into being blindly subservient to the Admiral because that is exactly the kind of thing that I could imagine myself doing.

I mean, it could be that I actually like it here and that I really do think that being a warden is a good thing, I'm not sure how you're supposed to tell the difference in these circumstances, Comrades.

[Private to O'Brien]

Comrade, did you know you can put alcohol in coffee?

Comments

Private

[gotgreenmagic.livejournal.com]

...

Comrade, I'm not a shrink, but if you're worrying about the fact you might have Stockholm syndrome then you probably don't?

[impure-tale.livejournal.com]

Simple means to tell the difference: Can you answer why? and are you willing to?

private

[needshumility.livejournal.com]

It makes sense to me, um, comrade? (am I supposed to call you that? Is that what we do?)

Not in the sense that I've graduated.

But at home. I realised the Collective was wrong, it was just doing things for it's own purposes, and trying to make itself exist in perpetuity THAT was Jane's word.. I'd believed for so much of my life that the Rules were something good. Then I found out the truth - I don't think I'd done anything 'evil' in it's name, but I could have ended up doing so. In fact, I might have ended up doing it anyway, actually.

And now, here, I'm so wary of my own authority. I know what's wrong in authority, but don't know what's right. I'm scared every decision I make is going to make me just like the Prefects at home. Which isn't a good forebearing for being one of those Prefects myself.

So... I understand, in a way.

I also have no idea why I told you that.

Private

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

I don't know what Stockholm syndrome is, but sister, I was really, really unhappy here even after I became a warden. That only really changed when I began feeling sorry for Barron, and like he actually did sort of need help. So now I just feel completely fine about being here, and this is after spending two years here thinking that it was hell.

There is a direct correlation between me fulfilling the function the Admiral has assigned me, and to me being happy, and that is... it's just weird, Sister. It's too much like how I felt when I was a real Prefect.

[Private]

[cisskabob]

Prefect? Are you okay?

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

Because my inmate isn't functioning to socially healthy and non-destructive standards and I need to make him adapt for his on well being and for the well being of society at large.

[...Fuck, that is almost exactly how he thought of his job back at the Factory. Time for an Alpha Plus mope session.]

[impure-tale.livejournal.com]

Prefect, if I wanted a textbook definition of the function of a Warden, I would have asked for one.

Private

[gotgreenmagic.livejournal.com]

You might be overthinking this a little bit, Prefect. So it took you a while to get settled into a new job, and you were miserable until you found something to like about it. It happens to everybody.

private

[equalsfive.livejournal.com]

I... can't see how this is a particularly radical discovery, comrade.

But it sounds like a good plan.

[subtlescience]

"Bat Facts" made more sense than this.

Private

[inhumandog.livejournal.com]

You're thinking too much about this.

[19centconstable.livejournal.com]

...You worked in an Evil factory?

private

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Comrade. (You don't have to call me that, almost no one else does, it's just what we did where I'm from.)

And, that-- that's it, Comrade! I know that there were all of these things wrong with what I was doing in the Factory, but O'Brien is always talking about how we're just doing different versions of the same things here, and how what we do to our inmates is the same as what we did to the people back home, only we use different methods, and sometimes I think he's right about it and I'm just doing the same thing I was doing before, only... now I'm doing it with the Admiral's approval.

[Private]

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

I... I don't know. I think I am.

Do you ever think you're on the wrong side here, Sister?

private

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

I don't think it works with Gin, but I got some whiskey from the pub.

Would you like to come and execute this plan with me?

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

Well Comrade, if it's not a problem which you've ever found affecting you, then you shouldn't feel obligated to comment on it.

Re: Private

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

But not thinking makes me just blindly accept things at face value, Comrade, which in my experience doesn't always lead to my making the best decisions.

Re: private

[needshumility.livejournal.com]

...Jane's said similar to me. That she can see me acting like a Prefect and it's awful, and I shouldn't...

The worst thing is when I can see other wardens acting like Prefects and I wonder if I've just conned myself into believing this might be good again. If I might all of a sudden discover the truth, and be just as horrified.

I don't think it is. But it's a constant worry.

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

Sort of, Comrade. I was a part of the complex social machinery of a totalitarian corporate empire which governed and dictated it's rule over the entire known world.

[Pause]

But, it was an Evil Factory as well. Just an extremely large one with many subsidiary branches.

Re: private

[equalsfive.livejournal.com]

...I think that sounds like a very good idea.

If Be... I promise... yes, I'll come.

[Private]

[cisskabob]

Like--do I think I should be an inmate instead of a warden? ...I have thought that, a few times, yeah.

What brought all of this navelgazing on?

Non-Beatty/O'Brien:

[vampish_aleera]

I think there are better ways this place could achieve its ways... But it changed my thinking, yes.

Is this what you were meaning?

Private

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

But Sister, it doesn't seem right that I should be able to go directly from: "This place has destroyed my confidence and my personality and forced me to live in a constant state of guilt."

to:

"What was done to me was good, and I am excited to be doing it to someone else."

I mean, all of the things that I used to hate about this place are still here, but I just don't care anymore. Doesn't that seem weird to you?

Private

[inhumandog.livejournal.com]

There is a line, though.

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

But that is why I'm happy to be here! I want to help him to be able to function without hurting others or himself! I like him, and I think that's a good thing to be doing!