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[worsetodie]

Can I count myself among the probable many who are not shocked this last disaster was mostly averted by the efforts of Inmates? 

Comments

[routemistress]

Can I count meself among the many rollin' their eyes at you jackin' your agenda onto everyone's suffering?

[worsetodie]

I'm sorry. Did the lot of you forget you have jobs, here, and that now that the danger has passed you might be doing something productive, such as discussing how to avoid another such outbreak in the future? Or do you need a week or two to recover while the rest of us sit tight and hope the black plague doesn't descend in your absence?

[routemistress]

It's not preventin' this bullshit that's the problem, sunshine. It's preventin' it while still allowing you maladjusted gobshites any measure of freedom an' dignity. Did you forget it were an inmate that started it?

[worsetodie]

An Inmate apparently assigned a Warden too ill-equipped to protect himself against risks he was better informed on than anyone else here. [tsk. tsk.]

[routemistress]

Apparently, aye. Feel free to offer up constructive suggestions, sonny Jim, I'll be listening.

[worsetodie]

That would require further information. Tell me, what measures do the Wardens have in place to handle Inmates that display obvious abilities that might allow them to overpower their keepers?

[routemistress]

Depends on the warden, the inmate an' the powers, sunshine. If you wanted regimented an' rules, you picked the wrong jail.

And if you wanted specifics, you're askin' the wrong warden - we've already 'ad one too many takin' advantage this week. It's not something I'm discussing outside the warden filter. I'm sure you'll understand.

[worsetodie]

I'm not the one that chose to be here, madame.

You do realize that a lack of transparency gets you nowhere in this regard, yes? Your charges have a right to know they are safe, or at least why when they are not. We already know the lot of you can't be trusted; you might as well be honest about it.

[routemistress]

Short answer sweetheart; we're none of us safe, on account of we're trapped on a boat with arseholes whose idea of a fun week is a bloody rabies epidemic. We're not allowed to keep the 'ole lot of you in Zero to keep everyone safe, so you might as well stop bellyachin'.

I'm not often not honest; that's not the same thing as spill every bit of personal information to the first bloke who asks for it on a whim. Like you pointed out earlier, it's just askin' for it to be used against you.

[worsetodie]

You need not disseminate all information to me. I would much rather see such matters in writing where anyone might have a chance to inform themselves. The fact that your first notion of "Safety" involves keeping all the Inmates on lockdown says to me precisely why the Wardens lack the will and capacity to organize.

[routemistress]

Oh, I need not? 'Ow flippin' gracious of you, I don't think. You can draw any conclusions you like, since it's plain to me you've no intention of drawin' any you didn't start with, any road, an' feel free to shove 'em where the sun don't shine when you've drawn 'em.

You stay safe, now.

[worsetodie]

No intention without sufficient reason. I'll let you get back to your cauldron.

[routemistress]

[That last comment gets you a reluctant grin.]

...Oh, I do all me work in the lab these days, petal, I'm all mod cons, you know.

Threadjack!

[surfaceshine]

[Hi, there, guy Dean doesn't know. Have a hunter that is smiling, and seems to be cheerful enough, but there's a hard, sharp line through his eyes and voice.]

If you already know it, why would we bother wasting our breath saying it or trying to change your mind?

I notice you don't have any trouble at all thanking the inmates that helped and blaming the wardens that were affected, without bothering to thank the wardens that were helping or blaming the inmates that took advantage of it.

The sooner you figure out that we're all people and we're all doing the best we can? The sooner you'll be a step closer to getting the fuck out of here.

Threadjack!

[worsetodie]

I'm not here to help you in your comprehension of basic languages, but just a point of order: nothing you have said here is what has actually been said by myself in this exchange.

And that is all that need be said between us. You take care, now.

Threadjack!

[surfaceshine]

And that is exactly why you're never gonna hear anything about what we're doing or not doing. Waste. Of. Breath.

[Dean cuts the feed without waiting.]

THREADJACK

[megamind]

"You Maladjusted gobshites", huh?

[ His expression reads, very clearly: Fuck you too, Iris. He's just too polite to say it. ]

Re: THREADJACK

[routemistress]

Oh, don't you start.

[You know what she meant.]

[megamind]

[ Oh, oh, that's even worse! Megamind's expression twists, and he is genuinely hurt and angry. ]

IF you didn't want a mealticket that thinks for itself, you should have picked a job where the mealtickets in question can't call you on the steaming pile that just dropped out of your mouth.

[routemistress]

I don't need this job, you 'airtrigger cerulean plonker, an' right now I'm wondering if I need me 'ead examined for agreein' to it. As for you, if you don't know by this time you're not part of the gobshite contingent - never mind wardens or inmates - you need to clean out your ear'oles more often.

[megamind]

[ THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS TO ARGUE WITH THIS THAT HE CAN'T EVEN PICK ONE. ]

[ He tries, though. ]

[ He opens his mouth, shuts it, growls, rubs his face, and growls again. ]

I don't know half of what comes out of your mouth. [ This is pretty bad coming from a guy who mispronounces with a disturbing frequency. ] But I know I'm still mad.

[routemistress]

[Iris breathes in, breathes out and drops her gaze.]

So'm I, love, because someone gave us all rabies, got little Chris killed an' made me kill two of me best friends 'ere in a way that might make 'em never speak to me again. And then this oily bugger who - as far as I remember, which I'll allow's not much on account o' bloody rabies - did nothin' in the way of lab research or 'elping out, unlike some folks I could name - starts fartin' rhetoric all over the network makin' it about inmates versus wardens. Which is frankly bollocks.

...I might've spoke a bit carelessly, all right?

[megamind]

Within my first month here I had my brains turned to splatter. Last week at a pool party I got to sit down and talk to the warden who had done it. He's a nice guy. Weird, I guess, but nice. It was a breach. No hard feelings, right? This crap happens.

Think about that for five seconds, okay? I know it's hard, tiny head and all.... I sat down with a guy who had been entrusted with my life, who had shot me in the head. Don't know about you, but that was pretty big of me, to not, you know, drown him. But crazy revenge schemes aren't really my thing. Anyway...

As for our friend here-- sorry, but I agree with him. You can't each run your individual private redemption kingdoms here and hope we're going to trust you with our lives, knowing that at the core of it: you're going to profit on everything we endure, and you think we're just gonna sit back and be okay with that? Ollo! I don't care how small your head is. You have to be smarter than that!

I trust Kay. [ THERE HE FUCKING SAID IT. ] I've -- been mad at him and sometimes I don't know that he gets me, but I trust him because he's always been straight forward to me, and explained everything he does.

You guys-- all of you wardens-- could learn from what he does. I mean, even with lab access I coulda taken over the barge at least twice by now if I felt up to it. But I haven't... because I know what he's doing, and why, and how it can line up with my own interests.

Something I don't think a lot of you even vaguely manage to do... or maybe we wouldn't have crazy stabby--

WHO IS crazy stabby inmate? [ There's a pause, and he goes to look up the big reveal and... ]

Toto? Who is named Toto and claim to be legitimately evil. That was a dog! A scottie dog! Scottie dogs aren'te evil!

[routemistress]

I always think that's 'alf the point, sweetheart; none of it takes, an' even the batshit 'ard nuts start lookin' for murder alternatives after a bit. Kay's a good bloke, I'd trust 'im an' all. An' I do listen to 'im. But don't tell me to start bein' like 'im, 'cause that's not 'appening in any lifetime.

[She's suddenly very tired, or more accurately, she's been tired all along; just the adrenaline spike of anger's wearing off now.]

We're all just doin' our bloody best 'ere. It gets me brassed off when all someone can do is pick fault.

[megamind]

You know this guy I empowered to become a superhero-- not a villain, a hero-- the things he whined about right before he turned me to paste were that good was a bunch of hard work and he'd only taken the job to get the girl. But it wasn't going to get him the exact thing he wanted, so he quit and went bad.

So if you can't take a guy seeing where your system falls apart... [ He shrugs, and says. ] I got a dog to walk. You got recovery time. Make use of it. Put your feet up, rest, all that-- and think, huh?

[ He's mollified some, but -- he's not giving in, either. It's as diplomatic an ending as Megamind can give, which is saying something that he tried at all. ]