✘ | 019 | VIDEO + SPAM

[wecanavenge]

[Spam, backdated directly after this]

[His whole room is shaking. It's like an earthquake has gripped his room, but it keeps lasting and lasting, and only the last dregs of his control are keeping him from causing some serious, actual damage to the ship. But that won't solve anything. None of this will solve anything.

His communicator shoots across the room without being touched, without even a gesture. It slams into the wall, and Erik stares, glares at some empty, middle space without seeing anything. Without seeing the room, at least. He's certainly seeing red. It's a tantrum like he had when he was a child, gutted with loss and rage and heady with the power - things creak around his room, and things shift and shoot and move on their own, and he doesn't think he wants to stop it.]

[Video]

[The video clicks on, and Erik is sitting in his room, at his desk. He's wearing a black turtleneck, and though this is very much an I prefer Magneto time for him, he isn't wearing the helmet. He's composed, but there is such anger in his eyes for anyone looking for it. In front of him is a pile of books, and next to that another pile, half off screen; there may well be more.]

When I was a boy, I saw the Nuremberg Laws passed. It was 1935, and the government of the country I was born in took it upon themselves - with great Aryan support - to refine our understanding of who was German, and who was a Jew. If you had three or four Jewish grandparents, as I did, you were a Jew. If you had one or two, you were Mischling. A half-breed. Mixed blood.

The government told us what we were, but they didn't stop there. They told us who would could associate with. Who we could have sex with. My uncle was beaten and paraded through the streets, forced to wear a sign: Ich habe deutches Mädchen getchändet. I have shamed a German woman. Never minding, of course, that she made a choice, too; she was Aryan. She was above reproach.

That is what I was taught, when I was young. That those in power can do anything, and they will be backed so long as they speak charismatically enough.

[His composure is starting to slip, and he's far from calm - but he hasn't started yelling yet.]

I have been here exactly four hundred and forty-nine days, nearly a year and three months, and in that time I have made ample use of the library. Not long before I was judged and delivered to Barge justice, I learned of a man who denied the genocide that occurred in Germany and Poland. An American man, born in the land of the free, the home of the brave. [The disgust lacing his voice is thick, and he holds up a pamphlet; the most legible thing is the author's name, Harry Elmer Barnes.] He called us the swindlers of the crematoria.

[His voice goes strained, there, almost breaks, and he pauses to take a slow breathe.]

I know not all of you know what happened, in those camps. I know not all of you are from Earth, or my time or after. But these books-- [he gestures to the stacks] --they write about it as history. As past and gone, as fact, in most cases. [He's tossing the pamphlet away with a small sneer, letting it flutter to the floor behind him.]

It isn't just the past. It isn't something that happened a long time ago, though God knows I've tried to put it behind me. I can't. I won't. I shouldn't have to. [He pulls up the sleeve of his left arm, and holds himself so that it's just visible on camera: 214782.] This is the number they gave me. This was my identity. This was the number they called when they told me I was to be sonnderkommando.

[His voice is shaking now, and it's all anger.] Historians write about them, too. They wonder if we should have been prosecuted as war criminals. They say that because we had easier work, we're no better than the Nazis. They think we had a choice, but the only choice was dying slower - and searing into memory the hope on a woman's face when she's told she's going to be allowed to shower, the way she comforted her crying infant. And what could I say? Run? They'd have been gunned down, and me with them. [His hands are in fists.]

We watched them walk willingly - for a poor definition of willing - to their deaths, and when it was done and the gas had cleared, we carted them to the crematoria. I knew others who were buried under piles and piles of bodies. I learned-- [His voice does break there, and he glares harder, pushing on.] I learned how to set an old man's body and a child's together so they would burn better. I carted familiar faces into the furnace. And I should be held accountable.

[Another slow breath; some things on his desk have shifted and spilled, though he hasn't actually moved. The camera, at least, stays steady.]

I'm saying this now so you know. I've seen the limit of human suffering. I know what it is to endure. And my lingering anger over what I - what we were made to endure, is legitimate. I'm not screaming incoherently. [Yeah Megamind, he's talking to you.] And I am not, have not demanded that Toshiko live through what I lived through. That it's been assumed that I would put others through that is grotesque and ignorant. [See Alex, you don't get it.]

But I am telling you that demotion isn't enough. A week in Zero isn't enough, an apology isn't enough. We deserve reparations, and maybe she isn't guilty of war crimes, but she is guilty. I have been an inmate for four hundred and forty-nine days, and I have been her inmate for two hundred and ninety-four of those days. She's seen my file. She knows this information. And when I was sent to Zero because I was defending her, she did nothing.

[Something crosses his face, largely frustration.] Maybe she couldn't. But that doesn't erase what happened, because of her.

Don't tell me she's gotten what she deserved. We're told that this ship is meant to redeem, that it's meant to heal, but don't think for a moment that just because it works occasionally means it's equal, or just, or that everyone has the same chance.

We're told we're wardens or inmates. We're given a title and a job, and we watch each other fail, and fail, and fail. The Admiral would have us convinced that we all have the same opportunity, and I am telling you that we don't. That justice is in flux, that we cannot trust our charismatic leader peddling his deals, that graduation is a combination of work and good fortune, and that deluding yourself otherwise is not hopeful, it's foolish.

I was told that I could graduate, if only I tried, and did the right thing, the same as every other inmate here. I did the right thing. And I am done playing by arbitrary rules.

[Spam for Megamind]

[He needs to clear his head, desperately. The post helped, but the anger is still there, will always be there, he thinks, because he hadn't told everything. He hadn't said a word about Shaw, about the experiments. He hadn't mentioned the Vanquish, though it might have driven the point home; those were things he didn't want to face, publicly. Not yet. So he's walking, avoiding people and eye contact, though his posture is probably enough to put most off.

But he sees a flash of blue as he passed the lab, and Erik's gait slows and pauses for a breath. Megamind, who he wanted little than to punch yesterday. He doesn't know what it is that turns him around, that makes him lengthen his stride.]

Stop.

Comments

[megamind]

[ Megamind has patently avoided-- everything ever, since yesterday. You can only blow your cool completely and utterly so many times and not lay awake clinging to your dog, feeling like a heel afterward before you you realize you just don't want to be seen in public, even if you probably have to be. Nose still broken, though his face much less purple, he stills as the lab door closes. Managing a box under one arm, he props it against a near non-existent hip. ]

[ He turns, slowly, and exhales. It starts as a resigned sigh, and becomes weak, nervous laughter at the tail end, before he says, ]

Red light, green light? Never-- played it much. As a kid.

[ ...yeah okay humor is at an all time failure here. Banter is nonexistent. ]

Sorry, Chris beat you to the nose. But if you gotta take your shot, I -- get it. I'd probably hit me too, if I were you.

spam

[wecanavenge]

[Erik takes in the nose with a glance, something close to satisfaction in his eyes for the space of a breath. The banter is ignored - he doesn't understand it anyway - but the suggestion that Megamind could understand his desire to make sure that nose is well and truly broken is...surprising.

It gives him pause, makes him frown.]

Are you quite finished referring to me as a raving lunatic then?

private text;

[dr4gontatt00]

[Ooh. Ooh, she likes you.]

we seem to have come to a similar conclusion.

private; video forever

[wecanavenge]

[He reaches for the device, his glare still in place, but he reads quickly and frowns harder.]

Anyone with half a brain can see it.

[silvestris]

Well now I'm torn. I'm a fan of vigilante justice and settling your own scores...but on the other hand you seem to be the only person on this ship who knows what he's doing.

[wecanavenge]

[He almost wants to laugh at that, but there's still too much anger to give into that urge.]

What would settle your score?

[Video]

[mistconduct]

Holy fuck that was intense.

[Video]

[wecanavenge]

[Just this face, Chris, what are you doing.]

[video]

[routemistress]

No, it's not, and yes, you do. I am doing my bloody best to see that 'appens.

[video]

[wecanavenge]

[His frustration bubbles over, and he's not very good at keeping a lid on things.] I said quite a bit, Iris. Would you like to be more specific?

[Private]

[itstopped]

[Felix has heard a lot of terrible things since he's come to the Barge, but he heard a lot of terrible things before that, too. He's lived a lot of terrible things. It's not that he's not sympathetic, or that he'd seek pity on his own account. It's just that he hears things like I'm angry because my father died and thinks of twenty-eight billion fathers and mothers and sons and daughters dying, his own included. He thinks about being enslaved and enslaving in turns. He thinks about all the other horrors that the war has visited upon him, and even if he doesn't want to think about them, he has only to look down or stand up to remember. He's not unsympathetic to the others here, but the Cylon war extracted any number of prices on him, and one is the wall he tends to feel between himself and others when they talk about things like this.

He doesn't feel it this time; only numb horror as he listens, intently, to Erik's story. He'd seen the man in Rex's post, had taken an interest, and now... It's the world New Caprica would have become in a few generations, of that he has absolutely no doubt. He might have become Erik given enough time. It's a future even he can be grateful to have escaped.

He thinks on what to say for a while before he does.]

There were thirty-nine thousand of my people left when I was executed for my war crimes. They tried twice: the first time for aiding the enemy, the second time -- the successful time -- for refusing to do so.

[He flashes a thin, mirthless smile. Not sympathy. Commiseration.] The Colonial Resistance sends its support.

[Private]

[wecanavenge]

[Commiseration is good. It's better, though 'better' here feels sour. Erik nods - he doesn't point out how ridiculous that is, how it's absurd, because of course Felix knows. Just because he was ready to share this doesn't mean everyone else should be. Still, he has to unclench his jaw before he can speak.]

I did my part to kill six million Jews. [And that is hard, hard to say. But he shakes his head, because to be a part of a race of thirty-nine thousand and no more - that is an ugly thought. He knows the numbers, rounded and even - 9.4 Jews in Europe in 1939, 3.4 by the time it was over, 10 world wide - but they don't have meaning. They're a product of books speaking about the past, and his jaw sets.]

Some days - most days - I wish I had refused.

[Spam]

[wedonot]

[Charles can feel it happening before the wall they share starts to vibrate, and by the time he's on his feet and rushing for the door, things in his room are starting to rattle around too.

He pushes the door open and steps inside, watching things shake and shoot across the room for a second or two before turning to the one causing all of it, and he's almost not sure if he's forgetting to breathe, or just on the edge of hyperventilating.]

Erik- [He doesn't know what else to say, but takes a cautious half step into the room, the door slamming shut behind him without him touching it.

He feels helpless, and lost, has felt that way for days now, and it almost feels like he's drowning, between that and having the feeling echoed back to him from his friend, albeit different. Erik's helplessness was colored with rage to mask it, and Charles' was just. There. For anyone to look at or notice, and he should probably be recoiling from the anger, but instead, he pushes forward, prepared to duck if anything accidentally shot his way.

He leans down so they're at eye level and puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezing, projecting calm and comfort and security in all the ways that he couldn't while Erik had been in Zero, and tries to keep his voice steady.]

Erik, calm your mind.

[Spam]

[wecanavenge]

[Something does - a stapler - but it averts course on its own, jerking unnaturally and without much regard to physics in the other direction, slamming into a wall and springing open. For a long moment Erik doesn't answer, but he does, finally, turn to look at Charles. His face is red, angry, wrathful. A moment later, he stands abruptly, grabbing the back of his chair and hurling it away from himself.]

Calm? How am I supposed to stay calm?

[theonlyresponse]

[He deliberates over this, but eventually, they are on the same page.]

Suggest an appropriate punishment.

[wecanavenge]

I don't have one. That doesn't this is enough.

[But he ponders a moment.] It was suggested that she never be allowed to be a warden again. That's a step in the right direction. Along with plugging up the interface in her head.

[bodilesswarrior]

[She knows, of course, intellectually speaking. She minored in history. She dug deep into the darkest crimes of humanity because if you forget you are doomed to repeat.

But it's different, hearing him recount it all, of course it is, and for a few moments she can barely breathe.

When she speaks, however, her voice is steady and strong.]

You're right. People who abuse their power, who use it to torment the people who trusted them, should be held accountable.

[But she shakes her head, slow and frustrated.] I'm just not sure how, beyond the precautionary measures.

[wecanavenge]

There aren't even enough precautionary measures being taken. [He wanted it to be heard, to be felt. To be more than just the topic of a book. Let her feel it, because God knows he feels it every day.]

[private]

[deadliestviper]

[Beatrix may be one of the most heartless people on the Barge, but to those she has no argument with, she is sympathetic. Erik's points are clear, not necessarily what she would endorse but sensible and... fair, for the most part. She has nothing to add on that point; let other people argue over the proposed punishment. Tosh will get what she deserves by the wardens' hands, or she'll get it by the inmates'.

She just has one thing to say, softly and in serviceable German:]

I am sorry you had to suffer through all that.

[private]

[wecanavenge]

You're not the one I'm looking for an apology from.

private/video

[tolaywaste]

[This is private purely because he does not want another lecture from Charles. It's video because after listening to this, Alex did a little screaming into a pillow, a little retching, maybe a little crying, and he wants Erik to see this.]

If you're gonna talk to me and use words like grotesque and ignorant? Next time? Use my name.

You and Charles both assume I think the worst of you. And I should. But I don't. It doesn't matter, though, because apparently you [and Pietro and probably Anya and whoever] think I'm not on your side.

private/video

[wecanavenge]

[Good. Erik knows what empty sympathy looks like, sounds like, and that wasn't what he wanted. He didn't set out looking for real sympathy, either - but better they understand. Better not to protect them from it, considering the risk of staying silent.]

If I was talking only to you, I'd have used your name. [But there, that's - that's a thing they have to talk about. But Erik is still all sharp edges and anger, and they are so alike in that way.]

Are you, Alex? Are you on my side? If you don't think I could torture people just because I was, then why did you ask? What answer were you looking for, huh?

Voice

[burnmythoughts]

[Jean doesn't want him to see that she's been sobbing. This shouldn't be about her feelings, and she doesn't want to make him feel guilty for saying - saying things so hard to say, saying things that should be said.

But text seems so impersonal, so empty. He deserves more than that.

So she compromises.

Her voice is hoarse.]

It's not - you weren't - they're wrong. You...you survived. That's all you could do. Anyone who says you're responsible is wrong.

[A hard swallow.]

And I'm sorry. If I - I know you wouldn't. [She was afraid he'd do something, yes, but never that.]

But if this isn't enough, then what is?

Voice

[wecanavenge]

[His need for them to know is at odds with the fact that he doesn't like seeing them hurt. Maybe he's easier on Jean - maybe because she's a girl, because she's younger, because she was kind to him when she had every reason not to be. Whatever the reason, he pauses and swallows some of the vitriol.]

I could have done more. There were riots, revolts. Most of them failed. I could have done more, if-- [If he had control of his power. But he didn't, couldn't make it work when he needed to. He pushes that away; he can make it work now.]

You had good ideas. Not allowing her to be a warden. Plugging the jack should be imperative. There are other things we can do, that aren't torture.

[Private]

[lost_humanity]

[He is careful how he responds. He was tried as a war criminal. He did as he was told willingly, after the motivational imperative wore off, for years just to take the Taelons down from the inside. "Some lives aren't worth saving, Major." It's true, sometimes.

He opts for something else instead.]

Did you really trust her before this?

[Private]

[wecanavenge]

More than I do now.

private video; cw antiziganism + holocaust

[supersonic]

[ When the broadcast first begins Pietro almost shuts it off again, because he knows that tone. He knows exactly what the start of one of Magneto's speeches sounds like, and his knee-jerk response is, No. But he hesitates. After everything Erik has said on the network, he wants to hear what comes next.

Of course he knows, abstractly, what his father went through, but so few of those stories were personal, so little of that knowledge came from the man himself, and it's different to hear him describe it. When Erik says my uncle, Pietro realizes that could be his family, too, another potential member of the sprawling web he feels so adrift without, but Pietro doesn't know for sure because he and his father never talk. Nearly every blood relation before Erik and Magda is an empty, faceless void for him — and for once, he doesn't blame his father for that; he blames the people who murdered them.

Django and Marya rarely spoke of it in front of them, but Pietro knows they were survivors, too. He remembers the haunted looks they tried to bury, the bitter absence of surprise when those in power continued to treat their people like a disease to be cleansed. For them, some things didn't end in 1945 — and in truth still hadn't ended. It's why he finds it so difficult to trust anyone else's idea of the right thing; it's why he's so quick to condemn anything that remotely resembles silencing. And it's why he feels so isolated now, that so many of the people he might otherwise count as friends don't understand.

But Erik does, in a way. So as wary as he is, Pietro finally turns on the comm to reply. He doesn't even look shaken, just determined. ]

The question then becomes, what's the alternative?

[ Yes, he's speaking civilly to you. No, he's not going to act like that's remotely unusual. Take it or leave it. ]

private video;

[wecanavenge]

[He might be wary, if his thoughts were elsewhere, if his mind was calmer. Wary and intrigued, because the one full conversation they've had was full of warnings and barely concealed vitriol. But the vitriol is everywhere, today, but not between them, and for the moment it's enough. Civility is enough, unusual or not. He'll take it.]

Some have been offered. Some might even be acceptable.

What would you suggest?

video

[fire_punk]

[Kevin only really grasps about half of what Erik said. The history of it sounds vaguely familiar from right before he stopped going to school. That's not what he really grasps, though. What he does grasp leaves him with visions of flames, bloody vases, and closed eyes.]

They... made you do things? Like... like Mom... Yvette made me do?

video

[wecanavenge]

They made me work. [Each word is bitten off, bitter and angry because he is never good at redirecting his emotion to spare the people he speaks with.] They made us work until we died and could be replaced.

[worsetodie]

You say demotion is not enough, but really -- by your own words, you do not think that working to redeem oneself in a place where one fails, and fails, and fails -- that only favors by fortune -- is not enough?

[wecanavenge]

It's what I endure every day, though I've never lifted a finger against this ship or its inhabitants - so no. It's not enough.

Video; private.

[fridgetothefire]

[It's a while, before she responds. When she does, it's quiet, but totally steady, totally certain.]

I am, at heart, a selfish person. I am glad, and grateful, that you survived.

[She can't make him forgive himself for the part he played. But she has that much truth to give, that doing what he had to do led, later, to something worthwhile.]

Video; private.

[wecanavenge]

[Erik is not good at battling emotions. This is the closest he's felt to balancing rage and serenity in days, except it's rage and the abrupt desire to kill the feel until he doesn't think he will embarrass himself with tears. For a long moment he's silent, and when he speaks it's quieter than he has been but no less fierce, and no more steady.]

Thank you.

[darknessb4me]

Interesting.

[secretasshole]

[David isn't quite certain how to respond to this, because righteous fury isn't really something he's had much personal experience with.

Still. He respects Erik - as much as he's ever respected anyone, really, which admittedly isn't saying much - and so he does eventually click on the feed to reply.]

Is there any way I can be of assistance, Mr. Lensherr?

[wecanavenge]

[He almost says no, almost brushes it away, but he pauses instead.]

Did this happen, in your world?