wecanavenge | ✘ | 019

✘ | 019 | VIDEO + SPAM

[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.

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And I'm glad I had this chance to know you.

[They may end up at odds again - there is plenty they still disagree on - but she'll never forget his voice in her ear, awkwardly kind.]

You're right, about the barge. It isn't fair or safe or anything close. It is half luck, maybe more.

[she shrugs] But half a chance is better than what I had before.

It's not-- [He pauses, marshalling himself and finding exactly what he wants to say.]

It's not that it's never worth it. It's that a stranger, who has no real concern for us, has no right to judge us.

[She doesn't respond immediately, taking the time to mull over his words. The Admiral's brought her back from the dead three times. He's got some sort of stake in her, and she's got plenty in his approval. But he's also at least partly responsible for two of the deaths, and really, power not giving him the right is Erik's whole point, one she agrees with.]

He doesn't, really. But I've lived most of my life at the mercy of demigods, and I prefer capricious and presumptuous to...contemptuous. Repulsed.

I suppose that makes me coward.

No. [It's an immediate answer, and he shakes his head slowly.] No, it doesn't. [He runs a hand over his face, pushes back his hair and lets out a long breath.]

But I'm tired of seeing you, and the other people I care about hurt because of him.

[She's not convinced; she wants to hold onto hers and chooses her battles reluctantly even in the face of suffering, and she thinks that's maybe the definition of a coward. But she doesn't have the heart to say it, not in the face of you are people I care about.]

He doesn't hurt us much though, does he? Not directly. He just throws us in a crucible and lets us hurt each other.

Hell of a way to teach responsibility.

[She means that in all senses of the word.]

A crucible. [He smiles bitterly, shaking his head and looking away for just a moment.] Have you read it? Seen the play?

[She smiles too, and it's the same expression on her face, even if by features she resembles Magda more.]

I was imagining it in the metallurgic sense, more than the literary, but I suppose it goes back to the same symbol.

[she nods]

Read it, never seen a performance. I haven't exactly had the chance for much theatergoing.

He could stop it, and he doesn't. It's the same story. [Because there will always be witch hunts, and there will always be the people who could have stopped them.]

[She thinks maybe she's figured out something important, about how the barge works and how the Admiral thinks, but it feels fragile and tenuous; she isn't willing to fling it into the razors of Erik's convictions just yet.]

Personally, I'd rather blame the guilty than the complicit. But I can see why you'd feel differently.

[He shakes his head.] They aren't always different. These books...[He nods to the piles on his desk.] They talk about soldiers who had no idea, or who went along with their work because their families were at risk, but they're wrong. Soldiers were never threatened. All they had to do was say no. No one did.

What is that, if not guilty?

...because treason typically goes unpunished in fascist militaries. You have a funny definition of unthreatened, Erik.

[she holds up a hand to forestall him]

But we weren't talking about Nazi soldiers. As important as the lessons from the second world war are, it isn't productive to conduct other moral arguments by proxy through holocaust metaphor. Absolute evil is kind of a big force multiplier, and it tends to distort things.

We were talking about the Admiral. That he isn't fair the way he claims - does he claim that? And that he has no right to judge, and that you're tired of people hurting when he could prevent it.

Which leaves us with three considerations. Can he avoid judging, given the power he has? He could always cease meddling altogether, but then most of us would still be dead. Can he really prevent us hurting one another without changing who we are or locking us up in individual oubliettes indefinitely? I'd consider either a worse violation, and it's worth examining whether or not he's as omnipotent as he lets us assume. I doubt he wanted his ship hijacked, but who knows.

And lastly, if we do decide to hold him responsible for what we do to each other, what exactly should we do about it?

I have the definition I witnessed. It wasn't treason. If they didn't want to work in the camp, they were transferred. [He shakes his head, frustration, aggravation evident.] They weren't absolute evil, Anya. They were people told lies. What do you think is happening here? He tells wardens that inmates are bad people in need of redemption. And he's so far out of reach that there is nothing to be done about it. So we continue on, operating inside the parameters he's given us, because he's left us no other choice.

Do you wonder why so few people graduate? There's your answer. We have no choice here but to bow and scrape, or resist and accomplish nothing.

I did a lot more bowing and scraping before I got on this than boat than after.

Who demanded that of you? I think perhaps that's something that should be taken up with them. And I dare say people don't graduate often because becoming a better person is actually incredibly difficult.

[She purses her mouth, focused, like she struggling with something.]

I really don't understand what you want out of this, what you want me to say. Do you want me to admit everything is hopeless, slavery or perpetual pyrrhic revolt, stand back to back with you, screaming in self-admitted uselessness to stave off despair? Because that feels like giving up to me, and I've got too many good things in my life right now, for the first time since I was burned alive, to do that.

You're right that the system is very deeply broken. You're wrong that there's nothing we can do about it - Tosh took over, and there are people here who vaguely understand how. I honestly wouldn't trust a single person on this boat not to screw things up worse than the Admiral does, but the option is there if you want to agitate for that. There are demands you could make of the wardens, persuade enough inmates to make life difficult enough - the kitchens have almost broken down frequently in the last few months, a targeted strike there would be worth all kinds of leverage. I mean - I don't know, you're the one with the grievances, you figure it out.

[He can't deny she has a point, and he shakes his head sharply.]

Of course that's not what I want. But what would taking over gain us? What would a targeted strike and leverage yield? Then I would be the dictator. [He smiles, and it's thin and bitter.] None of us want that.

[That makes her smile too, and it's thin, but less bitter.]

No. I didn't say you ought to install yourself, of course. We could put up a billboard of potential benevolents, disqualify them one by one.

And leverage yields concessions, not total authority, unless you had the minions to guard the food at all times and no one zeroed you for it, which would result in a war zone, which would be worse.

The point is, if you can come up with one concrete demand - 'stop treating inmates like they're automatically bad people' has the seed of one, even if it's subjective and vague and not all wardens do that to start with - then make that demand. Make it publicly. You've got a lot of standing right now, and if people though it would accomplish something specific, they'd flock. Get everyone who assists essential functions to refuse until it's met. Things would change. Not everything overnight, but something real, or else the barge would fall apart.

You just have to stop treating surrender and anger as the only options, and decide on something you actually want. But if you can't come up with anywhere you'd like to even start fixing things, no one else is going to figure it out for you.

[It's doing instead of talking; he never used to bother talking at all, and now he feels like his hands are tied by the nature of the ship. Nothing changes. How can anything change if he doesn't try?]

You have a point. [And it's going to require a lot of thought, and restructuring his expectations. At least he'll have something to do for the next week.]

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✘ | 019 | VIDEO + SPAM

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