PARADISA

[dictated. he sounds like he is in a fine mood. :D]

I think the last time there was a carnival around here, the powers-that-be turned me into a woman for the week. And if I recall correctly, I made a game out of seeing how many people could be easily duped by a pretty face.

Got all the way up into the twenties, I think. That was fun.

It's kind of a shame it doesn't work as well the other way around.

This trip is bullshit.

I hope that there's a serial killer out in the woods. I hope that he murders all of you.

Preemptive dibs on the bed with the least amount of blood on it.

[this iJournal message is brought to you by the surly teenager on the roof of the Marian Family Cabin. how did he get up on the roof? he doesn't know, but it's better than talking to any of you losers.]

( Rin )

[written;]

What is the absolute worst thing a person could lose?

[there's some stray noise over the journal. pillows getting moved around, the kind of dictation of someone not particularly paying attention to their journal...]

The question is, do you call this spite or predictability?

[there's some quiet, toddler-ish humming before said toddler shrieks into girlish giggling. because Zelman knows that tickling is extremely effective.]

I'm a little disappointed.

[dictated. he's a little quiet, but that might be because he sounds like he's in a library or something--otherwise sounding perfectly smarmy and collected as usual.]

Here's something I wonder.

Let's say that someone finally finds that fabled "way out of Paradisa". They're able to share this with the rest of the residents without being immediately magicked away or vanishing under mysterious circumstances. But it's discovered in such a way that makes a certain catch known--it's all or nothing. Everyone goes back to their own realities, or everyone stays right where they are.

Who would rather leave, knowing that many here have nothing but death or misery to return to? Who would rather refuse, knowing that some have been trying to return to their lives and loved ones for years?

[but that's awfully personal. that's heavy. let's take it back a step.]

Though I know questions of morality are awfully open-ended. This is just thinking. What I'm really curious about is this: if the residents here, now, were presented with such an option, what do you think would happen? How would the situation be handled--if it's really handled at all?

[he's a little late to wake up. the funny thing about being dead is that medicine (or any kind of "cure") doesn't really work the way it should. poisonous bites from mutant space lobsters shouldn't work either, but that's something he'll pick apart later. for now he is wholly occupied with the vague recollection of the Last Thing He Was Doing, the headache that suddenly knocked him right into torpor, and now, the clinic's boring, uniform ceiling.

he sounds a little groggy, having woken up from the sleep of the damned and all.]

Ah... I hate this room.


[[ooc: aaand he's just regained consciousness! this is over the journal, but people are welcome to bother him in the clinic as well.]]

( private )

[FILTERED TO GOOD GUYS; past, present, future PP members, people who have the good of the whole castle in mind, people with generally reasonable moral values, etc, etc.]

I am going to say this as clearly as possible. Legato needs to be let out, now.

Skeptical? Let me give you a little incentive.

For those who might be new to the situation, this man is being held prisoner by the Peace Patrol. He has the ability to take control of other people, with the option of taking away their free will. It's ranged, and probably more familiar to him than his own arms. He's being kept for a number of reasons: murder, mind-control, assisting a bunch of bad guys who nearly got away with it, the list goes on. He's been down there for, oh, seven months now.

He's been locked up and cut off from the outside world. I don't mean human contact--though I wouldn't be surprised if that's in short supply too--he's cut off from his ability, his connection to things beyond that little room of his. He has, more or less, become isolated from any external stimulation. And what no one seems to understand is that people like him don't just turn off. They don't stop because they've been set still. They keep going.

So, now, for the sake of this explanation, assume that there are two kinds of people--players and pieces. Legato was previously a piece. He was incomplete. He did not function well without someone or something to follow. Even if his thoughts were ultimately his own, you could say that he lived to serve others. And that was his weakness--that's why he followed Riful, that's why he went along with all of her plans, that's why he caused so much damage and got himself locked up to begin with.

But that's not the truth anymore. He's been down there with nothing to keep him occupied but his own thoughts. All of his ties have left or failed to live up to his expectations and now, after seven months, he's had plenty of time to rationalize around it. He's had time to rebuild his thoughts, rebuild his dependencies, and rebuild himself. He's had time to complete himself. Now there's nothing to follow but a grander sense that this is all some sort of fucked-up challenge before he goes back home. He is not a piece anymore, he is an independently functioning player, and the longer he's kept down there, the longer you are essentially creating a monster.

Let me put this in another light. With nothing to keep him busy or distracted, he has essentially been trapped in his own head. He is a creature of loathing and disgust, and it doesn't take a psychiatrist to know that seeping in those thoughts isn't going to make him magically get better. He won't suddenly change his mind and become a nice person. He's going to sit and saturate and get worse until he becomes completely unmanageable. Every day he spends down there is another chance for him to become impossible to reason with. How long until he stops listening to people? How long will it take for his hatred to become so consuming that he decides to do as much damage as possible the moment he's out?

You are sitting on a ticking time bomb. If you want to know how I know, consider this: he had to go somewhere during that little stunt last week, and it sure wasn't the ballroom.

[he stops here to... take a breath. let that sink. collect himself and work on sounding a little less like he wants to flip a table or something.]

It's not that hard to figure out. Since the majority of you seem to be against killing him, get him out of there before you run out of other choices. He's not stupid, he's not going to go on a murderous rampage, and he's not going to do anything to get himself thrown right back into the little personal hell you have him locked in. If you don't have the technology yet, fine. If you don't have the precise power yet, fine. If he lashes out, all you need is someone who can shut him down or knock him out, drag him back to the basement, and then let him out again when he promises to behave. I know at least one person who could do it, and there's got to be more. Brainstorm, tag team, whatever. You're supposed to be good at that sort of thing.

The time it takes for him to think up and enact anything remotely devious should be plenty of time to develop one of the proposed methods for keeping him generally harmless. Hell, you might even be able to convince him to go along with it, given his alternatives. Anything is better than letting him fester down there. Let him out while he still has a reason to play nice.

Tch, the fact that I have to point any of this out is depressing. You'd think it'd be common fucking sense.


[ooc: the cut is meant to be as inclusive as possible, so if you can rationalize your character being a 'good guy' then they can totally see this. a-and sorry it's so long, he just has a lot of feelings right now. ;A;// THREADHOP AS MUCH AS YOU WANT, it'd be cool to get some IC decisions out of this! C:]

( galadriel )

( felix )

[and then there's some bored dictation for the rest of the castle.]

Give it another month or so, and I will have been here for four years. While I'll agree that spontaneously losing parts of yourself and being elaborately confined are obnoxious, I'm beginning to think the worst part is how people don't stick around long enough to get anything done. Four years, and so little to show for it.

But now, some former residents are arriving with their previous memories still intact. It's a bit like adding insult to injury, watching the powers-that-be pick and choose who remembers and who has to have things explained to them all over again.

If anyone's thinking [he stops himself mid-sentence and crosses that part out pretty thoroughly. not important.]