[63] - [Voice]

[doctor_j_crane]

For once, I want to hear the opinions of all of you. Wardens, inmates. I don't particularly care which. What do you consider necessary for graduation? Where's the bar that your inmate has to reach? That you think you have to reach as an inmate?

While I've spent most of my life dealing in moral ambiguity, the spectacularly difficult task of identifying just what makes graduating possible is beyond me. It seems to be like some variety of mirage, which you spend all your time following in the hope that one day someone will declare you standing in the middle of it. It's an impossibly frustrating target.


[Private - Eames]

This isn't a criticism of you. I just want to know what they think.

Comments

Private

[plz-gtfo-dragon.livejournal.com]

Honestly, right now it seems so far out of reach as not to be worth contemplating. I thought that keeping my hands clean here would get me there faster, but my naive faith in behaving myself has not been rewarded.

So I suppose the change does need to be ephemeral rather than physical. Good behavior isn't enough, if you're still the same on the inside.

Private

[doctor-j-crane.livejournal.com]

I'm currently in a similar situation. Keeping my nose clean has done little to assist anything. It's only gotten me killed and made me seem like an easy target for further violence.

Glorious. They may as well just brainwash us all.

Private

[plz-gtfo-dragon.livejournal.com]

You're...[Resisting the urge to fourth wall you] ...a doctor, aren't you? Do you know at least what brought you here?

Private

[doctor-j-crane.livejournal.com]

I know what brought me here. I wouldn't repeat the action, if only to avoid ending up back here.

Private

[plz-gtfo-dragon.livejournal.com]

You're certainly more reformed than I am then, If you put me back down in my life again tomorrow, I'd go right back to doing my job. [Pause.] Not that I'd had much choice about that the year before I came to this place.

[notiaraincluded.livejournal.com]

If I had to sum it up, I'd say the operative word for graduation is change.

Whatever it is that brought you here in the first place has to change. Real change.

[Private]

[doctor-j-crane.livejournal.com]

But change to what, exactly? How is it even possible to judge something so relative like that?

[Private]

[notiaraincluded.livejournal.com]

That's dependent on the Inmate. I know exactly what it is about my Inmate that needs to change in order for him to graduate, and he knows what it is too.

So it's actually not relative at all. The reason you're here and what you have to do to get out of here should be listed in your file, which your Warden gets.

[Private]

[doctor-j-crane.livejournal.com]

I've read my file. It doesn't have any kind of shopping list of what I need to change to get out of here.

[some-kinda-hero.livejournal.com]

Doctor Crane, it... It's different for every Inmate. But, usually, it requires the Inmate admitting what they did in their past life wasn't morally acceptable, or right. Sometimes it requires more interaction with people, positive socializing. Like Luke said, change.

Why are you asking?

[Private]

[doctor-j-crane.livejournal.com]

I'm asking because of my frustrations with the system. I barely responded to Iago killing me, and there seems to not be any tangible reward from that. As far as I can see, given my behavior in that situation there's no reason why I shouldn't graduate.

[Private]

[some-kinda-hero.livejournal.com]

You think you should graduate just because you didn't exempt revenge or anything on Iago? [Her tone is not at all condescending or skeptical. She is genuine in her interest by asking.]

[Private]

[doctor-j-crane.livejournal.com]

Why not? Doesn't it show progress?

Private;

[puzzleprince.livejournal.com]

Empathy.

Private;

[doctor-j-crane.livejournal.com]

I am empathetic. I've expressed sympathy when something negative has happened to you.

Private;

[puzzleprince.livejournal.com]

To me-- to your friends? To people within your immediate circle? Some might consider that too narrow for graduation.

Do you empathize with your victims?

Private;

[doctor-j-crane.livejournal.com]

I don't see why I should emphasize with everyone. Frankly, it seems strange to do so to people who clearly don't deserve it.

[Pause.] I know that I took the wrong course of action in that situation.

[Private]

[most_feared]

I think-

[Pause, because he's not really sure.]

-I think it's different for everyone.

Maybe when it stops being worth it to hurt someone that you feel has taken advantage of you or wronged you, or just to see them scared and in pain. Maybe that'll be when you're almost there.

[Private]

[doctor-j-crane.livejournal.com]

That's what everyone keeps telling me. It's very frustrating, to say the least.

I didn't kill Iago for killing me, did I? And still no tangible results.

[Private]

[most_feared]

The only tangible results that would have come with killing him would have just dicked you over. I'm not even talking about "feeling bad about yourself" or whatever. I'm talking about the months of suspicion after you made the fear gas and how showing off Rex getting killed got you attacked, killed apparently, put in Zero, and harassed by a dozen people. Some of which haven't forgiven you for either.

It's not worth it. You don't have to fuckin' like Rex or Iago. Or think they deserve sympathy after putting you through bullshit. But all doing anything to them is gonna do is screw over your future attempts at legitimate research.

So, what's more worth it, graduating and being able to be a scientist with a clean record again? Or just waiting for the next chance to show up the people you hate.

[Private]

[doctor-j-crane.livejournal.com]

It's not my responsibility if other people can't let things go. Their lack of flexibility regarding the issue is their problem, not mine.

I know. That's why I haven't done anything to either of them recently. But doing that has gotten me nowhere. I didn't kill Iago, which is the social equivalent of showing myself as an easy target, but there's been little to no acknowledgment that I took the right course of action.

Surely you must understand the appeal of acting otherwise. Instant results, compared to graduation which I strongly suspect is never going to happen.

Private

[aforger]

Do you feel that way about graduation?

Private

[doctor-j-crane.livejournal.com]

Yes. I just want to leave. That's it. But there's no way to see how to do that.

Private

[aforger]

I can give you specific lists, if you like, but it won't do as well to help you.

Private;

[doctor-j-crane.livejournal.com]

I would like lists. It gives me something solid to work with.