batmanschmatman | 098 [voice]

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098 [voice]

[Extremely Broad Friends Filter - if you've had a single positive conversation with him over the past year and a couple months, you're on it.]

So, has anyone noticed anything different about themselves?

[Private to Tim]

How do you feel about sparring later today? [This is totally not code for I'm checking up on you and if you choose to read that into it well. Dammit Tim. Why would you ever think that? It's not like that's something he would do. >>]

[Private to Buffy]

So. [This is a little awkward. :c] Should we maybe talk about what happened?

[Private to Jim, added later]

Can I come over?

[ooc: Dick's totally unaffected. Come bother him though. c:]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I've noticed. [Har har.] I hate ones like this, especially when most of them don't even seem to think anyone's acting differently.

How are you doing?

Now I've had a week for the 'what the hell' of that last port to recede? I'm okay. You?

Pretty good. What happened in port?

To me?

Skinner box full of bloodthirsty monsters.

... Sounds like fun.

I think we have different definitions of 'fun'. [Any sarcasm aside, no, we don't :c]

And maybe it's just me, but did it all feel a little too...appropriate, to you? Like the Admiral knew what was going on ahead of time - like he'd hired us out to fix their problem. Not that I'm necessarily complaining [because who doesn't love heroics amirite] but it would've been nice to know ahead of time.

I don't know. I mean, he could have, but I think that's the first time since I've been here we've ever had to help the natives somewhere solve a problem. Usually it's more just go out and blow off some steam, try not to die or get lost.

Maybe he's trying out something new. All I'm saying is, I assume the Barge can land anywhere in time and space, so to land in that place at that time doesn't feel like coincidence.

Or maybe I'm just bored as hell and trying to see a case where there isn't one. Not like there's anything I could do with it anyway.

Might as well take what you can get. Who knew you could miss having paperwork to file?

If you're telling me you can't find a way for this place to generate paperwork then you haven't been looking hard enough.

How do you fill then day, then?

It would be like herding cats or trying to drain the ocean. As bored as I am, I'm not looking to be Sisyphus, here.

Me personally? I work out a lot, I spar with people, go up to the CES, read, try to damage control when particularly bad floods hit. It's a great place to catch up on stuff you've never really had time to do at home.

Edited 2012-04-29 00:28 (UTC)

Great. Guess I'll finally have time to write that novel that's gonna pay for my early retirement.

Mind my asking how bad is 'particularly bad'?

I'm sure you'll get plenty of material for it here.

It varies. Certain events hit some people harder than others. I'd say the worst it's ever been was when we crashed into or some of us got stranded on an alternate Barge, or last October when the ship got was taken over by some being that goes by Randall Flagg.

In what way 'alternate'?

...

I'm sorry if I'm stirring up some bad history here, but the more I find out about the Barge the more I learn about what I didn't sign on for. I'd like to know what the worst I need to be braced for is likely to be.

No, it's totally fine. It's better you go in prepared than get blindsided by it if it ever happens again.

This might seem like a non sequitur, but have you ever seen Star Trek?

Maybe caught a couple of the movies when I was a kid, but I wouldn't call myself a fan. When I want something with no basis in reality I'll watch CSI. Why?

There was an episode where something happens - the transporter malfunctions or something like that - [Tim's the Star Trek fan in the family, how's he supposed to know?] and a couple of the characters get stuck in this alternate universe where the Federation is evil, and they've suddenly got a bunch of psychopaths as coworkers who don't know why they're acting so differently from their usual, murderous selves.

Basically, imagine that exact same scenario except the Barge.

[There is maybe a five minute pause before she replies, because she has spent exactly that long freaking right the fuck out and then forcing herself to not project that.]

Has that happened more than once?

[That is a totally legitimate reaction to have. :|]

Yeah. Only once in the time I've been here, but I know some people remembered it had happened before.

[This is very much 'should I just cut my losses and go home right now' stuff right here.]

Do you know the interval between the first time and the second?

[I.e. given the Admiral's weird pseudo-scheduling, when can I expect this to happen again D:]

[Noooo Sara don't go :C]

I'm not sure on the actual dates, but about a year and a half? But it might never happen again, for all we know.

[Look do you have a bloodthirsty sentient superweapon welded to your arm partly because you don't trust anyone else to not use it to DESTROY ALL THE THINGS? Probably not. :c]

By the same logic, for all we know it could happen next month.

...sorry. It's getting easier to tell why the Admiral doesn't bother with full disclosure.

[... My parents are dead. :c]

I know it sounds awful, and I'm definitely not in any rush to do it again? But as long as you know what to expect, you should get through okay.

Not much else to do but get through, right? [Possibly not aware that the communicator picks this up:] Story of my goddamn life.

That's really all any of us can do. [He heard it. :V] And there are bright spots. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, or fun, but we'll all get through it.