First Cigar | video

[absolute_justice]

[ The video flicks on. A large man, tattoos wrapping up the sides of his neck under his hawaiian shirt and a large white coat that does nothing to hide his size; quite the contrary. The face, rough-hewn with a goatee and hard eyes, is topped by a similar white hat emblazoned with the word 'MARINE' in all caps. Clenched between his teeth, the cigar only adds to the aura of disdain he has as he stares at the camera. ]

From everything I've heard, our new arrivals came from quite the circus: a rightfully dismantled one.

But that leaves us with inferior parts in our well-oiled machine. So those parts are going to have to get with the program. This is your first and only reminder: you're not at amateur hour anymore. This? Is the Galley, where absolute justice reigns supreme.

Any sign of weakness or any show of sympathy to the evil in our midst is more dangerous than anything any one of them can do. Asking for leniency? Traitor's work. We are here to serve justice. We are here on behalf of our worlds and the worlds that eradicated these threats to make them pay the way they wouldn't in life. We are here to protect those worlds from these threats. To make them know the price of their evil.

If you are an Advocate of this ship, it is not just your job but your duty to ensure that the laws of this vessel are followed. Everything you do to our prisoners is done in service to the worlds that they damaged or destroyed. Remember who you're working for. Remember what you came here for.

If any of you need any further instructions, you'll know where to find me.

[ If you're looking for him, he's hard to miss: not only does he wander around everywhere making sure that no prisoner is where they shouldn't be or even moving around without permission, but there's the scent of cigar smoke like a warning bell as he approaches. He's also a massive, imposing silhouette. Don't think he's just focused on the new prisoners, though: he's got his eye on the Advocates, especially any of the new arrivals from the Barge. He doesn't trust any of you yet. He probably never will.]

hard times / open!

[tarakan]

Hilbert is fine. He is just fine. He has to be just fine because the alternative, getting angry about this, won't be of any use. Push it all down, deal with feelings later, just focus on the here and now for the moment. He has a specific end date for his crimes. He will get out of here eventually. He is fine.

He's not fine, but considering he honestly has no idea how to deal with that, repression is the name of the day.

It's no big secret that Dr. Nerd doesn't have much experience with manual labor. Whenever he does his shift at the oar bank, at the end of it, he leaves without hesitation, but then spends the next few minutes in a nearby corridor, out of the main flow of traffic, inspecting the blisters on his hands. He'll try and grab the attention of anyone else who looks beaten up or not used to this sort of work before rather rudely trying to manhandle them in the corridor, away from prying eyes as well.

The yard is Hilbert's place of choice, especially as there's a few chessboards set up. And Hilbert is annoyingly good at chess. Most days you can find him sitting at a chessboard, thinking to himself, while also scanning the yard for anybody who might give him a good game as well as just looking for someone in particular. If he spots an Advocate, however, he'll walk up to them and ask two questions. One, is there any way for Prisoners to request or purchase certain items? Two, have they seen a young man, smaller than he is, who goes by the name of John Mandrake?

It's not that Hilbert's worried about Mandrake or anything. Certainly not. That would imply sentimentality and he has no room for that. It's simply that he'd rather the young man not be on this ship. That's it. Nothing more.

Open!

[nobanenogain]

The chaos of the passengers arriving on the ship does little to move Bane from his time at the oars. They will learn, or they will die: same as all of them.

He makes a fearsome silhouette at the oars, rowing in time with his breathing, hardly ever stopping for a break. The lack of a hand or eye doesn't slow him down at all; he feels at home, here, and will eye any Advocate that gets too close with a stare that lasts an uncomfortable amount of time. They can imagine he's thinking about what their bodies would look like after he gets the opportunity to tear through them.

Only in his thoughts is Bane free.

His loyalty is earned. He ignores the weak Prisoners and the chatty ones, but those who put in effort to make themselves smarter and stronger are given a moderate amount of respect. Which, for this prisoner, means that he doesn't object to them coming near him by delivering a broken bone in the Yard.

He walks like a king among men when he bothers to get up from the oars, observing with a far-too-shrewd look at those who will cause the most trouble among Advocates.

It's difficult to see, but he will occasionally grant the rare, amused smile at those who are far too mouthy for their own good.

footsteps on the endless path

[riseunparalleled]

Who: Xie Lian & Open
What: He's having a bad time, in a number of ways
Where: Around the prisoner accessible parts of the Galley
When: First part of August
Warnings: for now mentions of violence, abuse of power, flashbacks

Xie Lian does know how it can it can sound when he says things aren't so bad, which is mostly why he tries to avoid saying it out loud, but he's being honest with himself when he thinks the Galley isn't so bad as it could be.

It's not that he likes it, or wants to try to carry out his endless sentence (which doesn't even cover some of the worst things he's done, leaving those ghosts for him to continue to carry alone), but this isn't his first time he's been in a somewhat similar situation. It's also far from the worst of those times.

When he'd lost his cultivation, after the second cursed shackle when he'd first experience what it truly meant to have nothing and no one... Well, it's not something he sees a reason to think about. But the point is that he'd had to learn to survive, and on the Galley there's food and a place to sleep and a solid understanding of the world. There are even people he cares about, though that's a knife that always cuts both ways.

So his smile is occasionally tired, but not fake. He doesn't want people to worry, but that's because there's no need for them to worry.

He wouldn't claim life on the Galley is pleasant. It's good he knows where a number of the people he cares about are, but 'where they are' isn't great, and he's worried for them. And the closed nature of the ship does mean that his bad luck feels rather... concentrated. He knows there are plenty of prisoners who are good people, whatever they might have done, and that there are plenty of Advocates who, even if he might disagree with their definition, believe in justice and doing the right thing. The number of unfortunate encounters he's had with prisoners and advocates who prefer to be the worst they can be instead is just one of those statistically improbable things that come with his luck. But he can think of worse situations.

When Xie Lian isn't on the oar bank, he likes to spends a little time on deck staring out into space. He works his way through meals in the main mess hall, not necessarily particularly talkative but always looking out for people he knows to sit with to enjoy their company. He carefully goes through stretches and other exercises in the yard as well playing games and sometimes trying to practice his reading.

He tends to look a little tired, and he doesn't appreciate the lack of bandages making the iron shackle obvious around his neck, but there doesn't necessarily seem to be much of a difference in attitude or expression.