"I am NOT on a boat, motherfucker."

[deadliestviper]

As Budd and Elle noted, there are a lot of R's in my story. Revenge, for instance. Rampage. Regret, rage, relief, respect, resignation, rape, remorse, redemption. And you, sweetheart, you seem to have forgotten that last one.

Yeah, I'm a bad person. You know this, I know this, it's common knowledge. No one lives the life I have and comes out looking like a martyr, it just doesn't happen. But that doesn't mean everything I did was evil. Ugly, yes, destructive as well, but it was honorable. It was right, at least in my eyes. My actions – dare I say it – redeemed me. I had what I needed. I had more than I needed; I had my humanity.

So why throw that out and rearrange my story for the sake of redemption? Why bring in anyone else to help me down that path? Trust me, I've got this. And even if I don't, I can handle the consequences. You and I both know I'm never going to be a good girl. So why are you still pushing to apply me for a game where I'd have to answer to a morality auditor?

Seriously. What are you punishing me for?

Comments

[dielikeasamurai]

Redemption is also a forest. But it's so much less tangible than revenge. How can you tell when it's been accomplished? When these hypocritical moral arbiters say so, or some mysterious, semi-mythical authority figure decides you've passed the grade? I can't see you doing it. What could it possibly mean to you, or anybody like us?

[deadliestviper]

You're asking questions I can't answer. Revenge I can understand, redemption is only a word. The closest you or I could come to it is as far as our honor will allow us.

[dielikeasamurai]

So you think it even exists?

[deadliestviper]

Not for us.

[dielikeasamurai]

Then you are in trouble, if you think it exists at all.

[deadliestviper]

Tell me something I don't know; like your reasoning.

[dielikeasamurai]

It's like this: you've already said you have honor, and if you go, you'll hear that worse people than you have been "redeemed," whatever that means. And you'll start to wonder, and even the smallest questioning of what you believe about who we are will become a sickness, until you have to follow it down to see where it goes. Because there won't be anything else to do. Because you'll want to know. Because what if it's true?

This forest, you may not find your way out.

[deadliestviper]

This sickness has never afflicted you, has it.

[dielikeasamurai]

Of course not.

[deadliestviper]

What I wouldn't give to be you right now.