10 ⚜ Audio

[restingstitchface]

[Anyone who's familiar with Crane will recognize his compulsive need to study fear. But what's the curious thing, here? His approach. His voice is as soft and calm as it had been upon his arrival. It gives an impression of frailty that's deliberately misleading. There was nothing about him that sounded like the Scarecrow. And that's the frightening thing.]

Machiavelli once said, "And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved."

I put his question to you all; is it better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved?

[He likes the idea of letting the piddling powers in this place believe he's behaving himself; listening to that silly therapist he'd encountered recently. Maybe his audience all be dishonest in their answers. Frightened. Scared. He indulges in a smile. He will have to confirm all of their opinions with an experiment, of course.]

Comments

[restingstitchface]

[Don't ask. It's hell.]

What you call self-reflection I call vanity. Your opinion requires I feel some degree of self-loathing and insecurity. I'm quite happy with who I am. I believe in what I do. Accept it.

[glowsferatu]

Not self-loathing or insecurity, necessarily. But less delusion and hypocrisy.

It's one thing to confidently settle oneself into the garbage can, but quite another to treat it as a palace, and to pretend that any other accommodation makes its resident a fool.

[restingstitchface]

[Hey, excuse you. He is the king of Arkham Gotham his trash can! He rode a horse; that makes it official.]

Better to settle one's self with confidence and dignity than to be dragged down kicking and screaming, and to look the fool. [He'd been catatonic for his fall; he doesn't remember parts of it. But other scraps are incredibly detailed and full of life.]

[glowsferatu]

[ Hey, a horse is cooler than a gavel. ]

That itself is the delusion, that you think you don't look the fool either way. Thinking you've come out of it otherwise makes you more the fool.

[restingstitchface]

[Don't diss his future gavel. It's a symbol of power, and we know how he loves wielding power.]

That's what you believe. You're free to do so, like I'm free to disagree. In fact, I've never felt so independant before. It's quite nice.

[Prison? Hey, he's free in mind and spirit.]

[glowsferatu]

[ Symbols of power always gotta be so phallic, what's the deal with that? ]

If the word is in any way applicable to the circumstances we're discussing, then it has truly become meaningless.

Some things go beyond opinion, or, at least, beyond the single individual opinion you're dismissing. I have to wonder how much less wrong you think it makes you every time a new one to dismiss presents itself to you.

[restingstitchface]

[The deal is you people are vulgar. There's no sexual power in such an object; he doesn't see it. Much like he sees no creative thought in your small minds, whatsoever.]

The opinion of the group, then. Your democratic consensus holds that I must be wrong through being in the minority. But I am not one of you. Your opinion holds no sway over me. It's irrelevant.

[glowsferatu]

You aren't wrong purely by nature of being in the minority, that's more a symptom of it. It only shows that you have no interest in being anything other than wrong, that you have no ambition beyond such blatant foolishness.

Let's take your opening question as an example, since you've ignored my point about Machiavelli's intention. Believing fear is safer is self-sabotage in the making! It supposes that fear can only inspire inaction, when you should know from experience just how easily it can lead to the opposite. People hate what they fear, and in enough numbers, they won't hesitate to destroy the source.

[restingstitchface]

I know perfectly well of the flight or fight response; that psychological action occurs in times of acute stress. The function of physiological changes and emotional regulation and reactivity. I have performed inordinate amount of studies on it. It is because they exist in a constant state of fear that they are able to take action. If they loved their oppressor, they wouldn't hesitate to defend him with their lives. Perhaps because they fear a loss of their own personal and public status.

You are measuring me by your own paltry standard of ambition. I hold myself to something higher that you cannot fathom, let alone understand. Regardless, like I claim, your opinion is irrelevant to me. Nothing you say actually matters.

[glowsferatu]

There you go again, talking as if you're some inscrutable, misunderstood genius, and not an insufferable and petty little man. I can believe that you know many things, Mr. Crane, but you certainly don't understand very much, least of all people.

I think you only know how to inspire one or two different reactions, so you've convinced yourself that you must be brilliant after the fact, that it's what you always meant to do.

[restingstitchface]

Everyone's meant for something.

This just happens to be my calling. You speak as though it's a crime to enjoy myself. [He's committed crimes for his work. Get it? And he does enjoy his work. Striking terror into others.] I'm only acting the way I was made. To be abnormal is to go against the natural. That, too, is a crime to many. But you can't have it both ways, you know.

[glowsferatu]

You way you enjoy yourself is a crime, you'd think your incarceration might have clued you in to that fact.

Arguments of nature are a weak attempt to deflect responsibility, and shouldn't be attempted if you can't argue it with any consistency. You can't "go against the natural" while also "only acting the way you were made." They're mutually exclusive.

If you can't live without restraining yourself, it isn't about calling or destiny, it's about being weak. If I were to "only act the way I was made", then I would tear out whichever throat was closest when I get hungry. Their blood would be mine by right, if I were to see the world that way.

What you're claiming isn't any sort of advanced or revolutionary idea. It isn't bravery or intellect to deny and defy the basic tenets of civilization. It's devolution. You've regressed backwards and haven't even realized it. That isn't meaning, it's delusion.

[restingstitchface]

Well, if I am deluded as you claim, your persistance in continuing this argument is both fascinating and pointless. To be delusional means I cannot see the thread you are spinning. It seems you are arguing more for the satisfaction of your own ego and impotence, than out of any sense of urgency.

[glowsferatu]

Not cannot. Will not. But a continued refusal to accept responsibility is no surprise from you.

Furthermore, my masochistic tendencies are well-documented and fully acknowledged, trying to make mention of them doesn't indicate any degree of insight on your part, it only demonstrates that your eyes are working. There had been some doubt on that!

But I'm sorry, I should know by now that having to think about anything unrelated to either fear or your misplaced superiority complex leaves you flaccid.