001 ✫ Video

[useofaswhat]

Afternoon, folks. – Evenin', now. [The man on screen clears his throat and nods in greeting, a little awkwardly. (And no, he's not actually wearing a floral bonnet. Today.)] This Admiral fella wanted a handful o' help and thought I was the man to give it so wǒ zài zhèlǐ. Name's Captain Reynolds, Mal if you ain't one to stand on ceremony. I'm sure it's fine to meet you all, and if it ain't, you go ahead an' let me know. [There's a smile purely for the sake of decorum, which drops off his face almost immediately as his eyes rake over something off-screen, as if reading.]

Let's see what we got here, then... Prison ship, eight levels and two additional restricted areas, complete with library, common rooms, medbay, an' my personal favorite, fully stocked kitchen. Probably serves better'n protein too. Laundry services, showers, art therapy facilities, and gardens included. Now that don't sound like any prison I ever been to. Hell, y'all even got a bar? Got quite a slick operation here, real nice 'n cozy.

But it still ain't as good as my boat.

Comments

[useofaswhat]

[The people who get to the top usually claw their way up there. Occasionally you get someone like Mal who earned C.O. rank due to everyone higher up dying, but outside of the Browncoats he doesn't see that too much.] Floods? Don't tell me a fancy ship like this got faulty plumbing.

[yeahscience]

Well, maintenance is a bunch of dumbasses with wrenches, so probably. [And he says that as one of the dumbasses, sometimes.] But no, they're like... sci-fi floods. Everything gets all changed around. Like we were all just teenagers? At a magic school? But not Hogwarts? It's messed up, yo.

[useofaswhat]

That so? How do we keep from goin' down without a decent mechanic among 'em? [Mal looks around at the ship skeptically, trying to think of places he's been that seemed less school-like.] Uh-huh. Admiral's got a sense o' humor, huh?

What's Hogwarts, some kind o' pig malady?

[yeahscience]

The whole thing pretty much runs on magic anyways, yo. If you think about it too much it just gives you a freaking headache.

It's from this movie... Don't worry about it.

[useofaswhat]

Okay, I'll leave the thinkin' about it to someone else.

[yeahscience]

I'm just saying, man... Around here, there's the kind of thinking you do, and the kind of thinking you don't.

[useofaswhat]

An' what's the kind of thinking you do?

[yeahscience]

Inmates, mostly, now. [And drugs.] Graduating, when I was an inmate. [Also drugs.]

[useofaswhat]

You got a tough case you're workin' on?

[yeahscience]

Not yet. Still waiting to get paired up. It takes a while, sometimes.

[useofaswhat]

Can't say I'm surprised.

[yeahscience]

What with the, uh, aforementioned Admiral being a tool and all? Yeah.

[useofaswhat]

So how long you been waitin' around this rig?

[yeahscience]

I've only been back a couple weeks... Before that, it was like, ten months or so.

[useofaswhat]

Okay, old timer, got any advice for the new kid?

[yeahscience]

[He shrugs, suddenly a little helpless in the face of being treated as an equal -- a superior, even.] Don't be a dick to your inmate, I guess? It usually doesn't go well.

And, um-- [He is taking this shit seriously now; he bites at his thumbnail, thinking hard.] You know, give them reasons if you tell them no for something. I mean, I guess that's part of not being a dick, but, you know. Keep them, like, in the loop. It helps. It helped me, anyways... eventually.

[useofaswhat]

I'll keep that in mind, son. [He will try, but considering he's kind of a dick already...] So make sure they know what's goin' on. Gotcha.

[yeahscience]

Yeah. [And now he hesitates, because well, his warden hid a pretty fucking big secret from him for months on end, and when he asked why--

Who would ever want to have to tell someone--?

And he gets that, because there's still a part of him that wishes he'd never known, but...]

...Yeah. It's better to know. It's better that way.

[useofaswhat]

You sound like you ain't too sure about that.

[yeahscience]

I am. It is. It just sucks sometimes.

[useofaswhat]

Well I can promise I ain't gonna be hidin' much from you.

[yeahscience]

Hey, you don't have to worry about me, man. I'm not an inmate no more.