When you were younger, do you remember when life turned upside down? Do you remember the dark days? If your family was anything like mine you’d have seen a lot of them. The dark days came, and there seemed to be no end to them, but there was always something to cling onto. That same family. Your parents. They could be struggling to scrape together a single credit for food, behind on the rent, laid off from their job, and to their kids, the world would be sunshine and rainbows.
But isn’t that what a parent is supposed to do? Protect their kids – the most vulnerable people in society? Put that protective blanket around them so they don’t get hurt, until they’re big enough and strong enough to look out for themselves, take on the REAL WORLD.
Is that you, Cap? Are you Big Daddy Arcadia, throwing your arms around the vulnerable people? Around my new recruits? Do you think that you’re helping? Your warm cosy blanket is your shield, and you use it to protect people from things they don’t need protecting from. I see you, tucking in people so tightly with your blanket that they can’t move. They can’t breathe. They feel smothered.
And that’s where you learn the true meaning of family, Cap. You’re the strict overbearing parent, whereas I’m the hilarious uncle who lets them climb trees and scrape their knees. I let them experience Arcadia as it is, not as you pretend it is for them. Arcadia is a fucked up place, and there isn’t any harm in people knowing that young. To prepare them for their life to come.
That’s why my new recruit came to me. Chose me. Chose US. He knew that my Way was the right Way. He wanted to learn about Arcadia – all of it. Every little gritty, grubby corner. He wanted to be prepared for whatever might come next. So I helped him. I supported him. Something you profess to know about but you really know nothing.
You wield that shield as if it can solve all of the problems we have here in Arcadia. You think it can shield everyone here. What, if we’re shielded nothing bad can happen?
The funny thing is, Cap, is that in making sure people are SHIELDED, you really just leave them DEFENCELESS. In swaddling them in your blanket, you leave them out in the cold.
Ain’t that right?
Didn’t you defend people as a Yellow Snake too? I hear that ended with quite a lot of death and destruction. With me? Nope. None of that. Death and destruction is off the table, in place of open honesty, reality, understanding that this place isn’t for the weak. Understanding that sometimes people need to deal with the hard stuff to build their own shield.
I think it’s about time you learned that too. Come. We’ll clue you in on every sordid detail.
Welcome to the Freak Show, let us show you they Way!