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transxfiles · 4 years

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Love Like You by two_drama_nerds_in_a_boat | @homeworkforpigeons

“Jane Kirk is sixteen, a sophomore at the Riverside public high school, and she’s never left Iowa. Not really. Visits to Starfleet California with her mom when she was a toddler don’t count, and she doesn’t let herself think about Tarsus at all. To be honest, she’s rather blocked out most of Tarsus - they tell her it’s the Human brain’s reaction to stress, fight-or-flight scenarios. But even though some of her memories might not be great, she knows she’s never met a Vulcan before.

Right now, there’s a Vulcan standing right next to her on the sidewalk.

And God, she’s pretty.”

Word Count: 4210

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The alarm’s ringing again. Loud enough to wake her up.

She doesn't want to wake up. She never wants to wake up.

“Fuck,” she mutters, kicking her covers away and rolling out of bed. She doesn’t really have any reason to be upset, other than being woken up early - but she’s the one who set the alarm, so really, she shouldn’t be that frustrated at all.

“Stupid past me,” she mutters. “Jane Tiberius Kirk of last night, what were you thinking?”

Jane Kirk is sixteen years old. Practically an adult, she thinks, as most teenagers often do. Of course, Jane’s thoughts are a bit more justified, in this department. Raising yourself will do that to you. After your Dad dies on the day of your birth, and your Mom remarries an asshole and then abandons you, and then your brother ditches you on top of it all, you start to make your own breakfast and fold your own socks and make your own deadlines and shit. It happens.

Every day during the school year she wakes up like this, to the pinging of her alarm

She didn’t used to be like this; preferred sleeping in, getting to school an hour or two late. Sometimes not going at all. But a shitty report card gave Frank yet another excuse to call her a waste of space, and was the final tipping point for shipping her away for good.

(Tarsus… wasn’t great. To put it very, very vaguely. She was sent there at fourteen by a stepfather desperate to get rid of her, and she’s determined to never, ever go back. She knows it’s over, now, knows it can’t hurt her. That’s what the therapist told her. But it’s still there.)

It’s not the first day of school today, thank God. Just another mid-year one. A day of no importance. It’s almost insignificant enough that Jane might just consider skipping, except she knows she can’t skip, not after what happened on Tarsus two years ago. So she opens one of her dresser drawers and fishes around for clothes.

Jane Kirk is sixteen. She cuts her own hair with her mom’s bad kitchen scissors (she wouldn’t use Winona’s good ones, wouldn’t do that to her) cuts it short short short like she likes it, and she wears shitty t-shirts old enough to be considered precious artifacts if they weren’t so goddamn ratty. They say things like ‘Beastie Boys’ and ‘Talking Heads' and she even has one that says ‘Nine Inch Nails’. Old bands, from the 20th century or so, that are loud or angry enough to suit her just right, but old enough to be free online.

She gets dressed, grabs her backpack and her school PADD, running out the door and letting it slam behind her. She could technically be driving to school (she’s old enough by now - technically she won’t be able to get her real license until she’s seventeen, but sixteen is old enough for a permit, which could get her to and from school no problem) but Frank told her to fuck off after she kinda sorta drove his precious sports care off a cliff.

She doesn’t even regret it, not really, not even as she finds herself walking alongside the dusty Riverside highway.

It was damn fun to drive that car off a cliff. Fuck Frank.

Jane Kirk is sixteen, a sophomore at the Riverside public high school, and she’s never left Iowa. Not really. Visits to Starfleet California with her mom when she was a toddler don’t count, and she doesn’t let herself think about Tarsus at all. To be honest, she’s rather blocked out most of Tarsus - they tell her it’s the Human brain’s reaction to stress, fight-or-flight scenarios. But even though some of her memories might not be great, she knows she’s never met a Vulcan before.

Right now, there’s a Vulcan standing right next to her on the sidewalk.

And God, she’s pretty.

“‘M Jane,” she says. Trying to make conversation. “You waiting for the bus?”

The Vulcan’s eyes are intelligent, scanning her up and down, noting her backpack and the PADD in her hand, but no response comes. Jane realizes, for the first time, that she might not understand Standard. Which would be a bit odd - most people understand Standard, especially if they plan on visiting some middle-of-nowhere Terran dump like Riverside. But Jane’s never met a Vulcan, doesn’t know much about them. Their culture, their customs. It’s quite possible this girl never learned Standard at all, has never heard it before now (however unlikely that may be).

So Jane tries again.

“You going on the bus?” She asks, again, pointing to the little scrap of metal that’s a lousy excuse for a sign, the only indicator of there being a bus stop here.

The Vulcan girl looks at her. Barely nods - though the nod is there, that small sign of understanding, and Jane’s grateful for that.

“Neat,” says Jane. “I’m, uh, catching a ride to school.”

The girl says something in response, but it comes out awkward and quiet. Jane can’t tell what language it was meant to be, though she has some hunch it was an attempt at Standard. She’s really wishing she’d stolen some translator tech from school, now. She’d thought about it, before, but never had much use for it.

“I’m Jane,” Jane says, again, trying to salvage whatever it is that currently feels like it’s crashing straight into the ground right now. “Dunno if you caught that, before.”

She seems to understand what Jane’s saying, now, at least enough to know the name.

“I am Spock,” she says, Standard broken and heavily accented, pointing to herself.

“Nice to meet you Spock,” Jane says, for some reason unable to stop herself from grinning. “Welcome to hell.”

Spock seems to be around her age, though can’t say for sure - Jane has a hard time understanding specifics through the language barrier problem, and she’s never met a Vulcan before. She doesn’t know how the whole aging thing works with them.

Spock’s tall and wiry and absolutely stunning. She wears too-big sweaters, probably hand-knit by a parent, and bright purplish-blue eye makeup that Jane’s pretty sure doesn’t really fit the Vulcan norm. She seems clever, incredibly clever, which would make sense; Jane’s heard that Vulcans are insanely smart, eidetic memory or something like that. She’s sure it’s true; she can see it in Spock’s eyes. She’s intelligent.

Of course Jane wants to know everything about her.

But Spock doesn’t seem to speak much Standard, and Jane doesn’t know any Vulcan.

She doesn’t understand a word she says.

The bus arrives, they get on it, and when Jane sits down, Spock takes the seat beside her, back completely straight, hands folded neatly in her lap. Jane takes it as a good sign, and spends the bus ride to school rambling on and on about new research that’s come out in transporter tech, how they haven’t quite figured out the way to transport people long distances yet but they’re getting better, how she thinks she might know where they’re going wrong and how to fix it, and she tells Spock, and Spock listens, and no one’s listened to Jane in a long, long time.

They get off the bus and they go to school and it turns out that Spock’s in all the advanced classes, which is great, because Jane’s in the advanced classes, too. She wonders what the fuck Spock’s doing here, how she can manage in school when she barely knows the language, why anyone would even want to come to Riverside in the first place. But she doesn’t ask, because she’s not sure how well Spock would understand, anyway, and then it’s evening and Jane’s taking the bus home and she’s on her bed and on her PADD and stealing textbooks off the Internet. It’s not that hard, really; most of the time she doesn’t even have to hack the stuff herself. Someone else has done it for her, a similarly desperate student with no cash and no way to keep up in class without a textbook. Finding one that’ll assist her in this specific area of study proves a bit harder, but eventually she finds a website (passcode protected, membership required) and she gets past all that shit with ease, and she downloads what she’s looking for.

Jane Kirk is sixteen, and she’s smart, damn smart, and she considers herself pretty good with languages. But Vulcan is fucking hard. And for her, it shouldn’t be. She conquered most of Earth’s predominant languages within the span of a year, and she picked up SSL (Standard Sign Language) within a week. She can do Orion (quite a few dialects), Tellaran, even a bit of Klingon (which means she can introduce herself and say dick and fuck off and other such choice phrases). But Vulcan?

Vulcan’s a bitch.

(She means this in the nicest way, of course.)

She picks up her PADD, new textbook just downloaded, and she finds it almost impossible to get through. She can’t even really explain why. Maybe it’s just the general syntax that’s fucking her up. That’s happened before. Could be that the language is just nearly impossible for Human vocal chords to manage, in which case this would all be yet another lost cause. But she digs a bit deeper and finds out that, though broken, she might be able to get out something understandable.

She skips all lessons on written Vulcan; she won’t need that. She’s looking for the more practical uses. Conversational type stuff. She looks into phonetics, watching videos of spoken Vulcan.

She’s up until maybe 3AM, and she realizes she ought to get at least a bit of sleep before the sun rises again. She didn’t even realize the time until she looked to the top of her PADD. She’s never been good at noticing time passing when she’s caught up in something like this. But once she realizes she only has four hours at most to get some sleep in, she turns of her light and tucks her PADD away.

Jane’s sixteen. She’s tired, but she can’t seem to fall asleep. She thinks she’s in love with Spock. She realizes, for the first time, that she has no idea what love is.

They see each other all the time, thanks to school. It’s great. Before Spock, Jane really had no one. If they were down a person in Chem, she’d go without a lab partner. She worked by herself on History presentations, never went to study groups. Arguably never needed study groups, based on some of her recent test scores, but still, the socialization would have been nice. When she really wanted company, she stopped by the local bar. She was technically a minor, yeah, but the town was small and no one cared. It was unhealthy and far from safe, she knows that, but it was where she could go.

But now, she’s got Spock, and she doesn’t really do any of that anymore.

They stick to each other, through the school day, then before and after it. Hanging out under trees or in the wide open spaces between farms that no one really goes anymore. They’re walking through one of the empty fields right now, and Jane has her eyes on a gnarled old tree to climb. Spock doesn’t climb trees, so Jane’ll probably have to go on by herself, but she knows that Spock will be happy to stand and watch, talk maybe. It’s been a few weeks, now; they’ve both been getting better at communicating.

Jane points at the tree in the distance, question in her eyes.

Spock nods, and they begin to walk towards it. As soon as they reach the base of the tree Jane’s climbing, one branch, then another, up and up, glancing down every once and awhile to check that Spock’s still there.

Jane notices that Spock’s wearing one of those sweaters again. Spock’s always wearing sweaters.

“Ko-mekh?” Asks Jane, pointing at the sweater. Mother? She’s been meaning to ask about it, and hopes Spock’s able to understand; Jane’s Vulcan isn’t perfect, but she just finished up the chapter on family and interpersonal relations last night, and she’s feeling pretty good in that area.

Spock nods. “Gift,” she says, in Standard. “Hanukkah.”

“Oh! You’re Jewish!” Jane smiles. “Me too. My family's not really practicing though...” ...because my dad died and my mom's never home, she thinks, but doesn't say it out loud. She reaches for another branch just above her, only to find it the slightest bit out of reach. With a grunt, she jumps, grabbing at it with both hands and swinging herself around until she’s successfully made it up another level. Jane’s grinning, looking down at Spock who’s looking a bit smaller now. “Taller than you,” she says.

The Vulcan’s raising her eyebrow again. “Riyeht.” Incorrect.

“Not when I’m in a tree.”

Spock sighs, says something in Vulcan that probably translates to ‘Silly Human.’ Jane makes a mental note to look that up when she gets back to her house tonight. Figures it’ll be useful to know.

Jane’s sixteen, and tall enough for her age, and strong from working in the fields every summer. Strong enough to hold her own against Frank, even if she can’t really fight back. It’s fine, thought; Frank doesn’t hit her so much, anymore. She doesn’t know why. Might have something to do with Tarsus, or something to do with her getting older. She tries not to think about it. She still keeps her door locked at night.

When she sneaks back into the house this evening, she finds him passed out on the couch. He smells like shit - she plugs her nose as she walks past him, resigning herself to a shower as soon as she gets upstairs, just to get rid of the lingering stench. Done with the shower, she collapses onto her bed wearing the first clean clothes she can find (which in this case is a pair of jeans and a tank top), weary, eyes closed as she fishes around blindly for her PADD. As soon as she finds it, she opens her eyes, and flips through one of the Standard-Vulcan dictionaries she’s been using for reference.

If she’s reading it right, ‘Silly Human’ would be Duh-komihn. She flips a few more pages, but she can’t find a term for ‘Silly Vulcan’. She wants to call Spock now, but Frank could hear; the walls are thinner than they seem. She doesn't want to risk that. She’ll have to bring it up with Spock later. They're doing some project or another together in Chem, and they're meeting up for it tomorrow. She'll ask her about it then.

They’re getting better at communicating with each other.

It's useful for a variety of reasons - for one, Jane can understand Vulcan, and she knows for a fact that Spock isn't making fun of her all the time, which is a bit of a relief. And now Spock knows how much Jane swears, which is probably for the better, because hey, that's important shit to know. Jane asks her what the Vulcan word is for 'Silly Vulcan' after explaining her 'Silly Human' research. Spock tells her that they don't say 'Silly Vulcan' because Vulcans are incapable of being silly (or at least, that's what Jane thinks Spock tells her - she's still not the best at Vulcan, after all). Jane says that she doesn't think that's true, and Spock struggles to maintain her cold Vulcan facade, so so tempted to stick her tongue out at the duh-komihn.

"Vulcans do not lie," Spock mutters.

Jane keeps a list of the new things she’s learned about Spock. Right now, it looks something like this:

Good at chess.

Jewish

Human mother?

(Maybe) exchange student

Could theoretically climb trees but won’t because of ‘Surak’s Teachings’ or something like that.

Meditates

Enjoys ‘Narat do-toh’? NOTE: Vulcan game, like hide-and-seek

Can't lie - but that's obviously a lie. Yeah.

“What you writing?” Spock asks, after catching Jane adding something to the ever-growing list in her school notebook.

“Nirsh apc’koik du,” she says. No business you. She cringes at herself; she definitely butchered that. She was trying to say something along the lines of Not your business but she’s pretty sure she just completely screwed up.

Spock grabs the notebook, eyes skimming the page with superhuman speed. She raises an eyebrow, passing it back to Jane.

“List?”

“Oh quiet you.”

The corner of the Vulcan's mouth twitches in that way that's basically her version of a smirk. "A me list."

Jane's sixteen. She's smart, smarter than most sixteen-year-olds are, though she couldn't explain why. She likes coding (specifically hacking, though she's been told by multiple people that that's not technically legal) and learning languages and even the rare History lesson here or there. But she absolutely despises studying.

“Spock,” Jane whines, throwing herself across the desk. “When’re we gonna go?”

They’ve been cooped up in one of the far corners of the school’s (very, very, small) library for hours now. She’s honestly amazed it hasn’t closed on them yet, especially taking into account the annoyed looks the librarian won't stop shooting them. After her latest stink-eye, Jane thinks that they’re a minutes away from being forcefully booted. Not that it’ll deter Spock; whatever it is she’s currently researching, the Vulcan seems keen to continue until midnight if she must.

“Come on, look at me.” Jane tapped Spock’s shoulder.

Spock’s head snaps up, eyes locking on hers. Vulcans aren’t meant to show emotion, Jane’s heard, but the frustration in Spock’s eyes is clear.

“Listen. The librarian’s gonna kick us out any second now.” Jane’s gaze strays back to the angry woman at the front of the library, and she suddenly remembers every sin she’s committed in its vicinity (pre-Tarsus, of course, but still) and she gets a bit more anxious. “We really should go soon. Soon as in now. And don’t play dumb or anything because I know you’re smart and can read body language and understand at least a tenth of what I’m saying because we’re good at understanding each other.”

Spock runs a hand through her uncharacteristically mussed black hair.

“Ashal-veh…” she sighs, obviously tired. Spock mutters some other words in Vulcan, too, with the odd Standard phrase thrown in (she’s picked up a few of those - full immersion will do that to you). Jane opts not to listen; sleep-deprived ramblings tend not to be the most coherent, and it’s not really worth her trouble, anyway, since she barely speaks the language.

Jane raises an eyebrow. She’s been practicing, working on it in front of a mirror, trying to do it the way Spock can. She knows she’s not nearly as good as Spock, yet, but she’s sure that once she finally gets it down it’ll be hilarious. “You must be more exhausted than I thought. You don’t normally slip into Vulcan when we’re at school.” Jane paused. “Didja get enough sleep last night?”

Spock gives her that look of Stop questioning me or I will kill you.

“So that’s a no.”

Spock mutters something else, but Jane doesn’t catch it.

“Y’know, I’m pretty sure killing people is against Surak’s teachings,” Jane says, hands falling to the pockets of her jeans.

At this, Spock lifts the corner of her mouth ever-so-slightly - the closest Vulcans seemed to get to a smile.

“Now come on, you,” Jane says, tugging at the sleeve of Spock’s sweater. “School’s over. Come on now. Out of the library, we’re getting you home.”

“But-” Spock says, switching back to her accented Standard.

“I.” Says Jane, Vulcan sharp in her mouth as the librarian glares at them once again. Now.

Jane's house is empty today. Frank's gone out somewhere, work, she thinks, not investigating further. So she brings Spock over, because she can, because she wants to.

Jane's sixteen. She's bored. She's in love with her best friend, and and she wants to invite her over.

They go in through the back door, the one with the tattered old screen over it to keep bugs away. It squeaks when it opens, but they never oil the hinges. Jane doesn't have the time and Frank doesn't give a shit, and Winona's never home to hear it, so they leave it be. Jane walks into the kitchen, tile cool beneath her feet (a relief after the outside heat) and Spock follows her silently. Spock's very quiet in the way she moves - almost cat-like, though Jane's never really spent time with cats before. She thinks this is what they're like. She thinks it's a bit funny.

They hurry up the stairs to Jane's room, not wanting to spend time in the rest of the house. Even when Frank's not home something about being in any of the main rooms just feels a bit off. Jane's room is better; cleaner (though the bar for that is so low, it may as well be on the ground) and it smells a bit nicer than the rest of the house, especially when she opens the window, and she has a little old-fashioned radio that she turns on when they walk in the room. She gets a few stations in, up here, mostly the local ones that play mediocre music and report on news and sports and things. She turns the dial until she finds a station that doesn't sound like it's being eaten by static. There's a song playing on the radio, quiet and sweet, the lyrics about love or something like that. Jane's not listening to it too much.

“You ever been dancing, Spock?”

She raises an eyebrow, mutters something in Vulcan, feigns annoyance. But Jane knows her well enough, now, and she knows that Spock's just avoiding the question.

"Okay," Jane says, thinking. "Well, would you like to dance with me?"

Spock considers this for a moment, the same way she thinks through difficult test questions, or how she acts after she's just learned another odd Terran phrase. After a moment's thought, she nods. Jane reaches out to grab her shoulders, and Spock puts her hands on Jane's waste. They don't hold hands; Jane doesn't really know why, yet, but she knows it's not something Spock's too keen on. And then they're dancing, just a little, slowly and a bit awkwardly, the music coming from the radio washing over them, floating out the open window on a breeze.

“Ashel-veh?” Jane whispers, knowing that Spock can hear her.

“You looked up the meaning?” Spock asks. Her Standard’s gotten better, just like Jane’s Vulcan isn’t so bad anymore.

“It was a bit harder to find, I’ll give you that.” Jane’s voice holds amusement, soft and warm and happy. “Not in my textbook, or anything. But eventually I found it in a dictionary.”

“Hm.”

“You called me darling,” Jane says.

“Yes. And you just returned the favor.”

“Yes.”

They're quiet. They listen to the music, soft and sweet in the background. The air is warm and muggy around them. Jane's holding on to Spock, resting her head on her shoulder, and she never ever ever wants to let go.

The grass is soft beneath them, if a bit damp, and the field is wide and open and empty and the sky feels vast and endless. Technically, it is. But it's not something you notice too often, with the tall structures constantly on the horizon and people crowding up every space known to man. Right now, it's just them. They're laying down in the middle of the field. They're young and naive and untouchable. They're looking at the stars.

"Do you have constellations on Vulcan?" Jane asks.

Spock says something about how drawing pictures based on lights in the sky is illogical, even if one does not know that they are simply burning balls of gas in space. Jane laughs, and immediately starts to show Spock all of the constellations she knows, spinning the stories that go with them. Ursa Major and Minor, Leo, The Seven Sisters, Orion...

"Illogical," Spock says once more. It's becoming her favorite word in Standard.

(Jane's favorite Vulcan phrase is 'bath-paik' meaning 'damn you'. She thinks it's funny.)

The stars are bright and stunning out here, where the light pollution can’t touch them. Jane finds herself reaching for Spock’s hand. She’s surprised when Spock offers two fingers to her - her index and middle - and Jane mimics the movement, unsure of what it means, and they’re touching their fingers together.

“I’m gonna be a Captain someday,” she says, quietly. "Like my dad."

It’s the first time she’s ever said it out loud, and it sounds like a promise she’ll forget to keep. But Spock’s here with her, holding her hand, and she feels calm. Calm in a way she can’t quite explain.

Jane’s sixteen, Spock maybe a bit older, though not much. They spend the night watching the sky as stars and starships dance in the darkness. Jane sneaks back into her house later that evening, after she and Spock both realized they had to go home. She falls asleep quickly, feeling content. For the first time in a long time, she looks forward to waking up.

#genderbend #my post #my fanfiction #twodramanerdsinaboat #love like you #the premise #spirk #femslash #star trek femslash #aos #aos fanfiction #star trek fanfiction #fanfiction #fem!kirk #fem!spock #kirk #spock

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earth-ambassador-jim · 4 years

Text

A Bad Reaction: Chapter 2

Summary:

“Changelings call it "Gravesand”. Derived from the pulverized bones of fallen Gumm-Gumms, gravesand aids us changelings in shedding our human form and embracing our more trollish nature…“

Strickler is a little off in his calculations and the gravesand draws out an unexpected response from Jim. Hopefully he can figure out what is wrong and how to fix it before it is too late.

AO3 - Fanfiction

~~~~

Barbara wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting when the pink rock monster had kidnapped her and brought her to an underground bunker but meeting her ex-boyfriend had not been it.

The moment she set eyes on him anger had eclipsed fear as the ever growing feeling of betrayal she’d been brooding on for the past few weeks reared its head in full force.

“What. The. Hell.” Barbara said slowly -but with great feeling- as her hands clenched at her sides.

The sharp pain in her skull that had just started up was not helping. For some reason the painting she had been working on surfaced in her memory.

“Sorry to interrupt,” The pink monster said in what sounded like an amused tone. Barbara jumped. She’d forgotten about it for a second. “As much as I want to see you beat up Strickler, there are more important things to deal with right now.”

It was then that Barbara saw who was in the table in the middle of the room. A sharp gasp escaped her and she rushed to her son’s side.

Her fingers immediately went to his throat, feeling for his pulse, and then to his forehead before she turned around to stare at Walt. She had been angry before, but it was nothing compared to what she was feeling now.

“What have you done to my son?” Barbara practically growled.

Walt… Strickler swallowed audibly and held his hands out, open and palms facing her, in from of him.

“It was an accident…” He started to say slowly.

“An accident?!” She yelled. “Is that why you have him tucked away in this secret base? You lured me out here with his phone! And what’s that?!” She added pointing at the monster.

And why did she feel like she should know the answer? Barbara drew in a sharp breath as pain lanced through her skull again.

“Please let me explain. You may yell at me all you wish later,” Strickler said.

Barbara grit her teeth and drew in a breath to start yelling again.

She never got a word out.

At that moment Jim jerked upright on the table. Barbara turned toward him and felt her heart skip a beat. His eyes, now open, were glowing a sickly red and gold. He made a low guttural sound in his throat and his lips pulled back in a snarl. She stumbled back a step.

He drew in a shallow gasping breath. His still glowing eyes widened and he clawed as his chest for a moment before collapsing back on the table.

For a sickening moment Barbara couldn’t move, then the symptoms she had just seen registered and she lunged forward with a string of curses. She pressed two fingers to his neck and felt a calm fall over her as her years working in the ER asserted themselves.

“Is there an AED here?” She asked Strickler sharply as she pulled Jim’s shirt up.

Some part of her mind vaguely registered a series of branching scars that she hadn’t seen before but, as they were currently unimportant, she mentally filed them away for later. Strickler ripped something off the wall and hurried over to her. She received the machine, noting that it was an older model than the hospital’s, and then with quick efficient movements placed the pads on her son’s skin.

“Get clear,” She said sharply.

Jim’s body jerked as the electricity coursed through him. Barbara checked his pulse. It was weak but the rhythm was now regular again.

She let out a sigh of relief before turning back to Strickler. The underlying protective rage layered over with her professional calm made her feel like she was floating outside her body.

“Explain what is going on now,” She said coldly.

~~~~

And so her ex-boyfriend explained how humans weren’t really the only intelligent species on earth, that magic was real, and that her son had been drafted to fight giant rock creatures.

It turned out there was a bit more to those images and dreams that had been flickering through her mind since the accident than she thought.

“Let me get this straight,” Barbara said as she kneaded the skin of her forehead. “You decided that it was a good idea to give my son, a minor, some sort of troll heroin to ‘hone his feral instincts’… you didn’t see any way that could go wrong.”

She was also rather disappointed in Jim for going along with this. They’d had the drug talk. Just because it was magic did not make it any less of a drug.

“How do you still have your teaching degree?” She wondered out loud.

Off to the side the pink changeling snickered.

“That’s not important right now,” Walt… Strickler said. “Right now I need your help to keep Jim stable while I figure out what exactly is causing this.”

Barbara really wanted to argue that Jim should go to a hospital to receive proper treatment, but she doubted they would know what to do with gravesand poisoning, or whatever was going on. She was also not foolish enough to expect that they would just let her leave. Not without a fight that she couldn’t hope to win. She drew in a slow breath and counted to ten before blowing it out through her nose.

“So you haven’t found anything in your files about why this might be happening yet?” She asked.

“No,” Strickler responded. “But I still have a few more to go through.”

“And these other trolls that Jim is helping can’t help?” Barbara would really like to have someone else here. Wal… Strickler had dropped completely off the bottom of her trust list. She wasn’t sure how she felt about the other changeling. “There isn’t any kind of troll-doctor?”

“Unfortunately Trollmarket’s healer was one of the first casualties according to Young… Jim. There might be other healers but it’s unlikely they will know how to take care of a human and even if they did they would not be familiar with gravesand.”

Barbara sighed.

“Okay, you keep searching your files.” She turned to the pink changeling. “I’ll need you to…”

She paused eying the changeling’s sharp claws with trepidation. It seemed to catch on and in a flash of pink transformed into the museum curator Ms. Nomura. Barbara jumped but otherwise didn’t react.

“Okay,” She said with a sharp, shaky breath. This was fine. She was fine. She could do this. “I’m going to need you to assist me. Follow my instructions exactly.”

Ms. Nomura moved to stand beside her and they got to work.

~~~~

“Any progress?” Barbara’s voice was something that could have loosely been described as professional.

Strickler looked up from the file he was currently reading.

“Nothing yet I’m afraid,” He said shoving down a pang of longing.

Barbara made a quiet frustrated sound and turned away. She and Nomura started talking in low voices. Strickler rubbed his eyes and glanced around the room. How long had they been here now?

Jim was now hooked up to a heart monitor and oxygen. He looked bad. Rashes had appeared on his skin and he was sweating profusely. Something in Strickler’s chest twisted involuntarily.

He had done this. He should have known better. Humans reacted differently to even regular medications. Why did he think having a child inhale magic sand was going to be okay?

What if they couldn’t save him? What then?

The more analytical side of his mind was already trying to come up with contingencies for dealing with a new Trollhunter this late in the game. The more pessimistic side suggested that between Barbara and Nomura he wouldn’t live long enough to have to worry about that. He’d deserve it too, he supposed.

He grimaced and pulled out his pen to fiddle with.

Focus.

He needed to save Jim. Failure was not an option.

He opened the next set of files, a series of experiments that had been ran by a changeling scientist back during the Cold War.

He started reading and froze for a moment before reading faster.

It wasn’t possible…

~~~~

“A question Barbara,” Strickler said. There was something stiff and deliberately level about his tone that made Barbara wary.

“Yes?” She asked without turning around.

“Do you have any pictures of your… of Jim’s father?”

That did make her turn around.

“Why would you need that?” She asked suspiciously.

“I will explain if my hunch proves correct.”

Oh she didn’t like that at all…

She studied his face. The lines around his mouth and eyes were tense.

“Please… it’s important.”

She made an irritated noise and glanced at his computer.

“Can that connect to the internet?”

“Yes…”

She wasn’t really in the habit of carrying pictures of James around. In fact, she’d gotten rid of most of the ones in the house as well. Both she and Jim generally preferred to pretend he didn’t exist when they could.

She brushed past Strickler and started tapping away. In a few minutes she’d pulled up an old finished projects page from a company website.

“That’s him,” She said pointing at one of the men in the picture. She pushed down the old ache in her chest as well as the strange feeling that rose when she realized how much Jim as starting to resemble him.

Barbara moved out of the way and Strickler settled down into the chair. In a few quick moves he’d downloaded the image and cropped it down to just James Senor’s face. Then he opened the image in another program. Immediately the computer pinged. The word “match” appeared on the screen.

A few more clicks and a new window was opened up on the screen.

“Barbara? Is this him?”

Barbara leaned over his shoulder. He twisted slightly in his seat to watch her expression. Her eyes tracked across the page and her lips moved slightly as she read through the words before she froze.

“Why…”

“It would appear that your ex is a changeling,”

“What?!”

Strickler moved back as she pushed forward to read the file more thoroughly.

“This explains Jim’s unusual reaction to the gravesand,” He continued. She could just barely hear him through the roaring in her ears. “Normally, in humans gravesand would only serves to draw out their feral instincts. It makes them angrier and their eyes glow. Long term use may have other side effects, but one use should not result in something like this.”

“So why is it causing this?”

“Because the gravesand is trying to activate Jim’s dormant changeling traits.”

“His changeling traits?” She echoed.

Strickler nodded and pushed a hand through his hair.

“Yes, but since Jim was… I assume he was conceived while James was in human form?” Barbara didn’t appreciate the question there but nodded anyway. “The only genes he has from his father are the ones that would allow him to shift not the biological template he needs to have a trollish form to shift into.”

“Which means..?”

Strickler grimaced.

“To put it simply the gravesand’s magic is causing Jim’s latent shifter magic activate, but as there is nothing to shift into his cells are basically tearing themselves apart.”

That wasn’t good. Understanding, mixed with new fear, settled in Barbara’s chest.

She turned away from him back toward her son frowning as she took off her glasses and polished them on her scrubs. This seemed to be one of the situations were knowing what was happening was not going to make thing easier…

She wasn’t even sure if she could use conventional medicines on Jim with the gravesand in his system.

Strickler was frowning as he continued to leaf through the file.

“It looks like all recorded cases have been fatal…”

Barbara whipped around, her heart lurching sickeningly in her chest. Across the room Nomura stiffened.

“But!” Strickler said before either of them could say or do anything. “The scientist in charge of the trails theorized that if a sample of changeling blood and stone was enchanted and then injected into the hybrid it would give the sifting magic something to latch onto and pattern a trollish form off of.”

“Did they test this?”

“No,” Strickler said. “It seems that the changeling in charge of the tests met an untimely death before he could find anymore test subjects.” There was an odd tone to his voice that Barbara could not quite pin down. It vanished quickly as he moved on. “I do however have the groundwork and necessary ingredients listed for the spell here.”

“What are the chances of success?”

Strickler sighed.

“I can’t really say. I doubt they are high… but what choice do we have?”

“You said that none of the… half-changelings… survived the gravesand?”

“None recorded.”

“Did they try removing the sand from the lungs? Or any similar measures to stop the reaction?”

“Yes and they all failed.”

Barbara stood quiet for a moment, acutely aware of the two changelings waiting for her response. She hated everything about this situation. She had a short moment of time to make a decision for her son that would at best be life altering and at worst fatal and the only information she had was from shady people that she didn’t trust.

But if she didn’t do anything…

Barbara glanced at Jim. She clenched her jaw and sucked in a breath through her teeth.

“Then I think we should take the route that still has a chance even if it is slim,” She said finally. “What do we need to do?”

Strickler took in her straightened posture and determined expression with a wistful expression. A jolt of bitterness passed through her.

“I am going to start running over the runes and layout for the spell to make sure there are no errors. Nomura…” The magenta changeling straightened up. “I will need you to retrieve some things from my office.” He pulled his pen out of his pocket and hesitated a moment before tossing it to her. “The lock is behind Landmark Thucydides.”

He paused for a moment and then pulled out his notepad and quickly scribbled out a list of what he would need and where she could find it.

“I’m also going to take a quick run to my apartment and retrieve the rest of my magic supplies.” He turned to Barbara. “I should be about a half hour. Can you handle that?”

She nodded.

“Good. Let us go.”

Barbara watched as they left.

Gradually their footsteps faded from hearing.

It was just her and Jim now.

She walked over to him and gently smoothed his fair out of his sweaty face. Even without touching his skin, she could feel the heat radiating off of him.

His eyes remained closed.

Barbara blinked furiously as a lump began to form in her throat.

How had it come to this? She’d known something was wrong.

Her vision blurred and she sucked in a harsh breath.

Why didn’t he tell her? Why hadn’t she…

Barbara’s hands clenched around the edges of the metal table as the first sob broke free.

~~~~

Author Notes:

I am going to go into a little more into the specifics about what is going on with Jim's reaction to the Gravesand in the notes next chapter, so be sure to read those!

We’ll get a little more on Barbara’s thoughts on the situation next chapter, but right now she really just needs a good cry.

I was a little rushed on editing this chapter (Just started a new job this week!) so let me know if anything needs clarification.

#Trollhunters #Tales of Arcadia #Trollhunters Fanfiction #A Bad Reaction #walter strickler #Nomura #Barbara Lake #jim lake jr #james lake jr #james lake sr #(mentioned)#gravesand #grave sand #my posts #my writing

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rimmers-swimming-certificate · 4 years

Text

Red Dwarf Fanfic - Comatose (1/?)

“Listy...”

Lister heard the voice, a hissed whisper, penetrate the comfort of his sleep. He ignored it.

“Wakey wakey!”

The voice was louder this time, and unmistakably Rimmer’s. Lister fought the urge to wake up. He wasn’t ready. He just needed a couple more minutes.

“Lister!”

He rolled over in bed, turning away from the sound of Rimmer’s voice.

“For smeg’s sake, Lister, it’s time to get up now.”

He didn’t want to wake up. He was perfectly comfortable where he was.

Only… was he?

Still laying on the bed, facing away from Rimmer, Lister did a quick assessment of his current circumstances. No, he wasn’t comfortable. He wasn’t exactly uncomfortable either, though. He was simply… numb? No, not that. But something.

Just to check, he flexed his fingers. He could feel the movement. He tired something else; touching the fingertips of his right hand to the skin of his left arm. It felt normal; exactly as he would have expected. What wasn’t normal, was that he couldn’t feel the bed beneath him.

Definitely more awake now than asleep, Lister adjusted his position so that his hand touched the bed. He was aware of a vague feeling of pressure, an idea that something was there, but from the surface itself, he could detect nothing; no rough, scratchy JMC blankets, no cotton sheets, no… anything.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

“Come on, Lister. I know you’re awake. Get up, so I can get this over with.”

Get what over with? Lister decided to ignore the nagging hologram for a moment longer, while he did his own damage assessment. The last thing he remembered was landing Starbug on an abandoned ship they had noticed on the short range scanners. He remembered the four of them looking around and not finding anything interesting, and then… nothing.

No. Not nothing. Pain. He remembered a sudden pain in his head, an accompanying flash of blinding white light, and then…

And then this. Whatever this was.

Whatever it was that was happening, or had happened, or was about to happen, Lister had a feeling he wasn’t going to like it. He pushed his fingers further into the surface that he was laying on, testing it. With no resistance at all, his hand passed straight through it, as though the mattress had disappeared.

Gripped suddenly by a wave of panic and disorientation and the certainty that he was falling, Lister gasped. His eyes opened of their own accord, and he found himself in his quarters.

“You just had to ignore me, didn’t you?” Rimmer said. “You could have just woken up and let me explain, but no.”

Lister gasped again, trying to calm his breathing. Sitting up in bed now, he cradled the hand that had fallen through the bunk against his chest. “Rimmer, what…”

Before he could finish the question, his brain kicked into gear and began to make connections. Something had hit him on the derelict ship. Hit him, or fallen on him, or… something. Whatever it was, it had done some damage. It didn’t make sense for him to just be waking up in bed the next day.

He looked at his hand, and then he looked at the bed.

No.

It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t. Except for… he raised a hand to his head and his fingers touched the smooth surface of a letter ‘H’ right in the centre of his brow.

Oh smeg…

Rimmer folded his arms, unfolded them, and then folded them again. “Don’t panic,” he said.

Lister stared at him, incredulous.

“Really, don’t. It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“I’m a hologram.”

Rimmer frowned, then nodded. “Okay yes. In that respect it’s exactly what you’re thinking.”

Lister looked at his hands again, examining them carefully. They were definitely his hands. He recognised them, right down to the well-chewed nails and the hard calluses on the tip of each finger of his left hand from pressing the strings of his guitar. Only, they weren’t his hands, were they? Not really. They were an image, a computer simulation. His real hands, smeg, his real body was laying dead somewhere, and he was… not himself. He was…

“You’re not dead,” Rimmer told him.

“I…” Lister frowned. “What?”

“You’re not dead,” Rimmer repeated. “You didn’t die, you’re still alive.”

Lister reached upward, stretching his arm until his hand passed through the top of the bunk above him and disappeared up to the wrist. Lister stared at it. He had been expecting that, of course he had. Still, nothing could have prepared him for how smegging weird it was to watch his hand pass through a solid object as though it wasn’t there. He shuddered involuntarily. “No? How do you explain that, then?”

A flicker of some unidentifiable emotion crossed Rimmer’s expression, and he looked away. “You survived,” he said. “But you were injured. Your body’s down in the medi-bay, hooked up to machines to keep it alive. Kryten’s reasonably sure you’ll recover. Will you please take your hand out of the ceiling?”

Lister lowered his hand into his lap. “Reasonably sure I’ll recover?” Somehow, that didn’t sound particularly reassuring.

Rimmer shrugged. “Well, it’s better I got. All I got was a rude awakening in the hologram simulation suite with nobody to explain things to me except for a senile computer. The last thing I remembered was getting the scan to create my holographic likeness, and that was months before the accident, before you even went into stasis.”

Lister frowned. “Wait, so you don’t even remember the accident that killed the crew?”

“Of course I don’t. You saw my death video; it was over in seconds. I hardly had time to pop down to holographic imaging and do a quick scan.”

He supposed not. He’d never really thought about it before, but for some reason he’d always assumed that Rimmer remembered the accident. If his memories ended before Lister went into stasis, that meant he didn’t remember doing the shoddy repair job on the drive plate either.

“That must have been confusing.” Lister said.

“Confusing? Try absolutely bewildering. Try mind-blowingly terrifying. A feeling that I was trying to spare you, by the way, by letting you wake up naturally in bed before I broke the news gently. A plan you completely ruined by sticking your hand through the bunk.”

“All right, Rimmer, calm down,” Lister told him. “So here’s a question.” He dropped down from the bunk onto the floor, and peered into the mirror at the reflection of his own face. His eyes were drawn to the large letter ‘H’ in the middle of his forehead, marking him out as a hologram. “Why do I remember everything? The last time my brain pattern was scanned was before the accident too.“

Rimmer shook his head. “Remember when we downloaded your brain onto a disk so that you and I could swap bodies?”

Unfortunately. He still had the nightmares. “So you used that disk? But then, why isn’t that the last thing I remember?”

“Of course we didn’t use that disk, we downloaded it back into your head at the time.” Rimmer spoke slowly and deliberately, as though speaking to a small, and particularly stupid, child. Or maybe somebody that had recently been hit in the head by something very hard. “We used the same tech. We scanned you again while you were knocked out. I told Kryten it was a mistake to do a procedure like that on somebody that was unconscious and possibly brain damaged, but…”

“Wait. Brain damaged? What are you talking about ‘brain damaged’?”

“Possibly. I said possibly brain damaged. Calm down, Listy. It looks like you’ve come through with your faculties intact. Well, as intact as they ever were…”

All things considered, this was shaping up to be a very bad day. Lister took a deep breath and tried to quell the rising panic inside him. “Okay, fine,” he said. “Good.”

“Of course that’s only your higher functions. Speech, thought, memory. As for the other things, like the ability to walk, or feed yourself, or...I don’t know, live any kind of an independent life, that’s anybody’s guess.”

Lister stared at him. “You what?”

“I’m just saying. Just because your mind is intact doesn’t mean your brain is. You could wake up with locked-in syndrome, for all we know.”

Well, there was a horrifying thought. “Great,” he said.

“It’d be just my luck, if that happened,” Rimmer added.

“Just your luck?”

Rimmer sighed. “Well, believe it or not, Lister. Between you, the Cat and Kryten, you’re actually the least worst. It’d be just typical if you were the one that ended up a vegetable and I ended up spending the rest of eternity with those two idiots.”

“Well, thanks a lot,” Lister said, sarcastically.

“I mean it, oddly enough.”

Rimmer was completely missing the sarcasm, and quite frankly, Lister lacked the mental energy to explain it right now. That had been far too many terrifying revelations in the space of a single conversation. All he wanted to do right now was curl up in the corner and cry. He pushed aside the urge; there would be time for that later. “Okay fine. So, start at the beginning, what actually happened to me on that ship?”

Rimmer nodded. “You got whacked over the head by a psychotic simulant,” he said. We knew we had no hope of fighting it off, so we managed to drag you out of there. No idea why it didn’t show up on the scanner, but apparently it didn’t take kindly to a group of strangers landing on its ship and looking around for salvage.”

And so it had attacked them. Or more specifically, it had attacked him. “Was everyone else alright?” Lister asked.

“I was a little shaken up, seeing that happen. There’s a lot of blood with a head wound, you know. And the Cat got some of it on his suit. It stained, so he decided he needed to burn it.”

“And that’s it?”

“He insisted on holding a full funeral service before the cremation. All his other suits attended.”

Lister rolled his eyes. “Figures.”

“The eulogy was rather moving, actually.”

“Sorry I missed it.” Lister realised his eyes had been drawn back to the large letter ‘H’ on his brow. It was metallic silver, like Rimmer’s had used to be, and designed in such a way that it appeared to reflect the light from all angles, making it impossible to overlook. Looking at his face, it was all you could see. “So, if Cat and Kryten are both okay, where are they?”

“They’re around,” Rimmer told him. “Actually, I asked if I could be the only one to be here when you woke up. I wanted to deliver the news myself.”

Of course he did. Rimmer had probably volunteered himself for that job the moment anybody raised the possibility of placing Lister in a hologram body had occurred to them. He had probably spent hours trying to think of the most entertaining way to break the news. He had probably had the skutters note down endless versions of the same speech, trying to squeeze in exactly the right amount of faux sympathy to make it believable while actually gloating at Lister’s misfortune.

Lister was glad he had been able to steal Rimmer’s thunder by figuring it out. He tilted his head forward as though eying him suspiciously over a pair of imaginary spectacles. “Oh, you did, did you?”

Rimmer nodded. “I know what it’s like, Lister. I know it’s not exactly the same for you as for me; I'm dead, you aren’t. But the end result is the same. Inhabiting a body that isn’t real, composed entirely of light. Able to see, but never to touch the world around you. It’s hard, Lister. It’s so much harder than you think it’s going to be.”

Smeg. Rimmer actually sounded sincere.

And he was right, too. The week Lister had spent in Rimmer’s body when they had swapped temporarily had been bad enough. He couldn’t imagine doing it for years, like Rimmer had, with no hope of a reprieve. He just hoped his body healed quickly from the trauma and he could move back in.

He folded his arms and tried not to think about it. “I’ll be fine, Rimmer. Anyway, as soon as my body’s healed, Kryten’ll be able to put me back and everything will go back to normal.

There was a noticeable moment of hesitation before Rimmer nodded. “If your body…” he began, then shook his head. “Yes. Absolutely.”

“It will heal,” Lister insisted. “I’m resilient like that.” It had better do, anyway. He flexed the fingers of one hand and looked at them intently. They didn’t look intangible. This was too smegging weird.

“Well, in the meantime,” Rimmer said. “If you need anything; advice on how to do something without the ability to touch, coping strategies for dealing with it, or if you just want to talk, I’m available.”

Lister stared. There was no hint of gloating in Rimmer’s voice at all. It appeared to be a genuine offer, and something about that worried Lister more than the whole situation combined.

“Thanks,” he said. “I think.”

Rimmer shrugged awkwardly. “Right. Well.”

Lister folded his arms. “So, shall we go visit me?”

He wondered what hospital visiting etiquette was for a hologram visiting his own comatose body. There didn’t seem to be any point taking grapes.

(part 2)

#red dwarf #red dwarf fanfic #dave lister #arnold rimmer #my fic

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fizzingwizard · 3 years

Text

So I played Snowy Escape this week! It’s my cup of tea! I watched LGR’s review (and Plumbella’s too) and yeah, as usual, I agree with both of them. The pack doesn’t give us a lot that’s really new, especially in terms of gameplay, and I really wish there had been even small interactive moments aboard trains and ski lifts. However, I also agree that it’s a really aesthetically beautiful pack. The way tourists who haven’t gone to Japan yet think of Japan might be like Tokyo Shibuya area, or Osaka shopping streets... but uh, Tokyo and Osaka are only two cities in all of Japan, and pretty much the entire rest of the country isn’t like that. The majority of Japan’s tourist attractions are nature- and history-based, after all.

The big question for me was just how touristy “Mt Komorebi” was going to come across. Sims is pretty noticeably America-centric, and Western culture is the norm. They put out Jungle Adventure and it’s like stepping into a 90s action movie. The most progressive thing you can say about the locals in that pack is that, due to being governed by the same rules that apply to all Sims, they don’t come across “different” enough to be straight up othered. The area they live in, of course, is underdeveloped in spite of the “culture” skill, and very much is meant to be an exotic adventure for Indiana Jones.

Komorebi’s not that bad though. I was impressed at first by the amount of detail there seemed to be. I never expected we’d get space heaters and kotatsu and nabe in-game without downloading CC. Taking off your shoes to go inside, using chopsticks, sliding doors (which I’ve wanted more of for SO LONG), are all true to life as well as modern and also just nice to have. There’s some weird bits, like how when sims sit at the kotatsu they don’t sit on their knees, their legs just disappear into the floor... I guess we can assume there’s a hole underneath (which is the case with some kotatsu just not usually the at-home kind). I also would have liked more every day interactions, like doing homework at the kotatsu or watching TV or even taking a nap.

The patterns for yukata/kimono are pretty awful though. The more understated ones I can live with, but anything with a splash of color is a fashion disaster.

The look of the houses in the towns are really nice. The interiors, not so much, but that’s easier to fix than the facade and landscaping for most of us. The non-interactive backgrounds areas really do look like Japan. It’s a pity we can’t explore it at all. (I would have LOVED just one interactive conbini. That’s one Japan staple that it’s simply weird to leave out. They probably figured conbini wouldn’t have anything the vending machines don’t have, but personally I’d rather have conbini than vending machines. Unless they made it rabbit hole, in which case fuck it)

Also liked the snow festival and the lights festival. It’s true there’s not a lot to do at them, other than take pictures, and it was really hard to get good pictures with my sims in them... When I went to snow festivals, you could do things like light candles in little snow cubbies, or have a meal in a kamakura, etc. That would have been nice. Otherwise it’s just look at the pretty sights and make normal snowmen. Same with the lights festival - it’s gorgeous, but... They do have food stalls but the variety is limited. You can get four different kinds of yakisoba and ramen but no okonomiyaki, no ikayaki. There’s no festival games. I’m currently festival-starved due to covid-19 so my hopes were a bit higher. Still... like I said, I enjoyed them. I guess I just like pretty things. And I do spend an inordinate amount of time just taking pictures of my Sims doing things anyway xP

The Youth festival is pretty dull. It seems more like a not!Pokemon festival than anything else. The crepes, however, are great. Also it’s really WEIRD that the koinobori (the carp flags) are out all the time, like a normal decoration, in the city. That’s one culture thing that I think got confused.

So as far as it goes... it’s not as touristy as I expected it to be. I give it props for that. It’s definitely still got a vibe of “non-Japanese foreigner goes for a visit,” as in, I think if a Japanese company made a Sims game with Japanese players in mind, they’d have done a ton things differently. But we got a more robust cultural depiction than we ever have before, so, nice.

The winter sports are fun! I weirdly didn’t get bored even though like LGR says, it is just watching the Sims do the same thing over and over again without any player interaction. That does suck but is also par for the course with Sims 4. Since I play multiple Sims at a time, it’s easy for me to stick one on the bunny slope and just let them ski until they level up while I do something else with another Sim :P (Sims is more fun when you cheat!)

The onsen is a let down. It’s nice, sure. It’s just a spa though. And it’s WEIRD that you can have sex in the onsen while other people are in it, even children, and they are not freaked out, but you can’t skinny dip in front of children. All they get is an uncomfortable moodlet afterwards because now the onsen water is dirty x’D I wonder if that’s an oversight that will get tweaked in the future...

However, onsen is very pretty too. I would have liked a smaller building and better landscaping with two or three hot springs to pick from. Also, there are gendered entrance curtains, but they don’t actually divide Sims by gender and all lead to the same place... I guess it’s good to have for pictures at least. If you want to put in the ladies room and mens room doors you could easily make his and hers as well as a mixed hot spring baths. I think this is one we just have to let the Sim builder greats take on.

So HIKING is awesome! I loved it! It’s relaxing for me. Some might find it dull, but it’s really just so pretty, and for me brings back a lot of memories. Hiking in Japan is pretty much like that (although a lot more mountainous of course). It’s somewhat dependent on your graphics settings - mine aren’t that high so like the bamboo forest vanishes as I cam through it.. can’t get that sense of really being inside it. Also when I came across the cemetery I had my spellcaster try to Necrocall the one grave that has interactions, but it didn’t work, even though the option came up. ?? I was expecting some sort of cool ghost. Oh well.

I’m interested in climbing. I don’t have Fitness Stuff so I never did it before. It’s way more boring than leveling the winter sports though. But I think the mountain climb will be worth it.

There are little kodama and sprites you can come across and interact vaguely with. I’ll accept that as a Ghibli nod. It’s more cute than cultural but it’s also a bit of fun surprise, though I haven’t noticed any real effect beyond a moodlet. (Was told one gave me a present but I couldn’t find it in my inventory so I think it was just the moodlet.)

Also the bugs!! That’s very Japan! And you can buy insect repellent hahaha that’s a level of realism I didn’t ask for but will take

I’ll talk about lifestyles and sentiments too. I don’t need them personally. The sentiments are kind of nice to see, but they’re predictable. You get the same ones if you do certain things. They give you a moodlet when the Sim shows up, which I guess I do like, but... tbh it’s damn inconvenient sometimes. For ex, I played by Tsubasa family to explore Mt Komorebi, and I noticed many conversations were inexplicably becoming “awkward.” The reason was - even though no one was saying or doing anything flirty - Kurogane and Fai were getting in the mood by just looking at each other thanks to sentiments, and Sakura and Syaoran were like -___-; I mean, it’s hilarious, but also annoying!

Lifestyles... eh. So far all my Sims just get the same ones. They all seem to get Adrenaline Seeker just for playing winter sports. Also I find the pop-ups warning me when a Sim’s going to lose their lifestyle annoying, and if a Sim gets a lifestyle I don’t want for them, it’s annoying to watch their mood change for dumb reasons like “didn’t spend enough time outdoors today.” It’s the same concept as traits. It’s kind of nice that you can change them around by doing different things, and since we’re limited to three traits I won’t say no to more (for example, instead of giving a Sim the “Loves the Outdoors” trait, you can try to get the Outdoorsy lifestyle and use the trait slot for something that influences their personality more). But all in all I find my Sims still just act the same as usual and the gameplay is all in pop-ups, so it’s just not exciting for me.

Also had a glitch where Sakura would take off her shoes to go inside but when she went out, she put on a pair of snowboots that I never even equipped her with, and she wore them with every outfit. Editing in CAS didn’t help. A reboot did though.

So pretty much, I definitely think they could have done more with this pack, BUT that’s been the case with literally every pack since the base game. There are no expectations for me anymore, that’s why I really just genuinely like this one. I’m happy they picked North Japan rather than Tokyo or Osaka, I think we got a lot more detail because of that.

#sims #sims 4

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literatehiss · 3 years

Text

A Place of Peace

Read on AO3 here Peter takes Martin out on the Tundra. A man is sacrificed, and two lonely men kiss

Martin slung his hold-all over his shoulder as he exited the taxi. Peter had once again made him crawl out of his flat at an ungodly hour and he didn’t even have the decency to pick him up or pay for the taxi.

He had only been to the beach a few times in his life, a vague distant memory from before his dad had left and then a couple more with school. The rush of the waves was pleasant in the dim light of the foggy morning. He walked up to the docks that Peter had given the address for, a number of men and women loading a large shipping freighter with supplies.

Martin had heard of the Tundra of course, Peter’s beloved ship. The other man could talk about “her” for hours given the chance. Martin would never admit it, but he liked listening to Peter talk about something he was so passionate about. As he came closer, looking for the ship’s captain, he noticed that none of the crew talked to each other like the crew of the other ships that were also docked. Except for one.

He found Peter, looking tall and stern and scary and it was such a difference to his usual chatty, obnoxious self that Martin had to restrain a laugh. He was looming over a young man who was apparently making the poor decision to work on the ship. The young man was getting the odd pitying look from the other crew and Martin couldn’t help but feel sorry for the naive idiot. Peter caught sight of him and gave the young man a pat on the back, leaving him to gather his things and find the crew quarters by himself.

A few of the crew gave quite alarmed looks as Peter strode over to him and seemingly transformed into the overly cheerful man that he knew.

“Hello Martin! All set are we?”

Martin gave a tired nod and Peter lead him onto the ship. He wasn’t taken to the same area that the rest of the crew seemed to be heading towards now that the food and other supplies can been carried on board. Peter swung open a door to a moderately sized room.

The double bed was covered in pale grey and blue sheets and there was little decoration in the room other than a misty painting of a ship and a few bits and pieces that Peter had obviously picked up over the years.

The jumper Martin had knitted for him was slung over the back of the chair that stood tucked under Peter’s desk. He could spot a few other trinkets he had gifted Peter lying about and he felt a warmth bloom in his chest at the thought that Peter had kept them all. Peter closed the door behind him, taking Martin’s bag and dumping it at the end of the bed.

Martin looked at him.

Peter looked back.

“Well I can’t have you staying with the crew, it will upset the delicate social ecosystem. So you can stay in here with me” Peter said with a smile that faltered at the edges from something Martin supposed might be nervousness.

Martin looked at the sole bed in the room and was forcibly reminded of every memory of cheap romance books with similar plots that he had stacked up in his old apartment. He gave Peter another look and the other man had the decency to go a little pink.

Peter muttered something about checking on his crew and talking to his first mate and letting Martin settle in before he scuttled off, out of the room. He had mistakenly betrayed his actual intentions by slipping the packet of cat treats that had been sitting on the bedside table into his pocket. He decided not to call Peter out on his avoidance of the bed situation, Peter’s major personality trait was avoiding conversations so it seemed a little pointless and a waste of both their times.

He unpacked his bag, hanging up his clothes next to Peter’s own and settling down on the bed with his laptop. He had downloaded everything he thought he would need for the next few months as he knew connection to the internet was going to be scarce. He knew the crew was going to be antisocial and with no internet connection, Peter was going to be his only contact.

He wasn’t sure whether that terrified him or comforted him.

It was a few weeks since the ship had set sail. Long days of working on his laptop in Peter’s cabin. Peter was a lot more confident on the Tundra compared to at the Institute, he was a lot different in general. Peter, to Martin, was a man of fake cheer and one-sided chatting, but on the Tundra he became the terrifying figure that was seen in so many statements, cold and indifferent and cruel. That young newbie sailor had been dragged off into the fog only a week into the journey, Peter had been impatient apparently. The rest of the crew didn’t seem to care but had given him considering looks for a few days afterwards which made Martin suspect that the young sailor had perhaps said something unfortunate about him either in Peter’s presence or in the presence of someone loyal to their captain. Martin felt kinda bad, but the cold fog and Peter’s subtle affection numbed that guilt quickly enough.

Sometimes the older man would take him out of the cabin and onto the deck of the ship, especially in the morning as the fog rolled in. Martin could look down into the water and know that while the Tundra sailed by, no creatures would be in the water, unnaturally repelled by the aura of isolation. Martin had remarked to Peter that the fog was beautiful as it played across the water and Peter had responded with a surprised, fond smile and a brief hand on Martin’s back. Martin had felt brave, their increasing levels of intimacy fooling him into confidence as he leant forward for a kiss in the light of the early morning sunrise. Peter had backed away swiftly with a panicked look and disappeared into the depths of the ship in seconds. Even when Martin returned to the cabin, he still didn’t appear.

He had finished his work for the day and was reading when Peter had finally returned. The other man had not returned for the rest of the day, nor for lunch, leaving Martin to munch on a couple of his emergency snacks. Apparently he wasn’t going to abandon him for dinner as well.

Martin didn’t question where he had been.

He didn’t point out the cat hairs on his trousers.

He didn’t complain about Peter leaving him here with no idea where anything was.

He didn’t say a word about Peter abandoning him out on the deck.

He didn’t even complain about why Peter was dragging him away from the Institute for so long. Well, not technically.

“Peter, this cabin is lovely and all but you know I cant actually stay on the Tundra for the next who even knows how many months, it will make me sick.”

Seeing that he wasn’t about to get shouted at, Peter perked up a little.

“Ah, that shouldn’t be a problem. You are connected enough to the Lonely that being on the Tundra should make that bearable”

Peter was hovering around the edge of the room. It was getting late and Martin knew he would be tired around now. Martin had already changed into his sleepwear though he was laying on top of the covers.

There was a knock at the door and a stern-faced man stood there with a tray.

“Your dinner Captain.”

“Thank you Tadeas”

Peter placed the tray on the desk. He hesitated for a moment before shifting into the bathroom to change. He came back in loose trousers and no top and Martin had to think of literally anything else for a moment before he embarrassed himself. The older man grabbed the tray and sat it down in front of Martin before got into the bed next to him.

It wasn’t anything fancy. Peter had bought Martin more expensive meals when they went out to lunch at the cafe round the corner from the Institute. They both picked at the food in silence.

Peter shifted the tray away once they were done, watching as Martin slipped under the covers. He hesitated again before doing the same. They had been sleeping in the same bed since the first day Martin had come aboard but Peter always lay with his back to Martin, ignoring him until morning. Not this time. Martin could feel Peter’s gaze, not the most piercing he had ever felt, not with working in the Institute, but it settled over his skin like a blanket.

Martin felt a cold arm wrap around his waist and pull him towards Peter’s broad chest. A slightly warmer breath brushed against his neck. Martin shifted around to look at Peter.

He opened his mouth, unsure of what to even say but Peter shushed him gently. A cool kiss to his forehead, another to his blushing cheek. Martin rested his head on Peter’s chest, listening to the slow thump of Peter’s heartbeat as he slowly drifted off.

#petermartinweek2020 #PeterMartin #NaNo 2020

2 notes · View notes

moonb-eam · 5 years

Note

the star !! ✨✨

em!!!! 🧡 thank you for the prompt, darling!! 😚 hope you like it!

the star: renewal, hope, rest

“i feel at peace”

possible AUs/settings/ideas: star-gazing, lazy days, cuddling, spirit au

tarot prompts

it’s possible that i may have….out-fluffed myself

not to you (not if it’s me)

also available on ao3

Lucas wakes up and, for a moment, forgets where he is.

He’s cold, and his neck is at an uncomfortable angle, propped up on something solid, the muscles and tendons pulling when he shifts slightly.

He opens his eyes, slowly, blearily, to face scuffed brown fabric, a mysterious stain that looks like it could be coffee, a hole where white stuffing is beginning to leak out.

Eliott’s sofa.

He rolls onto his back, the scratchy wool blanket wrapped around him sliding off with the movement, pooling to the floor in a heap of mossy green. He strains his ears for any sound in the apartment—a boiling kettle maybe, or a closing cupboard. But, nothing.

Still asleep, then.

Or, not asleep but not. Not himself.

The events of the night before feel like a fever dream when Lucas tries to recall them: the vague text message from Eliott at two in the morning, Lucas’s subsequent panicked sprint to Eliott’s apartment, Eliott’s quiet plea for Lucas to stay, please stay Lucas. I can’t…I wanted to be alone, I think I need to be alone, but can you stay? Please? It helps, knowing you’re here.

Lucas can remember how small Eliott looked, asking that, the way his entire body had seemed to shrink in on itself. As if he knew what he asked for was hopeless. As if he knew this was going to be the thing that made Lucas walk out.

He can remember how he’d wanted nothing more than to hold him, to press his face into Eliott’s hair and tell him that everything was going to be alright, that there was nothing Eliott could tell him, nothing he could ask him, that would make Lucas leave, because Lucas loves him. He loves Eliott more than the stars love the moon.

All he had said was, I’ll sleep on the couch, okay? And I’ll be here, for whenever you need me.

Eliott didn’t reply to that, only let out a choked sob and nodded. He had disappeared back inside his room, the door shutting softly behind him. Lucas had laid his fingertips on the wood, resting them there for a moment, imagining that he could feel Eliott through the door: the soft material of his t-shirt, the warmth of his skin, the gentle heaving of his chest with every breath. He pressed his forehead into the door, eyes shut, hoping for something impossible, something like Eliott being able to feel his touch, to feel how much he loved him, how much he wanted to be close to him all the time, all the way through chipping paint and solid wood, across a cold floor to a warm bed, underneath a thick duvet that was surely wrapped around a trembling body by now.

Eliott. I love you.

Eventually he pulled away, heading to the closet at the end of the hall to find a spare blanket and pillow.

Now, Lucas sits up, cracking his neck from side to side. He never did find a pillow, only that thick wool blanket that smells like a forest floor. It’s the one he and Eliott had taken to an outdoor cinema, on a blisteringly hot night back in the summer, where they drank cheap red wine straight from the bottle and kissed under the twilight sky and barely paid attention to the film, too wrapped up in one another.

It was, as far as nights go, a perfect one. So vastly different from the night Lucas just experienced, the murky, drowned end of a day spent worrying about where Eliott was, when Lucas hadn’t heard from him for days.

Lucas swings his legs off of the sofa, heels hitting an icy wood floor, toes curling into the mossy blanket. He drops his head into his hands. He feels hungover even though he went to sleep sober.

You should have known, he tells himself harshly. You should have known he was having an episode. You’re supposed to take care of him. How can you say you love him if you can’t even take care him?

Lucas pushes himself up from the sofa, scrubbing at his eyes and willing his mind to leave him alone, even if just for a moment, a moment, so he can figure out what to do for Eliott, what Eliott will need from him right now.

Coffee. He’s going to start with coffee.

He fills an entire carafe, enough for himself and Eliott, if he comes out of his room. If he wants any. While the coffee steeps Lucas leans against the counter, lost in thought, absently chewing on his thumbnail.

What does Eliott need from you right now?

He doesn’t know.

He texts Eliott’s parents, but his mother tells Lucas she’s already heard from him, that she knows Eliott is okay, but still thanks Lucas for checking in with them. He opens Eliott’s laptop on the kitchen table and finds an email from one his professors, telling Eliott not to worry about the class he missed, that he can make up for any missed work the following week.

And suddenly Lucas is getting teary-eyed while reading an email on Eliott’s laptop, standing in Eliott’s kitchen in his boxers and a t-shirt. It’s just. Eliott took care of everything, and Lucas is so proud of him, almost dizzyingly so. It’s a small thing, a small way Eliott is taking care of himself, but Lucas knows Eliott, and he knows that, really, it’s a big thing.

He’s so proud of Eliott. He really is. So when his own mind decides to ask, You’re supposed to take care of him, but he doesn’t even need you for that, Lucas feels frustration curl in his chest like smoke. He wants to take a match to his thoughts, wants to drown them in the bottom of the sink.

That is not what this is about. You are not Eliott’s caregiver, you’re his boyfriend. You’re here because he wants you to be here. He said that it helps, remember?

It’s a comforting placation, and Lucas holds onto it. A flickering flame he shelters from the storm of his own self-doubt.

He pours himself a cup of the coffee that’s been left steeping for too long, now. He stands on Eliott’s tiny balcony and stares blankly out into the greying, muggy skies of Paris and sips at coffee that is as bitter as tar, sweetened only by the thought of Eliott’s voice, by the memory of how his smile tastes.

By mid-morning Eliott still hasn’t left his room.

Lucas drains the rest of the coffee, wraps himself in one of Eliott’s hoodies he finds hanging in the entryway, and logs into his own email from Eliott’s laptop, downloading his readings for class that week.

He doesn’t actually have any pressing work, but he gets ahead, reading through the PDFs at Eliott’s table, his legs curled under himself and a plate of toast at his elbow, typing lazy notes into a Google Doc.

He sees Eliott for only a moment, a ghost of a boy disappearing around the corner to the bathroom. He doesn’t speak to Lucas when he passes by again, returning to his room as silently as he left it. Lucas waits a minute, then another, before he stands, dipping his head outside of the kitchen. The slice of toast he’d left for Eliott is still there, but the cup of tea is gone, and that makes Lucas smile.

It rains for a little while in the afternoon, while Lucas is cleaning Eliott’s living room, folding the mossy blanket back into a neat square, straightening the sofa cushions, tidying the notebooks and pencils scattered across the coffee table. He doesn’t mean to look, but one of the notebooks is open, one page covered entirely in charcoal smudges, blurred streaks broken up by fingerprints and scratched-out words. On the other page, there’s a single line written in clumsy scrawl at the top of the page:

What does peace feel like?

Lucas breath is caught in his throat. He finds himself reaching for the page, his fingers aching, as though he’ll be able to feel Eliott through the curve of every etching, as though he can unwrap Eliott’s layers from this alone, from pressing his hands between the pages.

His phone buzzes and he startles, fumbling for it in the deep pockets of Eliott’s hoodie. It’s a text from Yann, asking Lucas if everything is okay after last night. If Eliott is okay. Lucas gently closes the notebook, sighing. Even if he is Eliott’s boyfriend, he shouldn’t look through his private work. Just because he’s in love with Eliott doesn’t mean he has the rights to every part of him.

He doesn’t text Yann back. He calls him.

Yann answers on the second ring. “Lucas? Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Lucas’s voice is hoarse to his own ears. He clears his throat, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “Yeah, it’s okay. Eliott’s doing better, I think. He’s sleeping right now.”

Yann hums knowingly. “Okay. And what about you?”

“Yeah, I’m just…uh. I’m, you know. I’m here.”

“You sound tired. Did you sleep at all last night?”

“A bit.”

There’s a pause. “Lucas, are you sure you’re okay? Do you want me to come over?” Yann’s voice is coloured dark-blue with concern, and Lucas can see his face so clearly, the point of tension between his eyebrows, the downward tilt to his mouth. He’s worried about Lucas.

“No, no. Thanks, but I’m alright.” Lucas sighs. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been…having some weird thoughts today. I dunno. Maybe it’s because it’s been so quiet here.”

“Thoughts about what?”

Lucas sinks to the edge of the coffee table, stretching his legs out in front of himself. “I dunno.” He repeats. He shrugs even though Yann can’t see it.

“Okay.” There’s a rustle on the other end of the line. “Well, if I know you, you’re beating yourself up about something.”

“I’m not.”

“Uh huh.”

“I just hope I’m helping him, you know?” Lucas blurts out. He stops, but there’s a heavy silence on the other end of the line. Yann waiting him out. “I want to be good for him. As good as he is for me. I don’t want to be…useless.”

“Lucas.” The word is weighted with affection.

“I dunno. Yeah. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid, but it’s not true. You know why? Because literally everything you do for Eliott is because you love him. Because you want to make him happy. Usefulness has nothing to do with it. That’s why we fall in love with people, not with wrenches.”

Lucas snorts. “What?”

“I said what I said. Lucas, you are good for him. Trust me.” Yann pauses. When he speaks again, his voice is soft. “You know, he tells me about it all the time. Eliott does. About how good you are to him. He said to me me once that he doesn’t know what he did to deserve you.”

Lucas exhales slowly. His eyes travel to the windows, where the sun is tilting down in the sky, dropping into a oil spill of colour. It’s later than he thought it was.

“If you ask me, you two deserve each other. Falling over yourselves to be the most selfless, or the most loving or whatever.” He can practically hear Yann shaking his head. “Romantic idiots.”

Lucas makes an offended noise.

“Come on, you know what I mean. You love each other.”

Lucas nods. “Yeah,” he mumbles.

“Alright, then.”

There’s a beat of silence. Lucas is still staring out the window, at where the sun is falling down, down, and he’s thinking about ordering some food for dinner, and he’s thinking about how lucky he is to be surrounded by people like Yann. Like Eliott. People with hearts like mountains.

“Hey,” he says. “Yann, listen. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. If you want, you can call me later, okay? It’s just Arthur coming over to game tonight, so it’ll be chill. Or even, come over here.”

“Yeah. Yeah, thank you, again.”

Yann laughs gently. “No worries, Lulu. Take care of yourself.” And he hangs up.

Lucas taps his phone against his bottom lip, smiling to himself as he pulls his gaze from the oil-spill sun across the living room to Eliott’s closed door.

He told me once he doesn’t know what he did to deserve you.

What does peace feel like?

Lucas winds up ordering pizza, because he’s cheap, and because he’s starving.

He winds up ordering a large, with Eliott’s favourite toppings on it, because he’s in love.

Lucas props open the door to Eliott’s balcony with a potted plant, moving the chairs aside and dragging out the sofa cushions along with the big wool blanket. He brings the box of pizza outside, along with two glasses of water, and waits, draping the blanket around his shoulders and hitting shuffle to a playlist on his phone. He turns off all of the lights in the kitchen except for one over the stove, then plugs in the string of fairy lights Eliott has wrapped around the iron fence surrounding the balcony.

He knows Eliott might not come out, and that’s fine if he doesn’t want to. But if he does, Lucas wants the world that greets him to be a nice one. One with all of Eliott’s favourite things in it.

Despite the muggy morning and mid-day rain, it’s a clear night. The air is cool, the chill of an early autumn night settling itself deep into the bones of Paris, but the sunset is spectacular, dark orange bleeding into a bright and vivid purple, both colours chased down the horizon by deep indigo, a blanket of stars coming to put the city to sleep. Lucas has never liked how the days get shorter, and shorter, and shorter as the Earth tilts on its axis but right now, there’s something comforting he finds in the falling dark.

“What is this?”

He jumps on the spot, craning his neck around because he knows who it is, it could literally only be one person, and there’s Eliott, standing just outside of the entrance to the balcony. His hair is sticking up in every possible direction, his sweatpants are tucked into a pair of thick wool socks, one sitting a lot higher than the other, his black t-shirt is slouching off of one shoulder and he’s tired, clearly tired, the delicate skin under his eyes coloured purple and blue, hollow under the low light.

He’s frowning slightly, sluggish and slow.

Lucas can’t stop smiling.

“I got us dinner.” He says simply, gesturing to the open pizza box. “There’s a glass of water for you, too.”

Eliott’s eyes flick down to the food. Like a reflex, his stomach growls, and he winces. “But what’s…” He gestures vaguely at the fairy lights, at Lucas’s makeshift fort of blanket and cushion. “What’s this?”

“Uh.” Lucas smoothes a hand down the blanket. “This is just…for you.”

Eliott raises his eyebrows. “For me?”

“I wanted to make it nice for you.”

“Oh.” Eliott says softly. He chews down on his bottom lip, shifting on his feet where he’s still standing at the entrance, like he’s scared to enter the little universe Lucas has built. “I wasn’t sure if you’d still be here.” He says at length. “I was surprised to find you.”

Lucas feels his heart clench. “Sweetheart,” he murmurs, and slowly, he raises a hand, offering it to Eliott. Eliott hesitates to take it, and Lucas amends, “If you want to be alone, that’s okay. Do you want to take the food and go back to your room?”

Eliott shakes his head. “No. No, I want…” He meets Lucas’s fingers with his own, their hands folding together. Lucas can’t control the happy sigh he lets out at the feel of Eliott’s hand against his own, and it makes Eliott’s head snap up. When he sees Lucas staring up at him, a beaming smile on his face, he gives a small smile back.

Lucas tugs gently and Eliott steps onto the balcony. He stands there for a moment, eyes roaming from the food, to the lights, to the sunset, and he really is so gorgeous, Lucas thinks. He’s ethereal. He puts all the heavenly beings to shame just by existing.

“This is beautiful.” Eliott says softly, then he’s lowering himself to the cushions, folding his long legs underneath himself and curling into Lucas’s side. “Thank you.”

Lucas grips a corner of the blanket in his fist and wraps his arm around Eliott, creating a cocoon of warm, earthy wool for the both of them. “It’s nothing.” Lucas whispers into Eliott’s hair, and Eliott smells a bit like sleep, like he’s spent too long in bed, and his fair feels a little greasy under Lucas’s cheek but he’s here. He’s warm underneath Lucas’s arm and he’s breathing and he’s here and Lucas has never meant anything more than he means those words. It’s nothing. I’d do anything for you.

“It’s not nothing.” Eliott disagrees. He pulls back a bit from Lucas, but his eyes stay low “It’s not. You stayed. All night and all day, you were here.”

“Of course I was.” Lucas says. He gently nudges Eliott’s chin up with his thumb. “Hey. Of course I stayed.”

“I really didn’t think you would. I actually…” Eliott sighs and draws further away, the blanket slipping off one of his shoulders. He reaches for the glass of water Lucas set aside for him. “I expected you to leave.”

Lucas stares at him. “What do you mean? Eliott, if you really wanted to be alone, you could have told me.”

Eliott takes a long drink, waves a hand out flat towards Lucas. “I’ve been…down the last few days.”

Lucas nods. “I know, and I’m sorry I didn’t see any of the usual signs, or—”

“Lucas, please.” Eliott sounds desperate, desperate to speak without being interrupted. Lucas presses his lips together firmly, mouths sorry to him. Eliott inhales sharply, his shoulders rising up towards his ears. “I know you mean well, Lucas, but you can’t talk about signs like my mental illness is an incoming hurricane.”

Lucas’s eyes drop down, chastened.

“I’m not mad.” Eliott presses a finger into Lucas’s bent knee. “I just want to explain. I didn’t have a manic episode, but I was down. I was depressed. And that happens. Or sometimes I’m just manic. There’s no pattern to this, Lucas. It never makes sense, not even to me.” Eliott takes another drink of water. “So, I was down, and I didn’t tell you about it because, I don’t know. I didn’t want to bother you, I guess. Or at least, I didn’t think it was anything too serious. But then I’m working on some homework for an art class, where the professor posed us a question to think on. The questions was: What does peace feel like? And it was when I was working on that, that I…” Eliott shrugs. “I couldn’t grasp it. I tried to write some things down but I got frustrated, and I scratched it all out, and in the end it looked like complete chaos, and I lost it because. That’s what I am. That’s what the inside of me looks like. What it feels like, sometimes.” Eliott’s voice cracks, and he masks it with another sip of water.

Lucas feels like his chest is caving in on itself.

“And I realized,” Eliott continues, “that peace feels like you. That’s how I feel, when I’m with you. But that, that scared me.” Eliott stares at Lucas directly now. “You can’t love another person like that, where they’re your entire life. And nobody can be loved like that. Everyone will get hurt, that way.” Eliott shakes his head. “But at that point, I was spiralling, and all I wanted was to see you, to have you make everything quiet, but that was also one of the reasons I was spiralling, because I rely too much on you.”

“Eliott.” Lucas whispers. He tries to say a million things with his name.

Eliott shakes his head again. “I didn’t want to call you, but I did, and then when I saw you it was such a relief, but I was so angry at myself for wanting to see you. For needing you. So I asked you to stay and went to my room and I thought, maybe when I wake up he won’t be here. But you were. And you are still here, which is.” Eliott picks up Lucas’s hand and presses a kiss to the back of it. Then another. “I know it’s not true.” He says quietly. He rests his cheek against their clasped hands. “I’m learning to take care of myself. I’m becoming strong on my own. Actually my,” he huffs a laugh, “my therapist says I’m doing really well, but she also says that it’s good to have someone who can help me when everything is too much. She says it’s not wrong to need others, sometimes.”

“It’s not.” Lucas says, squeezing Eliott’s hand.

“I know.” Eliott smiles at him, eyes wet. “I do. But it can be one thing to know, and another to believe.”

Lucas nods, and gently cards his free hand through Eliott’s hair. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen, at first. Thank you for telling me. Thank you for trusting me.”

Eliott shrugs. “Thank you for being here.”

They say I love you at the exact same time, and it makes them both smile, Lucas laughing when Eliott’s stomach growls again.

They eat pizza and sit together under the wide open sky of the little universe Lucas built, watching the stars blink to life as the night grows long and restless.

“This feels like peace.” Eliott says quietly, tucking himself back under Lucas’s arm. “Being here with you.”

Lucas presses a smile into his hair. “Yeah?”

Eliott nods, kissing where Lucas’s shirt dips low on his collarbone. “And watching the stars, seeing the moon rise. That feels like peace.”

Lucas think for a moment. “Watching the rain fall from inside.”

“Taking a deep breath of fresh air.”

“Going for a walk at midnight.”

“Listening to a really good song. Just closing your eyes and listening.”

“Laughing so hard you cry.”

“Drawing something, letting it carry you away.”

“Eating pizza.”

Eliott laughs, and kisses Lucas’s neck, letting his mouth linger there. “Being held by you. Feeling your hands on me.”

Lucas nods, like he’s agreeing, but he also whispers, “Orgasms,” and Eliott smacks him in the stomach.

“Lucas.” Eliott groans, but he’s laughing, properly laughing, and it’s the first time Lucas has heard that in days.

“Hearing you laugh.” Lucas says. His free hand comes up and smoothes across the corner of Eliott’s bottom lip. “Your smile. That’s it, for me.”

Eliott’s smile softens. His lashes swoop in one slow blink. “Do you…want to stay the night? I know you’ve been here for a while, but if you want to, then. I want you to.”

Lucas is already nodding. “I want to. I’ll sleep on the couch again, if you like.”

“No, no. That’s okay.” Eliott presses himself impossibly closer. “But thank you.”

“No problem.” Lucas runs a soothing hand down Eliott’s back. “Just let me know if you change your mind, sweetheart.”

Eliott’s melting into him, the remaining tension in his body falling away bit by bit, and Lucas can see how exhausted Eliott is, can see how much the last few days have taken out of him, and he’s so proud of him, of this boy who’s more beautiful than the stars and has the heart of a mountain and is stronger than most people will ever know.

“If I’m going to stay,” Lucas says, Eliott shifting against him, “then I want to take a shower.”

“Okay.” Eliott agrees easily.

“Do you want to join me?” Lucas asks, brushing Eliott’s hair back from his forehead. “I’ll wash your hair for you.”

“Oh.” Eliott murmurs. “That sounds nice. Yeah, let’s do that.”

Lucas stands first, gathering the empty cups and pizza box and bringing everything inside, Eliott coming in after, the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, trailing behind him like a ceremonial robe.

Lucas unplugs the lights, and it’s dark inside Eliott’s apartment, but neither of them bother turning on any more lights. It’s easy enough for them to get around, lit up by the bright stars, guiding each other with tightly held hands.

It’s dark, and they’re both moving slowly, a bit clumsy, but we’re not worried.

We know they’ll make it there.

#prompts #eliottamoureaux #tarot prompts #fic tag #elu fic #also!!!#for the anon who sent this prompt and the high priestess #i will definitely fill the high priestess so keep an eye out for that!!

112 notes · View notes

agentwallflower · 4 years

Text

Supernova: Chapter 11

Guess who didn’t write anything the last couple weeks?

*raises hand*

Depression is fun like that. I’m going to try harder this month to get content out, but I don’t know how well things are going to go. I’m starting therapy again, so I’m hoping that’ll help my energy levels...

I don’t really have much to say other than that. No energy to do much other than go to work and come back. Life in the time of plague is... rough I guess.

Next chapter is going to go up September 19. I’ll see you then. Remember to wear a mask and wash your hands.

If something was supposed to be happening, it wasn't – the place still looked like a normal house to Andy as she glanced around as she walked. With any luck, they didn't have neighbors or they were in for one hell of a noise complaint.

“It's right over here, just have to turn everything on.”

Sky Rider directed her to a door that looked like it might lead to a closet. Andy shot him a blank look as she watched him access a panel on the side of the wall. He stood there for a while, typing things in. Then something beeped and he groaned.

Well, they were getting off to a good start.

“Password got changed to Kryptonite this month, SR.” Scanner's voice called from their computers. The hero didn't start typing, however. “Alright, it's K-”

He held up a gloved hand to stop the spelling bee. “No, it's asking what to register Andy as so it can set the parameters.”

That got the tech to actually back up from their setup and roll over to the pair by the door. Andy stepped to the side to give them space without needing to be asked. One thing she was painfully aware of was just how big she was. Even if they had been standing, she dwarfed them by at least a foot, maybe more, and that was without the frame differences. Her limited experience let her know people tended not to like loomers, so there was some breathing room between them.

Scanner muttered to themselves as their eyes glowed. That close, she saw one was brown and the other was blue, though it looked too sparkly to be normal. Artificial, or at least augmented. It matched the silvery hand, and the bit of shoulder peeking out from the loose shirt they were wearing.

“Right, don't want her blowing the whole place up. That be a pain to explain to next door, we barely have them fooled.” They turned to face her, briefly. “I guess we could put Nova's data in for her. You said she's related, right?”

Andy felt her core bubble as the tech quickly put the details in, though it took a little gentle analog persuasion in the process. Apparently, it was a pre-Scanner design that didn't like them very much if the grumbling was to be believed.

Nova had lived here once.

“Thanks, Scan. I'll let you know if we need anything else.”

“Please do before you take a wall out. We already get yelled at when we break the city apart.” They were already rolling back to their rig, muttering about how they needed to gut that damn system to replace it sometime. From the way it sounded, it wouldn't have been out of place with a lover's quarrel. Hopefully nobody asked her to hold a wrench.

This left her alone with Sky Rider, who finished up tapping something into the wall. The panel beeped, and then covered itself up. He motioned for her to follow, and they were soon opening the door and walking through.

It... yeah it looked like an empty room.

“Scanner's predecessor came up with the idea for this when Ember was a trainee.” He knocked the wall, and a rainbow glittered across its surface. “Barriers, coded with details of hero abilities. I could blast for days and not even leave a scratch.”

Well, then she probably wasn't going to take a wall out then. That was a relief.

“So that's why you were trying to figure out what to register me as.” She gave him a blank look. “What do you do if someone has a new power, though?”

Sky Rider shrugged his shoulders as he took a seat against the wall. “Download info from the closest match, mostly. They used Paladin's data for me, even though I have a different profile. Once you've used it a few times, we'll have a special profile for you too. Makes it easier to keep the place together.”

Andy nodded, but after that she was kind of lost as she looked down at her hands. Memories of when she had first used her powers were vague at best, and none of them were pointing at how to turn the damn thing on.

Maybe it was motion activated? She swung her hand down hard, like she remembered. The only result was that the air moved and she felt a little stupid. At least Sky Rider didn't laugh at her when she tried it a second time with her other hand.

So... not motion activated.

Andy felt her core go a little cold as she turned to look at her trainer. “You do kind of a blast thing, got any ti-”

The words died in her mouth. Though Sky Rider was physically in the room, he was more focused on the large book spread out in front of him. Apparently, he liked pink sticky notes – the pages were covered in them. The book next to him had a similar treatment, and there was pink highlighter all over his written notes.

She would have been impressed if he hadn't been training her.

His visor moved up, but he made no move to hide his work. “Focus on a target and try to imagine your energy flowing out. Not sure if it's going to work for you though, cause... you know.”

His highlighter motioned to her necklace. “You should probably keep that on, by the way. Scanner says they don't have cameras in here, but something records the data well enough.”

“You're the best.” Andy didn't have the tone for sarcasm, but she hoped it got across as she turned back to the task at hand. “Hey, speaking of data... you guys wouldn't happen to have anything from Nova, would you?”

That got the psychic to stop writing notes, at any rate. What was he studying anyway? It was hard to tell, since she wasn't exactly a master of reading books in human-friendly orientation. The fact there were no pictures didn't help much either. She could at least rule out medicine – not enough angst.

“Yeah, I think we do. Why, do you think watching her might help you figure it out?”

This time, it was Andy's turn to shrug. “Even if it doesn't, it's not like I've ever really got to see them much. We can't talk about Nova at home, and my sister was too young to remember much anyway.”

Before he could ask, she added “Adopted sister, I'm the only weirdo around here.”

If Sky Rider had anything to say about that, he kept it to himself in favor of getting up from his study spot in order to cross the room. They were much closer as he started to type details into the computer, the screen reflecting back in his visor.

If she had to wear a helmet like that all day, she'd go insane.

“Can I ask what you're studying?”

Andy wasn't sure why she was asking him that. He seemed to think about it for a few seconds before the machine beeped- there were records coming up, or at least she thought there might be. It was hard to tell with their orientation, but they had gotten results. They probably even said what was on them, but it wasn't like she could read any of it.

Ah, the joys of strange vision.

“Psychology.” He backed up, probably to return to the books. “Nova's logs are in date order. I would say start with the older stuff, might give you a better foundation.”

And like that, she was alone again. Andy sighed as she turned back, poking with an experimental finger. Probably because she didn't have skin, the damn thing didn't respond to her. No doubt she looked like an idiot.

What else was new?

---

Ugh, he was never going to learn this in time for the exam. Even his brain couldn't keep up.

Angel could feel the sweat trickle down the back of his neck, and it wasn't from the heat. His pile of notes was growing by the second, and his deadline was looming. Add in the fact the class was with his adviser, and he was feeling the heat.

Or... it actually was kind of hot.

“You're not overheating, are you?”

He looked over his textbook. Andy was still poking at the screen, grumbling. It wasn't going anywhere fast, to say the least. Part of him wondered if she had broken the damn thing, but then he watched as her finger prodded the screen.

Right. Not made for aliens.

“I can't read what it says, can you help me here?”

Andy's voice was as monotone as always as he got up again to help her. That close, he could feel the hum of whatever was keeping her looking like a human being. It wasn't a bad feeling, just an odd one that made his teeth itch. Since nobody was reporting a dentist visit, that was probably just him. Hooray for being psychic.

“I'll set it up on a loop for you.” He cocked his eyebrow under his visor. “They didn't teach you to read at the lab?”

Andy shook her head. “I can only read stuff that's upside down and backwards to you. Something about how my eyes are structured I guess.”

“Huh, that's gotta be a pain in the ass for reading your phone...” He mumbled that to himself as he set up the loop sequence. Nova's oldest video was soon on the screen, showing the hero in their 80's glory. Just seeing the spandex made him wince, even with the leather jacket. Nothing like 80's superheroes to make him glad he wasn't born then.

Though, he had to admit it was a rare treat to see a younger PT looking even more like a punk nightmare next to them. Talk about blackmail.

“I don't have one, not -” Andy fell silent at the sight of Nova. Her hand stretched out to touch the screen. “That's... it's Cass.”

Angel frowned at the reaction. “Hey, are you -”

“I've never really seen them before.” her hand traced the outline. “It's hard to tell with their disguise... but we don't look anything alike, do we? Why else would they wear red...”

The alien's voice trailed off as she watched the figure on screen. Her face was unreadable, but Angel got the sense this was something private he shouldn't intrude on. He backed up, content to return to his notes. But he kept one eye peeled as he went back to his notes. Maybe she might need a little of his day job when she was done.

---

Andy wasn't sure how long she sat there, staring at the screen. Nova's clips kept looping and returning to that first screen, even as they burned into her memory. Simply put, she was transfixed by the person on screen.

She was so... red.

Honestly, that was the weirdest part of all this. Part of Andy had just assumed her parent would have been blue like her – wasn't that how it worked with genetics when it came to humans? She may have been from a different planet, but there should have been a link.

She couldn't find any as she watched the disguised alien on screen. Every movement Nova made was so fluid and graceful that it made her nonexistent joints ache. If she had ever tried to move like that, shit would've broken. Yet the hero walked silently, as if they weren't there at all. Maybe they weren't; maybe she was just dreaming this.

Andy's core bubbled as her favorite clip queued up. Nova was up against some small time villain, their name garbled by the digitization. It didn't matter who it was, though – she was only focused on the hero in red spandex and leather jacket as they prowled onto the screen, their very presence making the news camera waver.

They said something, but the camera wasn't able to pick it up with the inference. Then they held up their hand. Light in every color, even ones humans couldn't see, began to build up in their hand. Then they threw out a fist, and the light went with it. The moment it made contact with the person on the other side of the screen, light exploded in a rush of sound. The whole screen went white, and then when it settled it was over. Nova was the only one standing, flexing their fist.

“We're live on the scene at 5th Street where Nova-”

The clip cut out after that.

“That looked like the Starburst.”

She looked over her shoulder. Sky Rider had abandoned his books in order to study the screen. The second clip was playing on the reflection of his tinted visor, giving her a perfect view of Nova in action in reverse. Apparently, that was more interesting than studying for psychology.

“What?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Naming your attacks was big in the 80's. Sometimes PT almost starts to do it before the cringe knocks her back. Nova's big ones were the Starburst and Big Bang. The next one should be that.”

Through his visor, Andy got to watch as the alien in disguise started to glow as bright as a star, then throw all the energy with a yell of focus. There were the colors and lights again, twinkling against the glass. Did he even see it the same way she did, or was it just white light?

Sky Rider reached for his notebook, and the image vanished with the shift. “I don't recommend the Big Bang in here. Leave that for field work. Just focus on making the hand blast.”

Then he left her to her own devices. Andy shrugged it off as she backed away from the screen. Now she faced a blank stretch of wall, almost as if it was daring her to mess it up. Just like she had seen on the screen, she held out her hand as if she was getting ready to blast.

And then it stayed there for a good thirty seconds as she waited for something to happen.

“Maybe try throwing it.”

Andy shot him a blank look as she wiggled her fingers in exasperation. “Now you're trying to train me?”

“Nobody can train you, you're – you know.” He shrugged. “Just making a suggestion. Might need a little motion to get things going. Think back to how you did it the first time.”

Yeah, the gap in her memory was great for that. Though, gap wasn't the right word for it. Now that Andy was trying to reach back to remember, it felt more like a wall between herself and whatever had happened. Right then, she was banging up against that wall, trying to break it down. Damn thing wasn't budging, unfortunately.

So, back to the wall she went, with the feeling that this wasn't going to end with anything interesting. Oh well, if training was supposed to be easy there would be more super-powered humans in Bear Paw. Back to work it was.

---

Like what you see? Consider supporting my Ko-Fi!

#Supernova Collision Trilogy #writing #novel #Yep I sound depressed alright

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one-of-us-must-be-crazy · 4 years

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12 for my eternal sucker devotion to sleep intimacy self?

things you said when you thought i was asleep

Amanda was used to hearing him mumble things, his volume low and sometime low-quality too, brushing hair away from her noes and mouth. He’d know if she was asleep or awake, could probably tell from her heart and breath, but these moments she figured she must have been waking slowly and still technically asleep, even if she could hear him.

“Only me,” “Still early, love,” “I’m only going to start breakfast,”

words like that followed by a soft kiss and such a slight movement of the bed that she’s still not sure how he does it without, no matter how many times she’s seen it.

And she’s aware that he’s alright, but the fact that her lover doesn’t exist when he’s not fully charged and aware, that whatever fluke of programming that gave him human-level sentience and will was just a misplaced one or zero away from rendering him as personable as their coffee maker. If souls exist for her, then she faces the real possibility of eternity without him, reincarnation without him. Lifetimes and memories and millennia pass and he’ll be a dream she eventually forgets.

Right now, a finicky new battery and a badly timed bug in a downloaded update have turned him into a beautiful plastic corpse. Silicone, to be more exact, or something like it. Chemical engineering wasn’t something she stayed up to date on. He’s lying on their couch; still, closing in on a decade together and a forged marriage license, he’s strange about handling technical maintenance on their bed.

She runs the back of her hand lightly down his arm, trying to ignore the mess of a towel under a milky slit in his side, half self-sealed already so it’ll need reopened once the new battery is charged and ready. Then hopefully, if his muscles hold out an extra year, they won’t be doing anything so invasive for another three or four years.

“I don’t know if I’d recognize human skin,” she mumbles. Close to him for so long, and without the regular contact of humans for even longer, she really does wonder. Technology gets better every day, and surely a new synthetic model would be more realistic to human touch, but would she think so? So long in awe that he’s so close to real would she recoil at anything more real.

They can and have managed to sleep apart, it got easier after the first few years, and sometimes if he didn’t feel like sleeping he’d kiss her goodnight on an evening before she had to be up early, and then work through the night. When he needed to charge in the beginning, he’d ask her to leave him alone; eventually he’d let her near him, and she’d stubbornly sleep sitting up next to him on the couch, then after that bridge was crossed, she’d often go to bed, her opinion on this matter well known, but also not a good enough reason to wake up with a messed up neck and back from sleeping weird.

She touches his hand, but there’s no response, no warmth, and certainly no life, that undeniable realness of him when he’s awake, or even in the faux-sleep he rests with every night. The battery cell needs a few more hours, but the vague orange-yellow the light on the dock has turned looks better than the red it was when this started, and she grits her teeth, yanking it from the base and setting to work. He can suffer the annoyance of the physical uplink cord to top the battery off during any free time for a few days. She’s done seeing him like this and he’ll have to either understand, or not ask at all.

There’s a practiced grimace on his face as he checks his power level but it has more to do with the towel under him, caked in hydraulic fluid., Amanda in the kitchen washing it from her hands and tools.

“You’re awake,” she says, friendly, almost sing-song. Her bedside manner less desperate than it was before they were together, when she would struggle to maintain any kind of calmness. No, even though he knows her stress level is still the same, still can (if he adjusts his audio sensitivity) hear her racing heart.

“Barely...” he knows she wouldn’t have installed a faulty battery, knows that only nine hours have passed, knows that she purposefully put in a barely-charged battery just because she couldn’t tolerate the wait any more.

He doesn’t ask.

“How do you feel?”

“I’m...low, but lucid. How long was I charging after you put the battery in?”

“I only put it in just now,” she dries her hands on her jeans, and he doesn’t bother to remind her that there are two perfectly good tea towels hanging right next to her. “Why ask?”

“Becuase....Amy, I only heard a little, but...if you miss, or if you forget, what human touch feels like, I’ve told you before that you’re free to seek it out.”

“Fuck that, I’ve told you before, you’re all I want. And I wouldn’t be as generous with you if you decided you wanted to know what synthetic skin felt like. I mean...if it comes to it, and you want to leave for good, but as far as hooking up just our of curiosity? I’d really rather you didn’t.”

“Sorry, I thought you were talking to me wh--”

“Christopher.”

“What?”

“You didn’t have your batteries in when I said that. That’s all I said, I might have swore at some point when closing you up, but I didn’t--I wasn’t talking to you after you were back online.”

“You did say something about testing the power limits later, but you always use that line after I get repairs. No, you specifically said something earlier about...human touch.”

“Not while you were on,”

“That’s impossible.”

“well I didn’t saying anything else, maybe you dreamed it?”

“Without a battery?”

“Chris, I don’t know it’s...”

“It’s impossible. I must have imagined it.”

Amanda smiles a little, not satisfied with the explanation, but trying to file away the fear in the same back corner of her mind as many others.

#outreotter

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unproduciblesmackdown · 4 years

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some random numbers: 1, 3, 6, 15, 23, 31, 35, 40. give me ur ungodly long answers.

lmaooo YES brevity whom......i cannot be concise

1) favorite videos?

i sure spent 2010 - 2014 enjoying youtube horror interpersonal-drama series marble hornets, those are a good time. and here in the future you and i both know there is just a wellspring of wrol-related Video Content out there, god damn, i really love so many of them.....in between that there’s sure been a lot of fun and funney videos and like, some Artistique ones i like to revisit [or have disappeared :( ] but i always like to promote this Wuthering Heights one. i love it. oh lol!!!! and the uh, Skate 3 Glitch compilations!!! so so funny

3) favorite memes?

i think Deep Fried Memes are fun all the time lol. the Youtube Meme of “___ but ____” is a lot of fun OH YEAH steamed hams was awesome too. the 24601 Releases A Sammich On Parole ytp is priceless......this is just turning into favorite videos again lmao. vine as a meme and a whole

6)favorite mixes?

you know i never really made or used playlists lol!!!! i will just be like, in the mood for certain songs or else like “i want to listen to music but....which ones”.....i say i can never be concise and all of these answers turning out short lol. it’s not b/c i’m Concise but b/c like, i don’t know what Favorites i have and i don’t have a memory that works without Direct Reminders of Specific Things so i’m just failing to like, come up with the info in the first place smh

15) favorite fictional characters?

here we go lol i can answer this one cuz when i have a fave rave it’s rare and like, easier to remember cuz i do not Go Hard about it that often.....weirdly for the first few years of The Decade i did’t really have such certain faves.....i was def enjoying some characters, as i always do, but nothing like super standout. then in ‘11 or ‘12 or whatever i was like oh hey, ed from cowboybeboy.......and then just had like, the solo experience of me humoring myself w/ that. bit of an usual one b/c a lot of the characters i Really latch on to will tend to be kinda roughly similar in ways that maybe seem pretty at-first-glance levels of obvious, buuut idk she’s not That far off from my usual selections i guess lol. anyways then in 2014 i was like, time to go ham for lars. what a valuable time it was....what Fun we had.....truly tho! and then another interval later it’s 2016 and for similarly (relatable characters of roughly the same cut) i was like, well here i am having a great time re: kip, all while getting to generously use of my fave shade of blue and fangs central and all that fun stuff. and then another interval later the Eventual Unfolding of what started innn 2017 i guess occurs, and it’s late 2018, and i’m like, time to look into Jared Kleinman b/c just from reading the wikipedia summary that didn’t mention him all that much i could tell this was probably a character i’d go ham for for predictable reasons, and the vague interest in that has stuck with me for the past little-over-a-year......and then i was Completely right lol. deh? well that’s just Bonus Jared Lore, to me (though of course alana in her own right is a great and similarly underappreciated character. rights)....and then of course i’ve had a lot of fun with pretty much each and every Wrol Role lmao.......Very fond of jeremy, and also christine, and bmc just has really enjoyable and interesting characters all over the place. and of course, here i am, Extremely #about winston quantbillions as another certified fave rave, really. call it classic!!!

[[answered both 23 and 31 prior, actually.....words were typed....]]

35)a random memory you remember with strange clarity?

tough one because lol a fair amount of “you recorded this memory in a fair amount of detail” is due to increased levels of unpleasantness / stress / discomfort, and if it’s also “i remember this b/c it was Nice” then i wouldn’t call that Strange clarity lol, and Random Memory like “just pull one up from the ol memory bank” is like, god, i wish it were that simple........but give me a min.

oh yeah i had a High Time of it when pokemon go came out (only pokemonn game i have ever played lol) coz there was like, this stretch of Landmarks stops that started at this garden and went along this waterfront / connected park forrr maybe like a half mile stretch? ideal territory and people would actually like, come from out of town to partake in it lol. and i’d Download podcast eps on my phone from my work’s wifi and just like, in the evening listen to that or music and just like, walk and do this shit. i had like five or six gyaradoses at one point cuz i guess the riverside nature of it meant they wanted to throw all these magikarp at you (there Were carp, also! one of the parks had a koi pond.) and like, there were just all these people around doing it along with you, even that late at night and in the early AM hours, so it was fairly social even if u weren’t there with a group or talking with anyone (though there was Camaraderie like, oh hey just so you guys know, there is a ____ over by the boat.) and it was just an interesting Walk with several things to look at and routes to take. and one time in a weird Dead Of Night time like 1am there was this like, smallish cruise ship docked that actually Set Off. and like, a bunch of us randos were just standing there and watching this unfold. this isn’t a very good Clear Random Memory but if i tried to think of a good one, god only knows how long it’d take me lol

40)an important personal revelation?

oh jeez this has really been a decade with lots of the unfortunate combo of “stuff that is a bummer but also boring” lol.......a benefit of getting to spend more time than not Away From The Parents’ House was like, oh sweet, having this perspective for long enough finally leads me to the conclusion of why i hate this......B/c It Is Bad. oh yeah and then there was also conclusively figuring out early in the decade like oh right, i’m trans, that makes sense.......other layers of Gayassedness like oh, more specifically i’m nonbinary, oh yeah and like, i’m not straight, call that queer and/or bi and/or also Gay......bein grey ace like a champ, and aromantic like, oh yeah i’m not like, fucking up at being a person somehow and Letting People Down by not wanting to date them (i mean besides rando cishet men. they can be let down regardless).....and just like, this ongoing process of getting the space to b figuring out myself and what i like For myself in alll kinds of ways....even up till now with the “oh yeah ive been a theatre gay all my life lmaooo” bit that’s like, totally obvious but just like, i didn’t much have the reason to even look at the would-be obvious stuff from the right perspex till now. and it’s pretty fun to realize a Lifelong Area Of Big Interest like that, cuz those sorts of things can feel elusive. and then also unfortunately a lot of the decade has involved like, “oh my self-esteem is so fucked that it’s circling back around and i’m appreciating and valuing myself and that i deserve decent treatment and Not bad shit,” which was a crappy process obviously lol but it was nice when i did start to get there, and making further progress on that front. im not dead certain when i was like “hmm...am autistic” b/c that was definitely a really ongoing process of figuring that out lol, but when / as i did it’s definitely a series of “oh hahaha this is why i’m like This or why i do This or feel like This about This!!” and it’s really easy to learn a totally Brand New Thing all the time abt bein autistic where it’s like Oh #Me!! coz yknow. the info By and For autistic ppl is not always widely available and known of. love that for us

#thank u!!! and thanks for the End Of Decade Ask Meme in the first place lol #cockbiteproductions

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selanaris · 5 years

Text

Wake Up a Vehicon Story(Pt.III)

“I will not ask again. What happened here?!��

The vehicons shook in fear of the commander and his trine, “Uh...t-the Autobots attacked, and s-stole the energon supplies of the lower level. Uh, sir!” shouted one of the drones, fearing for his short life.

“Did any of you see it happen, or even try to fight back!”, the drones flinched at the commander’s tone.

“No, sir, we did not see what happened, we only just arrived after they got away. We came to look for survivors, only to find just this one here-” said the other drone before the first one elbowed him.

“A survivor?” questioned Starscream, walking around the two drones to see the barely online drone, “And did you not think to try to keep him online, he could have valuable information!”

“But…” the first drone hesitated, weighing his options, “He is online, just in stasis.”

“Then what are you waiting for, get this drone to the Nemesis for immediate repairs, they just need to stay online long enough to get the information out of its processor.” Starscream watched as the drones did nothing, “That is an order!!” The two drones rushed to pick up D-8311 and darted to the upper level as Thundercracker called for an upper-level ground bridge and update Soundwave on the situation.

The three seekers stood in silence after the drones departed, all three frowning, thinking. Then the youngest, unable to take the silence any longer, spoke up, “I know you felt it, we all felt it.”

The biggest member sighed, “It’s faint, very faint, near unnoticeable.” Thundercracker looks at his trine mates, “It’s far, it feels as if they’re galaxies away, but we didn’t feel it until we came to this planet, in this specific mine.”

Starscream, who has been silent throughout the conversation, starts to growl, surprising the other two, “The feeling is gone! They were right there and now they’re gone!!” he now begins to outright yell in rage. “Our sparkling is here and I never noticed!!! How could we have never noticed this before?! How could they just disappear like that?! Why is their spark signature very faint?!”

“Our bond.” whispers Skywarp, barely catching the attention of his trine mates, “When we are together our bond becomes stronger, and so does the bond between our sparkling. This means we can find them, they are on this planet!” he beams with joy at the thought of finding their lost sparkling.

“We can’t.” Thundercracker says mournfully, destroying the youngest’s joy, “Megatron has forbidden us from searching for our sparkling.”

The area goes into a somber silence, “Then we don’t tell,” Two helms look up at their leader, “We search, but we have to be discrete, we fly together on patrols and report anything we feel in our spark and remember where you felt it.” Starscream smiles confidently and looks at them, “We will find our sparkling.”

Later on the Nemesis…

The two drones carried D-8311 to the med bay, both grumbling on the way, “You should have just said he was offline, then we would be saved the trouble of actually saving him.”

The other one laughed, “He won’t be online for much longer. You heard the commander, they’re just keeping him online long enough to extract the information out of his processor. Anyway, let’s just drop him off and get out of here, you know vehicons are no longer allowed on the ship.” Both of the drones stop in front of the med bay before hesitantly walking in.

They quickly pause at the sight of the medic sitting on the lap of his assistant gently stroking his chin. The doctor and his assistant froze at the sight of the two drones walking in and are about to shout at them to leave before they noticed the injured drone they brought along. Knockout quickly goes into medic mode as he gets off Breakdowns lap to set up the medical berth, “What are you waiting for, put him on the berth, I need to know his barcode, what happened, and what are the orders.” commanded the doctor as Breakdown gathered the necessary tools for basic repairs.

One of the drones sets D-8311 on the berth and Breakdown starts plugging him into the support machines while the other drone explains the situation, “We were attacked in the mines by the Autobots and this one got shot in the chassis, but he is the only one to survive the attack. So Starscream has given the order to stabilize him and to extract his information about the attack.”

“Yes, yes.” Knockout said dismissively typing into a datapad, “And his barcode designation?”

“D-8311”

This answer caused both medics to freeze and Knockout almost dropped the datapad he was working on. “Get out,” stated Knockout. When he noticed the drones not moving he said it again, this time in a form of a command, “I order you to get out!”, now with their command protocols activated, they quickly left the room, unable to disobey the order.

“Knockout,” started Breakdown, sighing before dropping the news of the patient’s condition, “the damage is very severe. The outer casing of the spark chamber is broken and energon is leaving faster than we can put in.” Breakdown handed the doctor the datapad with the basic scan of the drone.

Knockout looked over the information quickly before his optics widened and he looked from D-8311 to his assistant, “He should be offline by now, it’s impossible for an artificial spark to last this long with this kind of damage.” he paused to look over the damage, “Breakdown, you work on doing the basic repairs and start the processor download, then send the download to Soundwave. I refuse to just download and let D.Bell offline like that,” Breakdown nodded slowly.

“We are disobeying an order by saving him you know”, he sighed looking to Knockout to ensure that this is what he wanted to do.

Knockout began collecting the needed materials to fix the drone’s spark chamber, “I know, but we both know that there is something special about D.Bell, and the point he is still alive proves that.” Breakdown plugged in his processor for download, “With the extensive damage, there is a possibility for him to lose his memory from the download, after all, drones don’t have processor backup software.”

Knockout moves to work on his spark chamber while breakdown begins on the legs. For a while they worked in silence before the doctor gasps, “What is it?” asked his assistant.

Knockout lifts something out of the drones chassis, a boxlike object with a wire connected to the spark chamber, “Why does a drone need a spark inhibitor?”, he starts to inspect the inhibitor before his optics go wide, “This is Shockwaves work, that I know for sure, but….why does a drone...need it?” Knockout moves quickly to the spark chamber, checking his patchwork, ensuring that it is stable enough for further spark inspection. He then moves to the middle seam of the chamber and goes to open it with breakdown watching intently on the side.

The doctor opens the spark chamber wide to allow visage of the artificial spark, only for both the medic and his assistant to freeze. For what seemed like hours, they stood there staring at the chamber, then Breakdown finally broke the silence, “Maybe that’s why…”

Inside the chamber where an artificial spark was supposed to be was a large, bright, real spark. Both medical officers were stunned, unsure of how to proceed with this, and only one thing was said by the doctor, “It’s a femme?!”

Meanwhile…

Soundwave had access to all the cameras through his visor to watch for any sign of Autobots, unwanted guest, rouge Decepticons, Starscream, etc. But at the moment he was focused on one specific camera. The med bay.

He watched the entire scene play out. From the drones arriving, to the doctors starting repair and download, to the discovery of the drone un-artificial spark.

This discovery led to many questions. How did this happen? Was it on purpose? Does the drone know? Who does know? And, how many drones have real sparks?

He knows for a fact that there cannot be many drones with real sparks, he has seen many drones artificial sparks before, and it’s a possibility for this to be the only one.

Soundwave stood there trying to figure out this new discovery, completely ignoring the information download sent from the medics. He ran every possibility through his processor, running constant simulations through his head. He wanted to know more about this mech….femme, but he knew Megatron’s new order for all vehicles. Perhaps he can use his rank and loyalty to ask for this drone specifically as a personal drone. No, he’ll want to know why, and Soundwave doesn’t feel like sharing this information, or his drone. Yes, his drone.

He ran another scan, this time over the spark signature, trying to identify the spark. He found nothing in the primary database, so he began to run it with all other collected databases, old, new, stolen, recovered, he went through each one before stopping at one database. The late doctor, Hook’s database. He found a match with a very vague file, his last entered, and uncompleted file. Starfall. The sparkling to none other than the command trine itself.

This was an issue. Seekers are very, very, protective of sparklings, whether they’re their own or not, and with all the seekers now on board, his plans will be much harder to complete. They will try to take away his drone. He won’t let some weak seekers with caregiver programming take away what belongs to him. They can’t take them away, if they don’t know about them, or can tell which one is which….

He looked back at the med bay camera and watched them repair the drone. What was it that they said, memory loss. That means the drone will be set back to basic drone programming and will be needed to given core settings. That is when he will enter. Drones physically cannot deny orders from higher-ups set during core settings, but if only one mech was entered during that phase. They will only listen to him and only him.

Soundwave began to move, and plan. The moment the medics leave, that will be his chance. A simple reprogramming and processor hacking will ensure this drone will belong to him.

He has been sure about many things, but he has never been more sure about anything before.

Drone D-8311, D.Bell, Starfall, belongs to Soundwave.

#transformers #Transformers Prime #soundwave #knockout #breakdown #starscream #thundercracker #skywarp #Seeker Trine #vehicons #megatron #WakeUpFic #Soundwave is possessive #maccadam

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markrichardson · 5 years

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My Year in Spotify Listening

Like a lot of people I checked out the Spotify year-end summary thingy, and since Spotify is only a certain percentage of my listening, the results were surprising, and I tried to figure out what it meant. In general, I listen to new music via iTunes, if I am sent promos. That only encompasses a certain amount of new music of course, but if I’m sent a download, I tend to use that for my listening all year long. Often, I’m “done with” an album more or less by the time it comes out, but sometimes I’ll keep listening (as w/ DJ Koze this year) and I do that with my promo files. My Spotify listening tends to be a mix of things I stick on a few different playlists based on mood or genre, and they could come from anywhere (but they aren’t usually new).

In terms of my favorite artists (Bill Evans wound up in my top spot, somehow, followed by Joni Mitchell) it was hard to figure out how it’d happened, because I didn’t spend the year obsessed with either. Then I looked at my 100 most played songs, and that did bring back a few things. I’m not sure if the whole list is in order, but the first 5 songs in the playlist are the 5 listed when Spotify gave me my most-listened-to tracks of the year, so I think so? Anyway, that’s what I am going with here. This is how my Top 10 songs show up on the playlist, in order, with one exception: in the middle of the list was Bow Wow Wow’s “See Jungle,” which I already wrote about on Tumblr 8 years ago (and about which I have very little to say now, except that yes I do still listen to this song a fair amount), so I’ve omitted that and included No. 11.

Wussy: “Runaway” This was my favorite song of the year, it has 600 plays on Youtube and 5,400 on Spotify, which makes me a little sad. Technically it’s not from this year—Wussy put this out on a small-release tape or CD-R a few years ago—but I’m still counting it. This is the rare case where the streaming media playcounts tend to match the responses of folks I’ve talked to about this song—I mentioned to 4 or 5 people, and in each case they said “Yeah that’s kind of nice I guess...why do you like it so much?” I’ll try to answer that here.

First I should say that I have no real interest in or knowledge of Wussy. They’re an indie rock band from Ohio, most notable at this point for the fact that Robert Christgau loves them, and has written rapturous reviews of their work over the years, which surely has helped them to achieve whatever small amount of notoriety they have. I checked them out here and there but they didn’t make much of an impression on me. I wish I could remember how I came across this particular song, but I can’t, probably either Twitter or a streaming media algorithm. But I loved it immediately, like, stop-what-you-are-doing-and-listen kind of loved. It just clicked.

The first thing that comes to mind is the chorus: “I love you, let’s run away.” That’s the theme of so many of my favorite songs, I mean, the first album I bought in my life was “Born to Run,” and if you could sum up the first three Springsteen albums in in 6 words, “I love you, let’s run away” wouldn’t be bad. And I think I liked that this song didn’t try for poetic phrasing, just said it in the simplest way possible.

But the romance of a song like this has a shade of darkness to it, and that draws me in even more. Escape is never a long-term strategy. Eventually you have to figure out how to make life work when you’re in the thick of it. So while it’s such an appealing dream to exit the world with someone you’re crazy about, there is a shelf life to that sort of gesture. I relate to this idea of being fed up with everything in the moment and wanting to jump in the car with the only person who gets you, but eventually, the car is is going to need gas. What then?

I didn’t know when I first heard this song that it was a cover, so the immediate impact of it was as a Wussy song. But I learned that it was written and recorded by another Ohio artist that people in the band had known, a woman named Jenny Mae. She died last year. Pitchfork did a news story on her passing. She was 49. And when I found that it was her song, I listened to her version and I loved it almost as much (but not quite), though her take also made my Spotify Top 20. I did think enough of her version to order the 7-inch, which was her first release. When I read about Jenny Mae’s life, the song took on another layer of meaning. She suffered from mental illness and self-medicated with alcohol. And she was described by people who knew her as brilliant and creative and hilarious but also impulsive and self-destructive. Which for me gives a sentiment like “No one likes us anyway / I hate my job / Sweet, sweet are the innocent / I love you, let’s run away” and “40 ounce between your legs/ Shakin up my heart / Turn around and look at me / Light another smoke” a different tint. These are the kinds of things you say when in the throes of a rush of feeling, but they’re not impulses you can safely follow for a lifetime, even though goddammit, sometimes I want to.

Bo Diddley: “Nursery Rhyme” In Richmond early this year I bought an old Bo Diddley album called The Originator. I saw it in a used bin, it was $20, and, it was pure instinct, I had a feeling it was interesting. For me, buying used records, $20 is a fair amount of money, I don’t pay that for something I’ve no idea about, typically. But something compelled me to pick it up. I was intrigued that it had none of the hits I knew. And I took it home and when I put it on a short while later it blew my mind. This surprised me because on the one hand it sounds so much like the idea of “Bo Diddley” I keep in my brain, the one rhythm we know from the song he named after himself, but this was just so controlled, so well rendered, with so much atmosphere. The whole thing is brilliant. I became particularly obsessed with this cut from the record, and then I started exploring the “Bo Diddley” beat in general, reading whatever I could about it and listening to examples. This kind of random deep-dive is the best thing about the internet era for a music fan.

Mulatu Asatke: “Tezeta (Nostalgia” At nights when I hang out with my Mom at her condo in Michigan I play music over a Bluetooth speaker I bought a year ago. My Mom’s default has for a while been to put the television on, but at some point I asked her about playing music instead so we could talk or just hang out, and she grew to like it. Sometimes we’ll chat about stuff, and sometimes she will play Candy Crush on her iPad while I do things on my phone, which sounds distant but is actually very comforting to me. One of the things I’m doing on my phone during these evenings is finding songs to play. It’s quite fun (and interesting) for me to say to myself “What is a playlist that would make my Mom happy?” and then try and figure out what that might be on the fly. She was never really a music person so I don’t have a lot to go on, mostly her age, a story or two about a song she liked, and a vague knowledge of what she might have heard on the radio in my lifetime.

In September, my Dad died, and I stayed with my Mom in her condo for a number of days that month. I felt a strange mix of feelings. On the one hand, he was father, I missed him, I thought about never being able to talk to him again, to not be able to share the things in my life. I thought about the fact that I wouldn’t be able to learn more about his life, my knowledge of which is pretty sketchy. There were all the usual things a person would be sad about. But then there was the fact that he had a severe and debilitating case of Parkinson’s disease for the last eight years, and at times he suffered so terribly. I remembered how on a few occasions he called me while he was delusional, he would tell me that he was sure he was going to die. One time, he told me that he saw someone in the driveway who was going to kill him. Another time, he said that it was hard to explain but that he had been split into two people, and he couldn’t take it, he was terrified. I told him that it would be better tomorrow and he yelled, “I’m going to be dead by tomorrow!” I would get calls like this while I was walking to work in Brooklyn 700 miles away, and I would feel so helpless. And so when he passed, I thought about him during situations like that, and also felt like maybe not he had some peace.

A night or two after my Dad died I was sitting with my Mom, talking, and playing music. She dug out some old photos and we were looking at them, pictures from her in high school that I had never seen. I wanted to see everything, learn every detail. And over that Bluetooth speaker I was playing some random playlist I had found called something like “Jazz for late night.” I wanted background music. And while we were hanging out and talking, this song came on, “Tezeta” by the Ethiopian jazz bandleader Mulatu Astatke. And man, it’s hard to describe, but the mood of this song so perfectly captured the exact feeling I had. The phrase that comes to mind is “bombed out,” that’s the way it seemed, like I’d been beaten up and thrown in a ditch and my ears were ringing and now I was trying to reorient myself after all that had happened. There was a feeling of weariness and sadness but also a feeling that life continues, that we have to gather our memories and keep on. And this impossibly beautiful song captured every bit of that, the one-chord riff moving ahead, in spite of it all, while the sax line captures all the sadness dripping off everything at the same time. I listened to it constantly in the weeks afterward.

Galaxie 500: “Fourth of July” (live) One of my favorite songs by one of my favorite band in my favorite version. This song is indicative of how (as with all songs on this list) when I’m in the mood I can listen to one track over and over. On a couple of occasions in 2018, I listened to this maybe 8 or 9 times in a row, immediately hitting “back” when it had finished. And the thing I was typically listening to was Naomi Yang’s bassline, which to me holds the lion’s share of the song’s feeling. Her bass playing in Galaxie 500 is so incredibly emotional to me, and it was never more so than here.

Pusha T: “Infrared” The one truly “new” song on here.” I didn’t have an advance of this record so I listened on Spotify when it came out and I loved it. And this song in particular seemed so perfect, the carefully constructed rap, executed as if it’s coming off the top of his head, the sample—I listened to this many times in a row on a few occasions, and it also sent me to revisit Clipse, which brought me a lot of joy.

Joni Mitchell: “Carey” Another song about freedom, but here it’s real. Blue is a perfect record but I probably revisit this one more than any other single song because I’m so in love with the production—that bass, that hand percussion...sonically, an album recorded almost 50 years ago simply cannot be improved upon. I remember hearing this one on AM radio when I was very young. It was a single, b/w “This Flight Tonight,” one hell of a 7-inch. I’ve always thought the picture it painted was so incredibly romantic—”Maybe I’ll go to Amsterdam, maybe I’ll go to Rome / And rent me a grand piano and put flowers 'round my room.” Hey, why not! And if Carey is indeed keeping her in this tourist town, we know it’s only for another hour, another day, another week, whenever she’s ready, she can’t be tied down. But then, that’s the future: this night, now, is a starry dome, and we’re alive, inside it.

Arthur Russell: “That’s Us/Wild Combination” Sometimes w/ my favorite Arthur Russell songs you can hear the strain as he creates a new genre trying to get a particular unnamable feeling across. But not this one. Sitting in a room with his friend Jennifer Warnes he made a song that feels as natural as a breath.

Carole King: “Pleasant Valley Sunday” I’m in awe of Carole King’s ability to write songs that sound perfect on the radio. Even if her prime hitmaking years only lasted a bit over a decade, the number of her songs with her name on them that left a huge mark on culture is staggering. Her demo for the Monkees hit “Pleasant Valley Sunday” shows how perfect everything was before the artist who would bring the song to the public got anywhere near it. I found this one on Youtube 8 or 9 years ago and it’s been in regular rotation since.

Hank Williams: “The Angel of Death” In February and March I was doing research my Pitchfork Sunday Review on Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. It’s one of my favorite records, and I’ve wanted to write something long on it for years, so spending time w/ it as the winter wound down was an intense pleasure. It’s common knowledge that Springsteen was listening to a lot of Hank Williams when he was writing the album, and when I came across this song, I became obsessed with it. One, the melody sounds right off Nebraska, and “My Father’s House” (another song I listened to a lot this year) especially seems directly modeled on it. But this song has so much going for it on its own. It’s about death and the moment of judgement, but Hank’s melody and phrasing don’t sound frightened. It’s hopeful, a prayer instead of an admonishment.

Guided by Voices: “Motor Away” I’ve loved this song for years but I listened to it intently around the same time I was playing the Hank Williams, when I was thinking about leaving Pitchfork. I’ve never been a big fan of Robert Pollard’s lyrics (though I love many of his tunes), but he second line here is the one I couldn’t put out of my mind: “When you free yourself from the chance of a lifetime.” That’s where I felt I was. Editing this music magazine that I cared so much about was the culmination of a dream that took a long time, a ton of work, and a fair amount of luck to realize. When the chance of a lifetime comes along, you’re supposed to hold on to it as tightly as possible for as long as possible, until someone finally pries it away, which will happen eventually. I knew that. And yet, deep down, I knew that after 11 years, I wanted to try something else. Run away, motor away, drive away. Sometimes a song can give you the tiniest push.

#writing #myfather

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chikabiddy · 6 years

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Chapter 3

A/N - Part 3 of my Veronica Mars fic. I hope you enjoy it! As before, I have no beta so all mistakes are mine alone. :)

Here is part 1 Here is part 2

ps - this will become a LoVe fic eventually.

Maybe I can skip my last class, get to Veronica’s early… Logan’s foot tapped rapidly against the linoleum floor. More than anything he hadn’t wanted to come to school at all; he wanted to stay in his car outside Veronica’s apartment and wait until she was awake. Being at school was pointless today; he had been unable to focus on anything. Unfortunately, his lack of focus didn’t make the day go any faster. The clock seemed to have a personal vendetta with him and refused to move more than a couple minutes between each time he checked. His eyes darted back to the clock: still forty minutes left until the last class of the day.

“Dude, what’s up with you? That’s the fifth time you’ve checked the clock.” Duncan gave Logan a suspicious look. Logan raised his eyebrow at him.

“I’m surprised you noticed,” he responded. “You’ve been particularly unobservant recently.”

“Just because I don’t make a big deal out of it, doesn’t mean I don’t notice it.” Duncan’s eyes dropped to the floor, then flit back up to meet Logan’s eyes. “I always know when something’s up with you, man.”

“It’s not a big deal, DK. Just not really interested in whatever lame school spirit crap Ms. Dent is on about this week.”

“Sure, man.” Duncan clapped him on the back before turning back to his computer.

Logan stole another glance at the clock. Not even a minute had passed. He sighed and tried to focus on his computer. Whether he cared about the assignment or not, he needed a distraction. He still hadn’t decided whether to ditch out or not, but he wasn’t sure Sheriff Mars would even let him in the door if Logan got there before school was supposed to be over. Sighing, he resigned to finishing out the school day, figuring doing so would buy him a little more favor from the Sheriff. He tried to shake the memory of Veronica’s phone call from his head and read his assignment for the third time. Something about the girl’s cross-country team scoring well in the first three meets of the year; he really wasn’t interested at all, but he was able to distract his brain enough to relax. He finished the article with the bell and turned it in before he decided there was no way he would be able to suffer through another hour. Hoping the Sheriff would be understanding – or maybe he will be at the office, he does still have cases to work – Logan ditched out and headed to Veronica’s.

********

“Veronica?” her dad called from his room. Veronica was laying on the couch, one hand over the side scratching Backup’s head.

“Yeah, dad?”

“I’m going to head over to the office for a couple hours, try to close out some cases and such. Pick up your car from the station.” Veronica twitched nervously, but Keith didn’t seem to notice. “Will you be okay on your own?”

Veronica shifted up to a sitting position, wincing slightly. She was, mostly, fine but any time she moved her head reminded her she wasn’t back to one hundred percent. “Yeah, of course. You go keep the Mars office running. I’m fine, really.”

Her dad had walked out to the living room as she was speaking, and now looked down at her. His eyes were soft, and she could see his concern. “Really, dad. I promise.”

He nodded. “Alright. Remember, Logan is coming by. I should be back before he gets here, but don’t feel like you have to talk to him if you aren’t up for it. He can wait, until you are comfortable.” Keith gave her a soft smile and turned to go.

“Hey, before you go,” Veronica called, “where did you put my camera? I know my phone’s a goner, but I was hoping to download those pictures I took yesterday and email them to you. Help you close out that case.”

“Veronica, you need to rest. I don’t want you working cases. Not now, and not later.”

“Well either way, I need to know where my camera is. You can take the SD card, if you’re worried.”

Her dad gave her a hard look, then sighed: “I’ll bring it in from your car, but I don’t want you working on that case. You understand?”

“Wait, my camera wasn’t in the alley?” Veronica’s voice shook as she flashed back to the events of the previous day. “I didn’t leave it in the car. I took it with me.”

Her dad frowned, his brow furrowed. “I wasn’t looking for it, but it definitely wasn’t close. I would’ve seen it.”

“No,” Veronica groaned, dropping her head to her hands. There goes any evidence I had of who assaulted me. Dad is going to kill me.

“Don’t worry, Veronica. I can stake out our mark again. And I’ll go check the alley again. Maybe I missed it.”

Veronica gave her dad a soft smile. “Thanks, dad. Now get out of here. Those desperate housewives won’t wait forever.” Veronica winked and waved him out the door.

“I love you, Veronica.”

“I love you, too. Dad.”

Veronica lay back gently, raising her hands to her head. The medication she had taken earlier had taken the edge off her headache, just enough to ease the nausea, but not enough for her to forget about the pain. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to focus on what she remembered of the night before. If her camera was gone, she’d have to identify the men from last night by memory. Not my favorite, but it’ll do. She eased up from the couch and stepped over Backup on her way to her room. Given the extent to which the marks from the previous night had gone to stop her from having evidence of the meeting, Veronica figured the encounter must have been important. Luckily not important enough to kill a witness…. Just confiscate the proof.

She pulled up a new file on her computer, determining the case was going to get a bit more complicated, and therefore require better tracking. She began by detailing all she remembered from the night before: the location, time, and events before her dad had found her. Deputy Sacks had come to the hospital to get a statement, her dad called the police as soon as he found her but didn’t wait for an ambulance and took her straight to the hospital. She had kept her statement purposefully vague, claiming not to remember much of what happened but made sure to emphasize she was sure it had nothing to do with the mark she had been trailing for her father’s case. Veronica hated to lie to her father, though she wasn’t too concerned about her false statement as she could always claim to remember more should the need arise, but she knew her dad would keep her under constant guard if he knew the truth of the evening.

Once she finished detailing the attack, she moved on to provide descriptions of the third man she saw that night. Weevil gave her pictures of the two marks, so there was no need to write up descriptions of them, though she did attach their pictures to her file. But the third man was new, and she probably didn’t have any pictures of him anymore. Veronica was sure her camera was missing because they took it, and she was sure she wasn’t getting it back. That’s going to be impossible to replace. I’ll have to dip into my college fund. With a sigh she began describing the third man the best she could remember. She closed her mind, thinking back: tall, slightly taller than average. Maybe 6 feet, or a little more? Brown, curly hair. Pale, sunken face with shifty eyes. Boney fingers…

Her musings were interrupted by a knock on her door. A glance at the clock told her school wasn’t out yet, which ruled out Wallace. She clenched her jaw, frustrated but resigned, and made her way slowly to the door. Opening it only a crack, she looked at Logan standing on her door step. She took a moment to look him over: one hand kept flitting to the back of his neck, then to the ends of his sleeves, and his eyes were cast down to the ground. But his feet were firmly planted, stable and ridged. Veronica looked back to his face and met his eyes.

“Logan.” She pulled the door open wide enough to lean on the door frame. His eyes darted to the bruise on her jaw and she saw him face harden.

“Um… hey.” He met her eyes again.

She waited for him to continue, but he just stared. “My dad said you were coming by after school…” Veronica let the words hang in the air, partly accusation, partly question. Logan’s lips twitched downward and he dropped his gaze. Shifting his weight back slightly, he reached out and fidgeted with the ends of his sleeves. Veronica groaned inwardly and tried to remember what her dad had told her: Logan helped her, without reason. She did want to know why. Pushing the door open she tried to ease the tensions, if only slightly. “You wanna come in?”

********

Veronica pushed open the door and invited him in. The tightness in his chest, which had formed as soon as he pulled up to the apartments, lessened ever so slightly.

“Yeah, thanks.”

Logan took in the cramped surroundings of her apartment as she walked over and lowered herself onto the couch. Her face pinched, and her brow furrowed as she sat, and the tightness in Logan’s chest came back with a vengeance. He needed to look anywhere but her face, anywhere but at that ugly, purpling bruise. Every time he looked at her he remembered her scream, and every time a new wave of fear and rage crashed through him. Turning his back to her, he studied the kitchen and hall. He assumed the bedrooms were down the hallway but given the nature of the rest of the apartment he could guess there wasn’t much to see that way. His lips pulled down again and he was surprised when he felt of pang of sadness at seeing her new home. It was so much less than what she had before.

“So, do you want to talk or just creepily check out my apartment?” Veronica cut into his thoughts. He turned back around but kept his eyes low. Away from her face.

“Uh, yeah.” He walked over and sat in the chair next to the couch, eyes on Backup sitting at Veronica’s feet. Reaching down, he let the dog smell his hand and began scratching his head, any excuse not to look up.

After a few seconds he heard Veronica shifting on the couch. “So…” she said, obviously waiting for Logan to say something. He finally looked up but focused on her eyes, refusing to let his gaze wander.

“Sorry, I just… I just wanted to see for myself that you are okay.” Her eyes were hard, and her arms were crossed over her chest as she sat back on the couch away from him.

“I’m fine,” she said shortly. Then she took a deep breath and closed her eyes, as if trying to center herself. She let her arms fall to her sides and rested her hands on her lap. “I’m sorry I called you…”

Logan choked and balled his hands into fists. What? She’s sorry she called me? Sorry she got help? He wanted to ask, demand she tell him why she would be sorry that he could help her, but Veronica put her hand up and shook her head. His protest died in his throat. She would rather have been out there alone than have called me…

She continued: “What I mean is, I’m sorry I made you worry. It wasn’t really that big a deal…”

Logan sprung up from the chair, muscles tense and lips pulled into a sneer. “Not that big a deal?” He could tell he was shouting now, and Veronica had shrunk back away from him. Backup let out a low growl. He flexed his fingers and balled them back into fists but lowered his voice.

“I heard him, Veronica. And I heard you scream.” He started pacing, and Veronica stayed silent. “And I talked to your dad. I saw your dad, before he found you and this morning. I, god Veronica, I saw his face. Don’t try telling me ‘it wasn’t that big a deal’” His last words came out a growl, one that almost matched Backup’s. He stared at Veronica hard, every muscle in his body tensed for a fight.

“And what do you care, anyway?” The question was soft, but forceful.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Veronica met his eyes, hers as sharp as ice, arms a barrier crossed between them. “I said what do you care? It’s not like you’ve done anything but try to hurt me this past year. Are you mad someone else got a turn?”

Logan took an involuntary step back, mind reeling with the implications of what she was saying. “But I never… that was never…”

“Oh, save it, Logan. I appreciate you getting my dad, but I would’ve been fine if you hadn’t. And if you cared at all, even a little, this past year would never have happened.”

He was stunned. Sure, he’d been a jackass this past year, he could comp to that. But I never would have wanted this. I never would have wanted her hurting. His mind flashed to some of the more unseemly pranks he’d pulled, or let happen. Sure you didn’t, he scoffed at himself, you wanted her to hurt as much as you do. Just not this way. But he knew he didn’t want her to hurt, not now, not like this, not any way. Not ever again. For what felt like the hundredth time in the last 24 hours, Logan crumpled. He dropped into the chair as his knees gave out and all the strain his muscles were under left. He felt weak and empty.

“I’m sorry, Veronica,” he whispered. She didn’t respond.

#Veronica Mars #vmars #vm fic #vm fanfic #logan x veronica #veronica x logan

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staqqoverflo · 6 years

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ZERO

Companion short story for the album MEMƟRY GΛRDEN, released in September 2016.

I let out a reluctant sigh as I stepped outside and let the university lab doors close behind me. It should have been an afternoon for a carefree attitude. I was leaving work early for once, and while a bleak overcast was draped above everything like usual, it was, for once, a smog-less day in Shinagawa. But I couldn’t rest easy, even on a day as nice as this.

I hadn’t seen my girlfriend in weeks.

I hadn’t heard her voice or caught sight of her since the end of summer. I couldn’t forget that face of hers—I missed it so—but nevertheless, I hadn’t seen it in ages. However, she wasn’t dead. Far from it, in fact—I had been receiving messages from her all this time, telling me of her mystic location.

She told me that she’d escaped to an online game, and that she wanted me to join her.

It was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard. Beyond the idea of foregoing the real world and staying logged into a video game, what about her life could even have been traumatic enough to drive her into doing something like this?

I loved her like crazy, but it was stupid. It didn’t make any sense. Our relationship was remarkably normal, maybe even plain. We both met doing research at the university lab. We got to know each other, went on cheesy dates, and supported each other emotionally and physically like any regular young couple would. And then she disappeared.

To be frank, she hadn’t even chosen a game that was particularly good. It was Sacred Grove Online. A high fantasy virtual reality MMORPG from a few years ago, when Neuronet technology was still new and the bugs were still being ironed out. It was a system launch title. The game has been holding its own all this time, I’m sure, but there are plenty of better looking, better performing games out there now. I’m not sure where she saw the appeal in something so clunky. Perhaps it was the only one she had, although I didn’t even know that she owned a VR terminal before all of this.

On my walk back home, I took my phone out of my pocket and decided I would try one more time, maybe the last time, at attempting to talk some sense into her. I’d done so at least a dozen times by now, and it had become practically mechanical, but I was never going to give up. I’m not sure what I expected this time around, but I received the typical response.

“Forget about the real world. Give up on it like I have. You’ll never be alone again, trust me. Escape with me. I love you.”

I let out a deep sigh as I turned onto a busy street. What could I even do at this point? Even though it’d been 27 days since I’d seen her by now, I still couldn’t believe that someone as normal as her was doing something like this. Doing this to me. What had I done to deserve this? There were no kinks in our relationship, and I thought we truly understood each other. It was beyond bizarre. Perhaps I lacked understanding, I thought. She’s being fucking crazy, but maybe I need to give her a chance? After all, I loved her.

So instead of heading home, I turned around and made my way towards the station, where I would be on my way to do something extremely brash. I caught a train to the Chiyoda ward and headed for the nearest electronics outlet. I purchased a VR terminal, the necessary peripherals, and dealt with a confused clerk when I asked for a download code for an older, out-of-style game before lugging all of that onto the train back to Shinagawa.

It was pouring rain when I got off the train and began my walk home. Admittedly, I was feeling pretty indignant by this point, but I felt like I had to get the chance to see where she was coming from. Maybe I could talk some sense into her by “meeting” her in this video game.

Completely drenched and slightly pissed-off, I slammed the front door behind me and made my way to my bedroom, immediately throwing everything I was carrying onto the floor. I gave up video games ages ago, but I would go through the trouble of figuring the technology out all over again if it gave me the chance to “see” my girlfriend, I decided.

Having unboxed everything and hooked it all up together, I took my shoes off and laid on my bed, taking a deep breath. I took my glasses off and replaced them with the glossy immersion-enabling ones of the VR terminal, sliding them over my weak eyes carefully while I fastened the cups of my headphones over my ears. I closed my eyes and the dream began.

I hastily made my way through the system’s first time startup screens, simply sticking with the default options for everything before launching Sacred Grove Online. At the title screen, I registered for an account and logged in, created a character, and within a single powerful swoop was transported immediately into the game’s world.

Having nearly forgotten how amazingly immersive this technology was—even for a game that was a little dated—my heart was trembling when I spawned into the starting township. Even for such an older game, it all felt so real. The town was alive with villagers and other were players running around. Children of the village were chasing after their runaway pets. A fresh pine scent was carried with the mountain breeze that blew past my body. It was… beautiful.

But I wasn’t here to play the game. I wasn’t going to learn of the stories of all of these villagers, I wasn’t going to chat up any fellow players, and I wasn’t going to start the tutorial quests or decide on which class to play. I wasn’t going to explore this world. I was going to find my girlfriend.

She was the type of person to keep the same username on every service, so I knew I could find her. I used the game’s commands to directly message her character. Immediately responding to me, she was overjoyed but said that she was in a high-level area that I wouldn’t be able to reach without sinking a good few hours into the game. She said that she couldn’t leave, so she would mail my character an item that would let me teleport to her location.

Sighing, I invoked my mailbox window. Ignoring her cutesy message, I opened the attachment and closed the mailbox window. I then opened my inventory and used the teleportation item.

Immediately, my surroundings changed. Gone were the homely echoes of the villagers and their livestock. I was now in what appeared to be a clearing in a dark forest. The desolate sky in this area was dark and cloudy, just like it was in the real world that day. At my feet and all around me in this creepy, silent place were flowers and tree roots. Just what the hell was this place?

And crawling out of some dark trees in front of me was a female player. I had no doubt in the world who it was, although her character was customized to be beyond bizarre, having known her (or who she was before, I should say).

Her character’s hair, beautiful and long, was a brilliant green. Her shoulders exposed, she wore a gray dress that evoked the idea that her character was something along the lines of a mage. To account for its strangeness, what was on her face was probably a cash shop item or something, but her eyes were covered with a solid black censor bar that prevented me from seeing what they looked like.

It was overwhelming. My character having remained in the starting outfit, it was as if I were standing in the presence of a goddess. Regardless, I was elated to finally “see” her again.

“Akane… I can’t believe it. I thought I would never see you again.”

“You came after all,” she said without a hint of feeling. “Finally… It’s like a dream come true.”

I looked around at the flowers and grass. “What is this place?”

“It’s just a little grove outside of a forest dungeon. It doesn’t really have a name, but I like to call it the ‘memory garden.’ I like to sit here and think about things sometimes. Pretty, isn’t it?” She smiled. “I missed you so much.”

I kept my resolve, staying true to my mission.

“Akane, you can’t stay here. This is a video game. Log out right now… I’m worried about you.”

“…”

“Why are you doing this? What made you want to do this?” I couldn’t hold back, even if I wanted to. Being able to speak to her again was too powerful for me to take. “How long have you been logged in? Are you even still eating or leaving your house? Or even your room?”

“…all of that is irrelevant. This is my new home. This synthetic world is perfect. We can stay here forever, just you and me.”

I balled my fists, unable to contain myself. “No, that’s bullshit. This is a video game. You’re going to die if you stay logged in forever.”

“…I’m okay with that.”

I couldn’t help but feel my voice growing weak. To hear her say these things in front of me, rather than through text messages, was breaking my heart.

“How could you do this to me? Don’t you care about your family anymore? I don’t get it…”

“The real world is cruel, Ryota. Day-to-day, we deal with people we loathe and struggle with vague anxieties that are never really resolved. Here, those things don’t exist. We can surround ourselves only with people and things we like. We can build up little walls. We can immerse ourselves in the beauty of nature. We can go on adventures.”

“Akane—“

“We can also do all of the things we would do in the real world, like cook, eat, and relax. But the most beautiful thing of all is that we feel no pain here.”

“Akane, I still don’t understand. You can just play the game like normal if you’re stressed. But was something going on in your life that made you want to escape here?” I gulped. “…did I hurt you somehow?”

She smiled, her arms behind her back. She was beautiful.

“No. You didn’t hurt me.”

“Then why—“

“It’s simple. This world is just beautiful to me. It’s synthetic—completely fake. Designed by people just like us. Yet it’s more genuine than the real world because it’s trying harder to achieve something. To achieve mimicry. It’s perfect… it’s all I need, and I’m never going to leave.” The words that were coming out of her mouth were borderline evangelical. “I’m going to stay here forever.”

“No, that’s impossible. You’re going to starve in the real world if you never log out.”

“I think you’re missing my point, Ryota.”

“Akane—“

“This is my new home.”

With nothing left to say, I logged out of the game out of impulse right on the spot, leaving her behind. I sat up and peeled the immersion glasses and headphones right off of my head before throwing them across the room in frustration.

For the rest of the day, all I could think about was how disappointed I felt. Not even meeting her face to face in-game was enough for her to change her mind. I missed her so. I missed who she was before all of this, and I cherished the memories that we shared. I was in disbelief at what she’d become.

After plenty of time to play the events over and over again in my head, I came home from work the next and sat on my bed, feeling slightly disappointed.

I picked up the immersion glasses again and slid them over my eyes before putting my headphones back on just like I did the day before.

I really missed her…

Maybe she was right.

Listen to MEMƟRY GΛRDEN: https://staqqoverflo.bandcamp.com/album/mem-ry-g-rden

#short story #cyberpunk #mmorpg

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yeehawkins · 7 years

Text

ok holy shjt my dream last night

most likely very long so

me and two other people were whisked away to some magical over-the-top holy shit amazing resort that may have also been a school (think of the ss tipton from suite life on desk, but as a mega land resort), i think if you stayed there long enough you got uniforms? i wanna say they were vaguely ho.gwa.rts-esque but idk for sure

and we stay there a few days, but then shit gets weird

we went to some boutique in the resort, and one of the girls tried on an outfit and loved it, and wanted to walk down the street to show her family (i guess they lived close)

she screamed at us from the street saying “i can’t leave!”

we repeated it out loud and right as she confirms it, the place goes into lockdown

there’s safety rooms opening from the walls (they were like the width of an ironing board and were barely big enough for one person to fit in), that or that was the door sizes that just led to actual rooms where we huddled down

people began screaming (namely the workers), stuff about how “WHY CANT WE LEAVE” and/or “YOU CANT EVER LEAVE.” “WHY WOULD YOU LEAVE”

after a calm creepy lecture of why we shouldn’t think about leaving, we are taken off of lockdown and acted like nothing happened

but me and the girls knew

this place brainwashes you, and they also most likely kill people/make them into slaves to work there

so in response to this, i turn myself into rick (no i didn’t become an alcoholic, i literally just, shapeshift), only i guess my powers were weakened here because i never felt like him (still felt like i was in my body (aka short, i perceived myself as me, but others would see me as rick)), and for the first day i had to do an impression of him instead of just naturally sounding like him with the change (this hurt my throat very badly, but the voice came naturally the next day

i turned myself into him because i knew he wouldn’t get brainwashed, and he always had access to technology that could help us escape

i guess no one noticed that “i” was gone and this old dude is now there (maybe i wiped/changed their memory?) so it just went about normally then

my friends were struggling to not become brainwashed but i knew i still had time, so i did a few things

chatted up the 2nd owner who was named John Snow (he had no relation to the guy from the show (and his name was spelled like that)), asking a few things

if there was any kind of social media/internet allowed here. he said yes, he said a few, and then he mentioned this like snapchat that they made just for the place (and asked me to add him, i was not able to get the download code)

if i could send my grandson here. he says absolutely, just make this care package thing and it’ll bring him here (bc of course i need morty in on this)

tried to get on the good side of the owner(s), which involved a thing everyone eventually does there where they lock up everything (i think this is like, the final stage of brainwashing but i had a plan to escape)

locking up involved collecting an amount of keys that basically looked like weird giant bottle caps, and they all had words on them. and once you collect them all you bring them to john, tell him the theme connecting all the words, and then you get to follow him to the gate to lock up the front, and this had to be done before a certain time/curfew (which i believe was either 9:30, 10:00, or 10:30)

you seem extra good when you volunteer to do this, so i did, figuring morty would be there in time to help

john lets me take a picture of the words i need to collect (everyone else usually just gets a list but because i was being so cool to him he let me take a pic (also tried to take a picture of the not-snapchat code, couldnt for some reason bc dream logic does not like cameras. because of this logic my photo of the words was also a bit blurry, the further down the list the less you could see, the last few were covered by other papers))

i had 20 keys scattered through 20 rooms, and there happened to be 19 rooms in my section of the resort, and then the whole pool area

i had no clue what i was looking for or where, but the very first key was “TAN”, so i of course go into the pool area, and i spend like 10 minutes looking for just this key

so i then look in my room, and i find another, but it looks different from the TAN key (the tan one was more button shaped), but i continue to other rooms not knowing what to look for (until the next room has one that looks like the one from my room)

i just collect everything vaguely shaped like what im looking for that also had words on it

and one of the places i started picking up speed in finding keys was in joe bidens room. specifically his room and his kids room (in my dream he had 2 very young daughters), he was cool and was like “yeah rick you can do this” (i feel like he secretly knew what was going on and was cheering for me), and i had to say hi to his kids and ask if i could go in their room and get something and they agreed. i had to step over a lot of toys on the ground to get to it

so now i counted and saw i had 23 keys, and 2 of them repeated, but i didnt care because there was so little time left, so i ran to find john but ran into who i believe was justin roiland, the head owner of the place

i ask where john is and he points me in the right direction, and i see john kinda worried

idk why he was but i ended up dropping all the keys, and i was like “hey i got more than 20 and some of them repeat are these all right?” he says yes, and asks me for the theme

i stutter not knowing, and i think he’s in such a hurry he gives me the answer (i think it was like, essentials at a resort or something)

we start walking quickly towards the gate, me mentally preparing myself for morty’s arrival/putting my plan into action (note: either i dont remember what my plan was, or i really had no idea what i was gonna do), it’s raining/lightning so it’s kinda cool

but i get stopped by a group in the entrance, they want me to help greet the new people just arriving + some of them were having a birthday (none of which were morty), and i couldn’t get away, and i had lost sight of john, i think he was waiting back for me but idk for sure

so i fake smile and hold up a big six, then the second it’s done i find john and we make our way to the gate

i woke up and have no idea what happened next, i think my plan involved knocking john out or something, and morty would arrive around then or soon after as i figured out how the gate/barrier worked

#dreamew

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shysheeptrash-blog · 7 years

Text

N: I tried making these digital prints. Like I printed them on the wrong side of photo paper. Then I just stuck them in a frame. I mean you can still sort of see the image but something/ something/ happened.

B: I feel like I remember seeing these, maybe not these exact ones, But now the frames killed them like I think there was one of one of Sarah.

N: Yeah Yeah

B: but something happened

N: almost looks like snow or something.

B: or like celluloid burning or something.

N: and its progressive too. This is one of like Mia thompson. From back to the future. I just downloaded a whole series of photos of her as a like tenneager. Like she had done some modelling or something

B: hmm though is that an eye

N: No its a mouth dripping with milk see because the ink pooled in weird ways.

B: is that a body

N: Yeah

B: Is that your body

N: Yeah

B: Are you naked.

N: Yeah

B: And that's a palm tree haha

B: I kinda like it.. Its like a fridge science experiment.

N: There are actually a fair amount of writers in detroit actually.

B: well that stands to reason. Cost of living is reasonable. I feel like it'd be a good place to write a novel or a poetry book.

N: not art writers unfortunately tho

B art writing kind of piggybacks off of the commercial art world though, and less the like, the like ritual and practice of art.

N: there's not really a commercial art world, so theres not really art writers here.

B: Is that good?

N: I think it's bad.

B: Really?

N: I think its bad.

B: Well, money is good. You need enough money to eat. Haha. Is important.

N: But also, I think feeling like people are looking at what youre doing. Feeling seen. And what's the word? Feeling acknowledged. There isn't any, well, okay so recently, well actually, maybe we should go to this today. One of my friends, put together, at the cave a big industrial warehouse, a show with a bunch of artists from Chicago and Detroit. And a few days ago my friend send me the review, this person wrote this and its basically like well I don't get this. This makes me feel stupid. I don't really get it. I didn't understand. And it's like, why would you write that. Why would you put that into the world.

B: like did you talk to anyone.. like at a certain point, maybe try a little harder.

N: she went to the show with the curator.

B: Okay but like the digitigi-- uh digiti-- or didigi I can't get the word. I'm skipping over it, is the digital version like a scan or a text?

B Do we have a plan today

N No. Chilling is the plan.

B Food is probably part of the plan.

N Yeah.

B do you need to work today

N today or tomorrow

B okay.

B: What are you working on right now?

N: Two art fair things to work on. So, the thing that I, here I can show you. Um, so. That's gonna to new york. This is what I need to work on this weekend. That's also gonna go to New York, when we head back. There's a fair in Cologne in april. That and that are gonna go to that. I might make a bigger version of this. This thing took a long time. But ironically a bigger version doesn't take much longer. It's just detail-y kind of fussy work. I've also kind of changed the way I'm doing things somewhat. So like, if you look at this one, even the relatively flat areas get lots of layers and adjustment. Where like you can see here, where theres not a lot of paint and you can see the weave of the canvas, versus here, where you can see its all filled in.

B: Who's the guy in this one.

N: You wanna take a guess?

B: noam chomsky

N: it's bernie madoff

B: ohhh what happened to those feet?

N: I don’t know. I did those what do you call them, bigger frilly socks, but I didn't really like them at that scale. The background there will just be white.

B: Hmm?

N: That's another. That's a kind of—I had this period where I just started everything, just to see what I liked. I started working on these triple penetration paintings.

B: Oh my god! Are those from real images.

N: Its yeah, it's taken from a porn.

B: It's kind of beautiful but at a certain point, it's like what are you saying when you bring that into the gallery.

N: Yeah, it's definitely like what are your saying white boy, and I'm trying to be careful.

B: Yeah I feel like getting at that uncanny or intimate thing with the body and like you know like cropping it or cutting it off, its like kind of a violent gesture.

N: Yeah I've been, I don't. Well heres an interesting question. I had a show in London and it sold out and they were like if you can keep doing that we can keep giving you money. So like now I'm trying to repeat some of that. So the next step was like, well this was interesting to do, but like will it continue to be interesting.

B: and the ones for that show were they all bodies?

N: Here I'll show you. So here's this thing. There’s this and that and that and that.

B: I like these dogs.

N: those are margaret cho’s dogs

B: oh! Awwwww

N: haha yeah

B: I think these are kind of around fashion and textures. Less bodies. Or I mean, it not triple penetration.

N: Yeah. Oh heres peeing baby. I really like peeing baby but the gallery was like

B: mmm maybe next time

N I love peeing baby.

B let me see peeing baby again. Yeah I don't know man. Like its like funny and whimsical but I can't see someone buying that.

N: I feels so religious to me. Like Catholic. Like the hand gesture and the posture, and like I don't know.

B: But yeah I see why its sticky because while that's beautiful, representing and then selling a body part could definitely be framed as a violent act, while erasing black bodies from your work which is making art about fashion and beauty and bodies and rawness within those spaces is like also fucked.

N: I don't know

B: the lips are beautiful, I feel like I saw a bunch mouths in a museum once as a kid, and I was like wow look at the mouths, and I'm forgetting who

N: I dont know

B: were like wet and like grotesquely over-intricate and like pearls in them

N: marilynn minter

B: yeah

N: but also like, feminist activist and different background makes that gesture like totally legit.

B: yeah yeah.. Yeah. Okay have you done any of these doll parts ones yet, because they're like freaking me out.

N: I started. And they're not dolls, or they are dolls but they are medical dolls. So like doctors teach how to do things on the different parts.

B: What are all the dicks for?

N: maybe like testicular disorders.

B: The catheterization one is activating a deep horror.

N: of course that's the only one I've started. And like moving towards this space where there are these surrogates for bodies, like it feels interesting for a little while maybe.

B: What were you doing before this? I remember there was some stuff that was moving towards bodies. There was that cliff face that was vaguely yonic. And the the rope that said like breathe or relax.

B: Have you done any paintings of Marcel and Henry?

N: Not yet

B: Haha, well when you have time, I feel like they deserve that from you.

N: Yes.

B: Why did you start doing bodies in the first place?

N: I don't know, like the image of the socks was part of the impetus.

N: I need to like just figure out a way to be confident about this stuff.

B: I mean. Or not. Being careful isn't bad. Yeah I dont think its bad to be careful. I feel like, I dont know but like images just work in such a different way. Like they work, and I recognize that now. But like I feel like a lot of the time, I can figure out what I’m doing as I’m doing it. Instead of having to know what I'm doing ahead of time, because you can't change around the syntax of an image on the fly to the same extent. But I mean, I am also have a little bit of a what am I doing here right now. Like ive been in that place as well, for, not too long.

N: uh huh

B: I think that like I became super enamored with this really clean, kind of distanced way of writing, that aims to elide subjectivity. And I got there because I had crushes on a few writers in a row that were in that vain. And then like the last thing that I did, I was fucking with it for six months. And in the end it was only like 20 pages. That shouldn't have taken six months. And the reason it wasn't working was it was supposed to be this highly structured formal gesture that was a commentary on influence and the canon, but what it actually ended up being about was trauma and trying to escape a memory. And I think having to make that admission and then go ahead and write that piece instead of the super frozen over one about influence, I think admitting that knocked me a little off course, in terms of thinking that writing sterile well structured things was the way to go.

N: when did the shift happen

B: like december. That's when I pushed that one out of the nest. Cause I had it in my pocket and was like I'll fix it I'll fix it I'll fix it, but then just published it the way it was.

N: I've been kind of curious whether people are making big shifts because of the election. I was apprehensive about this stuff before the election, but now I'm like I need to re-consider what I'm doing.

B: Yeah i've settled into team reconsider. I'm looking to get a little more uhh skin in the game.

N: Yeah I can totally see that

B: To like raise the stakes or something.

N: I've been wanting to bring the process closer, but I'm still using found images and not trusting myself to make my own images. Like I met up with some friends a few weeks ago and I had them all paint their faces with clown faces. Hand then took photos of them just hanging. And I started to think that I can get to the place where I can use my own images. Here, heres uh. And I also started reading like about the protest culture kids are starting to paint their faces to avoid facial recognition software.

N: Whoop. Yeah I think, or I mean when I first started doing this stuff, I listened to an interview, and it didnt prefigure the socks painting, but it was relatively soon afterward and I started to think about the subjects of the paintings in a different way. Because the socks painting has this kind of leisurely, fashion-y, and like just a little hint of sex and I sort of saw that as a sort of contentious space that we arguing over. Leisure time. And what leisure time means in different contents. The left sees leisure time as like citizen time and the right sees it as unproductive time or like laziness in a way. I like the idea idea of thinking about bodies at rest and I started reading a new book about the use of bodies, in a more basically political sense. Like what do we do with all of our useless bodies as automation advances.

B: I think one thing that could happen or that might be useful, is that the marriage of capitalism and like almost calvinism, whereby wealth is conflated with morality. And that particular america schema where virtue and work ethic are conflated. I would like for us to have those two decouple. But it feels like we are going in the opposite direction right now with debt and internships and the gig economy. But yeah images and stories that celebrate rest and decadence even if thats just laying outside on a nice day and doing nothing, time wasted in play or useless creation. Like a meaningful life separated from the market and from labor.

N: Yeah like non-instrumentalized creation, bodies in states of repose, and playing with culture and commodity as a kind of flouting.

B: I think the travel paintings looked more relaxed, but these look more decadent. And in terms of representing other possible ways of being, I like how you let that remain a little torn or bruised or uncanny. I think that that like better serves a narrative of another way of being, complicated, but also not caught up in that system of work or at least not caught up in the same way. I don't think a like overly romanticized version of the decadent or leisurely life would play. Given how cynical we've gotten. But a when we let bodies fold and wrinkle and bruise while they play or rest or shimmer or hint towards illicit sex, I think that's seductive. I guess I'm also talking about non-domestic spaces, or like ways of like occupying private spaces that aren't caught up in domestic labor.

B: and like I'm not signing up to be a part of a heterosexaul relationship and care for a big brood. So I think a lot, about becoming isolated as I slip into the like margins of society. I can't remember where I heard it but it rang pretty true for me personally, that queerness is oriented towards death.

N: Like we don't valorize seeking deep meaning except as it is consumption. And the other thing is—well with sex, or whatever do you think that there's any political value in the major city non-monogamous thing? Like are we actually getting away from the enforced solitude.

B: Mmm until society has achieved racial and economic justice, the way it's mostly set up now is rich white people LARPing as revolutionaries while not realizing that its like just their privileges that allow them to have access to these spaces. Yeah there's some potentials that inhere there. But the way its commonly concieved of or the versions we here about --if that's the main site of your political struggle, then you're fucking up. Now granted a fair number of people in collective living situations are involved—are activists or like allies in some respects. Its just that walling off a garden for the rich, white, and able bodied and then calling it eden. That's like actively shitty. Granted that's mostly not how it works, but it does sometimes work that way. But, the ones I've seen in new york, like you have to have money to have that house. There are some phenomenal exceptions. But like mostly, its walled gardens. It doesn't fix the problem, because everyones coming into your collective with an individualist mindset and the goal of accumulation of capital and a self rooted in the concept of work. I think there is a potential that inheres there, but it doesn't fix the real problem.

and of course that's good, but I think that that progress stands alongside the kind of stripping out and monetization or like collapsing into commodities of every other belief system. Like you said yourself that one nice thing about being in the commercial art market is that there is a sense of validation that comes from selling. Like everything gets abstracted back into like capital. As much as you like try and even as an artist where like you are trying to reach out and see other value systems and youre in somewhat of an okay like positions to try and like reach for other value systems, you still get something out of it as work, like work-work, and out of working on it and getting paid for your work.

N: How do you feel about ice cream.

B: I feel excellent about food. I kinda want noodles. I'm lactose intolerent though so maybe not ice cream. Unless theres like a sherbert situation.

N: I was gonna offer mochi.

B: Could they be rice milk?

N: nnuhh I dont know.

B: Where do cows live? Like where are they originally from?

N: I don't know.

B: I mean I know milk is everywhere. Because global logistics and shipping and stuff. But where are cows? Uh you have the same soap as my partner. And he has the same soap as my ex, and for like a week it was freaking me out, like what is that smell, but I didn't say anything because it seemed weird. But I'm used to it now so it's fine.

B: Also I did an interesting job of packing this morning. I have a short sleeved silk button down and a velvet leotard and a floral bomber. Nothing reasonable. I don't know what I was thinking.

N: We should go thrifting. Oh I wish you could meet the woman I've been seeing. She's so good at thrifting.

B: Ugh my voice. Well like I also do the upspeak thing too. I don't feel super femme, as I'm like wandering around the world in my person body. But when I hear my voice or see pictures of myself, I'm like oh—that seems like a woman.

N: Uh huh

B: With the upspeak and the likes

N: I've heard that women tend to put like in the front of sentences, as a way of cordoning off meaning. And the kind of like that we tend to associate with women's speech, the inserted, like creating a pause

B: like an um

N: Yes

B That was a literal like right? I've lost track of when a like is like and when a like is an um

N:This is what blew my mind and I want to look into this more is that the original definition of like, like in old english, the original definition was a synonym with the word body. Right, like if you go all the way back. The similarity definition, is a corporeal similarity.

B: Whenever I'm using like a lot in a sentence I'm just bringing everybody's bodies to bear, fully.

N: inserting your body into the sentence.

B: I wanted to read you something – uh! Beautiful cat! Look at this butt. Skinny butt. I don't like that their assholes are so visible. This is what I wanted to read you earlier about bodies.

B: I mean.. I have those reactions to like cats though, too sometimes. I'm just like oh you're so beautiful. Oh can I set my stuff in your room.

N: Oh so my bedroom is the one room I didn't clean.

B: Oh no worries.

N: Though I really should wash my sheets.

B: I still really don't care unless there's something truly alarming.

N: O-okay?

Scorpios are like intense and sociopathic and super slutty, and like I have my scorpio moments but that's not like the driving force um they're also super slutty, which again I hve my moments. I occasionally check my horoscope, and I follow astropoets on twitter.

N: I follow astropoets too. But I feel comfortable with that because it kind of feels like a joke, but IM not sure that its a joke.

B: I guess I end up touching it.

N: Touching

B: metaphorically, not grabbing grazing. Someething.

N: I guess I read libra stuff sometimes.

B: What are libras like?

N: Indecisive and deliberate, and kind of artsy.

B: Indecisive and deliberate: how both?

N: Those are the poles.

N: I have to go to court, I got in a car wreck, someone broke into our house.

B: What

N: Those are excuses.

B: I have to trick myself into reading my hard books, by sending myself on a trip and only packing my hard books. Otherwise I'll just read sci fi novels all year.

N: I've read like maybe 40 novels in my life. I only read the hard books, so I never read.

B: oh my god, that's like nothing.

N: I mean I read other stuff. Nonfiction, theory.

B: To a certain extent, novels sustained me through high school. I was so miserable and pretty lonely. And I just read all the time, because we didn't have TV or the internet really.

N: Wait.

B: Yeah, no because we were poor. Ish. And my mom was a luddite.

N: Yeah I grew up with the internet, like the first earliest version. Like 1994.

B: What even was the internet back then.

N: yeah it was super slow.

B: but there was no google and it wasn't social. How did you know where to go? Did you just hear rumors about cool websites to go to?

N: I don't know I don't remember really.

B: I remember the first time I went on homestar runner, was because I heard a rumor about it on the school bus, so I looked it up in the library later. Oh, did you have a myspace?

N: yeah well I was in a band, so. Actually a lot of my first internet experiences were through the band. Like emailing and myspace and stuff.

B: So I got the glass replaced, then I went to Texas for christmas and was holding my sisters cat and the phone, dropped the phone, and like the clattering phone freaked the cat out and it dug into my, look at that, the cat dug into my wrist and launched itself, and that's like three months old, and it's still visible.

N: I have one of those, see?

B: how old is it?

N: pretty old, super old.

B: yeah that's not going away. It was a cat?

N: No it was a box, at my old place. I was picking up a box and dropped it and it slid down.

B: eessh

N: Yeah. Do you have any other good ones?

B: I have a seven inch long one the wraps around, you know the sticky-outy bone on the outside of your ankle? Yeah. I have a scar. That's a surgery scar. It’s all nasty and ropy. I've got two little crucifixes on one knee from another surgery. I had a partial ACL tear and a cyst had formed around it and the cyst was interfering with my movement.

N: On both knees

B: Two holes, one knee. We're going to get through all my injuries by the time this weekend is over, huh? Oh I've got a scar on my butt, from when I fell and broke my ribs and back and stuff in july. I scraped my butt, and it ripped my dress. It had a big gash on the side, and I lost one shoe. So the sent me home in hospital issue shoes, these giant velcro converse looking things, with a gash in my dress. It was a good look.

N: Of all the indignities, I feel like losing a shoe is up there. That's like a punchline.

B: You get hit and the shoe just flies off screen.

So part of the reason, obviously not the whole reason, but part of it is she's ready for that new york dick

B: I don't want to shit on new york dick but...

N: Let's just hold on that phrase

B: I feel like its not that great. Um. I mean, I've only really done Boston and New York. But..

N: however mediocre you think it is, it gets worse outside of new york.

B: Of course there's some dick that's so good you have to really make sure you don't lose track of it, but the vast majority of dick just scratches an itch.

B: Yeah, I'm being gone down on not that often right now, like if I ask sure, but now I learned how to come from like heterosexual penetrative sex. I mean not dick only, but I've learned like which positions and what I need to do or whatever. Which is a neat thing to learn how to do as a 26 year old.

N: J is so small she just slivers away and hides in a crease in the sheets when I ask.

B: Haha, you make it sound she's a silverfish. Iunno sex is weird. Like I'm 26 and I just learned to come from dick. Granted I'm super attracted to my partner right now, and my sex drive is a little higher, so I don't really feel picky in that situation. It's been nice to fall a into a pattern together, and learn some stuff and be flexible.

N: Did you see this?

B: I like the big wax tongue.

N: You can touch it.

B: Oh my god it feels amazing.

N: yeah it’s made of a foam rubber

B: Eek! Is that the art?

N: Yeah

B: I stepped on the art. I'm supposed to step on the art, right?

N: Yeah. It's a long unfolding performance art.

B: I am part of the art, then. I wonder how many other people it terrified.

B: Are you in this?

N: That's a good question, I don't know. I stretched some of these canvases though.

B: Is it cheaper to stretch them yourself.

N: well it's cheaper to ship them unstretched and then stretch them

B: do they ever crack?

N: Yeah but I'm doing it to my own stuff mostly.

B: ah. Is it hard?

N: yeah.

pop

B: ahh, I'm wary of the floor now

N: hehehe

B: ahh

N: hehe *continues popping the floor poppers*

B: I really want a new tattoo, but the idea I have is super lame. Egon Schiele has these kind of wrecked looking flowers that I like, but it's a bit of a tumblr girl thing.

N: He's maybe a little a popular for the wrong reasons, but still good. I don't know if I've seen the flowers though.

B: I feel like if I was getting a nude, on ma body, that'd be a little redundant. But--

N: You should totally get a boob like slightly off on your boob.

B: Yes! I really wanted wild flowers though, but they were all too pretty. These are rougher or something. Wildflowers just remind me of home, and of my mom.

N: Schiele kind of looks naive or something as well, which is a good way to hit that from the side.

B: What's the plan. Drinks, chatting, friends, dancing?

N: Theres no plan. I might have a date, but you can come.

B: Would we leave it on if we hung out with people. Also should we like establish boundaries or anything? In terms of your date and the M situation, I kind of want expectations for me and boundaries in place.

N: What do you mean?

B: I mean, we have had sex.

N: Yes, I remember.

B: So like how am I introduced in this context? That seems awkward.

N: I'm putting like no expectations, I mean not 100% comfortable but I'm pretty happy with things just being relaxed. I'm not tryna fuuck.

B: Okay, yeah. I didn't know if I was signing myself up for a threesome or something.

N: I don't even know what this would be, or if it would go anywhere, but no.

B: Okay, yeah. I mean. Yeah, alright. We'll see.

N: Oh your head is cold, why is your head cold? Maybe you were lickin’.

B: Maww

B: how do you .. okay i understand this isn’t a real question, but, how do you make the paint paint? It looks hard.

N: Make the paint paint?

B: How do you make the paint paint? Noun version of paint, verb version of paint.

N: What?

B: It looks hard.

N: Uh

B: Like physically hard.

N: Oh. Some of it is hard. I scrape it off with this razor blade. Oil paint doesn’t dry, it oxidizes. You can sort of reinvigorate it to a certain extent by adding oil, but only to a certain extent because it becomes a hard resin.

B: Oh

N: Actually something else that’s, well this isn’t related. I used to paint on these ones, and now I’m using these

B: canvas and gesso

N: You can’t sort of see, here look at the edge here. There’s a thin see through plastic product.. can you see, where can you see, here. Feel this. It’s soft and then it’s rough. It’s called PDA Size. It’s used in book making. And I’ve been experimenting with using it as a gesso.

B: Ahh. The white ones are crisper.

N: I’m kind of letting the linen texture and color show through to a certain. Yeah and also to some extent I think there’s a reference, one that I’m trying to induce to a traditional technique. Contemporary image logic in a traditional environment.

B: it’s good for flesh

B: Is this alright

N: Are you asking the cat if you can take a picture of him?

B: I’m asking you.

N: Yeah. If you make kissy noise he’ll look at you.

B: Uh, how much gin is in this? Just so I don’t put myself under the table.

N: Like two fingers.

B: you can see it swirling

N: Oh that’s so good. Let me see if I can get it.

B: It kind of stopped. Do you want me to stir? Ohh it started up again.

N: Pretty good. Are you recording?

B: Have been for a second. It’s just there.

Well I do think that I’ve taken on some of our collaborations in the past year into my extended art practice identity, that I’m not just someone who makes paintings, that I also make funky language stuff with you. And so when opportunity came along… Well, and I read a lot of interviews and I’m interested in them, so I am interesting in how their are done. I guess I also feel like I function better on one-on-one, socially.

N: Out of interviews. I think some of it is fantasizing myself into the scenario, like a casual comparing of sensibility. Maybe in a way, that’s a little too meta. But I listen and try and think how would I respond to that?

B: Who do you fantasize yourself as, the, well I guess it’s hard sometimes to tell who’s doing who..

N: I kind of like fiction that feels like my inner voice. Well, I had this thing with a friend in Berlin, this bookclub we started reading ernst junger, and we had plans to read cioran

B: Oh my god I love cioran. I read him in college when I was super sad.. so

N: Excruciating nihilism. At least Nietzsche is kind of enthusiastic about it.

B: Invigorating nihilism. Like it can get perversely generative. Versus cioran is just soo. Ugh. He’s just like morose. In a way, it also wraps back around and becomes a kind of idealized melancholy.

N: Oh god, but he’s just a slow drag on your soul.

B: It was interesting to me, because I want to be more immediate, and have a clearer emotional stake and like psychological or something stakes in the work I’m doing. I like the idea of fantasizing yourself into a situation, [I really like the idea that I’ve fantasized myself into this situation, given the history and given the way desire seems to work on me. It isn’t exactly untrue.]

N: Do you feel like we have clear emotional stakes?

B: By emotional stakes, I don’t mean a channel of intense desire or rage. Though there is some desire and some compexity to it. I mean closer to my self than say an algorithm trained on another person’s texts can get. In a way. Not romantic stakes. I mean I want good things for you and the kitties and the art. And you’ve known me for a while, and in a few different contexts. And the longevity is cool, because we’ve gotten to be different people along the way.

N: I’ve floated the idea with a few people, a few friends that it’s better to have fucked first and then become friends. Like it gets rid of something, or establishes something, or does some sort of work.

B: Thats one thing that continues to flabberghast me. The way that I feel like I know someone after sex. Like I’ve seen them naked and somewhat vulnerable, and they’ve seen me naked and well usually super vulnerable.. That’s true especially lately, in that I’m less alienated from the experience of sex. But I just feel closer or something. And I keep having the experience of feeling close and known, and then that not at all matching up with the other person’s reality, that honestly breaks my heart a little. Like, most often with older straight guys. Like I’ll think that we’re becoming friends, have sex expecting to become better friends, and then have them never speak to me again.

N: Like they’re aiming at something and then once they get it?

B: Yeah, but it kind of baffles me, because I’m not hot shit. Like if you’re trying to make notches in your bedpost, I’m an odd target. I think it’s more that there’s a script or schema in place, where casual sex means someone is disposable. Versus I’ve not had that experience in my queer community. Like sometimes or rarely things will be weird for a bit, but it resolves. Versus these older dudes, just leave me hanging oddly. The younger straight dudes have less of the idea that if you speak to someone after you fuck them, you’re suddenly married.

so like omg do you really need that much moral cover to be a slut?

N: This boy M is just the softest boy, non-threatening and beautiful. But he sleeps with everyone. He slept with my friend and she said he could not admit to himself that he liked sleeping around,

B: he had to keep up the lovelorn performance. God that’s even more violent. Like if a boy is an avowed slut, then you can hit them up and just be honest with eachother. I know those boys. I’ve bedded a few in a my day. They’re great to hit up when you actively dont want emotional work, but want to fuck something. Versus that whole, I’m really serious about finding love but there’s something wrong with you narrative is horrible.

N: bedded... Yeah, it disingenuous. It holds out a sense of false promise to people who are serious, and then it forces slutty people to engage in their weird game. Like over the winter the friend I was talking about got with him, and she said just wanted to cuff him for winter but he couldn’t stop with the

B: wait is that what cuffing means? I thought cuffing season referred to like cuffing your pants.

N: Explain that.

B: Cause it’s fall, so you put away the shorts and you get out the pants, but its a still warmer so you cuff them.

N: You might be right

B: No you’re definitely right, because I also thought thot was slang for a thing you think instead of an abbreviation of that hoe over there.

N: Oh that’s cute. But yeah but she just wanted to cuff someone and the guy thought she was being to calculating about things.

B: Ugh. I would much rather have someone be straightforward and say hey you’re gorgeous, and I want to sleep with you but have no emotional bandwidth for anything else. Like when people pull that shit of like oh I’ve had a crush on you for ten months, let’s fuck, and then I’ll text you for seven weeks, but not tell you when I get a real girlfriend.

B: well yeah. Though I mean there’s a balance to be struck. There’s been like four threesomes that I’ve straight up slept through.

N: Slept through?

B: Like my partner and whoever else set something up, knowing I’d be down, because I’m like perpetually, terminally down.

N: Haha

B: And then by the time they’re like back or ready or whatever I’m curled into a tiny, warm, ball completely unwakeable.

N: I like when they bite me, because they do it so carefully.

B: You like it.

N: less so when they use their claws

B: Oh you’ve never even smoked anything. Oh my god.

N: No and it felt really weird on my lungs. It kind of makes me want to go in a sauna.

B: Oh my god you’ve never been in a sauna? I went like three weeks ago.

N: There’s a big sauna near here that I’ve been trying to go to. It has like private rooms with a hot tub and a sauna.

B: Every trip I’ve taken recently, I’ve managed to get a spa type experience in. Which is super decdent but.

N: I’ve being trying to book this one near here for a while but I haven’t yet

B: We should go tomorrow.

N: I’ll call. Okay so its 25 dollars a person, and they have rooms available later in the evening.

B: You have such a decadent life. Excellent pants, covered in cats, surrounded by art

N: Excellent pants?

B: Excellent pants! Am I wrong? No I was just starting small and working up, but also to be fair, excellent pants are foundational for happiness. Oh, I need to call my sister.. Can I go do that?

N: Yeah

N: so my brain as come up with two options.

B: your brain has

B: I don’t like it. It’s like.. It’s like fake fun. It’s a bunch of people trying to convince themselves they’re cool and interesting. And they’re not. It’s like chill out, you’re a corporate lawyer, sure you’re whipping a woman in front of a crowd of other shills, but that doesn’t mean you’re cool.

N: What would it need to be actually fun?

B: To not be a sex club. To not be forced, or anonymous, or awkward.

N: Yeah well the schwitz is closing down

B: If I was starting a sex club, I would put it in a church and have only one room, with a max of 15 or 20 people. And everyone is chosen for a given party based on how well they’ll get along and how much they have in common. And then time is the factor that determines whether people get down or not, instead of like separate spaces where one is always already a writhing kronenberg monster.

N: I’ve got the avocado, and the hand one.

B: What’s the hand?

N: on my palm I have ‘Ne Travaillez Jamais’. It means never work. But the idea is that the more worn my hands get, the more the tattoo fades.

N: I think I might get another one in new york. This equation kunst equals capital..

B: whats kunst. I know what capital is haha

N: art

B: ahh I see . I thought it might mean pussy is capital

N: haha no. The other one is a ken price drawing of a naked woman with her legs spread, and it says dont think about her while youre driving. But I don’t know how I would get it. Just the text or the text and the image and where

B: Get the image in right here, straddling you. Like you have to shave to get it, but then when it grows back it’ll be partially obscured. If you have any other patchy hair on your body thats what you should do with it

N: Fill it with tattoos

B: Fill it with cunts

N: Are you looking up long legged chicken in jorts?

B: First I’m looking up long legged chicken, because I want relevant results.

N: wow. wow. wow.

B: I might be sleepy. I might be ready for sleep. Is that okay.

N: Yeah.

B: Oh yeah long legged chicken in jorts. Here we go.

N: ahh haha, close.

B: In boxing shorts. The rest are chicks in jorts. Human chicks. You should put a variety of chickens in your backyard.

N: Christine has chickens.

B: Oh my god, does she have americunas?

N: I don’t know you’d have to ask her.

B: If she doesn’t she should get some. They lay colorful eggs. And I think they are good in cold weather as well.

N: Yeah. Okay, I told M I would call her before I went to bed so I’m gonna do that and then come occupy the other half of the bed.

B: Okay, I’m gonna pass out and cudddle your cats. If you want me to sleep on the couch that’s also fine. If that’s neccessary.

N: I don’t think its neccessary.

B: Okay, goodnight.

B: Yeah I sleep okay, except I woke up with a hangover headache so I drank like six glasses of water, then I had to pee a bunch because of all the water. So I slept well except for self inflicted interuptions. Ugh these jeans I missed a button because they’re dumb and they dont have a zipper.

B: Who’s taking care of them while your away

N: Roomate. She’ll just pop down and feed them.

B: So what’s this one. I kind of read a crotch or a breast in the gesture, but...

N: A throat

B: right too furry for a breast

N: I guess my breasts are furry

B: No nipple on the throat.

N: some people have said they read the thumb as a nipple.

B: Kind of, maybe. And this, what’s this? I see a shoe, a foot.

N: Yeah and the blue wrinkles are the edge of a lap

B; so the foot is crossed over like

N: Yeah.

B: [inaudible]

N: [yelling] pigeons.

B: Yay! I think the thing that I liked about the idea, is that one of the art publications I read most is bomb. Which is literally subheaded, artists in conversation. And they have a shit ton of interviews, even a book of them. And I really like the kind of forced out, or half baked, or heavily mediated ideas that come from the space of a conversation between friends. It a faster, hotter way of coming up with stuff. Plus it kind of creates an idealized space of flattened power dynamics. But then on the other side its super parasitic. Like you’re performing being an off the cuff or being equal in order to reap some sort of benefit down the line. Lord knows its somewhat rehearsed and scripted.

For the most part theres a mutuality. The reader gets to use the text to access a kind of empathy or intimacy. Its a cool form. You get more of a stake it your ideas, they’re associated with your self and your body in a way that isn’t true of a lot of other forms. That whole habermas thing about the public, where the subject is stripped away and becomes just a vehicle for an idea, for reason. It’s absurd, but I think the interview can undermine that in some ways. Your self is inserted back in, with its vocal ticks, and gestures, and habits of thought. The body responds to the interlocutor no matter what. I think selfie art kind of makes a similar argument, inserting the body back into the public sphere. We’re doing the same here, in a subtler or more obscured way

B: with images of women or sexualized images of women, its broken in the way that these come from the tradition of having been object for consumption. Which is just one way the subject can be broken there are other ways it can be broken, moreinteresting way. A relationship to a self as a object for masturbation

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