<banana> It's a big-screen day. Melanie's not exactly catching up on the games she missed - that would be flat infeasible for NBA, let alone NFL. She often has 2016-2019 highlights on while working though, the kind of recommendation you dig up from weird blogs or any game with the Ravens (masochism).
<banana> What this means in a largely empty Wherehouse is that she's leaning on the sofa, half-watching yet another punt but with a little more attention focused on her Chromebook. The crowd's jeers are louder than her lackadaisical typing.
<VoxPVoxD> There's the sound of an elevator door dinging and the Wherehouse's portal admits Stewart, dressed for the weather and carrying a heavy-looking bag of apples. But he's got a way of making whatever he's carrying look heavy. "Hey, Melanie," he says over the jeering and the typing before he sets the apples down in the kitchenette.
<banana> Melanie closes the laptop and smiles. "That's like two whole crumbles."
<banana> (Gerry Sandusky - the other one - is calling the play. The Ravens have possession but it's 4th & way-too-many.)
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart hangs up his coat, buffs an apple on his shirt, and settles down on the sofa opposite the end Melanie's leaning on. "There was a deal on honeycrisps at the market. They're really good for eating raw but I bet Tony or Maggie could bake something amazing."
<VoxPVoxD> He looks at the screen. "Football, huh?"
<banana> Melanie briefly entertains weird feelings about eating an apple raw. Would that be cannibalism? "Last season, just before the playoffs. Do you, um."
<banana> "Okay, I'll try to think of a nicer way to say this."
<banana> "Stewart, do you know what football is?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart blinks.
<banana> It sounds like a joke.
<VoxPVoxD> "What was the mean way to say that?"
<banana> "Ah, crap. There has to be a way to do like.. a thing with your voice where people can tell that you're laughing with them instead of at them."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart waves a hand. "It's fine, I'm not offended. I'm really curious about your heuristics, though, for stuff like that. Yes, I know what football is."
<banana> Melanie: "I feel like I used to know a trick like that.. or maybe I always was laughing at people. I was just, you know, with the videogames. Instead of ballgames. That's how it goes sometimes!"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah, I get it. I'm not, like a big sports guy. I followed them more before- when I was younger. Football a little bit but mainly baseball. My dad's a big Orioles fan."
<banana> Melanie: "I don't know a ton about baseball, though it's obviously the most American. It's a cool game... I wonder."
<banana> She makes a little grumbling noise. "The thing is, you can play pickup anywhere, and every school's got their football, sometimes hockey and wrestling. Baseball feels more.. remote? Like an elite thing, if you're not from a big city."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "It's got a higher infrastructure floor, I guess you'd call it. Like the minimum amount of space and equipment you need is more. But I dunno, I think it's partly just that kids do pickup games less than they used to. My dad used to talk about just taking a bat and a ball to an empty lot, marking off bases with chalk on the ground..."
<VoxPVoxD> "Football's very American too. Different concepts of America."
<banana> Melanie: "That's cool. We didn't have anything like that in Westminster, just school fields and one big park the county rented out. There wasn't a lot of, um.. I can't imagine Westminster kids taking the initiative to set up a game like that?"
<banana> "Like you said it might be a modern thing. We mostly had Whatsapp, church, dances and football the adults organised."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "It's probably a generational thing. People take as much initiative as they have to, and there's a lot more stuff being pushed on kids than there used to be, even when you or I were kids, nevermind in The Past."
<banana> These are not memories Melanie was aware she retained. It's turning out to be a lot easier to pull things from the flow of conversation, particularly when relaxed or drunk, than it is to stand alone and strain to recall. "In the city you'd also have stranger danger, parents not wanting kids outside in case they like, join gangs or go to rainbow parties or whatever the news says this year."
<banana> "Of course both of us have as a matter of reality joined gangs."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah, that sunk in for me around the third or fourth police officer I was an accessory to the murder of."
<VoxPVoxD> "Now I'm engaging in criminal conspiracies, buying a gun... I've turned to a life of crime. No two ways about it."
<banana> Melanie: "Do you really need a gun? That's, like, the most salient reliance there is. You'd be telling the Wyrd something new about who you want to be..."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "...I dunno. Like, my job takes me a lot of weird places alone, where you guys aren't around to protect me, and there've been times I was in for-real danger. I don't know if a gun would've made me safer, but it's easier to think of times I'd regret not having a weapon than times I'd regret having one. Maybe it's just nerves talking. This Huntsman stuff is really fucking with me."
<banana> Melane in 2014 would have been horrified by the idea of attacking a police officer. By 2016, not so much; she made a lot of new friends at college and she was starting to get an inkling about the way the world really is; it's still never something she'd have done herself.
<banana> In 2019, those first shut-in months after coming out the other side of centuries' forgetting and dissociation.. by the time she'd reacquired any sort of sense of common humanity she'd read enough to realise cops don't share it.
<banana> "That's what they do I think. Okay. Advice.. a gun might be useful, but you're really fast, do you have a reliable way to escape stuff?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "You mean besides what we all do?"
<banana> Melanie: "Yeah, like a way to get away from things that are swinging a weapon instead of trying to tie you up."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Not... yet. I'm working on something, actually. Maybe I can--"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart makes a small but complicated gesture and his skin gets all fucked up. Like he breaks out in a dense yellow-brown rash, ridges like gills or scars flaking all over his face and hands. He strains, and every atom of his body quivers... and then he returns to normal, slumping against the sofa.
<VoxPVoxD> "Not yet."
<banana> Melanie gestures at Joe Flacco on the television. "He's got an arm, but if he could run it wouldn't matter so much that all the receivers are garbage."
<banana> "Who'd you make a deal with for five-second leprosy?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "It's Royal Autumn. I'm supposed to turn into a bunch of leaves and fly away."
<banana> "OH that would be so cool."
<VoxPVoxD> "Right??"
<VoxPVoxD> "I can't quite stick the landing, though."
<VoxPVoxD> "More practice."
<banana> Melanie looks excited, but guilty. "I'm.. sorry though. Leprosy. That's a bad joke, I don't know how to be funny without being mean. Forgive me?"
<banana> "Again."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Melanie, I spend all day on the internet professionally. Nobody knows how to be funny without being mean."
<VoxPVoxD> "Anyway, like, running only saves *me*. What if there's something I need to stand and fight for? What if there's someone I need to protect?"
<banana> "So the autumn wizards teach you real.. stage magic stuff. Are there illusions which can deceive an attacker more generally?"
<banana> "Like, to protect, airquotes," Melanie makes the airquotes with stick-fingers that bend impressively, "someone."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah, you know, a completely hypothetical, random person."
<banana> Melanie: "She'd be prettty lucky, if she was real."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart snorts. "I wonder."
<VoxPVoxD> "Like, I told you about the Lord Sage, right? The guy with the ridiculous title. I'm sort of... apprenticed to him."
<banana> "We're all going to help, all the courts, that's what we're for, but you've got motivation and you're good at pretty much everything."
<banana> Melanie: "It's a serious tactical-romantic advantage."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart raises a finger. "You know the flip side of not fully appreciating when you come off as mean is that you can be really disarmingly sweet sometimes."
<banana> "Eh?"
<VoxPVoxD> "Nothing, it was just... that's really nice of you to say."
<banana> "Well, it's true. What does a Lord-Apprentice do?"
<VoxPVoxD> "Mostly whatever the Lord Sage says. Basically in addition to the King I have another boss, which is a little unusual. Like we're a court of specialists, is how it was described to me, and everyone's sort of an expert in their competence. Lauren's a tech genius and Gerald's like a tier one operator security guy. But outside of their competencies no one really pulls rank on anyone else. It's
<VoxPVoxD> not that kind of org."
<VoxPVoxD> "I worry, though. Like Santander, the Lord Sage, is really cool. He's smart and charismatic and unflappable and funny, but he's not so funny you can't take him seriously, which is a real accomplishment considering his whole deal."
<VoxPVoxD> "He doesn't wear a wedding ring, though. Like that's none of my business, obviously, and there's a billion different explanations."
<banana> Or it says it isn't that kind of org. Summer put Melanie in some kind of weird power-philosophy struggle from day one...
<banana> "Well, yes."
<banana> "But?"
<VoxPVoxD> "But with Lauren and me, we're... like I don't want to jump the gun or anything, but we're not goofing off. We're actually doing this, uh, relationship-wise. And I look at the higher-ups in the Court, I look at the guys whose, whose career track I'm on, and I wonder... am I in the wrong line of work to be in a relationship? Is it impractical? Is it unwise? Is it cruel?"
<banana> Melanie finds a remote and mutes the TV. It's not like the Ravens are going to make back fourteen points with five minutes on the clock. "Okay. With the caveat that my ~romantic experience~ is.. very complicated, and I haven't exactly had a real relationship, probably, come on, what the heck?"
<banana> "Can I be blunt here? The number one danger to you or Lauren comes from faerie monsters sending robot assassins! They don't give a shit whether we're happy!"
<banana> "If you can delve into occult secrets and wield magycks beyond the ken of man then all that's gonna do is give you both an edge!"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I mean you're right, but like, you're also kind of not. One of the first things Santander ever said to me, was, I asked him what it takes to be a great magician, and he said, 'you must become intimate with folly, failure, and death, without becoming a fool, a failure, or dead'."
<VoxPVoxD> "And part of what that means, that I've noticed so far, is that no matter what I learn, no matter what I see, no matter what I do, I always, *always* sit in the shallow end of the pool."
<banana> Melanie: "So you're worried about taking the risk we already live with and making it riskier?"
<banana> "That's not impractical, because the risk has rewards but.. I get what you mean about cruelty."
<VoxPVoxD> "Yeah! Like it's one thing to say that the world is full of wonders and terrors, it's another to deliberately, repeatedly expose yourself to them on a professional basis. We didn't invite the Huntsman. I kind of did invite Society."
<banana> "You really can't blame yourself for that guy, he's out there. It's not like you're wrong, but.. can I ask why?"
<VoxPVoxD> "I didn't *realize* that was what I was doing, and I'm taking zero responsibility for the fucked up shit he does and did."
<VoxPVoxD> "Why what?"
<banana> Melanie: "Sorry, give me a second to phrase this."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart listens. He's got an apple to finish.
<banana> It's important to get this one right. She's really not sure Stewart is wrong, but... "Why do you expose yourself to these things, leaving Lauren aside? If she's a reason to lower your risk or a weight that holds you back... what about yourself? Why would it be okay for you to lose yourself otherwise?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart thinks about this for some time.
<VoxPVoxD> "I mean... it isn't, right? That's kind of-- like it is stupid and selfish for me, on some level, to do that work. I've got a great job, a great girlfriend, great friends, and I'm part of a community that works tirelessly, despite all its differences and all the little pains and stressors that arise, to take care of each other. By any objective standard I have a really great life. And shit,
<VoxPVoxD> if I want trouble, like you say, trouble finds us whether we want it or not."
<VoxPVoxD> "But..."
<banana> What if Lauren is a millstone around Stewart's neck, a tie to the world who keeps him from an alien greatness and from the dangers that would grant true power? On some level, Melanie wants to shake her hand for it. But that's just one construction of the facts and it might not be the ideal narrative for a Reader.
<VoxPVoxD> "But it's out there, you know? All that stuff is out there whether we correlate our contents or not. So how do I not do that work? How do I turn away from that? It's dangerous and it forces you to constantly re-schematize and see yourself as a smaller and smaller piece of a greater and more awesome whole... but it's so irresistibly compelling and fascinating that I don't understand how
<VoxPVoxD> anyone who knows this stuff is out there doesn't dive into this work full time."
<VoxPVoxD> "I play video games for a living. Do you have any idea how many bricks 15 year old me would've shit if I could go back and tell him I play video games for a living?"
<VoxPVoxD> "And it's just... it's just the thing I do so I can sustain the other thing."
<banana> Melanie: "..you know, you should probably check if that's something she loves about you."
<VoxPVoxD> "It's not okay for me to lose myself. I don't want to lose myself. But if that's the bet I have to put on the table to do this work, then I'll do it."
<VoxPVoxD> "Like if it wasn't for Lauren, if you'd told me in advance that getting that token would've put me on Society's radar... I still would've done it."
<banana> "Like, I am not really in Lauren's mindset here for a variety of reasons, but it strikes me that she wants you, and you are describing an essential part of who you are, that someone, who is she, would want."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart makes a face. "I can't talk to her about this stuff when there's a gun to our heads. 'Hey babe, just want to take a quick time out from worrying about the creature that got enslaved and possessed by the monster that stole you away to hell to double-check that you're cool with how weird I am'."
<banana> Not that anyone would specifically be attracted to assaults by a metaphor that causes cancer.
<VoxPVoxD> "Like you're right, that's a conversation we need to have. But this is so not the time."
<banana> Melanie: "So we'll deal with the terminator first."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah, as soon as I find out what John of the Falls's fucking problem is."
<banana> "There's a bunch of cliches out there which are like, actually you should always talk about things! It's healthy! But that's Hollywood movies and advice columns? I'm really not... sure."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I don't want to keep secrets from her."
<VoxPVoxD> "Sometimes I have to, right? That's inevitable between any two people, even people who love each other."
<banana> "There are probably things in, um, relationships like everything else where there's something you can't deal with yet but can put off, and that can't always be the wrong decision."
<VoxPVoxD> "But I really hate keeping secrets from Lauren."
<banana> "Well, good."
<banana> Keeping secrets from yourself is much easier anyway.
<VoxPVoxD> Looking at the screen: "Oh, the Ravens lost."
<banana> Melanie: "Oh, I know. It's a 2018 game."
<banana> "They lose in such a calming way, like it's pretty hopeless from the start instead of struggling like a pathetic fly in the web. And.. they're the hometown boys. It's our loss."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah."
<VoxPVoxD> "Oh hey speaking of ravens, did you know Poe is still alive?"
<VoxPVoxD> "Like, Edgar Allan."
<banana> "Edgar Allen who?" Knowledge gap or memory gap? It's still hard to be certain sometimes.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Edgar Allan Poe! He wrote the Cask of Amontillado, Murders in the Rue Morgue, Fall of the House of Usher. The Ravens, the Bells, Annabel Lee... he was one of the best American writers of the 19th century. A master of short horror fiction, basically invented the detective story, wrote a lot of poems that are super fun to read out loud... also kind of a creep."
<banana> Not ringing a bell, though detective stories are great. "If he's survived this long.. another vampire?"
<banana> "Pity it's not Mark Twain!"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I'm not sure. It might be some other kind of occultism."
<VoxPVoxD> "I could look up Twain sometime... maybe he's still alive. I looked up Poe cause he's local. His 'grave' is right around the corner from Lexington Market, outside."
<banana> We've left confidences territory, but that's fine. Stewart's also a good source of information, as long as you like your information weird. "There seem to be arbitrarily many, right? You could drive yourself nuts with systematisation- I mean feel free to, maybe that's Lord-Sagacious. But like, the way I see it it's, um, suspicious."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "What do you mean?"
<banana> Melanie: "All these overlapping spirit realms and ancient deities and magical energies. Chi, willwork, sekhem, blood magic.. what it means, the relevant meaning to human beings, is that beyond the world which we've mastered and over which we squabble is.. darkness, something requiring inhuman illumination."
<banana> "We live in Plato's cave and the shadow puppets are HD, 3D, VR. It's still a cave, a prison cell. The darkness is freedom- freedom isn't safe."
<banana> "I don't want to go out into the darkness and contend with the weirder-than-wyrd, though I admire you doing it- I'd like to- to turn around. To stand between the fire and the puppetmasters, make sure their shadow play is PG-rated. Keep people from being burned or blinded."
<banana> "There's no sense complaining that the real world outside the cave is bigger and stranger than we could believe, but we really seem to be able to, um, limit encroachment. Straddling that line gives us power over it."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Where do you draw the line, though? Like the darkness isn't where the cave opens up. It's just where the light stops. But if there are people out in the dark, who see by their own lights, who tell their own stories, who can be kin to us... shouldn't we want to reach out?"
<VoxPVoxD> "I'm thinking of the vampires again."
<banana> Melanie: "Hmm. I think those guys pretty much choose whether they want to live inside the cave."
<VoxPVoxD> "So, not our responsibility either way, you're saying?"
<banana> "No I mean, in or out is fine, but you can't stand behind us and occasionally snatch someone away into the dark."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah... it's interesting. There's a sense that a lot of them are like us... but some of them are like Them."
<banana> "If they're going to make accomodations with this, Nels called it the 'Doctor of Sciences'.. that's not a functioning society. There's holes in it."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah... though to be fair to them it sounds like a matter of necessity than desire. Like from what I heard they're not sure they *can* kill him, and if that bet goes wrong things get much, much worse."
<banana> "As excuses go, it's one."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "What do you think we'd do if like... a Keeper moved in."
<VoxPVoxD> "Like just, moved into town, and was... around."
<banana> Melanie frowns. "Die."
<banana> "It would be very very unpleasant! And it's unlikely or impossible."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "But if it did happen, you have to think, the paramount poliitcal concern would be trying to tie it down in as many oaths as possible, and making sure as many people as possible stay as far away as possible."
<banana> "Maybe.. I don't know. I think a lot of people would just fight to the death."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart nods. "Yeah... it's not a perfect analogy."
<banana> Melanie: "A society formed around something like that.. I don't think there would be a Summer Court."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Vampires wouldn't need one of those anyway."
<VoxPVoxD> "Like, all else aside, the... ecosystem is different."
<VoxPVoxD> "Forming a Summer Court is a prey response."
<VoxPVoxD> "Vampires are super not prey."
<banana> "Are there more vampires than the other kinds of dudes, or are they just really.. prominent? Harder to ignore?"
<banana> Melanie: "You know, if we're talking kinds of dudes."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Some of it's geographically contingent. Like I gather that vampires tend to favor urban areas because they can blend in easier and hunt easier, and the high population density also makes organizing and self-policing easier. Vampires also have a unique impact on the community. If you added a hundred willworkers to the city of Baltimore tomorrow, there might be more suspicious
<VoxPVoxD> explosions? If you added a hundred vampires, you're talking about blood in the streets."
<VoxPVoxD> "Out in the rural areas, that's more commonly werewolf territory."
<banana> Melanie: "My question would be whether this is cross-cultural. With the arbitrariness... do they have werewolves as we know them in India? The werewolf legends seem like they're pretty accurate, but they're also local. Central European imports."
<VoxPVoxD> "Ah, see, now you're thinking like a Lord Sage."
<banana> "This has got to be comprehension bias, but the Wyrd makes more sense than the rest in that context because it is arbitrary, contingent, born of the unconscious..."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "You could build a whole discipline out of studying the way culture shapes and is shaped by the supernatural. A sort of, cryptoanthropology."
<banana> Melanie: "Augh. It is fascinating, but also exhausting. Like.. this conversation makes me tired, like hard work."
<banana> Melanie: "Augh. It is fascinating, but also exhausting. Like.. this conversation makes me tired, like hard work."
<banana> "I don't mean that I'm not having a good time, please don't take it like that!"
<banana> "It's just weird, because like.. I could talk forever basically? About football or about your girlfriend or about Nickel and Heidegger, whatever. But there's something in the sagely stuff which feels too.. something."
<banana> Does Stewart know what she means, because Melanie doesn't.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "It makes you try to operate at both your speeds."
<banana> Melanie would have been pretty upset by that idea a month ago. Today, she still is. But she's still here, and she's not about to send Stewart into a cycle of failure-to-manage. "Yeah."
<banana> "Like it's a problem to deal with, a battle."
<banana> "Supernatural intrusions, I mean. They happen, that's fine, but I want to.. deal with them. Put it aside. Become real again."
<banana> "How the heck do you do it?"
<banana> "How do you study-per-se this stuff without becoming detached and unpersonal?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I don't. Like I don't deal with it. I don't put it aside. What I want is to *integrate* it. Like... you're Melanie Lucas, right. You were born Melanie Lucas. What happened in between... that was something that was done to you. Your life was interrupted. Massively, brutally so... but because of the way time bent around when you were taken and when you escaped, it *was* an
<VoxPVoxD> interruption."
<VoxPVoxD> "You have the ability to... to reconcile the before-and-after."
<banana> "Jesus, that's news to me."
<VoxPVoxD> "I don't. My... I can't have my old life back. It's someone else's life now. I don't want hardly any of it. I wouldn't know what to do with it if I had it."
<banana> Melanie shakes her head with a slight rattle. "Like I thought I was doing pretty okay with having them both.. happened, actually reconciling? I appreciate the idea, lol."
<VoxPVoxD> "That is reconciliation."
<VoxPVoxD> "There was, um. This is going to be the kind of story that makes someone half-jokingly ask if I know what football is."
<banana> "I want to hear."
<VoxPVoxD> "But Lauren and I watched the most recent Star Wars movie the other night. There's a new one coming out. And it's, you know, it's fine, whatever. It's watchable in the way big movies nowadays are basically all watchable. But there was a bit in this one that really stuck with me."
<banana> Oh yeah, that might be worth watching at some point. Lasers whoosh etc
<VoxPVoxD> "There's the bad guy, and the hero, and they're sort of into each other. The bad guy is trying to get the hero to join him but she's resisting, because it goes against everything she thinks and wants to think about herself. She thinks that the key to moving forward is to connect with the past. The history of the Jedi, her own family, stuff like that."
<banana> "Oh, so it's that thing where like a fifth of all media seems like it's about us, if you're feeling down enough."
<VoxPVoxD> "But the bad guy sees it completely differently. He like, rejected his family, rejected his teachers, rejected his own name. He says to her, 'Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. It's the only way to become who you were meant to be.'."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "My old life is over. The person I was died eleven years ago. The man who picked up that torch is someone I barely know. And I'm unrecognizably different from both of them."
<VoxPVoxD> "But everything I see, everything I learn, everyone I meet... it all casts a little more light on where I am now. It lights the path forward."
<VoxPVoxD> "This is how I learn who I am. How could that be impersonal?"
<banana> Melanie: "Well, that's not the word I used. But I'm certain you're gonna learn that you are a person, beats me which one."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart wipes his eyes. "Yeah. Like if you'd asked me a month ago what I'd be doing now, I would... not have guessed basically any of this."
<VoxPVoxD> "Two months ago I wouldn't believe you if you'd told me I'd made this many new friends, nevermind everything else."
<VoxPVoxD> "I don't really know who I am, I guess. I'm finding out as I go."
<banana> Melanie: "Same. But I would probably have believed you if you'd said I was some kind of temporary ghost."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "But one of those really badass ghosts that can throw beds around and tear the furniture up. A real haunted burial ground kind of ghost."
<banana> "Sure, at least the kind which would argue with you while haunting you. I'm not arguing now, because there's no reason this stuff should make the same sense between people, but I wouldn't... characterise the difference between lives as you have."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "What's it like for you?"
<banana> "I'm not interrupted, I'm changed. I know who I was meant to be. She's right there, which is kind of amazing, and occasionally really weird. I'm glad someone's there to be almost-Melanie, but *I* can't do it. I don't want to. I was trash mostly, she's.. done things right." Melanie sits on the sofa arm, eyes closed in contemplation. "I have to be someone else, nothing's meant anymore,
<banana> I get to pick which is.. actually really hard, but."
<banana> There is apparently no conclusion to this.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Is there nothing from your old life you miss at all?"
<banana> "There was."
<banana> "I mourned those things and let them go about a hundred years ago. Some things maybe I shouldn't have moved on from but, you know, mental self-defence."
<banana> Melanie: "I don't know if that's true. What I just said."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart shrugs. "Is it useful to you?"
<banana> Melanie: "I used to be worried all the time and now I'm often confused instead."
<VoxPVoxD> That makes Stewart laugh.
<VoxPVoxD> "That's... that's a pretty good deal, from where I'm sitting."
<banana> And Melanie in turn. "I function better confused. I'm not indecisive, I can do things and not know whether they were right instead of, like, not doing things at all."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Gerald calls that MAPing. It's an acronym. Maintain, Assess, Proceed."
<banana> "I've seen that, along with OODA loop. I've got a book about squad tactics on here somewhere." She gestures to the laptop.
<banana> "Emotionally the thing I miss is being good at basketball- you'd think it might be family or something but that's one of the ways she's influenced me I think, an estrangement or something- anyway I don't miss playing it because I wouldn't be any good anymore."
<banana> "Intellectually- skin, I think, was probably good. I genuinely do not recall, but it must have been pretty good and I do sometimes think about that."
<banana> "Maybe not, though? Maggie's fine."
<banana> Melanie opens her eyes again.
<banana> Well, honestly, in the context of the conversation: eye-shaped wooden sockets. But by convention,
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "In a lot of ways, if you take it as a point-to-point comparison of objective traits, I came out way ahead. I lost a ton of weight, I don't seem to have asthma anymore, it takes a lot less work to keep my skin clear. I picked up-- I kind of, learned a little bit about a lot of different things."
<banana> "There are a lot of random upsides. I know how to think now, which is honestly a blessing. I'm stronger than I ever was, even though I used to work out every day. Probably never have to burn carbs again."
<VoxPVoxD> "I miss... something I do whenever I get the chance to is, I ask people who've been back for a while if, after everything they've seen, everything they've done, everything they've been through... if they had the chance, if they could... undo it all. If they could go back to the moment they were taken and just live their old lives forward, to wherever that led, would they do it?"
<banana> Melanie: "Are you asking me?"
<banana> "It's ok if you are, and ok if you aren't."
<banana> It wouldn't be ok if someone else did.
<banana> Maybe a couple of people.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart shakes his head. "No. No, not you. I mean like... I asked the King. I asked Santander."
<VoxPVoxD> "I wouldn't ask Lauren, even."
<VoxPVoxD> "But no one I've asked has ever said 'yes'."
<banana> "Well, now I don't want to volunteer it and break your streak!"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "If you want to tell me I'd be happy to listen! It's just, you know, I think of us as within the same cohort, even if we were gone for way longer. It's about how long we've been back."
<VoxPVoxD> "What preoccupies me is what kind of peace we make with this shit as time goes on."
<VoxPVoxD> *even if you were gone for
<banana> Melanie: "I want to move forward from where we are, no matter what it takes. I want to make sure other people can move forward. It's one of the few simple things."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart nods. "Yeah."
<VoxPVoxD> "Yeah."
<Crion>
<Crion>
<Crion>
<Crion>
<Crion>
<Crion>
<Crion>
<Crion>
<Crion> Stone brambles broken, toothy dragons burbled, and trash wolves banished behind them, the motley stands triumphant outside the Gate of Horn into...the Falls.
<Crion> As you well know, you will be passing physically into the dreaming-place of John of the Falls when you step through this Gate. As you also well know, you will be doing so physically, not as dreamers, with all that entails. The horn-knocker awaits...but you have time to prepare, if you so desire.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart takes the knocker and gives it one, two, three--
<trenchfoot> Nels has nothing to prepare but reloading her revolver. Guns are nice like that.
<Crion> The knocks redound upon the hedgewalls, somehow, and echo even though the acoustics should kill them -- and then the great basalt door cracks, open, just, a bit...and a massive black claw reaches out and pushes the door open further. Two coal-red burning eyes peer out from the depths, and a voice booms: "THOSE WHO WISH TO PASS MUST SWEAR AS ONE. SAY 'AYE' AND THEN REPEAT...OR WITHDRAW."
<banana> Melanie stands by the fallen, sodden hedgewalls with her arms folded as far as they go. She's beginning to shed thorns, little stubby white things with the strength of steel which were unkind to the briarwolves. She's less concerned than earlier with being polite to Mr. of the Falls; he's been testing her friends, presumably for fun, in a genuinely dangerous way.
<CBN> Tony looks around, quietly popping a bit of dirt into his mouth and swallowing. "Swearing sight unseen seems like a bad idea, but we kinda have to here, right?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "It's his house."
<CBN> Tony shrugs. "Fair enough yeah."
<VoxPVoxD> To the thing behind the gate: "What are your terms?"
<Crion> It simply stares back.
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Guess it's 'aye' and then terms."
<banana> Melanie: "We won't be bound by a promise we haven't heard yet."
<banana> "On three?"
<VoxPVoxD> Whatever. "We've got to 'Aye' to hear the terms. Then we swear."
<VoxPVoxD> "Aye."
<banana> That's not on three!
<Crion> The boiling eyes focus on Nels, then Stewart. It awaits the other three.
<banana> Melanie: "Aye. Then do you have to like knock again?"
<Crion> Two.
<VoxPVoxD> "The door's already open, he's not going to be that persnickety."
<banana> Melanie: "I'm just wondering what it is you have to repeat."
<CBN> Tony waits for the three, and Ayes with the rest if it seems like they're getting it together. ".... ...Aye?"
<trenchfoot> Nels: "The oath, I guess? I'd make a joke but, um, not in earshot."
<dammitwho> Maggie shrugs at the others. "Aye?"
<Crion> As Maggie's word fades, the voice booms out, "'I SWEAR TO TREASURE DREAMS, AND RESPECT NIGHTMARES.'"
<trenchfoot> ...That doesn't sound so bad, which makes it concerning. Nels looks to the rest of the motley for confirmation. This is what they wanted, right?
<banana> Seems fine. Melanie relaxes a bit, actually.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart swears in unison with the others.
<CBN> Sounds good to Tony.
<banana> "I swear to treasure dreams and respect nightmares. ...it's uncommon sense."
<trenchfoot> As soon as Stewart starts, Nels joins in. Together.
<Crion> When the pact is sealed by all five, another great claw reaches out and pulls the two doors open wide enough to walk in, single file or two abreast (except for Tony, the large lad). The eyes retreat into the darkness...
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart looks back at the others and then walks in first unless someone grabs or stops him.
<dammitwho> Maggie will say it with the others, though frankly this seems a little silly. It is a nice sentiment though? Sort of?
<dammitwho> She'll follow behind Stewart.
<banana> Melanie's there, quietly. There's no point resisting these games; the dreamer's eccentric and aged but he's still one of Us.
<banana> What's it like in someone else's head?
<Crion> The motley walks into a great, wide, sumptuous hall. It's unlit, but that somehow doesn't make it any harder to see -- it just puts a sort of haze over everything, a fuzziness. And when you stop looking at things, they move. Chairs become tables. Tables become portraits on the wall. Portraits on the wall disappear. Walls become doors, leading deeper inside. There are two things that remain
<Crion> constant: the first is the massive, wide stone embankment of stairs some fifty yards ahead, spanning the full width of this hall, leading up; the vaulted ceiling climbs with it, its indecipherable murals shifting and changing.
<Crion> The second is the hulking black creature with massive claws and coal eyes, hunched off to one side, watching. The Concierge of the Falls.
<Crion> John of the Falls -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0tuzxC4Ynk Sweet dreams are made of this; who am I to disagree?
<dammitwho> Golly.
<trenchfoot> Nels stiffens as she enters and spots the creature, instinctively moving behind Melanie or Tony. This - well. The rest of the space is unsettling, but...
<Crion> It bows and extends an arm towards the space beyond the top of the stair.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart's eyes flare orange and give off motes of light that the darkened room drinks greedily. He looks at Nels and then starts up the stairs.
<CBN> Tony nods, offering a reflexively polite, "How're ya?" to the Concierge as he goes.
<Crion> It chuckles, which isn't quite as evil a sound as one might expect.
<banana> Melanie will stay between Nels and the coal creature, all the same.
<trenchfoot> She's got to follow Stewart, though Melanie's defense is extremely welcome. She'll hurry past the creature and follow him up the stairs.
<Crion> At the top of the stairs, the space opens up, and there's a man with milky-white eyes and face obscuring...mask? Paint? It bleeds together. He's sitting in the lotus position atop a great circular table, instead of the throne at the rear of the room. Beneath him is a...map? It's pinnned to the table with seventeen large ties; their mien changes from stillettos to railroad spikes to sharpened
<Crion> spurs of bone and back when you look away from them.
<Crion> He is smiling, and has too many teeth.
<banana>
<Crion> "'Good evening,' said the innskeeper to the travelers. 'I have so many beds, and so little food. But I'm anticipating a change.'"
<CBN> Tony waves as respectfully as one can, since that seems like it'd jive best with the oath. "Thanks for having us."
<banana> It's creepy, of course, unreal, but there's something empowering about this whole scene. This is an old(?) man who's mastered his own mind, becoming something godlike in the dream realm but born of humanity instead of inimical to it. #goals?
<banana> His aesthetic is not Melanie's but she respects his ability to enforce it. And isn't about to get in some kind of duel of wits and quotations. She just bows.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart's hiding it well, but he's terrified, and it makes him impatient and short-tempered. But it's a terror that urges him forward rather than one that stops him in his tracks. The terror of one pursued. Only one thing Stewart can get from this room could ease that fear, and it's not painting the walls or burning on candle-wicks.
<trenchfoot> Nels is uncomfortable, and if she wasn't surrounded by people much stronger than her she would be fully terrified. As is, she would place her level of terror at "frightened," and she doesn't feel like she's putting on a brave front.
<CBN> Tony's Tony. He's just standing here since that's his job.
<Crion> John of the Falls looks about and nods to himself, then snaps his fingers. Braziers that weren't there before light up every six feet apart on all three of the walls; the throne recoils into a chair, which shoots forward under where the table used to be, as it rises up and turns perpendicular to the floor, facing the motley, revealing that is both a map and an esoteric drawing of some kind.
<Crion> John hops down, now wearing a suit (and still wearing the facepaint/mask), stopping the chair with his heel and then sinking down into it. The oppressive atmosphere lifts and the room becomes far more cozy, though the aesthetic remains the same. Couches and deep-cushioned seats slide out from the walls.
<Crion> "So. What can I do for you, in the dreaming?"
<CBN> Tony: "Stewart can cover it better but, we need help finding a heart."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart doesn't hesitate. "We came looking for knowledge on how to find a huntsman's heart. Another sworn of Autumn is in danger. We have reason to believe the dreamer's relatively near us in the waking world, but no way of knowing how or where to look."
<Crion> John nods soberly to Tony. It's a respectful nod -- he seems aware of who the Winter Court changeling is.
<banana> ...has he been in our dreams?
<Crion> None of the motley have ever seen John of the Falls in either of his appearances or the Concierge in their dreams. Whether they've dreamt of dark, occasionally non-Euclidian gothic hallways is up to them.
<trenchfoot> Stewart has this for now. Should they require more... charm, Nels is ready to jump in, but right now she's just hovering behind him, looking concerned.
<Crion> John of the Falls steeples his fingers. "Lauren Ipsum, yes...you have faced the Huntsman? So you have some time before it returns."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "About three weeks left."
<Crion> He nods. "So. A Huntsman's heart is hidden in the Bastion of a mortal." He waves an arm. "You are in my Bastion now. You may enter such a place by making a pledge. Mortals do not control such things in the dreaming; the pledge requested by those unaware of this world is basal and instinctive -- it normally covers little more than to not harm the dreamer."
<Crion> "Bastions are made by the dreaming and unmade by waking." John smiles. "This Bastion is quite old. Your mortal's Bastion will not be. And yes, there will be literally hundreds of thousands of Bastions accessible across the Hedge through the Gate of Horn."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Does - reclaiming the heart count as harm to a dreamer? They don't get possessive? It's not theirs, the dreamer's, I know that, but..."
<Crion> John shakes his head. "No. In fact, you are doing the dreamer a kindness."
<Crion> "It is no easy thing, to hold a stolen monster's heart."
<dammitwho> Maggie: "And we'd be doing the monster a kindness by giving it back?"
<Crion> John: "And Lauren Ipsum, and yourselves, and the whole of the Freehold. Yes. Everyone but the Keeper."
<Crion> To Stewart: "You seem unsettled by the time it has taken for me to come to you on this. I can understand if that is so. But I have...news that won't comfort you, but might steel you."
<VoxPVoxD> Immediately: "What is it?"
<Crion> "You can't do any of this, save find the mortal whose Bastion you need to enter, until the Huntsman returns."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart blinks. "You mean the heart's only accessible while she's being hunted?"
<banana> Melanie: "Is the fairy.. using it, to reform their creature?"
<trenchfoot> Nels: "But we can find where it ought to be before then. Right?"
<Crion> John: "Worse. Or at least more final. A mortal's Bastion is only accessible with a Key. And the only Key to the Bastion of a mortal concealing the heart of a Huntsman is...that Huntsman."
<Crion> "You must convince it to come with you. Into the mortal's Bastion. To recover its heart."
<trenchfoot> Oh. That is much worse.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "We have to convince it to come for it's heart while the Fae's Title still hollows it out? Is that even possible?"
<dammitwho> Maggie: "Oh dear."
<Crion> John: "Yes. Flatly so: it is always possible to convince a Huntsman to seek its own heart. There is...literature in this area. It yearns to be whole more than it can ever hate you. Like the Lost, the Huntsmen had no choice in their creation."
<banana> Maybe it helps to kill it a few times first.
<trenchfoot> Let's not test that out.
<Crion> John: "There are complicating factors."
<CBN> Tony: "Beyond all that? Woof."
<trenchfoot> Nels, faintly: "Oh, dear."
<Crion> He raises one finger. "First: you must make your pitch to the Huntsman in the Hedge. This means either finding it there, or luring it back there. Second: It would be...quite helpful...to have Lauren Ipsum present. Helpful to the point of necessity. It's theoretically possible to induce the Huntsman's cooperation without its target's genuine plea..."
<Crion> He shrugs. "But functionally, I've never heard of it being done."
<Crion> "And I've walked some very strange roads."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Meaning if we fail at any point she's in immediate mortal danger."
<Crion> John: "No."
<Crion> "If you fail at any point, YOU are in immediate mortal danger. She is in danger of something arguably worse." He lifts a cup of tea to his lips that wasn't there before. "Huntsmen do not kill their quarry. They drag them back."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Well, we aren't going to fail, so there's that." She sounds very certain.
<Crion> John smiles. "A good philosophy."
<Crion> "I do have some good news, however. It's not all doom and gloom."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart paces around, rubbing the back of his neck, thoroughly doomed and gloomed.
<Crion> "I've found the mortal."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart stops pacing.
<Crion> John of the Falls stands, and that map/esoterica diagram swings closer.
<banana> Melanie peers at the glyphs, glad she's not being asked to interpret them. That'd be a whole new course of study. "That's a major advantage. Thank you."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart's suddenly fiercely grateful he picked AP Psych as an elective junior year.
<Crion> A blood-red line traces from the great circle at the center to a smaller orbiting circle, then to another, then to the labyrinth contained within that subcircle, then into another circle interior to THAT. John of the Falls taps it. "It was helpful once I saw the motif. And managed to internalize the movies. Your mortal is a young girl named Rebecca Connor, age 8. Perfectly normal, perfectly
<Crion> healthy. Unfortunately for her, her middle name is Sarah."
<VoxPVoxD> Ah, shit.
<trenchfoot> Why does that matter?
<Crion> He clasps his hands behind his back. "She is mostly unharmed by this unwelcome intrusion into her Bastion. Scary dreams about shiny skeletons from time to time. Her parents are likely worried about a downturn in her mood, but neither her life nor her sanity is in danger by having to wait some three weeks."
<banana> To Tony: "You caught up with Arnie just in time."
<dammitwho> Maggie looks at Nels and raises her hands like, yeah, I dunno either.
<CBN> Tony nods to Melanie: "Feeling like the Keeper probably watched the same movie, or the kid did."
<banana> "They don't create, only copy."
<trenchfoot> She'll ask later. Enough people seem to understand what's going on that she can't disrupt the flow. "So we're helping her too, when we do this."
<Crion> John: "You are."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "How do we prepare for this?"
<CBN> Tony: "Well depending on how we're going into her dreams, we either try to find her Horn Gate in the Hedge, or we plan on breaking into a child's room with a huge monster along for the ride on a very easily-broken leash."
<banana> We should have brought Lauren here. Maybe she already understands this stuff.
<CBN> Tony: "So however we do the first one probably."
<banana> Melanie: "That would be.. better. The huntsman isn't going to hurt the girl with its heart-chip, but there are so so many things which could go wrong."
<Crion> John: "You will have to enter her Bastion through the Gate of Horn with the Huntsman, as only in the Hedge can the Huntsman be swayed. So preparing yourself physically is paramount. Learning as much as you can about the Huntsman is also paramount -- but you may only be able to do this directly when you encounter him. Interviewing Lauren Ipsum may help a bit; involving Lauren Ipsum, moreso.
<Crion> She will need to take some ownership in this struggle."
<VoxPVoxD> Fuck.
<Crion> "Additionally: there seems to be a very clear narrative being cited, here. A very popular one. I would not fight that narrative."
<banana> "That makes sense. You're teaching us a lot of things we.. probably should have known, though maybe the Courts kind of wanted to delegate."
<Crion> John smiles. "I do so rarely get visitors from this side."
<CBN> Tony: "Is there anything you want from us for all this? I could pick you up a movie or something?"
<Crion> John blinks in surprise, then recovers into a shrug. "The Gate of Horn is open to you now. Feel free to drop on by anytime. It can get a bit...lonely."
<Crion> The Concierge grumbles behind them in agreement.
<CBN> Tony: "10-4!"
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I don't - um. The narrative." Inhale, exhale. "I've gathered this is all some reference I'm missing," she tries.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart almost snaps, "It's a movie."
<Crion> John: "When you have the Huntsman in agreement to seek its heart, and you need to reach Rebecca Sarah Connor's Bastion, bring it to my Gate and knock. I will lead you there." He grimaces. "But I cannot enter her dreams alongside you. It will be you, the Huntsman, and Lauren Ipsum."
<banana> Melanie looks at Stewart for a moment. "Let's talk about it when we get back, Nels. There's actually a copy at the Wherehouse, or what used to be one."
<VoxPVoxD> Three more weeks of waiting. No peace, no meaningful work, just the mandate to make Lauren dig into her memories the worst thing anyone can experience.
<trenchfoot> To Melanie: "Got it." She doesn't look at Stewart.
<banana> Melanie remembers a slight problem. "We'll return with Lauren... she doesn't fight. Is the Hedge outside your gates likely to be pacific?"
<Crion> John watches Stewart's face. "...I note Lauren herself is not here."
<Crion> To Melanie: "Everyone fights. But yes, your invitation is standing."
<banana> "Great. And like, to, you know, get out at all, to keep standing, that's fighting, but I mean in a mundane sense: wolves."
<Crion> Miffed: "Briarwolves are not mundane."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I wasn't told it was necessary to involve her."
<banana> Melanie: "The trash bits making them up are, in the end-" she gives way to Stewart.
<CBN> Tony: "Stewart. Man, it's going to be okay. We know what we need to do, she's got you, you've got us, some-math-word-I-forget-but-I-know-Melanie-loves-saying, she's got us too. In this thing together."
<VoxPVoxD> Curtly: "I'll make sure she's brought up to speed on what we need to do."
<trenchfoot> This is some stress response.
<banana> "It's not your sole responsibility Stewart."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Is this really the time for an intervention?"
<banana> "Mr. Falls, stop us if we're overstaying our welcome." Melanie grins with her own version of John's mask.
<Crion> John sighs. "Lauren being brought up to speed is not my point." He grimaces, opens his mouth, closes it again. "You have three peaceful weeks with her before HER Huntsman returns for HER to confront, with YOUR help. Being afraid of what lies at the end of those days is normal and healthy. But you're not afraid, are you?"
<Crion> "You're angry. And the only experience I have with anger is ruination."
<Crion> To Melanie: "No offense meant to our friends in the Summer Court."
<banana> "Impulses do have to be checked."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "So, so, what? What should I be doing"
<VoxPVoxD> "I can't just--" Stops himself, sighs. "Thank you for your help."
<Crion> John inclines his head. "You know where to find me, when the time comes. I will be ready."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "We'll figure it out." She can't stop herself from trying to be reassuring.
<Crion> "The Concierge will see you out."
<CBN> Tony: "Thank you again!" Tony nods politely.
<banana> Melanie: "What is it, anyway? The butler-thing."
<Crion> John smiles...and the lights in the room all go black at once, replaced by light down the stairs at the end of the hall as the Gate of Horn rumbles open. The great coal-eyed creature rumbles mournfully and leads them to the exit.
<Crion> The Gate of Horn will let them out right near the door back to the underpass beneath i-83.
<Crion> *I-83
<banana> It's not quiet here, but it's peaceful.
<banana> Melanie: "Okay, I will say it's a particularly autumn kind of bullshit to tell you that it's unhealthy to do things, and you should instead be more afraid."
<CBN> Tony shrugs. "Hard to argue with though."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart doesn't say anything. It takes him more tries than it should to get the car key in the lock.
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Stifling, is what it is."
<banana> Melanie: "Yes. But he's being helpful, and it was genuine advice."
<VoxPVoxD> Once they're all in the car: "I'm sorry for being short in there. Everyone just wants to help and I'm not making it any easier."
<dammitwho> Maggie: "It's a pretty upsetting situation!"
<dammitwho> "Nobody likes to 'hurry up and wait'."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I understand. Stress." Not 'it's fine,' but we've all been there.
<banana> Melanie: "You were kind of quiet in the Hall of the Mountain Goth, Maggie."
<dammitwho> She rubs the back of her neck. "Oh, I dunno... it's just..."
<dammitwho> "It was a little spooky..."
<banana> "Good, isn't he? Remember that it's spook-on-our-side."
<CBN> Tony: "We were JUST at a Halloween party where a Huntsman showed up, and that guy was friendly."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I wonder if John actually looks like that or if you're just allowed to look as pretty as you want in your own dreamworld."
<dammitwho> "That was scary. It's different."
<CBN> Tony: "Anyway Stewart we're here for you, and understand that you can handle your stress in your own way. If you want to get blackout drunk with Steve I know he'll be in favor of the excuse."
<Crion> honk
<Crion> He's not here. It's a spiritual honk.
<banana> Hmmmmm. Melanie's never seen a horror movie on Maggie's expanding playlist, either..
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart honks the horn at someone who cuts him off.
<banana> This could be fun.
<dammitwho> Maggie: "Plus it buoys you up a little to know you can ask a fella's shotgun to empty itself in his head if you've a mind. Evens the playing field a bit, even if he is tossing bouncers about."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Anyway, I've got stuff I need to do. I'll drop you guys off at the Market."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I still want to know about the - why was her middle name so important? I guess it's a movie?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "It'll make sense when you see the movie."
<VoxPVoxD> "I know it's on the media server, Tony just watched it a few days ago."
<banana> "It's actually a really good sign."
<dammitwho> Maggie: "What movie is it?"
<banana> Melanie: "Like, I think the keeper fucked up. It's given us a narrative that goes the right way."
<banana> "You've got Terminator, from decades back, a classic sci-fi film where a machine-man from the future comes back in time to kill
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I mean."
<banana> a woman named Sarah Connor." Melanie doesn't really get the 'spoilers' thing.
<banana> "But then for the rest of the series, that robot is actually the hero.."
<VoxPVoxD> "Even though the Terminator gets defeated, Skynet still like... rules the future."
<banana> "The future is a different country. The films are upbeat because you never actually travel there, it's always put off and set back."
<trenchfoot> Nels understood some of that. "That reminds me. What's a robot?"
<trenchfoot> "This isn't the first time I've heard it, but I still have no context."
<banana> ...what is a robot? Melanie's briefly paralysed. Like, are they people or beings-in-time? Does the artificial nature matter or is it about their role as workers of last resort?
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Colloquially it's a machine with human characteristics. How many human characteristics varies wildly."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "So... metal people. Kind of, but not always." She sounds vaguely lost.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah."
<CBN> Tony: "Wait the robot's the good guy? God damn it why."
<dammitwho> "Sort of. I mean, I'm a metal people, but I'm not a robit." She thumps her chest with a hollow booming noise.
<banana> Melanie: "A robot is created in imitation of a human, or to replace them. The opposite, a human with mechanical bits, is a cyborg."
<banana> "Cyborgs... are incredibly cool."
<CBN> Tony, having only seen the original: "Man seriously. Thanks for saving me a couple hours at least. I guess."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Tony I'm going to tell you something nobody agrees with: every Terminator movie after the first one sucks."
<CBN> Tony: "Well based on that, I agree with you already."
<VoxPVoxD> "They're just dumb cartoons! Terminator 1 is gritty and real. Terminator 1 could fucking happen."
<CBN> Tony: "The good? News is I think that makes you Kyle Reese."
<dammitwho> "I thought you watched cartoons allatime?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart, to Tony: "Ha."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart, to Maggie: "No!"
<CBN> Tony: "AND there's way more of us, which is way better odds. And in that case the woman being pursued still survived, so you've got that going for you."
<dammitwho> "Sure! Those foreign cartoons with the subtitles!"
<CBN> Tony: "Oh I know this one! Steve told me!"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "That does not count, those are Lauren's idea--"
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I'm going to need to - watch, this... The Terminator. Melanie, you said we had it at the Wherehouse?"
<banana> Melanie: "Oh come on. I don't remember most of them but Terminator 2 is great! The liquid stuff is like.. a robot vampire, you get to actually see John Connor, there are some great corny lines."
<CBN> Tony: "They're called henties and---yeah Nels, I left the tape out by the big TV."
<banana> "'Unable to self-terminate'.. that voice is amazing."
<VoxPVoxD> Sharply to Tony: "Do not trust Steve on this."
<CBN> Tony: "I'll have to ask him...but you've stolen way less of my beer than he has..."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Wait, also, lots of information coming at me all at once. Cartoons took off? Is Felix the Cat still around?"
<Crion> "honk" (仲間?) is a Japanese word that directly translates to friend, comrades, and under some context, such as in the manga 'One Piece', crewmates.
<Crion> Most fans of the series believes the word means "people who are considered closer than family", though that is not a part of the official dictionary definition of the word.
<dammitwho> ah, naruhodo,
<CBN> Tony claps his hands together, dusting them off. "Well! We've got a couple weeks to do the thing, the night is young, and we just met a guy who looked like a vampire but was inside a dream."
<VoxPVoxD> They're back downtown now. Stewart lets everyone out of the car so they can return to the Wherehouse and go about their business. He's got work to do.
<Crion> Where's he headed?
<banana> Melanie, marginally reminiscent: "I don't remember a Felix film.. it's got to be Disney though? There was like.. the Princess and the Frog.. and I remember everyone seeing Frozen, though that was kind of for little kids."
<CBN> Tony: "Thanks again for the ride!" Tony looks around at the rest of the group: "I think I'm quitting my job so I can make this a late one. Who's got something interesting for me before I go get blind with Steve?"
<dammitwho> Maggie: "Hoorm. Do you know what Icons are?"
<banana> "Oh there was something I meant to ask- you go, Maggie."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I don't know a Disney. These were... Paramount, I think?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart texts Lauren while driving. <just got back from a neverending afi video in the hedge. we gotta go over some stuff. you free?>
<CBN> Tony: "Doesn't ring a bell..."
<Crion> <yeah babe> is the immediate reply.
<banana> "Disney movies are all animated," Melanie tells Nels inaccurately. "They're great, children's stories with musical pieces."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I'll try them out once I figure out what this Terminator thing is."
<trenchfoot> "...and maybe see what Felix the Cat cartoons I missed."
<dammitwho> Maggie: "They're like... okay, we all come out through the Thorns, right? And the Thorns rip off bits of us as we go... Icons are the bits that got torn off. Physical doodads lying around in the Hedge that used to be a piece of a changeling's soul, and if that changeling gets one she can, uh, put it back again."
<VoxPVoxD> It's Saturday, right, so Lauren should be at home...? Or is she in the office? Stewart could ask, but, instead he's wondering if he knows as if an invisible narrator will insert the answer in his mind.
<CBN> Tony: "Oh! Like if you get your mouthguard knocked clear out of your head, it's still out on the field somewhere."
<banana> Melanie to Nels: "Well, let's google it. Do you have that yet?"
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Stewart showed me. That and YouTube. Though, mostly for music. Apparently you can just listen to anything at any time and don't even have to pay for it?"
<Crion> Lauren's at home, yes, though she is able and willing to come over.
<banana> "If you don't mind ads." Melanie gets her laptop out of her room and brings it over to Nels to look up cartoon cats.
<VoxPVoxD> No, let's do this at her place. <omw over>
<Crion> <kkkkkkkkkkkkkkk>
<dammitwho> Maggie: "I, yeah?"
<dammitwho> Maggie: "Anywho, I was thinking about tracking one down."
<CBN> Tony: "I'm game, if it's stupid Hedge crap I'm probably as good as anyone at finding it."
<VoxPVoxD> What's Lauren's place like? Stewart's only been over like... once, to disconnect all her computers on Halloween.
<Crion> The main question, of course, is whether Maggie knows where to look. How well does she remember her flight from Arcadia, the run through the Thorns, and her recovery? What starting information can she give a Hedge tracker?
<dammitwho> The problem, of course, is that she was hanging off the side of a train and literally facing away from the scenery. Problematic.
<Crion> Means you're looking for a railroad, at least.
<CBN> Tony: "Is this one of those things I should ask around about, or is this one of those things where that's the last thing I should be doing?"
<dammitwho> Maggie: "Well... the hobs know how important these things are to us. So if a goblin merchant has one, it'll be really expensive."
<trenchfoot> Nels points to Melanie's screen when she spots Feline Follies - technically not Felix the Cat, but it's clearly the same cat despite the name 'Master Tom.'
<trenchfoot> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5zXjQuUi_M
<dammitwho> Maggie: "About the only landmark I could give you is 'railroad tracks'."
<trenchfoot> Then, a few minutes later: "I think I had fonder memories of the cartoon before I watched it again."
<banana> Melanie: "Okay, storytelling in animation has advanced a bit. And I don't think cats get that suicidal about fatherhood?"
<Crion> Lauren's place down around Baltimore's Penn Station, and the doorman buzzes him in as soon as he arrives and says who he's here to see -- Lauren already called down to let him know that Stewart was on his way. A quick ride up to the fifth floor and he's knocking on the door to a well-appointed studio apartment with very severe blackout curtains.
<Crion> *place is
<banana> "Like, men were like that in 1919.. and 2019.. but it's pretty blunt."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Maybe it's best Felix didn't survive the century."
<Crion> Before his second knock she'll throw the door open and pull Stewart inside.
<banana> Melanie: "Did you ever have a cat?"
<Crion> And push him against the wall, and kiss, and etc.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart suddenly feels a lot better.
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I was on the move too much. Keeping a pet through that seemed cruel."
<Crion> When finished: "So. Hi."
<CBN2> Tony: "Railroad tracks, huh? That's something."
<CBN2> Tony: "Do you remember, in general, where you came out after? Retrace your steps, like if you can't find your keys and they end up in the fridge."
<trenchfoot> "Always wanted one, though. Steve... sort of counts. Not really."
<banana> Melanie: "If you aren't settled I can see that. I expected to be on the road too, but- my parents had cats. They weren't as active as this guy."
<banana> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TgK0xxq2oE "Or as racist. There's something I like about the old animation though, the way each image moves around... did they not have a way to fix them in place?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Hi." Clears his throat a little. He wishes more of his days could be this. Maybe when this is over. "What are you up to?"
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I - this is a new one." She watches quietly. "Did they make a way to ensure people drawing were starting from the same place?"
<Crion> She stretches and heads back over to her chair. "Closing tickets. Getting stuff done. The usual."
<banana> Melanie: "It's all created on computers now. I don't know that much about them, too much to learn, but for cartoons there's like.. it's a sequence of digital images that are generated modifications of the same thing. The animators specify how the characters should move, rather than drawing each image separately."
<Crion> A fat black-on-white cat mrowls and rolls over on the dresser while staring at Stewart. Then it does it again with its eyes closed, and begins grooming itself.
<Crion> That's Chup, and Stewart's run into him before.
<Crion> He just sort of glared at him last time he was in here.
<Crion> He seems a bit more magnanimous this time...?
<banana> "Let me find something.. I don't know why we watched this. Maybe I had a little- anyway. Here's a sequence I remember, and you can see that they're sort of moving around an existing image, not adding new ones." Melanie brings up another video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moSFlvxnbgk
<trenchfoot> Nels: "The 4 as a chair was good, at least."
<VoxPVoxD> Lauren's so confident and competent... "Hey, Chup." Stewart grabs a thing to sit on and sits close to Lauren but not close enough to crowd her. "So we just got back from seeing John of the Falls. He came through in a big way."
<banana> "When it doesn't have to be realistic it's more.. clever."
<trenchfoot> Oh.
<Crion> Lauren doesn't quite stiffen. Well, she stiffens, but it's not in fear. It's more resolve. "He always does. Even if he's kind of a weirdo."
<Crion> Chup: "murr."
<banana> Melanie hasn't seen the song since she got back. Or since she was 13, probably. It's still pretty good. An Elemental, right?
<Crion> Elemental Fairest, to be precise.
<trenchfoot> Nels turns to Melanie: "You say that Disney cartoons have these kind of songs regularly?"
<Crion> *Elemental Bright One, to be precise.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I respect his aesthetic. It's good to know there's room to carve out our own weird niches. Anyway, he found us the Bastion where the heart's going to pop. Rebecca Sarah Connor, age 8."
<trenchfoot> "Show me more."
<banana> Melanie: "They're meant to be for kids, but.. I don't think anyone cares about that. There's a Lion King remake out this year."
<Crion> Lauren's face tightens. "Fuck."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah."
<VoxPVoxD> "How much do you know about how this works? The mechanics of it."
<Crion> Lauren: "I know we have to go into the Hedge and...talk to it."
<Crion> "Well. I do."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah."
<banana> Melanie finds more cartoon songs on the laptop. "I definitely remember that when I was growing up I thought I had to stop watching these. Like, to be a real adult woman who was sexy and mature."
<VoxPVoxD> "You're not going to be going alone, obviously."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "...that doesn't sound like it's being sung by a child."
<CBN2> Tony, to Maggie: "So my thought is, we start near that, do the door...portal...whatever, thing, back into the Hedge, then I can try to find some tracks. Make sense?"
<banana> Melanie: "Well, culture tells you some weird crap."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Do you have a favorite?"
<Crion> Lauren: "Thanks. I don't think I say thanks to you enough? Maybe I do. I don't wanna be weird."
<Crion> "I mean, weirder than having deadman switches on all my power strips."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I haven't been counting but surely every time you grab me and kiss me counts for at least a couple."
<banana> Melanie: "Yeah, if I can find it! I need to remember the lyrics.." She types. "What was it like, the kind of messages you got growing up?"
<banana> "You've got the same thing. Perspective, the ability to look back on it from a new world."
<trenchfoot> Nels, wryly: "The main message I got growing up was not to do what I was doing."
<banana> Melanie: "I guess you were less gullible!"
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Let's go with that." She doesn't elaborate.
<banana> "Okay, here. My- Not everyone liked this as much but I thought it was GREAT at the age of too-little-to-have-an-opinion." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdvfH2xBAy0
<Crion> Lauren: "Please. A couple is where it stops. This is not an open relationship."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart snorts.
<VoxPVoxD> Firmly: "Understood."
<VoxPVoxD> "Anyway, we can't really do anything else until the Huntsman returns. We've got to meet it out in the Hedge and convince it to go into the kid's dream with us to get the heart. It's hard to prepare for that, you know? We can make sure we're as safe as possible but at the end of the day what it comes down to is... how do we make a connection with the Huntsman?"
<Crion> She's now sitting Riker-style in her computer chair. Or "hey there, kids" style. Whichever referent Stewart gets. "Well..."
<Crion> "You don't, right?"
<Crion> "It's MY Huntsman."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart's face gets tight.
<VoxPVoxD> "Yeah."
<Crion> "I am, of course, accepting suggestions."
<dammitwho> Maggie: "Sure. I come out near Port Dundalk, I think. Strange name."
<CBN2> Tony: "Oh nice, I think I had a cousin who worked there for a summer back in the day. So, let's see what we can do thataway."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "...I would've liked working on stuff like this. When is this even from?"
<banana> Melanie: "Ten years ago. You still can, right?"
<banana> "Like, there's plenty of stuff from animation to musical theatre or just soundtracks for movies and games.. art is everywhere, music is everywhere. Too commodified, it's hard for people to make a living on the lower rungs of creative professions."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I can play. Obviously." She's not smug or anything, it's just a fact. "But getting my name out there... I don't know how well that would go."
<trenchfoot> "Even as Lena Colter, people would want to look."
<trenchfoot> "Um, that's the name on my lease, and probably what I get my GED under."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart gets both of those references, but the one he's actually thinking of is Michelle Pfeiffer in the Gangsta's Paradise video. "The way I see it, there's two parts to the Huntsman, right. There's the narrative it's been molded after, and there's the title hijacking it. So intuitively the strategy is to flow *with* the narrative and *against* the title."
<VoxPVoxD> "And that's really your part in the plan. Cause no one else knows the Sky Mother like you do."
<CBN2> Tony does his thing, which looks like he's sniffing the dirt? God is he tasting it? Can you even really tell? Dirt man on dirt looking at more dirt. But in any event, he seems to be doing it in a solid, set direction, and after the first few glances back to make sure Maggie's following, he just lumbers forward at his good ol' inexorable pace.
<Crion> Lauren nods. "I can't say I know what the title is, definitively...but I can make some educated guesses. It wants to find me, of course -- that's most important, that's what makes the most sense both from an Arcadian perspective and from the, like, the story -- but it wants to learn. The Sky Mother always wanted to learn. That wasn't really a Skynet thing, was it? Skynet sort of just happened,
<Crion> and made 'rational decisions.' But Sky Mother, she's a great big eye in the sky, on spiderlegs..."
<banana> Melanie: "So let them look. With your face, they'd look no matter whether you reminded them of someone else. If the attention isn't something you enjoy anymore that's one thing, but you don't have to be a hermit or anonymous. If- if you can make it, that'd be you. Making it."
<banana> Is this too far? Melanie doesn't know; it's terrifying. But it isn't about her.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "So then the question is, what does she think you can teach her? What's the gap in her knowledge? What's missing from her that needs to be repaired or replaced?"
<Crion> Tony leads Maggie through the Hedge right quick and twice as well; the Thorns harden against them, but they're looking for a railroad ending in a port, or its most likely adjacent Hedge companion, and so wandering out into the Thorns isn't the way it needs to go. Soon they end up on a bleak, long plane of what seems to be concrete beneath their feet, and the Hedgerows are shipping containers
<Crion> instead of buildings.
<VoxPVoxD> "Santander says that every Keeper is broken somehow."
<dammitwho> Eating good healthy dirt isn't the strangest thing she's seen someone eat, and it's not really immoral. Do what you need to, Tony.
<Crion> Lauren puts her chin down on her crossed arms. "What do you learn from a bug you've trapped underneath a cup?"
<Crion> "It's probably something like that."
<Crion> "That's her perspective."
<trenchfoot> They're back in the Wherehouse, right? So Nels has every right to pick up her guitar and start playing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr3kWE4TP5o Call it a nervous tic. "You're right. I think. I don't know. I've gotta make sure whatever I give holds up, before I start playing for the public again."
<banana> Melanie listens enraptly.
<banana> More people should hear this, but at least she gets to.
<banana> "That's sound ontology."
<trenchfoot> Absently, as she finishes the song: "It'd be nice. To play again, and not just busking or in apartments for friends or laying hobs to rest."
<Crion> Tony spends some time nosing around, carefully...and comes across the dockworkers. "HEAVE...HO! HEAVE...HO!"
<CBN2> Tony approaches, waving. "Hey there fellas!" Tony's ready to duck out of the way of anything heaved. Sounds like it might come up.
<Crion> Squat little creatures, with multicolored vests instead of flourescent safety jackets and toadstool caps instead of hard hats. Very serious. Moving giant shipping crates off of ornate trains and onto dock space with earnest abandon...then moving those same crates around into the stacks, moving them back, and sometimes putting them right back aboard the 'trains' they came in on.
<banana> Stewart was wrong. It's Nels who's been interrupted, not broken, genius intact. "Local clubs? Youtube and some recording equipment?"
<Crion> One seems slightly bigger than the rest, and is smoking a big ol' stogie.
<banana> Melanie gestures at the laptop, then actually picks it up and types a few search queries. "A lot of artists get their start online now."
<Crion> They're not threatening; indeed, they sort of brusquely ignore Tony and Maggie as they go about their work, and if asked, refer them to 'Foreman Chone.'
<Crion> It's pronounced 'Shawn.'
<CBN2> Tony: "Well hey buddy!" Tony offers a big, friendly smile to the stogie-smoking hob. "My friend and I are looking for something. Would you mind pointing us in the right direction, so we can get out of your way?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart reaches out to brush a stray lock of hair from her forehead. "I keep thinking about... if one of us is hungry, they get fed. If one of us is cold, they get a bed. If one of us is ignorant, they get taught. If one of us is threatened, they get protected. We take care of each other. That's all we do. That's the whole point of the freehold."
<VoxPVoxD> "And it's all because of this one thing we can't do for each other. This one hurt we can't take away."
<Crion> "Hey. Hey hey!" Foreman Chone takes out the stogie, puts it back in, and smokes it speculatively. "Hey. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Where ya coming from, where ya going, right? All freight carried, all questions answered. Cost ya union rate though."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I - I could just..." She gestures vaguely at Melanie's laptop. "People do this all the time?" She's moved on to a second song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez4DNb5K3Ls
<dammitwho> The unions...!
<CBN2> Tony: "Coming from back thataway, heading towards some railroad tracks. What's the rate?"
<trenchfoot> No vocals, regrettably, but she's got to do something with her hands.
<Crion> Instead of saying anything, Lauren takes his hand and kisses it, then presses it to her cheek.
<trenchfoot> Correction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZuW6BH_Vak
<Crion> Foreman Chone nods decisively. "Work a shift, earn a wage. Work two shifts, earn more wage. So on. Clean and honest, no bullshit, no oaths, no pledges beside you gotta work your shift."
<CBN2> Tony: "Well that is refreshing straightforward. Maggie, you in?"
<banana> Melanie: "I wish I could record this. I don't have the right gear- Harlan Jape would know how or, maybe, a professional Twitch streamer."
<trenchfoot> Absently again: "Stewart lives in my building. Could ask him."
<banana> "Ah, that reminds me." She looks embarassed - a sudden flush of sap.
<trenchfoot> "?"
<banana> "Thinking of, you know, spring, some of the timing, you might know this stuff already but there's no guarantee. I don't think- GED exams won't cover it." Melanie's being more circuitous than usual; she's frequently esoteric, but not obscure.
<dammitwho> Maggie cracks her knuckles. "I can lift 'n shift with the best of them, just you watch me."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Okay..." Her song's over, and she doesn't start a new one just yet.
<Crion> The squat foreman grins broadly. "Then lets get you hard hats and union cards..."
<banana> Melanie: "Okay so you know the Kitchen. Better than some."
<banana> "I mean you go, that was a great pull but. Do you, um!"
<trenchfoot> No response. Nels plucks a few strings.
<banana> "Has anyone taught you about modern birth control methods."
<trenchfoot> One of her strings snaps. "Wh- th- I- y- I am like a hundred years older than you," she finally says.
<banana> Melanie: "I mean technically you're not."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Granddaughter of mine. I am aware of condoms."
<banana> Melanie: "Yeah, and they suck ass. 2% failure rate IF everything goes right. If you're into boys, which you are, you want to be on the pill. I mean if they're into you." This is embarassing.. but also kind of familiar.
<VoxPVoxD> After a while, Stewart says: "I almost don't know what to do with my time now. I was expecting to have more stuff to do besides waiting."
<VoxPVoxD> "I need something else to work on..."
<Crion> Lauren chuckles, still pressing his hand close. "I bet your friends have a bunch of stuff you could throw yourself into. And be really good at, because you're you. If they don't...I bet we could find something."
<trenchfoot> Nels, stiffly: "I will look it up." Now she's fiddling again, until she just starts playing another song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQjwkXrcUrs She's not even doing it consciously. "...though it'll be a while."
<banana> Melanie's still embarassed but this is an important public service. And it's starting to get funny. "It's hormone-based medicine! A freaking revolution in like, controlling our own lives, since it's something you take ahead of time - there's no relying on a guy to get it right or to avoid... accidents."
<banana> "You've got to see a doctor since there can be side effects, but I went on the pill at like, fifteen and it was fine? Works for almost everyone. There are also IUDs, which.." no, she can't go any further. Let Nels look that one up.
<trenchfoot> Nels looks down at her guitar and continues playing.
<banana> Melanie: "Maybe it's embarassing to end up in a world where every billboard is covered in boobs and PG-13 means no full frontals? I'm sorry Nels."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah.. I'll see what the Wherehouse is up to. Maybe send Santander an email. More immediately, though... how caught up are you on work?" His fingertips run down Lauren's cheek to trace the length of her neck.
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I got it, thank you." She's back to staring down at her guitar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl-3RTyFMrQ
<banana> "Were you aware of.." Melanie doesn't want to ask this one. "Like did you have any.. opinion on people who were."
<banana> In fact, maybe she won't. "Nooo problem."
<banana> Jesus those are some chords.
<trenchfoot> Still playing, not meeting Melanie's eyes: "One of the better parts of being here now. I, um." She noodles for a bit. "Yeah." Back to the song proper.
<Crion> Lauren grins. "Caught up enough."
<VoxPVoxD> Then Stewart doesn't say anything else, and simply takes her by the hand and leads her away.
<banana> It's not one hundred percent clear they're talking about the same thing here but, great! Melanie's going to read for a while, and listen.
<Crion> It's a short trip. It is, after all, a studio apartment.
<Crion> --Fin.