20:53 <Crion> "Huh. It's a...fixer upper," Lauren Ipsum says, casting her red LED eyes around the inside of the warehouse -- the motley's new Hollow. What's she looking at, right now? 21:10 <VoxPVoxD> Lauren sees more or less what the motley (is that what they are now? this is probably going to be consecrated by oath at some point) saw when they first found it: a large and open warehouse, accessible by sewer, shafts of sunlight rendered almost solid in the dusty air. "Yeah, Maggie and Tony were talking about it earlier. I'm sort of leaving the architecture to them. I want to talk about 21:10 <VoxPVoxD> data." 21:12 <Crion> She's wearing work overalls, but that's fairly common for her whenever she's not behind her PC. "Right. So." She plops down on the 'concrete' floor of the Hollow, which mostly feels correct even if it's subtly just a bit too slimy -- your fingers don't actually come away yet, but the feeling's there when you touch it. "The weird thing about setting up a network in here is that basically all 21:12 <Crion> your priorities are backwards from the real world." 21:13 <VoxPVoxD> "How so?" 21:15 <Crion> "Like, a huuuuuge part of any IT installation is running the cables, right? Power, data, whatever. Well, here, you can just, wheew," she breathes on her finger and a dusting of orange and yellow sparkles coats them. Glamour. "Open up a seam in the wall or the floor" -- she traces that finger along the ground, unzipping the concrete into a perfectly straight berth for a CAT5 cable, then zips 21:15 <Crion> it back up -- "and close it right back up again. No pulling out walls or ceiling tiles; no power tools. I can't do it, of course; my Hedgespinning fades after an hour or whatever, because I don't live here. But any of your motley who have put a bit of themselves into the hollow can handle it." 21:16 <Crion> "Then, post-installation, the network admin experience is consumed by like, days of normal operation followed by shit going wrong for no reason. Then you fix the problem, and everything goes back to normal." 21:16 <Crion> "Not so over here. There's not going to be 'normal' over here. This is the Hedge." 21:17 <Crion> "So instead of a stable setup, which you will never get, you'll need to develop a range of tolerances. Even over wired communication." 21:18 <Crion> She lays back on the floor staring up at the ceiling. "So, you need redundancies, and protocols or switchovers to trigger them, and backups to THOSE, because of course, everything you bring in here from the outside is eventually going to be touched by the nature of the Hedge. They won't straight-up become tokens like they would if you left them outside, but they'll develop personality." 21:19 <Crion> "So you've got two options: mainly stick to physical media even though you're wired up -- ripping TV shows to thumbsticks or externals instead of streaming, for instance -- or try to fight the Hedge." 21:22 <Crion> She grins. "You know Jameson over in the Winter Court? Big guy, hurts people for King Nobody or whatever his name is this week. Anyway when he's in his Hollow, he watches Seinfeld, over and over again, in order. He finishes the show, he immediately starts it again. See, the thing is, that DVD collection has been in the Hedge so long the show actually changes now when he watches through it. 21:22 <Crion> Last time he was telling me about it, he said there was a whole new character, Jimothy. Just, now the show has Jerry, Elaine, Kramer, George, and this dude Jimothy. Sometimes he takes another character's b-plot, sometimes they're all new. Weird shit, huh?" 21:23 <VoxPVoxD> "We don't need to fight the Hedge constantly. I think we can work with local hardware for media, but connectivity is important - if people are going to live here, they're going to be able to need to check their email. So if not a stable connection at least some set of tools and procedures that will let us, you know, sucker punch the hedge." 21:25 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "That would freak me the fuck out." 21:26 <Crion> She shrugs. "He said it only got freaky once or twice, like the Shadow George episode and the meatship." 21:26 <Crion> Then she nods at what Stewart said. "Right, so that's where you need to figure out your tolerance for steel. Steel isn't iron, but the Hedge isn't too fond of it anyway. The way Santander explained it, it's like the Hedge doesn't quite trust that steel isn't some elaborate trick, and the minute it stops paying attention the iron used in it won't leap out and start doing mischief. More 21:26 <Crion> importantly, it's not incredibly dangerous for us to handle." 21:27 <Crion> "So if you want to set up something to reliably receive from our side of the Hedge, the apparatus should be steel. That should give you some reliability." She sits up again. "THEN comes the tricky part." 21:28 <Crion> Lauren waits expectantly to see if Stewart has figured out what the tricky part is already. 21:32 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart listens to Lauren perched atop one of those big white paint buckets. Stewart doesn't know if it's full of paint or not, but it's ehavy. "The connection is the tricky part. Being in the Hedge is hard, going through the Hedge is, you know." 21:34 <Crion> The grin widens. "Correctomundo. The intuitive IT engineer way is to just open a portal, run a line into a box on the other side, leave the door open and set the rest of the network up normally. The two problems with that are, of course, first that portals don't really work that way; you can't really just 'leave the door open' permanently between our side and the Hedge. There are expensive 21:34 <Crion> and finnicky ways around that involving keys and tokens, but that brings us to point the second: leaving a door between the Hedge and the real world permanently open and unattended for any length of time is certifiably nuts." 21:42 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's silent for a long moment before responding, as if she'd said something he had to work through. Finally he says, "You'd be better off with some kind of two-factor system, wouldn't you? Something that works in pulses rather than a stream - data in slower, bigger bunches, packets the size of, of thoughts, basically." 21:42 <Crion> She frowns briefly and looks at the finger she'd blown glamour onto, then shrugs. 21:44 <Crion> "Yeah, that's what we're working on. Specifically something that -- okay, so we know data doesn't NEED direct LOS or wiring to get through the Hedge. You'll find that out if you bring a phone over here for long enough and turn it into a token, because you'll start getting calls on it to disconnected lines. Real calls! From the other side." 21:44 <Crion> "It's controlling it that's the hard part." 21:46 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Does it need to be controlled?" 21:47 <Crion> "You could leave it up to the Hedge when the internet will work, if at all, but nothing says it has to, or that you won't be asleep during the window, if the window comes at all." 21:54 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Don't think of the Hedge as the Hedge, here. Picture a kind of, I don't know, switchboard spun into the hedge and a hobgoblin bound to it. So we'd be leaving it to the Hedge to govern itself but we'd be installing government we could negotiate with." 21:56 <Crion> Lauren thinks about it. "Could work. Really could, now that I think about it. I hate other IT people instinctively so it never occured to me, and frankly, I don't trust hobs. Not that I don't think they're competent; it's that if they're willing to make a deal with you -- no matter how they feel with you -- who else are they going to be selling, uh, network space to?" 21:56 <Crion> "Of course no method's going to be completely safe." 21:57 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "How would you approach it?" 21:58 <Crion> Lauren: "Going the other way on this, I've got a theory, but I've never been able to test it. Basically, you set up two identical pass-through network servers, each pressed up against the portal you're maintaining on both sides. The only difference is that one, the server on this side is a clean box, and two, you've either tokenized it or glamour-infused it with a custom setup. The concept 21:58 <Crion> is: you put whatever you want onto the box on your side, backup the server, and wipe it. So you've got two clean boxes again, except now the clean box on your side has a backup with the data, settings, and connections you actually want." 21:59 <Crion> "Then you restore both servers from backup at the same time. Remember, the one on the Hedge side is clean. It shouldn't be restoring anything. But I've been talking to Santander about the magical concept of 'sympathy' -- you know what that is?" 22:03 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Oh, yeah, I actually just looked that up. The King--" 'The King' sounds so weird, but you know what sounds weirder, is 'King Kingsley' "'--mentioned it the other night, when we got fieldtripped, so I was curious what it meant. A metaphysical connection that transcends physical distance." 22:06 <Crion> "Right, yeah. And we know that sympathetic connection exists in our own magical tradition, right? It's not FUN, but it exists -- it's actually kind of foundational. Sympathy between us and our fetches. Magical sympathy," she clarifies hastily. "And we know at least that sympathetic connection is strong enough to transcend the Hedge. Why couldn't there be others? Maybe we could create a 22:06 <Crion> sympathetic connection where when you restore from that backup here on our side -- an act of creation -- it 'creates' a cloned server here on on the other. And if the magic is strong enough, maybe the connection could go both ways; sending and receiving. You essentially have the same server on both sides of the Hedge, at the same time, communicating entirely through their sympathetic connection." 22:07 <Crion> "Now. There could be some problems with this. Mainly, like, what if the original server starts trying to kill the fetch server. That would be bad." 22:10 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "And you what you mentioned earlier, with Jameson's Jimothy. The risk of straight-up Hedge data corruption." 22:11 <dammitwho> "Oooooo-hooooo Annie let me in, I will fly, I will swim," The pair of them can hear singing coming up a hallway towards them. The adjective 'merry' doesn't get used much in modern life, except in what is essentially a seasonal branding exercise, but it seems to apply here. 22:11 <Crion> She nods. "Though you're going to get that either way, sadly. Unless you're doing rigorous wipes and flattening/reinstalling every month or so. Might even be more corruption the hob way, since--??" 22:13 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's smile widens; he hadn't realized he was already smiling. "Maggie! Do you need help carrying stuff in?" 22:13 <VoxPVoxD> To Lauren: "Have you met Maggie yet?" 22:14 <Crion> "...Nnope." Her mood seems to have gotten more suspicious and standoffish, sort of back to how it was when they first met. 22:17 <dammitwho> Maggie backs into the room, a walking steam furnace in the shape of a woman, molten metal or streamers of flame pouring down her head like hair - or, alternatively, an ordinary midwestern-looking woman of middle age and cheerful disposition carrying a large black plastic case, some blankets and sheets, and toiletries. 22:17 <dammitwho> "Heya Stewart! Nah, nah, I've got this sorted. Good to see you here again so soon; thought you'd run a mile." 22:17 <Crion> "Hmph." 22:21 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart brushes past the judgment. "I wanted to show Lauren the place and do some thinking about the tech setup we're going to have. If people are going to live here, they're going to need some kind of internet. Have you met my friend Lauren? She's the Autumn Court's tech expert. When *I* need to learn something about computers, I ask Lauren." 22:25 <dammitwho> "Eh?" She turns to squint at the other voice. "Oh, sure, sure. Lauren Ipsum, I remember you. Well, welcome to the place, Lauren. Not much here yet." She addresses them both: "Glad you're getting that internet business going up here... I tell ya, I already couldn't do without that 'media server' you set up for me. Much obliged there, Stewart." 22:25 <Crion> Lauren's LED eyes light up a little bit unvoluntarily. "That's overstating it. We were just talking about...stuff." 22:29 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart glances over when Lauren's eyes flare but doesn't comment. It reminds him a little of the change in the intruder alarm she installed. But it's Maggie he speaks to. "I'm glad it's working. Have you had a chance to try any of those games yet?" 22:32 <dammitwho> She nods. "Oh, for sure, for sure. I started with that 'Myst' one, and I like it so much that when I read they made a bunch of others like it, I thought about just running through those before starting on your Portals and Witnesses." 22:40 <Crion> "I should probably get going," Lauren mutters. 22:40 <VoxPVoxD> To Lauren: "Did you ever play Myst?" 22:40 <VoxPVoxD> "Oh." 22:40 <Crion> She blinks. "Oh. Uh. Yeah." 22:40 <Crion> "Been a long time." 22:41 <Crion> "Never liked either of those guys." 22:42 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Naw, stick around! We don't have an oven up here yet, but I bet if you give me a bit I could put something together. You hungry? Of course you're hungry. Won't be a minute." 22:42 <Crion> "Uh. Okay." 22:42 <Crion> "I mean if that's what you want." 22:44 <dammitwho> This will also give her a chance to be out of the room briefly, in case Stewart and Lauren get to smooching, heh heh heh. 22:45 <VoxPVoxD> Shut UP 22:45 <Crion> I-it's not like that, BAKA 22:46 <Crion> When Maggie's out of the room: "If you've got motley stuff to do, I really can leave. I'm sure the food's...food." 22:48 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Do you wanna? I can cover for you if you want to bail, but I was hoping we could hang out. I always see you online and sometimes I forget that you're not a long-distance friend, you're right here." 22:49 <Crion> "...Okay then. Cool." She pauses, looking over to where Maggie has -- she's just like, off in the corner of the warehouse 'out of earshot,' singing and glancing over at them and chuckling to herself while she works, isn't she? Ugh. 22:50 <Crion> "Soo...Spring Court?" 22:50 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Maggie, yeah. Maggie and Nels. Then we've got Tony, who's a Winter, and Melanie, who's a Summer." 22:50 <VoxPVoxD> "Where'd you meet Maggie?" 22:50 <Crion> She shakes her head. "The whole damn year." 22:51 <Crion> "Uhh. I think she came by the office to get a phone or something...? I wasn't lying when I said I hadn't met her. I probably didn't, like, even look up." 22:54 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "That makes sense. Maggie's really... I don't know the right word. Sort of broad...hearted...?" 22:56 <Crion> "She'll fit in, in Spring," Lauren says. It's not a compliment, but it's not quite an insult either. 22:57 <VoxPVoxD> "Which Court would you choose, if you weren't Autumn?" 22:58 <Crion> "Winter." Matter-of-factly, automatically. Then with more bluster: "Not because I'm, like, sad or anything. You just get left alone to do your job more." 23:00 <Crion> "Spring is so peppy, with so many parties. And Summer's just, right out." 23:01 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah, you're not getting ambushed with dinner much by a Winter courtier." 23:01 <Crion> She grins. "No, just ambushed AT dinner." 23:03 <VoxPVoxD> "Tony seems really chill. That's not a pun, I swear." 23:03 <VoxPVoxD> "I don't know what I'd pick. Autumn emailed me, which made me think it was like a tryout." 23:03 <Crion> Casually: "Yeah, he's already killed a guy." 23:04 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "No shit?" 23:04 <Crion> "Well, I guess Spring did it." 23:04 <Crion> She glances over. "Like, the changeling Spring, not the Court." 23:04 <Crion> "She's their hitman. Hitwoman. Uh. Assassin." 23:05 <VoxPVoxD> "Wow." 23:05 <VoxPVoxD> "I guess - yeah. I guess everybody needs to be able to hide a body." 23:05 <Crion> Lauren frowns. "It's got a funny name. What is it...?" 23:05 <Crion> "Oh, right! They call her the freakin, 'Sun Banisher.' Badass." 23:07 <VoxPVoxD> "That's amazing. Is there like a list of titles or if you're enough of a badass do they give you a bespoke one?" 23:07 <VoxPVoxD> "I wonder if there are titles for doing tech support." 23:07 <Crion> She shrugs. "There could be. But if there was it'd be mine. Sorry. Seniority." 23:09 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Which is so not fair, your name's already as a cool title." 23:09 <Crion> Her eyes flash again. "You're just saying that." 23:11 <dammitwho> "Huff! Alright, here we aaare~" Maggie returns with a folding table under one arm and a pot of avocado chicken salad in the other hand, ready to dish out into separate bowls. "Take all you want, there's plenty and the others aren't here anyhow!" 23:11 <Crion> Lauren takes a tentatively small portion. 23:14 <VoxPVoxD> "When I set up her local network, Maggie made these incredible biscuits." 23:14 <Crion> The other Autumn Court changeling makes a noncomittal noise. 23:15 <dammitwho> Maggie slaps the emotional teens on the back merrily. 23:15 <Crion> "oof" 23:16 <Crion> She does look a bit rosier, though, now. Lauren miiiight not have the best sleep schedule. 23:17 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's reaction is much the same. Between bites: "Have you thought about how you're going to lay the place out?" 23:19 <dammitwho> "Little bit. Need to talk to the others, though. This is the whole, whatchacallit, motley's space, even if they're not here full-time." 23:22 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "It's still so weird to me to live in the Hedge full-time." 23:23 <Crion> Lauren: "I couldn't do it. Gotta be online." 23:24 <VoxPVoxD> "Right?" 23:26 <dammitwho> She nods reluctantly. "I'll allow that if getting connected up here just doesn't make sense I'd have to think a bit harder about keeping someplace out in regular Baltimore. I sure would like not to have to pay rent, though. Good gravy, they squeeze you." 23:27 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "We should be able to fix something up for the internet. It'll be fiddly, though, because everything in the Hedge is fiddly." 23:28 <Crion> "You're gonna get weird and creepy e-mails the spam filter won't catch," Lauren says. "No way around that." 23:30 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah if someone tells you they need more blue webpages, don't do it." 23:31 <Crion> With her mouth a little bit full: "Make sure the link you're clicking is to FACEbook, not FAEbook. Better yet, block the Facebook links too." 23:33 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Oh, lord, I don't go anywhere near that crap, excuse my French. They make a lot of money, this Facebook?" 23:34 <Crion> Lauren snort-laughs. 23:34 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I'd say more money than God but the Catholic Church spends a *lot* of money." 23:34 <VoxPVoxD> "So Faebook has got to also be owned by Zuckerberg, right? There's no way it isn't." 23:37 <Crion> She shrugs. "I've always figured Zuck's a fetch. Or a Huntsman. Or SOMETHING." 23:37 <dammitwho> "Mmmm-hmm." She purses her lips. "It's just like the newspapers. Some rich fella buys everything up and tries to get people fighting each other. No thank you." 23:37 <Crion> "I mean, look at the guy." 23:43 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "If Zuck's the fetch, you have to wonder, where's the real Mark?" 23:44 <Crion> "Making money in the Hedge helping the True Fae set up their own surveillance state, maybe." 23:44 <Crion> "Or whatever money is over here." 23:44 <Crion> "Debt." 23:51 <VoxPVoxD> The three of them eat in silence for a bit. Suddenly Stewart says, "Oh, hey, Stan Rogers." 23:51 <dammitwho> "Eh?" 23:52 <VoxPVoxD> "I saw this Contract on the wiki. It's called the Hedge-Busker's Tip. You can listen for someone's musical aura, which takes the shape of an existing real-world song." 23:52 <VoxPVoxD> "It's like a theme song that follows you around." 23:53 <VoxPVoxD> "Yours is a Stan Rogers song. I looked him up on Youtube. I don't recognize that one, though." 23:53 <dammitwho> Curiously: "How's it go?" 23:54 <Crion> Lauren narrows her eyes but says nothing. 23:56 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart misses Lauren's reaction, focused on singing adequately: "People are simple, like May flowers sweet, both grown by that North County rain... the interval is clear, will it soon disappear, under the Guysborough Train?" 23:59 <dammitwho> "Huh." She clicks her tongue and looks off between the two other changelings for a little bit, focused on nothing. "Guysborough Train, huh? ...Yeah, that one makes sense." 00:01 <dammitwho> "You know what it means?" 00:02 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart shakes his head. 00:03 <VoxPVoxD> It occurs to him belatedly that he doesn't know if she meant, does he know what the song means or does he know what the fact that that's her song means. Luckily the answer is the same either way. 00:04 <Crion> After a minute, a bit strained: "So what did you hear when you used that contract on me. Couldn't have been anything good." 00:04 <Crion> "Or else you'd have said something." 00:04 <Crion> Abruptly she stands up. "You know what. The food was good. Thanks." 00:05 <Crion> "I can find the door." 00:05 <VoxPVoxD> Ah, fuck. 00:06 <Crion> Unless stopped, she will, indeed, see herself out. 00:06 <VoxPVoxD> "Wait." Stewart will get up and follow her if she doesn't stop. 00:06 <Crion> She will slow down, but not stop. 00:08 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart will let her get a bit away from Maggie before saying, "I'm sorry, I should have said something. I tried it without thinking, and then I didn't really- I didn't know what to say. But I should have said something." 00:09 <dammitwho> She opens her mouth, but this appears to be something between her and Stewart, so she closes it again. 00:09 <Crion> She'll round on him, more...determined...? Than angry. But still angry. "Teach. Me. The contract." 00:09 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart looks briefly stunned, but: "Sure." 00:11 <Crion> "...And Maggie, too. It's not fair if just you get to do it." 00:11 <VoxPVoxD> "It sort of, pops your eardrums a little? So swallowing or chewing gum might help..." He shows Lauren how it works. 00:11 <VoxPVoxD> To Maggie: "Do you wanna?" 00:18 <dammitwho> She hums to herself. "Much obliged, Stewart, but I think I'll pass on that one. Though I might bug you now and again and ask what you hear about this person or that." 00:19 <Crion> Lauren ignores her, then, and focuses intently on the lesson with her arms crossed. 00:19 <Crion> And as soon as she's gotten the hang of it, she narrows her eyes and does kind of a silent raspberry with her lips-- 00:21 <Crion> Her eyes widen and she blinks, and her face gets a little bit softer. "That's weird." Then, hurriedly: "Not your song. Just...hearing it like that." 00:21 <Crion> "...I'm not telling you what it is. And I don't want you to tell me what mine is." 00:21 <dammitwho> "What'd you g-- awww." 00:22 <Crion> Primly, to Maggie: "Learn it yourself if you want to know." 00:22 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Heh heh. That's fair." 00:23 <Crion> "...I really should actually get going, though. There's tickets piling up. Harlan got a virus on his phone again." 00:23 <dammitwho> She nods. "Sure, and you're always welcome, Lauren. Come by sometime!" 00:24 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's second breath after Lauren invokes the contract is bracing and cold like a lungful of Halloween night air. "Okay, yeah, absolutely. Thanks for hanging out." He'll walk her out unless she signals she'd rather he didn't. 00:24 <Crion> She seems fine with it. "Thanks again for the food," she says to Maggie. When they reach the door, she says perhaps overly-flatly, "I'll see you online later...?" 00:25 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "...yeah, absolutely." 00:26 <Crion> "Cool. I had fun later!" The last bit kind of runs together as she steps through the portal. 00:27 <dammitwho> Maggie: "What a sweet girl. Does she like movies? You should take her to a movie." 00:27 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart sighs. "Take her to a- what?" 00:28 <dammitwho> Maggie, cheerfully: "Neither of you really strike me as sports fans." 00:29 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: 'Hey, I've been to multiple Orioles games!" 00:29 <VoxPVoxD> Two is multiple! 00:30 <dammitwho> "Yeah, and don't you wish you hadn't?" 00:31 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Baseball is so bad." 00:33 <VoxPVoxD> "All the variance is in the outcome, everyone's trying to do the same thing basically every time. It'd be like watching people play a professional Civ 2 war league where no one's to-hit chance goes higher than 35%." 00:34 <dammitwho> "Ooofah." She sits down in a creaky camp chair. "We should get some carpeting or something in here, the floor's freezing. What's this about a Civ 2?" 00:35 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Civilization is a series of big complicated strategy games. They take a long time to play and involve a lot of micromanagement, but whether you succeed or fail still comes down to how well you can roll dice." 00:39 <VoxPVoxD> "Some people swear by them, though." 00:39 <VoxPVoxD> "And then there's strategy games that are even drier and dustier than that." 00:39 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Golly. So it's just like playing board games on the computer, there?" 00:40 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah, exactly." 00:46 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Hrrrrrm. Now, here's something maybe you can answer for me. I was looking up the history of video games and whatnot, because I figured there'd be some simpler ones I could, you know, try on as well. From what I understand the first really popular ones were that Super Mario?" She pronounces it 'mare-io'. "Is that right? Do people still play those these days?" 00:50 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Oh, yeah. Super Mario Brothers, 19...8...5? I want to say? It's still really fun, and people still play it, and they've been making Mario games for 35 years now, and most of those are also really good. I can get them on a console if you want to play them on a TV, or you could emulate them on your computer." 00:52 <VoxPVoxD> "They're a lot more twitchy than Myst is, though. They care more about reflexes." 00:53 <VoxPVoxD> "They're not super hard, mostly, because each of these games is designed to be some kid's first video game, but it's a very different experience." 01:00 <dammitwho> She leans back, closes her eyes, and nods. "So what's your favorite? Not what you stream, I mean. What're the games you like the most?" 01:04 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "That's really hard." 01:06 <VoxPVoxD> "I guess... there's this game called Deus Ex." 01:07 <dammitwho> She crosses her legs and sips a mug of ice water. 01:12 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "It's a science fiction game about conspiracies and technology. What I love the most about it is that there's so many ways to play it. It's basically a first-person shooter, where you run around with a gun and shoot bad guys to reach things bad guys are guarding. But a lot of games just tell you where to go and sort of, measure your competence at game systems as you progress. 01:12 <VoxPVoxD> What Deus Ex does - what really good games do, I think - is it poses a question." 01:15 <VoxPVoxD> "So like, the first level of the game, the game asks you, 'How are you going to get to the top of the Statue of Liberty?' and you can take heavy weapons and try to blow your way past all the fortifications, or you try to sneak around and avoid detection. You can kill everyone you see or play a complete pacifist." 01:16 <VoxPVoxD> "And then at the end the game asks you what kind of society you want. You can join the ranks of the powerful men who control the world. You can cause a total breakdown of society and try to piece something together out of the aftermath. Or you can become something new and scary, and leave your old self behind." 01:19 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart looks at Maggie, the furnacewoman, and is suddenly deeply uncomfortable. That's twice in a row he just- fuck! He can't keep making mistakes like that. 01:19 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Hmm. Don't think I've heard of shooty games where you don't have to shoot people and still win." 01:22 <dammitwho> "I can't decide whether that's strange or not." 01:22 <VoxPVoxD> "Strange?" 01:25 <dammitwho> She notices Stewart shifting in his seat uncomfortably. "You alright, th-- oh! Oh!" She laughs merrily. "I didn't even realize. Stewart, I like to think I'm a pretty tough gal." She thumps on her chest for emphasis. "You don't have to go and worry about reminding me about all this metal and whatnot. That part's not so bad." She adds, "Not for me, anyway. It's different for everyone, 01:25 <dammitwho> I'm sure." 01:27 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "It's just..." 01:28 <dammitwho> "Hmm?" 01:28 <VoxPVoxD> "Like yeah, you say it's fine for you, and I believe you. Then you say it's different for everyone, but that understates it so much." 01:30 <VoxPVoxD> "I just don't want to hurt people! But I can't know for sure what hurts people. It might be anything. Sometimes it might be everything." 01:34 <VoxPVoxD> "Lauren was having a perfectly nice time and then I fucked it up." 01:35 <dammitwho> Maggie, looking at her cup: "Yeah... I think I know what you mean. I don't really have an answer for you there. I guess all you can do is make sure people know you have good will for 'em, and try to make amends when things go wrong. I expect Lauren'll be back sooner than you think." 01:46 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I've been really lucky, making friends in the Freehold. But all my new friends are so different from each other, and different from me. I feel like we're a motley, you know? A collection of people who could only be united by this... this thing. But Lauren's not like that, you know? Lauren's just... Lauren. Like if we hadn't all been pushed together, I think she'd be my only 01:46 <VoxPVoxD> friend." 01:47 <dammitwho> Maggie: "You think maybe she feels the same way about you? That's a pretty heavy thing to realize about someone." 01:50 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I don't know." 01:51 <dammitwho> She shrugs a little. 01:55 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "...I should get home. I've got to work in a couple of hours." 01:55 <VoxPVoxD> "Thanks for the food. And for being around." 01:56 <dammitwho> She raises her mug. "Cheers."