20:59 <Crion> The two weeks from when the Wherehouse obtains Le Boat to when she fully manifests as The Wild Goose mostly pass without issue or incident, which is a bit strange; if the Parson and company are still roaming the near Hedge, they're not leaving anymore killing fields in their wake. Might have moved on; might be up to something. Either way, you've got a Hedgeboat that can handle waters near or 20:59 <Crion> far, wherever you are -- just not iron, so keep it away from any other boat anchors. The Goose's now seems to be made of hard, blackened wood that at least kind of looks like metal from a distance. 21:07 <Crion> Maggie will be getting a phone call from Serrato about picking up a wrench soon, if everything goes well. She did tell him to leave the rockets up to her, right? How's she thinking about handling that? 21:08 <VoxPVoxD> Once all the paperwork on the L'Oie is done, and everyone's got the time to go in and fuss with it, Stewart's basically finished with the boat until they have to use it, so he's working. When he's not streaming, he's trading calls and emails with sponsors, who are at this point a couple of weeks into who-knows-how-much WFH time. When he's not doing that, he's preparing video content, 21:08 <VoxPVoxD> whether it's editing stuff from streams or preparing Youtube-specific stuff or recording — and re-recording, applying Kubrickish dedication — ad spots and promos for said sponsors. 21:08 <dammitwho> She's asked Stewart about helping her get model rocket engines, for a start. Beyond that - well, ever since eating that union card, Maggie has been slowly digesting the fact that she's a Red, she's always been a Red, and she knows how to make explosives. 21:08 <banana> Melanie's been staying away from the boat as it undergoes tokenisation, though she's come round on the whole 'having a boat at all' thing - it's a lot bigger than she imagined, for one thing, more like a holiday cabin than an industrial structure. Its transformation raises philosophical questions. Where do you go if you sink in the Hedge? Is there an under-hedge -the Seaweed? 21:09 <Crion> Ah. Business Stewart. 21:09 <VoxPVoxD> And then when he's not doing that, whether or not he's got any time to himself, or to Lauren, depends on what kind of work Autumn needs doing, and what kind of help Rose needs. 21:11 <Crion> Well, that's certain to make her more popular with some parts of the Freehold and less popular with others. For instance, she'll already know off the top of her head that the bureaucratic services that Santander and the Autumn Court offer do not cover circumventing the ATF (something Gerald still complains about). Their explanation for this is always a bit vague but the impression is that 21:11 <Crion> the security services pay quite a bit more attention to Supernatural Bullshit in America than the welfare state does. 21:11 <trenchfoot> Nels is spending most of her time hurling over the side. The boat is awful. 21:12 <trenchfoot> Sorry Tony. It's terrible, though. 21:14 <Crion> Rose has been a bit off-balance since Santander handed over the office jointly -- she'd mainly resigned herself to the Regent's star pupil swooping in at the last moment and fucking up her shot at being Lady Sage, and had sort of made peace with that...and now feels weirdly annoyed that in fact she's handling most of the day-to-day because Stewart's decided to buy a boat and expand his 21:14 <Crion> streaming empire?? 21:15 <Crion> Anyway she's been honest enough about that, and more or less moved past it, but if Stewart's willing to show up to boring meetings with Sobriquet and Sommolier and the Count of St. Sebastian every once in awhile, that'd be appreciated. 21:16 <VoxPVoxD> Oh no!! What needs doing? Stewart's very insistent that he continue to contribute — admittedly he's a little surprised that Rose's gut emotional reaction was annoyance, but then it kind of always is — and will absolutely make time for those boring meetings at the cost of his free time and personal life. 21:20 <banana> Melanie: "Hey, Nels. Have you ever tried dramamine?" 21:20 <banana> "It's not what it sounds like, it's a drug.. seasickness, or at least I know it's for other kinds of sickness." 21:21 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I -- maybe? They changed a lot of the names for things." 21:22 <dammitwho> Ugh. This was much easier when you could just go and buy dynamite whenever you wanted. "Give me enough to take out a police station," you'd say. "May we ask why?" they'd ask. "Fuck you," you'd reply. "Yes, miss, sorry miss," they'd say... 21:22 <banana> "Well, now drugs have like.. random names because there are too many of them. I know it's been around a while, my mom said it was good for morning sickness." 21:23 <trenchfoot> Weakly: "Do you have any?" 21:23 <Crion> He can arbitrarily have been spending midnight to two AM on Fridays incredibly bored in the backroom of an Inner Harbor restaurant listening to Sobriquet complain about Seers, Prince Lister's reluctance to loosening feeding restrictions during lockdown (this sounds like internal vampire matters, but Sobriquet is ALSO annoyed that Lister makes "whether vampires can arbitrarily slaughter 21:23 <Crion> Baltimoreans" part of the power-sharing agenda), Sommolier providing "updates" about the national political situation from Pentacle sources that range mainly from nothing to useless gossip (does anyone actually think the mages would just volunteer useful information in a weekly update?), and occasionally some interesting bit of news about Park Ranger movements or strange cryptid sightings 21:23 <Crion> (last week, they agreed to pool funds to hire old friend Benjamin Best to take a look at something at the Poe House -- apparently cops gunned down a man on its doorstep and the ghost is considering moving in, while also being understandably furious). 21:24 <Crion> The only upside is that once a month one of the Werewolves is obligated by treaty to show up, and somehow things move MUCH faster and wrap up in 45 minutes. 21:24 <banana> "I'll just Bing it... apparently the real name is dimenhydrinate if that helps?" 21:24 <banana> Melanie: "No, but I'm going shopping, so I'll pick some up. I don't think le boat is going anywhere le soon." 21:25 <Crion> Pharmacies are open as essential businesses. Please wear your Mask, and your mask. 21:25 <trenchfoot> She hurls over the side in response. 21:26 <VoxPVoxD> Boring is good. If a meeting of organized crime outfits is exciting, then something horrible must have happened or be about to happen. Stewart can't do a lot at these meetings, generally, and it doesn't sound like anyone needs him to, but he can sit there and listen agreeably and attentively as everyone else complains. 21:30 <Crion> The Lost representative's job is forwarding any information that the four Regents or their majordomos e-mailed them (well, Lauren, who forwards it) constituting intelligence that the other factions need to know about the "civilians" of the city. That's how responsibilities are doled out: the Freehold watches local normies, the Court watches local supers, the Consilium watches national normies, 21:30 <Crion> the Pack watches national supers. Apparently the werewolves DO bring back useful information from time to time, but so far for Stewart and Rose it's just been Cuth or Kolsch showing up and trying to end the meeting as early as possible, and not particularly subtly. 21:30 <Crion> Doors may close with regards to getting explosives with the Autumn Court, but naturally, they open with Summer. 21:30 <VoxPVoxD> Anything notable going on with the locals? 21:31 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart doesn't say 'supers', although he recognizes that thinking 'monsters' is less hurtful and embarrassing is likely a minority opinion. 21:32 <Crion> There's a neighborhood watch that is becoming slowly convinced that there's a supernatural serial killer hunting West Side; Winter's looking into but they highly suspect it's a regular old cop. 21:32 <VoxPVoxD> When Melanie finishes her dissertation maybe we can make 'alienees' a thing. Ah man; why is it always cops? 21:34 <trenchfoot> Why is it always cops? 21:35 <banana> They're literally paid to control and hurt people. Ask Melanie about the state monopoly on force sometime, she's got some thoughts about how Keepers are effectively Sovereign in the hobbesian sense- 21:36 <trenchfoot> Do not ask Nels to talk about how cops suck shit. She's got Thoughts. 21:36 <VoxPVoxD> Sounds like Stewart should ask Melanie and Nels about this simultaneously. 21:36 <trenchfoot> Please don't. 21:36 <trenchfoot> Or do. I'm not your mom. 21:36 <Crion> If Stewart actually asks that question of Winter, he'll get the reply back from Spring (the Winter operative, not the Court, ugh always has to say that): Rule of the jungle is, you're only in trouble if you get caught. Only one group that doesn't have to follow it. 21:37 <Crion> But yes, perhaps he should. 21:41 <VoxPVoxD> So he does! He's dropping stuff off at the Wherehouse and gets to talking about the latest meeting with Melanie while Nels is in the room, or perhaps vice-versa. Heck, maybe Maggie is also there. "It turns out every single thing that would've been a one-off X-Files episode is, in real life, just some asshole cop. Why is that? There needs to be some bigger cop that eats all the others." 21:42 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I don't know what the X-Files is. But also I think you are describing God?" 21:42 <dammitwho> She is there, fussing with her stuff in preparation for moving some of it to the Wild Goose. Maggie's eyes widen and she stares at Stewart with alarm at that last sentence. "Think about that last bit for a second." 21:42 <banana> Melanie's just come back from the markets, so she's covered in bags - groceries, anti-nausea drugs, etc. You're not meant to shop OFTEN during this thing but she already wasn't, so no problem. "Anyway, the cops already form the skeleton and tissues of a bigger cop." 21:43 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart looks confused. 21:45 <banana> Melanie: "They're not really people, right? Or not only people. Like.. everyone remembers the friendly but shitty school cop you had growing up who would tell you not to smoke weed, in a room full of weed smoke.. that guy is a fingernail. Or a holster." 21:46 <banana> "Policing, law enforcement, that's a function of the State. It exists at every level down from.. well the United Nations doesn't have functioning megacops, though they want to.. but the United States has like, LEO the concept, a lion that defends the power of America. And that power is the power to have power, to say what power is." 21:46 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Is that -- did they make a show about police? Are they the good guys now?" 21:47 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Right, but how do you police that? Who cops the copsmen?" 21:47 <trenchfoot> "I think I hate this again." 21:47 <banana> "You don't police police. They're the good guys, like Nels says, by definition - because they define what it is to be good." 21:48 <banana> Melanie: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes was, I think, a sniggering in-joke?" 21:48 <VoxPVoxD> "Is that true, though? Cops do bad shit all the time. They don't get punished for it, but it's still de jure bad." 21:49 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I have no idea what that means." 21:49 <banana> Melanie: "How can it be de jure bad if a judge and jury say otherwise?" 21:50 <trenchfoot> "Um. Very easily?" 21:50 <banana> "Well, you've gotta do something about the judges then. But the thing you do becomes cops." 21:50 <trenchfoot> "It was about like, 40 years ago to me." 21:50 <banana> Oh, storytime? 21:50 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "They don't say otherwise! Most of the time it doesn't get that far. You're saying this is a plausible deniability thing?" 21:51 <trenchfoot> There is not much of a story. 21:52 <trenchfoot> Slavery was legal within her parents' lifetime. 21:52 <banana> Not having realised that's where this is going, Melanie is looking at Nels expectantly. 21:53 <trenchfoot> Nels: "It used to be legal to own other people." 21:54 <trenchfoot> She tried. 21:55 <banana> "Ahh. Yeah, and the whole thing there was that society defined this as good, and that's why there was a war, to try and change the definition, but.. uugh." 21:55 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart, feeling very awkward: "'De jure' means by the rules, right? So slavery wasn't de jure bad until it was abolished." 21:55 <banana> "I'm sorry, when I put it like that it doesn't sound convincing. The idea that slavery was ever 'good'." 21:55 <trenchfoot> Nels: "It was legal. At the time." 21:57 <banana> Melanie: "Yeah.. sorry, I wasn't trying to say that what was legal was moral. I mean.. " :C "That's the point, that police are wholly in the former category. And policing of police can't move them to the moral realm." 21:57 <banana> *:C 21:57 <VoxPVoxD> "Right. But being a serial killer isn't. And yet everything that looks like serial killing seems to turn out to just be cops. And obviously there's no Cops Can Be Serial Killers Act on the books. But they don't get caught and don't get in trouble. So it's 'de facto' okay, but 'de jure' forbidden." 21:57 <VoxPVoxD> "But like... why? Is my question." 21:59 <banana> Melanie's sounding a lot less confident than she was a minute ago, but this one's easy, right? "Isn't de facto/de jure kind of fake? If you're looking at the exercise of power, of people using force on other people, those distinctions are just excuses. Either you're acting on behalf of power or you aren't." 22:01 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "The distinction might be fake but the arbitrariness of it isn't. Is retaining and protecting off-hours serial killers inherent to the exercise of state power?" 22:02 <VoxPVoxD> "What is a serial killer doing for the state such that he merits protection?" 22:02 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Invading Iraq?" 22:02 <VoxPVoxD> "Particularly over some guy who does the same formal job but is just an asshole?" 22:03 <trenchfoot> "...still invading Iraq?" 22:03 <banana> "I would say.. it depends on the objective of the state? If your goal is to, like, keep the rich rich in a world where we actually have a shitload of resources, and your method is white supremacy, like, that's the main dividing line they use, then employing serial killers might be the consequence?" She suspects Maggie might have opinions on this. 22:03 <VoxPVoxD> Where did Maggie go, anyway? 22:05 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Melanie's right. Cops exist to inflict society on people, so if society is bad then cops will be bad. And you can't get rid of one without getting rid of the other." 22:06 <banana> Melanie: "Well, you could get rid of the State without getting rid of society.. maybe." 22:08 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "So cops are bad because society is bad, and cops make society worse, which makes cops worse... what's the endpoint of that? You make it sound like a decaying orbit around fascism." 22:09 <VoxPVoxD> "But there have been times and places where society got better, at least for a while. So it can't just be a law of nature." 22:09 <trenchfoot> Nels: "There was a bit there. I read about it in my history book." 22:10 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Well, when I say 'get rid of society' I was being a little glib. I mean the currently existing society, obviously people are social creatures and are naturally gonna build societies even if we all suddenly decide to live in villages or whatever." 22:11 <banana> "Which means there's no endpoint probably? Things just change, and then they change again." 22:12 <banana> Melanie: "Trying to direct that change in a top-down kind of way does require this kind of state force, the police-urge. But you can do it differently, with incentives, or technology.." or just hoping things will randomly turn out for the best, but good luck there. 22:12 <dammitwho> "The point is you can't reform the cops, because cops know what their job is and will simply ignore your million-dollar slideshows. And you can't reform the society, because the cops exist to beat you into a coma if you try. Whatever you do afterward, you have to start by tearing down what's already there." 22:13 <banana> "Tearing down?" 22:14 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "But the times and places that were better still had cops, right? Like society got better because of the New Deal, but the era of the New Deal was also the era of J. Edgar Hoover." 22:15 <trenchfoot> That guy sucks. Sucked -- he's dead now and she isn't. 22:16 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Sure. And from what I've read there was a half-century campaign of murder and purges coinciding with a political effort to dismantle the New Deal, and here we are. Let's not forget the New Deal only happened in the first place because too many people in America were getting fond of old Uncle Joe." 22:17 <dammitwho> "Even then, FDR came about this close--" She holds her fingers together. "From getting one in the noggin himself!" 22:17 <banana> Melanie: "And of course things turned out even worse over there. Joe - you mean Stalin, right? - held things together but the system he controlled couldn't last without him." 22:18 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Wasn't he..." She makes wheeling motions. "Like, that was a big thing." 22:19 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Stalin also famously loved cops and having cops and policing stuff." 22:19 <trenchfoot> "Oh I read about that! It was upsetting." 22:19 <banana> "I don't think cops are what make an era good or bad though. They're just an expression of who's in power and what their priorities are, maybe how *much* power they have. If you really want to minimise the harm cops do, how close they are to serial killers instead of the goofy high school guy who liked to show off his gun, the thing to do is reduce the levels of hierarchy.. minimise the 22:19 <banana> amount of unchecked power anyone has." 22:21 <Crion> The narrator requires further description of what a "wheeling motion" is for posterity. Does she sit down in a chair first...? 22:22 <trenchfoot> She doesn't... sit down? But she would if that wouldn't be very hard to stand up from. 22:23 <trenchfoot> She is making wheelchair motions. Sorry. 22:24 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "If FDR wasn't even in control of the state, and almost died, and got all his work rolled up pretty much as soon as he did, how do you 'reduce hierarchy' from that position? It seems like you're asking everyone who has power to just... give it up politely." 22:27 <trenchfoot> Nels: "...very carefully?" 22:27 <banana> Melanie: "Well I think we've been placed in a really shit position, haven't we? The structure of power in the world has been- so few people have accumulated SO MUCH, with so much empire and racism behind it, that it can't be fixed without, like, violent resistance?" 22:27 <banana> "And one possible outcome of that is that it doesn't get fixed." 22:28 <banana> "Because you can't just um, tear down the whole system, because people depend on that system to live. But I think if the current imperial court expects people to just put up with it forever.. they will be disappointed." 22:29 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "They don't need people to put up with it forever, just long enough that it can be the next generation's problem." 22:32 <banana> Melanie: "Yeah, which is working less well each generation. This pandemic.. not too long ago you would've had people happy to 'follow orders' because it was saving lives. Now the government is talking about opening up the schools to get people back to work, even though it's not like the disease actually stopped spreading. That's not a system of control which has all its cogs interlocking 22:32 <banana> smoogthly." 22:32 <banana> smoothly. 22:33 <VoxPVoxD> "Yeah. It's just, with global warming, it's not like there's an indefinite number of generations to fix it, you know?" 22:34 <trenchfoot> "That's -- I have to pay attention to that now, right?" 22:34 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Why? No one else is!" 22:34 <Crion> The mages are kind of optimists there. Or the most brain-broken nihilists. Depends what day you catch them on and how they feel about things. 22:34 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Because I live here!" 22:35 <Crion> Global warming doesn't matter, because we can trivially fix it. How? Well there's where the explanation requires a bit of trust. 22:35 <trenchfoot> I do still live here, though. 22:35 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's getting heated now. "Nobody acts like the planet's dying. Everyone's moving to Florida, flying on jet planes, farming fucking almonds or whatever. Having kids." 22:36 <Crion> Mmmm. 22:36 <trenchfoot> Nels goes sheet-white. 22:37 <trenchfoot> Then turns around, says nothing, and pretends she didn't hear a god-damned thing. 22:38 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "So why care? Why act like you care? It's all downside." 22:40 <banana> "People are- you can't expect them to just put their lives on hold or act like their personal actions can fix everything. You can't expect them not to care. How would that make anything better?" 22:40 <trenchfoot> Nels stops, looks back at Stewart, and walks away. 22:41 <Crion> Steve has been mostly silently listening to the conversation; here he pops another beer. 22:42 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Their lives are on hold. Everyone's is. It's just so big and at such a remove that, if we want to, we can act otherwise. So why not go one god farther? Why even pretend to feel guilty?" 22:42 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's realizing that he's cast a weird pall over the conversation so he turns away too, to fix a drink. 22:43 <trenchfoot> The kids thing was low. Nels is trying very hard to not actually start going whole hog. 22:43 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart wasn't even thinking of Nels. Why would he? She's like 20. 22:43 <trenchfoot> She's also like 120. 22:44 <VoxPVoxD> She really, really isn't. 22:44 <trenchfoot> ...you have a point. 22:45 <Crion> Who has Stewart told that Stu and Maura are expecting, incidentally? Besides the Consilium physician, Everafter. 22:45 <banana> "I feel like.." Melanie should've followed Nels, but she follows Stewart. "You're arguing for some sort of intellectual consistency, as if people are robots. Like they can feel contentment and enjoy themselves only if they're blase about climate change and inequality, like they can understand that the world has serious and urgent problems but only if it makes them miserable all the 22:45 <banana> time." 22:47 <VoxPVoxD> No one. He didn't talk about it to Lauren, but she had to have seen, right? "I'm just saying," he says as he sets things down very firmly and grimaces at the cork he briefly forgot was a cork and not a screw-top cap. "If you aren't miserable about it, there's no reason to make yourself. It doesn't help anyone or fix anything. My point is that you don't have a moral obligation to 22:47 <VoxPVoxD> feel bad." 22:48 <dammitwho> Maggie's going to follow Nels, and give her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. 22:48 <Crion> Lauren knows, yes. Even if she hadn't seen, Stu isn't given to secrecy on the matter. Why would he be? 22:48 <VoxPVoxD> Well there you go, then. 22:49 <VoxPVoxD> Secrecy or not there's no reason to tell a bunch of people a friend of yours they've never met is expecting. 22:49 <VoxPVoxD> It's not like it's his kid. 22:49 <trenchfoot> Nels: "...Mags?" 22:50 <banana> Melanie: "I agree. So why do you?" 22:50 <banana> "Is this about Florida? You nonned the heck out of that sequitur, and when Amelia the queen was talking you'd obviously swallowed a lemon." 22:50 <trenchfoot> She isn't crying and no one can prove otherwise. 22:50 <banana> "I wanted to say something but it was difficult and embarassing." 22:51 <dammitwho> Maggie: "You okay, kid?" 22:51 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Yes. No. I - probably?" 22:52 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's stirring his drink with that weird metal straw he bought a bunch of. The ice is melting fast. "I don't even remember the context of the thing with the Queen. What did I swallow a lemon at?" 22:53 <dammitwho> Maggie will give her a hug, on the principle that the real answer is probably 'no'. 22:53 <banana> Ah! I'm wrong again. "Oh. It just struck me, when she was talking how she can't make people be friends with Nels, um, how she thought those people were too quick to judge.. it seemed to upset you. Maybe it didn't, though." 22:53 <trenchfoot> Nels needed that. 22:54 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Oh. That. I remember now." 22:54 <banana> "I thought maybe that you thought it was unfair to have us go all this way to earn the forgiveness of people she was badmouthing at the time." 22:57 <VoxPVoxD> He picks up his drink, covered in frosty condensation now. "That made me think about other stuff. About when push comes to shove, for people like us, people in the Freehold, the first reaction to getting hurt or shocked isn't anger or sadness or regret. It's—" He takes a sip, winces, and adds another tiny volume of grenadine. He made it himself! "—it's I knew it all along." 22:59 <VoxPVoxD> "Every bad thing that happens validates whatever stupid, shitty strategy we have for dealing with all the other bad things that happen. People are comforted by that. Vindicated by it." 22:59 <dammitwho> Maggie: "You got everything packed for the boat?" 22:59 <VoxPVoxD> "Everyone's waiting for the chance to say 'I knew this was too good to be true. I knew I shouldn't have bothered.'" 23:00 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I have my things. It's - probably fine." 23:00 <banana> Melanie: "Those straws are reusable, right? So that helps, but it's also that thing where people try to solve waste by making new consumer products." 23:01 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yep." Popping the 'p'. 23:01 <banana> "We do expect things to go wrong. Because we experienced them going as wrong as they possibly could. It can happen." 23:02 <banana> "Um.. I think you're really obviously correct about that, so I haven't got anything comforting to say.. it's not like we give up though." 23:03 <banana> "I think it's really important that we're moving on and doing weird nonsense in Disneyland, while other people - fully vindicated in expecting the worst - are moving on to their next thing they may or may not be disappointed in.. we've been, like, changed, alienated, shown a taste of what can go wrong but that doesn't stop us." 23:03 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart, quietly: "We do, though. In little ways. In quiet ways. We give up as much as we can stand to." 23:04 <VoxPVoxD> "I'm sorry, this isn't very— it's unproductive." 23:05 <banana> Melanie: "I mean, when you're right you're right." 23:06 <banana> "That stuff looks too strong for me or I'd ask for a glass. Something Nels said earlier made me think of my Mom, who of course I haven't even tried to contact once, which is indeed giving up." 23:07 <banana> "I still think we can go on and maybe- go in new directions." 23:07 <VoxPVoxD> "I can mix em weaker. Or like, without any alcohol. Do you want a Shirley Temple?" 23:08 <banana> "Ye..es? Sure. I don't remember what that is, but I remember the song." 23:10 <VoxPVoxD> A Shirley Temple, at least as Melanie observes Stewart making it, is one part of that red syrup in the heavy-bottomed glass bottle and four parts of neutral seltzer, poured tall over ice and stirred just a touch with another one of those straws. It's like a fresh pomegranate soda. 23:10 <VoxPVoxD> "A Shirley Temple. If you add a jigger of vodka and crush up a Seconal, it becomes a Judy Garland." 23:10 <trenchfoot> Extremely tasty. 23:11 <VoxPVoxD> "I guess the question is, do you miss your mom?" 23:12 <trenchfoot> But my aim is getting better. 23:12 <VoxPVoxD> "I'm really lucky in that there's not a lot of people from my old life I miss. Even people I feel like I owe something to... well they've got Stu, and Stu's great." 23:13 <VoxPVoxD> "But not having to go home for Thanksgiving is, to me, a fringe benefit of—" He gestures around with his big complicated drink. "This." 23:14 <banana> Melanie: "I feel like the kind of parties I used to go to were not as classy as we thought they were." 23:14 <banana> "It was usually some rich kid's house, this was out in the country and dorm stuff was like.. low tier, so there would be a bar- but that just means an actual wooden bar, drinks shelf, people would mix jaeger and kahlua, not actual mixed drinks." 23:15 <banana> "I don't know what I think about my mom and dad. I spent a long time not thinking about them, then a long time finally understanding them, which was both positive and negative. Then a longer time mourning." 23:16 <banana> "It's not like they'd want to see me. They, um, disowned my fetch, and not for anything I disagree with her about, so." 23:17 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "There's an interesting sort of sine curve to drink fanciness as a social thing through history. Like back in the 19th century drinks got fantastically complicated, and right up to Prohibition, when access to alcohol was a lot narrower and nobody was really pushing bartending as an art form for a while. Then after Prohibition there's tiki, stuff like this—" He holds up his 23:17 <VoxPVoxD> drink. "Where you started to get a revival of big complicated drinks but with kind of a culturally appropriative vibe." 23:17 <banana> "Well I don't know. Maybe it was more of a falling out about sending money home or about not doing that. It's not like all the details are public." 23:17 <VoxPVoxD> "Then it dipped down again in the 70s, the age of the Long Island Iced Tea, and nowadays it's kind of a pretentious gastro thing." 23:18 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Do you think Belanie misses them?" 23:18 <banana> Melanie: "So cocktails are actually a nerd thing? I had some vague sense of that, but I bet the fashion will come back around." 23:18 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Everything you can show off about is a nerd thing if you let a nerd get good at it." 23:19 <banana> "Well, this one tastes great. Nice and sweet, stirs the sap." 23:21 <banana> She doesn't know what Belanie thinks. "I don't know what Belanie thinks. I used to obsess and assume, 'cause she seems.. a lot like me, exactly like I imagined I would have been or was going to be. But who knows? All I know is that she's out there." 23:21 <banana> "And probably vice versa, since she's getting the bills for the scholarship drawdown." 23:22 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I know what you mean." 23:23 <banana> "Did I ever tell you.. when I fell out of the Hedge, on this side, I walked, must have been five miles, found the garage where I left my car? And it was there, with the keys in the ignition." 23:23 <VoxPVoxD> "Huh. Was there a note or anything?" 23:23 <VoxPVoxD> "Did it start?" 23:23 <banana> "No note. Fuel in the tank. I didn't understand that it was weird for a while, 'cause I didn't know two and a half years had passed." 23:25 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "All I had waiting for me was a backup email address. But hey, now marketers for Intel send non-form correspondence to that email. It's been a good six months. By pretty much anyone's metrics." 23:25 <trenchfoot> This is all incredibly bizarre. 23:25 <banana> "New directions." 23:26 <VoxPVoxD> "I'll drink to that." Stewart holds his glass up to clink. 23:26 <Crion> Steve, meanwhile, has found himself a ushanka somewhere. 23:26 <banana> Melanie: "Um, I think Nels was really upset.." It took her a couple of minutes, but it's pretty obvious now. "The idea that it's wrong to have kids, or just the questioning of that opportunity." 23:27 <VoxPVoxD> "Ah, shit." 23:29 <VoxPVoxD> "I didn't even think of that." 23:29 <VoxPVoxD> "Do you think it'd be presumptuous to bring her a drink?" 23:29 <VoxPVoxD> What does Nels like to drink? 23:29 <banana> "That's up to her, but let's do it." 23:30 <trenchfoot> Gin and lemon, with honey if you can. 23:32 <banana> Melanie will fetch various bits from the kitchen, but she's not going to bother trying to learn the actual mixing process. "Have you ever had someone use Hedge Busker's Tip on you Stewart? Maybe it'd be.. let me just get to YouTube." 23:33 <banana> "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdHi8IlzeYs" 23:33 <VoxPVoxD> What kind of gin? London dry? Old Tom? Plymouth? Old-school genever? There's like $1200 of liquor in the Wherehouse between stuff Stewart brought to stock the bar on the boat and the stuff he already did that with. Anyway Stewart can easily mix up a gimlet with lemon instead of lime and some honey syrup. "Lauren did it, but we promised never to tell each other our songs, so I don't know 23:33 <VoxPVoxD> what mine is." 23:35 <trenchfoot> She's very cheap, even before her time... Away. Whatever the lowest price of gin is. London dry if she has to pick something, but still. 23:35 <VoxPVoxD> She might be cheap, but Stewart's not. "I think Nels knows the contract too. Maybe she's done it." Where is Stewart bringing this drink? Where is she? 23:37 <trenchfoot> How close can she be without revealing herself? Because she is exactly that close. 23:38 <VoxPVoxD> Then Stewart almost spills it when he sees her standing right there after he steps out of the kitchen area. "Oh! Hey. I made you a bees' knees. Is it?" 23:38 <trenchfoot> Nels: "Oh! I didn't think - you know what that is?" 23:39 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I've been reading a lot of cocktail books lately. I decided I needed a hobby." 23:39 <trenchfoot> "But that's -- you really made one?" 23:40 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Gin, honey syrup, lemon juice, shake over ice and serve strained. Garnish with a twist." 23:40 <trenchfoot> "...thank you." 23:40 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I'm really sorry about before. I got emotional and I wasn't thinking about how I was coming off." 23:43 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart Reader — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_HtcAuTWEE It's the terror of knowing what this world is about: watching some good friends scream, "Let me out!" 23:44 <trenchfoot> Nels flinches - or hides her flinch, it's hard to say. 23:45 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "That bad, huh?" 23:45 <VoxPVoxD> "Don't tell me what it is. I'll step away if you wanna tell Melanie." 23:45 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I - heard the other version on Youtube?" 23:46 <banana> Melanie: "These things are just the Wyrd having us on anyway." 23:46 <trenchfoot> "I liked that one better." 23:46 <banana> "Maybe they're Arcadia's honest opinion. Zero fucks given about that." 23:46 <dammitwho> "Hoy there, Nels." Maggie turns a corner carrying a bottle and some cups. "Oh," She says, noticing Stewart has gotten there first. "Good on you, Stewart," and pours one for herself instead of Nels. 23:47 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Hey, Maggie. Did I show you the Estes website?" 23:49 <trenchfoot> "Ahoy hoy." It's kind of messed up that the whole phone thing is 100 years old, right? 23:49 <banana> :) everyone's okay again! 23:50 <dammitwho> Maggie shakes her head. 23:51 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart takes his phone out and shows her the store pages. They've got whole rockets and sold-separately engines https://estesrockets.com/product-category/engines/29mm-engines/ 23:51 <VoxPVoxD> "This is the kind of stuff you were looking for?" 23:51 <Crion> Steve, now ushanka'd, will venture out to join them. He has a sippy cup that he's adjusted to work with beaks (beer hat is for beer). 23:51 <banana> Hmm. Melanie: "Do you think the goose thinks it's going to get to go on the boat?" 23:52 <Crion> Steve was the first member of the crew to pick out a berth! 23:52 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Tony's gonna need a first mate." 23:52 <trenchfoot> Pretty sure Steve has dibs. 23:53 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Ooh, that's exactly the stuff." 23:56 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Maryland doesn't have any special laws about buying model rockets, though I imagine if we put it an order for a crate's worth we're gonna end up in *someone's* database." 23:57 <Crion> Stewart, when poking around about explosives, will have been immediately and with some repressed annoyance been directed to the werewolves. They run them between states. 23:57 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Mmm. I just need a few for starters, and some more I can get an idea of the innards with." 23:58 <Crion> Fireworks, that is. 23:58 <Crion> Sure. Just fireworks. 23:59 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I can make some overtures to the local werewolves to see if they've got anything you can use so we don't have to go through formal channels at all. See if they want cash or will accept barter in intoxicants." 23:59 <VoxPVoxD> "This is one of their, uh, magisteria." 00:01 <trenchfoot> They just - they live like this, huh? 00:07 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Unless you'd rather not." 00:08 <Crion> Union once described the Pack of Central Maryland and their affiliates to Maggie as "like if the Sons of Anarchy from that TV show had their shit together -- but were still like, poser bikers." Difficult to tell whether she or anyone she could talk to about it would be able to decipher that reference. 00:09 <dammitwho> Anarchists, huh. Well, it's hard to imagine werewolves being anything else. 00:17 <trenchfoot> Those guys were idiots. Absolute failures. 00:17 <VoxPVoxD> That agony is their triumph. 00:18 <banana> It's kind of arbitrary that werewolves even exist, so they might as well lean into it. 00:19 <trenchfoot> ...it's kind of arbitrary that we exist?? 00:19 <VoxPVoxD> But we know by exactly whose arbitration we exist. Who made werewolves? The moon? 00:21 <trenchfoot> I mean. Do you have a better option? 00:21 <VoxPVoxD> I have many worse ones. 00:21 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Where do you guys think werewolves come from, anyway? Regular wolves?" 00:22 <trenchfoot> Thanks, I hate it. 00:22 <trenchfoot> Also, where wolves? 00:23 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I dunno. Maybe it's genetic. Maybe you win the favor of the wolf gods somehow." 00:23 <VoxPVoxD> Maybe it's Maybelline. 00:24 <dammitwho> Maggie: "Ooh, the favor of the wolf gods, I like that idea." 00:25 <trenchfoot> Nels: "I think it's like, you lose a hunt of some kind. And everyone gets mad at you." 00:29 <VoxPVoxD> Where or how does Stewart inquire if the local Pack has any little rockets that will add momentum to a giant iron fighting-wrench? 00:30 <Crion> He and Maggie can get in contact with them most reliably through Union, who already set up some kind of meet about moving product from he and Maggie's work if it'll keep outside the Hedge, or otherwise through Serrato. 00:30 <VoxPVoxD> Probably better to work through Union here, Stewart judges. 00:31 <Crion> Give Union a few days to get Kolsch and Cuth on the same page and that should be easy enough. 00:32 <VoxPVoxD> Cool! Another problem solved. 00:35 <VoxPVoxD> Stewart's so good at solving problems... 00:37 <Crion> The record does not lie on this point.