paradisa | 101.7 - the rest is still unwritten

Entry tags:

mark hunter/hard harry

101.7 - the rest is still unwritten

[ten PM! did you miss your weekly dose of Leonard Cohen, residents? because it's back]

Hey, kids, hope you're not full from dinner. Loosen your belts, 'cuz Hard Harry's here with a little food for thought on a Monday night. Check this out: We went from next to no one new, to ... a fucking flood of new people. Maybe there's some weight to the thought that the castle needs to get a little crazy bullshit out of its system once in a while and then ... needing more people? I don't know, but it sure as hell looks like a pattern from where I'm sitting. I mean, think about it: over two dozen people went missing for a few days, and suddenly we've got ... lessee here. Lian, Loki, Wyoming and Gary, Johanna, Roy, Momoka, Shifu, Pepper, Iron Man, Henry, Jane, Billy, Sir Hellsing, Emma, and Snow - that's fifteen people, which is pretty close to a fifty percent ratio there between missing people and new people. I mean, I could go all mathematician on your asses and break it down with the people who've gone home factored into the mix, too, but it's still a pretty clear picture even without that.

So ... Castle does shit, castle needs to make up for it by doing something else. That's a basic energy exchange principle, isn't it? Physics, engineering, that kinda thing? Why aren't you resident engineers looking at this from your end of things? Thinking of us all as a resource? Because it's pretty fuckin' clear that's what we are. It's like something Orwell or Bradbury or Rand would've written, don'cha think? Forget all the magic and the wishes and the tendency toward princesses and froofy Ren Faire crap, put that aside and just think about the bare bones of it. We're all living one giant sci-fi novel, and whoever's holding the pen or sitting at the typewriter's gone on some drunken writing bender to make up for the fact that they had writer's block for the past couple'a weeks or something.

I dunno. Kinda makes me think of that play I read for Emerson's class, where the characters all just kind of ... well, their stories didn't get finished, so they show up at a theatre looking for someone to finish it since their author screwed off and decided not to cap it off. I mean ... I'm all for finding a way home, but it's just lip service if we don't know where to even start. Maybe we should stop tryin' to figure out the nature of this place, and what it's about, and just ... come up with our own answers.

It's better than sitting on our asses, waiting for the right opportunities to come along, or the ways to figure them out to show up. ... You think maybe that's how the First Gens became ... I dunno, "the First Gens"?

'Cuz I gotta be honest, I've had my chain jerked around a hell of a lot lately, and it's made me think. I'm not about to go run off and find 'em, but ... I wouldn't mind just sittin' down to have a chat with one of them one of these days. Get the other side of things.

[those of you who he mouthed off to last week? consider this a sort of offhand apology: he decided the best way to get over the Doctor leaving would be to ... kind of try and figure out what he'd do. and then re-tool it and make it his own. this is what he came up with - for better or worse. he's quiet for a moment, before continuing]

I mean --

It's pretty clear that this place is gonna keep rolling along however it wants, no matter what we do. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the trick is to not let it just roll OVER you. Feel like a hamster in a wheel? Climb out and start running on TOP. Don't be driven. Be the driver. Even if this place is stuck on autopilot, at least that way, you've got a better view of things, and it's a little easier to hang on instead've getting knocked around.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go get a glass of fuckin' lemonade. In the meantime, I believe I promised somebody some metal... those of you who don't like it loud and fast, turn it down and admit you're too old.

[and with that, well. you all get a CRAPTON of some of the best metal out there ~~yes there is Dethklok~~. enjoy, Paradisa. feel free to either run into him in the hall, in the kitchen at Eleven's lemonade tap, or bother him over the journals]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[There's a dark chuckle from the other end of the journal.]

You make it sound like you've never had the chance to "have a chat" with a big, scary first-gen before.

[he was wondering if that'd get your attention, girlfriend]

Haha, well, I kinda meant one of the vets, the ones who were here way back before us. Guess I should'a clarified.

Glad you're still kickin', though. You been keepin' tabs on us this whole time?

[She scoffs]

You don't wanna talk to them. They don't know shit anymore. Besides, a couple of decades under my belt isn't enough of a qualification for you?

They don't? ... Huh. ... [well that's interesting] I never said you were a moron or anything. I just thought ... they'd know more about what was out there.

Relax. I'm not mad or anything. I just don't get why anyone even cares about the "old timers." They've been so segregated from everyone else, they don't know what's best for anyone anymore, you know?

I mean, what's out here is what's out here. Trees and shit, castle ruins, et cetera.

Yeah, I think I do. [he immediately thinks of Yuan and the way he completely screwed up the Peace Patrol by meaning so well but not being able to handle all the differing opinions. how much it turned into herding cats at the end - and how betrayed he felt. he suddenly realizes there have got to be people out there who feel the same way about the "old timers", as Nancy puts it. people who're just as restless as so many of them. maybe the grass really is always greener on the other side]

I guess ... what everyone's looking for are answers. How this place works, why it works, what its DEAL is, why it needs us so damn bad.

Okay, seriously? You still need someone to answer those really obvious answers?

It feeds off of us. That's why it needs us. We're like it's goddamn power plant and it'd be nothing without us. I thought everyone knew that already.

Well, yeah. [can't you hear the eyeroll? IT IS THERE] That part's clear as fuck. I'm talking about like ... if there's actually some living thing, some heart of it, something we can actually communicate with. Be like "Hey, if you'd ease off on the fuckery, we might actually, you know, be more inclined to like you, isn't that what you want?"

Oh honey, Paradisa couldn't give a rat's ass if you liked it or not. In fact, it probably wants you to hate it. All that negative energy is like a buffet for the damned thing.

Yeah, I -- I've had that thought a few times. More than a few. [he snorts. don't call him honey, honey] If I could talk everyone into a goddamn hippie sit-in for a day in the lobby, I'd do it. Just to see what the fuck the place did.

[She laughs a bit darkly]

It'd probably turn you all into toads.

[and he laughs, too, because:] Considering some of the shit I've seen people turn into, myself included, that'd be pretty fucking unoriginal of it.

It's not like Paradisa's a fount of originality. I mean, how many times have you seen people turn into dogs and cats and shit? Or the opposite gender?

I hope you're not actually asking me to stop and count. [he laughs] There's a new crop of people sayin' they're all gung-ho to find a way out, now, by the way. I almost wanna take bets on how long their drive for it lasts.

I mean - not that I wouldn't take a way home in a hot minute if someone found one? But this place holds on to its secrets tighter than old Republicans hold on to money.

No shit. [She laughs] I'm all for taking bets right here. I bet you anything that by the time this conversation is over? They're already settling back into their old ways and forgetting they even wanted to find a way home. That's how fucking easy it is to get sucked into this place.

Yeah, it's -- frustrating as fuck, because -- well, I know I don't have half the guts you do, I know I wouldn't cut it out there. I'm a wuss, I need a roof over my head and I can't fight anything to save my life, which, hey, people have proven to me, I'd need to be able to do.

But I don't like how this place fucks with us all, either. So I'm kinda stuck in the middle.

Okay, back up a bit.

First of all, you talk a lot of shit, so you do have guts. Don't be a pussy and say you don't, okay? It takes balls to say half of what you do.

And secondly, if my opinion counts for anything, I don't think you'd die right away out here.

[wow. he's in kind of a weird, but good place, once he hears that and it sinks in. he didn't know Nancy all that well before she "defected", and he doesn't know her all that well now. but he has a pretty good idea of what kind of person she is, overall, and he knows it's the sort of person he can respect. so to hear a compliment from someone he respects, that's a damn good thing. and it surprises the hell out of him. he lets out a small, surprised sort of sigh as he watches her words creep onto the page]

Well, I figure somebody's gotta say it. [somehow, even loudmouths can manage to be humble. he's a special case like that]

But -- seriously? Everyone makes the Dead Zone sound like this huge, dangerous deal. It's -- are you sayin' it isn't?

I'm not saying it is or isn't, I'm just saying that if I'm still alive out here, you could pull it off, too.

There's dangerous shit wherever you go. Earth, Mars, the Dead Zone, wherever. Paradisa's just some bullshit safety bubble and that's why everyone freaks the fuck out about going off into the Dead Zone.

[and now she's reminding him a little of Eleven, in ... a Totally Not Really Eleven way. it rings for him, though. he's not about to go gung-ho signing up for expeditions or anything, but ... it's definitely something he'll be mulling over]

Huh. Okay, so - bearin' that in mind. What's the craziest piece of shit you've had to deal with since you left?

You do realize you're asking someone who's been here for decades, right? Someone who's pretty much acclimated to crazy shit?

Wait, you -- you have?! Shit, I didn't know that, I thought you came in like the rest of us did.

I did. [laughs] Just a long time ago.

Holy fuck. So you really are a bonafide "been around the barn" First Gen. You really didn't act like it whenever I saw you around, I'll give you that.

So why'd you come back? Just -- for shits and giggles, see if you could?

Duh, that was the point. Plus, how does one even act like a First Gen, anyway?

[Makes a noise, like she's shrugging to herself] I had my reasons.

101.7 - the rest is still unwritten

Mark

Nancy

Mark

Nancy

Mark

Nancy, to end

ditto!

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this is so late oh my god

psssssh no it isn't.

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