#Cosmo is kinda a troll I guess

[inconmess]

As a result of a conversation with @gyorklady, here's another tiny Candela snippet.

Cosmo walked into the Glass Cat, taking in the crowd of the place before letting out a sigh of relief. Today seemed like a slow day, which meant he could catch up with Madam Glask today.

"Evening, Mr. Grimm. I would assume you would like to meet up with the Madam today?"

"Ah... Good evening to you too, Mr. Trills. I see you are back from wherever you were called off to. I hope that it was an eventful visit?"

"As eventful as it could be, Cosmo. As eventful as it could be. Should I inform her about your arrival?"

"Ah, she knows about my arrival. She will be by to meet me soon. But, if you don't mind, Mr. Trills. I would love to have a chat with you."

"Oh, alright. By the way, what happened to Oscar? Haven't seen him around in a while. Got into the slammer again?"

"No, no. Oscar's fine. Just running a few errands for me out of town, you see. I am not able enough to travel anymore and my grandson helps me way more than he should." Cosmo smiled, his eyes crinkling at it.

"But I do want to ask you a question. How is Grimoria doing? You know, the ward of the Foggs? I have been meaning to check upon her but it has been a little rough the past few days."

Malcolm immediately straightened at that question, eyes narrowing in suspicion. Grimoria had been included in their circle barely a couple of weeks ago and while she was way too young to be an operative in the field, the Lightkeeper insisted, for some reason. No one knows about her so how did he know?

"How do you know her?"

"I run an antiques shop, Mr. Trills. Of course I know of the Foggs and her ward. How is she doing?"

Before he could give a reply though the door opened and Madam Glask entered the room, giving a slight nod to Malcolm.

"Good day to you, Mr. Grimm, I will be taking my leave now."

"Meet again, Mr. Trills. Take care of her. She is a good one."

<Later at Leo's place>

"You seem tense, Malcolm, is something wrong?" Edgar asked as he leaned forward slightly.

"Leo, who the fuck is Cosmo and how the fuck does he know Mori is with us?"

"Cosmo who?"

"Cosmo Grimm. He frequents the Glass Cat frequently and talks with Madam Glask. You know, the one in the wheelchair, runs the Antiquarian?"

"You met Cosmo Grimm?" Leo blinked twice, astonishment colouring his voice.

"Yeah, I mean, I suppose the lady and he are friends."

"He and his grandson are fucking shrouded in gossip that I am surprised that you haven't heard of any of them yet?! Have you been living under a rock?" Leo flays his hands around as he flops back onto a chair.

"Technically I was out in war and all I know about Oscar is that he also works with the security and has visited the slammer more than humanly possible. Still doesn't answer my question of how does he know that Grimoria is known to us. She started working with us barely a couple of weeks ago!"

"The old man is a part of Candela, duh." Malcolm blinks.

"He's... a lightkeeper, right?"

"Nope, still goes out on the field. Rumours are that he refuses to take up a spot of a lightkeeper despite Candela insisting on it."

"He's on a freaking wheelchair?"

"He's a stubborn one, I give you that." Edgar says quietly as he took a sip of his tea. "Man is a legend in Candela. I am surprised you haven't heard the stories yet."

"Him being a legend at Candela still doesn't give me answers about how he knows Grimoria." Malcolm groaned in frustration.

"He knows me because he was the one who kinda introduced me to Candela. Kind of. More like he gave me refuge and Candela dug me out during one of the visits to the Foggs. Sorry about the delay, by the way, had to make another sales today."

[zeemczed]

Okay, so...

This reminds me of Cha-Cha. And not in a good way.

Long story of a manual search engine past the cut.

Before smartphones were really a thing, there was a proto-search engine called Cha-cha. You'd send in a question via text, and in theory people would answer it. In theory, people were using this for trivia and - y'know - stuff that could be found easily.

Cha-Cha had middlemen (I forget what we were called - proctors, maybe?) whose job it was to match questions to answers - the idea was that they could reuse common answers to questions, which - again - made sense. They'd install a toolbar (remember those?) and when a question hit the queue, you'd hear a chime and it'd pop up.

If there WAS no good answer, you could take a stab at it yourself (which was frowned upon) or send it up to the experts. But if you did the latter, you got paid less.

Now, again, I was a proctor. I got these sterilized messages (no personal information was attached, thank gourd) but I could go back and see the last few questions that were asked by the asker (which was often required for an intelligible answer).

I realized after thirty minutes that while the system was kinda fun, it was undeniably broken.

If it wasn't sports trivia, we didn't have the answers ready. 99% of my questions had to be kicked up to the 'experts' with no benefit for me. And when there WERE answers ready, the shit that the so-called experts came up with was UNBELIEVABLY suspect, and the tool that read the questions to try to link up with proper answers almost never functioned.

There was a clear Scientology infestation: when we got questions about them, the pre-readied answers were anything but objective, often glowing with praise for them. One person asked how many international laws the CoS had broken, and the answer I found was "None, the CoS is not a criminal organization!" I... took the opportunity to write my own answers for ALL those, invariably linking people to Xenu dot net.

There was the ENDLESS amount of sexual questions, which - again - had spurious answers, seemingly ripped from Cosmo (who I wouldn't trust with any inquiries about sexual health).

What broke me - within my first week, mind you - was getting a question that simply read "But don't you think I should beat them?" I stopped flat in my tracks. Paused. Rewound the conversation. The questioner had (allegedly, it might have been a troll) caught her two underage sons doing the do together.

And of course, none of the answers were going to be helpful for that.

My response was "No, but this is really a question for a licensed therapist, not a mediocre cell phone service. Cha-cha!"

Yeah, we had to add that bit at the end of every message. I guess they thought it sounded playful.

Anyway, I logged off and never touched it again. I was 22 and in junior college, I didn't have the credentials to be dealing with that, and the 'pay' was pitiful. I think I racked up like 50 cents in my first week.

Anyway, OP, give it a try, but remember - you never know who's on the other side, so take it all with a grain of salt.

Cha-cha!

hi. what on earth is this