#although my sleeping patterns are like so beyond fucked at this point it hardly even matters anymore lol

[erintoknow]

Nemesis Adrestia

fallen hero: rebirth fanfic, borrowing @ratkingkisses​‘s Zia Basri for an extra-canonical adventure of revenge ~2.4k words. hrrrm, maybe content warning for spider time.

------

       It really shouldn’t come as a surprise to you by now, but it’s obvious you’ve gotten in over your head again. “Was this a part of your genius fucking plan?” You hiss.

       “Sweetheart, darling, of course it was.” The figure crouched down next to is dressed in an almost form-fitting black powered-suit with pink accents up the sides, the black hood of their cloak up over the mirrored helmet. “Keep them busy for a moment, won’t you?”

       You grit your teeth. “When are you going to play rabbit?”

       “When I’m not the stronger telepath, Adrestia.” She says it so matter-of-factly in that weirdly electronic and rasping voice of hers it makes your eye twitch.

       Despite your frustation, it’s hard to argue with that. Nemesis seems to have a talent for getting her hooks into a crowd. Handling that kind of mental feedback is a little much for you.

       …Alright then. Keep a team of armed officers busy while Nemesis safely sits behind a wall playing mind games? Sure. Okay. Why not?

       Take a breath, steady yourself, then dash out from behind the wall, pulling at their attention as you go. Nothing fancy, just eyes on me, encourage them to forget the second figure, already at work. You can feel her in the back of your head, weaving threads of thought into straitjackets. Watch how you think, you’ll have to be careful not to get snagged yourself.

       A trail of bullets follow you, they can’t seem to remember to lead their target, such as shame, really. You slide behind the reception desk, breathing hard. Try to steady your heart, get it back down and out of your throat. These aren’t cops or street thugs. Trained professionals, soldiers. You’d never have been so bold as to try this on your own, or so stupid.

       Zia lounges across the booth, taking up both seats, legs crossed. She flashes a practiced smile, offers a honeyed greeting and pushes a plate of cupcakes across the table to you as you sit down across from her. You pick one up, take a bite, it’s still warm. Is she trying to put you at ease and failing or is she purposefully trying to unsettle you with this exaggeration of hospitality? You can’t be sure, can’t know

       Getting involved with Zia is dangerous. On multiple levels. There’s a reason you’ve taken to calling her ‘Triple-X,’ although never to her face. She’s respected your boundaries so far – has never laid a hand on you. But whenever you’re in her presence it feels like you’ve been put under a microscope. The octopus trying to pry open a clam.

       Looking for that way in.

       Well, that’s a game that two can play.

       You unshoulder your purse onto the table, pull out the envelope and slide it across the table in exchange. Floor plans, hand transcribed from months of careful reconnaissance. Valuable information to a career thief.

       Zia palms it, slides the envelope down the front of her shirt. Her smile shows her canines. She makes no secret of being a dangerous woman. She’ll get in touch with you soon, she says. You make a show of playing up your nerves. The woman who has nothing to fear and the woman from which there is nothing to fear. You both wear your masks well.

       “You fuckers couldn’t hit an iceberg!” You yell out, palming through the smoke grenades and flash bangs attached to your belt. Keep their attention, don’t think about how the bullets punch through the pressed woodpulp of the desk, barely missing you. How much time do you need to buy? 

       You thumb a flash bang, trying to get a sense of where to throw it when you feel strings pull taunt. You reflexively throw up your mental wall as Nemesis finally springs into action. There’s the tension of sudden silence. No guns fire, no movement, then at once the sound of five bodies hitting the floor in unison.

       You poke your head up, none of the men are still standing. “Jesus,” you whisper under your breath so the suit doesn’t pick up your voice and amplify it, “what did you do.” Five bodies lay sprawled on the ground where they fell. Still alive, you can see it in the rise and fall of the chests. But their mental presence is weirdly blank, twisted into itself. Not comatose exactly, but deeper than normal sleep.

       Nemesis strides out into the middle of the lobby, “Don’t just stand there gawking, dear. We’ve got more where these fools came from.” You have a limited window before someone or someones beyond your pay grade crash the party. Now that your cover is blown, if you’re going to hit your target and get out, every second needs to count.

       Still… you glance down at bodies. “Are they going to wake up?”

       “Who cares?” She responds, voice drained of its theatric warmth. She doesn’t stop walking.

       You frown behind your helmet but don’t argue. Kneel down and fish out the keycards from one of the men before catching up with Nemesis. You might be the pathfinder on this operation, but Nemesis isn’t about to let anyone else take lead. That suits you just fine. Maybe she can take a turn getting shot at next.

       “I need your help.” You admit. Don’t look at her face, focus on the window, how the light still manages to make it through the closed blinds.

       She leans forward, hands cupped under her chin, in a move clearly designed to emphasize her cleavage. “You have no idea how happy that makes me. I can think of plenty of ways to help make you sing.”

       You glance at her, eyes wide, “What? Uh- Um-, no, no not like that.” You break eye contact again, look elsewhere, anywhere else. Try to swerve around the images she’s broadcasting at you. “This is strictly business.”

       You feel her sharp disappointment like a slap to the face. You flinch. She leans back. “Business it is.” Her voice drained of any previous warmth.

       “Well, more like revenge, really.” You admit. Flash the photograph in your hand. That gets her attention again.

       The next stop is one of the security offices. It’s not a far walk. Two officers stand between you and getting inside, but it’s hardly a contest. Pull their aim off, pull their attention on you instead of calling for help. Nemesis crumples the one on the right with a punch to stomach followed by a knee to the groin. You take out the one on left by yanking the gun out of their hands and then bashing their nose in with the butt of the rifle. 

       They didn’t even lock the door. During a lockdown. You laugh, a sharp cackle, as you throw open the door and take stock of what you have to work with.

       “Something amusing, my dear handmaiden?” Nemesis stands outside, her attention focused down the hallway. Focused like this, her mind feels like a cord of rope, severed and fraying into a million threads at one end.

       “D-doesn’t matter.” You grind your teeth at the nickname.

       The connection between your names is entirely accidental, you’ve gone through a couple before settling on Adrestia. Nemesis, however, has latched onto it with a frightening degree of enthusiasm. At this point you don’t think you could change your name again if you tried.

       You fish out the flash drive from its secure canister as you ran a hand over the bank of computer terminals on the far wall of the tiny room. There, under the desk, a row of servers. You pop open the flash drive and slot it home. Actual coding is far beyond your skillset, but with the connections Nemesis has, getting your hands on something capable of cracking a military system hadn’t been difficult. Turns out the primary defense is physical access, and… well, the two of you have that handled.

       A stressful minute of waiting later and now you have access to the internal systems via your suit. All it takes is a few simple commands to lock out anyone else on the system. You pull out the flash drive and pocket it again. No sense leaving evidence behind. Nod to Nemesis. “We’re good, let’s keep moving.”

       You can feel the frayed edges of Nemesis attention as she runs beside you. Between her ability to pick up and redirect the attentions of multiple people at once and your pathfinding it’s a surprisingly smooth dash through the building to your target’s office. And with the security systems firmly still under your control no one else is able to follow your progress through the complex. No cameras, and barriers are mere formality as doors open and lock again behind the two of you.

       You can feel your heart pound. This has been a long time coming.

       Nemesis Adrestia; Retribution Inescapable.

       The two of you round one last corner and Nemesis gestures with her head towards a set of doors across the hall. “This is the place, sweetheart?”

       Tentatively you reach out to get a read of how many people are on the other side, sheltering in place. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, you reel back, curl your song tight around yourself. “He’s here alright.” You hiss through your teeth.

       Nemesis makes an unearthly sound, laughter distorted beyond recognition. “Let’s catch up with an old friend, I’m sure they’ll be delighted to see us..”

       “Peter Byrne.” You trace patterns in your leg, fighting down nausea, memory. “Recognize him?”

       Zia thumbs the tiny photograph, lips pursed. “No.” She finally admits.

       “One of the eggheads that used to run the… the…” You mouth is dry. How does anyone talk about this? To vocalize what’s never been said? “the, uh– the debriefing process. Memory extraction. Research.”

       You watch as Zia’s expression darkens, narrows her eyes at the tiny man in the picture. “How do you know it was him?”

       Don’t think about it. Don’t think about the spider. “Met him.”

       She looks at you, doesn’t hide the disbelief. “You met him.”

       “Broke the process once.” You’re pressing your finger into your leg hard now as you trace.

       “Broke the–?” You can feel it in the way Zia’s attention has turned to you, a thousand little threads probing for answers, looking for holes, expecting a trap. You’ve turned from a fun game, a toy to tease and distract herself with into a danger; pulling open old wounds. 

       There’s nothing for it. You need her invested in this. You grit your teeth and

can’t move

can’t even ‘can’t move’

wake up

wake up

stay

       awake

over you spans,

no not you there is no ‘you’ only

an exquisite corpse under spider legs

like needlepoints, they poke something soft in–

You’re standing on the beach, salt air curls your hair, water wraps around your ankles. He smiles at you, taking your hand. ‘Finally, someone who understands’ – The feeling is writ across his mind, it overwhelms you. You suppress a shudder, smile back, swallow thoughts down like bramble. Stay focused. Edge to the side, pull him along. The line of fire needs to be clear.

–a wriggling thought until she bites down, stills it, not yours not yours hers now, she draws out the memory on bloodied thread; wrapping, spinning, going

no, no

stay

       awake

reach up, find, pull. not hers, not hers, yours.

this one is yours.

!

something’s

       burning

       You flinch, that’s not quite the memory you wanted to vomit up, never mind broadcast. You curl your song tight against yourself again, block the world out. Meant to do the moment after, chickened out. Stupid. Stupid. You risk looking up at Zia. There’s a look of fury slowly burning across her face and then the world reels backwards as she punches you flat for springing the memory on her. But– You think you’ve got her.

       Nemesis kicks the doors in before you can. “Everyone, lovelies, please remain calm.” She calls out, her empty hands up in the air as she walks through the cubicles. “Only one of you needs to die today. The rest have nothing to worry about…” The ease with which Nemesis is able to spread out and curl the threads of her attention around the gaggle of people in the room should terrify you. Instead all you can think about is what you’ll do. What you’ll say.

       You follow in behind, the pistol in your hands held in a death grip. It’s been years since you’ve let yourself handle one, but the muscle memory is still there. Some things you can never forget, they made sure of that.

       Like a conductor Nemesis is able to coax their fear into a wail of terror, drowning out any fantasies of trying to run or call for help. Fourteen fear-filled souls. You have to pull your own song tighter around you as a shield against the radiant emotional energy. “You don’t need to give them fucking PTSD,” You hiss at her.

       “Why not?” Nemesis laughs. “You’re the anarchist, dear. Here’s a bunch of government stooges, why not have a little fun?”

       “They’re just pawns. They don’t matter.”

       “Not all of the little dears.” There’s an edge in her voice. Nemesis beckons with a hand and one of the fear-stricken office workers finds himself stumbling forward towards the two of you, pulled along on Nemesis’s invisible strings.

       You choke down bile. “Hello, Peter.”

       Peter turns his head to you, mouth gaping open, then closed, incoherent.

       You shoot a glance at Nemesis. “For fuck’s sake, might as well let him talk.”

       “That’s a mistake.” Nemesis warns. Nevertheless, the invisible cord around Peter’s neck slackens and the man gasps for air.

       “Hello, Peter.” You repeat. 

       “That– that is not my name, you’ve got the wrong–”

       “I don’t give a rat’s ass about what name they gave you after you screwed up, Peter.” You grind your teeth, feel the gun in your hand. Safety off. “Did you think you’d be safe out here?”

       Nemesis nudges your shoulder. “Don’t bother toying with the man, get to the point.”

       “I’m working up to it!” You snap at her, turn your attention back to Peter. “How long has it been, Peter? Fourteen years?”

       “Fourteen…?” The look of confusion and terror on the man’s face gives way to pallid dread, the color draining out of him.

       Nemesis crosses her arms. “Oh, we’re really going to drag this one out, aren’t we?”

       “I’m not finished yet!”

       Nemesis tsks at you. “That’s no way for a handmaiden to address her mistress.”

       You ignore her, adjust your grip on your gun. You’re. In. Control. “Did you enjoy your job, Peter?” You don’t feel like Adrestia right now. You just feel sick. “How were the perks, Peter?” Panic and dread radiate off of him. His, it has to be his emotions that you’re feeling, That’s why you can’t keep your gun steady. 

       Nemesis leans over you, a hand on your shoulder. “There’s a time and place for foreplay sweetheart. Now is not it.” She puts her other hand over your wrist to steady your arm. “We can’t stay here all night.”

       You flinch under her touch. “I– I– I need him to– to understand. He has to know. Or it’s… it’s not justice.” You’re not a murderer. This is more than just some random act of revenge. He’s earned this. He needs to know.

       “Darling,” Her voice is low, quiet even with the distortion. “I think he gets the picture just fine.” She puts her finger on the trigger, resting over yours. “Isn’t that right, dear?” She raises her voice with all the cheer of a cactus.

       Peter raises his arms, “I didn’t do anything wrong…”

       Nemesis guides your arm up, pointing the pistol in your hand towards Peter as he takes a step back, hitting the wall. “But you had some good fun back on the farm, didn’t you?” 

       The two of you pull the trigger.

[canonicallyanxious]

I can never decide what i would enjoy better, being able to sleep all the time or not needing to sleep at all

[lythro-classpects]

Denizens by Aspect (Part One)

The Denizen is the ultimate adversary of your land. The driving force behind your quest and character development, if you play the game correctly your denizen will be your greatest adversary and your most powerful benefactor. 

Contrary to popular belief, your goal isn’t to kill your denizen. It is certainly a possibility, don’t get me wrong, but killing your denizen is only one possible answer to the Ultimate Riddle. Your goal as a player is to undo the corruption that your denizen has brought to the land, and in the process learn to understand them. Only when you stop hating your denizen can you truly complete your quest.

So what does that mean for individual players? The way you deal with your denizen is heavily based on your individual classpect, but like most things, there are patterns based on the aspect you belong to.

This guide will cover the aspects of Space, Time, Light, and Void (Or, the Cardinal Aspects).

Space:

Space players tend to have one of the nicest relationships with their Denizens. Seeing as Space players have the largest functional role in the session, their quests tend to be lighter-duty compared to most other players. The most adverse role a Space Denizen might play in a session is trying to prevent the lighting of the Forge Construct. 

Echidna: Echidna is the mother of monsters. Represented in SBURB as a massive, two-tailed naga with spines down her back, Echidna is about as motherly of a denizen as you can get. She is very reasonable, willing to exchange information for the assured survival of her and the rest of the session’s denizens in the event of a scratch or a failed session. Echidna is also one of the most common Space denizens, primarily because the presence of her quills is necessary to physically scratch the Scratch Construct. Witches, Sylphs, Maids, and Seers tend to be blessed with Echidna’s presence, although she can appear for anyone.

Aether: Aether is the primordial god of the upper atmosphere, space, and heaven. He is represented in the form of the upper body of a rather buff human man with lime-green skin and a lower body made of a nebula. Aether is the kind of denizen who won’t interfere too much with a quest, but is a pain in the ass to talk to. Incredibly haughty to a fault and not afraid to show how much better than he is than you. Aether will go out of his way to fuck you over if you get too powerful too quickly. Princes, Bards, Knights, and Pages tend to get stuck with Aether. Just tell him he’s pretty and he’ll chill.

Artemis: Artemis is the goddess of the moon and the hunt. The most humanoid of the Space denizens, Artemis is a silver-colored humanoid woman with long grey antlers and a graceful robe that flows behind her. Artemis is perhaps the most dangerous of the Space denizens as well. Subverting the common expectation that Space denizens do not interfere much, Artemis will often not stop trying to hunt you down once she is awakened. Consorts will often support her quest to knock you down a peg as well, having temples to her. Unlucky Thieves, Rogues, Mages, and Heirs typically have Artemis. My condolences.

Time:

Time players often have rather paradoxical denizens. These denizens may be short-tempered but patient, forgetful but a skilled chronicler, or they could be blind but perfectly aware of their surroundings. Time denizens meddle a little more than Space denizens, but are often perfectly content turning their focus to the ignition of the Forge Construct for reasons of fate or otherwise. They also tend to be single-mindedly focused on offering the Choice, and may not actually fight back when attacked. 

Hephaestus: Hephaestus is the god of blacksmithing and fire. In SBURB, he takes the appearance of a large construct made of lava, with thick plates of obsidian forming his ‘skin’. Hephaestus is a restless denizen, often creating “ultimate” weapons designed to ensure the victory of his land’s noble. He views his challenges not as a way to extinguish his player, but to strengthen them. Training from hell, basically. The weapons he makes are always of the strife specibus of the player, fortunately. Knights, Witches, Princes, and Pages tend to have Hephaestus as their denizen.

Clio: Clio is the muse of history. She is represented as a long, tan serpent with a head made of a massive tome, a single large eye in the center of her front cover. Clio is probably one of the more fun Denizens to talk to, seeing as she is horribly forgetful about small details. In addition to her forgetful nature, Clio also provides useful backstory information about the universe of the game. This typically is what her choice consists of- trading her knowledge for something of value you can provide. The benefit of dealing with her is that you can access her library. Sylphs, Maids, Rogues, and Heirs are her players of choice.

Tiresias: Known most for his role as a blind oracle in the story The Odyssey, Tiresias is likely the most patient and foreboding of the Time Denizens. Tiresias manifests himself as a single eye with a glassy white pupil and a bright red iris. He is surrounded by a misty fog, and constantly levitates. Tiresias is more of an omen of doom for a session than anything, often offering the sight of every timeline and the ways to fix it in exchange for something drastic, like the lives of all of your session’s sprites or even the sacrifice of another player. Tiresias has a liking for Mages, Seers, Bards, and Thieves, knowing they are the easiest to manipulate with his offers.

Light:

The light aspect often has denizens that offer a very, very risky choice. This typically appeals to the gambling nature of most light players, if they are aware of it or not. These denizens also tend to be very greedy, collecting as much of a certain resource as they can and either hoarding it or consuming it for themselves. 

Cetus: Cetus is a beast from legend, described as either a whale, sea monster, or serpent. In this game, Cetus is represented in the form of a large, somewhat rotund, purple fish body with a human head. Cetus primarily hoards resources necessarily for life from her consorts-- anything from food to water to the air of the land. It is necessarily to arrange a deal with her as soon as possible, even if it is at the cost of something great in the future. Or you could leave your consorts to die while you press on in the game. It’s up to you. Cetus is typically the denizen for Seers, Thieves, Sylphs, and Mages.

Hyperion: Hyperion is the god of light, wisdom, and watchfulness. SBURB represents Hyperion as a simple human being wearing white ropes, his head surrounded by a gold and white halo. Hyperion typically acts as a tutor for their players, trying to encourages them through challenges that with test the mettle of their wit. Quests on a land of Hyperion will often have highly intellectual quests that involve the solving of riddles as well as a certain amount of luck. It’s hardly a cakewalk. Hyperion can likely be found on the lands of a Maid, Heir, Knight, or Page, as he tends to like people who embody his aspect well.

Lucifer: Lucifer, in their original form, was the bringer of light, and one of the Christian God’s brightest angels. Of course, they are in a different form now. Represented in SBURB as a single star, with points in each of the cardinal directions and a single mouth in the center. They sometimes have a body of multi-colored ribbons. As a Denizen, Lucifer will offer the most corrupting choices of all, enticing with the offer of power and wealth in exchange for increasingly large favors. Lucifer’s plan of action seems to be along the line of stringing their players along with a little taste of power at a time, trying to get them hooked on it. Lucifer has a tendency to latch onto Bards, Rogues, Witches, and Princes.

Void:

To be completely frank, Void Denizens are completely useless back-seat drivers who like to be as vague as possible to help their players comprehend nothingness better. Void Denizens are also easy to forget about, and the low spawn-rate of enemies on Void player lands doesn’t help with the remembering thing. They sometimes don’t even offer a choice, out of a glitch or out of a desperation to remain relevant.

Nyx: Nyx, Nix, or Nox is the goddess of night. She is represented by a humanoid wrapped in a long, purple draping that trails well behind her in something resembling a tail. The most straight-forward of the Void denizens, Nyx will provide the most practical advice, even if she doesn’t provide the reason for it. Blind trust is the best option here. Nyx seems to have many names thanks to a glitch in the code, or perhaps an unused asset of some sort, but it doesn’t seem to interfere with her role of being a royal pain in the ass. Nyx tends to like Rogues, Pages, Mages, and Seers, mostly because she understands how they struggle with their aspect.

Cthulhu: Cthulhu is a god of madness and the representation of the things that lurk beyond mortal comprehension. His appearance isn’t any less murky, taking the shape closest to his actual mythological form. An octopus head with wings and a few extraneous pairs of eyes is how he is represented. Above all else, Cthulhu seeks to be worshiped, offering little in exchange but a tentative grasp over his aspect. Players with Cthulhu as their denizen are the most likely to go grimdark, and have the highest level of horrorterror corruption on their land. Bards, Heirs, Witches, and Thieves are the most likely to have Cthulhu haunting their land. If you see them starting to build temples, run.

Hypnos: The son of Nyx, Hypnos is the god of sleep and dreams. Hypnos is represented as a floating human head with golden wings sprouting from his temples and curly brown locks. Players with Hypnos as their denizen have the highest sleep ratio of all players, sometimes starting the game awake or even waking up before the session. Hypnos often inhabits rainy, foggy lands, attempting to lull players into and endless, inescapable sleep. It’s best to find somewhere else to sleep until he is taken care of. Hypnos often dwells in the lands of Knights, Princes, Sylphs, and Maids.

[sumergosuigeneris]

June 10, 2019

Woke up thinking about not-great things from my life again. And thinking that I am repeating my mother’s patterns despite myself. Hell of a way to wake up. Probably need to go to therapy. Probably need to address issues in my life.

Yesterday ended up interesting.

Got confused about when I was gonna get in. Thought it was an hour later than I thought. When it turned out I was right, I decided to get food before heading to the club. The bar was closed and there was nowhere else nearby. Went back to train station and asked the guy sitting there to take me. Never doing that again. First of all, he only took cash (I technically didn’t have enough). I didn’t have enough to give him a tip, which is bad. But in a way, I felt it made us even because I was forced to make conversation. Hoo-eee is this guy loyal to the local university. I expressed my support for not-that-school and he proceeded to talk about how horrible another school was. I tried to say all schools do these things, not that it’s right but that they’re common. It went eh. Another guy that listens to his own opinion exclusively. And it cost me $40! Technically $42+tip, but I only had 40 in cash. How much would it have been if I took the deliberately underpriced car sharing service? Grrrrrr. But yay for supporting the beleaguered taxi drivers. Also, the Jus sie case came up. Of course. So I pointed out that celebs and rich people get away with the same shit all the time. I really really wanted to say if it was a yt person, you’d be fine with it, but I kept it together.

Get to the club....and no one was there. Not even Bob. I called him and somehow he thought I was coming in at 1am, so he gave up on me and went home. He lives about 45min away, esp because he’s a hypermiler, but he drove back for me. I was ambivalent b/c I wanted to shoot, and give him his stupid gifts, but I felt guilty for making him drive. Anyway, while waiting I discovered I’d left one of his gifts on the train. IDIOT! I spent twenty-five minutes total on several phone calls to am-not-track, only to be told to fill out a form online. So fucking stupid b/c I figured it out within an hour so that would have been perfect timing for the train staff (I’m blanking on everything except conductor) to find it and tag it for me. Fucking terrible customer service AGAIN! I was gonna complain on social media but it felt like all I was doing was complaining about companies and so companies would stop taking me seriously.

And of course, i couldn’t fill out the form b/c there was no internet at the club. Civil War Bob got there in time for me to be in a rage. I gave him the gifts I had, and told him (not asked him) that I was getting him an emergency cell phone. Fuck that shit. Our incident could have been avoided if I’d called him before he left for the club, but I forgot about the time change, and then despite that, if he’d had a fucking cell phone. He could have called me or I could have called him. Aggravating.

He took me to shoot pistols. I missed shooting rifles, but I’d never shot anything except black powder pistols before. It was fun. It was loud. Real hand guns, at least before these modern plastic models, are not like portrayed on tv/movies. Harder to aim. And very, very loud. Still throw gun powder depending on the model. But I can say I shot a Colt and a Smith&Wesson - quality American brands. I forgot my safety goggles, and all CWB had was prescription sunglasses. Whew that was hard. I made a few good shots but mostly bad, and I’m not sure how much of that is me being out of practice shooting new to me weapons, and how much was prescription sunglasses. Oh, and it’s really nice to take forever to load or clean. I like pistols.

Oh, and I found out that some guns have serial numbers already. They’ve been having serial numbers. Like a car vin. Although now that I’m writing this, I feel like I did know that a while ago, b/c on tv they’d talk about filing off the number. Dummy. Anyway, the point is guns could be registered to owners like cars are. Not like permits for carrying or safety (although a safety permit would be nice) but for gun policy level safety. Although, as with other things on guns, the people who would follow it wouldn’t be the problems but they’d be mouthy about how it was infringing on their rights.

The one thing was he started making political comments, about how someone shot up a place or people and was theoretically sympathetic to IS IS so CWB thinks of IS IS as terr orists. Oh no. I was not gonna have that. You’re going to ignore all the white supremacists? And also fo x was probably lying, but I’m not sure b/c I don’t know who he was talking about. We only do well when we don’t acknowledge his ignorant views, so I decided to shut that shit down. I told him I think of Tr ump supporters that way (re: ter ror ism). Shut him the fuck up.

We had fun. He gave me a tshift he’s been hanging on to. It’s orange, which is fine. But he said I like to wear loud colors. Which is not true. I will wear them, like I had an orange hooded jacket for a few years, but that’s me trying to expand beyond my mostly black, and brown and green and red. Anyway.

I didn’t tell him I was staying overnight. 2 1/2 hours is pretty good for me hanging out with CWB. 4 1/2 is the limit.

At this point, it was 5-ish, and I’d only had 1/2 a coffee and a terrible blueberry muffin. i was starving. i asked him to drop me off at a location that seemed like i was  going to the bus station but was close enough to walk to the hotel. I passed restaurants. It was so hard not to just stop at one of them, but I was determined to address my longing for pizza from here.

Also, while I feel I only had to talk about school once, it was extremely uncomfortable. Why *do* we always ask people what they do, or if they’re in school? Social media says it’s so we can judge people and how much respect to give them.

Got to the hotel and was excited b/c my room unexpectedly had a jacuzzi. Which doesn’t work. There were hardly any working lamps, basically one plug for me to plug things in. Very few channels and most of them were terribly staticy. I went to the pool and there was a family monopolizing it. They’d have made room for me, but it would have curtailed them a bit, and not really given me room to do anything besides sit there, so I went to go to the hot tub. Which wasn’t working and looked yucky. This hotel actually kind of sucks. Because the coup d’grace? The internet is *atrocious*! So I couldn’t do online instead of real life. I ended up going to bed pretty early. Which I needed.

But I ordered my pizzas. I ordered two. I wonder what the front desk person thought of that. I ordered one from the place that I’d found is closest to real pizza but was expensive and didn’t deliver as far away as i lived before I moved. And I ordered one from my favorite local chain.

As I was afraid of, both were disappointing. They weren’t as good as I’d built them up to be in my memory. The one was about as good as I think it was the last time I’d gotten it several years ago. The thing is, when I ran away to this particular state, the pizza was really really decent, but it changed a few years after that.To be less good. Which was a reason I hardly ever ordered the expensive stuff. The chain one was good for itself, but there was too much dough. Not sure if the recipe changed or the location made a mistake or b/c it was a medium. But it tasted yummy. Really the issue is with pizza in general. To make good pizza, you need to do the whole dough tossing thing. It’s not just for show, or to make a lump of dough spread out. It does something with air bubbles or whatever. And no one does that anymore. Almost no one. Because making pizza properly takes too long.

So anyway, now I can let that go for a while. And I’m taking home at least 3 meals worth of pizza. Yay!

All in all, I think I spent significantly too much on this trip (and I’m not home yet). I won’t do this again. It’s only renting a car, and only a one day thing (so get up ungodly early in the morning). I’m nervous about taking the bus. I’ve never had a problem, but the company itself has a reputation. Anyway, $120 ish for transpo and hotel. $80 for taxis. $50 ish for pizza. Well, as I type it out, only the car/taxi nonsense was unexpectedly high. Still, I need to take the bus to the bus pickup. Grab coffee, etc.. take the bus back to my city...take the train or bus home. Then, I’ll know. And feel safe lol.

And the bus isn’t known for having good internet. Here’s crossing my fingers.

Boy, I’m gonna sleep well tonight.