Jump to content
The Pen is Mightier than the Sword

troubled sleep

Page
  • Posts

    103
  • Joined

  • Last visited

About troubled sleep

  • Birthday 09/06/1988

Previous Fields

  • Characters
    Sam, Jolinar
  • Gender
    Male
  • Feedback Level
    Help me to be better.
  • Usual Preferred Feedback (Stories)
    Minor feedback

Contact Methods

  • AIM
    lizzamem
  • MSN
    ostrich_in_china@yahoo.com
  • Website URL
    http://
  • ICQ
    0
  • Yahoo
    ostrich_in_china

Profile Information

  • Location
    north florida, but georgia in my heart.
  • Interests
    Cello, reading, trying to remember how to write, taking pictures of everything I see.

Recent Profile Visitors

1,902 profile views

troubled sleep's Achievements

0

Reputation

  1. (I feel a bit silly posting this, and I'm sorry it's so long) Speaking as someone who has been around for a long while but descended into kind of a lurker, I'd like it very much if there were more big open things that anyone could join. Some of my fondest memories around, the ones that bring me back even years later, here have been things like the Fall Ball or, more slightly recently and more epically, Kiku and Dego's quill quest rp. I feel like...these allowed people to not just get more involved, but to form connections and relationships with other Pennites here on the site. Sometimes, It's difficult to know where to jump in, who to talk to, where to go or if you're even allowed to go there. It's difficult to see if there's really a place for you. And also--while I read most of the stories and poems that get posted here, I rarely comment since I usually have had no interaction with the person who posted. Especially if I'd like to offer some kind of suggestion or constructive criticism. OK, I realize that I do lurk a lot, so part of this is my fault. But honestly...I'd be more involved if I could find a way to do it. And while I know that this sounds a bit silly, I'm certain that I can't be the only one out there who could've left a comment, but didn't—or who could have clicked open a thread or story, but didn't—mostly because they have no attachment whatsoever to the poster. So yes, I think that the facebook group is a lovely idea as well as integrating youtube videos. Falling into the category of “more theatrical Pennites” I'm a little bit in love with the idea of having people read out their work and post the videos on youtube. However, I think it's also important to see some new text-based interaction/community building here on the Pen, either at the same time as the new social networking stuff, or soon. I know that thinking up interesting whole-community rp plots isn't exactly easy, we've got a lot of awesome, creative people here. I'm positive that if some of us got together and brainstormed, as in this thread, we could come up with great things. I also know that when it's just the people who are really active, it's difficult to get big ideas off the ground. However, I am convinced that if the program is well thought out, well advertised and leaves space for creativity, people will come out. Also, is there any way to mass-email or mass-PM all members? I still keep up with a few of people who used to be active years ago--I mean, I know that they're still alive and kicking about the internet, and I'm sure that they'd come back if someone reminded them. Even if it was just to log back in for a day—if we've got new and exciting things things up and running and being awesome, they'll see them and maybe stay. Wyvern, I've got a question for you—is the almost report a thing of the past? I know that there is some kind of news system in place somewhere...but the area labeled "news" is suspiciously empty. Maybe that could be revamped in some way? I think that the most important thing that can be done to stimulate activity is to show that there is a place without our community for everyone--both newcomers and those who've taken to lurking.
  2. “Liquid or chunky?” Erin is our resident vomit expert. She had three cases of throw-up in her bathroom in the first week and a half alone. The night of the first football game had been a veritable flood of vomit in the 8th floor, high side bathroom. I, however, have been lucky. And despite a predilection for leaving their hair everywhere and clogging the drains, my girls have been decent about keeping the bathroom clean...ish. So when I was greeted tonight by an angry message on my dry erase board proclaiming, “Vomit!! Vomit! There is vomit in the shower. OMG,” I knew it was time to bring in the big guns. So I called Erin. “Liquid or chunky?” she repeats. She's standing her PJ's completely neutral, completely unfazed by the fact that I'm freaking out on her doorstep. “Umm, sort of both? It's like...I don't know if it's quite umm..it's still kind of...you know...” I make vague motions in the air with my hands. “Solid?” Erin offers mildly. “Yeah! It's still kind of solid. I don't know if it's quite digested enough to be vomit, or if someone just tossed some food in the shower to screw with me.” Erin nods. Sighs. Smiles. Slips into the matching pair of pink slippers placed next to the door and steps out into the hallway. “Well, lets go take a look.” We trot down her hall and around the bend, past the elevators and onto my side of the 8th floor. It's called 8 low, partially because it's on the lower side of the hill, but mostly because it has rooms 801-817, whilst Erin has 818-832. It took me almost a full semester to figure that out. We're an interesting floormate pair, Erin and I, as we're both very different. Even right now--she's dressed in a coordinated clouds-and-cows PJ ensemble with those cute slippers, and I'm rocking mismatched socks, old sweatpants and last year's RA t-shirt, a shapeless grey thing with, "Being a leader, being an RA" emblazoned on the back. Erin is the mother of our staff. Despite being as many as three years younger than some of us, she manages to keep all 18 of us in line with her quiet, organized way. I've never seen her flummoxed or upset. Her favorite phrase is “Oh, Goodness!” and she can adapt it to fit any situation. She says just this as we walk into my bathroom. “Oh, Goodness!” She draws back the middle curtain and looks down at the puddle of guck and hair and food blocking the drain. “Yep, that's vomit alright.” We sit there and silently stare at it for a moment. “Damn dining hall pasta salad, gets 'em every time.” I say after a moment, trying to lighten the mood by being silly, because that's what I do when I'm freaking out. “Something with tomatoes, definitely,” Erin replies, nodding down at the squishy red food blobs. We both step away from the shower stall at the same time and let the curtain swing closed by unspoken mutual agreement. “So, uh...what's the best way to go about cleaning this?” “Well,” Erin says, calmly as though she were telling me about the weather, “You need cleaning supplies, that means going to Smith--” “But I'm on call, I can't leave the building...” “It's ok, I'll get them for you. Let me go get my shoes. You call Smith and tell them I'm coming.” She turns and walks calmly out of the bathroom and back to her own room. I leave at a run, taking the 8 flights of stairs three at a time to get down to the front desk and its list of telephone numbers. Smith Hall is, for all intents and purposes, our sister hall. And not just any little sister, but the weird, freaky one who is always trying to one-up you, even though you're clearly way cooler. Salley hall is nearby, too, the voice of reason in our inter-hall squabbles, and between the three of us, we make up the Westside High-rises. Or, as I call them, the Westside Sisters. As it's after hours, their front desk phone is answered by a nightstaffer. For those unacquainted with these strange, but mostly gentle beasts, nightstaffers work the front desks from 11pm until 7am, bolding holding the line against floods, drunken students, power outages, and weirdos wandering in whilst the rest of us slumber away. They're usually nice once you get to know them, but can be a little abrasive to us day-time dwellers – at least at first. It's all about knowing how to handle them. “Smith Hall, what is it?” A tired, male voice asks when I dial Smith's number. “Hello, Smith Hall! This is Mae, RA on call in Kellum and I'm sending you a visitor!” He perks up immediately--Nightstaffers love it when you send them people to talk to. My friend Michael used to work Nightstaff and I used to sit up with him a lot—it gets awfully lonely sitting by yourself at the front desk, watching the hours tick by. Believe it or not, there's only so many times you can watch that one youtube video with the dancing cat before your brain starts to melt. “What's up next door?” the nightstaffer asks, excited for news, gossip, or anything to lend excitement to his night. “Some loser threw up in my shower, so I'm sending my floormate over to borrow your cleaning supplies. So be on the lookout for some Kellumites headed your way in the next few, ok?” “Alright, I'll keep a weather eye out. Thanks, Kellum.” “Anytime, have a good night, Smith Hall!” Ever efficient, Erin is there and back again in a just a few minutes. She comes bearing clorox clean-up, 409 lysol wipes, and a plethora of gloves. “Last time, I made my girls help me clean,” she says by way of explaining the twenty-odd plastic gloves she's now pressing into my hands. “I don't know...it's kind of late.” Erin looks at me with her unblinking, un-judging eyes. And nods. “Well, it's about midnight.” “I can handle it myself, I think.” Erin just nods again. “Okay. If you want help, let me know.” After a further thanks and few more pleasantries, Erin departs for her own domain, leaving me quite alone in my big, empty hallway clutching at the clorox. Stealing myself, I walk back down to the bathroom, boldly throw open the curtain and...stop. I stare down at the mass of vomit. I could very easily clean this up, leave an admonishing note on my girls' doors and leave it at that. But, a small voice at the back of my head protests: it's not *your* mess—you're their RA, not their mommy and certainly not their maid. I glance back at the door. Then down at the clock on my phone. 12:18am. Setting the clorox and the gloves back down on the floor, I take a few deep breaths, square my shoulders, and walk-with-a-purpose out the door and down the hall. Curling my hand into a fist, I knock loudly against the first door. No answer. I knock again. “What?” A voice calls from the depths of the room. “Hi, it's Mae—you're RA, can you open the door please?” The door is opened by an amazon, and I stifle a gulp. Most of my residents are at least 5 foot 7, with tall, bronzed bodies and very long, beautiful hair. Me? I claim 5'4”, but I'm really more of a 5'3” and kind of...soft. And very pale. And frizzy. “What?” the amazon—her name is Ruby, by the by—asks, an eyebrow raised at my sudden appearance at her door. Holding my hands in front of me so she can't see them shaking, I take in a long breath and begin to speak very quickly: “Throw on a t-shirt or something, we're having a bathroom cleaning adventure!--someone threw up in the middle stall and no one's going to come clean until monday, so it's on us! And I for one don't want to shower in vomit! I've got cleaning supplies, I've got gloves, so I need you to get out here, sweetheart, and help me get people out of their rooms. The more we've got, the quicker it'll be. Come on, bathroom cleaning adventure!!!!” Without saying anything else, I move on to the next door before she can properly protest, repeat my speech, then move to the next door and the next, pulling people out of bed and away from computer screens. Soon I've got a veritable army of pajama-ed freshmen girls, all of whom are ridiculously pissed. Marshaling my troupes, I send half of them down to the other side of the hallway to get the rest up and bring the other half into the bathroom with me. “OK! I brought gloves, here's some for you, and you and you,” I say, handing out the flimsy plastic gloves to my unwilling residents. “Here are some cleaning supplies, you take these, Bree and you take these, Zoe, now, umm—go!” The rest of the stragglers had shuffled in by this time, and all of them just stood there, clutching their gloves and staring at me. I'm hit with a sudden wave of Panic—what if they said no? I half expect them to be like, “no! Forget this, I do what I want, fool! I'm going back to sleep!” What if they didn't listen to me? What if— It was then that my girls shrugged into action. Much to my surprise, people began to venture into the showers whilst others stayed out on the main floor, handing in lysol wipes or spraying 409 in before them. “This is nothing!” shouts one of my residents—Rupa Chadha, a Kellum hall returner whose name I only remembered for the roster test because of its similarity to “Chupacabra”—as she went once more into the breach, “You should have seen it last year! Puke everywhere!! Puke on the walls! On the toilets! On the windows! On the--” “I just can't believe someone would do this...I mean, seriously? Why wouldn't you just, like, throw up in the toilet??” Bree -- a Louisianan who claims to be first cousin to Brittney Spears -- says, wrinkling her nose as she hands another Lysol wipe to her counterpart wiping down the shower. “I think I'm going to be sick!” Savannah, a tall blonde, says covering her mouth and turning away. “Or they could at least aim for the trash can,” spritely Zoe calls back to Bree from her place inside the shower. “Puke on the ceiling! Puke on the door! On the--” Rupa continues to shout to no one in particular. “I am going to find whoever did this and I am going to mess her up!” Cami says, standing in her shower stall, gloved hands on hips. “Yeah!” the rest of the girls chorus. It was then that I realized that their anger wasn't at me for waking them up, but rather for this unnamed person who ruined their bathroom. I take heart in that—but also advised them that violence is not the answer. In fifteen minutes, the bathroom was, well, if not sparkling clean, at least as clean as a community style bathroom gets in a freshman dorm. I scurry up on the lip between the shower and the floor, a six inch boost putting me about at eye level with most of my residents. “Thanks everybody for taking part in our bathroom cleaning adventure,” I say, much slower this time, “as nice as it's been to see everybody, I hope we never have to meet like this again,” this is greeted by a number of nods and a few cheers. After a few further parting words about how they should not let their hair clog the drain--this was part of the problem, too--and should not throw up in strange places, I let them go back to their lives. Some residents stayed behind to chat for a few minutes, but in the end, it's just me, standing alone in the bathroom. I look down at the shower, now clean, and smile. I'm not much of a “tough guy,” I never have been. I'm terrified of hurting peoples' feelings and have trouble asking people for things. It's one of the things that always scared me most about becoming an RA. I was hired midway through the year, and managed to skate by with minimal conflict with my residents, but this year is already shaping up to be a very trying one. But nonetheless...in this moment, I feel pretty cool that I actually was assertive, that I got people to do something. I'm not a very good tough guy, but I'm working on it.
  3. Fear is my constant houseguest--an aquaintance from the old days who has overstayed his welcome. I try to usher him out, drop hints about moving on, but still he sits at my table, smiling as he stirs his tea; Confidence is just outside the door, waiting and beckoning for me to leave my dark, grey house and try some sunshine on for size. But I can´t. I can´t just leave my houseguest. That would be rude. (Yeah, I´m stuck in an internet cafe in Munich waiting for my train and thus can´t be held responsible for any posts in the next few hours)
  4. ((A year ago, I went to starbucks after trig class and had a series of bizarre things happen to me. I then trotted home with every intention of writing it up, but then it got a bit long and I had homework to do, so I stopped midway and filed the whole thing away in a word document. Which I found. Today. So I finished it.)) )-( Digging for my sunglasses is always a production. I have a very large bag. Bottomless pit is the most apt description. I've never been a huge designer handbag fan just because there isn't enough room in them for anything. Sunglasses are small, and somehow they always manage to sink to the bottom, coming to rest on a ledge just before the purse drops off into nothingness. So I'm standing outside of my trig class in the open air hallway of our Huge Classroom Building(aren't we creative here at florida state??), sifting through the contents of my purse and finding everything but my sunglasses. This includes, but is not limited to, a bottle of water, a luna bar, three notebooks, a calculator, my wallet, both sets of keys, and a letter from the Florida Legislature informing me that since my purse has grown so large, I'm going to have to start paying property taxes on it. However, after standing around like an idiot buried up to my arm in purse, I finally feel my fingers clasp around my little black plastic sunglasses. It was around this same time that the sky--previously filled with an overabundance of sunshine and blue skies--decided that it was cold and gathered some nice fluffy rain clouds around for warmth. Rain clouds, as you may know, are ridiculously social beings who insist on hugging and chatting upon meeting, but who can deal out some serious lightening if need be. Sometimes I think maybe rain clouds are from Georgia. And so, just as I'm pulling my sunglasses out of my purse, the rain clouds' first "omg!it's so good to see you again!" of thunder boomed across the sky, rendering my sunglasses obsolete. Sighing, I let them careen back down into the bottomless pit and brace myself for raindrops. And so we learn that down here in Florida, the weather can change at the drop of a pair of sunglasses. However, this is not my story; not really. Because not two seconds later I found myself--quite outside my own power--being drawn into starbucks. This was partially because I needed to position all electronic items (and I carry a lot) into more secure, waterproof sections of my bottomless pit, and partially because I haven't slept for more than an hour or two in several days. But mostly it was because someone had just walked by me with a starbucks cup and I am an American and therefore am ridiculously susceptible to suggestions to buy things. So I run across the red-brick-road (I think it has some official name, like the Multicutural-Alum-Who-Donated-A-Lot-Of-Money-Memorial-Pathway-Of-Awesomeness or something, but I like red-brick-road better) to starbucks just as the rain is really starting to pick up. Amazingly, there is no line. There is never a line at this starbucks. I am convinced that this is a magical starbucks, but that's another story. So I get in and stare at the menu. Really, I'm not in the mood for anything fancy. All I want is coffee. That's it. It occurs to me at this moment that I've never actually just ordered coffee at a starbucks before. Ever since that fateful day when I first stepped into a starbucks with my then-BFF Lisa Shean at the tender age of 14, I've always ordered some exotic weird blended…thingie. Today, however, I am in no mood for frills. Today, I just want some coffee. And I have no idea how to ask for it. And so I panic. Because that's kind of how I roll. I stand there in the doorway, mind blank, not sure what to do. It seems like there's a big, blinking neon sign that says, "coffee ordering novice! Point and laugh!" hanging above me. I'm not sure why this would bother me, or why it would be a big deal…but when you're in starbucks--especially a magical starbucks like this one--priorities change. You find yourself spending large quantities of money on exotic blended teas and cute little mugs with the starbucks logo on them. You buy big machines shiny with stainless steel that, while you're not sure what they do, certainly look magnificent on your kitchen counter and make a great deal of rather splendid noises. Until the thing explodes because you've let the pressure build up too much and you're left with a five-foot hole in your ceiling. The world outside and whether anything you're doing makes sense really have no bearing in starbucks. Like Vegas, what happens in Starbucks, stays in Starbucks. If starbucks had a slot machine and an Elvis marriage chapel, Vegas would be out of business faster than a shot of espresso enters the bloodstream. But eventually I pull myself together. Casually, I walk up to the counter, studying the menu. I figure that if I can just give myself enough time walking up to the counter, I can figure out what to say. However, it doesn't take that long to transverse the six feet to the counter, no matter how slowly you walk, and in mere seconds I'm standing next to the register, still looking blankly at the menu. "What can I get for you. Ma'am? Ma'am?" I transfer my blank stare from the menu above to the girl's face below and mumble something like, "um….yeah…" Starbucks-girl favors me with an expression that says, "look, sweetie, I've been here since 6, I haven't had a break, I haven't eaten since 5, please just order something so that you can get on with your life and I can get on with mine otherwise I might just have to kill you." "I want some coffee," I finally manage. "Coffee?" she replies, incredulous. "Yes. Coffee." I say, more firmly this time. She sighs in the back of her throat, a slightly strangled noise. "What size?" "Umm…" I glance at the coffee sizes next to me, "Venti." I usually never get anything above a tall, however, I've got a gift card, I might as well go all out. "What kind of coffee?" "Um…" "Mild? Bold? Decaf? Regular? Semi-Caf? Arabian bold? African semi-bold, partly-mild? Lithuanian surprise?" She continued listing coffee varieties, but I felt myself glazing. My brows climb up into frightened little V's as I try to follow all the types of coffee and I'm certain that I resemble a dear in the headlights. "Umm…pick one?" I said after a moment, no longer sure of what was going on. "Yes," starbucks-girl says, taking a deep breath and steadying her hand on the counter, "pick one. Which do you want?" "Whichever, I don't care. Ummm…bold?" "Pike Place Bold or Arabian Bold?" "Uhhh…The first one." "Hot or iced?" "Hot…?" "Room for cream?" I'm starting to feel vaguely like I'm being interrogated, but manage to choke out an emphatic "yes!" Quite inexplicably, the girl ordering coffee next to me says brightly, "Good choice!" I look over at her, unsure if she's talking to me or not. See, at FSU, strangers don't really talk to each other. Friends don't even really talk to each other. It's just one of our traditions and we're proud of it. So I was really quite surprised when this girl in a flouncy, blue paisley shirt spoke to me. "I cream and sugar the daylights out of my coffee," I mumble in her general direction--what else could I say? How does one respond to someone actually talking to them?? "Oh, me too, me too." Paisley shirt says, before wandering away to the condiment bar to do just that. Meanwhile, starbucks-girl has shoved a large cup of coffee for which I meekly thanked her. Now it's her turn to look confused--I doubt anyone had said that all day. People don't really say thank you at FSU, either. It's another time honored tradition. I keep forgetting--I guess I'll never be a true 'nole. So mulling on my failures as a Florida State Seminole, I'm over cream and sugaring the crap out of my coffee. This takes a really long time, especially when one has randomly selected the "bold venti" coffee and in that time someone else comes up from behind to stand with me and blue paisley-girl. You know how some people seem to carry a cloud of angry around with them? This chick stomps over with an entire hurricane's worth. The first thing she does is tip some of her coffee into the trash can. "I can't believe this," she says, flipping off the top off her coffee and glaring at it. "What the...? You call that room for cream?" She tips more of it into the trash. Paisley girl clucks disapprovingly at Angry Chick. "Well," Paisley says, "They forgot to put the vanilla flavoring in mine, but you don’t see me complaining, do you? Gosh, cut them some slack." With this she flounces off in a cloud of paisley ruffles, leaving me stranded with Angry Chick. "B****." Angry chick growls, reaching for the other bottle of half-and-half. I make some kind of, "Ach! Omg!" noise in response to her cursing at a complete stranger, to which Angry Chick replies: "Well, she's lucky I didn't say it to her face. I don't get it, why do people always have to get in everyone else's business? I hate it. This is why I never go out in public." I briefly toy with the idea of mentioning that it was Angry Chick who had put herself out there by talking in the first place, but eventually decide against it. I don't want to die today. Instead, I shrug, reach for a packet of sugar and say, "Well, I just don't ask questions." "Yeah, I guess. But, like, I've got, like, three exams tomorrow and I'm not prepared at all and I've been studying all week and I totally don't have time for some nobody to be all up in my face, judging me." Again, what does one say to this? We don't talk to each other at FSU, and now suddenly not one, but two people keep talking to me! "I have three exams tomorrow, too." I say, for lack of any better reply. "Yeah? Sucks doesn't it?" "Mmmhmm," I nod emphatically, "definitely." Angry then chick takes a long, long drag of her coffee, closes her eyes and--much to my astonishment--smiles. Her cloud of angry suddenly evaporates and her entire countenance seems to change--it's kind of like that scene at the end of Disney's beauty and the beast when the beast gets transformed back into a not-quite-ugly Frenchman: light shining out all over everything. But the smile remains, and when she opens her eyes again, they're shining, too. I, meanwhile, am stopped midway through dumping a pack of sugar into my coffee, mouth hanging wide open at the transformation. "Well," she says, popping the lid back onto her cup, "it was nice meeting you, have a super awesome day and good luck on your exams!!" I nod mutely and she skips--skips!--away. And that, mes p'tites, is my real story: how coffee, against all odds, can sooth the savage college student. (I told you it was a magic starbucks.)
  5. I said it in the real world, and I'll say it again on the internet: I love this story. Rumpelstiltskin was one of my favorites as a child and your retelling has only made me like it more. More specifically, I like the way you string your sentences together. I like how you the story moving without, hitting familiar plot points without falling into the trap of being either cliched or repetitive.
  6. Kailea let out a long, colorful string of curses. She had been standing on a balcony, looking outside trying to figure out what heck was going on down there when suddenly and for no reason said balcony had been blown to bits, Kail herself only just avoiding being taken out with it. She spat a few more colorful words, struggled to her feet, then continued with: "Meteors, Meteors!" then sped down the hall back to her room. She continued to chatter to herself, as she always did when she was nervous. Vocalizing her thoughts made her feel better. "Knives, knives, where'd I put the knives?" she rifled through a drawer, chucking shirts and socks aside and pulled out a long, thin box. "Ha-ha-ha!" she slipped them into place, continuing to monologue: "Here I think to myself--I've finally found somewhere nice, somewhere peaceful where I can retire and most importantly where there aren't going to be people tryin' to kill me every three seconds and what happens? Trouble always finds a way." she made a sour face, "I even brushed my hair today---thought I'd look nice. Well, silly silly me!" She twisted her hair up in a single defiant motion, took a deep breath and tapped her toes as she surveyed the room. "Should I bring the katana? Never much liked the thing, but I supposed you've got to do what you've got to do…" she dug it up out of yet another box--this one tucked under the bed. Another blast shook the room, sending Kail tumbling backwards into the opened dresser drawers and the box skittering across the floor. She uttered a few more choice words before grabbing the weapon and skipping towards the door and down to the outside. "One of these days...I swear one of these days I'm going to find myself somewhere nice to settle down. Just you watch. Until then..." she sped off into fray without a backward glance.
  7. happy belated birthday, mes cheres!! Hope you two had a great day
  8. Thank you so much, Ozy, this really made my day :)
  9. Dark Knight sounds so awesome!! I really want to go, but I don't want to go by myself and it's really not many of my friends around here's style... Mamma Mia, however, *is* more their style, so I went to go see it with some people tonight. I'll level with you--I am not an Abba fan. I was sort of an A*teens fan, but that's just because I watched TRL. And I was 10. And I liked a lot of weird music when I was 10. However, thanks to the A*teens, I know every word to every song and was able to do some hard-core singing during the movie. I made friends with the people next to us and the people in front of us and we all started clapping and singing and dancing in our seats and just generally having a fun time during all the major numbers. We all got really into some of the songs--I pretty much sang myself hoarse and it didn't matter that I couldn't carry a tune if I tried, because no one else could, either. Incidentally, many of the songs were shortened and the instruments changed to give it a more mainstream pop music feel which I liked, but could be a turn-off if you're a big Abba person. Also, Meryl Streep is pretty much amazing--I don't want to say she carried the movie, but without her it wouldn't have been the same. She is just an amazing actress, even in something as fluffy as Mamma Mia. I had some trouble wrapping my head around Pierce Brosnan singing and I'm choosing to pretend that Harry Bright was played by a guy who looked like, but wasn't really Colin Firth. It's just easier that way. My one real complaint was that there were about 50 million characters and very few of them *did* anything--Sophie's friends, for example. They made a big deal about them coming to the island...and then they basically disappeared until the big dance numbers where they'd show up(along with all the island's pretty girls and ridiculously buff guys--Sophie isn't friends with normal sized people, apparently), sing backup and then go back to hiding. Also, the scenery was breathtaking...it's supposed to be an island near Greece, though I'm not sure where it was actually filmed. Wherever it is, though, I'm going to have to go there one day. I'm not saying that it's a movie you should run out and see immediately...I think it's one of those you have to be in the right mood for, but I had a lot of fun. Being familiar with the music and being with lots of people helps. It doesn't take itself too seriously and is proud of being silly and hokey. It's a good, happy, fluffy, feel-good movie that made me smile
  10. Jolinar followed the crowds out if the room and towards the battle. Pausing in the hall, she opened the window, leaned out and reached out with her thoughts. Mind open as it was, she could hear the thoughts of those around her--the confusion was melting away, fear remained but also a sort of steadfast resoluteness that made Joliee's heart swell. This was their home, and they were going to protect it, no matter what. She could feel, rather than see, the necromancer in the distance, but the tendrils leading from him to his abominations were perfectly clear in her head. They were dark, and glowed with a sort of anti-light in her mind's eye. They were strong cables, but they were thin and her mind was quick. She was bending the cord, blocking out the necromancer's pull on the creature, she was so close-- And then the necromancer's mental jab hit her, throwing off her concentration, sending her sideways and causing her to crack her head on the windowsill and slide slowly to the floor, unconscious. She wasn't sure if it was minutes or hours before she started to feel anything at all. But it took her mere seconds to see that she was not in the waking world. She had never been stuck in a dream before, never been unconscious against her will. None of her training had prepared her for this. She tried all her usual tricks to wake herself up. Nothing. She fretted in the dream. What if she never woke up? What if she stayed here, alone forever? Where was here? She looked around and found that she was sitting in the same place where, presumably, her physical body lay unattended-- on the floor in a hallway, just below the window. It was deathly quiet, and the whole scene glowed with the unnatural light of a true-dream rather than the altered colors of her earlier future-dreams. "You know, if you'd never left Halen, none of this would have happened." Jolinar jumped, startled first by the voice and then by the sudden and inexplicable appearance of a man beside her. She turned to look in shock at the man next to her. He was as she had last seen him nearly six months ago--still needing a haircut, needing sleep, and still dressed in the same iron grey Halenite uniform with the moon sigil and a five-sided star on the left sleeve. The moon marked him as a Dreamer's Companion, the star as specifically the protector of Jolinar d'Etoile. "Matthew--" she whispered, but he continued on without acknowledging her. She noticed with a sinking heart that his image flickered from time to time, as though it were being created by someone far away who wasn't fully concentrating on maintaining the link. "What do you think you're going to accomplish here, hmm? What do you think you can do? You're no good with a weapon, your visions are being controlled…besides pray, what can you do?" She drew her knees up close, well, was this real or wasn't it? She looked again at her friend--it was a good reproduction. There was one way to tell: "Well…" she didn't quite know how to phrase her thoughts, "I never told you before, but I can be a telepath…I could--" "Joliee…you know better than anyone that some futures just can't be changed. They are going to die--all of them. This place will burn. The necromancer has to win. It's already been written. You had your chance to change the future, and you failed. All you can do now is run--come back to Halen. Stay out of this realm, there's nothing here for you." Jolinar looked at him closely, but didn't say anything, eyes wide. "Look," he continued, "you had this image in your head of how noble it would be to lay down your life, save your sister, run off into the sunset. Well, I hate to be the one to say it, but she's ditched you, left you alone in a foreign country in a Keep full of strangers. You were poised to become the greatest Dreamer in generations, and you traded it for you telepath sister and her hopeless Rebellion. You're a silly little girl, Joliee, it's time for you to face your mistakes, give up and move on. You don't owe anyone here anything." Jolinar just sat there for a moment, not saying a word. Her large eyes filled with tears and she didn't bother to wipe them away. Matthew--or whatever was pretending to be Matthew--continued to speak, talking in detail about the evils of her choice to stay here, of the inevitability of the necromancer's victory. She knew he wasn't real. He hadn't even blinked when she told him she was a telepath. Matt was one of the biggest telepath haters she knew, but the necromancer wouldn't know that if he just picked someone at random out of her head to hound her. "And I wanted so much for you to be real…" she whispered. And she did, with all her heart. Matthew had always been her comfort, her best friend. Once again, her greatest gift used against her. "What was that?" the thing that looked like Matthew asked. "I never told you why I left or who my sister was. I never told you anything about that…I said," she straightened, pulled herself to her feet and looked down at him, "that even an untrained telepath like me can recognize a mental projection. You're just another trick, 'Matthew'…well know this, necromancer, it will take more than memories to break me, now once and for all, get OUT!" she closed her eyes within the dream and concentrated on building up and thickening her mental blocks, pushing out everything that wasn't hers. She drove it all out--remnants of the necromancer's power, her doubt, her fears, all of it was pushed out into the flotsam and jetsam that make up the spaces between thoughts. When she opened her eyes again, she was alone in the hall. Taking a deep breath, she tried once again to wake herself up-- Struggling to open her eyes, Jolinar tried to make sense of the sounds that suddenly bombarded her. She pulled herself up to the window and took in the scene. It had started to rain during her sleep. It seemed she'd been out for hours. She could feel fatigue pulling at everyone, sapping energy, but not resolve. Jolinar's messy hair wasn't so out of place now--everyone had a sort of tousled look about them now. Wounded were still few, fatalities none--thank God!--but the fight was not going well. The zombies, monsters, eyes-without-faces, whatever they were, they were not slowing down. Not for one single instant. The Keep's own magic and the light pouring out from every window and every chink down into the massive hoard did keep some of the worse forms of shades at bay, but the zombies still kept coming. She watched for a moment, as a mass of what looked like kittens started attacking the head of a zombie with a vengeance. Then her attention was grabbed by a pack of animal-shifters, also tearing away at the oncoming hoard. She sunk back down beside the window. She was so tired. And sore. And bruised. She closed her eyes and leaned up against the wall, gathering her strength and her wits. Everyone else was doing their part. Now it was time for her to do her's. Standing up again, she leaned out the window, this time making sure she held the windowsill in a grip that even the toughest mental distraction couldn't break. The last thing she needed was a repeat of earlier. At random, she picked a monster out of the crowd. Using her thoughts as fingers, she curled them around the line connecting it to its master. Warily, she closed her eyes, plunging into the world of thoughts. Immediately, she jumped right back out. She had felt the necromancer immediately. What if he waited for her again, outside her mental blocks? If he managed to get inside her head again? What if he burned through her mind, leaving her dribbling on the floor or--worse still--trapped her in that weird, pseudo-dream state forever? She opened her eyes, blinked a couple of times. Stretched out in front of her was the impossible hoard of the necromancer; above and below her were her fellow Pennites, fighting with all their might through sword and magic; all around her was their love, their solidarity. Closing her eyes again, she gathered as many of the little cords connecting puppet to master as she could manage and then grabbed for more. Sweat beaded out on her forehead, she gripped the window ledge for support, and, with a greater force of will than she thought herself capable of, pulled at them until they snapped, ricocheting back to the necromancer. The impact sent her stumbling back into the hallway and she nearly ended up on the floor again. She wasn't sure what would happen, whether the zombies would stop, or just become even more violent…but losing all those minions could at least slow the necromancer down a bit, break his concentration. If nothing else, Jolinar noted with a weak smile, all that mental energy coming snapping back at him would break the concentration of even the strongest telepath.
  11. I've just spent the past few weeks reading the brothers karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was pretty intense. I really really liked it, though! Also, at the insistance of my 13-year-old cousin--who claims that after the next book, Edward's totally leaving Bella to marry her--I read all three of the Twilight books. They were actually terribly entertaining and surprisingly well written, for the most part. I didn't expect much of them--vamp romance isn't really my thing-- but I was pleasantly surprised.
  12. I *have* missed these, actually. I don't know if I've ever actually replied before, but they always get me thinking. 1. What are the things that you feel you MUST have in your life to be comfortable on a day to day basis. This is going to sound really terrible, but my cell phone. A lot of my close friends live in different parts of the country, so my phone is often my best connection to them. Even though they're not physically there with me, I know that all I have to do is dig around for my cheap red Samsung, punch some buttons, and I'll be able to hear their voice--even if it's just asking me to leave a message. I also like to have a car with at least some gas in it and a debit card linked to a bank account with at least some money in it. I have to have something on my left wrist. I have a purple rubber bracelet (think live strong) that I wear nearly every day. It's kind of hard to explain, but it's the bracelet someone had made for all of us after my friend Ashleigh died a few years ago--it has her name and the year she died on it. It sounds cheesy, but I wear it for a lot of reasons, to remember her and to remind myself just how precious life is. But even though it's rubber, it's kind of heavy and I'm used to the weight of it on my arm. If I forget to put it on, I feel weird all day, like I'm missing something. 2. If you are uncomfortable, but not from pain or loss, but more because you're outside your bubble or element, what do you do to overcome this and find comfort? This is a discomfort that would most likely be situational. (awkward, shy, overwhelmed, etc.) I'm kind of an example of a bad coping device, too. When I'm uncomfortable, I just pretend really really hard that I'm ok. It's weird, like slipping into a different personality. I try and distract people from my uneasiness by exaggerating myself--being louder, sillier, bouncier, more talkative even than usual. I throw up this huge persona of this silly, flippant persons so that people can't see the actual me standing behind it all who is angry, or uncomfortable, or not sure what to say. 3. How do you handle true, deep, devastating pain or loss? Soul Shattering pain. How do you find Solace? I flip open my phone and I call a friend. Well, not just *a* friend, but one of my 5 favorite people in the world. I depend on my friends for a lot--I learned a while ago that I can't really depend on my family. They fall to pieces more than I do. To them, I have to be the strong, together one who is clear headed no matter what. And so I have my other-family, those five people. I can't imagine life without them. They are all very different people, but no matter what I need--be it a plan to leave the country and start a new life in Canada, an objective opinion and a plan for getting over it, or the best hug in the world--at least one of them can help me. If at all possible, I'll also go and visit one of those friends. Most of them live very far away from me, so this involves a long, spur-of-the-moment car trip. But then, the car trips help me feel better, too. Before I had a car, I had a golf cart...I remember the day my mom told me that my dad was moving out I just walked away, grabbed my phone and hopped in the golf cart. I can't run away from myself while I'm in the car, I *have* to deal with whatever's going on. And also, driving across middle-of-nowhere, So'Georgia or south Florida, the sky seems to go on forever and the clouds are just *beautiful*. I'm of the opinion that God made the sky so that everyone who has had a bad, terrible day can be able to look up and see something beautiful. And surely, with something that amazing hanging over you, with such beauty in the world, things can't be all that bad, right?
  13. As preparations began for the rescue party, Jolinar forced herself to stay silent. Part of her wanted to go with the rescue group--go find Degorram, defeat the necromancer, vanquish evil, the whole bit. However, Dreamers are taught, above all things, to be practical. It is not their place to desire glory or power. One of her old teachers used to joke that it was up to Dreamers to anticipate the stupid choices to be made by the glorious and powerful, to stop them where they could, and see to cleaning up after them when they couldn't. Being unable to help in that manner, Jo did what any sensible Dreamer would do in the situation: she found a comfortable chair and went to sleep. This time prophecy wasn't just handed to her--she had to actually look for it. She was a little disappointed. The vision earlier had been so clear, so insistent. She had been hoping her luck would hold. Flashes of the future or past or present were not uncommon, but hardly ever all three at once as clearly as she had experienced earlier. Jolinar had tried many times to explain the dream world to non-Dreamers. She had never been able to find the words, it was too abstract. Suffice it to say that searching for prophecy was a tedious business--you had to pick away at the layers, sort through the possible futures until you found flashes of your own timeline. It was like a sort of dance, with fine precision that came from a lifetime of training. She saw the Keep being attacked, being overrun, being defended…Delicate steps in a minuet that-- And then all of a sudden her vision was wrenched from her control. It was as though someone had grabbed her mind and was twisting it, squeezing it. She screamed inside the dream. Back in her chair, her physical body suddenly spasmed, the dream-scream reflected as a high pitched whimper. "No--Who--What--what is--No!" she felt as she had that morning, only instead of visions being poured into her, she felt them being sucked out. Faster and faster and faster--she couldn't stop it, she could barely resist it. And it hurt. Like having a deep telepathic scan by someone who didn't care if they fried the mind or not. She screamed again, so loud this time that it carried through to her physical body, which was now shaking uncontrollably in its chair And then she saw him. The Necromancer. The one who had brought pain to the lives of the people who had been so kind to her. It was him, pulling from her mind. He had poured those visions in earlier. It all fit together. She saw his mind: she had been used--a back up plan to drive Kikuyu out of the Keep with visions of Degorram should her friends force her to stay in safety. Jolinar gasped as the power let her mind go, dropping it without care. Physically, her body slid to the floor, crumpled and sad like a rag doll. She struggled, in the dream, to find Degorram, to find the necromancer using Kikuyu's strong feelings from earlier as a guide. She felt so weak, and all she saw at first were the thousands of shadows and glittering eyes surrounding the Keep, but at last she found them both--in a box, in a clearing, surrounded by a thin guard of soldiers. The scene had the fuzzy-outlined look of the near-Future, but the true-colors of the Present. It occurred to Jolinar that her vision could be lagging behind the Present by mere seconds. Then a slow smile spread across his face and he looked down at Degorram. "How precious," he said softly. "It seems they've sent a rescue party." Jolinar cursed herself. That was information he'd stolen from her. But a door, once opened, may be stepped through in either direction. Perhaps, if she was merely a Dreamer, she would be unable to step through…but as much as she hated it, she was also a telepath. And telepaths don't need doors. She tried to wedge her thoughts into his mind, make him feel doubt, make him feel all of the love and loyalty and devotion that was chasing after Degorram even now. She tried to be strong, she tried to be fierce. But all she did was make it worse. This is no longer a game, he thought, narrowing his eyes at the shadow of the forest. It is time to stop playing with my food and simply kill it. He again glanced down at Degorram. and Jolinar saw his stare reflected in the shifter's eyes--something had changed. Back in the Pen keep, people had crowded around her, trying to shake her awake. Jolinar felt herself being pulled from sleep. He's going to kill her now…I've angered him even more and he's going to kill Degorram and it's all my fault… "Where is Kikuyu!!" Jolinar's eyes flicked open and she struggled to her feet, then fell, eyes widening with terror. "Is she still here?!" she tried again in vain to stand, tripping over the hem of her dress and ending up painfully on the floor. "The rescue party just left," a well meaning Pennite said, squatting down next to her, "Kikuyu's went with them." "What about wyvern? Anyone?" "Wyvern's with her, too, she's not alone. She'll be ok…"the speaker paused, frowned slightly at Jolinar's blanching face. "Can we get you something? You look terrible…" And, indeed, Jolinar did look terrible. Her face had lost all its color, her eyes widened beyond what seemed anatomically possible, deep pools of guilt and shock and rage and sadness. She drew her knees up to her chest, still sitting on the floor and trying to gather her strength. She closed her eyes, fighting back tears. I've given him Kiyuku. And Wyvern. And who knows who else. I've sent them to die with my stupid, stupid vision. We'll all be overrun. They're already almost here. All will be darkness all will be-- she stopped her thoughts, then, forced herself not to think along those lines. She was ashamed at being so used. Her greatest gift, used against her. And here she was, stuck at the Keep, unable to warn anyone. And then she remembered something--the necromancer was connected to his minions via thoughts, emotions. If she could disrupt that…what would the creatures do? They wouldn't have any reason to attack anymore…you wouldn't be able to reach them a voice in her head said you're not a real telepath, you'd never be able to do much good. Jolinar suppressed a shiver as she realized just how powerful a telepath would be needed to maintain as many creatures as she had seen. And yet...she had been able to find the gathering earlier from three floors away. Surely that meant that Jolinar had sometelepathic power after all... "...and if we can stop them, then at least they'll have a place to fall back to if they can't find her." Jolinar mused aloud. She opened her eyes. She had quite a crowd around her now--all those who had not joined the rescue party. She looked to the doors--more people were still arriving, hearing the news either through Wyvern's messages or by word of mouth. With Kikuyu and the others gone, people were just milling about--you didn't have to be a telepath to grasp the tension in the room. Some people had even seen the approaching storm of necromancer's minions and had fled from the windows. Indeed, she noticed that the curtains had been drawn. Out of sight, out of mind, perhaps? Jolinar thought about just fading back into the crowd. It was not for a Dreamer to desire power or glory…And yet…they would be overrun soon. Something had to happen…she knocked her knuckles to her palm, brows knitting together as she surveyed the room. She was a telepath, she did have some power. Dreaming had failed her, now it was time to try her other talents. She might not be able to block the necromancer's connection to all his creatures, but she could at least block some. She sighed, shook out her hair and did her best to tie it neatly back into a sort of half bun. Then she stood up on her chair. "Excuse me…excuse me…" she said, standing on top of her chair, waving her arms to get the room's attention. In moments it was granted--everyone turned to her, hungry for news. Their faces, so full of fear and confusion called out to her, pulled at her heart the same way Kikuyu's had. In a way, we're all the same. We're all threatening to lose something important to us, she her sister and us our home. "Hello…" she said, not really knowing how to start, "I've had another vision. I saw them--the creatures will soon be upon us--" the room exploded as everyone tried to speak at once, but Jolinar raised her hands to quiet them, "but the rescue party is nearly to Degorram and the Necromancer, too. We just have to hold off the attack until they get back. We can fight the creatures, I know we can. It's all about distraction. As long as the necromancer's forces are distracted here, the guard on the necromancer himself will be minimal--Kikuyu and our other friends will be able to get in, get Degorram, and…dispatch with the necromancer. Once he's gone, his creatures will have no one to control them and they'll de-animate," she was growing increasingly excited, her voice got faster and faster, "What we need now is to get organized…we need to set up a perimeter of light, facing outward, " she paused for a moment, replaying the part of her dream where she had skimmed past their attackers, "they're shadows, they move best in darkness, they're going to try to sneak in wherever they can. Light may not deter them, but at least it'll let us see what we're up against so we can get a clear shot." Not to mention that a direct line of sight would help her to get into their heads and block the necromancer's direction. However, she chose to leave that part out--people were not always trusting of telepaths, and she needed everyone to work with her. "Everyone who can fight, find a way of arming yourselves..." Jolinar wondered briefly how exactly one killed a reanimated-corpse-shadow-zombie-vampire-thing, but pushed that question aside to be dealt with later. "As for the rest…well…we'll figure it out." she paused for a moment, once again surveyed the room. "Well, let's get to it--they'll be upon us soon and we've got to buy the rescue party some time..." she paused, trying not to get too carried away, "that is, unless anyone else has any other ideas?"
×
×
  • Create New...