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Post by lieden on Apr 1, 2012 10:17:12 GMT 1
Posting this to remind everyone who's interested. Hope I'll have an entry later in the day to add.
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Post by lieden on Apr 1, 2012 22:04:18 GMT 1
1/4 (In honour of the Mako ) The joy of driving the Mako seemed to be a sentiment only Shepard shared. The rest of the ground team would initially treat all the bumping and being tossed around inside the vehicle with a dose of amusement, but that soon wore off. Garrus hung onto some of the enthusiasm he had after his first ground mission. ‘This thing can climb anything!’ he had claimed, but since then the Mako had gone over mountains on Eletania and down cliffs on Nodacrux, and the turian had found himself constantly busy in the cargo hold patching it up. He retained his appreciation for the vehicle’s sturdiness; less so for Shepard’s driving of the thing.
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Post by Mister Buch on Apr 2, 2012 1:28:57 GMT 1
That sums up the way I feel about the Mako precisely - and the atmosphere I always imagined inside it. One of the things I loved about the scenes in London in Mass Effect 3 were all those Makos lying around. That was a nice touch.
1st April
Lucy wore her smile the way barbarians wore leather scabbards. I came up with that metaphor when I watched her argue with her dad at dinner, the first time she brought me home. When he talked, you could see the smile sliding across her teeth, clicking at the edges and exposing her tongue to sunlight, knocking it back and catching spit in her mouth. When she talked, it was ugly and seemed like it itched her.
When she slept it seemed very handsome. Very brave and honest, very noble. And the rest of the time it was just there, hanging.
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Post by Battlechantress on Apr 2, 2012 3:18:03 GMT 1
I have an entry for today, but it's nonfiction and I don't particularly want to post it here. I wrote it while listening to "Resolve" and "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" if you wanted to know.
Edit: Oh hell, posting this is probably against my better judgment, but it wouldn't be the first time....
I drove home from work after a day spent among the living and listened to my mind keep asking questions. When you shot my cousin all those times for a sack of groceries, did you feel anything? After you got away and got to wherever you could get to that was safe, did you feel lucky to be alive-- even though you shot an unarmed man? I guess I want to know that you have a conscience, since the cops don't seem to be able to bring you to justice or give my family a semblance of longed-for peace.
New edit: Nope, can't pretend I'm going to be writing a lot of funny posts this month, even in the "unintentionally hilarious because it sucks" category. Sorry.
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Post by Mister Buch on Apr 2, 2012 23:07:30 GMT 1
I can't say I was expecting comedy, but I'm glad you're along for the month, BC. Well put.
2nd April
"Unpleasant business? That what you said, unpleasant?" His wet, toothy grin was a threat.
"That's right."
"Honey, you gonna go through life expecting 'pleasant' as a base-line, you're not gonna enjoy a bit of it." And then he spat on the floor. I had seen more dreadful things than his spit.
He was exercising that old cowboy tradition where some assured smart-ass comment demonstrates superiority for leadership. Like wildcats, but with witty, macho quips instead of roars. He was trying to protect me. But I reckon he just wanted to take the fall when our venture went wrong.
3rd April
"My experiment set it all off." He's looking at the floor, you know? Enjoying the misery, I figure. "It's my fault," he whimpers and sighs.
"Not really, no," I say. This, finally, gets his attention. He sees an opportunity to prove how sorry he is, I guess. Fight someone to prove his wretchedness. Big drama. Woe. But he waits for me to speak.
"Not your FAULT. You DID it, certainly: it happened because of you. But you didn't do anything wrong. It was bad luck."
He cries. Babyish, wet, wallpaper-paste crying. I think now he wasn't putting it on.
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Post by Mister Buch on Apr 4, 2012 1:14:32 GMT 1
4th April
You stare at the guy's sunken eyes and hard, defensive, Samurai-mask-carapace of a frown. This is the face of the working class.
And you feel like a right bastard for thinking that. And you shrink and flush and feel ashamed and suddenly respect the man. You wonder at all the things he probably has better than you. He's probably really funny, or honest or well-endowed or something.
And then you're ashamed again. And once the shame gets too much, you think, 'He's probably a big racist, this bloke.' And you wonder if he thinks anything about you.
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Post by lieden on Apr 4, 2012 6:40:25 GMT 1
Lucy wore her smile the way barbarians wore leather scabbards. I've been trying to warp my mind around this metaphor these last three days. I cannot decide if it's absurd or awesome. I think it's probably both. Fallen behind a bit with this. But I've got a few scraps ready to be congealed into entries, so I'll update soon. And yeah, the MAKO rocked! I don't know why everyone hated it. I really missed the thing!
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Post by Mister Buch on Apr 4, 2012 12:50:20 GMT 1
Lucy wore her smile the way barbarians wore leather scabbards. I've been trying to warp my mind around this metaphor these last three days. Lol! Well the attempted meaning was that her smile was rough and uncomfortable, and concealed something dangerous and untrained. Attempted. Anyway yeah, get back in the game, Lieden and BC - I'm getting self conscious over here.
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Post by Mister Buch on Apr 5, 2012 2:37:03 GMT 1
5th April
This is not the first kiss but it might as well be. He doesn't remember the first one at all - he remembers her inclining her head and most of the conversation afterwards. The second one was bad. This is the one where it seems to be perfect, and the music is soft and pinkish and so silly but so gentle... and she just looks so happy, and he is too. He wants to grin but can't, for obvious reasons. He wants to wave his arm around, for some reason. He holds the outside of her hand. And everything is great.
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Post by Battlechantress on Apr 5, 2012 4:40:23 GMT 1
4 April 2012
For six grand, you can have a "life-size replica" of Darth Malgus from the "Star Wars" universe (specifically, the MMORPG that I know little about, having played and been disappointed with its predecessor, "Star Wars Galaxies"). Aside from the value of scaring your cats and leaving your own children psychologically damaged on the way to the bathroom late at night, what on Earth is the point of purchasing such a large lump of molded plastic at such an exorbitant price? If you are among the few who doesn't curse current food and gas prices, I suppose it's a steal.
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Post by Battlechantress on Apr 5, 2012 21:13:52 GMT 1
5 April 2012
Rows of people in red faces surround us. With each gyration, we shift-- the floor changes. The banners from the roof run together flowing opposite each other. Red next to green becomes blue and strips of yellow to a dried bloody end. The roar of the crowd sounds they were screaming in ribbons, waves of sound surround me. Grab my hair and I feel pulled back to another plane.
Do you know we burn?
The floorboards shift with new logos and terrors to occupy the stadium masses. Angry beasts wait, lurking.
Tired now. Rest comes with a sharp bird whistle.
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Post by Mister Buch on Apr 8, 2012 0:43:44 GMT 1
I've said it before, Chantress, but I'd love to read a book of poetry by you.
7th April
Alfred lifts his leg and presses it forward, which puts pressure on one side of his iron greaves, which hurts his shin and pushes a plate against the soft, sore, reddening flab-skin below his belly. The metal snaps one of his hairs off and it curls up in defeat.
His sword is a sharpened, flattened farming tool, taken from a heretic's farm and wiped of blood. His helmet makes him unwell because it echoes.
Each movement makes little things beat against his metal plates, and makes something wobble against his bones. His veins rush and he wants to cheer.
8th April
Mazea was the God of Portents. He drove comets.
He drove the comets from a seat he dug-out with his fingernails as they blasted through the perfect sphere of blackness enveloping the world.
Sometimes his comets would flash past the Earth, and Kings would kill their soothsayers in terror. Sometimes as Mazea closed his eyes to breathe the fresh blue air, he would miss the beginning of a revolution. Sometimes the comets would drop, hard, exploding into the soil and flattening trees for miles.
They were very hard to steer. But people always seemed glad to see him there.
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Post by Battlechantress on Apr 8, 2012 3:51:20 GMT 1
The only time I can pull off any sort of poetry is when I'm not sober, it seems. Sorry. Could just be the subconscious talking after the ex's last nasty-gram, though. 6 April 2012Got anything for us today? Nah, I've been studying.Or at least I am trying to study, to re-learn what a part of my brain already knows. It's pointless though. I try to use the words to help me fight, to write something deep and powerful, or barring that, meaningful. And yet my consciousness rises and falls with the sound of cheers and commercials behind me and the words won't come, hidden as they are in some interpersonal Void where they remain stuck, floating in a thick dark area of inner space that can't be found or touched. 7 April 2012It's been three weeks since we finished setting up living quarters in the biodome, and the boss is already sending three of us outside of it to fix the air compression units. Thatcher can't seem to find half the tools he's responsible for, and Qumran just announced that he thinks one of our shelters has a hole in it. I'm already regretting signing up for this damn job, even if it does get me off of the big penal colony we call Earth. It's too late to go back now, I know that, but I miss seeing the sun rise.
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Post by Battlechantress on Apr 9, 2012 1:39:37 GMT 1
8 April 2012
We make our way past the security system, pushing the aluminum sleds before us with frequent kicking and cursing. Thatcher is the last to leave and barely gets ahead of the doors before they seal shut. We might have laughed about it on Earth, but the sharp bite of icy air hits us before we finish our first inhalations. One never forgets that it's -175 degrees out here, even on a "good day".
Then I remember that the next "day" out here isn't for another 16 if you're going by "Earth time". Longer still before we'll see the sun again.
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Post by Battlechantress on Apr 10, 2012 18:31:45 GMT 1
100words munched my entry for the 8th for no reason, so the story sequence for that day and the 9th are reversed over there. For the 9th, all that happened was discovering that the navigational systems on their suits were wonky, and realizing that setting up air compression and filtration units so far from the habitat was a stupid idea.
10 April 2012
Trying to get this story back in proper sequence now (barring further "post munching" by this site)....
Thatcher and Qumran decide to head northwest, and I follow my display to the northeast. Our headsets still aren't working right, but there's only three of us out here and nothing else around us but ice and methane-spewing volcanoes sometimes roaring off into the distance. Our suits' air and thermal regulating systems should be able to get us safely to our destinations and back well before the two hour limit.
That's what I think until I hear a hissing sound behind me.
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