<VoxPVoxD> Hear the sound of the falling rain~ Coming down like an Armageddon flame~ The shame~ The ones who died without a name~
<VoxPVoxD> "Sound check. Sound check 1, 2. Sound check 1, 2, 3, 4. Sibilants. Ssssibilants. The tip of the tongue, the teeth, the lips. The tip of the tongue. the teeth, the lips."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart, to himself, alone in his apartment: "I'm picking up some static."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart, to himself, alone in his apartment: "I'm picking up some static."
<VoxPVoxD> Turns the music off. Turns the recording software off. He swears he hears something...
<trenchfoot> All of these books are so tiring. Yes, Nels needs to read them. But more importantly, she needs to understand them, and to understand them, she needs to care about them. And that's just not going to happen today. So. She's set her study materials off to the side and grabbed her guitar. It's the afternoon; no one can complain if she just... plays. Pieces she remembers, some she might be composing on the fly, the guitar is a
<trenchfoot> comfort even in the here and now. The radio's long since been turned off - it was distracting her from her reading - and the silence was stifling. So: play.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart takes his headphones off. It's not coming from the computer.
<VoxPVoxD> It's coming... through the wall?
<trenchfoot> Muted, from the walls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl-3RTyFMrQ
<VoxPVoxD> He can't record with that going. Ugh, he's going to have to buy baffling, isn't he? He really didn't want to have to do that.
<VoxPVoxD> He should go say something, right? Like this is a courtesy thing, it's not some weird dominance struggle. And besides someone listening to fancy classical guitar probably isn't going to beat the shit out of him for complaining about the noise...
<VoxPVoxD> Shit he's got spare headphones he can give them. Unopened, from sponsors.
<trenchfoot> She's lost in the melody, for now; it's nice to have something that's hers, and all hers. There's no contest to win. It's just a song. Calming.
<VoxPVoxD> Don't walk over with headphones in hand, though. That's presumptuous, a point of inflection for a fight where there need not be one. Just go over hands-free.
<VoxPVoxD> Somewhere between two and a half and four minutes later, there's a knock on Nels's door.
<trenchfoot> The song stops abruptly; she props the guitar up on her couch, awaiting her return. When she peers through the peephole, what does she see?
<VoxPVoxD> Nels sees--
<VoxPVoxD> --a young man of about twenty, in a dark t-shirt and jeans, looking anxiously up and down the hall. He's sallow and faintly sweaty.
<VoxPVoxD> --a creature of onyx and alabaster, a beautiful young man, white eyes and hair and coal black eyes, rubbing the back of his neck. The motion pulls his long sleeves back, revealing the scars of old manacle bites on his wrist.
<VoxPVoxD> *white skin and hair
<trenchfoot> She opens her door partway. Coincidentally, she's also wearing a t-shirt and jeans, because that's apparently normal even for women -- she's been trying it out around the apartment. The shirt is a pale blue and has a quarter note on it, and some words about a local elementary school's band on the back. It cost a dollar.
<trenchfoot> Nels looks about the same age as Stewart; roughly twentyish, and it was a rough twenty. She's pretty, if you don't look too closely, because when you do you notice that her eyes are a little haunted and her hair isn't quite right (is that wheat?) and her limbs don't seem to be the right length. But that's typical. "Hello? Can I help you?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart jumps a bit when he sees another changeling behind the door; maybe not the best reaction. "Oh! Oh! I just- sorry. I'm Stewart, I live next door. It's nice to meet you. It's just can you- you were at the icebreaker, weren't you? The new intake."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Yeah. Um. Steven? Stanley? I'm --" Shoot. How to-- he probably doesn't know the old one. "Nels. Helen."
<trenchfoot> He definitely introduced himself already. She definitely screwed up.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "...huh. I guess we're neighbors."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Yeah. Hi." She pauses awkwardly. "Did you... want to come in?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart also pauses awkwardly. No, of course not. Sorry he made a mistake. See you around. No! No! Bad. New Stewart. New Stewart. "Okay."
<trenchfoot> She opens the door enough to let another person in. First person in the apartment, probably? That's depressing. Sort of. "I don't exactly have -- refreshments, or anything, wasn't expecting company..."
<trenchfoot> There's a couch and a couple arm chairs, a radio and a coffee table. There's a bookshelf in the corner and a guitar case; the guitar itself is sitting on the couch.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Oh, that's fine. I could - I have sodas if you're thirsty, I don't know..." He sees the guitar. "Oh, wow. That was you playing?"
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Yes, I, didn't think anyone was around to hear it." She smooths a nonexistant skirt as she sits on the couch, next to her guitar. "Was it too loud?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart stands just long enough for that, too, to be weird before sitting in an armchair. "No, no, it's fine. It's just, I was trying to record and I didn't know where the sound was coming from. It's not a big deal, I can fix it on my end."
<VoxPVoxD> "You're really good."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Record? You can... you can do that?"
<trenchfoot> She brushes off the compliment; it was sort of a point that she became really good.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah, no, I was surprised too. Home recording setups have gotten really affordable in the last ten years. I guess that's why everyone and their mom has a podcast now."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I - you could record before now? And what's a podcast?" She looks absolutely mystified. She's unconsciously pulling her guitar into her lap, not quite fiddling with it just yet, but about to.
<trenchfoot> Record at home*
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Oh, sorry. How, uh. How long have you been back?"
<trenchfoot> Nels: "A few weeks, I guess. It's - there's a lot to remember." Is he sitting? He should be sitting. She'll tell him so, if he isn't.
<VoxPVoxD> Yeah, he sat, eventually. "Okay. The other night I met Maggie, uh, Maggie Bakehead, she's in Spring, she was at the intake we went to. The furnace lady?"
<VoxPVoxD> "It turns out she missed a lot of time too. How, uh, how long were you out?"
<trenchfoot> That rings a bell, vaguely. She'll have to get to know Maggie. Same court and all. "Since 1920," she says without emotion.
<trenchfoot> A smile that might be a grimace: "Been a minute."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart blinks.
<VoxPVoxD> "Wow."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Yep."
<trenchfoot> She pops the "p" in that.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Okay, um. So a podcast is basically like a radio show, without the radio."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "What's a -- they had shows on the radio? I thought it just played music."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "They also talk. About news or sports or music or whatever. They used to have, uh, radio plays, but that's kind of depreciated as a medium since they invented the television and movies got bigger."
<VoxPVoxD> "There's- there's sound now, in movies? I don't know if that was a thing yet."
<VoxPVoxD> "And color."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Sound was... new. Saw one of them, couldn't have lasted more than 30 seconds, but it was amazing." This is definitely a grimace. "The new ones are -- too loud. Color's, um, impressive, but..."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah, I know what you mean. Movie theater's real loud."
<VoxPVoxD> A hundred fucking years. Jesus Christ.
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Don't know how everyone stands it. Felt like I was getting blasted out of the theater the one time I tried."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Some people like it, I guess. What did you try to see?"
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I heard about these comic books? Like books but with pictures in 'em."
<trenchfoot> "They made movies out of those, I guess."
<trenchfoot> She's fiddling with her guitar now. Just occasionally picking at the strings.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "They used to make movies that weren't that. Not as much lately. I don't know. I was never big into comics."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "It was awful. Super loud, and you had to know what was going on before, I left partway through. Don't know what the heck an iron man is anyway."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah, the song's better anyway."
<trenchfoot> "Do they still make other kindsa movies? All of these are way more complicated than what I used to see, but it'd be nice to see what something... quieter, is like."
<trenchfoot> She blinks. "Song?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "They still make quiet movies, but all the loud movies are about comic books now."
<VoxPVoxD> A beat. "By Black Sabbath. One of the original heavy metal bands."
<VoxPVoxD> He pulls out his phone. "Do you want to hear it? I could play pretty much any song on this."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "What?" She looks absolutely baffled; first by the idea that they make so many comic book movies (it's good that they made something for children who can't read well, but movies?) and secondly by... any song??
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Oh, yeah, uh... people walk around with these little tablets in their pockets that can connect them to anyone in the world and access basically all human knowledge."
<trenchfoot> What. "What." What.
<VoxPVoxD> "I don't... okay, look. I'm- this is too much. I'm sorry." He puts his phone away. "Over the 20th and the 21st centuries, technology advanced really rapidly. The main way is the sharing of information - sharing more of it, with more people, faster and faster over time."
<VoxPVoxD> "So it can, um. It can lead to a kind of - we call it 'information overload'. It happens to everyone sometimes."
<trenchfoot> Helplessly: "Is this like radios?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "It's like a radio, yeah. It can send sounds, words, pictures. It can see these huge libraries of information and show it to anyone who knows how to ask."
<trenchfoot> Still vaguely lost: "So, it's magic?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Arthur C. Clarke said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
<VoxPVoxD> "So... yeah, kind of."
<trenchfoot> She doesn't know who that is. But, she finally might be getting a grasp on this modern technology. "It's - the same, to me," she gestures at her mid-90s iMac. "But I don't trust it. Because of magic."
<trenchfoot> It's sitting on a simple wooden table. There's a chair that looks like it came from a dining set pushed up next to it; the computer doesn't look like it's seen much use.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart looks at the honest-to-god colored-shell iMac for what feels like the longest time. "A funny thing that's happened in the last few years is that basic day-to-day computer tasks have gotten a lot simpler. There are modern computers that are a lot more powerful and a lot easier to use than that. Hang on, let me just - I'll be right back. Do you want anything to drink or
<VoxPVoxD> anything? I've got soda, Red Bull, orange juice, iced tea..."
<trenchfoot> Soda water is a no, she has no idea what a red bull is but it's probably alcoholic and it's early... "Iced tea? If it's not too much trouble..."
<trenchfoot> She's still in the process of being baffled; otherwise she'd offer Stewart something instead. It's her apartment, after all.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart returns with two bottles in one hand and what looks like a large, silvery version of the 'phone' he put in his pocket in the other. "I don't know what your preference is so I got one unsweetened and one sweetened with lemon, those are the two kinds I have. I drink them both so take whichever one sounds better."
<trenchfoot> Going to have to go with unsweetened; she's tasted what they do with sugar these days. "So computers are - they got better?" She's still absolutely baffled. 30 seconds to see anything she might ask for is still utterly frightening; what is the cost??
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah, they're faster and more importantly, a lot easier to use. Like there's no extra equipment with this - it's called an iPad. You can just-" Luckily he doesn't use this for much of anything besides reading in bed, so it's not set up with anything complicated or incriminating. He gives her a brief rundown on how the touch-screen interface works, and sets it down on
<VoxPVoxD> the table between them. "Do you want to try?"
<trenchfoot> She looks at it, dubiously. "Is it - cursed, or anything? Does it have a price?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "The curse is that they make Chinese kids make them for pennies an hour."
<trenchfoot> Nels visibly relaxes, then remembers her lessons and stiffens again. "How do I stop that from happening?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Stop what from happening?"
<trenchfoot> Nels: "The - you said they make these for pennies an hour? How do I stop that."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Oh. Uh."
<VoxPVoxD> "...I don't know. That's just kind of how the world is."
<VoxPVoxD> "It's just one of those things, like the cops or whatever."
<trenchfoot> Frowning: "I still don't understand how the Socialist Party never got to national office. This'd be their kind of thing. Anyways. They don't have to - pay, when I use it, right?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "No. It's like eating meat, kind of. Whether you bite into the hot dog or not, that pig's already dead."
<trenchfoot> That's... morbid. She pokes at this 'iPad', and she can hear the capitalization as she prods at it. "Oh! It's - it moves?" She's moved one of the icons from its alphabetical order to in between some previously installed apps.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah. If you hold your finger to the screen you can drag stuff around. If you tap one of the squares - we call those 'icons' - you'll open the 'program' it's attached to. A 'program' is basically a way to make a computer do a specific thing for you."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "And people just... accept this?" She holds down on an icon - what is a "Bejeweled" anyway - and frowns at the menu that appears. "It seems... I don't understand it."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Computers happened kind of suddenly. When I was a kid, you'd be lucky to have a computer at home to play games and dial up the internet with. Now everyone has things like this."
<trenchfoot> Distantly: "When I was a kid, I was lucky to find a library."
<trenchfoot> Back in focus: "Kids have it a lot better these days."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "This is actually kind of a bad neighborhood for library access - you have to go all the way to Light Street. First place I stayed in when I got back was right around the corner from the one on Washington."
<VoxPVoxD> "But yeah, I know what you mean. Or I don't know, but- you know."
<trenchfoot> Another few plucks at the strings. Nervous habits. It might sound familiar, actually. Just - a fragment. "I'd want to be closer, but." She does not elaborate.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart just lets it go. "Anyway, this is Youtube. There's millions and millions of videos on here, including recordings of basically any song you can think of. Or just search for, like, kinds of things. Here." He taps a bar at the top of the screen and a bar of letters pops up on the bottom of the screen. Nels probably won't recognize the pattern of letters as matching the
<VoxPVoxD> keyboard of her iMac. He types (so fast!) '1920 music' and comes up with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW33oH_EkW4
<trenchfoot> She's about to say something when it starts playing, and then she's stunned enough to have nothing to say. It's familiar. It's - her time is still around. Sort of.
<trenchfoot> Weakly: "Any song?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Not quite any song. But close."
<VoxPVoxD> "Got any requests?"
<trenchfoot> She pulls her guitar closer, ready to play. "Gloomy Sunday?"
<VoxPVoxD> Taptaptap "Billie Holliday?"
<VoxPVoxD> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBIqLqUenz0
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I guess she-- yeah. Yeah."
<trenchfoot> She plays a quiet background to the recording; singing seems beyond her, now. Just play. Play, and pretend, no matter how much she remembers the original.
<VoxPVoxD> "...wow."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart's too stunned to stop Youtube from autoplaying the next song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gO7uemm6Yo
<trenchfoot> She unconsciously starts playing along, before realizing, and stopping. "I-- seem to get that a lot, lately."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart stops the song halfway through with a start.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "...so that's Youtube."
<trenchfoot> Nels, trying for obliviousness: "Does it have cats?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Literally tens of thousands of hours of cats."
<VoxPVoxD> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB-qEYVdvXA
<trenchfoot> Oh my goodness. She was trying to fake it and now she has made it. ADORABLE. And yet... "Is film so cheap? This is amazing, but..."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Cameras don't use film anymore really."
<VoxPVoxD> "It's all digital - done with computers."
<VoxPVoxD> "Every phone has a camera in it, for instance."
<trenchfoot> Deep frown. "I'm glad I have the kind without one. I don't trust that kind of thing."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Oh, yeah, privacy is really hard. Unless you go live in the woods alone off the grid and grow your own food."
<VoxPVoxD> "Which I'm told is bad for us."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I've been told that I shouldn't do that." She's - not smiling, exactly, but she could be.
<trenchfoot> "No matter how tempting it might be," and now she is definitely smiling.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah. What have you been doing, if you don't mind me asking?"
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Studying for my GED. Apparently you need one of those," as she gestures to the displayed textbooks.
<trenchfoot> Pluck pluck. "Or. You know. Finding comfort.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Let me know if you need any help studying. I was pretty good in school and I'm, you know. I'm right next door."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "I'll - let you know." And if you need a guitarist, she doesn't say, because that's weird.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Have you met a lot of other people in the freehold?"
<trenchfoot> Frowning: "A couple. They were -- eager. I don't know how to feel about it." She can trust him, right? He hasn't gone sprinting off to the papers, at least.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Eager?"
<trenchfoot> Nels: "Some of them thought they knew me. Others wanted to hear me play." Exhausting, she doesn't say. "Eager."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "I guess it's like when people know you're a comedian and the first thing they do is ask you to tell a joke."
<trenchfoot> She smiles. "Yeah."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Well... it's nice to meet you, Nels."
<trenchfoot> Nels: "You too, Stewart. I'll have to -- do you mind if I come over, at some point? To learn, I mean."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Not at all. And I'm up real late. I work from home, evenings. Do you want to hold onto the iPad? I can go get you the charger."
<trenchfoot> Less than friendly, but still pleasant: "I shouldn't, it's -- still getting used to the modern day and all, ha." She knows what chargers are. Also, keeping them in the same room is a no-go. "I'll keep my playing quiet in the evening. It's, um. Very... I don't know the word."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart takes the tablet off the table, then, and powers it down. "Okay. Just, yeah, don't be shy. I'm right next door. Welcome to the freehold. And the neighborhood."
<Crion_> When Stewart steps outside, there's a changeling in jeans and a hoodie with four eyes at the end of the hallway. He doesn't acknowledge him, but after a couple seconds, he moves back off to the staircase, and down.
<VoxPVoxD> Spooky. Stewart thinks about following, to ask what's up, but whatever it is is probably above his pay grade and he's never had an experience to make him distrustful of local changelings. They're probably just looking after Nels.
<VoxPVoxD> When he gets home he doesn't really have the energy to do any recording. The thought of losing a hundred years - losing a hundred years to Faerie - and coming back to take a GE-fucking-D tugs at the drain plug at the bottom of his soul.