This boat once sold novelties at a theme park, and much of the infrastructure remains, including old mechanical cash registers. The boat is still stocked with SOTF-themed knickknacks, as well as general maritime gear of various descriptions, though its organization is more than a little lacking; merchandise is often in poor condition, and is jumbled chaotically on shelves, in some cases overflowing onto the floor. The boat itself is boxy and open on the sides, and is more susceptible than most to the waves, rocking heavily whenever the weather picks up.
PREGAME: Baby Kermit makes an unnecessary OOC note
ISLAND:
[Baby Kermit uses unnecessary over-the-top formatting] -- [Baby Kermit kills a guy and then makes a melodramatic speech to the rest of the room] -- [Baby Kermit isn't very good at thread names] -- [Baby Kermit gets fucking murdered]
ISLAND:
[The thread that everybody was there for] -- [To be fair to Santiago, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty.] -- [Harland has a Gamer moment] -- [Harland falls down] -- [Oops]
PREGAME: ["We took a tour of Universal Studios in Los Angeles and, inside and outside the place, it was very difficult to tell what was real. They're not-real people trying to say something. And we're real people not trying to say anything. I just like everybody and I believe in everything." - Andy Warhol]
MEMORIES: ["The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration." - Frida Kahlo]
FLOTILLA:
["Images are made palpable, ironed flat by technology and, in turn, dictate the seemingly real through the representative." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["You'd be surprised how many people want to hang an electric chair on their living-room wall. Specially if the background color matches the drapes." - Andy Warhol] -- ["In the end, glorification of splendid underdogs is nothing other than the glorification of the splendid system that makes them so." - Theodor Adorno] -- ["I think that art is still a site for resistance and for the telling of various stories, for validating certain subjectivities we normally overlook. I'm trying to be affective, to suggest changes, and to resist what I feel are the tyrannies of social life on a certain level." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process." - Vincent van Gogh] -- ["One eye sees, the other feels." - Paul Klee] -- ["I suppose I have a really loose interpretation of "work" because I think that just being alive is so much work at something you don't always want to do." - Andy Warhol] -- ["I think that every so-called history book and film biography should be prefaced by the statement that what follows is the author's rendition of events and circumstances." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["I never think that people die. They just go to department stores." - Andy Warhol] -- ["From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity." - Edvard Munch] -- ["I think I developed language skills to deal with threat. It's the girl thing to do-you know, instead of pulling out a gun." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["Since I was shot, everything is such a dream to me. Like I don't know whether I'm alive or whether I died. I wasn't afraid before. And having been dead once, I shouldn't feel fear. But I am afraid. I don't understand why." - Andy Warhol] -- ["'One to the other / Unos á otros' - Thus goes the world. We mock at and deceive each other. He who, yesterday, was the ball, is to-day the horseman in the ring. Fortune directs the feast, and distributes the parts according to the inconstancy of its caprice." - Francisco Goya] -- ["It's good to keep in mind that prominence is always a mix of hard work, eloquence in your practice, good timing and fortuitous social relations. Everything can't be personalized." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["Art...has always been a polite form of terrorism." - Robert Boswell] -- ["I'm trying to deal with ideas about histories, fame, hearsay, and how public identities are constructed." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["Death means a lot of money, honey. Death can really make you look like a star." - Andy Warhol] -- ["Our whole society is aboard the raft of the Medusa." - Jules Michelet]
THE MUTE: ["There's a schematic for the whole Goths album between when and where I was in my youth, I mean some of them are stories but they all correlate to moments. I spent 9 months in Portland when I was 18, 19 years old and these were formative months because I was an absolute failure at living my life and I had friends who kept me alive and who saw through my hard veneer and who chose to be kind to me even though I was not worthy of their kindness, I was not. This is why when people tell me 'Hey John, you're a good guy', I say 'No, I've seen John in a lot of guises and I reject any claims to being a good guy, I see' and in Portland I had a community of people who accepted me exactly as I was and though I didn't know how to take their acceptance, and this song -- most of them are with god now -- and it's called 'Wear Black' ."]
THE COMPOUND:
[You could be anywhere on the black screen.] -- [Hand me your hand, let me look in your eyes, as my last chance to feel human begins to vaporize. Maybe it's the heat in here, maybe it's the pressure; you ought to head for the exits, the sooner the better.] -- [Don't you know people write songs about girls like you ?] -- [Tonya, you were the brightest. Yeah you rose from the ashes, and survived all the crashes, wiping the blood from your white tights.] -- [Never seen anything like that before, falling bodies tumble 'cross the floor.] -- [Take a look at these hands, you don't have to mention it. No thanks, I'm a government man.] -- [We all, we all, we all, we all know this is nothing. This is nowhere. We all, we all, we all, we all know this is nowhere. There is no one here.] -- [This ain't no party, this ain't no disco. This ain't no fooling around. This ain't no Mudd Club, or C.B.G.B. I ain't got time for that now.] -- [Stay alive. Maybe spit blood at the camera. Just stay alive. Stay forever alive.] -- [And I run, and I run, and I run, and I run] -- [upon this tidal wave of, oh god oh god, young blood young blood young blood young blood -]
She drew herself forward into the gift shop, nearly tripping over her own feet. Her shoulder collided with a clothing rack covered in in goth merchandise. She kept going forward towards Pippi's voice. She could feel herself starting to cry again. Kept going forward.
Until she saw her.
She was sitting there against the checkout counter. On the ground perpendicular to her was someone who wasn't alive anymore. Stephanie had said Pippi had found someone willing to help her. Was this him? He was covered in blood and the collar around his throat had been detonated. It was nothing she hadn't seen before, but, but it was different in real life, up close. Seeing it in three dimensions. It had never dawned on her until now that violence had a smell. She couldn't look at him any more without feeling like she was gonna pass out.
So she stared down at Pippi, her lip shaking. And she opened her mouth and nothing came out.
PREGAME: Baby Kermit makes an unnecessary OOC note
ISLAND:
[Baby Kermit uses unnecessary over-the-top formatting] -- [Baby Kermit kills a guy and then makes a melodramatic speech to the rest of the room] -- [Baby Kermit isn't very good at thread names] -- [Baby Kermit gets fucking murdered]
ISLAND:
[The thread that everybody was there for] -- [To be fair to Santiago, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty.] -- [Harland has a Gamer moment] -- [Harland falls down] -- [Oops]
PREGAME: ["We took a tour of Universal Studios in Los Angeles and, inside and outside the place, it was very difficult to tell what was real. They're not-real people trying to say something. And we're real people not trying to say anything. I just like everybody and I believe in everything." - Andy Warhol]
MEMORIES: ["The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration." - Frida Kahlo]
FLOTILLA:
["Images are made palpable, ironed flat by technology and, in turn, dictate the seemingly real through the representative." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["You'd be surprised how many people want to hang an electric chair on their living-room wall. Specially if the background color matches the drapes." - Andy Warhol] -- ["In the end, glorification of splendid underdogs is nothing other than the glorification of the splendid system that makes them so." - Theodor Adorno] -- ["I think that art is still a site for resistance and for the telling of various stories, for validating certain subjectivities we normally overlook. I'm trying to be affective, to suggest changes, and to resist what I feel are the tyrannies of social life on a certain level." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process." - Vincent van Gogh] -- ["One eye sees, the other feels." - Paul Klee] -- ["I suppose I have a really loose interpretation of "work" because I think that just being alive is so much work at something you don't always want to do." - Andy Warhol] -- ["I think that every so-called history book and film biography should be prefaced by the statement that what follows is the author's rendition of events and circumstances." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["I never think that people die. They just go to department stores." - Andy Warhol] -- ["From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity." - Edvard Munch] -- ["I think I developed language skills to deal with threat. It's the girl thing to do-you know, instead of pulling out a gun." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["Since I was shot, everything is such a dream to me. Like I don't know whether I'm alive or whether I died. I wasn't afraid before. And having been dead once, I shouldn't feel fear. But I am afraid. I don't understand why." - Andy Warhol] -- ["'One to the other / Unos á otros' - Thus goes the world. We mock at and deceive each other. He who, yesterday, was the ball, is to-day the horseman in the ring. Fortune directs the feast, and distributes the parts according to the inconstancy of its caprice." - Francisco Goya] -- ["It's good to keep in mind that prominence is always a mix of hard work, eloquence in your practice, good timing and fortuitous social relations. Everything can't be personalized." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["Art...has always been a polite form of terrorism." - Robert Boswell] -- ["I'm trying to deal with ideas about histories, fame, hearsay, and how public identities are constructed." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["Death means a lot of money, honey. Death can really make you look like a star." - Andy Warhol] -- ["Our whole society is aboard the raft of the Medusa." - Jules Michelet]
THE MUTE: ["There's a schematic for the whole Goths album between when and where I was in my youth, I mean some of them are stories but they all correlate to moments. I spent 9 months in Portland when I was 18, 19 years old and these were formative months because I was an absolute failure at living my life and I had friends who kept me alive and who saw through my hard veneer and who chose to be kind to me even though I was not worthy of their kindness, I was not. This is why when people tell me 'Hey John, you're a good guy', I say 'No, I've seen John in a lot of guises and I reject any claims to being a good guy, I see' and in Portland I had a community of people who accepted me exactly as I was and though I didn't know how to take their acceptance, and this song -- most of them are with god now -- and it's called 'Wear Black' ."]
THE COMPOUND:
[You could be anywhere on the black screen.] -- [Hand me your hand, let me look in your eyes, as my last chance to feel human begins to vaporize. Maybe it's the heat in here, maybe it's the pressure; you ought to head for the exits, the sooner the better.] -- [Don't you know people write songs about girls like you ?] -- [Tonya, you were the brightest. Yeah you rose from the ashes, and survived all the crashes, wiping the blood from your white tights.] -- [Never seen anything like that before, falling bodies tumble 'cross the floor.] -- [Take a look at these hands, you don't have to mention it. No thanks, I'm a government man.] -- [We all, we all, we all, we all know this is nothing. This is nowhere. We all, we all, we all, we all know this is nowhere. There is no one here.] -- [This ain't no party, this ain't no disco. This ain't no fooling around. This ain't no Mudd Club, or C.B.G.B. I ain't got time for that now.] -- [Stay alive. Maybe spit blood at the camera. Just stay alive. Stay forever alive.] -- [And I run, and I run, and I run, and I run] -- [upon this tidal wave of, oh god oh god, young blood young blood young blood young blood -]
"I don't think I can go home anymore, Luanne."
It was a simple sentence.
She looked down at the body.
It gave her enough information, but...
She raised her knees to her chest.
She wanted to vomit. She couldn't go home anymore.
She just couldn't
What was the point of going home if everyone would point you as a murderer?
"I'm sorry."
She swallowed.
"I know I said we would escape together but... I don't think that's my..."
"That's not - I can't just leave you here. I don't know what happened. But whatever happened, it's not - just, please, please, just, you're all I have. I need you. You're - you're the plan, I don't know what to do without you. I don't want to leave you. You're the closest thing I've ever had to a friend, and I can't just leave you here to die, and, and, I, I promised that I wouldn't let you kill yourself. But I can't make you do anything. But just, just, don't give up. Just please don't give up. Don't let them break you."
She took another step forward, and crouched down in front of Pippi.
She reached for her hand.
"If all this was easy, it wouldn't matter how it ends."
PREGAME: Baby Kermit makes an unnecessary OOC note
ISLAND:
[Baby Kermit uses unnecessary over-the-top formatting] -- [Baby Kermit kills a guy and then makes a melodramatic speech to the rest of the room] -- [Baby Kermit isn't very good at thread names] -- [Baby Kermit gets fucking murdered]
ISLAND:
[The thread that everybody was there for] -- [To be fair to Santiago, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty.] -- [Harland has a Gamer moment] -- [Harland falls down] -- [Oops]
PREGAME: ["We took a tour of Universal Studios in Los Angeles and, inside and outside the place, it was very difficult to tell what was real. They're not-real people trying to say something. And we're real people not trying to say anything. I just like everybody and I believe in everything." - Andy Warhol]
MEMORIES: ["The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration." - Frida Kahlo]
FLOTILLA:
["Images are made palpable, ironed flat by technology and, in turn, dictate the seemingly real through the representative." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["You'd be surprised how many people want to hang an electric chair on their living-room wall. Specially if the background color matches the drapes." - Andy Warhol] -- ["In the end, glorification of splendid underdogs is nothing other than the glorification of the splendid system that makes them so." - Theodor Adorno] -- ["I think that art is still a site for resistance and for the telling of various stories, for validating certain subjectivities we normally overlook. I'm trying to be affective, to suggest changes, and to resist what I feel are the tyrannies of social life on a certain level." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process." - Vincent van Gogh] -- ["One eye sees, the other feels." - Paul Klee] -- ["I suppose I have a really loose interpretation of "work" because I think that just being alive is so much work at something you don't always want to do." - Andy Warhol] -- ["I think that every so-called history book and film biography should be prefaced by the statement that what follows is the author's rendition of events and circumstances." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["I never think that people die. They just go to department stores." - Andy Warhol] -- ["From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity." - Edvard Munch] -- ["I think I developed language skills to deal with threat. It's the girl thing to do-you know, instead of pulling out a gun." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["Since I was shot, everything is such a dream to me. Like I don't know whether I'm alive or whether I died. I wasn't afraid before. And having been dead once, I shouldn't feel fear. But I am afraid. I don't understand why." - Andy Warhol] -- ["'One to the other / Unos á otros' - Thus goes the world. We mock at and deceive each other. He who, yesterday, was the ball, is to-day the horseman in the ring. Fortune directs the feast, and distributes the parts according to the inconstancy of its caprice." - Francisco Goya] -- ["It's good to keep in mind that prominence is always a mix of hard work, eloquence in your practice, good timing and fortuitous social relations. Everything can't be personalized." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["Art...has always been a polite form of terrorism." - Robert Boswell] -- ["I'm trying to deal with ideas about histories, fame, hearsay, and how public identities are constructed." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["Death means a lot of money, honey. Death can really make you look like a star." - Andy Warhol] -- ["Our whole society is aboard the raft of the Medusa." - Jules Michelet]
THE MUTE: ["There's a schematic for the whole Goths album between when and where I was in my youth, I mean some of them are stories but they all correlate to moments. I spent 9 months in Portland when I was 18, 19 years old and these were formative months because I was an absolute failure at living my life and I had friends who kept me alive and who saw through my hard veneer and who chose to be kind to me even though I was not worthy of their kindness, I was not. This is why when people tell me 'Hey John, you're a good guy', I say 'No, I've seen John in a lot of guises and I reject any claims to being a good guy, I see' and in Portland I had a community of people who accepted me exactly as I was and though I didn't know how to take their acceptance, and this song -- most of them are with god now -- and it's called 'Wear Black' ."]
THE COMPOUND:
[You could be anywhere on the black screen.] -- [Hand me your hand, let me look in your eyes, as my last chance to feel human begins to vaporize. Maybe it's the heat in here, maybe it's the pressure; you ought to head for the exits, the sooner the better.] -- [Don't you know people write songs about girls like you ?] -- [Tonya, you were the brightest. Yeah you rose from the ashes, and survived all the crashes, wiping the blood from your white tights.] -- [Never seen anything like that before, falling bodies tumble 'cross the floor.] -- [Take a look at these hands, you don't have to mention it. No thanks, I'm a government man.] -- [We all, we all, we all, we all know this is nothing. This is nowhere. We all, we all, we all, we all know this is nowhere. There is no one here.] -- [This ain't no party, this ain't no disco. This ain't no fooling around. This ain't no Mudd Club, or C.B.G.B. I ain't got time for that now.] -- [Stay alive. Maybe spit blood at the camera. Just stay alive. Stay forever alive.] -- [And I run, and I run, and I run, and I run] -- [upon this tidal wave of, oh god oh god, young blood young blood young blood young blood -]
"I'm not- I'm not giving up."
She sniffed back a tear.
"I'm not letting them break me."
"I..."
She rubbed her eyes.
"I'm being myself. To the end. To... wherever this might lead me. I can't escape, Luanne. If I escape, I can't go back home. I can't be myself. I can be myself and die like... me."
She shook her head.
"I killed Mateo. There's a price of what I did. A blood cost. I shed some blood, I need to shed it back or else I'm just like those producers. I'm not better than them."
Pippi held Luanne's hand, dragging it toward her cheek.
She just realized how cold she was. How dry. When did she stop sweating?
"I have to pay for what I've done. I have to. I can't..."
She sighed.
"It's not fun anymore. It was fun to test myself. To try to escape. It was fun to figure out the flaws in the collar, the tools they were giving us to fix them, but this? This isn't fun anymore. And I don't want to do something that's not fun. I always spent my life doing boring things and getting mad at people for not understanding me, and finally, I found something I actually enjoyed and I ruined it because I panicked. I clubbed a man in the brain, and he died because of me. He had a family, he had friends. He had so many people, and I took him away from all of them."
She coughed.
"I have to pay them back. Somehow."
"That's not on you. That's not on you. That's them. We're just kids. We're all just scared kids and there's nothing any of us can do about that. They're the ones who gave us weapons. They're the ones who normalized this. This is all we've known. But they're the ones who made it like this."
She sniffled, and was quiet for a moment.
"You sound like Stephanie. That's how they got her, how they trapped her. The redemption. But it's never gonna feel like enough because what happened, it all happened in the past, and that means nobody can change it. He's dead now and nobody can take it back. But we can change the future. So I'm gonna try and see how it works out."
She squeezed her hand and inhaled quietly.
"But if, if, if this is the only way left for you to be you, I, I don't," she squeezed again, "I don't want to leave you here all alone. I don't want you to die. But I can't take that away from you."
She gave one last squeeze and then shut her eyes tight.
PREGAME: Baby Kermit makes an unnecessary OOC note
ISLAND:
[Baby Kermit uses unnecessary over-the-top formatting] -- [Baby Kermit kills a guy and then makes a melodramatic speech to the rest of the room] -- [Baby Kermit isn't very good at thread names] -- [Baby Kermit gets fucking murdered]
ISLAND:
[The thread that everybody was there for] -- [To be fair to Santiago, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty.] -- [Harland has a Gamer moment] -- [Harland falls down] -- [Oops]
PREGAME: ["We took a tour of Universal Studios in Los Angeles and, inside and outside the place, it was very difficult to tell what was real. They're not-real people trying to say something. And we're real people not trying to say anything. I just like everybody and I believe in everything." - Andy Warhol]
MEMORIES: ["The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration." - Frida Kahlo]
FLOTILLA:
["Images are made palpable, ironed flat by technology and, in turn, dictate the seemingly real through the representative." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["You'd be surprised how many people want to hang an electric chair on their living-room wall. Specially if the background color matches the drapes." - Andy Warhol] -- ["In the end, glorification of splendid underdogs is nothing other than the glorification of the splendid system that makes them so." - Theodor Adorno] -- ["I think that art is still a site for resistance and for the telling of various stories, for validating certain subjectivities we normally overlook. I'm trying to be affective, to suggest changes, and to resist what I feel are the tyrannies of social life on a certain level." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process." - Vincent van Gogh] -- ["One eye sees, the other feels." - Paul Klee] -- ["I suppose I have a really loose interpretation of "work" because I think that just being alive is so much work at something you don't always want to do." - Andy Warhol] -- ["I think that every so-called history book and film biography should be prefaced by the statement that what follows is the author's rendition of events and circumstances." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["I never think that people die. They just go to department stores." - Andy Warhol] -- ["From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity." - Edvard Munch] -- ["I think I developed language skills to deal with threat. It's the girl thing to do-you know, instead of pulling out a gun." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["Since I was shot, everything is such a dream to me. Like I don't know whether I'm alive or whether I died. I wasn't afraid before. And having been dead once, I shouldn't feel fear. But I am afraid. I don't understand why." - Andy Warhol] -- ["'One to the other / Unos á otros' - Thus goes the world. We mock at and deceive each other. He who, yesterday, was the ball, is to-day the horseman in the ring. Fortune directs the feast, and distributes the parts according to the inconstancy of its caprice." - Francisco Goya] -- ["It's good to keep in mind that prominence is always a mix of hard work, eloquence in your practice, good timing and fortuitous social relations. Everything can't be personalized." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["Art...has always been a polite form of terrorism." - Robert Boswell] -- ["I'm trying to deal with ideas about histories, fame, hearsay, and how public identities are constructed." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["Death means a lot of money, honey. Death can really make you look like a star." - Andy Warhol] -- ["Our whole society is aboard the raft of the Medusa." - Jules Michelet]
THE MUTE: ["There's a schematic for the whole Goths album between when and where I was in my youth, I mean some of them are stories but they all correlate to moments. I spent 9 months in Portland when I was 18, 19 years old and these were formative months because I was an absolute failure at living my life and I had friends who kept me alive and who saw through my hard veneer and who chose to be kind to me even though I was not worthy of their kindness, I was not. This is why when people tell me 'Hey John, you're a good guy', I say 'No, I've seen John in a lot of guises and I reject any claims to being a good guy, I see' and in Portland I had a community of people who accepted me exactly as I was and though I didn't know how to take their acceptance, and this song -- most of them are with god now -- and it's called 'Wear Black' ."]
THE COMPOUND:
[You could be anywhere on the black screen.] -- [Hand me your hand, let me look in your eyes, as my last chance to feel human begins to vaporize. Maybe it's the heat in here, maybe it's the pressure; you ought to head for the exits, the sooner the better.] -- [Don't you know people write songs about girls like you ?] -- [Tonya, you were the brightest. Yeah you rose from the ashes, and survived all the crashes, wiping the blood from your white tights.] -- [Never seen anything like that before, falling bodies tumble 'cross the floor.] -- [Take a look at these hands, you don't have to mention it. No thanks, I'm a government man.] -- [We all, we all, we all, we all know this is nothing. This is nowhere. We all, we all, we all, we all know this is nowhere. There is no one here.] -- [This ain't no party, this ain't no disco. This ain't no fooling around. This ain't no Mudd Club, or C.B.G.B. I ain't got time for that now.] -- [Stay alive. Maybe spit blood at the camera. Just stay alive. Stay forever alive.] -- [And I run, and I run, and I run, and I run] -- [upon this tidal wave of, oh god oh god, young blood young blood young blood young blood -]
"I..."
Her ear perked up. Steph. She was still silent. Pippi still hated her.
"I don't want to die either. But I don't want to be a ploy in their merchandise. In their games. I don't want to be a pawn for them to play with it and then discard when I outlived my usefulness."
And it will happen even if she dies. But at least she won't be there to see it.
"And I'm not planning on killing myself."
She hugged Luanne, burrowing her face in the crook of her neck.
There was enough killer here.
Right here.
"Take my bag. Find my notebook."
She pulled away.
"I hid from you because I wanted to s-surprise you with it. I left... everything in it."
Her will. Her life. Her memories. Her sadness. Diagrams for the collars. Series. Electricity.
"I told the girls on our team to come meet me at the Ballroom. Where we passed by. There was a piano, remember? We didn't stay there because..."
Death. Bodies. Danger zone.
"Please... please don't forget who you are, okay?"
She choked as Pippi pulled her into a hug. She tried not to think about it at all, because this was probably the last time Pippi would ever be hugged. So. It was just taking a lot for Luanne not to implode into a little puddle of tears on the ground. Every thought was making it harder.
Take my bag. Find my notebook.
Please don't forget who you are.
Okay?
Her face twisted.
She took a shaky breath in. And then out. And kept doing that slowly for a few seconds until she was pretty sure she could talk without devolving into incoherent sobs.
"Okay," she silently mouthed.
She took another few breaths.
"If you - if you change your mind, if you change your mind, I-I'll be, I'll be at the ballroom. If - if you change your mind, just, just find me."
She felt physically sick. Just from everything.
"N-no goodbyes. Because those are for forever."
She shifted her hand in Pippi's, and pressed her thumb against the back of the other girl's hand, feeling her pulse.
"Whenever you're ready for me to go. Just let me know when."
PREGAME: Baby Kermit makes an unnecessary OOC note
ISLAND:
[Baby Kermit uses unnecessary over-the-top formatting] -- [Baby Kermit kills a guy and then makes a melodramatic speech to the rest of the room] -- [Baby Kermit isn't very good at thread names] -- [Baby Kermit gets fucking murdered]
ISLAND:
[The thread that everybody was there for] -- [To be fair to Santiago, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty.] -- [Harland has a Gamer moment] -- [Harland falls down] -- [Oops]
PREGAME: ["We took a tour of Universal Studios in Los Angeles and, inside and outside the place, it was very difficult to tell what was real. They're not-real people trying to say something. And we're real people not trying to say anything. I just like everybody and I believe in everything." - Andy Warhol]
MEMORIES: ["The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration." - Frida Kahlo]
FLOTILLA:
["Images are made palpable, ironed flat by technology and, in turn, dictate the seemingly real through the representative." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["You'd be surprised how many people want to hang an electric chair on their living-room wall. Specially if the background color matches the drapes." - Andy Warhol] -- ["In the end, glorification of splendid underdogs is nothing other than the glorification of the splendid system that makes them so." - Theodor Adorno] -- ["I think that art is still a site for resistance and for the telling of various stories, for validating certain subjectivities we normally overlook. I'm trying to be affective, to suggest changes, and to resist what I feel are the tyrannies of social life on a certain level." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process." - Vincent van Gogh] -- ["One eye sees, the other feels." - Paul Klee] -- ["I suppose I have a really loose interpretation of "work" because I think that just being alive is so much work at something you don't always want to do." - Andy Warhol] -- ["I think that every so-called history book and film biography should be prefaced by the statement that what follows is the author's rendition of events and circumstances." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["I never think that people die. They just go to department stores." - Andy Warhol] -- ["From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity." - Edvard Munch] -- ["I think I developed language skills to deal with threat. It's the girl thing to do-you know, instead of pulling out a gun." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["Since I was shot, everything is such a dream to me. Like I don't know whether I'm alive or whether I died. I wasn't afraid before. And having been dead once, I shouldn't feel fear. But I am afraid. I don't understand why." - Andy Warhol] -- ["'One to the other / Unos á otros' - Thus goes the world. We mock at and deceive each other. He who, yesterday, was the ball, is to-day the horseman in the ring. Fortune directs the feast, and distributes the parts according to the inconstancy of its caprice." - Francisco Goya] -- ["It's good to keep in mind that prominence is always a mix of hard work, eloquence in your practice, good timing and fortuitous social relations. Everything can't be personalized." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["Art...has always been a polite form of terrorism." - Robert Boswell] -- ["I'm trying to deal with ideas about histories, fame, hearsay, and how public identities are constructed." - Barbara Kruger] -- ["Death means a lot of money, honey. Death can really make you look like a star." - Andy Warhol] -- ["Our whole society is aboard the raft of the Medusa." - Jules Michelet]
THE MUTE: ["There's a schematic for the whole Goths album between when and where I was in my youth, I mean some of them are stories but they all correlate to moments. I spent 9 months in Portland when I was 18, 19 years old and these were formative months because I was an absolute failure at living my life and I had friends who kept me alive and who saw through my hard veneer and who chose to be kind to me even though I was not worthy of their kindness, I was not. This is why when people tell me 'Hey John, you're a good guy', I say 'No, I've seen John in a lot of guises and I reject any claims to being a good guy, I see' and in Portland I had a community of people who accepted me exactly as I was and though I didn't know how to take their acceptance, and this song -- most of them are with god now -- and it's called 'Wear Black' ."]
THE COMPOUND:
[You could be anywhere on the black screen.] -- [Hand me your hand, let me look in your eyes, as my last chance to feel human begins to vaporize. Maybe it's the heat in here, maybe it's the pressure; you ought to head for the exits, the sooner the better.] -- [Don't you know people write songs about girls like you ?] -- [Tonya, you were the brightest. Yeah you rose from the ashes, and survived all the crashes, wiping the blood from your white tights.] -- [Never seen anything like that before, falling bodies tumble 'cross the floor.] -- [Take a look at these hands, you don't have to mention it. No thanks, I'm a government man.] -- [We all, we all, we all, we all know this is nothing. This is nowhere. We all, we all, we all, we all know this is nowhere. There is no one here.] -- [This ain't no party, this ain't no disco. This ain't no fooling around. This ain't no Mudd Club, or C.B.G.B. I ain't got time for that now.] -- [Stay alive. Maybe spit blood at the camera. Just stay alive. Stay forever alive.] -- [And I run, and I run, and I run, and I run] -- [upon this tidal wave of, oh god oh god, young blood young blood young blood young blood -]
