poly_chromatic | 2 [video/text]

[The video opens to show an exceedingly nice terrarium sitting on a desk, which is located in the room Justin is borrowing from Neil and Todd. A copy of "The Importance of Being Earnest" is lined up neatly to the left. Aaand zoom in.]

From the Diapheromeridae family. [The view shifts to show this beauty.] And this one's from the Phylliidae family.

[Justin, clearly behind the camera, sounds even quieter and less enthusiastic about life than usual, which is an accomplishment.]

I plan on naming one Gregor and one Mendel, but I'm not sure which should be which. I'm open to suggestions.

[The video switches off.]

[Text]
I've never been interested in entomology, but this combination--plant and animal--is interesting. Worth buying on impulse, now that I'm financially secure for the moment. The bank had an account for me. I made decent money before I left.

The network is a good place to ask open-ended questions. I'd like to ask this: What do you do when you feel as though you're missing something? Not that you've misplaced something, but that there's something fundamentally important to you as a human missing. Drink? Are there any more creative answers?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Not even everyone willing to.

[Some goals are just bad. The problem there is that they're only bad in retrospect.]

You don't? You should.

If you can't stop them, then the point is moot.

[Rights for the mighty, Chase had called it.]

I don't poison myself for recreation.

Even if they're unstoppable, what they want isn't necessarily something they should get--or will want, once they have it.

Mm. You're missing out; recreational poison has its merits.

I don't waste my time with what I can't change. Just work around it.

[Oh really, Carla? Are you sure you're not being a hypocrite right now...]

I hate being inebriated. The body and mind are more important than that.

And if you can't work around something?

The mind, maybe, although alcohol has influenced many great poetic works.

You suffer under it.

I don't respect anyone who's only poetic in a daze.

True enough.

To be fair, I'm sure they made significant revisions while sober.

[She smirks faintly, answering dryly,]

Right. To be fair.

Can I assume you're not a literature fan?

I guess you could.

[She'd read more, when she had been dead. It was something to do, and it helped her deteriorating mind keep some sharpness. That was all, however. She had needed a guide to appreciate art, prose and poetics were not so different.]

Or you're neutral on the subject. That's my reaction to most art--indifference.

I like artists more than their work.

Why?

They're puzzles. I'm not artistic, I don't understand how they think.

[So she watched them, poked and prodded and tested them, searching for cracks, searching for uncertainties.]

Understandable. Artistic talent isn't something that can be analyzed, quantified...

They can be mimicked... but not recreated.

[She knows firsthand and talking about this is filling her with a cloying sort of longing. Sorrow and homesickness. She runs a hand back through her hair and wishes for a moment she weren't on camera.]

[Justin is nothing if not perceptive. This doesn't go unnoticed.]

Why would you want to mimic art?

[She is silent for a moment before she shrugs.]

Money.

That would explain your lack of success. Art can only come from a need to make it, not a desire to sell it.

I was successful at what I set out to do. The failures came later.

You don't seem like someone who tolerates failure.

Not well, anyway.

[An understatement. A hideous understatement. Her hand wanders to her neck this time. None of her marks are showing, the scratches she's given to herself all across her shoulders, her chest, the back of her neck, but she can feel them burning. The punishment and symptom of weakness, of failure, have somehow become conflated and she can't stand it. She can't change it. So she suffers under it.]

I can sympathize.

[He's not sure what to make of her and he's not foolish enough to ask anything too personal of someone who seems like a potential danger. Still, he is curious...]

I can't imagine what you would fail at.

Neither could I.

[Past-tense. Doubt haunts her often these days.]

But my... luck changed.

Did it change before you came to the City?

video;

dignity_misery - 2012-01-21 07:09 (UTC) - Expand

othersdie - 2012-01-21 07:10 (UTC) - Expand

dignity_misery - 2012-01-21 07:14 (UTC) - Expand

othersdie - 2012-01-21 07:31 (UTC) - Expand

dignity_misery - 2012-01-21 07:33 (UTC) - Expand

othersdie - 2012-01-21 07:49 (UTC) - Expand

dignity_misery - 2012-01-21 08:02 (UTC) - Expand

othersdie - 2012-01-21 08:14 (UTC) - Expand

dignity_misery - 2012-01-21 19:27 (UTC) - Expand

othersdie - 2012-01-21 21:23 (UTC) - Expand

dignity_misery - 2012-01-21 21:27 (UTC) - Expand

othersdie - 2012-01-21 21:38 (UTC) - Expand

dignity_misery - 2012-01-21 21:40 (UTC) - Expand

othersdie - 2012-01-21 21:44 (UTC) - Expand

dignity_misery - 2012-01-21 21:46 (UTC) - Expand

othersdie - 2012-01-21 22:16 (UTC) - Expand

dignity_misery - 2012-01-21 22:31 (UTC) - Expand