A Thanksgiving Gathering

Well, I think I can say that this has been the absolute worst Thanksgiving ever.


Before we start, let me say that I've got a lot to talk about.  This might be a bit belated or get split into multiple parts.

Jacob decided that he'd prepare us a Thanksgiving meal.  I don't know why the hell he thought it was a good idea, but he insisted, and hey, free food.  Not like we can usually afford to eat like kings.  I think I've lost about twenty pounds in the last half a year or however long it's been.

I think I would have preferred leftovers.  Wouldn't have been as good, but it would have been better than what we usually get and we wouldn't have had to socialize.  Getting about forty people with varying levels of sociopathy together (Around fifteen "agents" and twenty-five "hollowed" or "broken" or whatever you want to call them) is probably not a good idea.

Yeah, there's about forty of us that Jacob funds.  We all fit in the rich bastard's house pretty well.  Talked to a few people, and it sounds like half of the total funds go to this man named Eddie.  He's...I think the term he used was a "Caretaker."  Basically, he's responsible for overseeing the...the ones that can't take care of themselves.  I still never know what to call them.  Apparently, Eddie has a job similar to the one Andrew had.  I think he's probably the most "normal" of anyone I've met who's here of their own accord.  It's obviously hard on him, though.  He has very hard eyes.  That's the only way I know how to describe them.  Eyes that look like he's seen so much that nothing bothers him anymore, and if it does, he can't outwardly emote.  Things I'm thankful for, #1: my job isn't nearly as stressful as Eddie's.

Didn't get to talk to Eddie that much.  I only saw him for a few minutes with everyone else, then he went to a separate area of the house to keep an eye on the ones he's supposed to keep an eye on.  Visited him there for a few minutes to ask about his job, but it didn't last very long.  He kicked me out pretty quickly.  He didn't seem too happy I was there (even though I told him I was just curious about his job and his...charges, I guess), but I convinced him to give me his contact information.  Might go talk to him again later.  Don't think he likes me, but he seemed to want to talk to Poe some.  Curious as to how things were going.  She seemed more intent on avoiding him.

Anyway, that left about fourteen of us, plus Jacob and Eternity, sitting around and eating and...doing other Thanksgivingy stuff, I guess.  Eternity's not funded by Jacob (pretty sure he's on some higher level of funding) but showed up anyway for some reason.  Maybe we were the only group who had a Thanksgiving gathering, maybe he gets along well with Jacob, or maybe he just wants to fuck with me or something, but for whatever reason, he was there.  Gave me that same patronizing routine, so I tried to avoid him as much as I could.

Watched the game with some others for a while before eating.  Eternity and Theta both watch football, apparently.  Theta's kind of strange about it, though.  Just sits there and stares at the screen.  Doesn't talk.  Doesn't cheer.  I have no clue which team he was going for, or if he even had a preference.  Gave up on watching after finding out that Eternity's a Packers fan (wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of knowing then that we were going for the same team), and decided to use the opportunity to talk to some other people more.  Besides, Poe refused to leave my side, and I have the feeling she wasn't exactly enjoying the game.

Glasses came up to me at one point.  Turns out he calls himself Muad'Dib (and I only know how to spell that incredibly stupid name because of Poe).  Anyway, Muad'Dib comes up and starts talking to me.  Says he recognizes me and that I'm a friend of Nee-chan's, right?  I can't really say that Nee-chan's a "friend," exactly, but I nod.  He starts sighing and talking about how cute she is and how lucky I am to be so close to her.  Asks if I think he has a chance.  I'm not sure this guy remembers the night he and Ginger had to pin her down (speaking of Ginger, didn't get the chance to talk to him at all and ask for his name.  He mostly stood off to the side the entire night, with what looked like a grimace on his face).  I reminded him of how unstable Nee-chan is, and how he should know that, having experienced it firsthand.  The kid must be a dumbass, because he looks at me and says this, verbatim:

"Well, yeah, but look at her.  I mean, she's probably all sorts of kinky.  She's gotta be a freak in bed."


I may be wrong, but something tells me neither of those kids has gotten laid in their life.

Muad'Dib started talking to Poe some then.  I caught a few things from their conversation.  Apparently the kid's a pilot (I'd ask why the hell we need a pilot, but then I'd have to ask why the hell we need a hacker), and he's flown Poe around when they need to do more hands-on field tracking.  Apparently she's got an assignment coming up soon.  Speaking of which, Poe, would have been nice if you had mentioned that earlier.  Or, you know, at all.  But anyway, Muad'Dib takes a deep breath and heads over to talk to Nee-chan.  Don't know how it went, because I didn't stick around, but I guess I also don't really care.  If he has a chance with her, good for him.

I talked to a few other people, but I didn't have enough time to hold any sort of meaningful conversation or gauge them before the meal started.  I have no clue how exactly Jacob figured out the seating, but I could tell he was being pretty deliberate.  He put Nee-chan between Poe and Screwtape, for example, probably to keep Poe and Screwtape fairly close, but separated in a way that doesn't require them to look at each other.  I ended up between Poe and Muad'Dib.  Clearly, Jacob had gone out of his way to try to avoid conflicts.

A shame that it didn't work.

We ate in silence for a while.  Everything was fine.  And then Jacob said something about how he was hoping this could be an experience to bring us all closer together and how he'd like it if we at least tried to talk to each other.  That's when things sort of went to hell.

There were a few murmurs of conversation.  Couldn't catch most of it, but it sounded relatively normal.  Then things exploded.  As great as Jacob is, he clearly doesn't spend enough time around us.  Getting us all together is one thing.  Getting us all together and forcing us into conversation is going a bit too far.  You absolutely cannot get people like us together and expect the conversation to be anywhere near healthy.  You know that uncle who always makes family gatherings awkward because he's vocal about views no one else in the family holds, or something along those lines?  Well, imagine a big family where everyone's that uncle.

Screwtape started talking to Poe, telling her how happy she must be to see Eddie again after all this time.  Eternity started asking me how Kyle was.  Nee-chan brought up Morningstar, and apparently opinions on this new guy and his predecessor are pretty mixed.

Jacob decided to remove all the knives from the table pretty quickly.

Anyway, the whole thing degenerated into shouting matches until Eternity stood up and yelled something about us being a family and that we should be simply enjoying each other's company.  You can't tell from the syntax I used, but he used second person plural, not first person plural.  Bastard made a big show about caring about how much we get along, but didn't even include himself as "one of us."

After that, everyone pretty much stopped talking and just ate.  Except for one couple (didn't get their names or anything), and they didn't even talk.  Just acted all flirty with each other.  Fun facts about eating: Theta's apparently a huge eater, Screwtape eats very simply (he apparently only drinks water, didn't eat anything particularly sweet, and didn't add any additional seasonings), Nee-chan's kind of a picky eater, and apparently Ginger's a vegetarian.  After we finished eating, we took off.  Some said goodbye to others, some thanked Jacob as they went.  Others (Theta was the one I remember, but there were a few others) just stood up and left the table without a word.  The whole thing was  just...really awkward, like no one really wanted to be there.  Easily worse than any family gathering I've been to.

Let's hope that I don't have another thanksgiving like this for a long time.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

Interview with Dia

So I did that interview with Dia I mentioned in my last post.

I'm not going to bother retyping it all for you here.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

Catching up

Okay, finger's not fully healed yet, but I think I can bear it long enough to stop in, since I know you're all so worried about me.

I'm fine.  Been keeping to myself, mostly.  Been working some, been reading some.  Watching a few of the people who do videos for certain reasons.  Been making a few Skype calls with a few people (who shall remain nameless) for reasons that are none of your concern.  You'd probably just be bored.

Poe's been a bit distant, lately.  Don't know what's going on.  I think she may be upset about me making her type that thing out before.  She's mad I made her blog, I'm mad she's siding with Screwtape on this, and we just haven't bothered really bringing it up.

Nee-chan's been coming over on Saturdays.  She's been really excited over this "Mirai Nikki" show that's just come out or something.  Forced Poe and me to watch it.  I'd have insisted on a dub, but apparently there isn't one yet, so I guess she's forced me into watching another one of those.  On the plus side, it's a pretty entertaining show.  Reminds me of Death Note in a lot of ways.  But anyway, she's been upset over the new Morningstar thing (you guys remember Morningstar, right?  Apparently there's a new Morningstar now).  Much more stable than when he died, though.

That reminds me, still need to figure out who the Glasses and Ginger guys who helped calm her down were.

As for pretty much everyone else, haven't seen them around, and I don't particularly care.  Except Donovan.  I'm kind of curious as to what happened to him.  He just sort of disappeared, and I haven't heard any sort of indication that he's dead yet.

Incidentally, some of you may be familiar with Dia.  She sometimes leaves comments here.  Sometimes they're stupid comments about how we apparently have some sort of orgy in this place every night (we don't).  But she's been nagging me about doing an interview with her, since apparently she wants me to be on the other side of the mic for once.  And because I guess I've got nothing else to do, I've stupidly agreed.  You can expect that when it's finished.  I'm also going to be trying to talk to Poe soon about Glasses and Ginger, and I guess just talking to her in general again.  Oh yeah, and trying to get the List of Deceased updated.  So take a look at that (I'm not going to link it when it's at the top of the page) and let me know if I've forgotten anyone for some reason.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

Explaning some stuff

Jesus it was hard convincing Poe to write this up.  She keeps talking about how it's not right, how she shouldn't be writing anything, how she'll say something wrong...but whatever.  Here's what's been going on.

I do not want to blog about this. I don't want to blog at all, really. Messenger can't do it himself though, and he's asked me to do it for him. He really doesn't like being a liar, I guess. We got in a bit of a fight about it actually. Which is why I'm here writing this.

Screwtape has gotten worse. He's always scared me a little. Now he's even more intense than he used to be. He does seem a little less angry at me though, so I will take small mercies where I can get them.

After Messi's post about Eternity, Screwtape came over. I was not in the room, but I could hear them talking. Screwtape demanded that Messi take the post down, because it was just lies being spread around. He said Eternity was just trying to break him. This was a test of faith that Messi was losing.

I feel weird saying it, but I think I might agree with him. Eternity is pretty big here. He does exactly what he says he does. Even if he was just using us to forward his own goals, it seems strange to think that he would tell Messi this. That's assuming this was the real Eternity in the first place. I don't like doubting Messi, but the whole thing seems off.

He refused to take the post down. He claimed that Screwtape was just angry because his world was falling apart. They argued like this for a while, then Screwtape seemed to back down. That was when I heard a small snap, and Messi screamed. I ran into the room, but Screwtape was already gone.

That's how Messi broke his finger, and why he can't really type right now. He seems pretty upset about the whole thing, but I don't think he's going to be able to update very much until it heals. I don't think this is a bad thing. I thought that blogs would be a good thing. Really they just stir up trouble.

Still, it is sort of his job. Messenger will be back to this blog as soon as he can be.

So yeah.  Screwtape broke my fucking finger because I wouldn't take a post down.

I'm going to be laying low for a bit while the situation cools and my finger heals.  It hurts like hell, and you have no clue how unnatural it is to type while your ring finger is in a splint.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-

Edit: Okay, since I'm getting some questions, let me elaborate on a few things.  I'm not having a "religious crisis."  That's Screwtape, much as he'll deny it.  The "test of faith" phrase that keeps getting thrown around means that Eternity is trying to get in my head.  Break me down.  Test me.  You get it now?  Good.  Screwtape said the reason he broke my finger was "the cost for spreading uninformed rumors and causing dissent" or something like that.  He also said that I got the good end of the bargain.  My ass.