Oh. Jesus. I hadn't thought of *that* part. If it is too noisy from the Club, Tyler wouldn't have ever noticed. Welp. Time to invest in earplugs, possibly. This just makes getting a nice condo or something in the city even more imperative.
(Or small house, I suppose. I just say 'condo' because I'm used to living in cities proper rather than suburbs, not actually owning a car, and just taking light rail or taxis or rideshares everywhere. But the suburbs in Goldenrod are certainly more accessible than a lot of places back home--which makes sense, given how extremely rare cars actually are in this world. I could live somewhere like Emet does and still easily commute--I know for a fact I could, because I come over to his place for baking and therapy with Hythlodaeus every Wednesday and still make it to work afterward.)
But yes. There was jealousy on both side of the Steven Divide. Steven the Younger (as Shinobu labeled the me you first met) was terribly envious of how confident and powerful Steven the Elder (myself a year ago) was compared to him--which he had every right to, considering the weight of magic which sits on my shoulders on the weird weekends--and Steven the Elder had that slight jealousy that Steven the Younger was in love that I already mentioned, plus annoyance that our sister was more comfortable with my younger self than the one I grew into.
(Of course, she's used to me *now*, but at the time, it had been less than a month since Shinobu had first summoned her using her apocalypse notes to help him solve the mystery of What Happened To The Vampires and all the ways I'd changed in the almost nine years since she'd seen the real me were-- jarring, to say the least.)
But you're right. I did have better hopes for things than I really had any right to.
The unforeseen perks of the hard of hearing.........hopefully it's better than we fear, but yeah, get on that.
(I mean, your options are open? I'd look into the choices you have starting from scratch, seems cheaper around here.)
Ooof! I think I met your sister actually... That...sucks to hear about. I guess for her it would've been like seeing a whole new person, since you probably hadn't seen her chronologically for a while but....still...
Do you think so? The problem with going straight from the work dorms to Jack's house is that I have *no idea* what rent is like in this world--and my basis for comparison is *California*, where 2k/month for a two-bedroom is not unreasonable in a big city.
But then, this *is* a near utopia, what with the universal health care and even the criminal gangs giving out vision and dental (and I really need to make an appointment for new lenses when I get back to town--these are six years out of date!)
With Charley... I really don't blame her? She was the only person to realize just how *unnaturally wrong* my replacement was, when everyone else assumed I'd just... had some sort of psychotic break, I guess. So I'm sure that finding out that Pod Steven had really been a fake version of me, then having to confront that the real version of me wasn't the brother she remembered... I know it was hard for her.
So I really don't blame her for being much more comfortable with the younger me, who may have already grown a beard, but... well, hadn't done nearly as much as I've done in her absence. Who certainly had never fired a *gun*.
Charley, unfortunately, died by being shot on the orders of the Prince of New York--that is, the head vampire of that city--and it was very difficult for her to come to terms with the fact that in the last five years not only had I bought a gun and learned how to use it, but that I have, in fact, killed people with it. Which I completely and utterly don't blame her for, Carly, because yes, those were at the behest of the Autumn Monarch and as sanctioned as any extra-legal executions on behalf of local supernatural rulers can be--but that's the *problem*.
(Honestly, it's a miracle we've been able to restore our relationship as much as we have in a year.)
I mean, it's not like you're likely to find houses in a place modeled off Japan is all I'm saying. Not that the housing market didn't exist in the real one- trust me it did- but things are a little more...rigid here. Anything you find, it's going to be in the city, and that one I CAN say will probably be a little costly! That and not much different from staying where you are now to be honest....
Man, two bedrooms for 2k huh....sounds nice...
Anyway. The thing about building here is that we have pokemon for labor now- I mean...Look what Dirk was able to put together for Jolyne and me!
That's 2k in dollars, Carly, not yen. And not the nicest apartments. Those will run you around 3k, maybe even 4k. *Mine* is definitely over 3k. 2k is for a *basic* two bedroom and not one in the best neighborhoods.
(There are *some* houses in Goldenrod, but they're definitely in the suburbs. Like where Jack lived and where Emet lives.)
Yeah. It was really not easy for her to come to terms that I've done to other people what had been (unjustly) done to her. I'm not angry at *her* for it. Honestly, I'm angry at Prince Reyes, but she's also dead, so there's not much I can do about it.
And yeah, as my *own* preference, I'd rather live in the city itself, but with space at a premium in cities (as it always is) the best way to give the pokemon a lot of room to run free would be in in the suburbs.
And yeah, I really can't do *anything* to Reyes. Like it's not just a matter of her having been a fairly powerful vampire, because I *can* and *have* brought down powerful people--it's because *all* the vampires are gone. We're not exactly sure of the exact date it happened, but they're *all* gone, in a sort of quiet, localized vampire apocalype.
That's how Shinobu ended up summoning Charley's ghost. Because she'd been studying the coming vampire apocalypse--there were prophecies and everything--and I'd finally gotten the chance to go to NYC and investigate the circumstances around her disappearance and one of the things I found were the notes she'd made on vampire apocalypse prophecies, which were actually a *significant* discovery, all things considered, because those of us among the Sages had no goddamn clue what was up with the missing vampires.
(Don't worry--Gil and I were responsible and waited until both of us and our host were vaccinated first before we left.)
Anyway. Charley had been *so* invested in those notes that they were enough for her ghost to be summoned from them. Which we found out when my mentor, Fantomas, borrowed them to show his friend Old Man Tsukuyomi, whose not-really-grandson Shinobu decided to see if he could summon the author. Which he did. And then Charley persuaded him to break into my apartment so she could borrow my copy of Spirited Away to show him and the rest is history.
(And then once international travel had opened again, we ended up going to France to steal some artifacts from a museum so her ghost friends could also get summoned, but that's a whole 'nother story.)
I almost wonder if you could make a secret base inside a city...that would be neat...
Yeesh. Well. That's. Huh. That's super weird!
Well I guess her ghost is around to talk to you at least though...
And hahahaaa...right because of...Aha.
Sounds like she was as dedicated a researcher as I was..! And a really determined ghost for that matter, huh.
(Boy that must be a hell of a story............)
Honestly the most I remember with all the international trouble was the under the bar jokes my coworkers made about how 'satellite trash' didn't have to worry about getting sick...I try not to think about the fact that I laughed at the time. At least they apparently reconnected a bridge after my time...
I mean, we both know it's possible. It's just-- mm, logistics. Doing it if you *don't* have the kind of money a criminal organization has.
That said, Tyler and I *do* own the basement and first two floors of the building that Fight Club is in outright these days. The floors above us are the remnants of an old hotel gone to seed, but we *could* gradually buy the rest of it out, especially with how profitable Fight Club still remains. Maybe I should make *that* my goal. I'll admit, there is something attractive about the idea of owning my own ten-story building.
And yes, Charley is very dedicated when she puts her mine to things and an impeccable researcher. She's a born scientist, really. I was very surprised when she didn't go into STEM--our father said she had the right kind of mind for programming (which I unfortunately don't) and when we were little she used to talk about all the robot children she was going to make when she grew up.
I mean, she's also a better writer-of-fiction than me (I'd say we're about even when it comes to non-) but still, an English degree doesn't always open all the doors you need opened, especially if you keep missing applying to grad school (for admittedly completely understandable reasons.) But she said that STEM and especially programming isn't exactly welcoming to women and I guess I understand why she wouldn't want to, then, since that would be compounding any trouble she'd get for being Latina and not particularly white-passing.
But yes. Yes. The story of how I met Shinobu *is* one hell of a story. There I was, napping on the couch after Gil and I had *finally* gotten back from one hell of a road trip and I hear someone breaking into my *home*. So I go to the drawer, get out my handgun, make sure it's still unloaded, put the bullets in my pocket just in case--and then I go out and put my unloaded gun up to the cabron's head and ask him what the fuck he thought he was doing. He makes Charley visible. I lower my gun. Charley yells at me and then asks why the hell am I not at work and why am I wearing cosplay make-up in the middle of the day. Shinobu explains I'm like him. Charley still isn't sure I'm *not* Pod Steven, but she asks me how I'd react if she told me that her boss was teaching her to do autopsies and I tell her that I'd be thrilled for her... and a little jealous.
(Charley's employer for the job she took shortly after I was abducted was a vampire mad scientist, which is what drew her into that whole world. Evidently, my replacement's lack of enthusiasm when she told him about learning autopsies was how she figured out he was a Pod Person.)
Anyway, after that, we all went into my apartment and Charley calmed down and *I* calmed down and Shinobu... didn't completely calm down but when Gil showed up later that certainly *helped* calm him down, because Gil's just-- very good at getting people to calm their tits, usually by making them laugh. I miss him already.
(Also, Asia handled all of the trouble so much *better* than we did. The whole ruthless individuality aspect of America *really* fucks us over when it comes to making sacrifices for the common good.)
Ooooooh a monopoly huh~? Well, if you're able to get the funds together...
I'll be honest for a while I was making more off gym challenges. It's only really these last weeks that that's changed...
(AAaaaaanyway all that aside, we got hit with a bunch of big supernatural catastrophes before the end of the decade so I guess that was our 'real' disaster moment...)
I mean, I keep thinking of all the things we can *put* up there. A recording studio would be lovely--I've got a home set-up, but sometimes a boy dreams of professional equipment, you know? And housing that's not the work dorms, where people could have their own little studios even when they're just starting out with the company. Offices for Thace to do his pokemon activism out of. And just-- rooms and rooms for pokemon to live in. I got a little spoilt having Jack's entire big house for mine, even if he *would* insist the ghosts stay in the basement.
The defunct hotel had a pool on the top floor, with a glass ceiling, and I'd love to get that fixed up so that it's usable--and fix up the exercise room on that floor too. Part of me is *terribly tempted* to use Jack's money *to* buy it out, now that it's gone, but it's rightfully Angel's, not mine.
It's tempting, though. Very tempting. Maybe when I do Victory Road... I've looked up how much you get for each match it's a *nice* chunk of change. 150k for the Elite Four and then 60k just for Lance... though that won't be until spring, because camping is uncomfortable enough without doing it in the dead of winter. I've got five more gyms to do in the meantime anyway. (But I definitely *am* going to go up Victory Road. The only thing stopping me before was that I didn't want to leave Jack for the better part of a month given how dependent I was on him at the time--I can say that about my younger self because it's true--and in this case, I've already got a traveling companion.)
Anyway, the supernatural *will* get its sticky fingers into everything... I say as someone who is now supernatural himself (and who is a member of an organization who studies the other supernatural beings outside just us Changelings.) Honestly, I'm mostly just surprised that the Vampocalypse happened so *quietly* and not with, for instance, one of those 'Antediluvians' Charley's told me about showing up in downtown New York.
Well, I used my E4 winnings for the house so...should work out for you! And like you said you've kinda got time now...
...Euuugh, you got that right...someone from home after my time was here for a hot minute and he even said most people just FORGOT what was going on from around mine!!! The worst part about this stuff is the amnesia afterwards I swear!
It's one of the things I *know* I'm going to miss from Jack's house--but even if he never comes back, I don't think I can live there anymore. It just has too many memories wound up in it.
Looking back on everything, with six years away to give me perspective, it's not that Jack was cruel or abusive or anything and he actually did a fair amount of good for me at first--he helped me leave the closet, for one thing, and he was the first person I'd met who understood about my abnormal wiring--but he was also very much a narcissist and I don't know if you've ever been with one of those before, Carly, but it can be *draining*. And even though there were lots of good times, especially early on, looking back at it now it's hard to see past that last, wretched month of me growing more and more quietly miserable.
So yes. A new start in a new place sounds just right for me.
I might have something vaguely resembling a date come Friday, but any other night you're in town after I get back Wednesday, text me and we'll do those toasts.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2020-12-03 03:43 pm (UTC)(Or small house, I suppose. I just say 'condo' because I'm used to living in cities proper rather than suburbs, not actually owning a car, and just taking light rail or taxis or rideshares everywhere. But the suburbs in Goldenrod are certainly more accessible than a lot of places back home--which makes sense, given how extremely rare cars actually are in this world. I could live somewhere like Emet does and still easily commute--I know for a fact I could, because I come over to his place for baking and therapy with Hythlodaeus every Wednesday and still make it to work afterward.)
But yes. There was jealousy on both side of the Steven Divide. Steven the Younger (as Shinobu labeled the me you first met) was terribly envious of how confident and powerful Steven the Elder (myself a year ago) was compared to him--which he had every right to, considering the weight of magic which sits on my shoulders on the weird weekends--and Steven the Elder had that slight jealousy that Steven the Younger was in love that I already mentioned, plus annoyance that our sister was more comfortable with my younger self than the one I grew into.
(Of course, she's used to me *now*, but at the time, it had been less than a month since Shinobu had first summoned her using her apocalypse notes to help him solve the mystery of What Happened To The Vampires and all the ways I'd changed in the almost nine years since she'd seen the real me were-- jarring, to say the least.)
But you're right. I did have better hopes for things than I really had any right to.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-05 01:02 pm (UTC)(I mean, your options are open? I'd look into the choices you have starting from scratch, seems cheaper around here.)
Ooof! I think I met your sister actually... That...sucks to hear about. I guess for her it would've been like seeing a whole new person, since you probably hadn't seen her chronologically for a while but....still...
At least that's changed but...
as a fellow glasses wearer he trusts you understand
Date: 2020-12-05 04:52 pm (UTC)But then, this *is* a near utopia, what with the universal health care and even the criminal gangs giving out vision and dental (and I really need to make an appointment for new lenses when I get back to town--these are six years out of date!)
With Charley... I really don't blame her? She was the only person to realize just how *unnaturally wrong* my replacement was, when everyone else assumed I'd just... had some sort of psychotic break, I guess. So I'm sure that finding out that Pod Steven had really been a fake version of me, then having to confront that the real version of me wasn't the brother she remembered... I know it was hard for her.
So I really don't blame her for being much more comfortable with the younger me, who may have already grown a beard, but... well, hadn't done nearly as much as I've done in her absence. Who certainly had never fired a *gun*.
Charley, unfortunately, died by being shot on the orders of the Prince of New York--that is, the head vampire of that city--and it was very difficult for her to come to terms with the fact that in the last five years not only had I bought a gun and learned how to use it, but that I have, in fact, killed people with it. Which I completely and utterly don't blame her for, Carly, because yes, those were at the behest of the Autumn Monarch and as sanctioned as any extra-legal executions on behalf of local supernatural rulers can be--but that's the *problem*.
(Honestly, it's a miracle we've been able to restore our relationship as much as we have in a year.)
no subject
Date: 2020-12-06 01:52 pm (UTC)Man, two bedrooms for 2k huh....sounds nice...
Anyway. The thing about building here is that we have pokemon for labor now- I mean...Look what Dirk was able to put together for Jolyne and me!
Mnnn....complicated deal though that...
and then i remembered this was 2022 Steven so I should stop thinking in terms of 2012 rents
Date: 2020-12-06 09:46 pm (UTC)(There are *some* houses in Goldenrod, but they're definitely in the suburbs. Like where Jack lived and where Emet lives.)
Yeah. It was really not easy for her to come to terms that I've done to other people what had been (unjustly) done to her. I'm not angry at *her* for it. Honestly, I'm angry at Prince Reyes, but she's also dead, so there's not much I can do about it.
ahaaha and of course carly is from nebulous 202X...
Date: 2020-12-07 05:35 am (UTC)You do Not want to see the prices in Neo Domino~!
Hnnnn not sure I'd want suburbs but you do you, honestly.
Probably can't really do much about 'Prince Reyes' either huh....
they're almost contemporaries!
Date: 2020-12-07 04:44 pm (UTC)And yeah, as my *own* preference, I'd rather live in the city itself, but with space at a premium in cities (as it always is) the best way to give the pokemon a lot of room to run free would be in in the suburbs.
And yeah, I really can't do *anything* to Reyes. Like it's not just a matter of her having been a fairly powerful vampire, because I *can* and *have* brought down powerful people--it's because *all* the vampires are gone. We're not exactly sure of the exact date it happened, but they're *all* gone, in a sort of quiet, localized vampire apocalype.
That's how Shinobu ended up summoning Charley's ghost. Because she'd been studying the coming vampire apocalypse--there were prophecies and everything--and I'd finally gotten the chance to go to NYC and investigate the circumstances around her disappearance and one of the things I found were the notes she'd made on vampire apocalypse prophecies, which were actually a *significant* discovery, all things considered, because those of us among the Sages had no goddamn clue what was up with the missing vampires.
(Don't worry--Gil and I were responsible and waited until both of us and our host were vaccinated first before we left.)
Anyway. Charley had been *so* invested in those notes that they were enough for her ghost to be summoned from them. Which we found out when my mentor, Fantomas, borrowed them to show his friend Old Man Tsukuyomi, whose not-really-grandson Shinobu decided to see if he could summon the author. Which he did. And then Charley persuaded him to break into my apartment so she could borrow my copy of Spirited Away to show him and the rest is history.
(And then once international travel had opened again, we ended up going to France to steal some artifacts from a museum so her ghost friends could also get summoned, but that's a whole 'nother story.)
no subject
Date: 2020-12-08 04:04 pm (UTC)Yeesh. Well. That's. Huh. That's super weird!
Well I guess her ghost is around to talk to you at least though...
And hahahaaa...right because of...Aha.
Sounds like she was as dedicated a researcher as I was..! And a really determined ghost for that matter, huh.
(Boy that must be a hell of a story............)
Honestly the most I remember with all the international trouble was the under the bar jokes my coworkers made about how 'satellite trash' didn't have to worry about getting sick...I try not to think about the fact that I laughed at the time. At least they apparently reconnected a bridge after my time...
no subject
Date: 2020-12-08 05:27 pm (UTC)That said, Tyler and I *do* own the basement and first two floors of the building that Fight Club is in outright these days. The floors above us are the remnants of an old hotel gone to seed, but we *could* gradually buy the rest of it out, especially with how profitable Fight Club still remains. Maybe I should make *that* my goal. I'll admit, there is something attractive about the idea of owning my own ten-story building.
And yes, Charley is very dedicated when she puts her mine to things and an impeccable researcher. She's a born scientist, really. I was very surprised when she didn't go into STEM--our father said she had the right kind of mind for programming (which I unfortunately don't) and when we were little she used to talk about all the robot children she was going to make when she grew up.
I mean, she's also a better writer-of-fiction than me (I'd say we're about even when it comes to non-) but still, an English degree doesn't always open all the doors you need opened, especially if you keep missing applying to grad school (for admittedly completely understandable reasons.) But she said that STEM and especially programming isn't exactly welcoming to women and I guess I understand why she wouldn't want to, then, since that would be compounding any trouble she'd get for being Latina and not particularly white-passing.
But yes. Yes. The story of how I met Shinobu *is* one hell of a story. There I was, napping on the couch after Gil and I had *finally* gotten back from one hell of a road trip and I hear someone breaking into my *home*. So I go to the drawer, get out my handgun, make sure it's still unloaded, put the bullets in my pocket just in case--and then I go out and put my unloaded gun up to the cabron's head and ask him what the fuck he thought he was doing. He makes Charley visible. I lower my gun. Charley yells at me and then asks why the hell am I not at work and why am I wearing cosplay make-up in the middle of the day. Shinobu explains I'm like him. Charley still isn't sure I'm *not* Pod Steven, but she asks me how I'd react if she told me that her boss was teaching her to do autopsies and I tell her that I'd be thrilled for her... and a little jealous.
(Charley's employer for the job she took shortly after I was abducted was a vampire mad scientist, which is what drew her into that whole world. Evidently, my replacement's lack of enthusiasm when she told him about learning autopsies was how she figured out he was a Pod Person.)
Anyway, after that, we all went into my apartment and Charley calmed down and *I* calmed down and Shinobu... didn't completely calm down but when Gil showed up later that certainly *helped* calm him down, because Gil's just-- very good at getting people to calm their tits, usually by making them laugh. I miss him already.
(Also, Asia handled all of the trouble so much *better* than we did. The whole ruthless individuality aspect of America *really* fucks us over when it comes to making sacrifices for the common good.)
no subject
Date: 2020-12-09 02:37 pm (UTC)I'll be honest for a while I was making more off gym challenges. It's only really these last weeks that that's changed...
(AAaaaaanyway all that aside, we got hit with a bunch of big supernatural catastrophes before the end of the decade so I guess that was our 'real' disaster moment...)
that is, in fact, how one of the gehenna scenarios begins! fun times!
Date: 2020-12-09 06:51 pm (UTC)The defunct hotel had a pool on the top floor, with a glass ceiling, and I'd love to get that fixed up so that it's usable--and fix up the exercise room on that floor too. Part of me is *terribly tempted* to use Jack's money *to* buy it out, now that it's gone, but it's rightfully Angel's, not mine.
It's tempting, though. Very tempting. Maybe when I do Victory Road... I've looked up how much you get for each match it's a *nice* chunk of change. 150k for the Elite Four and then 60k just for Lance... though that won't be until spring, because camping is uncomfortable enough without doing it in the dead of winter. I've got five more gyms to do in the meantime anyway. (But I definitely *am* going to go up Victory Road. The only thing stopping me before was that I didn't want to leave Jack for the better part of a month given how dependent I was on him at the time--I can say that about my younger self because it's true--and in this case, I've already got a traveling companion.)
Anyway, the supernatural *will* get its sticky fingers into everything... I say as someone who is now supernatural himself (and who is a member of an organization who studies the other supernatural beings outside just us Changelings.) Honestly, I'm mostly just surprised that the Vampocalypse happened so *quietly* and not with, for instance, one of those 'Antediluvians' Charley's told me about showing up in downtown New York.
EYYYYY
Date: 2020-12-10 03:49 pm (UTC)Well, I used my E4 winnings for the house so...should work out for you! And like you said you've kinda got time now...
...Euuugh, you got that right...someone from home after my time was here for a hot minute and he even said most people just FORGOT what was going on from around mine!!! The worst part about this stuff is the amnesia afterwards I swear!
Re: EYYYYY
Date: 2020-12-11 12:55 am (UTC)Looking back on everything, with six years away to give me perspective, it's not that Jack was cruel or abusive or anything and he actually did a fair amount of good for me at first--he helped me leave the closet, for one thing, and he was the first person I'd met who understood about my abnormal wiring--but he was also very much a narcissist and I don't know if you've ever been with one of those before, Carly, but it can be *draining*. And even though there were lots of good times, especially early on, looking back at it now it's hard to see past that last, wretched month of me growing more and more quietly miserable.
So yes. A new start in a new place sounds just right for me.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-12 04:18 pm (UTC)Here's to new places though~! We'll have to do a toast later.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-12 04:47 pm (UTC)laughs I think this one's at an end too
Date: 2020-12-13 02:37 pm (UTC)Almost yeah!
Date: 2020-12-13 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-16 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-16 07:21 pm (UTC)