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Dec. 20th, 2019 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
accidentallich posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
lususunnaturae[A]
[Visiting Gershom is an adventure in trying not to step on any of the cats that can be found in his house at any one time. Today there are a half dozen all crowded around Gershom, all different breeds.
Gershom is sitting at his writing desk, scribbling away as best he can with two cats sitting on his lap - it's awkward stretching, but then again, he's a skeleton, he probably won't get muscle aches anymore. He looks up whenever someone enters.]
Ah, hello - make yourself comfortable. Have you come to pet the cats?
[That would be a better reason than coming to visit him, certainly.]
[B]
[Books arriving from the outside are rare, especially ones in good quality. Today Gershom sits in what passes for a town square, flipping through a brand new book.]
..."Poems of Isolation", really? It's a bit on-the-nose... well, I suppose it's no longer my business what he calls my poems.
[The astute may notice that the author's name on the cover isn't Gershom's.]
[Visiting Gershom is an adventure in trying not to step on any of the cats that can be found in his house at any one time. Today there are a half dozen all crowded around Gershom, all different breeds.
Gershom is sitting at his writing desk, scribbling away as best he can with two cats sitting on his lap - it's awkward stretching, but then again, he's a skeleton, he probably won't get muscle aches anymore. He looks up whenever someone enters.]
Ah, hello - make yourself comfortable. Have you come to pet the cats?
[That would be a better reason than coming to visit him, certainly.]
[B]
[Books arriving from the outside are rare, especially ones in good quality. Today Gershom sits in what passes for a town square, flipping through a brand new book.]
..."Poems of Isolation", really? It's a bit on-the-nose... well, I suppose it's no longer my business what he calls my poems.
[The astute may notice that the author's name on the cover isn't Gershom's.]
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Date: 2019-12-21 03:26 am (UTC)[Case in point, Jailbreak reading over his shoulder without bothering to ask, or even alert him that she was there. Morning, Gershom, your trashbird neighbor is back.]
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Date: 2019-12-21 03:30 am (UTC)I suppose... But you don't have to read over my shoulder, I would just hand this to you if you asked?
[He'll hold it out to her. She may recognize the name on the cover as one of the uninfected guards who works here: she'll definitely recognize some of the poetry as Gershom's, since he shares it with her all the time.]
Things I've had to bullshit for tags list now includes: literary analysis.
Date: 2019-12-21 03:47 am (UTC)[She takes the book and reads idly through the next couple pages, raising an eyebrow at the author's name.]
Good stuff. The whole use of the mundane to symbolize the spiritual thing you do is fuckin' rad, I keep saying. [Jail's approach to poetry appreciation is a little unusual, but she's got a knack for being surprisingly eloquent about it, at times.] But, uh...
[She taps the name at the top with one finger.]
This the same guy I'm thinking of? Tall, blond, kind of a douchebasket?
welcome to the club
Date: 2019-12-21 03:49 am (UTC)One of our guards, yes. I trade my poetry to him to buy cat food.
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Date: 2019-12-21 03:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-21 04:01 am (UTC)[How many poems are in this book, and how much money has the guard made off it? He doesn't know.]
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Date: 2019-12-21 04:08 am (UTC)Okay, yeah, either we started feeding cats filet mignon when I wasn't looking, or that fucker's cheating you big time.
Y'know, money can be exchanged for goods and services, these days. Ever consider self-publishing? Get the cash yourself and you can bribe the guards directly, cut out the middleman.
[This is, naturally, how Jailbreak acquires the vast majority of the things she Really Shouldn't Have In Here. The rest is built from discarded parts of abandoned items or, possibly, just manifests by some sort of bizarre crime alchemy.]
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Date: 2019-12-21 04:14 am (UTC)[Not people inside the quarantine, he wouldn't ever charge them for this. They need the beauty a poem can bring to their dreary lives.]
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Date: 2019-12-21 04:21 am (UTC)Including writing.
[She waves a hand idly, as if to indicate the entirety of the wireless network that supports mankind's relentless need to blog and make terrible youtube comments.]
The infrastructure already exists. All you gotta do is set up a website, put a donation jar on it, maybe take commissions or get people to subscribe for bonus content... [She shrugs.] Probably not gonna cover the cost of living for somebody trying to make it in the outside world, but cat food? No problem.
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Date: 2019-12-21 04:24 am (UTC)[I'm sorry that he takes Jail at her word.]
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Date: 2019-12-21 04:39 am (UTC)I mean, they're a pretty decent chunk of the content, but they're not the only stuff.
Not gonna be to everyone's taste, but you'd probably get a decent audience.
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Date: 2019-12-21 04:43 am (UTC)I see... Would you help me get started?
I can make a mean quiche as payment.
[He doesn't eat much himself, but that doesn't mean he's forgotten to cook!]
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Date: 2019-12-24 01:15 am (UTC)[She's not necessarily a terrible cook, but she's generally spent most of her adult life bouncing rapidly from one bad idea to another, so she's never really learned how to do a lot of meals properly.]
[She has maybe three things she can make really well, and outside of that pretty much lives off ramen. Please feed her something with actual nutritional value.]
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Date: 2019-12-24 02:25 am (UTC)[He's also much less technologically literate in this verse so he really does need the help, but getting to make a friend(?) a meal is an added bonus.]
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Date: 2019-12-27 10:58 pm (UTC)Pleasure to be doing business with you.
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Date: 2019-12-28 02:46 am (UTC)[He loves cats, please don't take his cat videos away from him :<]
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Date: 2019-12-31 03:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-31 05:34 am (UTC)[:>]
Oh, Miriam's kittens are just old enough for human contact now, you should come over and pet them.
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Date: 2020-01-04 01:04 am (UTC)[...yeah, okay, she can't even pretend not to be delighted at the idea. Free food and cute kittens? Everything's coming up Jail.]
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Date: 2020-01-04 01:49 pm (UTC)[Friend coming over for food and kittens! And helping him with the computer! Everything's coming up Gershom.]
A
Date: 2019-12-21 03:36 am (UTC)[ Skeletons, or undead, or liches, or whatever they're being called - need the least physical care, but there's always the psychological side of patient care to consider. Nobody should feel abandoned, at the very least. ]
Though it seems like you're doing quite well for yourself. [ Look at all these fuzzy friends. He visits Gershom fairly often, so they know him, at least. Several are already purring up a storm. ]
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Date: 2019-12-21 03:38 am (UTC)[Then cats happened. A few that aren't sitting on Gershom go to nuzzle up to Ekkehardt's legs instead.]
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Date: 2019-12-21 04:45 am (UTC)Well, this is a convincing argument not to do anything, I have to say. [ He's always been more of a dog person, but he's fond of cats, and there's no shortage of dogs here either. So this is fine. ]
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Date: 2019-12-21 04:47 am (UTC)They're excellent debaters. I don't think even Avery could defeat them.
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Date: 2019-12-21 05:00 am (UTC)[ One begins to knead on his shirt. He just lets it happen. It's nice to be warm. ] I'm surprised you don't write more poems about cats, given the amount of muses you have.
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Date: 2019-12-21 09:54 pm (UTC)[Local skeleton too soft to even be mean to Avery, news at eleven.]
I don't want my work to get stale by repeating the same subject over and over again.
A
Date: 2019-12-21 03:40 am (UTC)[Maybe a little.]
I mean. I'm here to check in on you, but if you don't want me to bother the cats while I'm here I won't.
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Date: 2019-12-21 03:42 am (UTC)[Gershom is a good cat owner, or as good of one as he can be, but he can't provide that for them.]