Cecasander: Some people never do get over something like that. Or so I'd surmise. 
billy bob:
billy bob:
Ten Years After: The Lost Girl and the History Book
- Thread starter Jestor
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Sorry I haven't updated in a while. The mid-semester slump is hitting me pretty hard right now and I just haven't had the energy to write. I tried writing an update a couple nights ago, but it was garbage so I canned it.
Jestor, I tried sending you a PM but your mailbox is full.
Your signature is over the ten lines allowed by the forum rules. Please revise it before a mod does. You'll like the result better.
Might want to clean out the mailbox, too, but that's not a requirement.
Your signature is over the ten lines allowed by the forum rules. Please revise it before a mod does. You'll like the result better.
Might want to clean out the mailbox, too, but that's not a requirement.
I can only count 9...
Don´t know how this gap can come into being, but it seems strange to me. But i´ve counted four times!
But anyway, I demand an UPDATE
Don´t know how this gap can come into being, but it seems strange to me. But i´ve counted four times!
But anyway, I demand an UPDATE
Black Guardian, be assured there were more than 10 - I speak officially, as a demi-moderator. Jestor has very nicely redesigned the signature to bring it into line with forum policy.
Please enjoy the AAR and do not question the decisions of the mods. Thanks!
Now, on with the AAR!
Please enjoy the AAR and do not question the decisions of the mods.
Thanks!Now, on with the AAR!
Director said:Black Guardian, be assured there were more than 10 - I speak officially, as a demi-moderator. Jestor has very nicely redesigned the signature to bring it into line with forum policy.
Please enjoy the AAR and do not question the decisions of the mods.
Now, on with the AAR!
But what about*zap*
It's certainly... different... than "ten years ago".
All the different first-person perspectives do make things a little confusing at times (something tells me you're making it extra confusing on purpose at least in some parts..)
All the different first-person perspectives do make things a little confusing at times (something tells me you're making it extra confusing on purpose at least in some parts..)
Just a quick check-in during my short break from grading 40 papers before I get another 40 on Friday.
My signature originally had 11 lines in it because I miscounted and thought I had 10. I'm down to 9 now.
ForzaA: BG&HC, with the exception of the rotating first-person POVs during the duel, was all Nick. Thus far, TYA:LG&HB has all been Becky first-person POV.
Hope that helps.
Update projections are now shifting to Thanksgiving (American version of the holiday). I've been snowed under in addition to the mid-sem slump and will probably continue to be so until the December holidays, but I should be able to get something in during the Thanksgiving break towards the end of the month.
My signature originally had 11 lines in it because I miscounted and thought I had 10. I'm down to 9 now.
ForzaA: BG&HC, with the exception of the rotating first-person POVs during the duel, was all Nick. Thus far, TYA:LG&HB has all been Becky first-person POV.
Hope that helps.
Update projections are now shifting to Thanksgiving (American version of the holiday). I've been snowed under in addition to the mid-sem slump and will probably continue to be so until the December holidays, but I should be able to get something in during the Thanksgiving break towards the end of the month.
It's quiet, like churches and chapels usually are. White walls, oak pews that gleam from careful scrubbing, tall, softly glowing candles at the plain altar with a single cross for decoration.
It's pretty, in a simple way.
Nick said I couldn't attend the funeral, but he didn't say anything about the wake and so here I am, in a drab black dress that shows nothing.
On TV, there's always lots and lots of black. I don't know how it is anywhere else, but here, in the Midwest, there's a lot of different colors. Chubby men and boys wearing long-sleeve dress shirts of dark blue or maroon or something else sufficiently somber, yet still weirdly eye-catching. Women wearing blouses and pants, none of them pretty, either in dress or body. A few of them still have some bits of young beauty in their bloated faces and triple chins, but you have to look closely.
I'm sitting in a corner in a back pew, doing my best not to be noticed. It's easy to do, because everyone's in little clumps, talking in low voices about what a tragedy it is or about the weather or their jobs. Small talk, thin talk that doesn't mean anything because they don't want to be here. Don't want to have to take time out of a beautiful fall Saturday afternoon to pay respects to a bastard nobody liked.
It's strange that they're having services in a Christian chapel. Bobby wasn't Christian and hated Christianity, as he told me one night...
You see, he used to get stoned with his fraternity brothers, get all high and excited and then he'd come looking for me. I'd take care of him with my hand or my mouth and he'd settle down then. He never did the same for me and refused to put it in me until that night he raped me. The asshole used me and used me and used me and like a dope, I kept giving him what he wanted, because I thought I loved him.
Anyway, after I finished, he usually wanted to talk and I remember one time he said, "Gandhi said Christianity was a good idea, but Gandhi was a liar and a hypocrite in a lot of ways. Nobody's a saint, Becky."
"So you think we're all sinners, then?" I asked.
I remember he looked at me, all thin arms and hairy, potbellied stomach, and laughed in the strangest way. It was a real laugh, but disturbing too, in a way I can't explain.
"No. There's no sin. Religion's a lie, too. The only truth there is that everyone's self-interested. Good, evil, love, hate... they're all just different ways of people trying to inflate their own egos and make themselves look and feel good."
I didn't answer him, because I didn't know what to say. He was unlike any other boy I'd ever known and maybe that's part of the reason why I kept letting him come back. Partly too, perhaps, because he evidently never told anyone about the things I'd do for him. Nobody ever mentioned it to me and nobody teased me about it like people normally do when they find out you're intimate with someone else.
Even now, I'm not sure whether to be glad he kept quiet or angry because he never publicly acknowledged me.
I stare up at the coffin, cherry wood and more beautiful than he deserves. I haven't gone up yet and looked at him, but I need to. It's the reason I came here, after all. To see him one last time, to know that for once and all, the man I hate most is dead.
I stand up and join the short line. I don't know where Nick is, though I saw Melody a while ago, breathtaking in a turquoise and black ensemble. She didn't see me and I of course wasn't even going to think about talking to her.
The people in front of me have their looks and murmur their muffled, useless goodbyes before they shuffle off. I don't know if his parents are here or anything like that. I'm sure they are, but I haven't bothered to find out, because I don't care for one and for two, I don't know what they look like.
I step up to the coffin and look in. He's dressed in a finely tailored black three piece suit with a preposterously bright and cheerful red, white and blue tri-color tie. I'm wondering why that tie when I remember that he spent a semester in Paris. He talked about it a lot his last semester before he graduated. Said he missed it and if he had the opportunity, he'd move there.
Now he never will.
It's a thought that makes me smile as I lean in and whisper, "You fucking prick... I'm glad you killed yourself and I hope you're rotting in hell right now. May all the demons in it rape you again and again until you bleed and scream like I did. Goodbye, Bobby."
I straighten up and turn around. There's some people starting to come down, including a woman with greying, curly hair who looks a little like Bobby, talking to... Nick.
My stomach's churning, the McDonald's I had for breakfast threatening to come up again. Nick's so handsome, so calm as he talks to the woman. I want to run up to him and kiss him like when he came to my door.
I...I can't hold in it... I'm going to throw up...
I whirl around, lean into the coffin and puke two sausage biscuits and a hash brown on Bobby's cold, clammy enbalmed face before passing out.
It's pretty, in a simple way.
Nick said I couldn't attend the funeral, but he didn't say anything about the wake and so here I am, in a drab black dress that shows nothing.
On TV, there's always lots and lots of black. I don't know how it is anywhere else, but here, in the Midwest, there's a lot of different colors. Chubby men and boys wearing long-sleeve dress shirts of dark blue or maroon or something else sufficiently somber, yet still weirdly eye-catching. Women wearing blouses and pants, none of them pretty, either in dress or body. A few of them still have some bits of young beauty in their bloated faces and triple chins, but you have to look closely.
I'm sitting in a corner in a back pew, doing my best not to be noticed. It's easy to do, because everyone's in little clumps, talking in low voices about what a tragedy it is or about the weather or their jobs. Small talk, thin talk that doesn't mean anything because they don't want to be here. Don't want to have to take time out of a beautiful fall Saturday afternoon to pay respects to a bastard nobody liked.
It's strange that they're having services in a Christian chapel. Bobby wasn't Christian and hated Christianity, as he told me one night...
You see, he used to get stoned with his fraternity brothers, get all high and excited and then he'd come looking for me. I'd take care of him with my hand or my mouth and he'd settle down then. He never did the same for me and refused to put it in me until that night he raped me. The asshole used me and used me and used me and like a dope, I kept giving him what he wanted, because I thought I loved him.
Anyway, after I finished, he usually wanted to talk and I remember one time he said, "Gandhi said Christianity was a good idea, but Gandhi was a liar and a hypocrite in a lot of ways. Nobody's a saint, Becky."
"So you think we're all sinners, then?" I asked.
I remember he looked at me, all thin arms and hairy, potbellied stomach, and laughed in the strangest way. It was a real laugh, but disturbing too, in a way I can't explain.
"No. There's no sin. Religion's a lie, too. The only truth there is that everyone's self-interested. Good, evil, love, hate... they're all just different ways of people trying to inflate their own egos and make themselves look and feel good."
I didn't answer him, because I didn't know what to say. He was unlike any other boy I'd ever known and maybe that's part of the reason why I kept letting him come back. Partly too, perhaps, because he evidently never told anyone about the things I'd do for him. Nobody ever mentioned it to me and nobody teased me about it like people normally do when they find out you're intimate with someone else.
Even now, I'm not sure whether to be glad he kept quiet or angry because he never publicly acknowledged me.
I stare up at the coffin, cherry wood and more beautiful than he deserves. I haven't gone up yet and looked at him, but I need to. It's the reason I came here, after all. To see him one last time, to know that for once and all, the man I hate most is dead.
I stand up and join the short line. I don't know where Nick is, though I saw Melody a while ago, breathtaking in a turquoise and black ensemble. She didn't see me and I of course wasn't even going to think about talking to her.
The people in front of me have their looks and murmur their muffled, useless goodbyes before they shuffle off. I don't know if his parents are here or anything like that. I'm sure they are, but I haven't bothered to find out, because I don't care for one and for two, I don't know what they look like.
I step up to the coffin and look in. He's dressed in a finely tailored black three piece suit with a preposterously bright and cheerful red, white and blue tri-color tie. I'm wondering why that tie when I remember that he spent a semester in Paris. He talked about it a lot his last semester before he graduated. Said he missed it and if he had the opportunity, he'd move there.
Now he never will.
It's a thought that makes me smile as I lean in and whisper, "You fucking prick... I'm glad you killed yourself and I hope you're rotting in hell right now. May all the demons in it rape you again and again until you bleed and scream like I did. Goodbye, Bobby."
I straighten up and turn around. There's some people starting to come down, including a woman with greying, curly hair who looks a little like Bobby, talking to... Nick.
My stomach's churning, the McDonald's I had for breakfast threatening to come up again. Nick's so handsome, so calm as he talks to the woman. I want to run up to him and kiss him like when he came to my door.
I...I can't hold in it... I'm going to throw up...
I whirl around, lean into the coffin and puke two sausage biscuits and a hash brown on Bobby's cold, clammy enbalmed face before passing out.
Now Im even more confused. Again with the rape. I think her mind has just warped it because she has this stalker obsession with Nick and cant have the thought that anyone else loved her.
I is confuddled more and more.
I is confuddled more and more.
I really enjoyed the last AAR and this one looks to be just as good.
It's really sad to see how messed up Becky is now.
It's really sad to see how messed up Becky is now.
Fiftypence: That's one way of putting it.
billy bob: I think as you keep reading, things will become more clear.
asd21593: Yeah, wakes tend to be bad scenes in general. Unless they're Irish.
Hardraade: Thanks. And I agree, it is sad.
billy bob: I think as you keep reading, things will become more clear.
asd21593: Yeah, wakes tend to be bad scenes in general. Unless they're Irish.
Hardraade: Thanks.
And I agree, it is sad.
Now I'm not particularly a regular of funerals etc... but wouldn't the coffin typically be covered with a glass plate or somesuch at the wake?
You know, just so you can avoid things like what was just described...
You know, just so you can avoid things like what was just described...
ForzaA said:
No. Not in the US anyway, at least the ones I've been to. I can't speak to other countries.
I still can't help feeling for Becky, the way she's so messed up. She probably 'needs' Nick more than Melody does. Then again, she might need a good shrink first
And she ate a hash brownie before going to a funeral...
As for the glass plating on coffins, on the few funerals I've been to, they had never been covered so you could always touch, of throw up over, the deceased.
And she ate a hash brownie before going to a funeral...
As for the glass plating on coffins, on the few funerals I've been to, they had never been covered so you could always touch, of throw up over, the deceased.