Off Fleek Geek

[Idol Mini Week 6] Someone Has To Go First

2024-08-17T18:11:15Z

An insignificant sliver of mirror gliding through the unbounded black void. That's all they were out here, moving at speeds that offended standard physics but made little difference to the vastness of the universe around them. If Quinn thought about it much he got queasy. That could also be the cold sleep hangover, it took him hours to fully wake up, but looking out the small porthole into nothing made him feel like he'd fall forever and never stop.

He jumped as a huge beefy hand slapped down on his shoulder and gripped him like a cargo loading bot. The largest man Quinn had ever seen grinned down at him, already shaved and changed into a daily work uniform. Quinn felt even further dwarfed now than he had been by the view outside.

"It's sumtin' out there, ain't it? I can't get enough of it! Hell, when we get back and got some downtime I'll drag ya' out hullside so you can really take in the view, how 'bout it?"

Quinn visibly shuddered but tried to smile, his face twisting into more of a grimace. "Uhhhh, tha- that sounds... horrifying really. Sorry, I'm used to there being... stuff out there."

The giant stared for a brief second then threw his head back and laughed with all he was, grinning even larger than before.

"Oh no shit, this'n your first time in the deep? You must be the new meat then. I'm Brock, Scout First Class. I think I'm your driver for this expedition!" He dumped himself down on the deck next to the bench Quinn sat on, which brought the two of them pretty much eye to eye. Brock looked out the porthole and gave it a nod. "Whatcha see out there?"

Quinn turned to confront the view again, trying to not scrunch down inside himself to try to hide. "Nothing really. A lot of nothing with far distant points of barely something."

"You know what I see? Unbounded opportunity! Each a' those points of light out there could be home ta billions of us, or full a' resources we can turn into anything. And it's our job to help gather all those little points..." Brock reached his arms out and cupped his hands like he was gathering all the stars in them, "... and make 'em all cozy close together!" He quickly closed his hands together until he held an imaginary ball of all humanity in them. The giant grin was back on his giant face.

"So I was told you'can see 'em, the lane lines? Whatsit like?"

He watched Brock's eyes sparkle with enthusiasm. The older man looked like an eight year old asking about bugs, truly intent in the most innocent of ways. Quinn was much younger, but in his short life he had learned to not talk about his hallucinations if he didn't want to be ridiculed. It wasn't until his parents sent him on a jump trip to Titan as a graduation gift that he learned the things he saw weren't ethereal figments of his imagination, but the paths thru space all FTL ships followed.

"It's hard to describe, there's a bit of a feeling to it as much as a look. Like permanent soap bubbles stretched thru an area, but with more dimension than that, and a sense of pressure pushing on me. The ones that get used a lot are sharp and solid, with a bit of a sparkle to the surface of them. I saw an old one on the moon that wasn't used any more, and the only way I could describe it is hairy, or fuzzy. The edges reach out away from it in little tendrils and it's hard to find the actual edge of it."

Brock nodded and devoured every word. "FREA-KY man! That's awesome. I can't tell yeah how rare y'all are, and how with that you an' me are gonna change the world. The universe! We can't make a new jump line start too near one that exists already, and there's little natural bits a' like scar tissue that can fuck you up hard if you try to open one up near them. That's part a' why we build long range lines this new one up away from everything, less chance of problems. The machine they use to check for bits like that take years, and you just give it a good looksie for a couple minutes and we're good. To. Go!"

He jumped up off the floor giving Quinn a startle and danced in place. "Aw yeah this gets me pumped! Alright, time to get on the bounce. Go get ready and meet me at the acceleration bay, by then we should be stopped and aligned. It's time to be awesome!"

---

Quinn stared in fright at the ridiculous thing in front of him, the so-called Breechcraft. He really should have done more research before agreeing to do this. In his mind he had just pictured a jumpliner like the cruise companies ran, huge cylindrical ships surrounded by the thin silver rings of jump actuators that helped drop the ship into the start of the lane lines.

This was DEFINITELY not one of those.

It wasn't much bigger around than a terrestrial car in the body, and about a hundred feet long. About eighty percent of the length in the back had TWO layers of jump actuators around it, closely spaced together all the way to the back. The front end terrified him the most. It looked like a pointed dome made completely of glass, with two seats back to back inside oriented so you sat ass-down toward the ship with your head in the tip. In a ring around the seat near hand level were all the readouts and instrumentation.

"How do you even fit in there?"

Brock gave another of what Quinn now recognized as his signature laughs. "Yup, it's a damn tight fit in there all right! But doing a breech jump just seems easier to take if there's more of you. Good to be all massy and stuff." He gave a look over Quinn and stopped grinning for a brief second. "Sorry little man, you'll get used to it eventually."

"How do we, you know, aim where we're going? And there doesn't seem to be enough of a ship to do a jump, let alone make a lane line?"

"Most of that is done by the Nautilus and started years ago." Brock gestured to all the ship around us. "I don't understand all of it, but basically the Naughty is built huge and dense so it has maximum inertia. The aiming is planned out way at the beginning and sets her course, and she builds up speed all the way here. Once at the entry point position, they flip a switch and boom, she comes to a complete stop anchored there, and they stuff away all that momentum away somewhere. Then we say go, and they dump it all into us and it rips a hole in the universe and off we go like a bullet!"

He energetically thrust his hand forward to point off into the distance toward the front of the ship.

"When we should be at the exit, the computers fire up the two sets of jump actuators and links them together. That pops us back into normal space and causes all the energy left to reflect back down the ripped line we just pulled behind us and stabilizes the whole thing. Nature makes sure we pop out somewhere far enough from another rip or scar, it just works. We verify all looks good, chart where the exit point is in relation to the system and the planets, and we're done. We drop back inta' the lane line and have a couple cold beers to celebrate in no time! Once it's all good they have automated ships that jump back and forth hundreds of times to strengthen and widen the line, so future tourists and passengers barely feel a thing when they pass through."

The explanation sunk in and Quinn deflated a little. "So other than checking it's safe to start and the end point looks good we don't have much say in where we go to explore."

"Nope, that was planned out long, long ago. But cheer up! The system they picked is positioned ta be a great central hub for transit, and to explore lots a' cool looking places! We'll be the first ones ever to see them and tell the worlds about what it was like. Like I said, awesome!"

The rest of prep and boarding was a whirlwind of activity Quinn barely registered, until he was suddenly strapped into his seat back to back with Brock's looming bulk. Outside the Breechcraft alarm lights flashed and alarms blared then faded into silence as the air was evacuated from the bay. Without warning the bay around them split into a dozen segments and retracted away from them exposing them to the naked vacuum of space. A framework the Breechcraft was attached to extended forward like a thin needle, while at the same time the jump actuators of The Nautilus slid forward up the outside hull to surround them.

Quinn couldn't say how he knew, but at a precise moment in time he KNEW in his soul that they had stopped moving. A moment later he realized he could see and feel a vast chaotic field of sparkling energy around the jump actuators of the Nautilus, and he realized that was the power that would rip space apart and shove him in it. He also realized that the Breechcraft has started to turn on it's axis.

"Alright Quinn, time to earn the big bucks! Look close and give an all clear or a no go!"

Quinn swallowed the building panic he felt at seeing so much empty space and dazzling power just outside all that glass around him and tried to focus on the task at hand. As the ship rotated he scanned all he could see, looking for even the slightest hint of a glitter or distortion that would indicated a scar or stray natural rip in the space here. Brock was silent as they made a full turn, then a second, then a third. Finally Quinn broke the silence.

"We're all good, I give the all clear."

Brock burst out with an excited laugh. "Aw-fuckin'yeah! Nautilus we are GO... GO... GO!"

At this point Quinn realized he also didn't ask before hand about how the jump was coordinated, but that was now answered as he felt Brock behind him slam down on a button on his chair arm and it really was go.

A jump in reality only takes a moment in time, and in the well worn paths feels like nothing at all. With no lane at all it was like entering hell. The moment seemed to last an eternity, a sensation like being rended apart into individual atoms except it kept going and going long after he should have been in his smallest pieces already. At the same time, somehow, was a sensation of not physically existing at all, no sense of temperature or pressure or touch or BEING. All he was was suffering and non-existence. And light. Bright blinding light from the ripping edges of light years of space compressed into that brief moment of time, seeing all of the new lane line forming all at once.

Quinn was unsure of when the jump ended, it just.. was.

"Quinn, ya ok back there? Something's not right, we're way further out from the star than the plan stated. I'm doing a survey now, maybe a large mass was in the way. Quinn?"

"W-we sh-sh-should have never come here."

Tears ran down Quinn's face as he gazed around them. The system's star, all the stars, were hidden from his view. All he could see were endless stretches of blindingly bright lines leading off into the cosmos in all directions, a tangled web without bound. Most were decaying into enormous fields of hair-like cilia, but the ones that terrified him the most were the perfectly smooth, perfectly maintained ones that shone like the sun.

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[Idol Mini Week 5] When the Seed is Sure the Tree Can Never Be

2024-08-08T20:46:18Z

I have a room of broken dreams.

I don't like to go in there, to dig thru the shelves and boxes and closet of things I pictured as beautiful endeavors, potential sources of joy in my life. There's an electric cello propped in the corner, next to the closet full of telescope equipment and cosplays, surrounded by any number of crafts and hobbies. Quite a few of them I started on, or at least gained interest in, because I watched others I knew enjoy them and do well at them. Now I know, you're already thinking that this is about how I couldn't reach the standard I saw them set and was distraught when I didn't reach their levels of skill. But no, it's worse than that. In the immortal words of Taylor Swift, "I'm the problem, It's me."

Growing up I was often told that I was smart, put into "gifted" programs and praised for how quickly I could learn things and do them. And in part they were right, I had a knack for learning mental things pretty quickly. But the flip side of this taught me how quickly people will use that against you. How the first sign that you misunderstand something and don't master it immediately people put you down with "Oh, I thought that'd be easy for you" or "I can't believe someone as smart as you would do something bad like that." It trained me into a mindset that if I couldn't be perfect immediately at something, then I must be terrible at it and I should give up.

That whole mindset is paralyzing, but worse than that it carries over into things like physical skills where it's impossible to be a master at the first try. Picking up a cello, there's zero chance you'll put your fingers in the right place, know how the bow responds as it contacts the strings, understand things like using resin or how to tune it. But it's too late. At the very start I already had a version of me in mind that could play something, even if it was just a couple clear notes in a scale. And I wasn't that me, I was a me that couldn't keep the bow from bouncing off the strings and had fingers that didn't quite flex properly to hold the strings in place. I KNEW I could never do it, and I put it aside and killed the me I could have been.

Over and over, I killed off versions of me that could have done better, that could have been happy. Eventually I learned to kill them before they started. There's always that "good at it" version of me to picture and know I'm not them, so why try? Theodore Roosevelt said that "Comparison is the death of joy", which is true but I bet he didn't picture how often it's true when comparing yourself to imaginary versions of you.

But.

It's taken me a long, long time to start to learn that that's not an absolute. Comparison could be good, but it has to be done in the right way. Trees do not pop into existence as fully grown and majestic. The version of me that is good at something, similarly, cannot be expected to simply be. Comparing myself to that is impossible. But, if I try a bit and fail a couple times? I can look back at the version of me that never tried, and see that the current me might have grown just a tiny bit. And that's ok, that's a good comparison. Next time I look I might have grown a bit more. Or maybe I just don't look, and enjoy the trying for a while just as something to do. Then later I'll look back at that seed and realize now it's not a seed, it's a little sapling. Or maybe not, maybe I'm actually shit at it, and that's ok too. Not everything will be for me and I can try something else then. It's still hard, it will always be hard for me to look in the right direction, but acknowledging I do this and trying to keep it in mind gives me a path to grow.

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[Idol Mini Week 4] Somewhere I Belong

2024-07-31T03:55:28Z

*click and static as the tape begins*

Statement of Byron Johnston, regarding the ethereal strangeness of nocturnal living. Original statement given on May 14th, 2004. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute.

Statement begins.

Have you ever been out and about at those times when most of humanity has long ago given up on the world and gone to bed? I used to love doing that. I've always had trouble interacting with people, can never find that moment when we "click" and synchronize, instead the conversation's always awkwardly starting and stopping before the silence sets in and I slink away in embarrassment. Between that and a complete lack of anything that resembled a sleep schedule, I found the middle of the night trips to nearly abandoned sites of commercialism soothing. The surreal feeling of everyone missing, the buzz of florescent lights and the echo of your footsteps in the big box stores, or the light-dimmed tranquility of a local diner with a cup of coffee. This felt like home to me.

I say with everyone missing, but that's not quite true. There were others there, few but always present. You know the ones. Someone in pajamas and slippers with their hair in rollers buying bulk toilet paper. The guy in clothes that look like he dressed in the dark so nothing matches, aimlessly wandering the auto parts aisles. A handful of drunks crashing after a local club closed for the night, stuffing away appetizers and coffee, or the quietly stoned table of hippies doing the same. Regardless of who it is or what location, everyone politely keeps their distance and their focus away from others, maybe the occasional accidental eye contact with a small nod. They knew like I did, this was an ethereal realm not to be disturbed with unasked for intrusion.

It all started to change about a month ago I think. It was about 3am and I was wandering the local everything in one place store, and I kept getting this creepy feeling like something was off. Not in the usual way it was normally "off" compared to daytime, but like there was an underlying tension in the air. An emotional malaise seeping the enjoyment from the experience, but not for any reason I could identify. I gave up and went home and watched reruns and the feeling quickly eased. But each night that I went back, there it was. After a week of this I finally noticed... them.

I started watching the other shoppers a little closer, really watching them. The guy in boxer shorts with his shirt tucked in was strange but not... STRANGE strange. Nor was the lady with a cart full of cat food and a 12-pack of spray cheese. But around the next corner I felt it as I watched the guy farther down the aisle. He was at the magazine rack, flipping thru a trashy celebrity news magazine, but he wasn't quite facing it. His head was turned a bit to the side staring past it, the flipping more going thru the motions than actually advancing through the content. I got a little closer, and realized he wasn't even holding it right side up. I had the feeling maybe he was really, REALLY on something and moved away to a different section.

The more I wandered, the more of them I saw. A woman smiled and giggled as she looked back and forth thru the same rack of white blouses again and again. Some teenagers wandering the spaces between the sections around the store but just silently staring at the floor without a single look at any merchandise or each other. One man stood stock still watching a big screen TV. It was off, but he kept watching it with rapt attention. He was covered in sweat that was soaking thru his clothes, even though these places always had the AC cranked up just a little to high at night. I took a break for a couple days and avoided the place, but when I went back nothing was better. It wasn't the same people, but there were still quite a few of them that almost seemed to not know how to people properly.

I saw one of the "wanderers", the ones I saw as lost and unaware of where they were. She stopped suddenly and perked up as she reached the border between several sections and turned, picking up the pace like she had somewhere to go. I'll never understand what possessed me in the moment, but I decided to follow her. After a couple turns, I realized I was in a section of the store I don't remember ever seeing before. The shelves were a random assortment of beauty aides, make-up, bits of clothes. One seemed to be piled high with a helter-skelter mess of wigs in all hair styles and colors. Another was boxes of cosmetic contact lenses and glasses. There was no sense of organization or theme, like someone ransacked the place and stock people just tossed it all onto the closest shelves and gave up.

The giggle startled me, and I looked up to realize the woman I had been following had noticed me and was watching my reaction to this bizarre section we were in. She stared at me with bright blue eyes with no pupils in them, perfectly still and just giggling quietly over and over. I panicked. Grabbing the closest thing off the shelf, I turned and hauled ass out of there and found myself suddenly at the check out. I bought the thing in my hand that ended up being hair dye and made a beeline home to hide away and try to not vomit from the panic I was feeling.

I didn't go back for almost a week, but by that point my life had taken a turn to the unreal. There were more of them, no matter where I went or even what time of day. Instead of the usual off, disassociated feeling I had previously gotten from them, they locked onto me now like they all knew me. A smile and a knowing nod. Little murmurs like "You're doing so well" or "Glad you're working on a more perfect you." The feeling of malaise was almost gone though, or at least was now closer to the unease I felt with anyone. They all still felt noticeably off somehow, but I spent hours at home gazing in the mirror at myself and realizing I felt the same offness in what I saw. Is this why I have so much trouble with other people? Was I really somehow different?

In the end I couldn't resist going back to the store. The way to the new section felt like second nature this time and I went directly there not bothering with the rest of the store. I went deeper this time, checking all what was available to help me improve. More secluded sections offered more than I had seen before. Fingernails. Eyes. Chunks of skin. A whole shelf of varied bones with sinew still attached that looked wet. The woman was here. She smiled in joy and welcomed me, saying something about how thrilled she was that I was working on becoming the perfect me. Her green eyes sparkled with the emotion. I swore she was taller than last time. I'll be going back, I finally found that click.

Statement ends.

Well, this has all the warning flags of The Stranger on it so I felt it prudent to do a deeper investigation. Unfortunately Mr. Johnston never actually mentions the name of the stores or even where he was living at the time, and all attempts to reach him were unsuccessful. We were able to track down his last known address. A visit proved to show it was now abandoned and in quite a bad state. It was filled with products similar to what Byron mentions seeing in the store. Disturbingly seeming to confirm my suspicions, mixed in with it were an alarming number of mannequin parts and other human sized doll bits. The bathroom I will not describe in detail, but the dried rotted mess found in the bath suggests that he went much deeper into attempting a more perfect version of himself than was probably good for him. I fear Mr. Johnston will not be found again, at least not in a way we would recognize. End recording.

*clicks*

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* This week's entry is a fanfic piece in the world of The Magnus Archives, a wonderful creepy horror podcast that I can't recommend enough. If this entry interested you at all, I highly suggest trying out the real thing!

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[Idol Mini Week 1] Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory

2024-07-06T14:56:21Z

Hanalla rested for a moment, leaned back against a tree along the path. It had taken her all afternoon, but the worst of the underbrush that had encroached on the narrow trail was now cleared. She knew someday she would no longer be up to the task, and nature would erase her works, but she was determined that time would not be soon. She took in the quiet noises of the forest around her, felt the spots of sun that got thru the canopy above warm on her skin, breathed in the warm green smells and it was good. Calming. Feeling renewed, she gathered her pack and the bundle of fruits she had with her and carried on deeper into the forest.

It wasn't much farther until she reached the small glen she was seeking. Surrounded by wild plant growth but never overgrown, the entrance was always clear enough for her to move about easily and find the statue. It was almost as tall as Hanalla, and reminded her of the grandmother that raised her, that lead her here as a child. Carved in the likeness of a woman with a calm, determined expression surrounded by flowers, it gave her the feeling it had always been part of the glen and always would be.

She took the cloth and jar of water from her pack, and took her time cleaning the streaks and dirt that had accumulated. Particular attention had to be paid along the crack that had formed down the side of the face and neck, to clean out the dirt but not cause the edges to chip further. Hanalla had once considered fixing the crack, but it seemed disrespectful. She couldn't add to what the goddess was, and everyone had cracks they had lived thru and survived. You never got to repair those really, but they helped make us who we are.

It took most of the day to do her work all told. Her children thought it was a waste of time, and her husband was smart enough to keep his opinions to himself in this case. Why go through all the effort of cleaning and devotions to an old cracked goddess you can't even name? There were newer gods and goddesses, powerful and sensual ones with beautiful temples right in town. Hanalla shook her head as she placed the fruits around the feet of her goddess. You don't give up those you love because they're broken, or old, or no longer what others approve of. You love them. That's it.

The sun was getting lower, and Hanalla knew it was time to leave. As she turned back to the entrance to the glen, she smiled at the flowers that had bloomed and filled the grounds to either side. This time they were covered in thousand of little pink flowers with white stripes that she had never seen before. Hanalla made an effort when she came to bring new fruits from various lands so her goddess got some variety, and it always warmed her heart to see it was appreciated.

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Idol Mini sign up announcement!

2024-06-29T19:12:03Z

Hi! It has been quite a few years since I did any journaling or Idol-ing, but I think it'd be good for me to try it all again, so this is my declaration of signing up :D

Formerly DizzyDog over in LJ land, but it's been a long time and I've been using this name now in place like YouTube, so this is the new me :D

If you don't know what I'm talking about (how did you GET here then?!) the sign up sheet over here is a good starting point.

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