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ravenSo I have concrud for the third time this year (my life, you guys! so hard! cons are so exciting and multiply amazing and infectious!) and so I steal a meme from alpheratz:
You post a topic, list, category, whatever, in comments. (examples: "Five Dates X Regretted Going On," or "Five Fannish Gatherings that Y Attended"). I'll answer with a list of five things.
Fandoms: Welcome To Night Vale (quelle surprise), M*A*S*H, Cabin Pressure, Vorkosigan, Sports Night, etc., but the whole list is here and I'm usually happy to write most of them.
alpheratz:You post a topic, list, category, whatever, in comments. (examples: "Five Dates X Regretted Going On," or "Five Fannish Gatherings that Y Attended"). I'll answer with a list of five things.
Fandoms: Welcome To Night Vale (quelle surprise), M*A*S*H, Cabin Pressure, Vorkosigan, Sports Night, etc., but the whole list is here and I'm usually happy to write most of them.
no subject
on 2013-08-12 05:10 pm (UTC)How about a list of five friends Carlos makes in Night Vale? :)
five friends Carlos makes in Night Vale
on 2013-08-12 07:11 pm (UTC)1. Old Woman Josie. Carlos had gone to visit the angels, who weren't home. "It's just a visitation," Josie said, sagely. "Fear not. You want some tea, honey?"
Carlos was going to say something about having to go somewhere and do science, because his default setting in Night Vale was always run run away quickly come back with a hazmat suit and take measurements also but run, which was tiring and cognitively dissonant but effective, but he stopped and looked around him properly, at the little room with the books piled up on all the surfaces, children's literature mixed up with books about high-energy physics mixed up with bell hooks, and then at the little lady with her eyes bright as tiny stars. "Yeah, okay," he said, and sat down while she made it, breathing in the scent of spices.
"There you go," she said, putting the tiny cup directly into his hands. "Drink that. White people can't make tea for shit."
Carlos laughed, surprising himself. "I know," he said. "Where do you get this stuff, in Night Vale?"
"You come here and drink it, honey." Josie's eyes were alive with mischief. "Nice to have a beautiful, perfect young man around the place."
Carlos blushed, but he was still sitting there, calm and quiet, half an hour later, when Erika shouted "Be not afraid!" and the room exploded with light.
2. Tamika Flynn. "I heard," she said very quietly, looking up at him with wide, fearful eyes, "that scientists get to read a lot of books."
Carlos had two kid sisters at home, and his mom was writing her thesis when the second one arrived so Roxy's first words were "mama" and "dada" and "sulphur". He got on his knees to be at her eye level and said, seriously, "You must be Tamika."
She nodded. "Are you the scientist?"
Carlos considered. "I'm a scientist," he said at last. "They always need more. There are a lot of things in the world to understand, you see."
She nodded.
"Tell you what," Carlos said. "If you sit up here – let me give you a hand up – and make some notes for me, we can maybe do some work together, okay? I'm not very good at writing without pens, not like you."
She nodded again. "Is the sky blue, where you come from?"
"Sometimes," Carlos said. "Sometimes it's grey, or black."
"That's weird." She wrinkled her nose, than unwrinkled it. "And interesting."
"It's very interesting," Carlos said. "What colour is the sky here?"
"Red," Tamika told him, and Carlos began taking notes. "And purple, and green, and sometimes dusty and cerulean. Let me write that, 'cerulean' is hard to spell."
Carlos grinned and gave her the clipboard.
3. The Glow Cloud. "It's kind of disgusting," spat Amy, picking a dead lizard out of her hair. She'd been with Carlos since the beginning of the Night Vale investigation project, and Carlos knew for a fact she was keeping a meticulously-empirical record of the shifting relative meaning of the word "disgusting" in connection with Night Vale-based phenomena.
"Why does everyone in Night Vale enjoy stating the obvious?" he asked, rhetorically, closing the windows they'd foolishly left open even after Welcome To Night Vale had spent five minutes reminding them of the agenda for that night's PTA meeting (the reading of the minutes for the previous meeting; how to encourage fresh fruit and vegetables be a part of children's packed lunches; the unutterable ennui of existence).
"Not the lizard," she said. "Though, yes, watching lizard entrails spiral counter-clockwise down my shower drain is disgusting, thank you, Carlos. And the dead locusts. Dead pigeons also pretty gross. What is disgusting here is the rank – aha, I made a pun, I am hilarious - favouritism."
"I'm sorry," Carlos said, for no reason at all, because it wasn't his fault, really, and started building a funeral pyre for the dead kittens and puppies and single, startled bunny rabbit.
4. Intern Dana. When Cecil announced she was okay, and alive, and living in the dog park (that we do not acknowledge or speak about) with the man in the tan jacket, Carlos was relieved – he liked her and sometimes suspected that she might be the most rational person in Night Vale, Cecil most definitely and emphatically not excepted – and then worried for her life, which as she was one of Cecil's interns wasn't exactly new, but he could do something about it.
After a few minutes, the five-pack of Cheetos returned over the dog park fence emptied and opened out with "thanks send more" scrawled on it.
Carlos went to get some more, and also some of Amy's patented all-vitamin all-mineral all-caffeine writing-your-thesis pills, and some fresh fruit and vegetables. He wrote "don't you need carbohydrate?" on the wrapper in a toothpick dipped in food colouring; he got it back with "thanks a bunch Carlos you're the best pop tarts please? Erika makes me eat quinoa hippie shit".
Under the Kellogg's logo, Carlos wrote: "no problem how did you know it was me?"
"faint smell of Cecil's cologne also chocotastic beautiful and perfect"
Carlos nodded, to no one, and went to find a non-shatter French press.
5. The angel Erika. It was funny, observed the part of Carlos's mind that was really definitely seriously not panicking right now, that even with glow-cloud possession and that terrible sandstorm and station management continuing to do their thing, he had never, not in the world or on the radio, heard Cecil scream until this moment.
"Carlos," Cecil said a moment later, backing slowly through the door with a strange light playing across his face, "there's someone in the bathroom. Look," he said, in the direction of the door, "there are some guys out there who can, like, have babies, but I'm not one of them, so I don't think…"
He stepped back inside. Carlos leaned against the wall and waited. After a minute Cecil came back out and looked at him. "Apparently," he said, sounding in equal parts confused and put out, "I should be nice to you. I should be very nice to you. Otherwise some – ah, bad things, are going to happen to me, involving shrieking in the pits of hellfire. Also I should be not afraid. Why shouldn't I be afraid, when I'm being threatened?" A little uncertainly, "And I… am nice to you, aren't I?"
"You are the nicest," Carlos told him, kissing his forehead. He went into the kitchen to sweep out some dead cats left over from the early evening PTA meeting, murmuring his thanks, knowing they would be heard by one or another Erika wherever zie might be; and after that he made spiced tea for Cecil, for both of them, and laughed into his own cup.
Re: five friends Carlos makes in Night Vale
on 2013-08-12 07:27 pm (UTC)YOU ARE THE BEST
*ahem*
These are all lovely, though. I especially like the idea of Carlos having quiet tea with Old Woman Josie and relaxing just enough to not itch for a hazmat suit anymore (right before the Erika shows up). Plus your Erika characterization (be not afraid!) is hilarious and awesome. And the terrifying manner in which the Glow Cloud loves him! These are just GEMS. And I like how they end with Carlos being the blase tea-making one, bless.
Re: five friends Carlos makes in Night Vale
on 2013-08-12 07:58 pm (UTC)Re: five friends Carlos makes in Night Vale
on 2013-08-12 08:06 pm (UTC)Re: five friends Carlos makes in Night Vale
on 2013-08-12 09:34 pm (UTC)'Fear not' must have worked back in biblical times
But we're full of the facts; it's the cross on our backs
When we pray are we just closing our eyes?"
From this (turn about fair play). And heh, I am so glad to share a name with an obnoxious angel.
Re: five friends Carlos makes in Night Vale
on 2013-08-12 10:42 pm (UTC)Re: five friends Carlos makes in Night Vale
on 2013-08-13 12:15 am (UTC)Re: five friends Carlos makes in Night Vale
on 2013-08-12 07:52 pm (UTC)This is entirely up to you, but would you mind my posting a link to this on tumblr? Or are you planning to publish elsewhere? Because this is perfect and beautiful and people should get to read it.
Re: five friends Carlos makes in Night Vale
on 2013-08-12 07:57 pm (UTC)Re: five friends Carlos makes in Night Vale
on 2013-08-12 08:21 pm (UTC)Re: five friends Carlos makes in Night Vale
on 2013-08-12 09:01 pm (UTC)Re: five friends Carlos makes in Night Vale
on 2013-08-12 09:33 pm (UTC)(Oh BABIES.)
Re: five friends Carlos makes in Night Vale
on 2013-12-02 09:01 pm (UTC)