[ A boon of Lisa's power, at least for Krouse in this particular moment, is he doesn't have to think about tone in text. She'll get the thin, reluctant gratitude whether he clarifies it or not.
He doesn't want to think about his fucking birthday, but he couldn't get away from it. He doesn't want anyone to try to celebrate. He doesn't want to deal with it. Nineteen, another year older than he deserves to be.
But there's something to having it observed by the one other person who really gets what it feels like to get older than the people who mattered. ]
[ In a dark room lit only by Lisa's HUD, Lisa curls up in her office chair, holding a warm mug of tea. She's been handwriting most of her notes here, thanks to the AI presence, so her wrists don't hurt as much as they used to. The ritual is still nice.
She gets why Krouse smokes. That's not what's bothering her about this particular round of moping, at least. What actually bothers her is that she knows it's happening. Her power cares enough to tell her, has enough data to make that guess in the first place.
(Her power, not her. They're different.)
The gratitude is a little nice. It goes with the tea and the blanket. ]
it gets easier
[ Four years since Reggie. Her next birthday's going to sting, though. At least she and Taylor never celebrated her birthday together. ]
[ There's a way he can tell himself that telling her things doesn't count, because she already knows them. There's another way in which he knows that's bullshit, because the difference between the things someone knows and the things they're told is a wide gulf of important fucking distinctions.
Krouse leans forward on the log he's perched on, exhaling in the chilly air. ]
i was too brainwashed to care last year
but he got me a fucking pudding cup. if you can believe it. i didn't know why until someone else told me. tapioca. who the fuck eats tapioca pudding
[ Krouse doesn't have the benefit of her power. It's the old asymmetry: she'll always know more about him than he'll ever know about her.
Usually, she doesn't mind that. Krouse is a jackass. Best to keep herself on a need-to-know basis. This - what she's doing right now - is just an exception that proves the rule. ]
i think u answered ur own question dude. its the snack of choice 4 creepy old men
my mom ate them sometimes too but that just proves my point. she always kind of liked creepy old men imo
real question is did he try to stick a candle in the cup
[ They're talking about parents now. Apparently. Krouse takes in the details, overanalyzing what's not actually much by reflex.
He stops himself. It's too close to what Piggot and the PRT tried to pull on her. For all the shit they did to Krouse, one thing he had going for him was that they couldn't pull real information on him. Inter-universe jurisdictional issue. ]
think she'd like teacher? he's kind of a wet dream for controlling parents. instant obedience and your little sport picks up a brand new life skill.
[ Is that what she wanted out of you?
He's always going to be guessing, but the guesses keep getting more informed. Forced proximity does that. He didn't know his team a fraction as well at the start as he did by the end. Insecurities, flaws, deep-seated fears. Slipping out in quiet hours or spit out by the distorted mouths of their doppelgangers. Not that different from here.
He knows what pressure looks like as an imprint. Lisa's mask is always perfect. Her blonde hair deployed for effect. The skill of knowing how to hold your face at the right angle for the light to hit it how you want it to, or how someone else wants it to. ]
[ He's conflating the blonde supervillains in his life. It would be a little sad, if Lisa herself wasn't the type of person to go check the ground after it rains and see if there are any worms.
There never are. It's more like a ritual, at this point. ]
nah my parents were actually p checked out. my dad had a business and my mom had fundraising which was also kind of part of the business. the tapioca pudding usually showed up when she raised a bunch of tax free cash which meant that she got to have a little treat
[ She stopped eating them when their fundraising methodologies changed. Using your daughter for insider trading is something that demands a steak dinner, maybe a nice bottle of wine. Sarah never joined in. She always hated eating at the same table with them, after. ]
my dad and i didnt get along thats more what i meant
[ Different kind of pressure. Krouse adjusts his assumptions. It's annoying how often he's had to do that with her. Annoying in the sense of being a distraction, which is what he wants more than anything else for this stupid day. ]
i'd say i sympathize, but i don't.
i'm assuming you clocked my paternal absence. i lucked out. dads seem to trend as more shit parents than moms.
[ He is lucky. Was lucky. He knows how lucky he was.
Every year, he and his mom did something that was just them for his birthday. Before he had a party, on the years he had a party instead of just hanging out with Luke with forty bucks in his pocket wherever she dropped them off. She made cake out of a box, but she made the icing herself. She said that was the part that made a difference. ]
my mom did fundraising. she was always involved in stuff like that. used to drag me to all of it. i guess she hoped it'd rub off on me.
[ It's not that fathers are worse. They're just different. Fred and June used to have this routine that they'd do. The three of them would be minding their own business, and then June would burst into tears. That's when Fred would admonish his daughter. Sarah, apologize to your mother. You're making her cry.
But how would Krouse even know? He just had the one parent. Lisa isn't going to shatter the illusion on his birthday. For once, the inferences pouring in from the other end of the wire aren't so bad. ]
well june wasnt big on that kind of fundraising. probably wouldve been better if she was
and im really not trying to psychoanalyze u. promise. ur just one of the least self aware ppl ive ever met which is part of why ur so insufferable i guess
but it stuck more than u thought. coil caught me a few months into running scams. u were able 2 come up w enough cash to support ur team for like a year
[ Lisa is trying to give him credit for something. She might be right about him being one of the least self-aware people she knows, because he had no idea he was coming off fucking pathetic enough she'd give him a boost.
He also doesn't know why he has the kneejerk reaction he does. ]
i had a team. heavy hitters. harder to lock us down without incentives.
[ He's not giving her an excuse, exactly. It's just a fact. It was different. ]
and hey. you did manage to get your tax free cash in the end. although i assume you cracked into something better than goddamn tapioca pudding about it.
[ She's a fast typist. Fast enough that the words don't catch up with her until they're all laid out on her display like that, stark and cold.
She thought about smoking a little weed. It was something she did less after she met Taylor, who always had a bit of a thing about it. Probably better for Lisa in the long run.
But it dawns on her, as she deletes what was nearly the worst text she's ever sent of all time, that she didn't really crack open anything to celebrate. It hadn't felt like a big deal at the time. There was a power vacuum. She needed to make sure Taylor filled it.
She pushes her chair as far out from her desk as her arms allow. For a moment, she doesn't look at the computer, or the HUD, or anything else.
She didn't celebrate. It didn't even occur to her to celebrate. What kind of person -
Fuck. Fucking Krouse. That annoying bastard. ]
once again u are hot dogshit at reading me i take it back i have no fucking clue how a moron like u survived this long heavy hitters or no
[ She's not trying to be funny. Not funny-funny. They're not on 'friendly ribbing' terms when every other word is still razor-barbed and volatile.
But he laughs anyway, dry and rustling, running a hand through his hair. Something about celebrating her wins set her off. He doesn't know why. Or he does, but he knows it only as an array of possibilities, not specifically. Because she's right. He's bad at reading her.
That just lately feels like less of a catastrophic imminent failure of intel and more like just - being bad at it. ]
my running theory is i annoy people enough they don't think straight about killing me.
not that you know anything about being extremely fucking aggravating
no mister cape formerly known as trickster i have no idea what baiting people is. why dont u mansplain it 2 me
[ This is better. The whole point of her messaging him in the first place was to get rid of the nagging splinter of power in her brain, the one that keeps reminding her of grief-time-birthday-older-missing-without you.
It's not a splinter that she can ever really fully pull out. Most of the time, it's not even about him. But this conversation is so stupid that her power pipes down, just a little. ]
do you want me to throw in a 'little lady' at the start, or does a vague air of smug condescension cover it?
[ Now he's trying to be funny. Not very funny.
But it's almost, almost like he's talking to an annoying girl he doesn't particularly like, and not a Machiavellian supervillain who runs a criminal empire with a smirk and a keyboard. ]
well now youve given your move away so nah i dont think it would hit as hard
what i rlly want u 2 do is surprise me. always fun 4 me 2 see how ppl try and pull that off
[ They're not having fun. But this is the first time Lisa might actually be okay with getting a message back from Krouse, even if it is annoying as hell. It's almost normal, and maybe that's why Lisa thinks he has a shot at surprising her. It's the least powers-involved conversation she's had with him of all time. ]
well now i'm fucked. if i'm trying to surprise you it's not going to be surprising.
[ He's seen people try to surprise her before. It hasn't gone well. Most of the things he jumps to are immediately and obviously not going to work. He doesn't know where he could get a random number generator around here either. ]
i talked to my imaginary friend until i think i was twelve.
huh yeah i never wouldve guessed that but it checks out if im doing pop psychology which is kind of my whole deal yeah it makes sense that the professional gamer is big in2 the power of the imagination
i used to like photography. same deal
[ she has a camera now, and no idea what the fuck to do with it. maybe this is her asking for advice. or maybe they're shooting the shit. it doesn't really matter, because there isn't much of a difference. ]
it's almost like i prefer escapist fantasies to reality
[ He's gotten digs in at himself after hers before, but this is, once again, not really like before. ]
i guess the eye motif has layers. should have known. you're going to tell me you're the second exiled member of the nobility on your team about the purple next.
[ He knows where their fucked up little puppeteer came from. That family drama played out live. But that's a sacrifice of strict reality he's willing to make for the bit. ]
were you the artsy kind of photographer or the myspace selfie kind? i'll trade you what my imaginary friend was.
maybe i was picturing you as an emo in it for the sense of conforming in nonconformity.
[ He wasn't, which she'll clock, but she can just enjoy being right about his imprecise question without explicit reinforcement. Especially considering - ]
he was an alien. i made him up because i wanted someone to explain earth concepts to. i'll save you having to psychoanalyze me: kid that didn't fit in wanted to make up someone even weirder than he was.
[ Krouse wasn't picturing an emo version of Lisa, but Lisa does that, just for the hell of it. The tips of her hair are dyed blue. She stops picturing it. ]
yeah ill give you that. ur weird but i meet weirder freaks than u every day. at least theres 1 good thing that came out of ur trip to superhero world
not trying 2 b comforting btw ur trip sucked shit and im not in the bizness of making u feel better. hence my lack of future career @ hallmark
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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since im gonna b the greeting card kingpin of the new earth ill give u another 1 for free due 2 my kind heart and generosity:
go fuck urself and have a kwik trip cake
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[ A boon of Lisa's power, at least for Krouse in this particular moment, is he doesn't have to think about tone in text. She'll get the thin, reluctant gratitude whether he clarifies it or not.
He doesn't want to think about his fucking birthday, but he couldn't get away from it. He doesn't want anyone to try to celebrate. He doesn't want to deal with it. Nineteen, another year older than he deserves to be.
But there's something to having it observed by the one other person who really gets what it feels like to get older than the people who mattered. ]
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She gets why Krouse smokes. That's not what's bothering her about this particular round of moping, at least. What actually bothers her is that she knows it's happening. Her power cares enough to tell her, has enough data to make that guess in the first place.
(Her power, not her. They're different.)
The gratitude is a little nice. It goes with the tea and the blanket. ]
it gets easier
[ Four years since Reggie. Her next birthday's going to sting, though. At least she and Taylor never celebrated her birthday together. ]
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that's the part i hate
[ There's a way he can tell himself that telling her things doesn't count, because she already knows them. There's another way in which he knows that's bullshit, because the difference between the things someone knows and the things they're told is a wide gulf of important fucking distinctions.
Krouse leans forward on the log he's perched on, exhaling in the chilly air. ]
i was too brainwashed to care last year
but he got me a fucking pudding cup. if you can believe it. i didn't know why until someone else told me. tapioca. who the fuck eats tapioca pudding
no subject
[ Krouse doesn't have the benefit of her power. It's the old asymmetry: she'll always know more about him than he'll ever know about her.
Usually, she doesn't mind that. Krouse is a jackass. Best to keep herself on a need-to-know basis. This - what she's doing right now - is just an exception that proves the rule. ]
i think u answered ur own question dude. its the snack of choice 4 creepy old men
my mom ate them sometimes too but that just proves my point. she always kind of liked creepy old men imo
real question is did he try to stick a candle in the cup
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[ They're talking about parents now. Apparently. Krouse takes in the details, overanalyzing what's not actually much by reflex.
He stops himself. It's too close to what Piggot and the PRT tried to pull on her. For all the shit they did to Krouse, one thing he had going for him was that they couldn't pull real information on him. Inter-universe jurisdictional issue. ]
think she'd like teacher? he's kind of a wet dream for controlling parents. instant obedience and your little sport picks up a brand new life skill.
[ Is that what she wanted out of you?
He's always going to be guessing, but the guesses keep getting more informed. Forced proximity does that. He didn't know his team a fraction as well at the start as he did by the end. Insecurities, flaws, deep-seated fears. Slipping out in quiet hours or spit out by the distorted mouths of their doppelgangers. Not that different from here.
He knows what pressure looks like as an imprint. Lisa's mask is always perfect. Her blonde hair deployed for effect. The skill of knowing how to hold your face at the right angle for the light to hit it how you want it to, or how someone else wants it to. ]
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There never are. It's more like a ritual, at this point. ]
nah my parents were actually p checked out. my dad had a business and my mom had fundraising which was also kind of part of the business. the tapioca pudding usually showed up when she raised a bunch of tax free cash which meant that she got to have a little treat
[ She stopped eating them when their fundraising methodologies changed. Using your daughter for insider trading is something that demands a steak dinner, maybe a nice bottle of wine. Sarah never joined in. She always hated eating at the same table with them, after. ]
my dad and i didnt get along
thats more what i meant
[ She might as well set the record straight. ]
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i'd say i sympathize, but i don't.
i'm assuming you clocked my paternal absence. i lucked out. dads seem to trend as more shit parents than moms.
[ He is lucky. Was lucky. He knows how lucky he was.
Every year, he and his mom did something that was just them for his birthday. Before he had a party, on the years he had a party instead of just hanging out with Luke with forty bucks in his pocket wherever she dropped them off. She made cake out of a box, but she made the icing herself. She said that was the part that made a difference. ]
my mom did fundraising. she was always involved in stuff like that. used to drag me to all of it. i guess she hoped it'd rub off on me.
didn't stick. obviously.
i guess parental influence is overrated.
cw: child emotional abuse
But how would Krouse even know? He just had the one parent. Lisa isn't going to shatter the illusion on his birthday. For once, the inferences pouring in from the other end of the wire aren't so bad. ]
well june wasnt big on that kind of fundraising. probably wouldve been better if she was
and im really not trying to psychoanalyze u. promise. ur just one of the least self aware ppl ive ever met which is part of why ur so insufferable i guess
but it stuck more than u thought. coil caught me a few months into running scams. u were able 2 come up w enough cash to support ur team for like a year
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He also doesn't know why he has the kneejerk reaction he does. ]
i had a team. heavy hitters. harder to lock us down without incentives.
[ He's not giving her an excuse, exactly. It's just a fact. It was different. ]
and hey. you did manage to get your tax free cash in the end. although i assume you cracked into something better than goddamn tapioca pudding about it.
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dont tell taylor but i thought about[ She's a fast typist. Fast enough that the words don't catch up with her until they're all laid out on her display like that, stark and cold.
She thought about smoking a little weed. It was something she did less after she met Taylor, who always had a bit of a thing about it. Probably better for Lisa in the long run.
But it dawns on her, as she deletes what was nearly the worst text she's ever sent of all time, that she didn't really crack open anything to celebrate. It hadn't felt like a big deal at the time. There was a power vacuum. She needed to make sure Taylor filled it.
She pushes her chair as far out from her desk as her arms allow. For a moment, she doesn't look at the computer, or the HUD, or anything else.
She didn't celebrate. It didn't even occur to her to celebrate. What kind of person -
Fuck. Fucking Krouse. That annoying bastard. ]
once again u are hot dogshit at reading me
i take it back i have no fucking clue how a moron like u survived this long heavy hitters or no
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But he laughs anyway, dry and rustling, running a hand through his hair. Something about celebrating her wins set her off. He doesn't know why. Or he does, but he knows it only as an array of possibilities, not specifically. Because she's right. He's bad at reading her.
That just lately feels like less of a catastrophic imminent failure of intel and more like just - being bad at it. ]
my running theory is i annoy people enough they don't think straight about killing me.
not that you know anything about being extremely fucking aggravating
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[ This is better. The whole point of her messaging him in the first place was to get rid of the nagging splinter of power in her brain, the one that keeps reminding her of grief-time-birthday-older-missing-without you.
It's not a splinter that she can ever really fully pull out. Most of the time, it's not even about him. But this conversation is so stupid that her power pipes down, just a little. ]
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[ Now he's trying to be funny. Not very funny.
But it's almost, almost like he's talking to an annoying girl he doesn't particularly like, and not a Machiavellian supervillain who runs a criminal empire with a smirk and a keyboard. ]
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what i rlly want u 2 do is surprise me. always fun 4 me 2 see how ppl try and pull that off
[ They're not having fun. But this is the first time Lisa might actually be okay with getting a message back from Krouse, even if it is annoying as hell. It's almost normal, and maybe that's why Lisa thinks he has a shot at surprising her. It's the least powers-involved conversation she's had with him of all time. ]
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[ He's seen people try to surprise her before. It hasn't gone well. Most of the things he jumps to are immediately and obviously not going to work. He doesn't know where he could get a random number generator around here either. ]
i talked to my imaginary friend until i think i was twelve.
not out loud. i wasn't certifiable.
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yeah i never wouldve guessed that but it checks out
if im doing pop psychology which is kind of my whole deal yeah it makes sense that the professional gamer is big in2 the power of the imagination
i used to like photography. same deal
[ she has a camera now, and no idea what the fuck to do with it. maybe this is her asking for advice. or maybe they're shooting the shit. it doesn't really matter, because there isn't much of a difference. ]
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[ He's gotten digs in at himself after hers before, but this is, once again, not really like before. ]
i guess the eye motif has layers. should have known. you're going to tell me you're the second exiled member of the nobility on your team about the purple next.
[ He knows where their fucked up little puppeteer came from. That family drama played out live. But that's a sacrifice of strict reality he's willing to make for the bit. ]
were you the artsy kind of photographer or the myspace selfie kind? i'll trade you what my imaginary friend was.
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nope the fam was just regular old bougie
myspace selfie due to being a 15 yo idiot
but obviously that meant i thought i was super artsy so ur question isnt that precise
now pay up i actually wanna know this one unlike all the other hideos facts i have 2 stomach abt u
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[ He wasn't, which she'll clock, but she can just enjoy being right about his imprecise question without explicit reinforcement. Especially considering - ]
he was an alien. i made him up because i wanted someone to explain earth concepts to. i'll save you having to psychoanalyze me: kid that didn't fit in wanted to make up someone even weirder than he was.
i guess that actually kind of worked out for me.
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yeah ill give you that. ur weird but i meet weirder freaks than u every day. at least theres 1 good thing that came out of ur trip to superhero world
not trying 2 b comforting btw ur trip sucked shit and im not in the bizness of making u feel better. hence my lack of future career @ hallmark
what is normie world even like