abraxaslogs | Now that you're actually not cool, I kinda like you better. (Open/Closed)

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Now that you're actually not cool, I kinda like you better. (Open/Closed)

Who: Catchall for Bay (Open) and Abby (Closed)
When: Throughout July
What: All sorts of things.
Warnings: Abby swears and does drugs and is generally going to be a problem. Abby and Jesper's closed prompt is NSFW.

Nocwich - Open
Horizon - Open
Thorne - Open

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There's a very good logic to it. That she's not a kid because nobody treats her like a kid. Except Nadine, and even that's a bit variable as to what. Abby still felt like she was in over her head before getting into the fact that 'these other worlds' often weren't very safe. So they all had to deal with shit she never did, so she had no clue what she was doing.

"So- if he's down, but not like eager, I should- what? Just go for it?" The other problem is Abby has zero idea how to get a guy, if she did she wouldn't have answered any of Press's texts. Ever.

As to the voice, three things all happened in roughly the same time. And any, or all, or the perfect storm of them, could be the root. Her parents, her friends, and her phone. Her parent started fighting, and at the same time Max came out, and Norah grew out of her awkward phase, and Abby gained access to the internet. Which of those did the worst, which did the most? Who the fuck knows.

"Less blubber on my thighs, boobs that are- like- the same size. Looking like Hailey Bieber," She shifts to hugging her legs up against herself, making her look as small as possible. "Social Media definitely didn't fucking help me, but maybe that voice is just part of me."

She never saw Norah having this problem. Or Ginny. Max... was high strung came out when she was eight and vomits up every emotion she can at all times. Outlier, not the same. Max would have gone to that ball and swapped costumes four times and then gotten recognized each time because she can't help herself.

"Yeah, sure, why not? If that's what you want too, then do it." Julie has always been a proponent of doing whatever strikes her. She shrugs. "What's the worst that happens? Well, I mean, okay, he could always kill you and chop your body up, Dahmer-style, but that's such a small chance. And you'll tell me his name so I can burn him from the inside out as punishment even if it happens. So he'd get his, if that's his game. But realistically, what, he tries to ghost?" She laughs a little. "There's like fifty of us, total. Maybe twenty-five in Cadens, max. Good luck to him, in that case."

It actually makes hook-ups both more and less complicated; more complicated because there's no avoiding each other, but less complicated because it's sort of destigmatizing to know that they're going to have to overlap. What other choices do they have? Fuck natives? Ew.

Well, ew for the human natives, at least. Some of the werewolves, vampires and Fey are unfairly hot.

Nodding, Julie sucks her teeth. Social media was a bitch, all right, but she can't say that she doesn't miss it. What she has found, though, is that she doesn't necessarily miss the part of social media where she just stared at filtered Hollywood elites, hating that she wasn't one of them; no, what she misses are the fun parts of it. Funny videos, comment sections, the parts that made time slip away.

"Hailey Bieber was a liar and a dumbass," Julie says archly. "Her face was pumped full of filler and carved like a Christmas ham, and the only reason she wasn't workin' the stock room at American Apparel is 'cause her dad was the worst Baldwin. Same as Kylie and Kendall, the Hadids, all of those girls. At least Kim went through the trouble of fuckin' her way to the top. The rest were just born on third, convinced they hit a triple."

Julie has opinions on Hollywood "It" girls.

"Your tits are fine. Unless you are a secret genius at stuffin', they don't look different. Isn't that what's important? That they look the same, to the eye?" Her brow knits, and Julie touches her own breasts, sincerely considering each handful before she shakes her head. "Plus, honestly, unless one of 'em straight shrivels and falls off, literally no guy will ever notice a difference. And even then, they won't care. Guys just want to see 'em. Girls don't care either, by the way."

She takes a long sip of coffee, then raises her eyebrows. "Why do you think your thighs are fat? Compared to what?"

"If I had any concerns Sylvain would do that, I would probably just be throwing up at flirting with him." Abby huffs out a small breath at the concept, and at the fact that if anyone would do that to her. It'd be the one guy to pay attention to her in her old life. Not any of the murderers or criminals she's met here.

She doesn't mention her concerns are just that he'll reject her for all the things she's just opened up about.

She'll just gloss over the Hailey and Hollywood talk. As much as she wants to argue that isn't fair, she'd never thought too hard about it just in looking at herself in the comparison. Which again has a place in her mind, but not the bigger stake.

"I know boys, and lesbians, are stupid and literally just want to suck titty." She's watched all the guys, and Max, look at Ginny's mom with just- unabashed lust. No thoughts just the soundtrack of a 70's porno playing between their ears. She knows that Georgia Miller clothed will get that reactions she couldn't get naked, "I don't really care what they see, I care what I see."

Which was the heart of all of this, she looked at herself and her features. Looked at her friends, and saw it. The stark contrasts. "So my best friends and I have sleepovers, all the time. And when we use those to sneak out and get drunk, we usually all change together into our party clothes. Max eats the most junk I have ever met, and somehow keeps that perky slim thing. And Norah's only gained weight above the sternum. Never anywhere else. And I-"

Abby lets the thought trail. The obvious conclusion to it going on. Unlike the other things, that one people commented on, that one they noticed. Regardless of what she did. "I just- if Sylvain isn't interested cause I'm a kid, or cause I'm a girl, I won't care. Fucking whatever. He could reject me for being me, then what do I do."

"But why is that what you see?" Julie sighs. "We both know your boobs aren't visibly different. You don't have like, one A cup and one D cup. So you are lookin' so closely that you can see these teeny tiny differences, and you're lettin' your mind go crazy to make those differences seem huge. I guarantee you, you spend enough time analyzin' Hailey Bieber's tits, they probably weren't identical neither. Perfect symmetry isn't real. But you don't spend your time measurin' your fingers and toes to make sure none of 'em are longer than the other, right?"

Julie understands what she means. Understands why it's these parts of her body. It's hammered in from birth, that there is a mold to be fit, perfection to be strived for. It wasn't until she lived in the aftermath of Trips that Julie understood what a scam it all really was. Beauty was still valuable, of course -- beauty was what catapulted her into the elite of New Vegas. But it was not the same pressure; no one was calorie counting or picking at their appearance in the mirrors. The circumference of a thigh or one tit weighing a few ounces more was meaningless.

Another sigh, then she takes a deep breath. "Look, I know I can't make you believe anythin'. I know that everything I could ever tell you is somethin' you already know, logically, and I know that doesn't mean shit when it comes to emotions. What I can tell you is that no one has ever been on their deathbed and thought 'If only my thighs had been a little skinnier when I was sixteen'. No one's life has ever changed or been saved by fixatin' on every tiny, insignificant little flaw. Humans are flawed, all of us. There are things I don't like about how I look. Your friends had things they didn't like about how they looked. That's just how it works."

Squirming, Julie readjusts herself, tucks her legs under herself as she sits up straight. She holds her coffee in her lap with both hands. "And you're gorgeous. You have a face like a fuckin' porcelain doll. You have the cutest mouth I think I've ever seen. Your tits and your thighs are fine. And any motherfucker who would reject you for not havin'... toothpicks for legs or whatever? That's a motherfucker who doesn't deserve any of your attention. They have nothin' to offer you. People with shit to offer don't notice things like that."

With another sip, she shakes her head a little, closes her eyes and then opens them again with a look of resignation. "Like I said, I know I can't make you believe or listen to me. But you should know, I don't stand anythin' to gain by lyin' to you."

Edited 2023-07-12 16:03 (UTC)

Abby did know all of this, well... okay not all all. The porcelain doll line was new and not one she's ever fucking heard before. So that got a smile out of her. People being nice to her was still weird. Looking at her like that was weird. She knew, vaguely, people were fond of her. But in that- she's helpless and out of her fucking depth way.

Or they were Jesper.

"I didn't get to- like, look at myself naked after my visits to the Fey whatever Tree. Because didn't wanna talk about this shit with Inej, we're not there yet. But I could just look at myself, and the comments people said about me were there, but I didn't really give a fuck about them." She did try, she really did, to hold onto that feeling. But crippling doubt about oneself didn't just go away thanks to magic trees.

Otherwise she wouldn't do nearly as many drugs. She wouldn't try so hard to be seen not giving a fuck, and feel like she failed when she suddenly does. Why she couldn't tell anyone about her parents for weeks until it was past the point she could deal. All the shit in her head was all twisted together and it was easier to carve it out than to unsnare it.

"I know the shit I'm thinking doesn't matter how much it feels, but it still feels that way. Before coming here, one guy ever did anything with me. He was also the captain of making me feel like shit about myself. And that fact sure hurts more that good people seem to give a crap about me," Abby drags a finger over the floor, small movements, nothing coming to them right now. "Before you offer, Jesper already has dibs on murdering him."

She's not sure she wants Press dead, but he'd do well to have horrible scars to explain to anyone he's ever with ever again. Maybe that's evil of her. Maybe it's just fair.

"I wonder if I can recreate that tone in the Horizon, that effect it had. I know I can't rely on that, but it'd be nice to block out my own bullshit for a few hours." That was sure an idea to work on, she huffs out something approaching a laugh, "Although it might just be easier if I got railed or something."

She's not sure if she's joking.

The feeling of helplessness, of being confounded by the genuine affection and care of others, it's familiar. Julie lost every single person she'd ever known or loved in one fell swoop, and then she was trapped in a place where no one could be trusted. Where everyone was out for themselves, and they were all under the constant monitoring of someone who could read their very thoughts. She forgot, for a long time, how to function outside of that atmosphere of fear and suspicion and doubt. Trusting that anyone actually cared, was honest or real with her, it did not come back easily. There were steps forward and back. Months and months before she could even begin to believe anything anyone said to her.

"Honestly, getting railed probably would help." It's more thoughtful than that sentence has any right to be, Julie's mouth in a pensive frown. "Not that like, getting banged is a proper fix, but more that... that you'd see. You'd see that, to someone else, they can't notice the things you do. And it's hard to think about all that kinda bullshit when you feel good."

This is, of course, making the leap that whoever Abby fucks will be good at it. The point stands, but it does require the sex be decent.

Julie scoffs a little, rolls her eyes. "It sounds like he's just a dick. Some people are dicks. They'll say anythin' they can come up with to hurt other people, usually 'cause they feel like shit themselves. And with guys like that, sometimes the way they get girls is to make those girls feel just as bad as they do. 'Cause the only way he can have you is to convince you that you can't do better. And you can.

Have you ever tried that kinda meditation where someone makes noise with a bowl? Like oooooooooooooooooooooooh." She helpfully lows out a long, single note, mimicking the movement of circling the rim of a bowl.

Abby adjusts this diagnosis from 'railed' to 'eaten out.' As if the bigger importance is her pleasure, and the one thing all three of her friends made clear was that shoving a dick in it wasn't the be all end all of pleasure. "If good fucking was a replacement for therapy the world would be a very different place."

Better world? Who the fuck knows.

"I knew what he was when I invited him into my room." Matt Press was a psychopath. If there was ever a genuine concern she might end up dead in a ditch due to a person she knew, it was him. And she was fucked up enough to go along with it just to have any attention at all. After a few weeks of isolation.

Abby will just- stare, trying to parse out what the fuck Julie's on about with meditation and bowls. Her eyes shift to the wine glass, "How many of those you have before I got here?"

"Sure would," she agrees. "But it can at least keep the stress down. Hard to get into a mental spiral when you're fucked out and exhausted. Plus, y'know, endorphins and shit."

With a snort, Julie rolls her eyes a little. The vast majority of people involved with shitbags know it. The problem isn't knowing -- it's getting entangled before you know. "So then what, you get off on bein' treated like shit? Either you invited him because you knew what he was, or in spite of it. I'm not sayin' you're ignorant, I'm sayin' you settled. Maybe not entirely 'cause of him, but definitely some of him. Between you and him, you got it in your mind that he was the only option. Unless he was the only guy in your town, then he wasn't."

She shoots Abby a look. "I'm not fuckin' drunk, this is coffee. It's a thing, it's about the sound... waves, or vibrations or somethin'. Like how there's different kinds of yoga? There's different meditations too, and the one with the bowl is about the noises." God, Julie wishes she had a better memory for this kind of thing. It's so obnoxious to know exactly what you're talking about, but not how to describe it.

"You should talk to Stephen Strange, he'll know what I'm talkin' about. He's a total culture vulture for Asian stuff like that. His domain is like, part Himalayan mountains."

Abby wanted a drink, was it too early for alcohol? Maybe. But this was definitely a 'I need grain alcohol topic' they were getting into.

Abby fell backwards on the floor, settling for just not seeing Julie see her as she talked. "I guess settling is the word. He's a piece of shit, but he actually spoke to me. While all the rest of my friends disowned me over something that wasn't even my fucking fault."

As much as it shouldn't feel big anymore, being here for months and all that being her involved. Nothing about here compared really, to the feeling of the three people you trust most in the whole world turning their fucking back on you. Not having time for you as your parents lose their fucking minds. And not caring enough to check on you while it all happens. And just like with Press, she still fucking cared.

"I couldn't deal dealt with dad getting a new girlfriend and mom being a fucking zombie after the divorce, and he was there." Was it a bad fucking idea, sure. But a little late to fix that now.

"I don't know how you take your coffee." She'll let the insinuation sit with a smirk. She listens to whatever the fuck Julie has in mind. Soundwaves can mess with your head, that's a given it's a thing people sell all the time. Sleep patterns and noise machines exist for one reason or another. Money. "So some sorta Tibetan Monk shit?"

"I get it." Julie admits it immediately. Her goal isn't to make Abby feel bad or imply that she's naïve or unwise. But she wants to make sure that Abby can see the pattern. Not seeing it means it keeps going. "Look, sometimes there is all you really need. Just don't think you can't do better than some fuckin' creep. That's all. You can. You just have to choose to believe it."

A lot of life, Julie has found, is just faking it until everyone else buys it too. False confidence is just as effective with other people as real confidence usually is, and having everyone else believe in you tricks your mind into believing too. And Abraxas is a rare, rare opportunity for the Summoned, where they can make themselves into exactly who they've always wanted to be, and no one will be any the wiser.

"Anyway, the only way you're ever gonna find out is to try, right? And if he would really say no to you 'cause of your thighs or your boobs, then fuck 'im. I'll teach you how to set his shoes on fire from across the room."

She nods a little. "He's a master of the mystic arts," she says, clearly sarcastic. "Which is like a Tibetan wizard, basically. I think. But he's white. Like, very white."

"Working on believing that," It's hard, okay. Everything her life has done so far, except being here, has reinforced this idea. It's true, in her head. It takes some work to make it clearly false. It wasn't there when she first visited the Horizon. There's a lot swimming around her head, but it's clear she's feeling better as white clouds form off her shirt as she wrings her hand on the hem.

She bats the clouds apart once she spots them.

"I do still need to talk to him, if I don't it'll just be fucking weird. And it's better to find out who he is now rather than wait." The seeds of an idea are taking root in her head, based on Julie's advice but disregarding a lot of it for a better plan. Or a stupider plan. Or a brilliant plan. Who can say? "Even if I don't try to fuck him. But I might, I don't know."

Sex feels like a thing she wasn't meant to just have, especially since romance still feels impossible.

"So... you know him because you sell him weed." Listen, she's not presuming anything other than every stereotype that applies to 'master of the mystic arts.' "Does he have a hundred year old van with a shag interior?"

Julie knows that it's hard, it's so hard to let go. But one thing she figured out is that being brought to Abraxas is the rare opportunity to just dismiss those things entirely. Every day is just a matter of realizing, little by little, that things can be different now.

She watches Abby break up the clouds with a small smile.

"I think you should," Julie says, eyebrows arched. "It's stupid and cliché, but that whole you miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take thing is true. But do what you think is best."

Sputtering a little, Julie laughs at the idea of Stephen as a van-dwelling hippie. "God no," she manages, still chuckling. "Stephen is like, a neurosurgeon. Literally. And also a sorcerer, which is "the mystic arts", I guess. He's pretty much the smartest person I ever met."

"I think if I'm going to take a first shot, it should be with someone who flirted with me as me. Instead of me as a prince." She might make a play at Sylvain later, she wasn't against it or anything. Just her mind was putting all her options out there she had an option that knew her, and that just felt better.

"If my magic is all rainbows and happiness you'll know I didn't strike out."

'White Guy master of the mystic arts' has to live in a van down by the river. You don't get to be a doctor or whatever and be a master of the mystic arts. That's just not how it goes! "So talk to a neurosurgeon about meditation shit? That's really where we've ended up?"

"I didn't know you had that option." It doesn't much surprise Julie to hear that someone was flirting with Abby. More that she wonders if it's one of the usual suspects, or someone a bit more interesting. "Gettin' railed helps, but don't expect it to be like, a miracle cure. You still gotta work on your own shit, unfortunately.

Taking a sip of coffee, Julie shrugs. "I mean, who knows brain shit better than a neurosurgeon?" she asks. Not that she thinks it's the same as a therapist or psychologist, but for the way that soundwaves can interact with the brain? That seems like something that might crop up in medical school. "And sure, maybe the whole schtick is a little Steven Seagal-y, but he is the Sorcerer Supreme of his world. Or maybe of his whole universe? I'm not exactly clear on how it works. But he knows his shit."

Abby's self esteem might be caked with barnacles and the bottom of the ocean, but it didn't mean other people who she knew cared about her got to say that sort of thing. Not without a thoughtful well articulated rebuttal. Abby stuck her tongue out at Julie, like a fucking grown-up.

She knew there was no such thing as a magical dicking to cure emotional trauma, it was just nice to have a distraction in a world without reality TV, porn, or mindless action movies.

She had to consider, if anyone knew how the brain worked, and what reacted things, it'd be someone paid to poke at it with sharp objects, right? "So what I turn back on that brain DM thing and think- what- Brain Wizard and it'll send the message to him?"

She knows how the network works, she has decided to not know because it allowed her to say brain wizard with a straight face.

Julie smirks when Abby sticks her tongue out, then uses her invisible hand to boop the end of Abby's nose.

"Yup, pretty much. But you might wanna also send it to Stephen Strange." Julie is playing along, to an extent -- she actually isn't sure how sophisticated the whole 'identify people by thought' actually is. She knows it can be narrowed using description, like by certain groups, but she doesn't know if it needs a proper name to target someone. Maybe it knows based on the person. Julie has no idea. "Y'know, just in case. Or you can just go to his place in the Horizon and hang out 'til he shows. Sometimes I do that. He has lots of cool shit to look at. It's a big, New York-style townhouse, in front of some Himalayan mountains."

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Now that you're actually not cool, I kinda like you better. (Open/Closed)

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