and we're back; text, desktop computer

[reapsthewind]

[here's a bad iPhone photo of Chris eating a bowl of goulash and drinking beer at the Hungarian Heritage section of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Of note are that she's wearing a tank-top, and her arms are completely human. She has even painted little silver gears on her black nail polish, because... because. She is giving the camera a total "mom if you put this on facebook I'll gut you" look. Her eyes are brown, and she has AMAZINGLY thick glasses, like, cokebottle thick. Make-your-eyes-look-friggin-gigantic thick. Her eyes are also dark brown. ]

7/4/2013, Washington, DC, National Mall

[The second picture is a webcam photo of her in the same shirt, except now those arms are robot arms and her eyes are that familiar creepy robotic with the glowing red bits thing. No glasses.

7/6/2013

Just putting these pictures up to confirm that yes, if you leave the city, your physical echoes (that's what I'm calling them now) go away when you get far enough outside the city. It seems like you have to leave the major metropolitan area/suburbs first. Other bits... for me, anyway, the more unpleasant physical effects didn't happen a second time, it was sort of... there, and then not. And then there again. Also of note, I left myself a note to "practice my physical dexterity" at home and I actually followed it, and even though I didn't have these, I AM a bit better at them, as evidenced by typing with fewer typos. They still shake and I have to type more slowly, though.

Other stuff:

> Leave yourself vague notes. You won't believe yourself with any of the weirdness, but I at least had the presence of mind to tell myself to wear long sleeves on the way back, no matter how hot it was. My excuse to myself was that BoltBus has a bad habit of cranking up the AC, but I listened to myself anyway, which is good because suddenly having robot arms on a bus ride would have raised a lot of questions.
> despite all that I forgot my glasses, and luckily there was an old pair at home but god they were dorky fml
> if you go down to DC this year folklife was great uhhh but i guess you only have one more day to enjoy it?? oops

Also yes, I'm back from vacation. Get me up to speed, did I miss anything? Cats, how did the museum raid go?

Comments

[Text]

[shiromadoushi]

I think the detail on mine was what screwed my attempt.

[[and in a private text direct to her phone, she gets a photo of Bakura and his grandma, both looking very cheerful and flashing a victory sign with a large temple and a good hundred tourists in the background where the usual scar under his right eye is noticeably absent.]]

Guess what other scar is from this crap?

Also, got your stuff! Most of it anyway. There was one part that was out of stock so I got what the guy said was a good substitute.

[Text]

[reapsthewind]

Ah, fantastic :)

And woah, that's weird, you've had that thing since forever. Huh.

[Texted]

[espigeonage]

Echoes? Huh. That's a little spooky.

[text]

[reapsthewind]

I dunno, they're like echoes of other people's lives, watery reflections, right? Sounds better than the other scrap people have been saying.

audio;

[hopediesalone]

[wait

ok the eyes are reminding him of something and the robot arms aren't helping but

not really the point, focus Blues]



Chris?

audio;

[reapsthewind]

[fff she switches over to audio since her voice is distinct enough to give positive ID]

Oh for god's sake. Seriously? Is everyone I know going to turn out to be a victim of the magic snake beams?

Hi, Raul! I'm secretly a space robot, or something! Welcome to the land of madmen and stupid bullshit! Now you know the real reason I'm almost always fucking drunk when you see me!

computer typing

[salvagedlight]

[Let's add another one to the list! One of your former students recognizes you in those pictures, since the fall semester wasn't that long ago.]

Professor Starsky?

text;

[reapsthewind]

[LONG PAUSE]

[students]

Dude I even tell students to just call me Chris

who is this?

voice

[testsonseashells]

Interesting. Happened to me, too - took a trip out of town, lost enhanced metabolism and eidetic memory, among other things.

Still prefer "alterations" to "echoes".

text;

[reapsthewind]

If you want to be clinical about it, I guess. "echo" takes less time to type. Less of a mouthful, too. But call it what you want.

video {iphone}

[ursoreckless]

[it's going to take him a few minutes to reply because his thoughts are all over the place. He had been gone for a couple of days, staying at his childhood home and then hitting Tokyo and hanging out with the odd people that made up his other life. He didn't remember the club but now that he was back and that he was looking at someone who has serious physical changes, he realizes something just so weird that he thought was just usual back home.

So, when he does turn the feed on, he sounds a little serious for once.]

Would people really freak out if you just said you were part of a flash mob? Or a gamer group way into cosplay? It might have people give you odd looks, but could people do that for those kind of changes?

[he probably sounds dumb saying it though since he still hasn't had anything worse than a bullet marked jacket appear.]

text;

[reapsthewind]

Not if I were on a bus and it just sort of came out of nowhere, which it did. I was sitting there with my arms crossed and as we got within the outer suburbs of the city it all came back. I didn't have gloves on and I was really glad the person next to me was asleep.

My default stuff for if I get caught out and about are that the eyes are an experimental new contact lens, and the arms, depends on the situation. If I'm out on the town, yeah, I could probably get away with cosplay... if not, again, I guess experimental prosthetic.

I have an office job to go to now tho, and I teach part time, and those aren't great situations to be in when you look like you're from a bad 80s sci fi flick.

[text]

[forsakenwood]

Thank you for sharing your experience.

I'm glad you enjoyed the festival. I'd love to go to another. Next year, perhaps.

[text]

[reapsthewind]

Hey, no problem.

Are you from the DC area too, or...? (I don't think I've seen your number around yet)

[handwritten]

[moarnomsplz]

I've been calling them vision things, but "echoes" does have more of a ring to it.

Any luck with a power supply yet?

text, desktop

[reapsthewind]

Sort-of?

still haven't cracked the "Energon" thing (tho I think that's the English word for it. sounds right) but I figured out that a high carb diet plus alcohol plus upping my intake of iron helps with the shaking and aches. I can type now at least.

text, laptop

[stealinghats]

"Pulse" seems more obvious a choice... but I suppose "echo" might be more fitting, given time.

Anyway, I have that jacket I spoke of before. It still needs to be fitting and the finishing touches added, but it should only take another week at most if I can get a hold of the materials. This is your last chance to ask for a less gaudy color scheme.

text;

[reapsthewind]

Hey I like gaudy. Matches my arms. They're gaudy.

I GUESSSSS I should probably go for plain black for now tho since I have a For Real Job for the summer.

text

[iaijutsu]

I'd heard this brought up before, but that...does drive the point home.

Do you mind if I link your pictures in the FAQ? I have something in there about forgetting everything if you leave the city, but the more hard evidence I can add to back up everything, the more of a chance it seems that people may take it seriously when they read it instead of assuming we've all lost our sanity.

text

[reapsthewind]

Yeah, sure. I mean, they can probably assume that this is either a really good photoshop or some well made cosplay, but I guess if it stacks up with all the other evidence...?

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[drama8om8]

So can you like. Actually feel with those arm things? Can you feel stuff with them or sense temperature or do they ever get itchy? What does itchy metal feel like????????

 

 

(Jsyk I am nominating "Iron Grip" as your superhero name.
Or maybe "Steelfinger."
"Glow-Eye McGee?")

text;

[reapsthewind]

I can feel stuff just fine. They don't get itchy. Sometimes I get the urge to reconfigure the plates a little but that's kind of a different thing than an itch.

we are not superheroes we are dumb civilians


but man I guess

why not Iron Fist? Idk

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[wannabered]

Echos? Sounds kind of creepy. Then again, I've just been calling it "that weird shit" so I guess yours is a bit better.

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[reapsthewind]

Creepy name for a creepy thing.

[Handwritten]

[originaloddcouple]

[As much as they'd been trying to avoid it, the Dian couple eventually checked the network on a notepad during work hours. They, of course, are using the same notepad, drawing the eyes of several customers. Miria's the first to write something.]

So, it's true? Once we leave it all disappears?

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[doomedtheworld]

[Okay, robot arms. It cannot be good how little that bothers her at this point.]

Okay, good to know. Do we have any idea if these Gardeners or whatever they're called are operating outside of the city where we wouldn't recognize them?

Text

[reapsthewind]

I sort of doubt it? I've noticed that a lot of these flashback things happen in reaction to their work -- people got hit by flashbacks and changes when we encountered Thunder Corp's statues, and also when the trap in the mine got sprung. So my theory is that these Echoes are a side-effect of whatever they're doing, and so it's localized to this area because of some device they have.

[text]

[acequeen]

Wow...! Does it hurt having robotic arms around? They don't look so comfortable.

[text]

[reapsthewind]

Yeah. They're hard to sleep with; I'm used to tossing and turning a lot, and if you think it's bad waking up with a normal arm on your face, try when it's a few pounds of steel.

text;

[hollowleg]

Hmmm. all pretty good ideas. I'm glad you're back and not dead, hooray. :)

"echoes" though? Where did that name come from?

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[reapsthewind]

From this feeling that we're getting echoes, reflections of other people's lives. Echoes from other universes, or something. It's the only explanation I have for what's happening to us that makes any sense.

[Text]

[playerspooker]

First there's the vampire person, and now someone with robot arms that apparently were unpleasant to get...

Can't say that I'm looking forward to getting more of these weird things.

[Text]

[reapsthewind]

Man, I'm actually really torn about it all.

Because in ANY OTHER SITUATION? I'd be jazzed to have robot arms, and eyes that fix my vision problems. But the problem is that I have to hide them from the public or risk getting murdered, and I have to use them in an inter-dimensional war that I don't understand or know anything about, and which I didn't sign up for.

That's the part I hate. That, and I can't control what I get, y'know? Half the time it's nonsense memories, and the other half the time, yeah.

And it scares me as to what might happen to other folks. What if someone turns out to be Godzilla???