video: un; an.observer

[thisislife]

[the video opens on Lexi, sitting on the couch in her very blue living room, with Orville in his usual place on Lexi's shoulder, snuffling into her hair, and the new addition to the household, Nosferatmew perched on the arm of the couch, her batwings folded on her back]

Hey! Um. I know I don't post that much, but I kind of have an announcement?

And that announcement is, I'm opening a used books and comics store called the Satellite of Love Used Books and Comics! It's in Willful Machine in the green craftsman house and that takes me to my second announcement. Or, uh, request? Maybe that's better. [pause] Yeah, that's better.

Hours will be Monday through Friday from nine am to five pm, closed from noon to one for lunch, along with Saturday and Sunday, eleven am to two pm. Obviously, I can't handle all of that by myself. Right? So I'm looking for a couple of employees.

Interviews for anyone who's interested can be done here and you can choose between store products or trade goods for pay.

So...I guess that's it? I hope to see you there? Oh, and the store mascot will be Nosferatmew. My batcat. She's very well trained to not bite unless you give her permission to.

Okay, now that's it.

Comments

[thisislife]

[she would be thrilled to hear that]

Great! What kinds of books do you prefer? That way, I can keep an eye out for them.

[and that makes Lexi grin broadly] Yeah, that kind of looks like my nightstand, too. It's good to hear how many people love books.

[survivalthroughhate]

I'll read anything I can get my hands on but I have a preference for mysteries and horror.

[Not at all surprising given his personality.]

Being able to read anything in his private library was one of the few indulgences my master let me have as a young kit. Granted, there was a lot of tomes in there that I shouldn't have been reading at that age, but that hardly stopped me.

[thisislife]

Cool, I've been on the lookout for those genres in particular since they tend to be pretty popular!

[and she grins broadly] I know exactly how that goes. I did the same myself, with my mom's Stephen King novels. I read The Stand at way way way too young an age. But, hey, better to find out stuff we're not supposed to know on our own instead of waiting for someone else to explain them to us?

[survivalthroughhate]

Good. I like trying to figure out the mystery before the characters do.

[Sometimes he's way off but usually Maul has a good idea of where it's all heading.]

Yes. Some of the stories were horrifying but fortunately the worst parts all seemed to go over my head at the time.

[Thank goodness, otherwise Maul would have been even more screwed up than he already is as an adult.]

(CW: pansexual realization as a child)

[thisislife]

Really? Me too! It's more fun that way, right?

[and she's hell to watch a mystery or suspense movie with because a good 75% of the time, she'll ruin it]

Exactly. It's easier to digest horrifying stuff if it's part of a story first. Then, if something close to that happens in real life it's like, well, kind of saw that coming.

[and Lexi never would have figured out that she liked girls, too, when she was six]

cw: mention of slavery

[survivalthroughhate]

It appears we have quite a bit in common.

[Which is good for Maul. It'd be awkward if he didn't like the girl yet was showing up to the place she owned.]

Mine was more of reading about things like subjugating an entire population of a planet to a dictator's will and the executions of those that tried to oppose them, but yes, very much the same thoughts. I didn't precisely realize what things like enslaving sentient species entirely meant. At the time, I thought it simply meant they were like droids and did things like your laundry for you.

[He had just the same sweet, innocent mind as any other young child and it took a while for him to lose that even with the treatment at the hands of his master.]

cw: mention of slavery

[thisislife]

Yeah, it seems that way!

[which is really cool. she's finding it a lot easier to be more outgoing here, even though she's all on her own and doesn't have her sister's friends to follow along behind]

Wow. That sounds like some really heavy reading. Especially the part about sentient species. [a pause] If it's okay...mind if I ask where you're from?

[she hopes she hasn't offended him because he seems like a really interesting person to get to know]

[survivalthroughhate]

[Fortunately, Maul's used to this question, and at least it's much more polite than someone flat-out asking just what kind of species he is.]

A galaxy far, far away from here. There are a good number of others from the same place here in the city. I had never even heard of the planet Earth before I came to Deerington.