Seamus Zelazny Harper (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bravelyrunaway) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
wilderlogs2018-05-22 03:14 pm
bravelyrunaway) wrote in wilderlogs2018-05-22 03:14 pm
Entry tags:
Reading Rainbow [open]
Who: Harper and you
What: Harper bumming around the city
Where: Around Philadelphia
When: Over both Day 1 and Day 2
Warnings/Notes: Mention of post-apocalyptic stuff, body horror/parasites, parental death, but all in passing in the narrative. His general opt out can be found here.
A. Sir Sulks-a-Lot
(Note: This is Day 1, right after the little network kerfluffle)
[After the theatrics over the magic mirrors and a firm best friend lecture, Harper feels at least a little bit like a dumbass. Leather Bar guy's lecture about knowledge vs wisdom was pretty familiar, thanks to Rev. And those teenagers pointing out this was a stellar first impression resonated, too.]
[Holy crap, feeling soundly lectured by teenage boys. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. One day you're the lead (read: only) engineer on the crown jewel of the slowly-growing New Commonwealth, the next you're someone that looks like a promising prospect for the group to vote off the island, possibly sending you away via ice floe, tied to a raft, or with a good ol' fashioned cinder block tied to your neck.]
[Bad first impressions are his specialty but they're not exactly great at ingratiating yourself with people you need to rely on to survive. If he actually had some of that wisdom he should've learned to have by now, he'd have remembered that. Because a sudden and alarming thought has occurred to him: he doesn't have anything to barter with. His usual currency - his engineering genius - isn't any good at this here situational establishment. There are no machines here, his tools are mysteriously not working, and this magic he's got is something other people have got, too. Oh sure, there's a weird teleportation thing keeping everyone grouped together, but that's no guarantee of tolerance or being treated well.]
[If he's too much of a bother and doesn't have unparalleled brilliance to offer the group, these people might kill him. Or at the very least, ice him out of things like a fair share of the food. Even worse, they might do the same to Trance if he causes too much trouble, just by association. Harper knows Trance would never trash him for better standing with the group and that's exactly the problem.]
[Harper knows he should go scavenge, or try to ingratiate himself with people, or do something that isn't sulking, but here he is, tossing stones at a busted up water fountain in a little circular park with a road wrapped around it, trying to break off more pieces of the crumbling structure. (A metaphor, perhaps?) He hates this feeling. He feels petty and small like he did every time he was too much of a jerk when his parents were still alive and they took him to task. (Their little hovel had been a pro-jerk but-only-sometimes household.) He also feels helpless and small like he did after they died, when there wasn't a household at all anymore.]
[Except this is situationally worse even if it doesn't feel as bad. Now he's been tossed onto life's metaphorical mean streets again, without most of his crew or a ridiculously extensive network of cousins, and the only people that can vouch for him are Trance and - provided he's not dead - maybe a little kid who he was irresponsible enough to lose in a firefight. The former isn't nothing, because Trance can be very endearing, but he's got pretty much nothing to offer and that's a chilling thought.]
[He knows some things some of the group might not know, like the many and varied forms of textile craft that it takes to keep clothes lasting a year or two longer than they should, but it's not like he knows how to grow penicillin or sew up a sucking chest wound or how to weave a basket. And he's assuming that, just like back home, there have to be plenty of other people here that know how to lie, cheat, and steal equally well. So unless people desperately need someone to darn the crap out of some socks, he might be in trouble.]
And for my next trick, I'll insult everyone's mothers, kick their dogs, and possibly even run for public office. [He declares it to no one in particularly, and doesn't know anyone is close.] Follow my patented fifteen step popularity plan and you too can have the charm and allure of three-week-old protein rations!
[Between his meds no longer working so that his larvae started to perk up and get nibbly, Hohne dying, Harper preparing to die himself to bring Hohne back, the barrow-wight, and dementors and Nazgul and witches (oh my!), the mood hasn't really been whiplashing much these last few days (since everything's been horrible), but the genre, setting, and specifics sure as hell have. Maybe that's why he mucked everything up. When reality chooses a flavor of awful for long enough, he can get used to the taste and keep swilling it down, but this many sudden change ups threw him off his game.]
B. Oprah he is not
(Note: This is Day 2)
[Harper has over thirty books spread out around him in piles and stacks. A few keepers are already tucked into a messenger bag he found while scavenging. Despite the fact he's starting to develop a nasty cough and should probably be scavenging harder for something like, oh, medicine maybe? Here he is, sitting on the cold floor in the pale light of a window, reading as many books as he possibly can while they're still there, knowing he'll only be able to carry a few with him.]
[On first glance (or listen), Harper usually doesn't seem like the kind of person who tries to self-improve in any way, because if he's trying to improve himself, why is he like this? But surprise! This is the improved version. Yes, that's right, kids, he used to be a lot more unpleasant, i.e. meaner, cruder, more immoral, more foul-tempered, and infinitely more ignorant.]
[After his parents' died, after he'd lost their guidance, his only saving grace was his big brain and how hungry it always is. Even after they were gone, alongside stealing and fixing up tech, he was also always still trying to find flexis or books in the ruins. So when he'd finally gotten off-planet, his world had opened up in more ways than one. The second he started to get access to wider selections of media on the drifts, or even better, the digital networks of different planets, he'd used his pay from salvage jobs to buy as many books and flexis as his little bunkspace could fit.
[Later on, when he'd gotten his dataport, it'd gotten a little easier. Data chips took up less space and he started hacking the crap out of everything with his dataport, cutting through paywalls like Magog through a puppy farm, downloading books and tech manuals and holonovels and movies and music to his heart's content. Earth-specific stuff was usually a rare find but the data archives were out there, in obscure places on the various nets or at drift thrift shops. Beautiful archives with ancient books and scanned comics and old janky lowfi non-holo movies with terrible sound.]
[So he may not seem like the type that likes to consume a well-rounded and intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually rigorous array of media but this busted up library is practically making him giddy because he can get can his hands on so much and he doesn't even have to dig or heckle and bargain. That's why his eyes are bigger than his stomach right now.]
[Befitting an engineer, there are multiple titles about aviation and a few about spaceflight because he's dead curious about how people viewed it in the past when just getting up to the moon was huge. The other nonfiction ranges across subjects, but books about Boston and the history of Ireland definitely make an appearance, also Nietzsche; a collection of critical essays, because God oh God does he want to be able to argue with Nietzscheans better about their bullshit life philosophies.]
[The others are maybe a little more surprising, a strange mix of the fantastic and the futurist (for its time, anyway) and the poetic-and-painful-yet-mundane. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Handmaid's Tale, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Rings, A Wrinkle in Time, Beloved, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, Lord of Light, Frankenstein, I Robot, Snow Crash, The Grapes of Wrath, the list goes on. He chose some of the books just wanting to see an original he's heard dramatic retellings of, or wanting to see what people in the past dreamed the future of fields like robotics would be. But a common thread between some of the other books isn't impossible to pick up on, a clear inclination towards stories of the oppressed, deprived, and disenfranchised.]
[There's at least a small level of thoughtfulness here, a clear desire to take in new ideas that might seem unusual when paired with someone so brash.]
[...Then he goes and ruins it the second anyone strays too close and looks at his books even a half-second too long. He waves at the not-actually-an-intruder with the emphatic energy of a fruit seller trying to shoo away flies from their wares.]
Dibs. Keep your mitts off, I got to 'em first. Finder's rights.
[It's not that he's particularly cranky or even that he's 100% sure they're trying to steal, but he comes from a universe where people are very grabby with things that don't belong to them, especially if said things "fell off the back of a transport," or got left behind during the fall of civilization. It's nothing personal.]
What: Harper bumming around the city
Where: Around Philadelphia
When: Over both Day 1 and Day 2
Warnings/Notes: Mention of post-apocalyptic stuff, body horror/parasites, parental death, but all in passing in the narrative. His general opt out can be found here.
A. Sir Sulks-a-Lot
(Note: This is Day 1, right after the little network kerfluffle)
[After the theatrics over the magic mirrors and a firm best friend lecture, Harper feels at least a little bit like a dumbass. Leather Bar guy's lecture about knowledge vs wisdom was pretty familiar, thanks to Rev. And those teenagers pointing out this was a stellar first impression resonated, too.]
[Holy crap, feeling soundly lectured by teenage boys. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. One day you're the lead (read: only) engineer on the crown jewel of the slowly-growing New Commonwealth, the next you're someone that looks like a promising prospect for the group to vote off the island, possibly sending you away via ice floe, tied to a raft, or with a good ol' fashioned cinder block tied to your neck.]
[Bad first impressions are his specialty but they're not exactly great at ingratiating yourself with people you need to rely on to survive. If he actually had some of that wisdom he should've learned to have by now, he'd have remembered that. Because a sudden and alarming thought has occurred to him: he doesn't have anything to barter with. His usual currency - his engineering genius - isn't any good at this here situational establishment. There are no machines here, his tools are mysteriously not working, and this magic he's got is something other people have got, too. Oh sure, there's a weird teleportation thing keeping everyone grouped together, but that's no guarantee of tolerance or being treated well.]
[If he's too much of a bother and doesn't have unparalleled brilliance to offer the group, these people might kill him. Or at the very least, ice him out of things like a fair share of the food. Even worse, they might do the same to Trance if he causes too much trouble, just by association. Harper knows Trance would never trash him for better standing with the group and that's exactly the problem.]
[Harper knows he should go scavenge, or try to ingratiate himself with people, or do something that isn't sulking, but here he is, tossing stones at a busted up water fountain in a little circular park with a road wrapped around it, trying to break off more pieces of the crumbling structure. (A metaphor, perhaps?) He hates this feeling. He feels petty and small like he did every time he was too much of a jerk when his parents were still alive and they took him to task. (Their little hovel had been a pro-jerk but-only-sometimes household.) He also feels helpless and small like he did after they died, when there wasn't a household at all anymore.]
[Except this is situationally worse even if it doesn't feel as bad. Now he's been tossed onto life's metaphorical mean streets again, without most of his crew or a ridiculously extensive network of cousins, and the only people that can vouch for him are Trance and - provided he's not dead - maybe a little kid who he was irresponsible enough to lose in a firefight. The former isn't nothing, because Trance can be very endearing, but he's got pretty much nothing to offer and that's a chilling thought.]
[He knows some things some of the group might not know, like the many and varied forms of textile craft that it takes to keep clothes lasting a year or two longer than they should, but it's not like he knows how to grow penicillin or sew up a sucking chest wound or how to weave a basket. And he's assuming that, just like back home, there have to be plenty of other people here that know how to lie, cheat, and steal equally well. So unless people desperately need someone to darn the crap out of some socks, he might be in trouble.]
And for my next trick, I'll insult everyone's mothers, kick their dogs, and possibly even run for public office. [He declares it to no one in particularly, and doesn't know anyone is close.] Follow my patented fifteen step popularity plan and you too can have the charm and allure of three-week-old protein rations!
[Between his meds no longer working so that his larvae started to perk up and get nibbly, Hohne dying, Harper preparing to die himself to bring Hohne back, the barrow-wight, and dementors and Nazgul and witches (oh my!), the mood hasn't really been whiplashing much these last few days (since everything's been horrible), but the genre, setting, and specifics sure as hell have. Maybe that's why he mucked everything up. When reality chooses a flavor of awful for long enough, he can get used to the taste and keep swilling it down, but this many sudden change ups threw him off his game.]
B. Oprah he is not
(Note: This is Day 2)
[Harper has over thirty books spread out around him in piles and stacks. A few keepers are already tucked into a messenger bag he found while scavenging. Despite the fact he's starting to develop a nasty cough and should probably be scavenging harder for something like, oh, medicine maybe? Here he is, sitting on the cold floor in the pale light of a window, reading as many books as he possibly can while they're still there, knowing he'll only be able to carry a few with him.]
[On first glance (or listen), Harper usually doesn't seem like the kind of person who tries to self-improve in any way, because if he's trying to improve himself, why is he like this? But surprise! This is the improved version. Yes, that's right, kids, he used to be a lot more unpleasant, i.e. meaner, cruder, more immoral, more foul-tempered, and infinitely more ignorant.]
[After his parents' died, after he'd lost their guidance, his only saving grace was his big brain and how hungry it always is. Even after they were gone, alongside stealing and fixing up tech, he was also always still trying to find flexis or books in the ruins. So when he'd finally gotten off-planet, his world had opened up in more ways than one. The second he started to get access to wider selections of media on the drifts, or even better, the digital networks of different planets, he'd used his pay from salvage jobs to buy as many books and flexis as his little bunkspace could fit.
[Later on, when he'd gotten his dataport, it'd gotten a little easier. Data chips took up less space and he started hacking the crap out of everything with his dataport, cutting through paywalls like Magog through a puppy farm, downloading books and tech manuals and holonovels and movies and music to his heart's content. Earth-specific stuff was usually a rare find but the data archives were out there, in obscure places on the various nets or at drift thrift shops. Beautiful archives with ancient books and scanned comics and old janky lowfi non-holo movies with terrible sound.]
[So he may not seem like the type that likes to consume a well-rounded and intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually rigorous array of media but this busted up library is practically making him giddy because he can get can his hands on so much and he doesn't even have to dig or heckle and bargain. That's why his eyes are bigger than his stomach right now.]
[Befitting an engineer, there are multiple titles about aviation and a few about spaceflight because he's dead curious about how people viewed it in the past when just getting up to the moon was huge. The other nonfiction ranges across subjects, but books about Boston and the history of Ireland definitely make an appearance, also Nietzsche; a collection of critical essays, because God oh God does he want to be able to argue with Nietzscheans better about their bullshit life philosophies.]
[The others are maybe a little more surprising, a strange mix of the fantastic and the futurist (for its time, anyway) and the poetic-and-painful-yet-mundane. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Handmaid's Tale, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Rings, A Wrinkle in Time, Beloved, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, Lord of Light, Frankenstein, I Robot, Snow Crash, The Grapes of Wrath, the list goes on. He chose some of the books just wanting to see an original he's heard dramatic retellings of, or wanting to see what people in the past dreamed the future of fields like robotics would be. But a common thread between some of the other books isn't impossible to pick up on, a clear inclination towards stories of the oppressed, deprived, and disenfranchised.]
[There's at least a small level of thoughtfulness here, a clear desire to take in new ideas that might seem unusual when paired with someone so brash.]
[...Then he goes and ruins it the second anyone strays too close and looks at his books even a half-second too long. He waves at the not-actually-an-intruder with the emphatic energy of a fruit seller trying to shoo away flies from their wares.]
Dibs. Keep your mitts off, I got to 'em first. Finder's rights.
[It's not that he's particularly cranky or even that he's 100% sure they're trying to steal, but he comes from a universe where people are very grabby with things that don't belong to them, especially if said things "fell off the back of a transport," or got left behind during the fall of civilization. It's nothing personal.]
A
I wonder if there are any copper pipes around here. [ He mutters, stroking his chin with a thoughtful frown. Copper could come in handy. ] Even if there are, getting to them might be a real pain.
[ Oh, right, there's someone else here. ]
Rough day? [ He queries while digging through another small pile of debris and tossing the things that might be useful into a tiny pile next to him. ]
no subject
[Still, Urahara thinking the same way piques his interest. Maybe he's another engineer or inventor.]
You have no idea. [More like quite a few rough days in a row.] What are you digging around for? Why do you need copper pipes?