Disc Rot

[MethodicalSlacker]

[font=Times New Roman]"There is no better way to understand a system than to live inside of it for a time. Consequently, it should follow that there is no worse way to understand a system than to grow up inside of it during the formative years of one's life. This is because growing up inside of a given system means that one is biased to the ideas and cultural influences of the system in a way non conducive to the study of a system in a critical and thoughtful way. If one cannot separate themselves from the ideas that they have grown up with, then there is no hope for them to be able to recognize what the problem is with their society. However, once exiting their system or society, one carries with them the biases and cultural ideas that they learned while participating in their own society, making it impossible to become an impartial observer of any system without growing up in total isolation. In this way we are doomed, for we cannot address our own problems as a species without turning towards a biased viewpoint. This will be our undoing. Some may argue that this is one of our strengths and view the multitude of perspectives on Earth to be a good thing and find pride in diversity of opinion, but all this does is serve to confuse us. The fall of the tower of Babel was just that - a fall, a negative consequence, not something to be championed as responsible for one of our strengths."[/font]

Oh, bother.

[Max Rudolph continued from life observes itself.]

It was such a beautiful day outside. The bounty of spring was plentiful, and the fragrance of flowers brought tears to his eyes. Allergies notwithstanding, there was much virtue to be found in the pursuit of outdoor activity. Max had decided to enjoy the day outside and set aside his studies for the time being. Though his current pile of books remained unfinished, he figured that it would be healthy to take some time to enjoy the worldly pleasures of the senses for a change. Concerning seasons, his favorite was by far the summer, as its heat provided ample comfort for all to sweat under the rays of the sun in hopes of achieving their ideal form, chiseling away at their bodies, engaging in sport and mock-combat, enjoying each unintentionally taciturn silence, for it was these moments that stuck out the most in his memory despite the hours he poured into the knowledge gained by searching within.

Spring did not afford for such gallantry, so Max decided to go for a simple stroll to survey the city. He observed the lives and habits of his fellow citizen-folk and went among them as if he were a commoner, unafraid to engage in the pass-times of those without foresight. He allowed himself the transgression of giving money to a busker, an old, grayed, weathered man with an acoustic guitar standing outside of a bank humbly, proverbially prostrating himself before the masses. Two dollars slipped from his hand and into the man's hat. The busker nodded gratefully and gracefully, not interrupting his own playing or the words he sang. Despite their status as lyrics to some popular song, they found their way into Max's heart, and he was moved as he moved away.

"Some kinds of love, Marguerita told Tom
Between thought and expression lies a lifetime
Situations arise because of the weather
And no kinds of love are better than others"


Eventually, he found his way to the central public library branch. He had no destination when he set out on his odyssey, but he decided that the walk was far enough that it was worth it to make a stop in a place where he may pursue his studies and scholarly desires without walking back immediately. Consequently, he was able to access the publicly available computer terminals with the library card he always carried with him in his wallet, a temptation he found all too alluring, and he found himself soon staring at a google document he was working on with a classmate.

Liberty Wren.

The girl had potential. He had attempted to groom her to think outside of the box, but to no avail. She was the kind of person who went along with the group simply because it was easiest to do so, a debutante enjoying her seemingly endless supply of parties and party thought to subscribe to. In her, Max saw the capacity to lead, to set a precedent and to have others follow her example. With her charisma and his intelligence, mountains could crumble. There was the capacity in her to be a formidable foe on the battleground of intellectual expression. Locke and Demosthenes, to reference a novel he had read in his youth. Instead, Liberty decided to fill her time with a wasteful obsession over animation. He expected more from her.

And now, this? This was either a bad attempt at mocking his personal beliefs, or it was an earnest attempt at sounding smart, or both. He decided he would type back a seemingly benign critique, fumbling around in the interface to find the comment function. He didn't know whether to go passage-by-passage and mark it up with post-it notes like he did to most of his books and amassed writings, so he highlighted the entire paragraph and wrote his disputation.

This is too fatalistic. The biblical reference is shoehorned in, and all of these claims lack any sort of sufficient evidence. You make an effort to bring up the opposite viewpoint, but you do not sufficiently dismiss or address its concerns without crossing over into the realm of ridicule. I know it's tough to write for the other side of something you don't believe in, but try to understand it before you decide you don't like it.

This was not how he intended to spend his day of rest. Sighing, Max leaned back in his chair, forgoing his naturally erect posture for just a few moments, and gazed around at the numerous empty desks in the computer area. The seat teetered on his back legs, threatening at any moment to fall all the way back lest Max put too much weight on it, but he relented, knowing the limits of his own strength. All he desired was for someone, anyone, to come through and confirm his suspicions that the paragraph had been written facetiously. At the very least, he wished to debate someone on the merits of paragraph, or on the ideas presented within, even if that information was not worth too much to him. He would ask, and probe, and prod, and eventually leave the library placated.

After all, sometimes questions were not asked to gain knowledge.

Sometimes, the only reason one has for asking a question is for the purpose of killing time.

[Cactus]

If there were a group of places that didn't appeal to Ariana Moretti's constitution, you could be sure that libraries would be at the very top of the list. As someone who lacked a volume switch for her voice, it was a near-certainty that she was going to be chastised by someone for being too loud, for being disruptive, or just simply being herself. The ladies in the school library were near-dictators, and glared at her every time she managed to make her way in, even to use the printers or to read a magazine, so often she saved her library trips for the larger, slightly more-anonymous Chattanooga library. She could get away with it a little bit more, and her voice wouldn't carry as far thanks to the stacks of books dampening the volume level and the large ceilings that lost sound easily.

So as she walked by a row of computer chairs holding a stack of books, and one of them leaned back without warning and clipped her hip, sending books flying all over the floor, her initial reaction wasn't one that anyone might call "library-friendly".

"Agh! Mother FUCKER! Goddammit!"

((Ariana Moretti continued from Reveries, though not necessarily chronologically so))

The sudden body-check hadn't been intentional (she guessed) and while her hip only smarted a little bit from the hit, it was the sudden yard-sale of books onto the ground and the minor rug-burn that she received when she fell that really stung. That, and her pride. As she pulled herself up off of the floor, she straightened her jacket out, brushing some hair out of her face that had been flung around by her sudden fall. Her face burned red with annoyance and anger, but she made every effort to control her breathing, to get her temper under control.

It was no small feat.

Before she turned to her books and purse that were now scattered all over the floor, she took a moment to collect herself and climb to her feet once more. She brushed some dust off of her black jeans, and took a momentary stock of herself. She'd likely have a bruise - which wasn't anything new; she bruised easily as it was. Her outburst had turned a whole lot of heads, but the only person in the room that she was taking any notice of was the blonde-haired kid in the chair who'd clipped her. Exhaling in a bit of a huff, she let her shoulders fall, trying with all of her might not to give him a piece of her mind. For now, she was succeeding.

For now.

"You really ought to watch yourself there, hun," her voice was barely a step away from patronizing, but she was genuinely trying. "If you don't whack someone else, you're bound to fall and crack your skull."

If she didn't do it for him, first.

Sharply sighing, Ariana stepped away from where she'd fallen and began to collect her books. Mostly detective novels and mystery paperbacks, they could survive a small fall, but they'd tumbled all over. It was a real fucking mess, that was for sure.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Unwittingly, he had committed a transgression most severe.

In his act of reclining and lounging about, he had carelessly knocked into someone in the honest pursuit of knowledge. Even if she did not speak in the language of a learned man, he could hardly expect one his age to do so. In regarding her, he realized that he vaguely recognized her from somewhere. This would be Ariana Moretti, a woman of sport and of fiery temper. Though he usually frowned upon women involving themselves in physical activities, soccer was so far removed from any sensible conception of athletic exertion that he could consider the flaw almost nonexistent. Her fury was contemptible, but the objects of it were never so undeserving of wrath as to call her actions capricious. Thus, it was with quiet respect that he gazed upon her as she began to gather her books from the floor, and, with what he could tell was much restraint, chastised him for his carelessness as politely as she could.

He let his chair rest back on all four of its legs before he stood, crouched, and set about helping her pick up her books.

"My mistake," he said quietly, "It was thoughtless of me."

In all honesty, she had a point about his behavior. While reclining in such a dangerous manner might be appropriate in one's own home, it was truly disrespectful to act that way in a place of learning. It projected that he thought little of the place, a thought that, if he had indeed sincerely shared in it, was best kept in his own head.

"Here, let me help."

Though he was in no place to do so, he silently judged the content of her literature as he picked up each book. A quick glance at the cover was all he needed to determine if the novel was worth reading or not. Regarding her choice of reading material, the fact that no factual literature of philosophical merit was included among her stack was contemptible, but he would be a fool to expect many to have grown out of fiction during high school. A good novel, written with the right intentions, could be nice and entertaining every now and again, but to let them grow to encompass the great majority of one's consumption of the written word was to consume an unhealthy "diet" of books, so to speak.

Personal judgement aside, the content of the books she was reading meant little to the fact that he needed to right the wrong he had committed.

"I would argue, however, that a small part of the blame rests on you, for not looking where you were going."

That would not stop him from challenging a claim she had made earlier, however.

[Cactus]

Ariana felt her anger subside a little as the boy gave what seemed like a sincere, if not overly formal apology. Grabbing a novel from underneath a nearby desk, she looked over at him as she reached for the book.

"Don't worry abou-"

He had gathered a few of the books himself, but as Ariana listened to his secondary assumption of blame, her blood boiled yet again. Was this kid for fucking real? Her head snapped back as though she'd been slapped, and she rose to her feet, still yet to pick up a few Michael Connolly novels and the purse that still lay at her feet. With a bit of incredulity, she turned to look at the aisle between the computers and the row of tables for browsing and perusal of library material. The aisle was wide enough, but she was well within her walking space.

This fucking kid.

"Seriously? I need to watch where I'm going?" One hand went to her hip, the other making a sweeping gesture down the aisle. The hand on her hip was partly for effect, and partly to stop herself for taking her fist and bashing his face in with it.

"There's literally nowhere else to go; this aisle is wide enough to make room for a sumo wrestler, and yet I need to watch where I'm fucking going?" The last few words were enunciated, the incredulity dripping from every one.

"Maybe you should look into not using a public library as your own personal spank bank, and be a little bit more considerate." There went the volume control again. It wasn't necessarily Ariana Moretti's fault that her voice carried in almost all circumstances. It was just that with a vociferous attitude coupled with a naturally loud cadence, she was a natural public speaker.

By the definition that if she were in public, everyone could her her speaking.

She wrenched a book out of the boy's hands, and shook her head at him.

"If I had been an old lady, or a child, you could have seriously hurt someone! You're really lucky. Che palle." She punctuated the lecture with a grumbled exclamation under her breath. So much for a quiet trip to the library. This was exactly the opposite of what Ariana had been hoping to get out of this afternoon.

And yet, if someone was going to be so damned inconsiderate, she wasn't going to let that go.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

The cursing shattered the calm like a crystal ball tossed off a third floor balcony. This sounded like a good time.

Misty Browder had come to the library because the online catalog was utter bullshit and made it really hard to tell what was or was not actually available. She'd been trying to make her way through a little tome listed in the system as "The book of black magic: including the rites and mysteries of Goëtic theurgy, sorcery, and infernal necromancy" but which was more frequently shortened to either "The Book of Black Magic" or "The Book of Ceremonial Magic" (Misty preferred the former). It was by A. E. Waite, of Rider-Waite Tarot Deck fame, and much like that deck it had fallen into the public domain decades before Misty was born, but the online version was almost as much of a bitch to navigate as the library catalog due to poor implementation of the inset illustrations, so she'd figured she'd just check the thing out. Except, as it turned out, the reason the catalog had been so profoundly unhelpful was that the library didn't actually own a physical copy of the book, just the rights to offer her access to an online version, which was useless and probably evidence of frivolous government spending since Misty was already reading a totally legally free online copy that she didn't have to cough up her library card number for.

She'd settled for Harry E. Wedeck's "Treasury of Witchcraft" instead, which she knew nothing about and honestly might not get around to reading but let her feel like this trip hadn't been a waste of time and the dollar fifty it cost for a round trip on the bus at student fare. She'd looked at some other things too, but the music section was predictably pathetic (for some reason the librarians just were not down for ordering anything she asked for; they'd looked at her like she was speaking in tongues a year ago when she'd asked them to get a copy of an album called "Die Æsthetik Der Herrschaftsfreiheit: Aufbruch/A Cross Of Wheat") and she knew she wouldn't read multiple hefty grimoires in the next three weeks and so saw no reason to lug them home. There were some decent books on sewing but she was in the middle of a project there too, and really mostly Misty got inspiration by going to Joann Fabrics when patterns were on blowout. A quick stop to explore the DVDs can been all that was left on her slate before the sound of profanity sliced through the peaceful monotony and summoned her. Misty had moved in that direction almost on instinct, expecting it to be nothing worthwhile, someone dropping an encyclopedia on her toe or pulling the plug on a laptop with a dead battery seconds before saving a last second essay, but then the reasonable murmurs Misty couldn't quite decipher had picked back up into more cursing and so now here she was, peering around the shelf thinking this sounded like a good time.

Ooh, classmates. They were the cause of the disruption. That meant it was definitely worthy of her attention.

Misty wound her way around the shelves nonchalantly, like she was just happening to walk by, like she was maybe heading to checkout and like she wasn't rolling in like a vulture drawn by the roadkill odor of conflict. The two here were Max Rudolph and Ariana Something-Italian. Misty had a pretty good opinion of Max, actually, which fit well with the fact that he wasn't the one doing the howler monkey impression. He was kind of cute. Ariana, Misty didn't really know too much about but had maybe heard had a tendency to get upset pretty easily. The girl had definitely been gesturing and carrying on, which reminded Misty of this really funny joke about Italians that this probably wasn't the time for just yet.

"Oh," Misty said as she pretended to first catch sight of the others down on the floor. She blinked a couple times in a slightly exaggerated performance of surprise (not that she expected either of her classmates to be paying that much attention to her yet) before closing in at a nice clip. "Hey, Max, Ariana, wow, what a coincidence. What's going on?"

She smiled like she had no idea they were probably about three seconds from diving at each other over... whatever was going on. It sort of looked like Ariana had dropped her shit and Max was helping her pick it up, but Misty could tell from the body language that there was some unhappiness. Really, the root cause didn't matter too much.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Max took a glance around the aisle as he listened to Ariana's attempt at a retort. He was on the edge of the block of computer terminals: across from him was not another row of computers, but an array of tables all currently unoccupied and chair-less. If she was going to be truly careful in her walking, then she would have leaned closer to the tables rather than to the computers. Certainly, he had not leaned so far as to cut across the center of the aisle, had he? Then the fault was definitely hers for being careless, more so than he had initially realized. By her own admission, the aisle was wide enough for a rather large person to fit through. She had ample room to move around and do what she needed to do.

He would also need to reprimand her for her crude language and for her lack of tact in yelling in a library. Max would have to be careful to phrase his reproach in a manner that didn't sound like he was trying to launch an ad hominem attack or a barrage of slander, but given that the focus of the argument was courteous behavior in a library, it would not be completely unfitting for his counter argument to mention an offense committed on her part. There was the danger of her defining the terms of the argument specifically to the interaction of her being hit with the chair, which was, of course, valid, but if he could get away with moving the goalposts a little then he would. This was not just an argument for argument's sake, after all. He could not forget where they were located. They lived in a society, after all.

Allowing himself to slip back into semantics, however; she had made the personal insult before he was planning to, and hers was of a far more vulgar attitude and composition than the simple request to lower her voice that he was about to make. While he had shared the blame in the earlier encounter—a position he was beginning to reconsider as disadvantageous—he was entirely in the right as of her decision to shout. He could even argue that the act of taking the books from his hand was an act of physical violence.

"I—"

But then, suddenly, a new face entered the scene. Misty Browder. A smart girl, though misguided. Her chosen sport of badminton was far more becoming of her than something like soccer. Badminton was, honestly, more of a lawn game than a real sport. Perfectly acceptable for anybody to engage in. While her pagan beliefs were less than admirable, she made up for it with her political knowledge. He had shared some interesting dialogues with her before, and knew her to be a respectable member of the student body. Not quite ready to know about the more hardcore of his readings, but in her he saw an ally, and on the field of verbal strife, any allies were better than none. She wanted to know what was going on, so he would do his best to try and inform her to the best of his ability.

"I was just helping her pick up her books," he said, "She bumped into my chair and dropped them, because I was leaning back, and because she wasn't quite looking where she was going. I think we share the blame, but she believes otherwise."

There would be time to continue the conversation he was having with Ariana after he got Misty up to speed. What mattered most was that she was informed of the proceedings in a courteous and objective manner.

[Cactus]

Another moment more, and Ariana Moretti wasn't sure that she'd have been able to stop herself from wrapping her hands around this boy's neck and squeezing until he stopped speaking in his pompous, arrogant way. She could visualize the way that his veins would look as they popped out of his skull, his eyes bulging and eventually exploding in a spasm of blood and gore. She'd then be able to collect her things and be on her way.

Of course, none of that happened, and Ariana's imagination popped that particular bubble in short order, once a new arrival popped by to stare at the scene in front of her. Unlike the asshole at the chair, she knew all-too-well who Misty Browder was. The two of them had never run afoul of one another before, but in the few classes they'd shared, Ariana had been wholly unimpressed with some of the backwards rhetoric that came out of her mouth during class discussions. Any time that she crossed a line, she'd usually claim that she was playing devil's advocate, but Ariana was wary of her all the same. At least she'd shown up and offered something useful - a name to match to fuckboy in the chair - Max.

It was taking the very maximum effort on her part not to continue her verbal assault on him, but for the sake of Misty, she exhaled shakily and managed a smile at the girl, ignoring Max's continued assignment of blame - barely.

"Oh, hi Misty. Just a regular day, you know how it is. Picking up some reading materials," she threw a glare over at Max, "trying not to trip over certain poorly placed chairs. You know. Same old shit."

She continued to try and control her breathing. Maybe having a little less volume on her voice might help, too. She figured her face probably was probably a little flushed, too. Oh well. She could give two shits if Max knew she was annoyed. He should have been watching where he was fucking sitting.

When she said it like that to herself, it sounded a little silly, but still.

"How about you, how are you doing?"

[Grand Moff Hissa]

"I'm doing," Misty said, then paused a moment while looking over the scene. When she spoke the next word, she did it with emphasis, focus, and a smile. "Fantastic."

Apparently this was about Ariana tripping over Max's chair and thus spilling her books all over the place, getting worked up into a cursing frenzy, and so forth. She was clearly trying to dial that back now, probably because it was no longer a one-on-one confrontation. Misty wanted to go, "No, no, don't stop on my account," but there wasn't any smooth way to deliver that sort of line that would result in the desired effect.

"I'll lend a hand," Misty said, kneeling and picking up one of the hardcovers that had landed furthest from the other pair. She gave it a once-over. "Wizard and Glass," huh? That actually sounded kind of cool except, whoops, looking it over more closely two other things popped out: "The Dark Tower" which Misty was pretty sure had been a total shit movie, and "Stephen King" who annoyed Misty deeply. King had his weird lowbrow political potshots and this kind of disconcerting white-guilt pandering to the point she had no idea how he got so big. He could write, mostly, but his little biases and preoccupations slipped into everything, unlike, for example, J. K. Rowling. Judgment thus passed, Misty stacked the book on top of her own tome, which she hugged to her chest with her left arm as if just keeping things contained and orderly as she reached for another book with her right hand. Really, though, she was taking "Wizard and Glass" hostage for a little while, lest anyone just hypothetically decide they had somewhere to be in a hurry and/or storm off in a huff.

What Misty had gleaned so far was that Max was probably being the reasonable one, or at least doing a good job pretending to be. There were obviously exceptions (certain recent presidential debates came to mind) but usually whoever was talking calmly during an argument was winning, while their opposition screamed and sputtered and lost track of their own points and came off like a chimpanzee. The direct root cause of whatever had been going down here was incredibly boring, but that was often the case on a surface level. That Ariana had flipped out about this meant that she and Max had some other beef, or something else was going on in her life that left her on hair trigger. That was what was intriguing to Misty.

"You didn't hurt yourself, did you?" she added, giving the girl an appraising once-over as she held out the paperback in her right hand. The question was kind of rhetorical, in that Misty asked it like she meant it and was concerned and was genuinely looking for an answer even though she really wasn't. If Ariana had been badly hurt, it would've come up by now. Instead, this was an opening move and an excuse to size the girl up. She was getting her breathing under control now, but her skin tone was still at half-tomato, or as close as Misty thought it came with that darker complexion. She was kind of pretty and Misty bet the boys were all over that stupid pixie cut.

Why was that hairdo so annoying? Maybe it was that it inched towards the "May I speak to a manager?" special. Or, wait, that was it. It looked kind of like what Misty's eighth grade history teacher had had, except in black hair instead of grey. That wasn't what had drawn Misty, but it definitely combined with her other observations regarding the situation to land her more firmly on Max's side. Not that there necessarily would be sides for much longer. Misty had her card to play, and it would either smother the embers entirely or spark them back into an inferno. She didn't much care which way it went.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Ariana may as well have admitted defeat, right then and there. By trying to ignore Max, she had conceded the argument, and that she had been in the wrong. Misty was the unwitting catalyst for this development, but it was ultimately for the best; had Ariana decided that Max was worth using force against, then he would have had to defend himself, and he was fairly certain that nobody wanted that. He was fairly certain that, if things came to fisticuffs, he would have no trouble defending himself against Ariana. Not only did he have a few inches on her, he also had a stronger, more toned physique than she did.

Of course, he would never attack a woman. That was out of the question. Despite the present moment's willingness to march on past traditional values, regarding the roles of men and women in society, Max was still inclined to act in a chivalrous manner, to an extent. Sure, some might say that Max was on the 'wrong side of history' or a 'bigot', but he had never encountered a scenario in which his views left him at a disadvantage, morally or otherwise. His own code of conduct, applied to himself, was flawless, but he would love to see it applied to others. If everyone lived as he did, he reckoned, then the world would be a much better place. Simpler, at the very least.

"If we're done, here," Max said, standing up, "then I suppose I'll get back to my essay."

He began to sit back down in his chair, hoping that he wouldn't be roped back into another shouting match. It didn't look like Liberty had made another edit, but he couldn't be too sure until he was given a chance to scroll through the document in its entirety.

[Cactus]

Ariana's blood pressure had settled back down into a mostly reasonable level, and it seemed as though a lot of the chaos was simmering down. Fuckbox Max was retreating back off to his wank-bank materials or whatever the hell he was doing, and Misty was being uncharacteristically chipper as she helped Ariana gather up her things. As for the question of her health, Ariana did a mental inventory. She'd almost certainly end up with a bruise on her hip, though she tended to bruise fairly easily, so that wasn't a sign of injury per se. The rug-burn on her leg still stung, but it had turned from an angry swarm of bees under her pant leg into pins and needles.

No, the main thing that was injured was her pride, and maybe a chunk of her patience. That was something that she knew was never to return.

"I'm okay," she shot a glare in Max's direction, "mostly. I don't think it's anything that an ice pack and a pinch of Fireball wouldn't cure."

Having collected the majority of her materials off of the floor, she picked her purse up and slung it around her shoulder, ready to move on, check out her books and leave this little bastard behind. Speaking of the offensive little troll who'd managed to cut in to her day, he muttered something and sat back down in his chair. That was it, he was in retreat - good. Something nagged at the back of her mind, and against every single voice in her head that told her not to, she still managed one last comment in his direction.

"Just maybe look into some spatial awareness before you really go out and hurt someone."

The quip had way too much attitude underneath of it, and the second it left her mouth, she regretted it, but no matter. She turned back to Misty, who looked to still be holding on to one of her fallen books. Damn - it was Wizard and Glass, which had been her initial reason for coming here in the first place.

"Thanks for your help, that was the one I was here to get in the first place before I got a little carried away raiding the shelves." Ariana gestured towards the book, and waited for Misty to surrender her bounty.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

"If everyone's okay," Misty said, smiling, "then it's not a big deal, right? Nothing worth fretting over."

She flipped the book over in her hands as she spoke, giving it another look. It was certainly hefty, but she was pretty sure that was one of Stephen King's calling cards, like he was famous enough now that people would buy whatever shit he released so he had evolved beyond the need for editors. The cover had this kind of crystal ball design going on, and she was annoyed that it intrigued her. Fortunately, this was labeled book four of probably like a dozen or more, each also the size of the yellow pages, so she wouldn't have to work too hard to keep the embers of her interest from kindling. And, besides, Stephen King.

"What's it about?" Misty asked, still not handing the book back as she now perused the back cover. "I mean, the series. You probably have't read this one yet, right?"

Of course, she didn't really want to cut out of this interaction the person she was more down with in favor of the one whose hairdo irrationally offended her, so she also gave a nod at Max and said, "And, hey, what's your essay on? It seems like we're all here on missions today. Most people are enjoying the weather."

Misty didn't particularly care whether or not they took up her prompting and asked about her own business. Sure, she'd be totally happy to tell them about the fruitless hunt for "The Book of Black Magic," but in all likelihood neither of them cared. Misty was happy to educate the ignorant, but there was a time and a place and a manner she had for doing so. And besides, this pair had other potential still.

[MethodicalSlacker]

He found nothing.

Not one extra letter. No additional phrases. No response to his comment, nor a refutation of his disagreement. There was no attempt on the page at ignoring his advice and pushing on instead, developing on the idea instead of casting it away as he suggested. The thread of thought developed earlier in the day, so carefully and meticulously unspooled, had been recoiled back into its shell, retracting underground, picking another rock somewhere indiscriminately in a proverbial field to squirrel away under. Gone were the gentle ripples on the shore he had felt earlier, indicative of a maelstrom of Liberty's mordant wit that he could have sworn would be coming.

A bitter venom feeling pooled in his chest cavity.

This was tantamount to some form of betrayal.

All predispositions to fury were swatted away by Misty's question. Turning to face her, he saw that she had managed to soothe Ariana sufficiently to a state where he could, by his own estimation, speak past the prior misunderstanding that they had shared. It seemed that the arrival of a third, neutral (or rather, as close to neutral as realistically possible) interloper had a calming effect on both of their temperaments. Could this be owed to a quality unique to Misty?

Or was it indicative of some greater truth about human relationships? Perhaps, just as there were positive, amorous relationships between individuals, there could be just as poignant bonds forged over rivalry and strife? It was a theory he had been developing for a while, one he thought would shock the academic world once he reached higher education. Whether or not he believed in the idea was unnecessary; all he needed from it was to be interesting and academic enough in its presentation to get his foot in the door of academia. Misty's role in this current incident, the one he presently found himself concerned with, added new developments to his theory. Perhaps, in extreme cases, a third participant would be required in order to keep said relationships from devolving into violence?

"I was on a walk when I decided to stop by and check in on my assignment, in fact," Max said, responding to Misty's comment on the weather. "The essay assignment is on a documentary we watched in class last week—I can't remember the title, but it was something to do with liberalism and social justice and the like. We have to analyze one element of the documentary, and my partner and I have decided on the motif of societal change."

Would Ariana interject? He knew not of her political inclinations, but suspected that she had some affiliation with the democratic party on some level. A good majority of the students in his class—or at least, the vocal ones—seemed to have jumped onto the bandwagon of liberalism that was quickly sweeping the nation's youth by storm. He hoped the inverse to be true. Perhaps, if they were of similar beliefs, they could forge a bond over it, and repairs to the damage caused by the earlier altercation could begin.

[Cactus]

Nothing worth fretting over.

Ariana let the words sink in for a moment, during which her brain waged a war against her mouth to try and stop a whole new slew of profanities from emerging. This time - mercifully, her brain won out, and she said nothing, allowing her body to slowly work its way out of fight posture. As far as fight or flight instincts went, Ariana rarely flew, and often found herself going head-on towards confrontation rather than away from it. So while a part of her wanted to take the chair that she'd stumbled over and beat Max upside the head and shoulders with it, and a part of her really wanted to tear a strip off of Misty for the barely-there condescending tone that Ari herself hadn't missed, instead... she just nodded.

Picking your battles was a new skill she'd been working on, and for now, it seemed as though she'd managed to sidestep this one. Attention going back to the book that Misty still held in her hand, her brow furrowed momentarily at the question. How to best describe the Dark Tower series thus far? More importantly, would Misty even care, or was she just asking to be nice.

Either way, Ari's expression softened, and she nodded at the book in Misty's hands.

"It's a story about destiny. It's about a man who has lost everything that he cares about, all of his friends, all of his family," she paused, trying to simplify. "But instead of giving up, he carries on, because he knows that it's his destiny to try and stop an evil man from destroying the world. Our world, their world, his world."

Ariana glanced at Max, who was still sitting in the chair that he'd sat back down in. He was still listening. She turned her attention back towards Misty.

"It's about a long, arduous journey, and the friends you make along the way. How even if you've got nothing to lose, it doesn't mean that you're truly alone. Destiny won't permit it."

She shrugged, her temper having dissipated completely as she discussed the book.

"It's a bit science-fiction, a bit of a western kind of theme, and there's the pretty general King wackiness in there, but I like it. Not sure it'd be up your alley." She frowned. "Either of your alleys."

Max then interjected with his own reason for being - though not his reason for being a dick, which Ariana suspected probably had a lot to do with exactly that - and remarked something about societal change and liberalism being the thing he was writing about. Ariana couldn't possibly fathom which side of that debate he came down upon. Come to think of it, she didn't know the political leanings of either Misty or Max, though Max's earlier weirdly stilted speech made her wonder he wasn't one of those - she searched her mind for the term, incel types. He was too formal, too weird.

Though weirdness wasn't exactly in short supply at George Hunter High these days, so what was one more among the crowd?

"Fun topic. Lots to go on these days," she trailed off, the inflection of her voice leaving no doubt on whether or not she was behind the Canon, or standing directly in front of it. Plus she didn't feel like baiting him any more than she had to, but for Misty's sake, she figured she'd make a stab at polite conversation.

At least until she got her book back.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

Destiny and societal change. That sounded like a real party.

Misty's thought was only half tongue in cheek, too; she actually had some major musings about destiny and whether or not it could be changed and how that played into the seemingly-inevitable evolution of civilization. It was all push and pull, a battle of wills between groups with a whole range of motives. Some of that took place in the open and some of it took place in the shadows. She'd heard a lot about different cabals and efforts to effect paradigm shift in the run-up to recent events, though how much of that was true and how much the scuttlebutt of those with slightly too much free time and imagination was difficult to say. The internet was a tool that could be put to magickal uses but also one that could be spun to nefarious or unintentionally disruptive ends, and a random claim made on /x/ did not a truth make.

Misty shifted back and forth, chewing on the responses of the other two, gauging where to take things. She'd nodded along with Ariana's description a bit, and was actually kind of impressed with the girl, but also kind of scornful of her. Misty had expected some sort of push-back to her casual dismissal of Ariana's problems, and now was trying to decide if the lack thereof meant the girls was all bark and no bite, had actually done some self-reflection and realized she was being absurd, or just could identify the obvious bait. It was impossible, of course, to say for sure which option it was, so Misty would treat them all as partially true until and unless somehow things were clarified.

"That actually sounds alright," she said, holding up the book and looking at it closely again but without really paying attention this time. "Maybe a bit too long for me, though."

Wizard and Glass weighed almost as much as some of her textbooks, and Stephen King seemingly had some bizarre need to publish several times a year so the series was probably long as fuck with every single book this size. Misty wondered about his creative diarrhea  a little. She didn't think it was about the money; he had to have more than he could know what to do with. She'd heard somewhere that he did a whole lot of cocaine, but was also pretty sure that was a past-tense sort of anecdote. But who could really say? Maybe it was all fueled by drugs.

"And you can say that again, about societal change," Misty continued. "Oh, but don't get me started about politics."

She added that last bit casually, off-hand, but she really did mean it, sort of. That statement constituted fair warning, and now if anyone did choose to get Misty started about politics it was their own fault if they didn't like what happened next. It was, in its way, a little like Pandora's Box; Misty had set the box down on its pedestal and told them not to open it and now if they did and got destroyed by the divine wrath issuing forth from it that would be the expected result of having ignored the clearly-marked warnings all over it.

[MethodicalSlacker]

He could practically feel his eyes glazing over.

Ariana's description of her book sounded absolutely dull. Max found most fiction to be a waste of time—the last novel he could remember actually finding anywhere near remotely enjoyable was Wittgenstein's Mistress. Generally, the more popular a book was, the worse he could expect it to be, and even though this axiom applied to most books in general he found it applied the most to fiction, King being one of the worst offenders. The abattoir that was contemporary literature chewed up originality and spit out pulpy nonsense. This was to say nothing of the problem of artistic merit, which had long since disappeared from the mainstream due in no small part to the rising tide of genre-fied disposable trash that King was, indeed, partially responsible for.

None of these thoughts were worth sharing.

In fact, Max had felt for a long while that the majority of his ideas had been on a steady downturn in quality. He wasn't sure what it was, but something had caused his interpretations of most things to be on a surface level, no matter how far deeper he pushed. Anyone could make the judgement that the modern publishing industry—and the cultural zeitgeist of society as a whole—had been on a downward spiral for the last decade, but this was a judgement common to all times. His assertion was not quite on the level of scaremongering common to those who yearned for the past, but it was dangerously close. These kinds of arguments and pessimistic musings were what middle school aged children whined about, not at all befitting of one about to enter the adult world. Maybe it was the sentimentality of these times, the final halcyon days before his departure for university, that was disturbing his thoughts.

But it was also possible that he was just getting soft. For example, Misty's comment about not wanting to get started on politics would have changed his countenance entirely were he the same Max from six, seven months ago. It would have made him smile—no, even more, it would have made him laugh. He would have taken great pleasure in a roundabout rant about regressive ideologies and fence-sitters and people not talking about the issues—it was all about the issues, unceasingly—that really mattered. He would not have let the chance to debate swing pendent in front of his eyes for very long. Presently, however, his ennui was palpable. He could only smile and nod at Misty's quip.

"I have to agree with you there, Misty" Max replied affirmatively, "The longer the year goes on, the more futile it feels to talk about such things."

Though he was careful not to betray the full extent of his weariness, he felt it pertinent to sympathize with Misty's feelings. Perhaps they occupied the same head-space on this subject.