Video; take the big game down

[backinakidflash]

[It's been some time since Bart has graced the Network with a post. After Tim left the first time, that had been a miserable one to make. The shine is definitely gone like the cheap, shiny (lead-filled) paint on a kids meal toy.]

You know what is one of THE most annoying short story I've ever read? Hills Like White Elephants. Cause like. The Lottery was a trainwreck of stupid and gross, the one where that girl got shot out of the airlock was tragic, Super-Toys Last All Summer Long, All in a Summer Day - they're all about the worst of humanity, and I get that.

[It's strange how he has a hard time coming up with a short story that wasn't A huge downer, but, since he's venting, he doesn't pause the fast-paced, near breathless delivery to muse on it for long.]

But Hills Like White Elephants, man. It's four pages of doing nothing but waiting for this couple to stop dancing around the topic and complaining that everything tastes like licorice. Like that's a bad thing. I'd cut off my arm for a twizzler. All right not the whole arm, but me and my pinkie have never been on the best of terms. Twizzlers are nature's straws. And that's how they go. On and on. For pages of nothing that dance around everything and you just want to shout at them to freaking say it already because the rampant silence is killing her and the incessant chatter is putting him off. But on the other hand, who cares about him? He's a scumbag, and I hope that - in the fiction of Hemingway's - she grew a spine and dumped his fatass and ran off to run a tourist bar in Borneo. Because he was freaking selfish.

[He shrugs at this terrible understatement. 'Shithead' would be better, or reprehensible dickwad, but this isn't actually a symposium on the works of Ernest Hemingway. It just seemed like the best way to bring up how there were so many things, including Malicant, that no one talked about directly. Talk about white elephants by bringing up the story where they talk about white elephants to ignore the white elephants.]

So, yeah. Most annoying four pages I've ever read, and that's not counting all the essays analyzing it. Half of them were longer than the story! That is what happens when you hafta keep avoiding a topic. The coding and decoding detour takes way longer than flat out talking about it ever could, and. Let's be real. Not talking about things is halfway to lying, and oh-what-a-tangled-web hasn't stuck around for two centuries because Marmion is such a gripping read. Ohgoditreallyisn't. Why am I talking about Walter Scott?

[He actually stops here, scratching behind his ear for a moment until the tangent becomes a parabola and re-intersects with the original topic.]

Ugh, right. Hemingway. Things snowball. Before you know it, you're in an entire room full of white elephants, crowding out all the oxygen, and you can't turn around without face planting in saggy gray butt. Names that you shouldn't say, that you can't say, things you don't want to say cause you'll upset someone else or you, or piss them off and. It's turning every conversation into "Oh. We're talking about that now? OK."

ALL of it could be avoided if people just said what was on their mind because decades of watching what I say is getting old. I can't take it. I'm not wired for patient and subtle. I'm gonna be the first Allen in four generations to get gray hair. Because all I can do is sit here like -

[He jumps to his feet dramatically, pointing off in the distance.] "What in the world could that be?"

[And sits back firmly, as if it's possible to sit down resolutely with enough speed and force. Bart slaps a hand on the desk for good measure.] IT'S A WHITE ELEPHANT. It sucks.

And so does Hemingway.

Comments

video;

[werethatgood]

[ Cassie just stares at the console for a bit, before daring to answer. She's... not sure what happened? But cheerful Bart being like this? She can guess that something's wrong. ]

[ In the end, her willingness to help wins out. ]

What's the white elephant?

[ Softly. She's here to listen, if he needs it. ]

Re: video;

[backinakidflash]

[Bart leans his arms on the desk and shakes his head.]

You're gonna have to be more specific. There's like three. Four - five. And a half. Let's go with six. There is a parade of white elephants.

video;

[werethatgood]

[ Cassie winces, slightly. ]

Ouch. You sure that everybody's avoiding that many of them?

video;

[beunbroken]

[Elizabeth is actually just really impressed by this tangent about literature.

Granted, it's literature she'd never read, but, still.]

The only name I recognize there is Walter Scott. But you have some very good points, from what I can tell.

Re: video;

[backinakidflash]

[Bart looks surprised at this, then grins.]

You fall asleep in English lit, too, huh? You're not missing much, except for the Ray Bradbury one. I liked it more than Fahrenheit 451.

video;

[beunbroken]

[She frowns slightly.]

Oh, no. I never had an English lit class. Or any classes at all. [She's self-taught.]

text; encrypted 100%

[everylittlegirl]

We argue a lot, but we ARE friends now.
and I know you won't tell me about hero stuff.
I don't want to talk about the K.
anything else is fine, even if it leads to arguing and whatever.
I'm not going anywhere.

Video; encrypted 100%

[backinakidflash]

[He chews on his lip, reading this, and sighs. ]

Yeah. I know you'd listen. But you're still locking everything down. Nobody's what I'd call open.

text; encrypted 100%

[everylittlegirl]

you're right.
but everyone's trying to protect their friends.
you and I aren't exactly exceptions to that.

Video

[superoverachiever]

I'd give that a solid 'B.' [She agrees with the whole premise enough, but she doesn't have anything specific to say, so... stupid school jokes?]

Video

[backinakidflash]

[Bart bursts out laughing.]

Awesome. Best English grade ever.

video;

[daughteroftheoriginal]

Can't argue on Hemingway.

And I don't know. The whole Lord Voldemort thing going on here's pretty obvious to catch onto, even if we have no idea if anything's happening because no one wants to tell us.

But there's way too much being avoided that we should at least bring up and talk about, even back home. Someplace like this just makes it worse. [Or better, in a few ways; May's learned more here than she was ever told back home, and it's filling in way more empty puzzle pieces than she knew were even there..]

video;

[backinakidflash]

Yeah, but not calling him Voldemort in the first place is what let him make it a dangerous habit to have, cause it was only the Order that was calling him that.

[He will outnerd you, May Parker.]

I don't like avoiding problems. Life's too short to never taste adrenaline.

Voice;

[michaeljangelo]

Okay, hold the phone here. Twizzlers? Do not taste of licorice. They taste of strange strawberry edible plastic.

Video

[backinakidflash]

Right. Licorice. I like cherry kind though.

[manofiron]

So why don't you?

[ Tony's never been one to beat around the bush or say about of crap that isn't what he means. Sure, it makes him less popular and more controversial than a lot of people, but it's either that or pussyfoot around the feelings and sensibilities of a bunch of people he doesn't give a damn about. And he doesn't have time for that. ]

Skip the elephants and just say whatever you want. The people who're pissed off or upset by it can get over it. Or they can't. Either way, it's not your problem that they can't handle it.

[backinakidflash]

Beeeecause life doesn't work that way and I care about my friends? C'mon. I put my foot in my mouth more than a sideshow geek. I don't need to start doing it on purpose, too.

It's a damn miracle I haven't said Mal- the M word yet.

[An enormous goddamn miracle. He has never managed to hold his tongue on anything this long, especially with it always floating around in the echoes of his mind. Don't say Malicant. Don't say Malicant. Don't say Malicant.]

video;

[wintershepherd]

You had me up until saggy gray butts.

video;

[backinakidflash]

Oh damn. Good catch. Saggy white butts.

[modernized]

...What.

[He tightens his eyes close and tries to absorb everything that was just said.]

I think I slept through all of that in English class. I could go for some Twizzlers though now that you mention it.

[backinakidflash]

In one sentence, I present the entire English class that you missed: they were talking about Jig's upcoming abortion. Tada. I'd have said spoiler alert, but it takes like two seconds to read.

Twizzlers. And Joan Garrick's butter tarts. I wouldn't say no to a real, processed, deep dish frozen pizza either.

Video;

[maipokerface]

So what's your deal with elephants then.

Video;

[backinakidflash]

They're Earth's largest land animal. Their tusks are really incisors. They have cool trunks that are prehensile and can spray water everywhere. They get poached a lot.

I dunno. I don't really understand the question?

[video]

[bludhavenknight]

[You know what, fuck it. They've been dancing around each other for awhile (and by dancing, that was not doing anything near the other person), but Dick was tired of that. Things had happened, and he could understand why Bart was upset.

Not talking about things was tiring. No encryption for this part.]

Let me buy you dinner.

Re: [video]

[backinakidflash]

Ohh, look at you, Big Spender.

[He's not exactly proud of the way he'd behaved with Dick and Zee, so - while there's definitely sarcasm at work - it's the light variety, sans vehemence.]

This isn't a set-up for a lecture… is it?