Oh No I Have Another Project
Story time! Well, IRL story I mean
Years and years ago, I used to do a regular Saturday Twitch stream that I dubbed "Demo Disk". (This was back when I was streaming regularly and frequently and trying to make that a whole thing.) The idea was that I'd grab 6 demos/prototypes/free games and give 'em a go. Then I spliced the segments and uploaded them to Youtube. I even made a podcast of it (though it's offline now, never renewed the domain).
It was an honest effort, following on my old RCRDList concept of "here's niche media that you probably never heard of but might be neat". RCRDList was music, Demo Disk was video games. Both ultimately died off because of the effort involved; finding music worth hearing on Bandcamp is really hard, always has been, and for Demo Disk, I made an audio-only podcast about video games what were you thinking bunny
(What I was thinking was that I do enjoy podcasting and it was a topic I could finally do shows about, I wanted the excuse)
Anyway. Steam's periodic Next Fests have had me thinking, maybe I could do something shaped like Demo Disk again. Put a bit more effort into the impressions and advice, rather than just being off-the-cuff. There are a bunch of Youtubers that do video game roundups like that nowadays and they're generally kinda shrug. (And always using the same thumbnail archetype. It feels cheesy.) But I've seen some really good ones, Iron Pineapple's series being kind of my gold standard for entertaining and insightful. (Even though he does the same thumbnail gag? I do not get social media.) So, I've been recording gameplay when I can't get myself to work on writing.
Anyway the point of the story is 1) maybe keep an eye on my Youtube in the coming weeks 2) I am too drawn to having too many projects at once and I probably should get looked at for ADHD
Look at these things
Currently reading: Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett. Vicehunter has detective novel threads so I really ought to read some classics of noir as I work on it. Also it's public domain now so I could just straight riff on it if I wanted.
Currently listening: Emergency & I by The Dismemberment Plan, one of my favorite albums of all time. It clicked so hard for me in the year before moving to Portland, and I still listen to it on the regular. Sometimes it resonates more than others.
Currently playing: Steel Rising, on PS5, since it's a PSPlus freebie and I should actually play some of those that I've amassed. I will never come up with "robot uprising during the French Revolution". I worry that I'm not creative enough sometimes.
A little story
Being topical for February means either Black History Month or Valentine's Day. Vapormage doesn't have enough black characters (Crystal Greene is cool but she's only one woman), and I wanted to see if I could write something lovey that I wasn't embarrassed by since that's an aromantic weak point of mine. So, Valentine's it is.
I'll be honest, I genuinely feel like I've written fanfic of my own characters. But they're my characters, it's my canon, I can do what I want. (It's not lewd, don't worry/I'm sorry)
Kell was being bothered from both sides. Before them was a clerk who was trying his best, gods bless him, but he had no clue how to validate a vapormage’s identification. Their card had no portrait because a vapormage always wore their uniform, helmet included. A portrait was a silly idea. But it complicated things when hoping to prove that Kell and Rey were, indeed, who they said they were.
All the while, behind them was a civilian clearly working up the nerve to speak. Many Cymonians liked the vapormages; some went so far as to see them as saviors. The more tolerable still treated them as celebrities, and might even beg for autographs.
Rey put his hand on Kell’s shoulder and nodded behind them. He’d take care of it.
“Alright then, citizen, what needs doing today?” Rey's voice was bright and metallic as it left his helmet.
The man was flustered and embarrassed. “Oh, you actually are….” He trailed off, looking away from the exaggerated, courteous lights of Rey’s visor. The fake eyes, meant to punctuate command, got more mileage out of looking friendly or cute.
Rey chuckled. “Is there a problem, or are you after an autograph?”
The man stammered defensively. He wanted an autograph. As Rey pulled one of his many prepared, signed calling cards from his pouch, Kell got his attention. The two finally had their tickets to the film.
“Here you are,” Rey said. “Enjoy the sun, now.”
Kell waited until the two were well down the hall before giving Rey a playful jab with their elbow. “I would’ve jumped straight to ‘enjoy the sun’.”
“And he would’ve known you were telling him to fuck off,” Rey laughed back. “Five marks he’s off to see Novak in Bold.”
“He would be. Everyone is.”
Kell wasn’t exaggerating. The Novak series valorized the vapormages, and the newest entry drew large audiences. Kell and Rey, meanwhile, turned left to the showing of My Best Friend’s Girl. A cheesy, predictable fumble of a romance film. The two would love making fun of it in an empty theater.
The room darkened, Kell and Rey the only ones there to watch. Rey nuzzled against Kell’s shoulder, as best as he could with his helmet on. That was just like him, to be close and intimate the moment nobody else was around. Kell appreciated the attempt, clunky as it was.
“Shame we can’t… y’know,” Kell said quietly.
The lights on Rey’s visor lit in confusion, then intrigue.
“I don’t mean that,” Kell giggled.
The two shared a young couple’s laugh, one that was barked down by the projectionist. “Quiet, kids!”
Kell flushed with embarrassment under their helmet. “There’s that guy,” they said quietly, “and an usher could show….”
“I know, hun,” Rey said. “We could probably do something about that.”
Kell wasn’t sure exactly what Rey meant. The two did know some spells that could keep people out—jam the door with ice, perhaps—but anything to keep the projectionist off their case was a bit too violent. And Rey wasn’t like Klein. He didn’t enjoy live targets.
“Let’s not,” they eventually said. “It’d just be trouble.”
“Nobody’s gonna give us trouble,” Rey said. “But alright.” He cuddled up tighter as the reel started.
The film was about as bad as Kell expected. So they loved it. There was a comedy to be had in something so thoroughly melodramatic, so aggressively overwrought, something trying so hard to be serious that it can’t be taken seriously. Kell didn’t much care for modern comedy—much of it felt too mean, too much digging at sahagins and people down on their luck—so they got their laughs where they could. Getting those laughs in Rey’s embrace just made them all the sweeter.
The sun was still in the sky when the two left the theater. The film was as short as it deserved to be. Kell and Rey wrung all the entertainment they were going to get out of it, and were ready to move on.
Once outside, Rey gave Kell a conspiratorial pat on the shoulder. “We’ve got a few hours until we’re back at base, right? You ever been to an Annie’s?”
“There are some left?”
“Hell if I know.” Rey was clearly smirking, even if his helmet hid it. “C’mon.”
Down the street from the theater, a blue and white striped awning hung over a locked door. The windows were all papered over from the inside, slightly peeling at the corners. There weren’t many Annie’s Diner locations still open, and this clearly wasn’t one of them.
Rey jiggled the door handle, proving to himself that it was locked. He made a small gesture to Kell; they stepped back as he held his hand near the lock and concentrated. It only took a second, a small gesture, for him to use a jet of water-aspected vapor as a lockpick. The door swung open slowly to a dusty, barren dining room.
Kell stepped in behind him, looking around with an investigator’s glance. The furniture was all gone, save for the back counter and a few stools along it. The room had a small stage, for some reason. “So what’s the plan here, Rey?”
“Well.” He closed the door and checked it. He hadn’t broken the lock. “You were right. It would be nice to have somewhere private. Somewhere we can just talk, off the base, away from civilians.”
Kell sat on one of the stools. “That’s all you wanna do?”
“Is that all you want to do?”
Kell giggled knowingly.
“You would. But I mean it.” Rey sat at the edge of the stage. “We’re going back home in about a month. Starting to think about what life’ll be like. After the vapormages.”
Rey put his hands at the sides of his neck. A tinny click echoed in the room.
“Rey, what’re you—”
“It’s locked, we’re fine,” he said, pulling his helmet off. It was against protocol for vapormages to remove their armor when not at base. It was, to Kell, the one good protocol. The vapormages shouldn’t be seen. “You can too, not like I’m gonna tell Fontaine.”
“Didn’t think you would.”
Rey walked over to kiss the top of Kell’s helmet. “I know, you’re not the kid you were back home. But you’ve still got that about you, that ‘fuck it, live life’ spirit. It’s adorable. It’s you.” He had such honest eyes.
Kell, with a sigh, agreed and removed their own helmet. The light had just the right gloom to it. The air tasted of dirt and freedom. “They’re not gonna recognize any of us, I bet. Back home. We’ve all changed so much.”
“Some of us for the better.”
Kell agreed via a kiss. The quiet solitude was rare and relaxing. “And then there’s Klein.”
Rey laughed richly. “He’s gonna hate that there’s just about no vapor back home.”
“Sucks for him.” Even Kell’s eyes had a snide tone, but Rey’s kindly look silently defused it. “Think I could apprentice at your mom’s shop?”
“Of course. She’s always liked you, and she’d love to keep the business in the family.”
Kell burst out laughing. “Someone’s making plans.”
“Or trying to make you blush.”
He had succeeded. “Love you too, you bastard.”