deercountry | [Open] The Entertainment Feed

Entry tags:

[Open] The Entertainment Feed

who: Anyone & Everyone
what: Open Post for The Entertainment Feed
when: All month
where: The Entertainment Feed

content warnings: see individual starters. Docu-Lore: being observed/recorded.
Note: This post includes open prompts for The Entertainment Feed. Feel free to write TL's and tag each other.

Boy, are you dumb. She's not a vampire. She's a lawyer. (Book Club)

This month, the book club meets Tuesdays October 11th and 25th. It is reading Bunnicula by Deborah Howe, available via written or audio formats.

Before it's too late, Harold the dog and Chester the cat must find out the truth about the newest pet in the Monroe household -- a suspicious-looking bunny with unusual habits... and fangs!

What does it mean to be a vampire? What's the line between suspicious and actionable? What are your experiences having someone (pet or person) join the family?

You're fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight (Silent Disco)

This month, the silent disco happens Fridays October 14th and 28th. Headphones and music are available. Play your own music or listen to DJ's mix. (open)

The music is Halloween themed this month. The first night is a collection of Halloween themed song like Thriller by Michael Jackson. The second pulls from the soundtracks for movies about the Legendary Ghosts seen around Trench.

In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, black, and towering. (Legendary Ghost viewings)

This month, The Entertainment Feed shows double features every Sunday and Thursday featuring movies (or serials) of Legendary Ghosts seen around Trench.

When you interact with a Legendary Ghost, let Murderbot know! It will peruse DeerNet to find something to add to the list. Come for entertainment or education and be careful as you walk home. In Trench, if not on the screen, you're safe if you wear a mask and don't attack first...

You're on Candid Camera (Docu-Lore)

Murderbot has started filming events in Trench via its drones.

The Black Parade, Legendary Ghosts, draugs, people who've become something or someone else... Murderbot's drones fly around Trench looking for exciting, entertaining, and educating topics to films. These short films are both documentaries and provide a new form for lore to be captured in. Perhaps you notice a drone, perhaps you don't. It may be you can find yourself on The Entertainment Feed's network offerings in this new category.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Bun Apologist

In some ways, Murderbot cannot help but identify with the titular bunny. So it's a vampire and needs to drink blood. Cats don't only kill mice but play with their prey. Harold and Chester aren't free of wrongs. They're secure in their positions as the family pets.

"In Trench, we all have blood bullshit," Murderbot says, "Is an animal staying true to its nature suspicious? Perhaps they should have considered what options they had." Like sharing the mice and letting the bunny drain those. Ever think of that, Chester? No because it's a double standard.

"Just because it's not what they're used to..."

Nowhere Left to Run

It wears headphones, though they make minimal noise. The music plays in its feed in better clarity than even the relatively quiet noise. The inputs from its drones reveal no immediately worrying behavior, and it rocks back and forth gently to Michael Jackson while readying I Put a Spell On You next.

The monsters in the night may be real, people may have spells put on them, but for a few hours tonight, they are all simply having fun. It's the best parts of the festival it went to, at least when it comes to the recordings, without the loud crowds. Despite the music in everyone's ears, the room is nearly silent. In that silence, Murderbot hears something that catches it attention. Since it doesn't need to be up front to control the music, it makes a show of setting up the next few tracks, and moves through the crowd.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Fresh from a ghostly near interaction, Murderbot queries DeerNet with the best descriptive terms it can manage. The results are too numerous to be helpful. It groans. How is it supposed to know who this was? Aren't they supposed to be famous? Perhaps if someone is from earth... The Corporation Rim is light in famous ghosts, same as Preservation.

Out loud, to no one in particular, it says, "I'll take giant purple ghost for three hundred?" Murderbot groans. "It's not a troll!"

Edited 2022-10-09 05:46 (UTC)

"Yeah, I know how that is."

Both in the Trench and back home.

"I'm a vileblood, so I drink blood," he says, amazed at himself for being able to freely admit that. When he first realized it was something he needed he'd been disgusted and disturbed at himself, hiding it from everyone. Then, slowly, he began sharing it with others, but still wary of them knowing. Now he can just open up about it to relate better to the story. "And back home, even though I didn't drink blood, humans were still afraid of me because I was different. But at least Harold learns to accept Bunnicula in the end, even if Chester doesn't!"

Given it expected the topic to arise, given it's part of the book (and part of Trench), Murderbot keeps any instinctive repulsion off its face. Because it isn't about the adolescent human. Because it would come off that way when Murderbot truly is repulsed by all bodily fluids fluiding about outside a body. (Even if it's brief, the blood has to come out before it comes in).

At least it isn't a Vileblood.

It nods. "That's what it's about in this story," Murderbot says, "in a lot of vampire stories written in worlds without vampires." It can say that as it has media from home with vampires. "Anyone that's different, especially in ways we cannot understand— it's easier to reject them than to reject the ways we've been taught to think.

"We should be Harolds, not Chesters."

"Yeah...back home a lot of humans are scared of sea folk, because we're different. And we just eat fish, so it's not even anything scary like blood."

Murderbot looks at the kid, serious but amused by the mention of fish. That's a lot less scary than blood. Humans eat animal protein all the time.

"Can you tell me about sea folk?" it asks. "I'm not familiar."

"We look human when we're dry, but when we get wet we get scales and fins and tails and stuff."

'Stuff' meant to cover all the minor details and changes that are different between the two forms, of course.

Murderbot nods. "So showers are out," it comments.

Then it purposely shrugs. "You could say we've all become sea folk cousins in Trench," Murderbot says, "We're all really squid."

"Well...as long as no one else is there to see it, showers are fine. And here I don't have to keep it a secret so it's fine if I change in the shower!"

He'll just turn into a fish person until he dries off.

"Yeah, I guess we are, huh? Maybe that's why so many people here are okay with it."

Murderbot mimes a person standing up then slowly sliding down. "You can stand up on wet 'land' while in your sea form?"

It supposes, in as little as it knows about different kinds of fauna, that fish generally have bones. However those bones are meant to support bodies in water, not on land (or close enough to it).

"It's not strange, at least," Murderbot says, "Whether they like being a squid or not." It personally hates knowing that, but that's as much with the fact squid—like humans—are entirely biological and not the it the way its known itself all that it can remember and that it cannot.

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She can only imagine how much some of her old friends would have liked this book. It brings a smile to her face, imagining Yonah or Emil, maybe even Nier cracking open this slim volume and following the tribulations of the impossible talking animals. That thought makes her sad, terribly so. It makes her miss them. But it makes her smile all the same.

This is the first real fictional book she's read. It's all been snippets of obscure tomes about how to kill awful things, how-to's for playing guitar and gardening, or general background info on what the fuck Trench's deal was. Not the social outing she thought she'd get herself into, but if she was getting social at all, it might as well be fucking weird, right?

"Yeah, I don't get it. It's just a rabbit that eats weird shit. It ain't suckin' anybody's blood, but what's it matter if it did? Dogs and cats are carnivores too."

'Eats weird shit' is one apt way to put it. The note on carnivores grabs Murderbot's attention the most though. It cross references the publication date with media produced around the same time with representations of families and animals. Murderbot is sure it's missing much nuance, but it has enough data to make a point.

"Some cats catch mice and receive less processed meat," Murderbot says, "Howver pet dogs and cats generally ate processed food. Kibble from a bag. The vaguely defined 'wet food' if they had health restrictions or were spoiled. Mentally, they are far removed from wild canines and felines in nature. They are not thought of like wolves and wildcats. Perhaps the distinction is less in what they eat than how they get it. Within social norms."

It looks at Kainé, not having directly asked a question but inviting her silently to react.

The world Kainé was from looked very different from 20th century North America, and any of its cultural trappings. She knows that domesticated dogs and cats exist, of course. But what she means is something different entirely.

"Never had a pet," Kainé says, scowling, "but it's still another animal that died to feed them. They just didn't have to do it themselves. They're fucking hypocrites is what I'm saying, 'specially since Bunnicula just eats vegetables. How do they get off on thinking he's the danger here?" Everybody wants a scapegoat to blame. An other that is less than you, to direct your fear and hatred towards.

People's omens in Trench is the closest Murderbot has come to a pet, and those aren't even animals technically. Though the intelligence and talking resembles the literary ones.

"They have safety and security in their positions," Murderbot says, "They're free to do what they want. Bunnicula's the one who has to pay the cost. The newcomer, outsider, someone different." Its natural flat affect, modulated by algorithm to sound more naturally human, removes much of the sting of its words. It's still there, getting personal over a bunny.

"He's a threat to their peace of mind," it says with a little venom.

There's something odd about Rin's voice that she can't place, but she determinedly ignores it. She'd be a hypocrite to say these things and find it unnerving just for seeming a little strange. It's manner isn't threatening. Just slightly off kilter. So is she with the edge to her voice and hard eyes, with the thousand scars she conceals.

"That's what it's about," she says, bitterly. "People come up with whatever excuse for it they want, but it's all the same in the end."

Murderbot's naturally a pessimist. It expects the worst. It prepares for the worst, and usually it comes in a hair above that. A sane practice in its experience. Kainé vibes a similar way. Pessimist.

"What do you think about Harold's change of heart?" It asks.

They have that in common. Kainé's world is doomed. Her life has been one tragedy after another. Right now she's trying to wrest as much contentment as she can from what she's been given, but she has no illusion it will last forever.

Believing in human nature is a fool's game, but so is assuming people will be kind. It's better to watch your back. Trust has to be earned.

"Don't know yet."

Murderbot nods. Even though it's animals, it's animals from the eyes of humans. Animals as humans. It's still humans, is its point.

"I haven't read them yet," Murderbot says, "but there are more books in the series."

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[vi has two pair of headphones set aside, and she's no longer wearing her cat facepaint and mask. she has abruptly switched to nightmare steed with no outward explanation other than a renewed appreciation for batcats, and few paw-to-finger bumps with visenya. her clothes are comfortable - an asymmetrical loose-draped jacket over a long sleeved tunic, a pair of green leggings sansa made her, and boots that are less weaponlike and more for everyday wear.

she'd attempted to smuggle in a bucket of alcoholic cider - in truth forgetting the rules, and only grumbling at eden for the few moments it took her to repack the bucket and carry it home, trading out the bottles for something more appropriate, but less likely to curb her worry.

she's brought back the iced bucket with more than a few bottles of cider - gathered up some snacks, and cracks one of those bottles open as she waits. she's brought music, too. it's an ecclectic batch of songs, and she's figured out how to link up her omni after a couple tries and an assist from eden. also as she waits, the worry rears its head - reminding her to maybe take a break. maybe meditate?

she queues that up - the meditation she's found that's been particularly helpful this month. so, it's to this meditation playing in her ears, her own voice echoing the mantra between swigs of non alcoholic cider, that nara'a might find her.]

Breathe in strength. Breathe out bullshit.

[♪allow your breathing to discover its own natural, unhurried pace. if your thoughts drift to the three-ring shit show of your life, bring your attention back to your breathing. and with each breath, feel your body saying♪]

....fuck that.

[♪with passive acceptance, just allow distracting thoughts to float by.♪]

...fffuuuuuuuck thaaaaaaat.

Edited 2022-10-13 17:52 (UTC)

[He hasn't been to the Entertainment Feed yet - in truth he finds the place a little intimidating. He's still getting used to the idea of media that isn't books or plays or live music, and the big screens make him feel a little too immersed. But he's gotten used to the idea of headphones, and the omni has surprised him with some of the music he's found. It's like orchestrion rolls... and he's found a traditional Ul'dahn song.]

Under arid skies, with silk veils we weave a rainbow...

[His singing voice is actually pretty good. When he heads into the Feed he spots Vi - but she's meditating, it looks like? He blinks in surprise and shrugs, sitting down next to her to wait for her to finish. It's fine, he can listen to this song on repeat for a while if need be.]

[a deep breath out and vi opens her eyes. oh, hey. she mouths it as she waves, and turns off the meditation. she's feeling so much better even from that brief bit - and from the surroundings, too. a friendly face just piles on to that, and the next breath she takes doesn't need reminding to feel easy.]

You made it. I brought cider, and it's even in bottles. Whatcha got playin?

[He pulls off his headphones and hands it over to her.]

A traditional song that I used to like listening to when I lived in Ul'dah. I'm surprised I found it... but I guess even this place has orchestrion rolls. Or... 'digital' versions of them, I guess?

[He read a book on electronics, he knows the word 'digital'. It still feels unfamiliar to say, but he's trying to learn.]

It's better quality than I'm used to, too. What were you listening to?

Orchestrion rolls? Reminds me ...there's snacks, too.

[because everything 'roll' is now a food to her. of course it is. though there is a little bag of cinnamon rolls in the basket. oh. shit. she jumps up, sheepishly pulling the only slightly damp package from the bottles and ice, and setting it down in a place not full of condensation.]

Cool. Stoked to hear it. Is it one for dancing, or more listening?

[she takes off her own headset, replaces it with the ones offered and slips them over her ears before rolling her eyes and handing hers over.]

I'd make you promise not to laugh, but have a laugh if you want. There's something ...weird going on with me lately. I'm all nerves, and the meditation helps.

They're like... things that can store music. Uh... like paper versions of...

[He's struggling for the word. Hm.]

'CDs'?

[He's pretty sure that's what the book said.]

And this one's mostly for dancing... it's a festival sort of song. With silk streamers and things like that... but there's plenty of people who just sit and listen, too. Not everyone's a dancer.

[He takes the headset and nods, smiling at her. He slips them on and... oh. He listens for a minute and stifles his laughter.]

Hey, if it works for you! I'm sorry you're all nerves... I'm really tired lately. I think it might be blood effects?

[will no one appreciate her ~~stupid~~ clever food put?] Oh! Yeah, yeah, I get it.

[with that in mind (dancing) - she starts the music, trying to picture what the festival might look like - really, just her mind superimposing nara'a into a cheerier black parade setting, a mashup of piltover and cellar door, with a dragon looking on. (hey, it's the best she's got right now). this is a sweeping, epic story in the lyrics. it's hopeful, worshipful, but also a bit grim and serious and somehow ...uplifting? so yeah, festival dance totally tracks.] Oh, wow. [she's unsure how to dance to it, but she's just going to move anyway.]

I like the part about carrying your dreams on your back.

Not sure if I'm a dancer, after all, but maybe it's 'cause I don't know the steps. There steps to this one?

[she knows the meditation is a bit ridiculous. that's part of its charm.]

Jinx got hit hit with a case of the sleepies, too! I had to fly a whole basket up to her treehouse, and brush soup out of her hair. Well, when I had hands. [oh, yeah. that.] No big deal, I was a batcat for a couple days.

[It flew right over his head, unfortunately. Blame the sleepies.]

[She's no tall that far off, though there's a lot more sand and sun than in Trench. Still, he smiles and nudges her gently.]

There's steps for the dancers with the silks, but everyone else just kind of goes with the music? It's supposed to be fun, not stressful. There's a lot of vendors selling things, and people breaking out into song and dance... it's very colorful. And fun to watch from above, if you manage to... say, clamber up a ladder someone was using for decorating?

[He grins a bit wider.]

I like being up high.

[It makes him feel tall! But he nods at the rest of what she says.]

Fell asleep in her soup, huh? I've... been mostly trying to exercise to stave it off. And... I'd ask how you became a batcat, but I suspect the answer is 'Trench'.

Boy, are you dumb. She's not a vampire. She's a lawyer. (Book Club)

You're fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight (Silent Disco)

In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, black, and towering. (Legendary Ghost viewings)

You're on Candid Camera (Docu-Lore)

Murderbot

Bun Apologist

Nowhere Left to Run

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Bun apologist

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[closed to nara'a 10/14]

Minor 6.1 spoilers

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