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aunt_zeldaTitle: Those People With the Cards
Rating: R for frank discussions of death
Word Count: 1,725 (aprox.)
Characters, Pairings: Snob/Luke, the Nostalgia Critic, Obscuras Lupa, Oancitizen, Diamanda Hagan, the Minions, Phelous, Linkara, Luke and all of the Inners: Philip, Ringo, Donny, James, Stanley, Lucas, Ralph, Guy, Neil, Wretch, Scott, Terry, and Dave.
Spoilers: For To Boldly Flee
Disclaimer: I do not own the Machine of Death (franchise?) and highly encourage you all to go buy the book, subscribe to their podcast, and buy their swag. I mean no offense to any of the people whose characters are featured herein, these are all meant to be fictional characters and not the actors themselves.
Warnings: Mentions of suicide. Discussion of how people will die. Intense dwelling on death and dying. Drug use. Overall depressing situations.
A/N: Ok, so there’s this thing called Machine of Death. It’s this idea made up in a Dinosaur Comic, what if there was a machine that took a sample of your blood, and spat out a card that told you how you would die? Not the time or specifics, just a word or a couple of words, vague and sometimes ironic or cruelly unspecific. Nobody know show or why it works, but it’s always right and never changes. How would that change society, how people live and chose to go about their daily lives? There was a contest a while back and the winners were put into an anthology, which you can buy as a book or download as an ebook now. They’re also putting out audio versions of the stories for free on iTunes, read by the authors themselves sometimes. A second volume is in the works and I can’t wait. I don’t know why I got into this premise but I did in a big way last year. And I got the idea to do this because … I honestly don’t know.
There’s no real rhyme or reason to the characters I chose to write about in this. They’re just the ideas that hit me right away. If there’s interest I’ll write more.
The Snob
People wonder why he takes cocaine, when everyone knows how dangerous the stuff is. They think he hasn’t gotten his card, or must be some kind of freak with a card that says “Cocaine” or “Overdose.”
He knows it won’t be the cocaine, though.
His card reads “Bullet.”
He’ll probably be high, and fucking around, and get shot. Or it could be something innocuous, unrelated to the cocaine, a stray bullet from a drive-by, a runaway horse named “Bullet,” a copy of Silver Bullet hurled at his head.
It won’t be the cocaine though.
That’s what he tells himself, as he takes a snort from the table for the second (third?) time that night. That’s what he tells himself when he pulls the 1st AD onto his lap, the Canadian kid with the curly dark hair and the wide, trusting eyes.
“Take a hit, kiddo, you deserve it,” he grins.
Luke shakes his head; the Snob kisses him and gets flecks of powder in Luke’s hair.
The Critic
He isn’t sure what his card means. Will he be buried alive, prematurely? Is there some plan to kill him that will ultimately succeed? Or will he be part of a conspiracy, some scheme that will go awry? Perhaps, when he’s older and desperate for cash, he’ll take part in a bank robbery that’ll go south?
What the fuck does “Plot” mean anyways?
Phelous
He has, to date, broken eleven Machines. He sticks his finger in the slot, hears the mechanisms whir and buzz, and a card is spat out into the slot. Then another. Then another. And another. And two more, three, five, nine, and the Machine starts to smoke and still spits out cards, cards singed with the flames now, cards on fire, setting the corner kiosk of the mall ablaze …
Phelous smirks and sticks his finger in the latest Machine. This will be number twelve. He’s started to paper his bedroom with the cards he manages to collect before the Machines combust. An endless stream of deaths, too many to count, or alphabetize, or organize in any way.
Obscuras Lupa
She doesn’t like to cook. She avoids it, has her stove disconnected. When it’s her time, she doesn’t want it to be something like a stove or even a boiler. She wants it to be a car, or a twelve car pile up, or a building demolition. Something big, and bright, and memorable.
“Explosion” is what her card says. She’s well versed in all kinds of those, from the movies she loves. She hopes, when it’s her time, it’ll be a good one.
Oancitizen
He is not the sort of person who goes around tackily flashing his card to pick up women or impress people. He doesn’t have a special wallet with a sleeve for it, or one of those ridiculous shirts with a plastic rectangle over his chest to display it.
He does have his card framed, though, in a small gilt frame he keeps in his desk drawer. He looks at it sometimes, when he’s feeling … well, when he needs a reminder that his life is not yet over.
“Broken Heart.”
That means he has to be in love, at least once, for it to be broken sufficiently.
He wonders what she … or he, really, distinctions of gender are meaningless in this circumstance … will be like. How they will smile, what their laugh will sound like, what their fashion style will be. He hopes that his dread won’t spoil their love, however brief or lengthy it will be. At night, when he is utterly alone with his thoughts, he dares to dream that he and this future love of his will be together for decades, grow old together, and the “Broken Heart” will kill him when he is seventy, eighty, ninety or even older, after having to bury his love.
He is waiting. He is watching. He is eager for the love that will come before the heartbreak.
Diamanda Hagan
Hagan refuses to get herself tested. She says she considers herself above it, insists that she will never die, etc. But she forces all the minions to get tested. It’s a way of testing herself, because whatever kills her eventually will have to get through them first.
They get “Hagan” or “The Mistress” or “Following Orders.” Every single one of them.
She knows that once that begins to change, she’ll be in trouble.
For now, though … she’s content to let the minions get tested and keep away from the Machine herself.
Linkara
Sometimes people tell him he’s trying too hard to be heroic. That he’s a stick in the mud, too much of a straight edge, ask why he doesn’t swear on his show. His villains try to tempt him, and insult him for his stubbornness when he refuses to cave. They call him weak, naïve, rigidly clinging to rules he refuses to bend for any reason.
He hasn’t told any of them the reason. They’re villains, they don’t deserve to know.
He’s told a few of his friends, in close confidence. He doesn’t want to sound like he’s bragging, about his card. He knows a lot of people would, use it to pick up people in bars, get rounds of free drinks, get on talk shows. He’s seen them do it, again and again. He thinks those people are reprehensible; they don’t deserve their cards.
“Saving the Life of Another.”
Linkara wants to be the kind of person who can live up to that kind of death, someone worthy of shouldering that kind of heroism. He hopes the person he saves will live a good life, impact others positively and make the world a better place.
Luke and the Inners
Luke receives fourteen cards. The Machine growls at him, but doesn’t explode.
It’s tough to sort them all out. Finally, someone has the bright idea to take the test with each of them “driving” as it were, to get the proper results. It takes some time, and disguises so it won’t seem too suspicious, but eventually it’s all sorted out. Luke doesn’t let Ralph out though, not for something like this. So it’s thirteen cards, and the odd one out is Ralph’s.
Philip’s is “Ulcer” which makes him grumble about the Machine’s lack of logic and Ringo whimper in concern.
Donny has “Blowfish” which confuses them all until he tells them he is, after all, allergic to seafood. They all decide it’ll either be an accident, or poison by a betrayed lover. Donny doesn’t seem to mind, so long as he gets to spend ample time with the new lover after he’s dumped the poisoner.
James has “Rug” which can be interpreted so many ways they all give up on trying. They catch James trying to remove all the rugs from the house at 3am, though, much to Luke’s annoyance at his body being dragged around at all hours hauling heavy fabric to the curb.
Ringo’s is “Sleeping.” He grins, “Hey, that’s not so bad! Sounds pretty nice, actually, going in my sleep.” Philip, still smarting over “Ulcer,” begins pointing out that the card doesn’t mean Ringo will be the one asleep, it could be a driver asleep at the wheel who’ll run Ringo over, or any number of accidents. Ringo refuses to listen, and goes to sleep that night without a care in the world.
Stanley has “Con” which he insists means “Convention” like “Comic Con” and everyone else thinks means he’ll get taken advantage of by someone, likely for tickets to Comic Con.
Lucas receives “Old Age” which makes sense. It’s the only thing that can “kill” him, after all. He looks worried and clings to Ringo for a while, trying not to cry and snuffling against Ringo’s shirt.
Scott gets “Fall.” He muses on whether that means falling down stairs, the season, that one band he’d totally opened for that one time, someone or something else falling onto him … he keeps going in circles until the rest of them decide to continue looking over their cards.
Neil goes through a whole song and dance, not wanting to look and then wanting to look, and not wanting to get confused with whatever Ralph’s card will be. Eventually he looks: “Air.” Neil faints and doesn’t wake up for a week.
Guy has “Heart Attack,” a pretty common card. Guy was hoping for something to do with booze or babes, and grumbles for the rest of the night.
Dave also receives “Heart Attack,” to his intense annoyance. “It’s been done before!” he whines, waving at Guy’s card. “That is so unfair! I want to take it again!”
Wretch has “Choking” which makes him squirm uncomfortably and leave the group as soon as possible for the night. Ralph smirks infuriatingly and sing-songs “I know something you all don’t!” until they all glare him into silence. Luke frowns: he has a sneaking suspicion … some vague recollection about waking up with a belt around his neck when he was sixteen, sweaty and confused with cum all over his pants and some pirate documentary on the tv, not knowing how he’d gotten there. Huh.
Terry gets, of all things, “Government.” This spurs him to join an organization of people who all have that very same card and spend an obnoxious time in chatrooms speculating about it. He makes buttons, on the weekends. Nobody else wears them, so he covers the backpack in them and Luke has to spend three hours picking them off and getting the needles out of the threads of the bag.
Ralph has “Electricity.” Everyone has a sneaking suspicion of what that means. Luke is even more resolved after that to keep Ralph locked away. The card makes Ralph cackle about frying up at County and wondering if all the Inners would feel the currents rushing through their shared body. Ralph actually wants to ride the lightning. Luke shoves Ralph deep down, as far as he can go, and shuts a door on him.
Luke … after seeing all the possibilities, Luke doesn’t want to look at his. Of course, he can’t chicken out now, not with thirteen personalities staring him down. With sweaty fingers, he turns over his card.
“Loneliness.”
For once, nobody has any comments to make, no jokes or speculations.
Rating: R for frank discussions of death
Word Count: 1,725 (aprox.)
Characters, Pairings: Snob/Luke, the Nostalgia Critic, Obscuras Lupa, Oancitizen, Diamanda Hagan, the Minions, Phelous, Linkara, Luke and all of the Inners: Philip, Ringo, Donny, James, Stanley, Lucas, Ralph, Guy, Neil, Wretch, Scott, Terry, and Dave.
Spoilers: For To Boldly Flee
Disclaimer: I do not own the Machine of Death (franchise?) and highly encourage you all to go buy the book, subscribe to their podcast, and buy their swag. I mean no offense to any of the people whose characters are featured herein, these are all meant to be fictional characters and not the actors themselves.
Warnings: Mentions of suicide. Discussion of how people will die. Intense dwelling on death and dying. Drug use. Overall depressing situations.
A/N: Ok, so there’s this thing called Machine of Death. It’s this idea made up in a Dinosaur Comic, what if there was a machine that took a sample of your blood, and spat out a card that told you how you would die? Not the time or specifics, just a word or a couple of words, vague and sometimes ironic or cruelly unspecific. Nobody know show or why it works, but it’s always right and never changes. How would that change society, how people live and chose to go about their daily lives? There was a contest a while back and the winners were put into an anthology, which you can buy as a book or download as an ebook now. They’re also putting out audio versions of the stories for free on iTunes, read by the authors themselves sometimes. A second volume is in the works and I can’t wait. I don’t know why I got into this premise but I did in a big way last year. And I got the idea to do this because … I honestly don’t know.
There’s no real rhyme or reason to the characters I chose to write about in this. They’re just the ideas that hit me right away. If there’s interest I’ll write more.
The Snob
People wonder why he takes cocaine, when everyone knows how dangerous the stuff is. They think he hasn’t gotten his card, or must be some kind of freak with a card that says “Cocaine” or “Overdose.”
He knows it won’t be the cocaine, though.
His card reads “Bullet.”
He’ll probably be high, and fucking around, and get shot. Or it could be something innocuous, unrelated to the cocaine, a stray bullet from a drive-by, a runaway horse named “Bullet,” a copy of Silver Bullet hurled at his head.
It won’t be the cocaine though.
That’s what he tells himself, as he takes a snort from the table for the second (third?) time that night. That’s what he tells himself when he pulls the 1st AD onto his lap, the Canadian kid with the curly dark hair and the wide, trusting eyes.
“Take a hit, kiddo, you deserve it,” he grins.
Luke shakes his head; the Snob kisses him and gets flecks of powder in Luke’s hair.
The Critic
He isn’t sure what his card means. Will he be buried alive, prematurely? Is there some plan to kill him that will ultimately succeed? Or will he be part of a conspiracy, some scheme that will go awry? Perhaps, when he’s older and desperate for cash, he’ll take part in a bank robbery that’ll go south?
What the fuck does “Plot” mean anyways?
Phelous
He has, to date, broken eleven Machines. He sticks his finger in the slot, hears the mechanisms whir and buzz, and a card is spat out into the slot. Then another. Then another. And another. And two more, three, five, nine, and the Machine starts to smoke and still spits out cards, cards singed with the flames now, cards on fire, setting the corner kiosk of the mall ablaze …
Phelous smirks and sticks his finger in the latest Machine. This will be number twelve. He’s started to paper his bedroom with the cards he manages to collect before the Machines combust. An endless stream of deaths, too many to count, or alphabetize, or organize in any way.
Obscuras Lupa
She doesn’t like to cook. She avoids it, has her stove disconnected. When it’s her time, she doesn’t want it to be something like a stove or even a boiler. She wants it to be a car, or a twelve car pile up, or a building demolition. Something big, and bright, and memorable.
“Explosion” is what her card says. She’s well versed in all kinds of those, from the movies she loves. She hopes, when it’s her time, it’ll be a good one.
Oancitizen
He is not the sort of person who goes around tackily flashing his card to pick up women or impress people. He doesn’t have a special wallet with a sleeve for it, or one of those ridiculous shirts with a plastic rectangle over his chest to display it.
He does have his card framed, though, in a small gilt frame he keeps in his desk drawer. He looks at it sometimes, when he’s feeling … well, when he needs a reminder that his life is not yet over.
“Broken Heart.”
That means he has to be in love, at least once, for it to be broken sufficiently.
He wonders what she … or he, really, distinctions of gender are meaningless in this circumstance … will be like. How they will smile, what their laugh will sound like, what their fashion style will be. He hopes that his dread won’t spoil their love, however brief or lengthy it will be. At night, when he is utterly alone with his thoughts, he dares to dream that he and this future love of his will be together for decades, grow old together, and the “Broken Heart” will kill him when he is seventy, eighty, ninety or even older, after having to bury his love.
He is waiting. He is watching. He is eager for the love that will come before the heartbreak.
Diamanda Hagan
Hagan refuses to get herself tested. She says she considers herself above it, insists that she will never die, etc. But she forces all the minions to get tested. It’s a way of testing herself, because whatever kills her eventually will have to get through them first.
They get “Hagan” or “The Mistress” or “Following Orders.” Every single one of them.
She knows that once that begins to change, she’ll be in trouble.
For now, though … she’s content to let the minions get tested and keep away from the Machine herself.
Linkara
Sometimes people tell him he’s trying too hard to be heroic. That he’s a stick in the mud, too much of a straight edge, ask why he doesn’t swear on his show. His villains try to tempt him, and insult him for his stubbornness when he refuses to cave. They call him weak, naïve, rigidly clinging to rules he refuses to bend for any reason.
He hasn’t told any of them the reason. They’re villains, they don’t deserve to know.
He’s told a few of his friends, in close confidence. He doesn’t want to sound like he’s bragging, about his card. He knows a lot of people would, use it to pick up people in bars, get rounds of free drinks, get on talk shows. He’s seen them do it, again and again. He thinks those people are reprehensible; they don’t deserve their cards.
“Saving the Life of Another.”
Linkara wants to be the kind of person who can live up to that kind of death, someone worthy of shouldering that kind of heroism. He hopes the person he saves will live a good life, impact others positively and make the world a better place.
Luke and the Inners
Luke receives fourteen cards. The Machine growls at him, but doesn’t explode.
It’s tough to sort them all out. Finally, someone has the bright idea to take the test with each of them “driving” as it were, to get the proper results. It takes some time, and disguises so it won’t seem too suspicious, but eventually it’s all sorted out. Luke doesn’t let Ralph out though, not for something like this. So it’s thirteen cards, and the odd one out is Ralph’s.
Philip’s is “Ulcer” which makes him grumble about the Machine’s lack of logic and Ringo whimper in concern.
Donny has “Blowfish” which confuses them all until he tells them he is, after all, allergic to seafood. They all decide it’ll either be an accident, or poison by a betrayed lover. Donny doesn’t seem to mind, so long as he gets to spend ample time with the new lover after he’s dumped the poisoner.
James has “Rug” which can be interpreted so many ways they all give up on trying. They catch James trying to remove all the rugs from the house at 3am, though, much to Luke’s annoyance at his body being dragged around at all hours hauling heavy fabric to the curb.
Ringo’s is “Sleeping.” He grins, “Hey, that’s not so bad! Sounds pretty nice, actually, going in my sleep.” Philip, still smarting over “Ulcer,” begins pointing out that the card doesn’t mean Ringo will be the one asleep, it could be a driver asleep at the wheel who’ll run Ringo over, or any number of accidents. Ringo refuses to listen, and goes to sleep that night without a care in the world.
Stanley has “Con” which he insists means “Convention” like “Comic Con” and everyone else thinks means he’ll get taken advantage of by someone, likely for tickets to Comic Con.
Lucas receives “Old Age” which makes sense. It’s the only thing that can “kill” him, after all. He looks worried and clings to Ringo for a while, trying not to cry and snuffling against Ringo’s shirt.
Scott gets “Fall.” He muses on whether that means falling down stairs, the season, that one band he’d totally opened for that one time, someone or something else falling onto him … he keeps going in circles until the rest of them decide to continue looking over their cards.
Neil goes through a whole song and dance, not wanting to look and then wanting to look, and not wanting to get confused with whatever Ralph’s card will be. Eventually he looks: “Air.” Neil faints and doesn’t wake up for a week.
Guy has “Heart Attack,” a pretty common card. Guy was hoping for something to do with booze or babes, and grumbles for the rest of the night.
Dave also receives “Heart Attack,” to his intense annoyance. “It’s been done before!” he whines, waving at Guy’s card. “That is so unfair! I want to take it again!”
Wretch has “Choking” which makes him squirm uncomfortably and leave the group as soon as possible for the night. Ralph smirks infuriatingly and sing-songs “I know something you all don’t!” until they all glare him into silence. Luke frowns: he has a sneaking suspicion … some vague recollection about waking up with a belt around his neck when he was sixteen, sweaty and confused with cum all over his pants and some pirate documentary on the tv, not knowing how he’d gotten there. Huh.
Terry gets, of all things, “Government.” This spurs him to join an organization of people who all have that very same card and spend an obnoxious time in chatrooms speculating about it. He makes buttons, on the weekends. Nobody else wears them, so he covers the backpack in them and Luke has to spend three hours picking them off and getting the needles out of the threads of the bag.
Ralph has “Electricity.” Everyone has a sneaking suspicion of what that means. Luke is even more resolved after that to keep Ralph locked away. The card makes Ralph cackle about frying up at County and wondering if all the Inners would feel the currents rushing through their shared body. Ralph actually wants to ride the lightning. Luke shoves Ralph deep down, as far as he can go, and shuts a door on him.
Luke … after seeing all the possibilities, Luke doesn’t want to look at his. Of course, he can’t chicken out now, not with thirteen personalities staring him down. With sweaty fingers, he turns over his card.
“Loneliness.”
For once, nobody has any comments to make, no jokes or speculations.
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Date: 2013-04-09 01:04 am (UTC)