what exactly is a joke?

it's awfully considerate of you to think of me here. and i'm much obliged to you for making it clear that i'm not here.

[sureihsan-arc]

pinned !

forward -- mutants: intro || interactions || forward -- supernatural/fantasy: intro || interactions ||

[smitebound]

oh, you have no idea is what he would have said if he was looking to be suspicious—or at the very least, uncomfortably ominous. instead, he offers a shrug and a smile. that itch of his has only gotten worse the deeper he sinks into vampirism, but if there's anything in the world that might bring him down... "sure do. and you're the man to scratch it," he agrees, clapping him on the shoulder. "i'll even stick it in for you, if you want. always did like watching it go in, myself. you strike me as that kind of fellow, too."

[sureihsan-arc]

" never understood the needle weenies, man. what's the pleasure of the slide if you can't bear to fuckin' watch it ? " okay, from a realistic standpoint, he did understand the pleasure. the appeal of the needle was that it worked so much fucking faster than any other method, not that it slid in with a certain amount of grace once you'd gotten enough practice... nonetheless, needle weenies who had to look away once they found the vein they were targeting ? well, what the fuck were they doing using needles in the first place !? ah, the people ihsan ran into... " i'll let you live vicariously through me, my friend. poke however you used to ! " ihsan was a very generous man... and trusted that a guy like ezra would know what he was doing ( fuck knew he wasn't dumb enough to let some random fuck stick him ). entering a 'shabby ol' shop,' one step away from a crack den, ihsan gestured towards a dusty table smack dab in the middle. " can set up shop over there. "

[smitebound]

"recreational." both, really, but what difference does it make? he's always been the life of the party, not some twisted freak who needs to shut himself down to be sane. "i've had a bit of a rough go of it lately and need a little pick-me-up. you know how it is." the only thing more powerful than his craving for smack is his craving for blood—and tying them together might seem like a terrible idea to anyone that didn't know he already had, long before this back-alley shit had become complicated for him. "i've got it all, don't you worry," he adds, sliding his little black bag off his shoulder. "just need the stuff and... well, you."

[sureihsan-arc]

" my man. " ihsan had yet to run into any drugs he would refuse ( after all, although he was not exactly immortal, it took a shit ton to brink him even close to the brink ), but the recreational ones always outweighed the 'legal drug trial' drugs, anything medicinal with no fun side effects, or anything... totally unknown that wound up being absolute shit. " alright, let's rock on. " waving a hand, ihsan began walking to one of the designated 'safe areas' ( see: not out in the open, not in someone's house, not somewhere the pigs fucked with ). " got an itch, eh ? "

[okiesuni]

                          @sureihsan

                          " you very much radiate both starving and tortured artist , which , while i'd usually poke fun at , i am capable of appreciating it. here's a dollar for all of your undoubtedly difficult hardships. " she doesn't bother to bite back the teasing grin that spills onto her face , extending the bill out to him.

[sureihsan-arc]

" oi -- you're forgetting the fucking trifecta, suni ! " snatching the dollar she held out to him ( who the fuck was gonna pass up a free dollar ? whether it was in jest or not ! ), he offered an unnecessary twist before steadying himself by grabbing onto her shoulder. " it's starving, tortured, and mad. " pressing into thin air to emphasize each adjective, he continued, " starving artist, tortured artist, mad artist. fucking forgetting a tale as old as fucking time ! "

[smitebound]

it's an easier sell than he expects, although given the circumstances... he's almost positive that ihsan has heard stranger pitches. on the bright side, now that he's sidestepped the struggle he'd been anticipating, he can slide right back into his element. almost. gods, he has to stop breathing when ihsan puts an arm around him. it's deliberate and unwavering concentration that keeps his fangs retracted. "needle. just the usual. nothing you haven't done before. no trouble, yeah?"

[sureihsan-arc]

" easy enough. 'medical,' recreational... ? " not that he really cared whether ezra wanted to get high or take his SSRI ( that he had to shoot up. obviously. ), but curiosity killed the cat -- and with the cat doing quite the favor... " you got the shit on you ? " despite outward appearance, ihsan very rarely had a cotton ball or a spoon or a syringe or any form of a tourniquet ( fuck shoelaces ! ) on his person. a lighter, sure ! but the works ? that was up to the customer on the very stray back alley deals he made. ( once you're already fucking things up in the name of 'science,' why not take it a step further and get a little bit of shady business on the side ? fuck it up in the name of helping some poor fuck with his recreation or... whatever ezra was gonna need ? test to make sure it wouldn't kill the average joe, wouldn't have adverse reactions, wasn't mixed with anything... etc, etc. it was a lucrative and untapped market ! )

[smitebound]

"i need you to take the drug, and then..." the proposition he's holding on the tip of his tongue is almost enough to have him turning tail for the exist. he doesn't want to ask. but he needs to ask. "let me... suck it out of you. your blood, that is. i can't take it... the normal way, anymore." each second of silence feels like a century. "i'll pay extra. obviously."

[sureihsan-arc]

interesting request, different request -- ezra wasn't wrong. but, fuck it, whatever the hell ezra wanted him to take, ihsan had probably taken worse ( voluntarily or for 'trials' ). " what we doing, then ? pill, powder, injection, et cetera ? " he asked, daring to sling an arm around ezra's shoulders.

[smitebound]

starter for @sureihsan !!

"i need you to do me a favor, mate." there are plenty of holes that ezra has tried not to crawl back into, but few that get real commitment out of him. "...different kind of favor this time."

[sureihsan-arc]

" oi -- different kind of favor, eh ? " unlike most he was unfortunately acquainted with, ezra always did ihsan the favor of bringing some spice to his life. ( addendum: spice that was not the direct product of ihsan -- his own spice did not count. ) " share, my man. "

[sureihsan-arc]

( uraz kaygılaroğlu, cis man, he/him ) — Look what the werecat’s dragged in! If you take a look at our records, you’ll find that IHSAN KAPLAN is a THIRTY-SIX year old MUSICIAN/ARTIST/LAB RAT that’s been in Cromerth Woods for TEN YEARS. According to this file, they’re a DEMIGOD ( SON OF LYSSA ) hailing all the way from SAN FRANCISCO. That must be why they’re CREATIVE and UNRELIABLE. If you ask me, they remind me of a man forty stories high, black holes in the sky - growing. growing. growing., dark brushstrokes creating a horrific rendition of the starry night. They are allied with NOBODY.

-largely the same

-father fucked a goddess. ihsan was born. awful idea.

-alara, his half-sister, is born at some point! same dad obvs <3

-kinda the same story as last time only

-more jekyll and hyde. more harvey dent/two-face. etc etc. but he still had more humanity as a child, teen, and young adult. two-face started taking over when he started noticing the shittier parts of life! lyssa's influence is incredibly strong now.

-was still in a band. still made money. still made music after leaving. still made art. much more negative and critical tho.

[sureihsan-arc]

who: @cursedflesh​ what: ihsan has written a new song and wants his bff’s input! where: uh not chicago when: like... around 13yrs ago. (pretend his hair is a lil longer and shaggier <3)

“ is this... ” handing the sheet of paper to terry -- complete with tablature and all ! -- ihsan shrugged his shoulders. “ is this... anything ? ”

[sureihsan-arc]

romy-rubenstein​:

“I’m not a troublemaker, I’m hungry and I don’t see why I’m not allowed into actual restaurants.“ Romy says, at the same moment that her mother looks disdainfully at this Gary guy and her father, after regarding him for a long moment, deigns to take his hand in a brief shake. That’s where his politeness begins and ends, however, as he then informs Gary that ‘this is a family situation, if you don’t mind–’.

“ well, just look at you ! ” was ihsan a fan of knocking a mutant’s confidence on the basis of their mutation ? no. but did he have a larger plan ? ...kind of ? “ and then look at them ! shining pillars, don’t you think ? of elegance and grace and humanity ! ” dripping a part of himself into the young woman’s father, he continued, “ besides, ”  “ when have family situations ever stopped us ? ” the ‘father’ finished. “ well, that is a fucking great question ! right, ma ? ”

[sureihsan-arc]

romy-rubenstein​:

“You know there’s plenty of restaurants that can make accommodations for mutants, right?” Romy huffs. Her parents have deigned to make time in their busy schedule for a catch up (that Romy doesn’t particularly want), but it involves them making her wait outside while they go into a sandwich shop and buy stuff to eat sitting on a park bench. They don’t want Romy dripping all over the shop.

And apparently a restaurant making accommodations would be embarrassing. So Romy sighs, slumping where she sits on the bench, taking little bites of her tuna sandwich. At least the shop wraps it in wax paper so it doesn’t get soggy like most of her sandwiches do. It’s a pretty good sandwich. That’s what she focuses on as her parents begin their usual boring drivel, mother patting dispassionately at Romy with a handkerchief as if it’ll ever dry her off, complaining about how expensive and embarrassing the court case had been, trying to convince her to see their dentist to get crowns put on her fangs, to see a plastic surgeon to removing the webbing in her fingers, tugging at her hair to try and ensure it falls in such a way that it covers her gills. It’s great. Romy is having a blast. Really. If she looks like she’s thinking about ending it all… well. @sureihsan​

“ oi ! accommodations are a quitter’s way out ! right, ma and pa ? ” he smiled down at the man and woman on either side of the drip drip dripping girl ( relationship assumed, but did it matter ? ) and held out his hand. “ hi there, i’m gary schulz. it’s nice to meet you. ” he turned his attention back to the drip drip dripping girl. “ and who’s the little troublemaker we have here, eh ? ”

[sureihsan-arc]

viictorious​:

He doesn’t answer when he knocks his hand, though he wasn’t surprised that he got caught. Thank God it still records, and thank God that he didn’t instinctively try to burn the guy’s hand off, however satisfying it could have felt. “I’ve got friends, man.” A flash of anger, hot against the roof. “I talk—” Fuck, he’s supposed to be dead. “To my old friend’s grave, sometimes. Bring him funny videos. Tell them who dropped off the face of the earth since he died. Give him new songs he might like and laugh about what happened. Fuck you.”

God, he’s just so angry, and Victor really feels it infect his emotions. Floating up and away, creating some distance and emphatically looking down upon Ihsan, he starts, smiling at him as he tries to viciously tear at whatever he’s got going for him. “I don’t know what rock you crawled out from, loser—but judging from the wannabe outfit, you look like someone from a scene that wants nothing to do with you. Sure, I’m famous, sure I got yes men five years ago, and sure—I had shit music. But you know about me.” His tongue is venom, his eyes are lasers. He wants him eviscerated socially. Psychologically. Fuck anyone who records this, but he won’t be saying sorry for this one.

“You’re what? A rocker? A music specialist, writing deep music for intellectuals and rebels, but no one cares, you’re just some horrible person with art that no one would even care about.” His skin sizzles and his body feels… different. Like a sun. Like a star. “At least you hate my shit—you react to it, and it makes you feel shit, even when I don’t really care about my old stuff anymore. And you might’ve had been rocking stages and been a visionary, but who are you now? No one.”

“ friends, alright -- and you record other people, who haven’t fucking consented to it, for your friends ? ” putting his fist to his chin, a little inspiration drawn from the thinker, he shrugged his shoulders. “ so you have nothing better to talk about, then ? must be a pretty fuckin’ boring life for a ‘pop-star.’ ” now, he could have -- he easily could have -- told victor that he knew terry was alive and well ( or... as well as they could be, given that whole ‘dying’ thing ) ; he easily could’ve reminded victor that the entire world knew terry was alive again... but he wanted to see just how far victor would take this sorry charade before ‘ratting’ terry out on something he seemed to think he was supposed to keep secret. “ oi ! worse still... the friend you’re talking to... is dead ? you’re showing ‘funny videos’ and giving ‘new songs’ to a stone ? a fucking slab of concrete ? ” now would be the perfect time for a ralph waldo emerson comparison... but he’d wait to see if victor pressed on about this. “ alright. more power to you ! ” ‘loser,’ ‘wannabe,’ ‘no one’ -- as if he hadn’t heard it all before ( well, mainly ‘loser’ and ‘no one’ ). “ that’s really fuckin’ cute -- it really is ! i mean, your dead bestie wouldn’t have achieved any of their fucking success without me, but this whole... -- ” he gestured towards victor up in the air -- “ thing ? that and insults i heard when i was in high-school !? oh, you’re a fuckin’ big man, you cutie pie ! ” high-school, that’s right ! that’s when he’d been called a ‘wannabe’ ( though it was reserved for ‘hippie’ culture, not punk... which victor seemed to be a wannabe of... ) ! ‘loser’ and ‘no one’ were more recent insults, and given by a guy whose music he did not have a modicum of respect for ? he’d taken the same insults, though in not so few words, from who had once been his best friend and his own sister. he could bear hearing that flying ace call him the same. exerting himself and tearing the boundary between reality and madness, the buildings around them grew wide, fanged smiles and laughed. the passersby stopped walking, stopped thinking, became ‘npcs’ in this game, and he floated up to meet victor. “ i’ve said it before -- ” -- granted, to terry, but he was starting to find it really applied to all has-beens ! -- “ -- and fuck knows i’ll be fucking saying it again: don’t throw stones at glass houses. no one gives a shit about victor -- not the real victor, at least. they just like the fucking product, what they’re being sold. the day your millions of fans give a fuck about the music you give a fuck about ? -- because i think i’m starting to fucking hear that you like your shit about as much as i do, am i wrong ? ” what was worse ? churning out bad music and knowing it was bad, or making bad music and giving it to the general public anyway ? “ the day you show them the actual you -- the actual fucking you, your actual shit -- and all the fucking millions of them go along with it -- fuck, actually just a few thousand ? -- we can talk about who the real ‘no one’ here is. maybe i don’t have millions of adoring fans, but, last i checked, the fans i still have ? and the fans of early wilson red ? like it because it’s fucking real, not because i’m a product. and i’d rather be a fucking ‘no one’ with just a few thousands of fans who like me than a fucking ‘someone’ with millions of fans who like an idea. ”

[sureihsan-arc]

viictorious​:

Victor all but looks so classically bored about all this—he’s vapid, he’s above it all, he’s antagonistic, and the really bad Californian accent really did him over to genuine laughter. Hate. Love. The incessant scrolling does wonders for his psyche, though however inadvisable it might be coming from his therapist. He checks his watch, looks at the jabs and gathers that he has enough time to amuse himself with the man’s vitriol for at least a good half hour before it just grates.

“Terry’s going to get a kick out of you,” he mutters under his breath, taking a picture and recording the subsequent conversation. It’s not as if he had many more friends that could understand this, anyway. “Well, you aren’t screaming. Point. But why tell me I ruined music? Is this one for the new stuff being a bad Green Day ripoff, the old stuff being embarrassing pop, or the general mutant hating party? Just so I can tell it to a therapist. Or give it to a tabloid. Whichever one, really!”

the second he pulled out his phone, mentioned terry’s name and started recording him, ihsan knocked his hand. “ how the fuck do you know terry ? ” had wilson red gotten that bad ? they’d gotten bad -- oh, ihsan was the king of updated wilson red hate -- but so bad that they were grouped with this fucking pop act !? had they sacrificed that much fucking artistic integrity !? soulless music for sure, but at least they were fake deep with the very very occasional 5/4 time signature.   “ ruined music ? oi, pretty fuckin’ egotistical statement ! hope you don’t think you have that much fuckin’ power over the music industry. ” he’d insulted his music, sure ! but had he said he ruined music ? nope ! it was still in the process of being ruined. it was still a gradual decline that even he could admit was not the fault of any particular artist. “ don’t know how the fuck you could even start to compare your shit to green day -- more of some... michael jackson ripoff, but with even less integrity than any other fuckin’ michael jackson ripoff, you know what i mean ? ” keep in mind, he was very much not up to date with the music scene ! “ and mutant hating -- well, that one’s just a fuckin’ laugh ! not mutant hating, just fuckin’ your shit hating and know you’ve had way too many fuckin’ ‘yes men’ and little fans in your dms about shirtless pics ! ”

[sureihsan-arc]

cursedflesh​:

        “you think seeing me on a billboard three years ago means you know what i’ve been up to?” or being on a television show, or on the front page of some gossip rag, or anything of the sort. it’s the stupidest thing they’ve heard in their entire life. “don’t know if you’ve noticed, but i haven’t been on anything in years.” and how irritating to say all of that and then turn the issue back on them! “and you haven’t seemed all that interested in sharing what you’ve been up to. just jumped right back into the same old shit.” right back into the arguments he’s trying really, really hard not to engage in. this is even part of it. oh, you’ve been everywhere. you went on without me. blah, blah, blah. terry doesn’t have it in them to keep listening to that crap when it’s ihsan that fled the coop. just because they had to put their foot down about him dragging everyone down with him doesn’t mean he wanted him out of their life!

         there are a lot of things they could say. well, guess who took the reins, kaplan? fucking guess? or what was i supposed to do? let you destroy the dream for both of us? mope until you decided to crawl on back from your cave? or you were the one who left. not me. but none of it feels like it has any point. why bother to rehash the same old things? ihsan wants to talk in circles, not them. “didn’t impact my everything? i died for that band, kaplan. died for it. literally. don’t talk to me about impact when you’ve got no bloody idea what went on.” they suck in another breath, trying to shove aside the feelings that keep trying to crawl their way back from the grave. he’s had enough of that for one lifetime! “and that’s the last thing i’m saying on it. if you want to keep holding onto the past, fine. but i won’t.”

         terry rolls their eyes. the left one gets stuck, leaving them to hit at their temple until it rights itself again… a physical indicator of the exact problem that’s befallen them. “so what kind of person are you, then? what are you doing with your life? from where i’m standing, you’re still a mess. being a mutant clearly isn’t fixing that for you.” the entire world. there he is, still caught up on some crusade to use the fame they don’t want against them. “sure, if that’s how you want to put it. look, mate, if you want to show me what’s up, then show me. but don’t expect me to be impressed because you’ve got some shiny, new power. i’d rather see you with a proper roof over your head and steady work. that would impress me.”

“ well, do i not ? ” the way terry presented... apathetic in personality, only half-functioning in physicality, ihsan would have been absolutely shocked to hear he’d gotten up to more than just laying around in the past few years. “ you’ve been, what ? working in a fuckin’ graveyard ? -- don’t throw stones at glass houses, man. ” even if terry’s job paid, even if terry had a roof over their head ( that wasn’t inside their mind ), ihsan was fucking sure that the last few years of their life had been just as remarkable as the last few years of his own -- if not less so ! “ oi -- well, what other shit were you expecting, eh ? band was the last noteworthy thing we did together, band was the last we’d been together, band was the -- ” -- reason they stopped talking. and because of creative differences, not because of relationship drama -- hell, barely even because of infighting. no, it was the reason they stopped talking because ihsan didn’t understand his own self anymore ( and, though he would not admit it -- not now, at least -- was dragging the other three down ). “ point fuckin’ is, you really didn’t think that’d be the first fuckin’ thing ? death might’ve shut some of you down, but it seemed like your brain was working fine. ” if not for a few misfires in the personality department... but that would be ihsan throwing stones at glass houses.  “ then get fucking mad about it, terry ! get fucking mad that you died for that shit band, whether you fuckin’ thought it was shit or not ! doesn’t fucking matter ! you say, you fuckin’ say, it impacted your fucking everything and you just don’t give one shit about it ? ” as much as he wanted proof that somewhere, no matter how buried, terry had missed him, he wanted more for terry to stop being so fucking... apathetic ! it could be easily disguised with ‘at peace with their fate’ to some eyes, but this was not the terry he knew. this was not terry in a peaceful state. and terry asserting that they had died for the band ? yeah, ihsan would say there was some pent-up anger ! or, if nothing else, some fucking resentment ! “ it impacted and it took my everything and i’m fucking mad about it ! if you really fucking think it impacted your everything too, i know that, somewhere, you’re fucking mad, too. ” if they had made their way onto the scene as a duo, would it be easier to accept ? possible. if they hadn’t had to share their dream with two outsiders ( turned into three ), would they have been as angry ? or resentful ? or... bothered, at the very fucking least ? as talented as the other guys had been, ihsan couldn’t confidently say that they made anything better. ihsan raised his eyebrows, shook his head, narrowed his eyes... “ still a fuckin’ mess, huh ? i know what i’m doing now, i know where i am now, i’m doing shit i like now. ” far more than he could say about the last time he had seen terry. he hardly ever knew where he was, hardly ever knew what he was doing, and began hating what he was doing as he felt the band pushing him away. he’d been a joke. but he wasn’t anymore. “ why the fuck should i be looking for ‘steady work’ that i won’t give one single shit about when i’ve got a perfectly fuckin’ fine situation here, hm ? ” he asked, tapping his temple. he knew terry would think he was off his gourd yet again, but that was on them. he was done being the fucking joke. “ you don’t know shit, walker, and you never fuckin’ did, and you never fuckin’ tried to. ”

[sureihsan-arc]

jules-douglas​:

Jules high fives with great gusto, not even remotely noting the way Ihsan has to lower his arm to reach Jules’ height. He’s never really cared about his size, and in fact he thinks tall guys lean on it way too much. Like, being six foot four isn’t a personality trait. So while that part doesn’t bother him, he can’t pretend the high five doesn’t sting his sensitive skin a little, and when it’s done he rubs the palm against the knuckles of his other hand. Totally worth a sting; he’s always on some level of discomfort anyway, but now he’s high fived Ihsan Kaplan!

Though his enthusiasm at Jules’ loyalty to his music is matched by the vigour of his annoyance at his ex-bandmates. Justifiably, Jules thinks! “But if they hadn’t kept the name, they couldn’t have kept riding the coattails of your fame. They’d have to actually become famous on their own merits then.” Yeah, yeah, Jules is a hopeless suck-up for Ihsan, he’s been very bored for a solid decade. You can’t blame him for leaning into a zesty bit of gossip. “Are you still doing your own stuff, like online and things for the real fans?” If Jules has already asked this, he can’t remember. He has memory issues. It is nothing to do with me being in the middle of a sprint and therefore unwilling to sacrifice word count to go and check.

“ you’re damn fuckin’ right ! they would’ve had to fuckin’ give up the gravy train and start making their own shit. make it fuckin’ all by their own merit ! ” of course, the damage already would have been done. ihsan’s name would have still been associated with the names of terrence walker, kit caruso, and the keyboardist. fuck, even his replacement was a fucking possibility ! they’d ‘played’ a few gigs together, after all. “ they got mainstream off their own shit ? doesn’t fucking matter. they wouldn’t have gotten on the radio without my material -- fuck, man, they were still playing my shit and my shit alone when they kicked me to the fuckin’ curb ! and, what’s fuckin’ worse, they sounded better playing that by themselves than playing the new shit that my name’s gotta be fuckin’ associated with ! ” they couldn’t have just changed the fucking band name !? fuck, if he could sit down with brian wilson and red krayola, he’d issue one hell of an apology for the way the updated wilson red had dragged their names through the mud.  “ i’m gonna be real with you, man -- i don’t really get the internet, ” which may have been part of why his solo career, despite sounding ten times more like wilson red than the updated version, hadn’t taken off much. “ i did put out a single and two solo albums -- that i wrote, recorded, composed, and produced all by my fuckin’ self -- a few years back. fuckin’ think my magnum opus was on ‘painter, piper, prisoner,’ but it didn’t have the wilson red name attached to it. ”

[sureihsan-arc]

See the pain on the wall? See the blood in the streets? There is nothing you've got when you die that you keep You were all that you were, Were you all you could be? @cursedflesh

[sureihsan-arc]

cursedflesh​:

         “and news isn’t conversation. that’s my point, kaplan. you think you can catch up on everything from the bloody papers?” god, they’re close to arguing again. isn’t this exactly what they’ve been furiously trying to avoid? it’s just so much easier to bite back than it is to shrug their shoulders about it all—which given everything that’s happened to them, is profoundly unlike them. he has to wonder if it’s got something to do with ihsan’s new abilities, or just the fact that he’s in his presence at all. it’s been a long time since they’ve seen each other, but even longer since they’ve had anything positive to say. “do you even care about what i’ve been up to while you’ve been bumming around? or did you just come with me hoping i’d give in and have a screaming match with you about the band?”

         terry sighs, deeply. very deeply. it doesn’t feel as healing as it should. “yeah, our dream. you’re still accusing me of shitting all over your vision for it.” and maybe that’s even partly true! after all, terry has never pretended that he has the same aptitude for songwriting that ihsan always did… but any proverbial shitting had never been from a place of resentment. or a place of intention. it had been about doing the best he could with what he had left, after his old friend and scattered all his marbles across the stage and started pulling them all down off of it with him. “but you see that this is why i didn’t want to have this conversation, don’t you? i don’t care anymore, mate. i’m over it. time for you to let go, too.” what had really happened to them? ten years ago, they wouldn’t have believed for a second that this is how they would act around each other. today, it just feels inevitable.

         “you’re still begging on a street corner. you’re still wearing scraps. do you know where you are? do you really? i don’t think you do.” they don’t mean it in a literal sense, in that ihsan can’t place the street or the city or the corner. but it seems to them that he’s no more put together as a person than he had been all those years ago. he’s still scattering his marbles in every which way, tripping everyone that comes into contact with them. “besides, mine’s gotten stronger, too. it’s not always black or white. i sure as hell don’t feel it.”

“ come on. they’ll catch you fucking high-fiving ellen and make it front page news. what the hell is there to catch up on that i don’t already fucking know ? ” not the whole truth. not even close. sure, celebrities had been on the front page of newspapers and magazines for less ( especially when they were as relevant as wilson red had been after those stupid fucking albums they wrote without him ), but he knew from his brief moment in the light that the shallow made the cover, the half-truths made the cover, the lies made the cover. the depths were hidden away or exploited. he had been exploited. terry’s death had been exploited. and that was the closest the media ever came to telling the full truth. “ the fuck are you looking for me to ask ? you’ve been fucking everywhere ! that fucking billboard -- ” -- he took a moment to look away from terry and gesture towards a completely random billboard... in place of the one he was actually talking about -- “ -- had you and the others on it for four fucking years straight. first, it was an album. then a tour. then another album. then a single. then some fucking festival you were headlining ? then another fucking album... ” point being: he had seen terry’s face so much, it felt like he knew exactly what he’d been up to the entire time. “ you, though... ‘bumming around’ -- do you not care about what i’ve been up to ? the shit that hasn’t been plastered all around the world ? because you’re seeming pretty fucking fond of thinking i’ve been doing nothing but panhandling or some shit like that. ”  ihsan shook his head, gaining fervor with every passing second. “ no -- no, i’m accusing the fucking band. ” the collective was not the same as the individual ! “ i’m accusing you of fucking giving up on me and continuing with them -- continuing with them with our dream ! ” if terry had stayed behind, or if terry had waited, or if terry had helped the way he had with alara... it would all be so different. was it fair to place blame upon him ? no -- after all, none of them had even known it was a mutation slowly manifesting. slowly, gradually... then all at once. but would he always have that chip on his shoulder ? would he always think that they, the collective they, could have done more ? would he always feel that same sting ? yes. especially the sting -- especially the sting. the two people he loved the most had left him. they had decided he wasn’t worth their time. and, worse still, they had left him without so much as a place to live. “ how can you be over it ? because it didn’t fucking impact your... fucking everything !? ” he didn’t want terry to be over it. he couldn’t stand for terry to be over it. if terry was over it, then what exactly was it now ? not a dream... just a joke.  “ i’m not begging on the street. i’m not wearing scraps. ” he was painting on the street -- if someone happened to drop him some cash for no reason, all the better ! and he was wearing a fine jacket from the mindscape -- the holes in his pants were purposeful ! “ i can actually fucking... i can be a fucking person again -- doesn’t that count for something !? ” last he’d seen terry, he was closer to a vegetative state. and he needed to know... what was better to them ? who he was now, or the lump of clay he had been ? “ and i can fucking see that. ” he gestured towards terry’s body in general. by all accounts, they should have been dead. “ the entire world can. ”