just started listening to Start With This, the podcast by the nightvale guys. this is assignment one. i did a bad job, so i’m pretty pleased with it
bo blue is not the protagonist.
or is he?
what even is a bo blue? he’s aspirational, in some fashion. a kind of person someone might look at and think, if only i could. if only i have what he has.
what is it he has?
shrug emoji.
and maybe that’s the key. maybe bo blue is the shrug emoji of people. talented, certainly, gifted even, in some respects, but no drive. no real ambition. he accomplishes feats because he’s told these are feats to accomplish, and they don’t strike him as anything by perfectly accomplish-able, and there you go. accomplishments. admiration. validation. (of a sort.)
not ‘no drive’ perhaps so much as no direction? no goal. no——
to vague, still, too abstract.
bo blue isn’t a person, or even a character, yet. bo blue is a theme. bo blue is bo blue is being told you can do anything, but then only doing some things and in ways that feel more comparable to nothing. bo blue is the incessant choir of
he comes into the shop three days a week —— tuesday, wednesday, and saturday —— some time between seven and seven thirty in the morning.
(i should not have done this before eating lunch D:)
bo is maybe a bad story to tell. what’s even the point of bo? is there a story there? or even a character?
only one way to find out.
bo goes out to the haunted house in the woods north of town because
because
because he’s
bored?
no, that’s boring.
horny?
makes no sense. compelling though? mmmm not really
scared?
that
might be something
bo blue goes out to the haunted house in the woods north of town because he learnt to read by age three-and-a-half. because numbers come easy to him. because his iq is [big number] and his parents, teachers, peers always said he could do anything. he’d do everything.
and he’s done nothing.
well.
hes done some things, but…
little things. pointless things. things that didn’t do much good for anyone, nor were they that impressive or well executed anyway.
he’s done some thoroughly mediocre things.
and this is where a choice needs to be made. is bo blue okay with having done only some mediocre things? is he not yet okay with it? is he trying, but failing, to be okay with it?
this is boring, or i am hungry, or both.
bo blue goes out to the haunted house in the woods north of town to hide from his responsibilities. responsibilities, however, have a way of finding bo blue. [that’s not really true, it was just interesting to write].
bo blue goes out to the haunted house in the woods north of town and finds
1) his babysitter from when he was little —— she’s looking for her [insert item of some value, possibly sentimental]
2) a friend he lost touch with years ago —— he’s searching for a cat
3) his lapsed friend’s cousin —— she too for the cat (it’s her cat)
4) a stranger who will later turn out to be his disinherited aunt —— she’s there for the magic portal in the basement, baby, nothing less
and then i guess adventure ensues.
it’s, uh,
scary?
yeah, scary.
bo loses a… finger. just a pinky, but still. stakes and shit. been told that’s important in stories.
they find a forest on the other side, late autumn and colder even than it was back home. a narrow brook is tumbling downhill not far away, and [4] makes bo hold his injured hand under the water until he’s really crying, and then a little bit longer. she’s seen enough botched surgeries and shitty aftercare in her days to be genuinely a little panicked about infection. her amazing fantasy adventure wasn’t supposed to have [what’s the word for someone who gets injured in a catastrophe or whatever..].
so there will turn out to be a legend-prophecy-folk story thing about a nine-fingered man saving the world? and bo is like it was literally just my bad reflexes. i mean, yeah, sure, i am for all intents and purposes ‘a nine-fingered man’, but like… i wasn’t last week? so i just feel like the time i’ve spent not being a nine-fingered man really outweighs——
Nine Finger Man! Nine Finger Man!
the key about the prophecy, of course, is that it’s just stories. just happened to be the one about nine finger man is the one that took off and the one that everyone knows, and now he’s a whole thing.
there might be roots in stories told by and about other portal traversing folks in the past, and maybe ‘nine finger man who is also from portal world’ is really the key, because someone else in this world has to have lost a finger at some point.