lieutenantantichrist | [12]Video/Action Olivine-"If I Had to Write an Article About You, It Would Say You're Very Negative"

[ETA: Entries are now closed! Read and vote here!]

[WRITING CONTEST]

[All Blake wanted was a paper.

Sure, they're mostly stupid crap and the headline puns are even worse than at home, but there's something right and normal about heading out to the little newsstand in the morning to pick one up.

He's gotten to know the guy who works there a little. Decent enough guy, almost normal. Chatty, though. Today Blake's not paying much attention as he fishes change out of his pocket and goes uh-huh, yeah, sure, until all of a sudden he hears, "Oh, wow, you will? Thanks! That helps me a lot!"

Ten minutes later, he's gotten a firm handshake, a bunch of paper, and a dawning idea of what he just got himself into.

Shit. Just doing the damn thing is the fastest way to get these people to leave him the hell alone.

That's why, a couple hours later, you might come across Blake or one of his Pokemon going around town stapling up flyers about a little local contest. (He went and made the things, and the guy from the paper went "Oh" and went over them with a black pen real quick.) It will be the most sullen stapling you've ever seen.]

[VIDEO]

Hey. All of you.

[Blake's out on the main street of Olivine, in the shade of a building.]

I got roped into running some kinda contest bullshit. Something about making up stories or other crap. You make shit up, you send it to PO Box 226, they put it in the paper, people vote, you win shit.

[He waves a flyer at the camera.]

Fuckin' voila. So do it. [He perks up a little.] Or don't. Hell, that way I don't have to deal with it.

Here.

If you got any questions, don't fuckin' ask me.

[OOC: The writing contest has officially begun! Entries go here, and more information, including specifically how the special guest prizes work, is here. The Nurse Joy sprite was made by L-mon at DeviantArt. Happy writing!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Almost? I'm not sure if I should congratulate you or sympathize. I'd tell you that the first year is the strangest and that the next few months are more normal, but I'd be lying.

You know what the funny thing is? I don't know either.

[He crosses his arms and leans against the wall. This guy...well, giant robots and space wars aside, he's one of the closest to sane that Blake has run into here. Maybe even trustworthy.]

Hey. Ash.

[For once, Blake's voice loses the customary asshole bite.]

You ever think about what you'd do if you went home? I mean, your basic, day to fuckin' day. Would you just hop right back into your robot?

...Of course I do.

[He's been thinking about it for nearly fifteen years, some here and some there, sometimes even wondering if he'd ever get a basic life again.]

I might have to do that for a little while, but I've got about two years' worth of vacation time banked. I'll probably use that up sooner or later.

Go lay on some outer space beaches and bang some green ladies like Captain Kirk, huh.

[It's not an easy topic to approach. Blake has to kind of sidle at it and keep his eyes on the horizon.]

You think anybody's gonna wonder where you've been? If they don't think you dropped dead, I mean.

Are you kidding? After so long spent in a ship, I'll settle for nothing less than real Earth beaches with real Earth sand, real Earth sunshine and real Earth wind.

[And a certain very not green lady. If she doesn't make him sleep on the couch for the next twenty years.]

...I don't think anyone would believe I'm dead, at this point. So they'd probably be pretty angry at me for pulling an accidental disappearing act.

Yeah, the wrong sun and green women would be kinda creepy, really. Just ain't right.

Hah, too persistent to die easy, are you.

[Blake takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly.]

There's plenty of people who'd be pissed off at me, too. The ones who weren't already. Shit, I miss it, but the real world...wasn't going so great for me.

Of course. I have a knack for surviving unexpected situations.

[He says it with slight amusement in his voice. He doesn't feel a single drop of it.]

Hey, as long as you're not dead you can make it go better. Maybe not great, but definitely better.

Good skill to have. If you can't beat em, be too damn stubborn to go down.

[Blake's expression draws inward. What would happen now, if he just showed up back at the precinct again?]

That's fuckin' optimistic. The more I think about it, the more I know there's at least a couple people relieved I went off into thin air and took the bad PR waiting to happen with me.

You know the real ugly part? I can't blame them.

...I bet there's just as many people wondering where you've gone and if you're alright, though. Besides, bad PR isn't so easy to get rid of, barring miracles.

[Blake barks a humorless laugh.] If you bet that, you'd be broke. Most people must be figuring some old debts finally caught up to me. There's nobody missing me outside of my ma.

Me going away may not've solved all the problems, but it prevented a whole lot from coming up. Gotta be a fuckin' relief.

Aren't missing cops usually a sign of foul play, though? That would mean at least a token investigation, and a different set of problems.

Hah. Wouldn't that be a fuckin' riot. Banging down a bunch of doors while I'm off in goddamn Neverland.

It wouldn't do anything for your popularity rating, but it would at least give them something to do.

You know what the fucking worst part is? I bet they're getting along fine without me. The station adjusts. Like when Martinez got shot a while back. You have a service, then you go back to the paperwork. World doesn't stop turning.

...Of course it doesn't. If the police or the army had to pause every time someone dies or disappears, they'd never get anything done.

[Blake snaps back] I know that.

[The bite falls out of his voice.] I didn't say it didn't make sense. Just something fucked up, you know. How easy you can forget somebody. Or get forgotten.

[He snorts.] Fuck, that's the best-case scenario. More likely, they took the chance to use me as the scapegoat for all the fuckups in the big case. Practical. I'm not around to complain anyway.

My captain's not as big a dick as a lot of them, but he's real, real practical.

...Being practical can be both a good and a terrible thing.

[Being practical made his father order a mobile suit attack in the middle of a civilian colony. Being practical made him hide his survival from his family for thirteen years.

Screw being practical.]

Using you as a scapegoat would just give them more trouble once you return there, but I guess they can't know that. And remembering can be worse than forgetting, depending on your motivation.

Always ran on a lot of practicality, my precinct. Whatever gets the job done, no bleeding hearts. I fit right in.

[He knows there's plenty of places that wouldn't have turned a blind eye to his methods, no matter what the results.]

They can't know if I'm gonna show up again or not. Hell, neither do I. Has that happened? Somebody just staying here forever?

I always figured what I was gonna be remembered for was cracking a big case. [The inflection goes out of his voice.] Didn't turn out that way.

Not as far as I know, but from what I've heard people have only been showing like us for three or four years. That's still far from forever.

[Even thirteen years is far from forever, no matter what it feels like. His next sentence comes out with less conviction than it should.]

There's always the chance you might crack the next big one. Or you might become the next big one, depending on how long you're stuck here. Hell, with the right timing you might even do both.

[12]Video/Action Olivine-"If I Had to Write an Article About You, It Would Say You're Very Negative"

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