noise."OPP 34 · 1:53am May 19th, 2020
For much of the morning, things at the embassy had been calm. Lyra had left, taking Starlight with her. Diamond had gone into town, for what purpose he didn't know, but she'd been wearing saddlebags.
There wasn't any sign of impending doom from upstairs, not yet anyway.
He paced around the living area, pausing to look at the bust of Elmo—perhaps the muppet would have some guidance.
I ought to tell them that American embassies also have a Magic Eight Ball for important decisions.
Thoughts were coming back, although it was still difficult to focus, to think things all the way through. She knew she'd been injured; her hand felt wrong in a way she couldn't quite describe. It was like it was new, like it didn't know what it should feel, so every sensation was magnified. That could have been a side effect of the drugs.
Laying in bed all day was no good. She had to do something, even if she didn't know what that something was, so she got up and went over to the dresser and picked out her clothes. That was a simple task: she hardly had any, and they were all variants on the same uniform.
Even so, putting it on felt tight, felt like another piece of her was complete, although she couldn't articulate why. The familiar motion of buttoning up the shirt, of smoothing out the wrinkles; the patches which had remembered who she was even when she hadn't. Her name emblazoned over the breast pocket, a statement to all who she was.
The proliferation of cell phones had promptly led to the proliferation of selfies. Historically, selfies dated back to the days of paint and mirrors, although the bar had been lowered considerably when it came to talent.
Nevertheless, that was the photograph they focused on the most. The others were posed, awkward, essentially a kid on Santa's lap, a kid who's not sure if he should still believe in Santa or not.
To be sure, there was information to be gleaned from all the photos, but the clearly spontaneous one garnered the most focus.
In a slideshow of vacation pictures, it could have slid by unremarked. The poses were nothing special, nor was the background at first blush.
It was the subjects—or more importantly, one particular subject—that changed everything.
That’s right, OPP 34 is out to pre-readers!
Not soon enough, dammit!
Sweet! Been waitin' for this!
Hey! Muppets are FAMOUS for doing just that!
HUZZAHH!!!!!
I'd been thinking about this lately, but didn't want to be rude by bothering you about when you were planning to write the next chapter.
Hooray!
From the context I am guessing right instead of tight?
5264993
You are correct!
*monocle pops out* Egads!
5264977
Pacing around and staring at bust of Elmo?
5265022
No, providing guidance. Didn't you ever watch "Sesame Street"?
5264963
I know . . .
I have nobody to blame but myself.
5264964
5264980
5264992
Ironically, the writing part wasn’t the biggest holdup, it was the editing part. That took far far longer than it ever should have, mostly because my plan when it came to editing was . . . well, was to not, and it turns out that when you leave something sitting for a while, it doesn’t edit itself.
5265006
This is why monocles always have that little chain, so they don’t get lost when they pop out in surprise.
Good. The dimensions are aligning again. Now we can get more of the history files.
And to think, most of the chapters of the story were written on a THREE week cycle. It makes me wonder what about it makes it a year between chapters these days.
And note if editing is the problem, that just creates backlog as one writes the next chapter while the prior chapter is being messed with.
Be still my heart! I eagerly await the next chapter.
You down with OPP?
Woo hoo!
5265039
I know, it was a joke.
But to answer your question:
I’m a bit too young and definitely too French for that. I vaguely recall some images of maybe a book or two. But sadly not much more.
There will be an update? Sooo happy :-)
Huzzah, it's almost time for the annual chapter!
5265120
Here in the USA, Sesame Street has been on PBS (the Public Broadcasting Service -the non commercial channel) for 50+ years, + HBO for the last 5-6 years, has 4,561 episodes (and counting). There's 8 Muppet movies + 2 made-for-TV movies and there've been a couple of spin off series.
In short, there probably isn't an American under the age of (60?) who owns a TV set & speaks English that can honestly say "I've never seen an episode of Sesame Street"
Hooray.
Now I wonder what is in that photo that would seem innocent is going to be a game changer? I feel for Dale here and not only is the Magic 8 Ball used in all American embassies it is regularly used in all levels of our government by everyone.
Shouldn't that be 'Lying in bed'? I always get lay/lie/laid confused, so I try my best to use alternates. Darned English and it's nonsensical rules. I've learned more English in the last eight years of pony than I did in all my years in school. Sometimes, I'm not sure if that's a good thing.
Where does one become a prereader?
excellent, i'm looking forward to it. I might just go for a full re-read once I wrap up what i'm reading now so probably won't get to it soon.
5265266
Yeah. "Lie/lied/lying" is Intransitive ("to lie down") while "lay/laid/laying" is transitive ("to lay down the law").
I'm glad to see this returning! Thank you for making this story, easily one of my favorite fics.
Looking forward to it!
Its been so long, finally glad to see something here
*cries in non-prereader*
5265575
While you're correct about the transitive/intransitive, lay is the past tense of lie (rest/recline), so it's lie/LAY/am lying/have lain, which is of course one of the main unhelpful points of the whole confusion. "Lied" is solely the past tense for "told an untruth."
https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/lay-vs-lie
5298745
In hindsight, I'm not sure how I made such an obvious mistake. (Was I overtired that day?)
Either way, sorry for letting this tab get lost under a pile of them for nearly a year.
5468011
Heh, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve put that in a comment after a dumb typo or continuity error or me just forgetting a fact that literally everybody knows.
I know you’re not addressing this at me, but I can also tell you that my current longest opened tab is a comment on Silver Glow’s Journal from 2018 that I still intend to reply to. And boy is the guy who wrote that comment going to be surprised when he gets the notification, lol.