Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

I have hit the absolute jackpot. I was walking around the other day, and I found an active community garden, and there’s even a small club that meets up to help maintain it. On the one hand, I do not need any more things to do, I’m busy enough as it is. On the other hand, I need herbs and flowers to test. The theory being that, at least some plants should work as magical materials. Anything I can get for free, especially if I don’t have to explain it to my parents, is definitely a win.

I go to some of the club meetings to at least learn the basics. After all, if I’m going to be taking from the garden, I feel like I should help a little to maintain it. And I really don’t want to accidentally kill anything in the process.

Skill gained: Basic Gardening lvl 1 +10xp

There’s no way I’m putting much effort into raising this particular skill though… Hm, why do I feel vaguely paranoid that I’ve somehow just jinxed myself.

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Attempting to magically enhance the pebbles I’m using for my slingshot, has been…. Interesting…

And by that I mean, it hasn’t been working at all. At best, it leaves my range of control and the magic fizzles out, at worst I go overboard, and it breaks the damn rock. I bought some ballistic glasses recently, so at least I’m not in danger of taking an eye out. Although, so far, they’re not really exploding outwards much. I have noticed that using an enhancement skill does work slightly better than just throwing magic at it, but not by much.

I’m worried that the slingshot isn’t going to do much damage on it’s own, and that I need higher calibre ammo. The metal balls this thing came with might help a little, I don’t know. What I’m thinking is, I need to make my own, somehow. It’s this line of thinking, that causes me to steal my dad’s pocket knife. It’s a multi-tool so it’s not exactly a weapon option, but it does have a knife that I’m hoping I can use to carve bits of wood with. I should probably feel bad about stealing it but, he can afford to buy another one.

The next time we’re in the woods, I pick up fallen branches to work with. When I’m back at the warehouse I work carefully at carving bits, and pieces. Trying to remember the few things I was taught in high-school woodworking classes.

The initial idea was just, sharpening sticks into small pointed bullets, but those prove hard to fire. I end up with some rounded wooden cubes. Which are largely lighter than the pebbles I was initially using. In a way, it feels like a step backwards.

Attempting to carve runes into the sides doesn’t go very well. This knife is not well suited for it, I think I need better carving knives, or a wood detailer to burn the runes on. I’m also realising that, even if I manage this, the cubes aren’t likely to retain the magic well anyway. I might need to table this for another time.

Skill Unlocked: Crafting (Carpentry) lvl 1 +5xp

Skill Levelled: Basic Slingshot Mastery lvl 8 +10xp

Skill Levelled: Magic Manipulation lvl 14 +10xp

+1 Dexterity

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My parents asked me to perform for them, I got kind of paranoid that they were judging me. Like, trying to see if I was actually making progress, or something. But I think I was nervous for nothing, or at least nervous for the wrong reasons. Here I was, having just shown them my audition songs, trying to hide my anxious fidgeting, and instead of critical feedback, I’m met with compliments. Like, way too many compliments.

This is somehow way worse than if they’d been, I don’t know deciding if the money spent on my classes was worth it. No, instead it’s all, ‘wow what a good job, isn’t our kid so talented’. I tried to get them to stop talking, but they just take it as a sign I don’t believe them, or something. And the compliments get more intense.

I overheard them talking in the kitchen, late at night, and it seems like at mum had been kind of worried. Like, I think she still is a little bit, but I think she was worried I wouldn’t get in. That she’d have to pick up the pieces afterwards, or something. I snuck away, before I had to hear much more of that emotional mess.

Later, I think my parents get it into their head that they need to compliment me more in general. How do I make them stop? Please send help.

And if you’re thinking, wow so bad at handling compliments, just learn to deal with it. Yeah sure, but here’s the thing. Tall poppy syndrome. It’s this thing in Australia, where ‘bragging’ is just the worst.

Aussies say shit like, ‘wow, not bad’, and ‘you’re not wrong’. Everything is often really indirect, I think half the country has issues with compliments. Talking about your own achievements is hard, here it seems to happen a lot more. It’s… weird… Probably healthier, but it’s really strange to experience.

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I’ve managed to borrow some CDs from the library, to help with my stalled language learning progress. I’ve also found some translated novels that I’m using a dictionary, and the English translations to slowly expand my vocab, and understanding of grammar. All my work with trying to understand magical runes, and older forms of English is certainly paying off, Translation and Decoding is a godsend.

Skill Levelled: Korean Language lvl 11 +10xp

Skill Levelled: Russian Language lvl 11 +10xp

Skill Levelled: Translating and Decoding lvl 4 +10xp

Speaking of studying though, homeschooling is certainly homeschooling. I’m making decent enough progress, I think. Kind of wish I had peers to compare to, just to get a better idea of where I’m actually at academics wise. The nice thing is, we still take the same breaks as the normal school system does. So my free time tends to line up better with everyone else. I mean, while I do hang out with people sometimes, I’m still mostly using that time to get up to mischief, but my parents don’t need to know that.

Skill Levelled: Speed Reading lvl 11 +10xp

Skill Levelled:  Research lvl 18 +10xp

Skill Levelled: Note Taking: lvl 12 +10xp

Skill Levelled: Maths lvl 16 +5xp

Skill Levelled: Biology lvl 5 +10xp

Skill Levelled: Chemistry lvl 4 +10 xp

Skill Levelled: Writing (Academic) lvl 5 +5xp

Skill Levelled: Persuasive writing lvl 6 +10xp

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I’ve had a lot of songs that don’t exist stuck in my head, and it’s kind of painful. Normally I’d just sing, it’s a fun form of stimming. But, if someone overhears me, and asks for the name of a song, I can’t exactly tell them if it doesn’t exist. At least when I’m wandering around or training in the warehouse it’s fine. There’s no-one to overhear me, and even if there is they aren’t likely to remember me or the song. But, when I’m around people I can only really hum, make up lyrics, or try to sing something I heard on the radio recently. It’s pretty much, the worst.

As a side effect though, I’ve started getting kind of good at A capella, and a sort of beat-boxing. It was kind of surprising when I gained the skills for them.

Another skill I didn’t anticipate, but probably should have, is Voice Acting. I’ve got this habit, when I’m bored, and singing to myself, of singing in strange voices. Deliberately doing impressions, putting on an ‘UwU’ voice, stuff like that. Combine that with quoting random TV shows, and movies, and I guess you get voice acting. That’s probably something I should work on practising, from time to time.

Skill Gained: Basic Beatboxing lvl 1 +10xp

Skill Gained: A capella lvl 1 +10xp

Skill Gained: Voice Acting lvl 1 +10xp

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It’s April, 1992, Hurricane Andrew hits Florida and the surrounding coast. It’s a category 5 hurricane, the death toll is 65 people and it causes $26 bill in damages. It’s awful, natural disasters like this always are. But, there’s something that’s bothering me. People keep saying this is the worst hurricane to hit America in recorded history, the most expensive, the most deaths. And I’m here thinking, that can’t be right...What about hurricane Katrina? The problem is, I don’t know enough about American history. I know about hurricane Katrina but? I’m not sure where, or when it hits… There’s something about New Orleans? And the levy there? I think? Some kind of structural problem that makes it worse than it should have been?

I don’t know if Andrew is a hurricane that happened in earth’s history the first time around. I don’t know if they’ve named it the same, and with the butterfly effect being what it is… Small fluctuations in air currents could change everything. The formation of a storm front is very variable. Even if I knew for sure it was the same storm, who’s to say it’s in the same place. There’s no guarantee that all the natural disasters I remember still happen the same way. Without any way to divine the future, through some supernatural means, I’m flying blind here. It’s unsettling. I’ve gotten kind of used to knowing what the future holds.

In this case, I’m in a sort of limbo. I know things that did happen, and I know that if everything is the same, those things will happen again. I know that for a fact. And yet, I can’t prove that everything is the same.

There are some things I know are different. Take the snap/blip whatever you call it, the timing of that might mean covid is never a thing? If I have the timing straight in my head, which there’s a big chance I don’t.

The looming potential of Hurricane Katrina has me thinking about other previously historical events. I’ve been so focused on technology, and the marvel timeline, that I haven’t thought about much else. What about other kinds of world and American history. What do I remember? What can I change? Can I warn people about things? My mind jumps from bad news story, to bad news story, vague things like wildfires, and violence flash through my mind in disconnected ways. I need something to narrow my focus.

I write categories of events: Natural disasters, Tech stuff, Politics, Disease, Economy,

And I start just writing things down. Any thing I can remember, whenever I remember them. Weird shit like all the crap Facebook gets up to with people’s data, things I think contributed to Trump’s election, and general rise in conservatism. It’s disjointed, and so many of my notes are vague as shit. Some events I remember, turn out to be something I’m kind of already had plans for. Some things I remember, I have so little context for, and even if I had a stronger memory of what caused the event, it’s often not something I know how to do much about.

I already felt like I didn’t know enough about the Marvel timeline, but now I’m starting to wish I was more of a history buff, that’d I paid more attention, or that I’d bought that fae trap of a [Perfect Memory] trait, but I can’t regret that now. I resolve to do what I can to change the things that I can remember. But, at the end of the day I have to accept that there are limits. I can’t fix everything, especially if I don’t even remember that it was a problem in the first place. It’s moments like this that make me feel all too mortal.

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