what exactly is a joke?

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

“ 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 ? ”

“ 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 ? ”

“ 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. ”

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 ! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

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

“ 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. ”