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KillerClowns Since: Jan, 2001
#76: Aug 3rd 2012 at 12:07:44 AM

Something I did to pass the time on this vacation when I found myself with nothing to do. Just the self-reflections of my protagonist, who I’m trying to develop beyond being an Unfazed Everyman with a few superficial differences from the usual. Like anybody’s self-reflections, they’re not 100% accurate: she has more than a few neuroses and delusions, which hopefully can be read between the lines, and I’m going for a very stream-of-thought tone. I don’t usually do 1st person, but it seemed appropriate to write from her perspective for this exercise. EDIT: Also, I totally did not realize how long it had gotten.


I guess I never really had a shot at “normal”. Always the strange girl. And sorry to say, I wasn’t the cute, quirky girl who dances to their own drummer or whatever. No, girls like that, they choose their strangeness. They want to stand out. I got the strangeness dropped in my lap and had to deal with it, whether I liked it or not.

Let’s start at the beginning. First, simple demographics: I’m Rachel Hosseini, 31 years old, born 1990, actuary and weirdness magnet. I’m a second generation American — my parents moved to Seattle from Shiraz, Iran. I was born in America, though, and my parents decided that in raising me, the most important thing for me was to be comfortable in the new country. For that, I am ever grateful.

If that was all, I could probably be “normal” enough. But there’s the little matter of my many-greats-grandpa, the infamous mad mathematician Qaisar. Know how every family has their eccentric in the tree? Well, I think ours was a bit more eccentric, and a lot more ambitious, than most. A lot. Short version: he tricked and angered an extradimensional monstrosity called the Eyes and Teeth. Put Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth, and A.M. from I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream in a blender and you’ll get the general idea what that thing is. Should I have mentioned that earlier?

Oh well. The reason my family hasn’t been turned into abomination chow is the fact that Qaisar managed to pick us up a guardian on the way. Former servant of the Eyes and Teeth, Kokabiel. I don’t want to say Qaisar turned the thing good. Does it really count as “good” if it does horrible things to horrible people for fun? Personally, I’ve never been a fan of the badass, scary anti-hero, so I’ll go with “no”. But the thing is... essentially polite once you get past the penchant for dripping sarcasm, and very dedicated to keeping my family alive. So, aside from the odd “flare-up” of eldritch mayhem, with its help we can cobble together a semblance of a normal life that looks reasonably convincing from a distance.

Great start to a life, huh? My parents didn’t lay all this on me at once. I mean, Kokabiel I’ve known all my life, and I vaguely understood that it wasn’t something to talk about in casual conversation. But lots of kids on TV have weird not-human friends, and it took me a bit to realize that — to the best of my knowledge — my family is the only one that has that sort of thing in real life as well.

Otherwise? I went to school, like normal people do. But I wasn’t really a social girl. I spent the first few years mostly on my own. It was by choice — I always felt a little odd around kids my age, usually got on better with teachers. But eventually, I sort of found a social group. Even loners find each other, if only to be alone together.

Geek, I think, is the word for the social clique I eventually fell into. Not nerd: the nerds knew what they were doing. They had marketable skills. Actually, so did I: I’m a numbers girl, like Qaisar was. Got straight As. But I never really clicked with the nerds, somehow. I think I just might not have been cool enough to be a nerd.

No, the people I ended up with tended to coast through life on Cs and low Bs, and we were more likely to spend our free time playing Magic: the Gathering (I still have my blue/white deck, updated so it’s still tournament legal) and Dungeons and Dragons (I usually took cleric, and always seemed to be the only human in a party of stuff like tieflings, gnolls, and mephlings) than discussing anything like technology or science.

Of course, that meant I hung out with a lot of guys, and I was... well, put me in a Hollywood movie and I’d be the gorgeous star’s ordinary-looking, plain friend. (Although being with my friend Asayu kind of has that effect anyways.) But I was unintimidating, got nerdy references, and attractive enough, so I ended up on the receiving end of many geeky crushes.

I returned a few, though getting shy people together is hard. But they never lasted: even without Kokabiel’s presence, my family is kind of intimidating.

Okay, my dad, Zacharias, isn’t — he’s a brilliant linguist, but soft as a puppy, and my mother has had to stop him from leaving the house in blatantly mismatched socks more than once. I'm really my father's child, I have to admit.

On the other hand, you have my mom, Samira. Professor of theology. Thugs back in Iran left half her face a burn scar, and that wasn’t enough to scare her. That’s all you need to know: she can tell you her own story if she wants. Point is, Mom is not the kind of woman you want glaring at you with her remaining eye and reminding you that her daughter is her most precious possession.

Also, there is that rather important matter of what Qaisar left us with. There’s no getting away from it. Any guy who wants a serious relationship with me has to accept that my life is a bit more filled with Lovecraftian horrors than most.

Mom did fine with that when Dad explained it all to her. The distant wrath of the Eyes and Teeth is nothing compared to what she’s been through, and she absolutely adored how easily Dad had seen past her scars and loved her anyways. He’s never even seen her without them, so he wasn’t just remembering how beautiful she once was. In fact, overall, Kokabiel’s begrudging protection is a blessing. Even if Mom and Kokabiel despise each other about as much as you’d expect a pious, moral Muslim and a quasi-demonic horror to despise each other.

Anyways. Dating life wasn’t so great in school. Social life was okay with the rest of the geeks. Bullies usually left me in peace: Kokabiel never outright revealed itself, far as I know, but the vague sensation in the back of their minds of something ancient and terrible scrutinizing them was almost always enough to make them choose a new target. Social group was a bit fluid, though. New guys in town flowed in if they couldn’t make a name for themselves elsewhere, while old ones slipped away as they moved up the social ladder or fell in amongst the stoners. I had a lot of friends, but never any real deep ones. Just me, my family, and Kokabiel.

College was an improvement. Got into math, to the mild worry of my parents, but hey, I figured that if I found a new Thing That Should Not Be to anger, maybe we could make it and the Eyes and Teeth fight. Besides, I got into statistics, and from there, actuarial science, which... well, actually, I suppose there’s no shortage of sanity-shattering secrets in that field. I made friends there — most of my high school friends ended up at technical college or dead-end jobs, and for better or for worse, we drifted apart after.

I got upgraded to nerd around there, I think. It was a mild culture shock: nerds tend towards the sci-fi, while always have been a fantasy type. But the differences are often superficial, regardless of what anyone claims. I adjusted. I remember my friends from there better. Still keep in touch with some of them. Through Facebook, mostly. It wasn’t as weird to hang out with your professors as it was teachers, so that was a plus, and... well, professors reminded me of my parents, so I got along great with them. More straight As.

I was between my junior and senior years of college when Asayu happened. There’s no other way to describe it: Asayu ul’Valmoth vash’Suela is a woman that happens to people. Some mage cabal that draws power from the Eyes and Teeth got ambitious, heard about our family, and decided to please their master with our blood. What happened was that me and my parents got home one day to find a purple-haired woman in my parents’ bedroom, surrounded by the dead bodies of said mages, some of which also had purple or blue hair, telling us in broken English, but in no uncertain terms, that she had been assigned to serve as our guardian. We hesitantly accepted, because Asayu is kind of terrifying.

Asayu came from another world, one our family was vaguely aware of in the same way most Americans are vaguely aware of Africa. Qaisar, with the best of intentions, accidentally started a slave-driving empire, we gather, and when the empire was overthrown, the once-enslaved couldn’t help but fantasize about slaying the descendants of the man who brought about their suffering. But they were usually too busy running their own nation to worry about risking their heads on an alien world. We’re still not sure why Asayu’s order suddenly decided we needed protection, but we saw no reason to refuse.

Bizarrely, Mom and Asayu became fast friends. They agree on virtually nothing — their religions are diametrically opposed, their views on the definition of feminism mutually exclusive, and their opinion of violence as a tool against government oppression breathtakingly disparate. But Mom and Asayu are intelligent, independent, strong-willed women, who so rarely find sparring partners they can call equals, and so they bonded over long, intense, but always civil arguments.

When summer ended, Samira suggested that Asayu could be my roommate for the next year — we rented an off-campus home, and Asayu managed, with forged documents courtesy of Kokabiel, to pick up a job as a bartender. Ironic for a woman whose religious vows forbid alcohol, but she enjoyed the job.

Also, there’s no gentle way to put this: I still have no idea how many of my college’s professors and students Asayu slept with. I do know it could have been more if her sheer bluntness didn’t scare off a number of would-be playthings, but apparently she didn’t have time for anyone who wasn’t able to keep their cool when faced with blatant sexuality. We eventually came to an understanding: I made sure I didn’t have to pass near her well-frequented bedroom on the path to my own, and she didn’t grab any men I’d expressed an interest in.

So college, and post-grad, continued on in this way. Kokabiel protected Mom and Dad and checked up on me. Asayu guarded me and steadily made herself comfortable in American culture. I kept my grades high, made friends, had a few romances. Most petered out fast, but I lost my virginity with one David Epstein (no relation to the mathematician) a week before getting my post-graduate degree. We were both pretty drunk, both virgins, and so it was awkward and messy... not exactly a fantasy come true, but despite all this, I don't regret it for a moment. A shame the relationship didn’t really work out. Our parents came around, in the end, but the Eyes and Teeth thing really ruined it. At least we keep in touch. Both still single. I should really give it another go, maybe he’s willing to take a few more risks in his life. No, who am I kidding? I try not to dwell on it. It's never going to happen.

Besides, this guy I know, Isaac Rose, is kind of cute (don’t tell him I said that), and he’s been getting really nice around me despite already knowing about Qaisar, Kokabiel, and the Eyes and Teeth. And he’s not nice around anyone, usually. Plus he’s ended his “rivals-with-benefits” thing with Asayu, much to Asayu’s annoyance. If only he’d stop hanging out with that lunatic Alice — they’re not in a relationship, Alice doesn’t even have a sex drive, but they’re inseparable. And Alice is... honestly, I can’t even begin to describe how creepy that woman is.

Sorry. Off-topic. Anyways. Life goes on, and here I am today. I got a job at an insurance company. Nothing special. I’m usually regarded as the most normal person in the department, which isn’t really saying much. More geeky crushes, I usually let them down gently. Or send Asayu their way, that keeps them busy.

My parents have moved in with me, and I can’t blame them. Keeps things easier for Asayu and Kokabiel. Kokabiel in particular has been a bit moody as of late, seems to think something’s brewing. It’ll pass, I hope. I’d rather not see what could worry a creature like Kokabiel.

Otherwise, my curious little life carries on, a shambling semblance of normal. One day I’ll take up Isaac on his flirtations, call David back up, or meet the right guy some other way. But I can’t really imagine...

Sorry, I have to go. Someone’s knocking at the doo... is that Sigmund? Can’t think of anyone else that huge. Wow, this had better be good...

edited 3rd Aug '12 12:08:37 AM by KillerClowns

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