Gathering Post - 5/7-5/15

[lcrpg_npc]

 

WEATHER || LONDONIST || BBC NEWS

(Rather than write the same vague drivel, here is a pretty gif to inspire you, a link to the weather for the week, and a link to londonist, a great resource for all things London related. As always this post is open all week. Tag in, tag others, check back often!)

Comments

[harrowgate]

"Darling, I'm here for the clothes," corrected Felix, since the fellow nearby had asked. Dressed in a black paisley suit with pink checked shirt, he rather looked like he belonged in the exhibit rather than only observing it -- and in fact, a few onlookers cast him glances in his red-haired glory as if he might be a display mannequin gone wandering.

"However, Messire Bowie is the icon above all," he went on to allow. "Messire Lennon's contributions are not inconsequential, but he only proposed changing the world. Bowie actually did it."

[prodigalflame]

John glanced over to see the origin of that voice, all hauteur and pretension. His brief glance turned longer, into something sweeping as he took in all of...those clothes. Glancing around further, John snickered when he realised he wasn't the only one staring. His own spiky blond tips raised a few eyebrows, as if people were concerned that mid-2000s had escaped its cage and was running amok in London.

"...Of course you are," he muttered, mostly to himself, before shoving hands in pockets. "I don't mind Bowie, but Lennon will always be my personal god. Bowie was...too cynical about revolution for my liking."

[harrowgate]

"He didn't need a revolution. Bowie carved out a path -- one that had been marked by his forebears, naturally -- and showed others it was safe to do the same. Revolution implies a forcible acquisition of someone else's power. Simply ignoring it and walking away is something very different, I observe." Felix spoke with confidence, but thoughtfully, stating his own opinion without rejecting the other fellow's.

"Though," he added, conceding, "the Mr Fish dress on The Man Who Sold the World is too far even for me to follow."

[prodigalflame]

John's eyebrow raised a little at the other man's proposition: but he didn't argue back, merely shrugged. He wasn't going to get into some kind of schoolyard debate with someone who was obviously wrong. Besides, he'd always been more into blowing up paths than carving them out. Safety could only be gained through the judicial use of power.

"It's always good to know where your boundaries are," he said, after a pause. "Even if it's a dress on an album cover. Do you have many," John's lips quirked in an almost-smirk, "boundaries?" From the looks of this guy, John reckoned probably not.

[harrowgate]

"Boundaries, or limits?" Felix inquired, brows lifting smoothly, his Received Pronunciation musical and utterly perfect. He should be narrating the latest literary historical drama brought to life by the BBC with that voice, if it weren't quite so breathless and sharp. "I suppose I have as many as anyone else, though the distance between them may be larger. Really, if you consider that the further the distance between boundaries, the larger the whole, I suppose I have more than the average person. I only have further to go to reach one."

He turned the question curiously on the stranger. Even though the young man with the unfortunately bleached hair had meant it leadingly, trying to ruffle him, Felix took it as an honest conversational gambit. "And do you?"

[prodigalflame]

John had no truck with English people. They were all very proper and it was all very nice. And while John hated nice at least some of the time, he could go agitate for Scottish nationalism or something if he felt really inclined. This guy, though, this guy was like some weird concoction, as if they crossed glam with Doctor Who and Saturday tea time TV...which wasn't so impossible to imagine.

It was interesting the way he intellectualised the question, too: genuine consideration or in love with the sound of his own voice? John figured it was probably a bit of both. Most things were.

"Me?" John shrugged. Pyro would have thought it was a stupid question, but he wasn't Pyro anymore. What wouldn't he do versus what couldn't he do? "I probably have less boundaries than I should," he confessed with a wry, thin smile. "But I do know I have limits. Very few people are as powerful as they want to be."

[harrowgate]

Felix flashed a brief smile of agreement, but not one of his dazzling ones. If this young man had magic, Felix would have seen it already, so he supposed they were speaking hypothetically. "Or as powerful as they present themselves," he confirmed. "But a handful of misfit lads from Brixton or Liverpool can change the world, can't they? With no more power than you or I."

[prodigalflame]

John accepted the smile with a nod of his own, but he didn't smile back. Smiles had only been his weapon of choice when they were sharp or barbed, and this wasn't the moment for it. "They changed the world, sure," John agreed. "But the world changed them, too. Revolutions have a habit of dying before they're even born: these days, Bowie and Lennon are slogans on t-shirts, so it seems the world didn't change enough."

[harrowgate]

"Really?" Felix brows lifted, and he half-turned to the young man, more interested in conversation than clothes (believe it or not). "What does enough revolution look like to you? What is the ideal end result?"

[prodigalflame]

"If I had the answer to that question, would I be here?" John wondered flatly, and then shrugged. "Society's a bit like art, isn't it- we all know what we don't like. 'Better than this' is the agreed position for most people." He'd learned not to believe in utopian answers, but 'better than this' still counted for something.

[harrowgate]

"Better than what? A world with war in it? A world with intolerance and inequality in it? A world that thinks trainers and fleece are high fashion? I've nothing against improvement, mind you, I just want it to be specific," Felix went on, quite lyrically, and entirely pleased with the sound of his own words. Truly, though, he was curious about the other man's position. He enjoyed at least attempting to make other people think.

[prodigalflame]

And John hadn't really thought about it, much. Cynicism and reaction were his things, not planning or forethought. "...Better than a world that hates you for who you are, or fears you for what you can do, or tears you down for being yourself," he muttered, after a pause. "I mean, yeah, everyone's oppressed but that's still got to mean something. More than high fashion."

[harrowgate]

Felix had wanted an answer more than he wanted any particular answer, and he appeared quite satisfied by that. "I should think a great multitude of things mean more than high fashion. Justice and acceptance would rank quite near the top of that list. Perhaps our musical heroes didn't lead a singing rabble through the streets to build a barricade, but we can hardly argue that they had no effect upon a world that was changing," he observed thoughtfully. Though he was comfortable lecturing, his tone invited John's thoughts as well.

"Bowie changed the definition of masculinity, at least in part due to what he wore. I daresay that I can walk down the street, looking the way I look today, without being assaulted outright, because of him. What do you think?"

[prodigalflame]

"They had an effect, but did they make the world change, or did the changing world produce the likes of them?" John made a bit of a face. "I'm...not exactly a fan of Big Men in History as an operating theory." Mostly because those big men had a habit of being douches who got people killed out of their arrogance, thanks Erik.

"I'm probably more systematic," he continued, "and while I do appreciate the world's a better place for the likes of you and me, it's still not great. Saying you're not being assaulted outright isn't a celebration, it's a...basic and insufficient condition," he argued, groping for words. "I hold hands with my fiancé and we still get weird looks or a yelled insult from across the street. Things must be the same for you," John flashed the guy a brief smirk, "especially wearing that shirt with your hair, man, I mean, no." Pausing after his little dig, John returned to his theme: "Every day is a reminder of how much further the ignorant have yet to come." Clearly he didn't consider himself one of those ignorant types.