Dear diary,
Long time no see. How ya been? I’m great, thanks. Been a few days, nothing really big happened. Well, maybe one thing, but it could have been several, and now my previous statements look stupid. Ish. Ugh, this is dumb. From the top.
Finally climbed the bell-tower. Nothing of import detected, go figure. View’s crap unless you want prime sniping on our camps. Can’t see literally anything for the tops of the Lorax trees and about a hundred meters of Lorax grass between the forest and the structure, now trampled down from our migration. Granted, Q and I knew this going in (we were hardly the only ones with the idea, just the first I knew of a few days ago, and the first ones to act on it apparently really wanted people to know that they were doing it), but it’s still kind of nice to feel like I’m doing something important, even if it doesn’t work out. Tower was a popular spot for people for a few days so we only recently (read: literally right now) got our chance to admire the fuck out of a nice private place with a colorful, hilariously useless view. Bell has no rope to pull or the clangy thing that makes the bell ring. It's an inverted bowl hanging over our heads for no discernible reason. Who does that?
Tower itself is pretty cool, though. That’s a pun, because it is both made of an unusually cold, smooth black stone (marble equivalent? I’m reasonably sure marble needs lines in it and this ain’t got no lines. Smooth, black, and uniform all the way. Granite?) and said stone intrigues me, because it’s cold. What a sentence. It’s cool to look at and cold to the touch despite being in the sun for hours and hours as a thermal-absorbent color/material. I think that covers it. Shouldn’t have tried to explain the pun. Oh well, like I’m doing anything more productive today. I think I'd like to turn this place into my own personal bunk, if Quiet is comfortable enough with it. I think she is, given that she's sitting on the ledge with me, kicking her legs, but we'll see what she does when I bring up the idea.
At first glance it's an introvert's wet dream. After the people lost interest in the view (no sunsets from here, bitches) it quieted down, there’s almost nobody in it, it's made from super awesome stone thingies, and I like the feeling I get knowing that if I hack a loogie properly I can land it on Baldie from here. Now, in proper fairness to him, he has not seized power and started ordering statues of his greatness built from hair follicles and nail clippings. Previous concerns about him still stand as there’s no evidence that they shouldn’t, but he and the other leaders (captains? Bosses? I’m tempted to change it but have no idea what to. It ain’t broke, but having backup words is nice) have done a decent-ish job of keeping people fed (from food oh-so-kindly left for us and absolutely nobody else), calm, and generally in happy spirits. Plus he seems like a pretty nice guy at the end of the day, even starting to melt the distance between the Fem-Men-ists (previous iterations such as Men-Fems and Fem-Mens sound dumb and don’t have flair). We (all 400 of us) have even started sending out groups of a dozen or so to wander the forest looking for "anything of significance, but hopefully people". Might as well tell them to get mauled by a bear or die of dysentery while you're at it.
Bathrooms! Oh, how could I forget that. When the first complaints came in I was pumped, eager to listen to people demand satisfaction and then be told it doesn’t exist, but alas. My schadenfreude was denied. Some “brave” souls found a trio of very long, very deep, rather vile smelling trenches in a basement off one of the storerooms whilst they were exploring. One of their number, whom I shall dub Glasses, was very loud in her declaration that those were latrines and that they were for pooping in. I find it mildly suspicious that the poophouse (writing this makes me smile regardless of the fact that it’s a room instead of a house) is right next door to the pantry (or one of them). That just screams terrible things. Granted, there’s a good layer or two of stone and rock between is-food and was-food, but all it takes is for those layers to not be there for us to have a major problem. Obvious, really.
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No toilet paper though. I’ll get my kicks off hearing people complain about leaves. Shit, we need to find some that won’t leave my ass burning like bad lasagna. Hopefully Lorax leaves work, or the more easily acquired fur-moss. Moss might be the best option, actually. I’ll see if I can borrow somebody’s straight-edge (no way in hell am I trying the AIDS-blade) to scrape some off and then test it.
Wish me luck, and if I die from “mysterious circumstances” before the next entry, Baldie did it.
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Dear diary,
Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated, although Baldie still did it (technically will do it, probably over the next few entries because I’m an idiot and stupid dagger is stupid.). Fur-moss is not suitable as toilet paper until we either dig a new poop-trench underneath a tree or figure out how to transplant them to the current poop-trenches (why is this so fun?). Or learn to accept wiping your squishy bits down with sandpaper. Pointy sandpaper.
So, the moss itself is very nice. Kinda silky, theoretically water absorbent, really soft, it has a nice color, smells kinda like fruit (the fuck is a star apple?). Very appealing qualities for people looking for something to wipe their ass with (maybe. I dunno about the fruit smell, I’d be good without it). Problem: it keeps precisely none of these qualities for anything longer than a minute after being scraped off the tree. First to go is the texture. Whatever you chop off gets really inflexible really fast, and starts feeling more like a ball of abrasive spikes than some silky-fur thing (I are good in comparisoning). After that the smell goes away, and then the last magic trick happens as whatever vibrant color the moss was before rapidly changes to that of dead grass in winter. It’s really cool to watch, especially since it happens so quickly. Always the same order, too, although texture might be the wrong word. It goes from feeling like fur to feeling like sharpened porcupine bits.
Huh. That might be the strangest thing, actually. Why’s it go sharp? The rest of it makes some kind of sense: Earth plants change color when they die, dead wood doesn’t bend nearly as well before breaking, and I think the smell is certain chemicals that are no longer released? Smell might be strange too. But I can’t think of anything that gets sharper when it dies.
Anyway, first experiments unsuccessful, moss inadequate. Tried ripping out some of the grass, got grass stains and a sore ass from landing when I fuck up my grip and slip free. Second attempt equally unsuccessful, pride too damaged to continue. Quiet kicks me when I’m down during her turn, as she turns her projected fall into a double reverse cartwheel-handstand. 8.5/10, stuck the landing, but you’re better than me and therefore you suck. Also you have grass stains on your palms now. Ha.
Out of curiosity and because I was feeling vindictive (it’s not like I would’ve actually used the moss I cut off) I tried shearing a tree with the magic AIDS wand (I still need a good name for this thing). Dagger went right through the moss and wound up embedded in the bark. In my, shall we say fervent, attempts to remove the blade, I managed to slice a section of my hand open. Hurrah, imminent death by terrible infection. Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal, evil dagger. You’re still embedded in the tree though, so fuck you.
How the hell did you cut me when you’re half buried in tree and I’ve got both hands on your hilt?