xp_logs | Doug and Marie-Ange - therapy, recovery, powers and the internet.

Doug and Marie-Ange discuss therapy, recovery, powers and the internet. Backdated to, um, well, this is embarrassing. Like a year ago.

Doug couldn't quite physically beat an email down the hallway, but his server room was close enough to Marie-Ange's office that if he hit 'send' as he was standing up, he could be there fairly soon after the message. And the one he'd sent could probably use explaining, he guessed. He rapped on the open doorway to Marie-Ange's office and stuck his head in. "So I sent you a funny video," he said as he came into the room. "I figured that after seeing something nasty from the internet, maybe we could stand to balance it out a bit."

Marie-Ange's email had gone poing, but emails not marked "urgent -urgent- the office is on fire!" or with other dire sorts of messages could wait at least until she stoppered a container of ink and set the pen and nib down on a folded piece of paper. "So... is this something the internet is being nasty to, or something funny from the internet, or both? Because I have to admit I do like internet retribution sometimes. Is this going to require you explaining again what a four-chan is?"

"I'm surprised you didn't put airquotes around 'four-chan'," Doug quipped back. "And I know very well that you know what 4chan is. I've talked about it enough in meetings and so on." He took a boneless flop into one of the chairs at Marie-Ange's desk and shook his head. "No, this is just a silly Youtube video."

"I used an article, that is the extent of how much non-standard English grammar regarding pop-culture I think I can get away with using around you." Marie-Ange explained. She pulled up a browser, and opened the link Doug had sent her, and spent several seconds switching from the screen, to looking at Doug, to pointing at the screen and doing her very best to fail at not giggling. "Why... is the spider French?"

"Anthropomorphizing animals is always funnier when you give them accents?" Doug guessed, Marie-Ange's giggles setting off another mirroring set in him. "Americans are kind of obsessed with accents that aren't from around here."

"Americans are not the only ones, it is just that there are so many more people who speak English with accents for you, than there are for other languages. All I have is Cajun and Quebecois French, really. well, and some of the African countries but those are not really silly accents." Marie-Ange said. "You have British and Scottish and Irish, and Australian, and Canadian, and all of the American accents, and then all of the accents from people whose native language is not English."

"Well, how about people who French isn't their native language? I mean, y'know, the JFK effect - 'I am a jelly donut' and all." Doug paused and thought. "Isn't there that one scene in Henry V that's basically a bunch of double entendres with the English words and French words that they sound like?"

"Yes, but it is not quite the same." Marie-Ange protested. "And I would have to remember enough of... what year did we read that play? Year eleven? Ten?" She rested her elbows on her desk, trying to remember.

"Darned if I know," Doug replied. "I just barely remembered the part about the double entendres." He shrugged. "Anyways, the -actual- reason I came by was just to kind of check in and see how you were doing. Y'know, the whole weird power thing and all. Any lingering effects?" He carefully didn't mention how disturbed she had been by that and the explanation of what had happened in Genosha, striving to keep his tone light and friendly.

"There have been no changes in my powers at all." Marie-Ange pulled a handful of cards from somewhere on her person - she was very good at just making them appear out of nowhere - and spread them on the desk. A moment later, a pair of her dreadlocked bat-eared imps, a sleeping cat-faced ladybug, and a white-clad angel with a pair of swords appeared in miniature among the papers and clutter of her desk. "Nothing feels different, they are no more self-controlled than usual..." One of the imps knuckled over to the keyboard and dropped itself on it, sprawling spread-eagled over the keys. "I cannot make images without pictures. I do not understand it at all."

"Well, maybe your power is changing? It's not impossible." Doug pursed his lips and furrowed his eyebrows, clearly thinking very hard about the situation. "Or maybe it's something about the situations you've been in that did something unusual to your powers? Not like these things come with a user manual," he said with a wry shake of his head.

"Oh if only. I envy our magicians sometimes. They get books!" Marie-Ange rested her chin on one hand, and waved a hand at the images moving about on her desk. "Nothing feels different about my powers, and it is not like when my precognition was not working - it is most definitely working." She absently directed the imp and angel to spar, one with tiny swords, and one with a slightly chewed pencil. "Once in Genosha, that I do not remember and once in that place with the Slenderman creatures. So it cannot just be otherworldly realms."

"Maybe it's the intense stress rather than the location?" Doug offered. Really, he doubted any of their theories could be conclusively proven, not without more data. Two occurrences did not constitute a reasonable sample size, after all. But in their line of work, it always paid to be prepared for eventualities. Being surprised by events was never a good thing.

"Perhaps." Marie-Ange said. "But I have been under stress and it has not happened, so I cannot be sure. If something were amiss, or different I might be better able to explain those powers mishaps. As it is, I do not know how I did that, and I am not sure it will ever happen again." "

Doug tapped his lips with a finger and shrugged. "Well, at least if it happens again, it will not be quite so unexpected?" Of course, that just meant that whatever odd powers event she might have next would be something completely unrelated, Murphy's Law being what it was. "So other than the powers stuff, how's things?"

"Things are as they are. I work too much and everyone is cranky." Marie-Ange answered. "I could ask the same. How is therapy?"

"We should put that on our business cards. The Snow Valley Memorial Centre for Blah Blah Blah - We Work Too Much And Everyone Is Cranky." Doug grinned wickedly, then paused and realized he was falling into his usual patterns of deflection. He took a deep breath and shrugged. "It's therapy. Some days are better than others."

"That is not an answer. I answered your questions as best I could. You should answer mine in return." But regardless of her slightly put-upon tone, Marie-Ange smiled, reached down into the depths of her desk and retrieved a distinctive looking red box. "I am not above bribery. I laid in quite a supply of these when Callie inquired."

Doug grimaced a bit. Talking about Marie-Ange's powers was much easier than talking about his therapy. His therapy was intensely personal, and he and Dr. Grim talked a fair bit about Marie-Ange at times, and Doug's continuingly complex feelings about her. But, from Marie-Ange's perspective, her powers were a fairly personal thing.

Mostly, just like in therapy sessions, Doug didn't like being put on the spot. It tended to make him snappish, and say things that he wouldn't otherwise. "Would you like to hear Dr. Grim's five-axis diagnosis?" One of Doug's first sessions had been a very candid discussion about how illusory privacy was, given Doug's work and people he associated with. On top of which, Doug didn't handle not knowing things very well, so he'd gone out and purchased the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Some things Dr. Grim kept from Doug because he felt they would be harmful, and Doug had slowly developed enough trust in him to not press at those times.

"Or would you rather talk about how the past month and a half have been spent discussing my abandonment complex? Or my tendency toward obsessive behavior? Or my variety of unhealthy coping mechanisms?" Doug sagged back in his chair, in much the same way as he would have after a similar outburst during a therapy session.

"I had meant if it is helping, and are you feeling better, and is there anything I can do..." Marie-Ange said, raising her hands open in an unmistakable gesture of "Wait a moment, let me explain.", accompanied by a wide-eyed expression of apology. "That was perhaps too pointed of a question. I had only meant to ask if you are doing well."

She let her hands fall, and nudged the box of cookies closer to Doug. "But if you want, I am happy to listen to your diagnosis. I will admit to being inappropriately curious." The curiosity was written all over how she'd leaned forward slightly when he had offered, even sarcastically.

If the apology, and honest concern for Doug's well-being, hadn't been obvious in Marie-Ange's body language alongside the curiosity, the request might have sent Doug into a defensive panic. As it was, talking about his therapy with Marie-Ange was definitely anxiety-inducing. He took a deep breath through his nose, letting it out through his mouth, his lips twitching in what could be read as silent counting.

"Inappropriately?" he asked, seizing on a particular word that piqued his own curiosity. "How so?"

"I was briefly tempted to raid your server room to see if you had started keeping a therapy journal?" The statement was tinged with such a layer of falsehood that it was clear Marie-Ange was not just avoiding the truth but doing so openly.

"Thank you for not doing that. I do, and I prefer that it not be read by other people," Doug said, a bit on the cold side. Sometimes Dr. Grim gave him exercises, things to write about and analyze between sessions. And, like everything else about his therapy, it tended to be intensely personal and difficult to discuss with his therapist, much less anyone else. Doug rubbed at his face. "Sorry, that was a bit snappish."

"I think we both know that I would not do that unless it was a very serious emergency." Marie-Ange said, frowning. "It is hard to explain and I think I would rather not explain why it was inappropriate right now? I am just not certain always if my curiosity is beneficial to you." She nudged the box of Girl Scout cookies closer to Doug and offered a tentative smile. "Perhaps we should change subjects, before either of us gets too far down into the rabbit hole of trying to second-guess ourselves. My powers are confusing, your therapy is hard but working, and neither of us is going to violate the other's privacy?"

"I go down that rabbit hole all too often," Doug admitted with an answeringly tentative smile of his own. He accepted the cookies as the peace offering they clearly were, and fished one out of the box to nibble on. "I appreciate that. The privacy." He took a deep breath and clearly exerted mental effort to get himself off of the current train of thought and into something different. "What do you say we go find more funny things on the internet?"

"I think a compromise. You find funny things on the internet, and pictures of cute fuzzy rabbits and show them to me, and I will intercede with the devastation coffee girls for you and get you a coffee drink?" Marie-Ange offered. "Also I wish to know more about the ladybug cat, because I saw him on a sticker on one of your notepads." She indicated the image that was still trundling around her desk.

"Catbug!" Doug exclaimed happily. "We're friends now. We're gonna have soft tacos later!" He grinned. "It's a web cartoon. Catbug is totally the best part. He's played by a five-year-old, and is just generally pretty adorable." He poked at Youtube for a moment on his tablet, and then brought up a highlight reel of Catbug's appearances.

The image turned itself around in a circle a few times, and curled up as though it was asleep. "He is quite cute. Shall we sneak off to a coffee shop and watch this cartoon? I suspect if I texted Wade now, he would meet us there." Marie-Ange suggested.

"Wade would love Catbug," was Doug's opinion. "Let's go."