Episode 84 - Interference

## Interference

A black background with no border. along the centre of the image a railway crossing is depicted, to the left is a floating anthropomorphic figure depicted in red in a fedora and long coat with red marking on their chest that resembles ribs. the figure appears to be producing smoke. Beneath the image in large white uneven letters the word "INTERFERENCE" is depicted.

### Guests

Kdin Jenzen - Danielle O'Hara
Daisy Guevara - Melanie Flores
Steve Shell - Old Afterclaps

Melanie returns to streaming, Lady Ethel makes an announcement, and Danielle asks for help. The theme of tonight’s episode is Interference.

***Content Warnings:** Kidnapping and abduction, Emotional Manipulation, Worms, Body horror, Excessive Corporate Propaganda, Death*

## Intro - Dreamstream of Consciousness

Melanie Flores (see Episode 83 - Hopes) greets the listeners, telling them that she knew it'd been a while but she was back and ready to stay. She tells them that she wasn't able to tell them what she'd been doing, but she would be back to the 'usual' streaming schedule. And she enjoyed taking on new projects, they were how one grew as a person and as a professional, but she'd missed her one-on-one thousand. It was great to be working at the top but building one's personal following and writing press releases and documenting your life as a Botulus corporation employee was fine too.

She welcomes the listeners to "*Melanie’s Dreamstream of Consciousness*".

## Story 1 - This Is My World

Melanie Flores comments on how many people were tuning into her stream, telling them that she knew she'd been gone a long time and thanking them for sticking around, especially her monthly supporters. She tells them that she couldn't tell them alot of what she'd been doing, but she'd had a lot of extra responsibilities being the personal manager for Valerie and Riot Maidstone, taking about how sweet and kind they bother were; though they were not being kept in Box Andromeda, being moved around to prevent the Stonemaids from causing trouble - not that there was a Stonemaid issue. She tells the listeners that spending time with the Maidstones had affected her view on the Stonemaids, she talks about how beautiful the Prime Dream was, that it was her generation that had grown up in it and made it what it was, that both Riot and Valerie were able to see that now. In the process of saying this she accidentally reveals that she was no longer managing Valerie and Riot.

Though there was a silver lining to this, as she now had more free time to do her streams.

### Interlude 1 - Families Reunited

Melanie announces Moth Scarberry's capture (see Episode 82 - Failures), asking the listeners if they remembered Bill Scarberry (see The Morning Hour) and talking about how they'd found his kid, noting it as strange that both Moth's name and pronouns were 'moth' and commenting that it was alot of enthusiasm for moths. She tells the Listeners that Moth had been taken to Box Venus to be reunited with moth's father. She tells them that it hadn't even been the recommend a friend program, just the Cluster Drones doing their work (see Episode 62 - Provisions). She welcomes Moth to the prime Dream.

## Story 2 - Making Waves

Melanie tells the Listeners that she was at Box Andromeda, which was in the process of having maintenance done (see Episode 72 - Errors). She's asked what Dreaming Visor she wore, and she tells the listeners that she wore "Sclera-B’s", which were a chip invented by Anderson Faust that want on the surface of one's eye to allow them to smoothly enter the prime Dream whenever they wanted. Someone asks her what she'd done to get fired from the Maidstone job, which results in the questioner getting blocked, before telling the listeners that it hadn't been her fault, that Corporate just loved to mix things up but also stop things from getting mixed up. She admits there were some things she could have handled better, but at the end of the day it was just up to certain preferences in management.

She gets an ask form someone telling her that she was their idol and role model, asking if she had any advice for them. She tells them that the best thing that could do to be her, was be themself, as they were unique. But if there was anything else they wanted to try there was the "Flores Foundation book and educational course". Someone asks her what the aforementioned preferences in management were, and she tells them that it was secret, but if one thought about it, when the Botulus Corporation started the Dreaming Box program there was a culture war, so they needed someone who could appeal to both sides, and Lady Ethel Mallory had used to be an influencer. And Melanie was young, not some rich white lady, she'd grown up in a world where viral hits would travel between a million minds instantaneously, nothing dividing people and everything the dreamed was real. She tells the Listeners that she wondered if the people running Botco were still trying to catch up with the current times, as the people who grew up in Dreaming Boxes still weren't the ones in charge.

### Marketing - Pals For So Long

Lady Ethel Mallory announces her marketing segment. She tells the listeners that with still no news about the well being of Valerie and Riot, one had to question if Dashiell Spade had been right (see Episode 77 - Rebels). But they had finally received word that Riot and Valerie have made a full recovery from their symptoms and were set to re-join the Prime Dream within the week. She also announces that going forward, she would be responsible for the care and marketing representation in the Prime Dream of the Maidstones. Saying that it hardly felt like work at al as her and Valerie had been friends for so very long. She tells the listener that she hoped this to be a brand-new era of peace and collaboration.

### Story 2, Continued - Making Waves

Melanie hears from her stream chat that Ether was putting out an announcement about the Maidstones, which she decides to do a live reaction to. She reacts poorly and with sarcasm to the majority of it, accusing Ethel of being attracted to Dashiell and getting her hopes up of being reassigned to the Maidstones, only to immediately have those hopes crushed by Ethel announcing that she was going to be assigned to them. This causes Melanie to go on a rant about how Ethel always got what she wanted, how Melanie had put nights and hours into working on the Maidstones but Ethel had only gotten the job because she'd known Valerie decades ago, repeatedly calling Ethel a "dusty old lady". She talks about how she'd once looked up to Ethel., and that she should just give up and be happy write the yearly ‘Welcome to Botco’ pamphlet and watch every year as less and less people ever read it because more of them die, and for all their advertising, there was no one left to listen. Just their voices echoing in dream and drone and radio and billboard and TV in a dead quiet world.

But she announces that she wasn't going to give up. Giving up was easy, and sometimes when one had been neat up all they wanted to do was lay in the dirt and bleed, but that wasn't her. She was going to fight for the world she wanted, which was a world where she was a proper marketing official at Botco. Even if they’re not ready for Melanie Flores, Melanie Flores was ready for the world. She acknowledges Avery Crane in the chat.

### Interlude 2 - Switching Stations

Danielle O'Hara calls out to Nikignik for help in dream after the events of Episode 83 - Hopes. There is no response, and she acknowledges that even if someone could hear herm it would only be in a little dream they were having, perhaps in the moments between dreams like switching stations on a radio. Bu it was nigh time in Belfry, Montana. The sky had been clear when she'd fallen asleep, and she'd hoped the sound she could hear was the storm Olivier Song had tried to conjure up (see Episode 83 - Hopes), but she knew that the rest of the RV Gang were gone, taken away, and she was alone. It was all down to her, and she could barely move. Maybe the sound was only the ghost of a passing by train. But if anyone could hear her, she wasn't giving up: she had a cool jacket and a chair so she could move around, and she had those two things so she could keep going, keep rolling. And some day she was going to make Botco pay.

## Story 3 - It'll Eat You

Nikignik speaks to the Dreamers and apologises to them. He'd stared the narrative with intention. that the lives he'd narrate would get better and amount to something. But everywhere they looked things were crumbling, and people were getting hurt. Zazzlezazz had told them that they were had at watching, he could not become invested or inevitably one of the stories would end badly and either hurt them of take them with it. They understood that they were meant to be impartial, but they'd gotten attached. So now they were a little storm of sight sitting at a railway crossing in Wyoming, and they wonder if their interference, even if just by narrating, had been what'd caused the unfortunate recent events. Nikignik announces that Old Afterclaps was approaching. Old Afterclaps greets Nikignik as a traveller a long way from home, and Nikignik acknowledges it as strange that he could see them, before introducing Old Afterclaps to the Dreamers. Afterclaps asks if they were there to tell campfire stories, and Nikignik asks why he was still on earth if he'd been constructed by Syrensyr, but Afterclaps rebukes this comment by telling Nikignik that he'd thought them to be a watchdog for the Council of heaven, asking why there was a wondering god crying on his railway line. Nikignik denies themself to be crying, and Afterclaps accuses them of be just like all the other Indescribables in not caring about anything smaller than them. This causes Nikignik to rant about all they were trying to carry and bear, that Afterclaps knew nothing of loss, but Afterclaps tells them that he cared enough to help people. Nikignik identifies this as a departure from Afterclaps original purpose.

Afterclaps asks Nikignik why they were there, and they tell him that they were there to watch and record, to document and nothing more. He asks if Nikignik cared about the people he narrated, why they weren't trying to help them. Nikignik tells him that their good intents could accidentally cause the doom of those they were trying to save. Afterclaps tells them that standing on the side lines would eat them [Nikignik], that it was scary, but they could be afraid to help people if they were inclined. Nikignik asks if they had many sins, and Afterclaps tells them that they only had one, but it was the blackest and heaviest. He tells them that they could still cut loose and not get their hands dirty, but the prayers and whispers they were doing currently were not going to be enough. He asks them if they though they [Not Nikignik] would stay long. When Nikignik asks who he was talking about, Afterclaps tells him the stars, asking if Nikignik was going to let them go out. Afterclaps leaves.

## Outro - Interference

Nikignik asks the Dreamers what good was it for him to broadcast to the heavens until there was no one left to hear. He tells the Dreamers that he could not sit back and hide while everything went wrong. The story was not over yet and the lives of those in it continued for another day, perhaps tomorrow would bring something new with the sun. He had not lost, and in a way the broadcast was all he really had left, he was their loyal host, and he would remain, even when the night was frightening, and the storm blotted out the stars entirely. He had watched when they had taken their first breath and he would watch when they took their last, but he could not guarantee things would change; humankind has chosen a path, and he did not know where it ends. But they would not walk it alone.