...and this is my codex.

An answering machine greets anyone who tries to contact Caleb while he's not at home, through any means (this does include e-mail, too; Caleb's computer is snazzy.)

This is Caleb Banacek. I am unavailable at this moment; please leave a message and I will respond as quickly as possible.

( Feel free to leave any sorts of messages a pup might send Caleb while he is not here at any given time - old messages will probably be deleted after a certain amount of time. >_> Note that this does not only apply to phone / e-mail messages, but things like letters, packages, etc. )

Seven days.

Seven fucking days of agony and stress and chaos. Seven days where he didn't even have the safety of the Blood Asp. Caleb had fought a variety of things in Faerun and dealt with a wide variety of shit due to both that realm and the Nexus, but never anything like Flowerclock.

He'd seen giant fuckoff bears and heard about worms and felt a variety of emotions. Zombies. Rust monsters. Who the hell knows what else; he was convinced his brain'd blocked out some of it (with good reason). He remembered the movie theatre, and every time he did, he felt a little sick. After that was gratefulness to Grif for tranqing him. They'd fought all the way through, though, with probably more success than any other group. They found Killgrave, and they were ready, and what happened?

The fucking tower blew up. All that way, and a pointless fucking 'death'. Well, until he ended up back in the Nexus.

And right now, Caleb is silent, save for a bit of quiet sobbing in his own bed, alone. It's not often he gets to the point where he's crying, but the lack of sleep, the shitty diet, the stress, and the pointlessness of it all have simply pushed him to the point of breaking. He can no longer deal with the stress.

In a few days, he'll be fine; but right now, all he wants is to cry and sleep.

Generate ten numbers from 1 to 100 here.

Post them.

I will answer the corresponding questions from here.

I realize this is probably not the best way to say all of this, but I have no idea how else to put it. A public forum is perhaps, not the best way to discuss everything that is going on in my head.

That is not the point - there has been a lot floating around in my head, especially after our return from Faerun, that I need to get out, and this post here will effectively be little more than a massive memory dump.

The first thing is that - well, am I really a Star Adder anymore? I have always thought of myself as belonging to the Clan rather than to anyone else, but the more I have thought about it, the more I have realized that honestly, given the choice between staying here, or returning to the Clan - and being forced to select one of them - I would prefer to stay here, rather than return to my duties. I realize that this makes me a disloyal Clanner, and probably ensures that my genes will never be passed on to the next generation. That is, if they do not Annihilate or Abjure me first.

But this is where I feel like I belong. While I enjoy combat - our ritualized style of it, at any rate - and love working with mecha, fixing them up, piloting them, etc... I do not feel like the ways I have changed due to the Nexus contribute to me being a worthwhile addition to the Clan. It has been my duty to scout here, but with Amelia - a significantly more loyal clanner than I am - here, my duties seem almost redundant. I am not sure why she has not recommended my return to the Clans, other than perhaps the knowledge that I would not go.

I do wish, however, that I could throw off all of my cultural norms that I have brought. I think the honor system is fantastic and I wish more people in the Nexus would use it. Yet, I do know that such a thing will never happen, and I have had to... adapt, for lack of a better word, the Clan Rules of Engagement to the Nexus in order to stay alive. After all, this place is not the safest place by any means. Sometimes I also find myself being too serious for things; the Nexus is supposed to be a place for laughter and whatnot, yet my own culture makes me infinitely too serious. Looking at Amelia is like looking in a somewhat twisted mirror - how did I survive like that, taking the entire world as so serious? Being a cog in a machine, while it might be for the good of the Clan, might not be the best thing for me - and having been here, I do not know if I can put the needs of the Clan above the needs of me.

Yet there are some things I wish I could do with this place. I wish I were better suited to monogamy than I am; while I do love Selene dearly, at the same time, the Clans are a place where monogamy is *weird*, and sex is a part of friendship. It is strange being physically attracted to people like Yuuko and Altalita and not having sex with them. I do also wish that there were less chaos here; while the rampant LOLs and whatnot make things interesting, they also do create a massive amount of stress on my life. (We will not mention my clone here.)

The point is... I am definitely changed, compared to where I was a year ago. A year ago, if the Clan had recalled me, I would have gone without question. I did not know better than them, clearly, and I was to do my role. I am not saying that that is a bad thing, but it is hardly who I am today. Who I am today is an individual, not a piece of a greater whole, and if they called me back, I would fight it - just as I would fight any call for invasion. I can only hope they do not sound that latter call.

What makes me a hero?

Caleb has managed to commander a particularly large sideroom in the Nexus, and has also managed to send messages to a variety of people (basically everyone on his friends list, and whoever else, really) that says "HEY GUYS I'M HAVING A PARTY OR SOMETHING, COME HERE", except in far, far more tasteful words.

Those words being something along the lines of "So, apparently it is customary to have a birthday party on the date of your birthday. As such, I am throwing one in [this room] at [this time, which is in like an hour or now or whatever], and it would be fantastic if you would show up."

Regardless, right now there is not much to the party itself - there is some alcohol, yes, and some random balloons that showed up who knows how. And in the middle of it all is Caleb, just sitting and drinking something from a bottle.

Be festive. Somebody?

(EDIT: Also, does anyone have any suggestions on how to deal with 'time' in this post? I mean, I'm not sure who's showed up when, so... well, yeah. ^^; )

(EDIT 2: Thread has moved on more. SCROLL DOWN.)

Caleb, at the moment, is currently lying across a couch in his apartment. At the moment, he's asleep, and very gently snoring. He'd intended to stay awake - after all, it wasn't that late - but he'd just found himself drifting off to sleep.

One hand was dangling off the side of the couch, and the other was resting on his stomach. At least he wasn't drooling - that would have been far too embarrassing.

Caleb is sprawled across the couch on his apartment. It's probably an improvement that he's not crying or anything. However, he's also not really doing anything. He is very :| right now.

And he keeps staring at the door like he really wants it to burst open any moment, even though a little part of him tells him that won't happen.

He looks like he could /desperately/ use a hug right now.

And now for something different...

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I'm posting this here because it's way more likely to get seen here by people who know than on my OOC journal.

So, I was having a discussion with slytherin_spy-mun, and this came up, and we're at an impasse here as to who is right.

Caleb Banacek. Gryffindor, or Hufflepuff?

Caleb PINpoints to the coordinates that Yuuko has given him, and quietly stands outside. Part of him feels like Yuuko is not the best person to talk to, but part of him needs somebody to talk to, and she will tell it like she sees it.

Taking a deep breath, he looks around...

Journal, things have gotten significantly more complicated, what with all these alternates and clones and whatnot that I need to go into. Let me just do a quick little overview of all that since my last update here.

My clone is dead, as is Rei's clone and Li's clone. The werewolf miniions they had are also dead. It seems that things do not change, though - Ami has a clone running about of her, too, which makes my life so much MORE fun. *sigh* Just what I needed, more clones.

And more incompetence. It was something that I enjoyed lacking in the Homeworlds (but the Homeworlds are for another day - I shall not discuss them here). An alternate of Phoenix's girlfriend decided to take us all on a little ghost hunt. This was not the problem. The problem was not informing us that electronics didn't work before sending us, and not informing us that people might disappear.

This, as you can imagine, is a significantly larger problem when the person disappearing is Selene.

When I find her, we will have... ah... 'words'. Such incompetence would never be tolerated in the Clans. I am quite certain there would be a Trial of Grievance or a Trial of Position to replace her were she in command.

A low rumbling sounded in Caleb's ears as the Blood Asp descended down into the loading bay. He couldn't confirm that Cloneb was down here - but something told him he was. A gut feeling, perhaps, or the knowledge that he'd be doing the same damn thing if he were in Cloneb's shoes.

That feeling hit a little too close to home, though - after all, Cloneb WAS him. Just a sick, twisted version of him who would pay for what he did. Caleb's knuckles gripped the handles of the controls a bit more tightly as the elevator thudded to a halt, and began to open.

This gave Caleb enough time to punch a series of keys - feeding the video linkup he'd installed in the Blood Asp to several PINpoints.

"This is Star Captain Caleb Banacek, Clan Star Adder. Expecting enemy fire at any moment - target is dezgra. Rules of engagement are suppressed for this combat." Caleb doesn't normally sound like this - this is a much more serious, much colder Caleb. A Caleb in a warrior mindset.

(This is intentionally locked - to avoid spoilers, the rest will be in comments, round by round.)

Well, given the Dear Multiverse prompt, I figured I might as well have a list.

This is purely OOC, so start commenting!

Caleb is fretting right now. He's called Selene over to talk with him tonight, because he has something to tell her. It is something that worries him a lot, but he thinks she needs to be told. She's free to let herself in - not only at this time, but anytime, as he may have made clear in the conversation.

Thankfully for her, it is not either of the two things that might totally destroy her fragile view of the world.

But he's waiting on the couch, hunched over it, thinking. And he looks displeased.

I have decided to start a journal again.

In all honesty, I cannot write everything I am thinking in it. But there are things that I need to say here, and I need to be able to write down so they no longer stew inside.

Recently, things have become significantly more stressful for me. Dealing with the clones and their unpleasantness is bad enough. Attempting to deal with those who would disallow me from a proper combat with my own clone is far worse. They know the... unpleasantness these clones committed (those who read this should know why I opt not to say what it is), and they know why I must kill them.

Why, then, do they insist on barring me?

Li is gathering people to help. I can only hope he is not intentionally gathering people of a similar mindset. Phoenix is also not happy about the idea that it will come to violence, but he understands that it is not his fight, but mine. Yuuko is also concerned about me, but she is concerned for my well-being rather than any sort of moral issues.

At least I have some people who think they need to die, such as Jack and Otto. Though I have not seen Jack around lately - or at least when I did, he was not okay. I should check on him then...

Caleb is back to his apartment.

The lights are all off. The doors are locked. He is staring into his pillow on his bed. Any attempts to contact him, via phone, email, or coming to the door, will be ignored. Phone calls will be picked up, and most likely hung up on (though it can't hurt to try), emails will be checked and ignored, and coming to the door will be responded with a "Who is it". If it is not Selene or Puck, he will not answer it.

He is not good at dealing with these emotions. If somebody asks him, he ccan't explain why he was so attracted to Selene, or why hurting her - and himself - hurt this much. All he wants is to go back and fix it so he'd never come near that singing thing.

Caleb is away.

Caleb is off wyvern hunting with a variety of people, foremost of which is Selene. If anyone would like to leave a phone message, e-mail, package, etc. for him to get, this would be the place and time to do it.

Caleb is hard at work in his room, having decided that the mural in there is not complete. So he is busy in there, shirtless and wearing a pair of ripped-up jeans, working on shading one of the mechs he'd painted there (for those who know mechs, the one in particular is an Ebon Jaguar [also known as a Cauldron Born]; for those who really know mechs, it is an H variant).

If one were to sneak into the house (and the door is open, after all; Caleb decided earlier that paint fumes were a bad idea), they'd see him hard at work, kneeling on the floor, lovingly detailing that single mech painted on the wall with a small brush.

Hopefully nobody will startle him!