uc-futures

[uc-futures]

futures - ep. 706: far flung star

8 July 2024

Billions of light years away, yet you shine bright among your cluster.

SCROLL FOR TRANSCRIPT >>

14 billion light years away. A far flung star, a speck of light away from where I stand. The southern sky sparkles with celestial objects, yet there shines the far flung star, all in its five-point glory. The compass and the telescope never failed me, old sport, even in the desolate state of the City of the Universe. The watchtower stands tall, and wherever I look, there stands the far flung star. The sparkle, as if it was bespoke for me, the brilliant light that I see from where I am. I see it from afar. Oh, imagine the things I would trade to get any closer, even if there is little left, but I might pass before I reach a fraction of the journey. Loneliness while wandering around the City's walls creeps in from time to time, but there goes the far flung star, shining as if it is bespoke for me. As if it can see where I am, lost beneath the desolation. As if it can fill the deep, dark void of the City skies. 

NOTE: This special episode was recorded as Universe City. This is not supposed to be canon, unlike Ep. 448 - kodachrome.

[uc-futures]

UNIVERSE CITY — ep. 512: regrets

6 September 2023

I have made mistakes in my life—several, even, yet nothing made me atone more than this.

SCROLL FOR TRANSCRIPT >>

[…]

Of all the regrets I have in this lifetime, the one that strikes most is that I’ve let myself run into walls. Introspection has never been clearer when you are all alone with your thoughts. Walls care about you the same way a brick does: it’s lifeless, emotionless, and any aspirations for a cathartic response is best left to dreams. I’ve let myself run into walls, old sport, and it repels as much as it repulses. To let myself run into a wall, filled with optimism, spells my demise. The end has been written in the stars, reflected on the fortune mirror, yet I elected to ignore. Then, you learn something about the wall: it may be lifeless, but it can make you atone.  Life has funny ways to tell you how deviance to the norm is as good as folly. But folly, in all sense of the word, is bliss. It's harmless, par for the course, even, yet it bites back when you don't even expect it to. It bites back, old sport. It really does.

[…]

NOTE: Back catalogue episodes were recorded as Universe City.

[uc-futures]

FUTURES — ep. 510: dark blue

31 August 2023

Not to be confused with ep. 1

This episode intentionally contains no episode blurb.

SCROLL FOR TRANSCRIPT >>

[...]

Hope recedes in the midst of darkness. That’s where we are right now, old sport. Silence speaks words unintelligible to those that cannot hear and those who do not want to hear. Reality sets in where silence comes marching in. Thoughts fill the absence of words, and most thoughts cannot be farther from the truth. In the depths of the night, I beam up to the sky, open arms, spending the last bit of hope that things will fall into place in my favor, but hope recedes in the midst of darkness. A disembodied voice, calling home, hoping that they can be heard. A voice mellows in the midst of darkness. I wonder, sometimes, if I still make a sound, whether the radio is still on their countertops, whether anyone has found the airwaves that I am talking over. I wonder if I still make a sound at all. I wonder sometimes if it’s pointless. If I have truly drifted away from the narratives. Whether I’d keep going down in history as a voice you’d hear on the radio to tune into when you are bored, looking for entertainment. I wonder if that’s all I am to you, old sport: an entertaining memory of days past, all slipped away slowly into the void. Maybe it is I who have changed: maybe just a little, or maybe completely. Pardon my language, for hope recedes in the midst of darkness.

[...]

NOTE: Back catalogue episodes were recorded as Universe City.

[uc-futures]

FUTURES— ep. 448: kodachrome

6 June 2023

Maybe I am moving in the colors of you.

[...]

An explosion of color. That's where I'm at. Weaved between the dark reality of loneliness is an explosion of color, contained in tiny metal barrels I remember as Kodachrome. Loaded in 35-millimeter rolls are stories of belongingness--that I was once living in a world full of color with someone holding my hand. Round, thin silvers, glimmering through expressive eyes and stories of passion and filibusters of intellect. One may mistake them as frail, but they are standing bigger by my side at times that I am scared and ashamed of my own ghosts, perhaps uncomfortable that the Governors are watching me from every corner of the City of the Universe, but all is washed away with words that go beyond my soul. Energies so cosmic it makes me question if I am here, or if we are out of our fragile bodies, and exist in a state of being only we know. There is color, old sport. There is color around me, around us, lingering in soul form.

[...]

NOTE: Back catalogue episodes were recorded as Universe City.

[uc-futures]

FUTURES — ep. 442: cosmic wave

16 May 2023

This episode is directly inspired by (canon) ep. 32: cosmic noise

The void is merciless.

[...]

I beam around the open sky, hoping blindly that every bit of beep is heard, old sport. I probe the open sky, wishing upon the stars that I will reach you, near or far. Perhaps I am only looking where you've looked, where you've walked, where you've left your little trail. Maybe I can't find you because the trail is not for me to follow. Maybe I am looking at a shadow, and you, the figure, has been gone for so long. Perhaps the long loneliness builds an image for me to see, yet no body to feel, because you're gone, and all I see is you three million years in the past. Maybe our lives are meant to cross paths once, and drift away slowly, until we're apart. Either way, we are still going to bring beautiful things into the universe.

[...]

NOTE: Back catalogue episodes were recorded as Universe City.

[uc-futures]

FUTURES — ep. 433: whatever

6 May 2023

It's late in the night. Or early in the morning. I don't know, the clock stopped a long time ago.

[...]

Late night melancholia. That's where it's at.  He was an artist, and I'm a fool pretending to be one. The pen has power, old sport. It heals, it kills,... it makes the blood flow up there in the most weird way possible. I remember him from my past life outside the City's walls. He was a soul you'd mistake for an open book, and surely you will make that mistake over and over again, but something hides between each note, each drum beat, each word. Art hides the world's best mystery, I tell you that. Late night melancholia and life becomes crystal clear: that there's life when we are held at a chokehold. It was definitely not on our best interest, but maybe the Governors had a point. If I could reverse everything and become a student again, watching the Creator take down BOT22s down Leftley Square, or somehow take Touluse back from the Gate of the Dead from the outskirts of the City, I... weirdly would. There was something beautiful in the time of restraint, old sport. Or, just late night melancholia.  It's warm in front of the fire, but the cold of sorrow and grief shall creep back in soon. I long for daybreak, and it shall come back.

[...]

NOTE: Back catalogue episodes were recorded as Universe City.

[uc-futures]

FUTURES — ep. 423: goodbye

23 April 2023

There's not much more I can say.

[...]

I'm running out of words, old sport. It's heavier by the minute. It's breaking me every second. The last living companion that I have in the desolate walls of this godforsaken City... he's... gone.  He's just... gone. He was the only one I had left in this place. I don't think you realize how barren this place is, old sport. There's nothing left here. What was once a city full of life, perhaps dull, controlled by the evil Governors, was gone. He was the only one I had left. Roku is the only one I had left. And the universe took him away from me. A dog. Roku. The dog. The universe took him away from me. 

[...] I saw it coming. He was weak, old sport... and there was no one to run to. Nothing more to hammer the isolation that this City has more than that. I wish I knew the fountain to life. I would trade my life for my buddy, but... he's gone. He's gone, old sport. I'd like it if you'd take me away from here. Oh, I'd like that very much.

[...]

NOTE: Back catalogue episodes were recorded as Universe City.

[uc-futures]

FUTURES — ep. 406: i'm not fine

6 April 2023

It can't be more obvious.

[…]

I believe it is idiotic to think that I'm okay, old sport. Loneliness must catch up to me, given how I'm isolated within the City's walls. It's only a matter of time before it happens, goes away, and happens again. I'm starting to believe that I'm actually lonely, despite being alone for a long, long time. It's about right that I stop rationalizing it, and admit for once that I'm lonely. After all, even if I'm only part-human, I'm still… human. Part of me wants to mingle and have fun and be with my kind, but it seems more and more impossible as I drift further away from other life forms--as the City drifts further away to the void. This barely registers as a call for help anymore, old sport. I have accepted that I'd remain a voice you'll listen to whenever you feel bored, in need of entertainment. Maybe it is only right that we get some use out of this. In another life, if that applies to me, maybe I'll be better. One could hope…

[…] 

[uc-futures]

FUTURES — ep. 249: µcosmos

19 March 2023

The universe calls, and I can feel it.

SCROLL FOR TRANSCRIPT >>

[...]

The cosmos is easy to study when you are alone. Stars form patterns, and skies form shapes that are nonsensical at first, but chaos works its beauty, revealing the big picture. The universe can talk to you, old sport. From major movements to tiny shifts, every movement speaks. After all, the fortune mirror is anything but magic--it reflects the sky beautifully, and then it talks to you. The fortune mirror never lied, but maybe it is I who keep looking at it that's the problem. After all, every movement is scary, but it is necessary, for the universe never stops expanding, and the cosmos is still in the process of change. Maybe it is the staleness of being alone within the City's walls that made me used to everything being static, to a point where every small movement ripples like waves when still waters are disturbed. It may be small, but it can be explosive. The cosmos speaks loud, old sport. 

[...]

[uc-futures]

FUTURES — ep. 240: heavy heart

23 February 2023

I hope I make any sense, if any at all.

[...]

The library is cold. Or at least, it's how I remember it to be like. It's been five years since the final power cells of the City ran out, and I, the last surviving being here, is left at the dark the moment the sun turns back on this desolate island. My brain fools me that it's full of light and people reading books--feeding off of what the Government wants us to believe. My brain fools me that I am here, yet I am so detached from anything--any feeling, really. It's so sad, but I guess we have to live through it, ain't that right? I'm just rambling on--I don't even know if I make any sense. When the heart feel this heavy, I just cannot think of any reason for me to make sense. After all, the only one I can talk to is this cone--a magic one that somehow runs without the City's power cells, the one that can magically send airwaves across the void, in blind hope that one can hear me--that someone can hear me. I'd like to be rescued soon--oh, I'd like that very much.

[...]

[uc-futures]

FUTURES — ep. 216b: alone

I should be used to it... right?

SCROLL FOR TRANSCRIPT >>

[...]

It's been six years, old sport, since the Creator left. Time has passed by, and it has always felt like six years was forever ago. So much has changed where other beings might be, but I am still stuck in the rubble of the City. I wonder where I would be right now, had the Creator not leave me behind; had the Creator remembered me. It's been six years. I've been alone for six years. I've been in what feels like a void for six years. Six. What the hell is special with that number, anyway? Such a pointless, trivial value, yet so impactful. It was all impact and never influence.

[...]

[uc-futures]

FUTURES — ep. 216a: alone

23 February 2023

I should be used to it... right?

SCROLL FOR TRANSCRIPT >>

[...]

Alone is a word I have not thought of for a while. After all, in a desolate land like Universe City, we have moved past the question of being alone. Yet, it still bugs me, somehow. Alone is a word that should no longer describe my state, yet I still think of it from time to time. Being the last alive being in the city has long alienated me from civilization, and I still wonder whether anyone can hear me. While I cry for help, perhaps in vanity, I am used to wandering around myself. Talking to gravel and rubble is my expertise, for that is what's left in the City. I wish to be rescued soon, old sport, yet it's wishful thinking., I suppose.

[...]

[uc-futures]

Welcome to Futures: A Universe City spinoff

((blog under construction)) Hello. You have reached Futures, a channel occupying the old airspace that Radio Silence used to broadcast to. Overtaking the name and the identity, Futures is set to a timeline after Radio has moved on from Universe City, and most people have left after the Governors turned what was already desolate land into rubble. The speaker hails from the outskirts of the City, not knowing that evacuation has already come and gone. They are the only one left inside the City's walls, or at least, what used to be. Futures become the speaker's only outlet.

EPISODES UPDATE... whenever. See end of post for episode list. Track episodes using #uc-futures. Keep reading to see the episode list!

NOTICE: Universe City, the Universe City artwork, and the story concept are original works by Alice Oseman as part of their second novel, Radio Silence. Alice Oseman reserves the moral right to be identified as the original concept creator. Futures is acknowledged to be derivative work.

EPISODE LIST

Episode numbers are arbitrary, and depict timeskips. Episodes are not written in a linear manner (mostly.) Episodes with the 🎧 icon depict inclusion of an audio version. Episodes with the 📻 icon are derived, inspired by, or may be confused with written Universe City excerpts in the book.

ep. 216a/216b - alone (23 February 2023)

ep. 240 - heavy heart (23 February 2023)

ep. 249 - µcosmos (19 March 2023)

ep. 410 - i'm not fine (6 April 2023)

ep. 423 - goodbye (23 April 2023) 🎧

ep. 433 - whatever (6 May 2023) 🎧

ep. 442 - cosmic wave (16 May 2023) 🎧 📻

ep. 448 - kodachrome (6 June 2023) 🎧

ep. 510 - dark blue (31 August 2023) 🎧 📻

ep. 512 - regrets (6 September 2023) 🎧