InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Let's get some oaaatttsssss."

Tom Sturbridge (timestoodstill) wrote in we_float,
@ 2010-07-06 13:07:00

Entry tags:

character: charlotte meadows, character: mickey o'hare, character: tom sturbridge

Who: Tom Sturbridge and Char Meadows
When: July 6, 2096
Where: Outside Anhalt
What: Just talking
Status: Closed, Complete

Tom sat on the front steps, contemplating the lawn. Someone needed to mow it, but he wasn't sure if they had a mower.

He heard the door open behind him and glanced over his shoulder. A girl he's seen around but never spoken to. "Do you think Ganesh could build a lawn-mowing robot?" he asked with a grin.

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

	plusthree 2010-07-09 12:35 am UTC (link)
	"Enthusiasm is more important than tune in karaoke." Char laughed. "Ask Ganesh; I even convinced him to sing once. I'll talk to JT and Del about dancing, and Maxxie too, if you swear she won't break me." She grinned, nudging him with her hip as they walked. "What do you like to do for fun that's social, then, if it's not dancing or singing?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

timestoodstill
2010-07-09 12:47 am UTC (link)

"She won't break you. And I didn't say I wouldn't go along, just that I'm not much a dancer and you might not want to be seen with me. As for what I like to do, I like to read a lot, which isn't all that social, I guess, but I like to give people the books I've read and liked just to be able to talk to them about them. I like listening to music, going to concerts. I love playing music, although I'm more a kind of folky guy, which generally will get you laughed at in college, so when I want to jam with people I have to find guys who are like three times my age. I play guitar and bodhran. I like video games, too... especially the music ones. We should play sometime when you're out! You can sing and I'll play guitar and we can get other people in on it, too. Y'know, next time when it's raining which is pretty much always. As long as we're not busy saving the world."

Tom squeezed her arm against his side, beaming down at her. "Oh, look! This is one of my favorite stores." He nudged her in the direction of a music store that also had all kinds of other novelty-type stuff. "Who knows? We might even find bubbles here, too."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

plusthree
2010-07-09 01:59 am UTC (link)

"I like all music, even folk music, and folk music is the kind that can be subversive so maybe you do know some of the songs of the sort I was thinking we could make anthems for wild cards." She bounced happily at that thought. "You can play, I can sing. It'll work wonderfully, just slowly, since I'm not out all that often. And I'd love to play games with you. Unlike some people, I actually like getting out and being social."

She grinned to see the music store, and followed his lead as he shifted direction to go in. "Musical bubbles? When I was a little girl, I remember we had this game with bubbles that we sang into. And our words would float away and pop somewhere else and the person there would hear our music. I loved it."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	timestoodstill 2010-07-09 02:12 am UTC (link)
	"How did that work?" Tom asked. "It seems... scientifically... dubious." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	plusthree 2010-07-09 02:20 am UTC (link)
	"It was virtual, and I was around five, so I wasn't worried about how it worked." Char grinned. "And even now, if I could go back into that virtual world, it was so charming to send little song bubbles to friends far away that I'd do it all over again." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

timestoodstill
2010-07-09 02:38 am UTC (link)

"Ohhh. Virtual, yeah. My parents had this weird thing about keeping me and my brother away from the virtual world when we were younger. Like we would somehow not know the difference between fantasy and reality if they let us play around there too much. Which of course meant we were obsessed with it when we went to friends' houses."

Tom poked at one of the touch screens, scrolling through the catalog of what they had available. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

plusthree
2010-07-09 02:47 am UTC (link)

"Four brothers. Ooh that one." Char leaned into him, touching a song choice so she could hear the preview. "I need to get Jimmy to download more things into my head, but he doesn't exactly perform on demand. Oh, and two were older, two younger. And why wouldn't you separate fantasy and reality? Virtual toys were a great way to learn what we could and couldn't do. I learned very quickly that wrestling in the virtual world was alright, and in the real world it hurt. And that my brothers paid a lot more attention when I screamed in reality. Because oh were they ever over protective."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	timestoodstill 2010-07-09 02:50 am UTC (link)
	"I don't know. My parents were weird about a lot of things. My parents are just weird in general, really." Tom shrugged. "I have an older brother, Callum. He's awesome. You can download things into your head? How do you talk to the others?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

plusthree
2010-07-09 02:55 pm UTC (link)

"You're a boy; your brother probably didn't want to hide you away from the rest of the world while saying he was protecting you." Char rolled her eyes. "Not that I didn't love every single one of them, but it got cloying sometimes."

She spun her finger near her ear. "We're nuts, right? Mickey not only got me, Andy, and Jimmy, but he manage to get a something or other stuck in here. Music, newsfeeds, and phone calls that we can't ignore. Jimmy's actually been helpful with me getting new music because I got so tired of Mickey's music from eight years ago. Mostly, we leave notes, play clips. The others don't talk much, mostly me."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	timestoodstill 2010-07-09 04:55 pm UTC (link)
	"You seem pretty sane to me, all things considered," Tom said with a shrug. "Mickey's the one that seems crazy." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	plusthree 2010-07-09 05:05 pm UTC (link)
	"He is, and it's sad," Char sighed. "Since he's sort of cute and sweet in a highly geeky sort of way. He doesn't handle us all being around very well at all." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	timestoodstill 2010-07-09 05:30 pm UTC (link)
	"Can't you just, like, ignore each other?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

plusthree
2010-07-09 05:39 pm UTC (link)

She gave him a look of confusion. "How? I don't want to sleep for days on end, and waking up after a few days of not being around means needing to know what went on. Where we got the cut on our foot, or why we're hungry or dirty. There's always noise in here anyway, and we impact each other. It's pretty difficult to just ignore things, although Jimmy's managed his own delusionary world halfway decently. He just pretends."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	timestoodstill 2010-07-09 05:42 pm UTC (link)
	Tom held his hands up in surrender. "Sorry," he said easily. "I guess it's hard to imagine what it would be like, y'know? Do you know that time is passing when you're not out? Or is it like being asleep, and you wake up feeling like it's just the next day, but it might be two or three days later?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	plusthree 2010-07-09 05:47 pm UTC (link)
	"Both? It depends on the time. I try to stay awake, but Andy doesn't seem to really care." Char reached past him to press a finger against the touch screen, starting up a different song. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

timestoodstill
2010-07-09 05:51 pm UTC (link)

Tom wandered a little ways away, poking through the various toys on the shelves. "If Andy gets high, do you feel it? Or, like, if one of them gets drunk, do you end up with the hangover if you wake up next? That would have to be annoying. Especially since it would mean that they wouldn't have worry about not drinking too much, because they wouldn't have to be the one to deal with the aftermath."

He turned back towards her, grinning. "Bubbles!" He held up a brightly colored plastic bottle.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

plusthree
2010-07-09 05:57 pm UTC (link)

"We share one body, so yeah, things just kind of pass along. I pull a muscle, the next person knows about it. Andy gets drunk, the next one has the hangover, although we seem to have developed a good tolerance for most things." She shrugged, looking over the songs, poking at one after another for a brief clip of sound. "The advantage is that 3 out of 4 days, the body's a boy, so some things seem to have just shut down. And anything with emotional context pretty much sticks to the person, like, Mickey doesn't get hot over Alec, which would pretty much be about the worst thing that could happen I think."

She turned, grinning brightly back. "Do they have wands? The really big ones, where you need to pour it out into a dish?"

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	timestoodstill 2010-07-09 06:03 pm UTC (link)
	Tom turned back to the shelves, looking to see if they had what Char was looking for. "Hot for Alec?" He couldn't help the horrified note that his voice took on. "You're not, are you?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	plusthree 2010-07-09 06:16 pm UTC (link)
	"He's cute," Char said, still smiling. "But he's totally not into girls at all, so what's the point? He's nicer than he looks, and has this amazingly creative mind. Have you taken the time to actually talk to him?" She looked at him, because she had the feeling most people in the house didn't. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	timestoodstill 2010-07-09 06:23 pm UTC (link)
	"I haven't," Tom admitted. "But all he's really done is insult most people, and while I know I'm not perfect, I don't really need to have my flaws pointed out to me in the nastiest way he can come up with." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	plusthree 2010-07-09 06:35 pm UTC (link)
	"He's never insulted me, and I've never been rude to him," Char said. "I don't know why it's different, but I don't think it's because of Jimmy. We've just treated each other well." (Reply to this) (Parent)

(Read comments) -