Room 516, Tuesday Morning

[thewrathofkaan]

Roscoe woke up to a long string of text messages from his grandpa that he tried responding to before he ultimately got bored trying and forgot about it. He was more interested in spending his day in other ways, like laying on his stomach with his tablet on his bed, browsing through online shoe stores.

Look, it was fall. He needed new boots. It was important.

He had a nicely creepy Halloween playlist playing in the background, getting him in that mood. Pumpkin spice and spooky scary songs and boot shopping, it was a whole thing.

[[door and post open!]]

Comments

[thewrathofkaan]

"Oh man, that would be so cool, though," Roscoe said wistfully. He was going to be the biggest Halloween fanboy ever now that he was living somewhere with seasons. He'd just decided. "With, like, talking pumpkins. And dancing skeletons, but not the really scary ones. And you have to go everywhere by hayride."

[intotheout]

"That just sounds itchy." Tip was a city kid. Halloween to her mostly just meant drunken strangers in costumes and candy everywhere. "What if you're allergic to hay?"

[thewrathofkaan]

"Wait, you can be allergic to hay?" Roscoe wondered. "Full disclosure, I've never been on an actual hayride. They just look cool in movies."

[intotheout]

"It's basically dry grass," Tip pointed out. "I always kind of figured it was the sort of thing they only actually did in movies, not in the real world."

[thewrathofkaan]

"Probably," Roscoe laughed. "I bet a lot of the whole teen experience they show in movies is fake. Like, I don't know, those high school football teams that everyone in town worships for some reason. Does anyone's school actually have a football team?"

[intotheout]

"I think the one back home does," Tip said. "They have a homecoming parade and everything." Suburbs were weird. "I don't know why anyone who didn't know someone on the team would care, though. I hear they're pretty bad at it."

[thewrathofkaan]

"And football is the most boring sport to watch, anyway," Roscoe added. "I mean, maybe it makes sense if there are cheerleaders."

[intotheout]

"Can you explain cheerleaders to me?" Tip asked. "I mean . . . if you need people to tell you how to get excited for a game, why are you bothering with that game? Why not go do or watch something else?"

[thewrathofkaan]

"Yeah, but they do gymnastics," Roscoe pointed out with a grin. "I mean, I'd rather watch their routines than the rest of the game. The stuff they can do with their bodies is way cooler than what the actual football players do. "

He meant this in a totally genuine way. Yes, the short skirts were nice, but the gymnastics were better.

[intotheout]

"So why aren't they just the sport?" Tip asked. "Why have the football game at all?"

[thewrathofkaan]

"That part, I dunno," Roscoe admitted. He scrunched up his face in thought. "Because athletic culture insists on demeaning female athletes, I guess?"

[intotheout]

Tip snorted. "You can probably take out all mention of 'athletics' in that statement and it'll still be true." She sighed. "I'd rather go see a game of stickyfish than anything football related. And that's a Boov game that actually involves throwing fish."

[thewrathofkaan]

"Ew," Roscoe said, appalled. "I mean, I don't wanna judge the Boov, but... ew."

He paused. "But yeah, I mean, probably more interesting than football. Especially if you're sitting far enough back that you can't smell it."

[intotheout]

"Sometimes the fish explodes," Tip said. "But they also sing. As, like, part of the game play." It didn't make a lot of sense at all, no. "J.Lo plays it at home sometimes by himself. He uses a water balloon instead of a fish, though."

[thewrathofkaan]

"That makes it a lot less disgusting." But it did not make it make sense, no. "Just like, by himself? No opposing team?"

J.Lo sounded like a weird guy.

[intotheout]

"Yeah. You know, tossing the balloon in the air and running around and narrating like he's in a full game. I've seen people do that, too." She shrugged. "He gets bored sometimes."

Now she was thinking about him getting super bored and lonely back home without her, so she changed the subject.

"I see you're running for student council."

[thewrathofkaan]

Roscoe shrugged. "Yeah, I thought it'd be fun. I like planning events and stuff. And it could be a good way to meet people."

His fairly casual interest in the position made the amount of money he'd spent on campaign materials yesterday pretty horrific, but Roscoe was all about buying fleeting entertainment.

"Plus I'll get to see where the student council stashes their glitter, which could be useful for arts and crafts and makeup projects, you know."

[intotheout]

Yeah, Tip's eyes widened fractionally at how casually he'd apparently spent that cash. She and her mom weren't exactly hurting anymore, but eleven years of frugality was a hard habit to break.

"I signed up, too. There's only three freshman, like, total, though, so I didn't think I'd worry about campaigning for it."

[thewrathofkaan]

"Really? Only three?" Roscoe grinned. "Yeah, I think you've probably got it in the bag. Although I think you could still compete even if there were four."

Actually, he thought Tip stood a fighting chance against any number of competitors, but he was just going to joke about it instead.

[intotheout]

"I could totally compete," Tip said, full of false bravado. At her old school she could absolutely not have competed. She dealt with this there by deciding not to care. "But if there were more than four, I might have to try."

[thewrathofkaan]

"I think the whole 'cool-headed in the face of an alien invasion' thing might win you some points, though," Roscoe pointed out. "And you could definitely take better campaign photos than anyone else. What are the chances anyone else on this campus even owns a real camera?"

[intotheout]

Tip thought that over. "I don't know. Are any of the students from, like, the late 20th century? It seems like everyone's mostly either pre-modern or from space."

Or, you know, from around the present, like Tip and Roscoe were.