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Summary: Shane comes back from New York Comic con with first prize.
Date: October 16, 2011
Log Title: Inappropriate Comment
Rating: PG-13
Xavier Mansion - Right Path
A brick path off the courtyard cuts through the grass to lead to the other areas on the outside grounds of Xavier's. There are a few benches that line the path so students can sit and enjoy outside. Either side of the path the grass is well manicured and has enough room for students to have a picnic, play Frisbee, or relax and study. At night there are small lamps that raise three feet off the ground to provide light.
The sun is up and there's a nice fall breeze outside leaving it nice and cool. The leaves have started to change and the view of the woods from the lawn off the right path is quite relaxing. Sage is outside dressed in a colourful vintage looking seventies jacket sitting on a patchwork quilt as he works on his homework that's due tomorrow. Mutant studies to be exact so he's currently working on reading about Charles Xavier on his laptop, having finally learned to use the thing.
Dressed in his typical sweater jacket, flat cap and jeans, Kieran just decided that he would enjoy a nice walk around the grounds. He breaths in the pleasant autumn air, hands in the pockets of his jacket and his guitar slung across his back. Hey. Never know when he might have a song pop in his head and demand to be played or else threaten with insanity.
From the direction of the courtyard, an odd, arrythmic clinking is heard, metal on metal. As the sound draws closer, beneath it can be discerned the heavy, clomping step of the sort of waffle-stompers favored by the club kiddies. Finally, Shane rounds a corner, dressed in what is, even for her, vastly overdesigned; a black skirt, its front half apparently made up of nothing but belts of varying size, their buckles clinking together with each step. On her chest and over the entirety of one arm, some sort of chromed armor, more at home on some dystopian fantasy anime. Covering her other arm and head, a heavy black cloak, trimmed in silver braid, its hood pulled back to showcase the armored chrome visor sticking out over her head, achored over her ears and left backless to allow her blonde hair to be seen. For the moment, it seems, she's not noticed Sage or Kieran, and looks almost pleased with herself; a rarity, all its own.
Sage doesn't look up unitl he hears Shane walking and can't help but stare at her for a bit. Unfortunately with the presence of Shane all dressed up he never notices Kieran. He closes his book and just stares for a long while. It isn't until she's a bit closer that he realizes who it is and he smiles. "Shane, bloody hell you look quite impressive. What that what you were working on a few nights ago?"
The clang of metal on metal is enough to draw Kieran's attention anyway. "What the…" Is all that the blonde teen can manage. He doesn't quite tense though as he sees who it is. Considering the last time he met her she was still being controlled by Mindbender and Upgrade and was blowing things to kingdom come, it's not really all that surprising really.
The murmur of voices causes the girl to pause, blinking in confusion. Under the cloak, her other arm moves briefly, then the visor is taken off. Apparently, whatever it was made of is designed to fit over her headphones, making it simple enough to wear, or let hang over her neck. "…Oh. Hey Sage," she says, the cloak moving aside to reveal that her other arm is bare to the shoulder, nodding to the dreadlocked student… and after a moment's pause, an absent nod Kieran's way, as though the slender young woman doesn't quite recognize the student. Looking back to Sage, then the laptop, she arches an eyebrow. "What're you reading?"
"May I ask why you are dressed like that? It's quite impressive but I don't think I've ever seen a skirt like that." Sage says as it's just another thing to him that's an American culture shock, but in a good way. "I'm reading the lap top books for Mutant Studies. I'm learning about why Mr. Charles Xavier formed this school and the X-Men. It's quite interesting." He has to admit. "Hello Kieran, how are you tonight?"
"Hey Sage, not too bad. Thought I'd go for a walk to clear my head a little bit. How're you?" Kieran's voice is polite, but there's still a bit of wariness about him when he looks towards Shane. "That's an interesting outfit." He says politely,"Did you make it? Looks like it's a bit heavy."
Shane lifts a shoulder, causing the armor plates to scrape against each other with a sound entirely unlike what actual metal armor would sound like; clearly fake. "Costume contest today at the con… Just barely got it finished in time. Won the anime division. Would've been heavier, but figured out a fix." The cloak is drawn aside, the breastplate tugged away from her body just enough to show the heavy leather straps criscrossing her shoulders, taking a good chunk of the skirt's weight off her hips.
Sage pushes himself up and walks over to Shane, leaving his laptop behind. "Wow, it is quite deceiving in it's looks as it appears to be made of metal but is not." He says reaching out a hand before pulling it back. "May I touch it?" He asks before looking over at Kieran and giving a smile. "I'm quite well thank you. Finally getting adjusted a bit. I think I am at least."
"Nice. Good job on that one. If it was metal that could get really cold as well as heavy." Kieran says laughing a little bit, and trying to relax a bit before he starts sparking again. "It does look like it's metal." He adds before glancing towards Sage,"That's good. I see you've learned to use the laptop, although sometimes I personally do miss holding a book."
Shane holds out her armored hand. "Sure, go ahead… S'just foam. Slapped a crapload of epoxy over it, chrome spraypaint, done. Hard part was carving the shit; went through like three times as much of the stuff's I needed to make it." When Sage mentions his getting adjusted to the school, the girl nods. "Cool. Lemme know when you've got a handle on everything else. Bein' on the outs when the pop culture talk's flying around sucks."
Sage reaches out and touches it like he can't believe that what he's feeling isn't metal. "That's really astonishing Shane. I must say you have an amazing talent are very artistic." He says as he's never seen anything like that made before in his life. "You can still read a book Kieran. I just have what they gave me for the class." He says before giving Shane a confused look. "What is pop culture?"
"I know. Just some people prefer reading stuff on their computers. THey're useful though." Kieran says shrugging a little bit,"And pop culture is short for Popular Culture, or what's currently the most popular things. Like music, movies, that kind of thing." He says absently,"I cannot do anything that artistic."
Shane bobs her head. "Mostly 's just stuff people like, 'n like to talk about. Half the time it sounds like its own code, so, 'f you don't know what they're talking about, you won't understand even half the words they're usin'. Hell, I could list off a couple dozen cartoons off the top of my head, and if you never saw em, might as well be hearin' Greek." Of Kieran's comment on her costume, the girl simply looks at the boy, then over his shoulder at the neck of the guitar, back, and simply raises an eyebrow.
"I've only seen a few cartoons in my life." Sage admits to Shane. "Mostly Micky Mouse and a few of those Princess stories." He admits. "We didn't watch a lot of telly back home, it was more a movie night treat." He says with a shrug as it doesn't really matter to him that much. "I'm not to sure about popular culture, it seems al ot of what I was raised with is quite different than here but I know I am here to learn."
"I'm a musician. Yeah. I can play the guitar rather well, and piano." Kieran says laughing,"But you want me to draw, or paint, or sculpt." He glances towards Sage,"That's sort of the point. Pop culture is really dependent where you are. What's popular in Britain isn't necessarily popular here." He says grinning at Sage.
Shane opens her mouth to reply to Kieran, closes it, and shakes her head, blowing a breath out through her nose. "…Nevermind," she says, finally. "Anyway, Sage. Probably you won't like most of the stuff I watch, but, the Ghibli ones're usually easy wins. They're like Disney for Japan. Usually get good voice actors when they bring 'em Stateside."
"As you know Kieran I'm a bit of a musican myself. You've seen me play the ukulele. We did a lot more with music than with the telly back home. A lot of times at night after a hard day we would get together and just play music and have a brilliant time." Sage says smiling as he does miss it quite a lot. "I guess I can try watching it. I haven't watched anything except for these weird music video things on tube you after Tyler showed me that thing."
"That would be youtube." Kieran says giving a soft chuckle. "My family does more with music than the telly but we did go see movies from time to time." He says with a soft laugh,"Depending on what Tyler showed you they could be very very weird indeed." he says sounding amused,"And yeah. You play ukulele, I forget if you've heard me play guitar before or not Sage." He says laughing a bit.
As usual, Tara can be heard before she can be seen. What she's doing can only marginally be called 'singing,' and only in the technical sense. What she lacks in skill, she makes up for in enthusiasm as she rocks out some Pink, all but skipping along the pathway. She doesn't really stop until she's almost on top of the small crowd gathered here, the earbuds popping out of her ears out of their own accord. "Hi guys!" she says.
Shane winces visibly, as the sound of Tara's squeegee'd-cat singing closes on them. The slender young mutant, to Tara's Awesome-Sense, 'looks' very different; lots of draping heavy fabrics, clinking metal buckles, hard angles all over one arm, and a very different shape to her headphones. "Hey, Tara," she answers neutrally, before turning her attention back to Sage. "I'll leave one or two in front of the TV. …And I guess write down how to work the DVD player. Probably you can ask someone if you still need help then."
"What's a DVD player?" Sage asks curiously. "We had a VHS player back at the farm is it like that?" He says before shaking his head at Kieran. "No, I don't believe I have. This is the first time I have seen you with an instrument." As soon as he hears Tara's singing he looks over in that direction and gives a wave. "Hello Tara. HOw are you today."
"Well perhaps I'll play something. If there's a song you'd like to hear." Kieran says looking at Sage,"A DVD is like a cd, it's got better clarity than the old VHS." He says shrugging a bit. "Hey Tara! Long time no see!" He says cheerfully, not having seen her much this year since she's not on his squad any more.
Tara gives Sage her own answer to his question. "It's like a drink coaster that plays movies. Anyway, I'm doing good, Sage. you?" She runs a hand through her short blonde hair as she talks, having had to cut it after most of it got burned away a few months back.
"…Yes," Shane says, once the others have weighed in, "it's like a VHS, but just a little plastic disc. You can watch them on your computer there, too; most of'm have a DVD player built in."
"Oh, you mean I can watch a movie as well as listen to music on this thing?" Sage says sounding quite surprised. "I…how does that even work?" He asks not understanding technology at all. "I guess I can try to watch them when I have a moment." He then looks over at Kieran and thinks about the question. "Well can you play Free Bird?"
"Sure thing." Kieran says as he gets his guitar off his back and sits down in the grass. "Basically instead of just recording sound on the disc they record the video as well. It's all data burned on to it." He says absently as he gets his guitar from its case and begins checking the tuning. "And laptops can play movies, music, and do all sorts of things that you'd need several devices to do. Just think of it as sort of like Youtube."
"I wouldn't worry too much about how it all works, Sage," says Tara. "I grew up around it and I still don't understand it myself." She carefully takes the earphones that have been hanging on her shoulder and wraps them around her MP3 player before stuffing it in the pocket of her coat.
As the conversation has moved on, Shane falls silent for the moment. Instead, the girl starts working up the strap fastening her shoulder 'armor' to the breastplate, eventually undoing it entirely and allowing her to slip it free of her arm. Now that she can, she pulls the heavy-weight cloak around both shoulders, tugging the hood up against the growing evening chill, and listens.
Sage just stares at Shane as she starts unhooking it all, almost fascinated by how the whole outfit is put together. "So what was the reason for you dressing like that Shane? Is it clothing you regularly wear?" He's really not sure and he's not going to judge if it is what she considers everyday wear. "I've seen my Mum and sisters knit and crochet clothing but I've never seen anyone make anything like that."
With the guitar in tune, Kieran actually begins playing Free Bird, although he'll leave the singing to someone else for now. He's actually pretty good at the guitar, as for singing well he's not bad, he just prefers to focus on the guitar for this song since it's not one he plays all that often and it's hard enough without adding trying to remember the lyrics as well. "Maybe I'll play While My Guitar Gently Weeps next." He says laughing softly.
Tara looks somewhat surprised at Sage's statement about Shane dressing up. The air around here seems to get a little thicker as the ambient air pressure increases as she really focuses on what the other girl is wearing. "Wow. That's a lot of buckles," she says. "Who're you dressing up as?"
"Random JRPG Character," Shane mutters, clearing her throat. "Was going for Lulu, but, don't have the figure for it. So I just said 'Fuck it, put some armor on and it'll be fine." Giving her head a shake, she looks to Sage, raising an eyebrow. "…Not really. 'S just for the convention today. Wore different ones for yesterday, and day before. Mostly I make'm 'cos I like to. 'S sort of fun trying to make the really weird stuff work for real."
"That's one of my favourite songs and I love to play it on my ukulele." Sage says to Kieran with a certain amount of passion in his voice. "What is a JRPG? Is Random JRPG one of those movies that you mentioned before?" He's never heard that term before. "So it's for this…convention and you dress up for it? I'm trying to understand it not be rude. I just don't quite understand why people get together at this..um..convention in costumes."
"Japanese Role-Playing Game. Least she's not doing one of those creepy Hentai characters." Kieran says laughing a bit, before looking at Sage,"It's a pretty awesome song. I'm not a huge fan of it on the Ukulele, I like it on the guitar better. Has a richer sound to it."
Tara shakes her head. "Yeah. Johnny used to… er… my elder brother, Johnny, that is…. he used to play those things all the time." She shrugs. "They sounded like fun, but it really wasn't meant for me since most of the dialogue was all text. The only time I ever really got into it was that there was this time when I got sick, and the only thing Johnny could think of to make me feel better would be to narrate everything that was happening." She wrinkles her nose in distaste, trying to hide the fondness in her voice for that memory. "I was six at the time."
Wherever else the conversation was going to go, the moment Kieran mentions hentai it's like a light turns off behind Shane's eyes. Staring up at the boy, the blond seems torn between launching into a cussing fury or simply decking him. However with others present, she seems to settle for glaring at Kieran, lip curling slightly. "…Dude, *seriously?* Y'know what, you're gay. You play the piano. Maybe you're gonna be the next Elton John? *Dumb*shit…" Tugging her hood further down over her head, she turns. "I'm done here. Later." And with that, she walks swiftly down the path, pulling her headphones back up over her ears.
Sage is quite lost in the conversation so when Shane snaps at Kieran he just stares between the two awkwardly. "Cheers Shane, I hope you have a good night." He offers to her as she walks off. "I'd ask why she got angry but I'm afraid I don't want to know. Personally I think it can sound brilliant on the ukulele.." Sage starts to say before he notices the time on his laptop. "Bloody hell I have to get inside. My Mum and I arranged to talk long distance tonight. It's the first time we're talking since I got here. Sorry I have to run Tara and Kirean." He says as he quickly grabs his stuff and goes to head back inside. "Cheers Tara, Cheers Kieran. Have a good night."
"You go to those conventions and there are plenty of people dressed up as Hentai characters." Kieran points out having actually seen that before,"And actually I am not Elton John, but I do have a boyfriend, so deal with it." He says sounding a bit annoyed and almost wishing that he could zap her for that comment,"See you later Sage." He says before looking at Tara,"How's your new squad doing?"
Tara pinches the bridge of her nose. "It's going fine," she says with a sigh. "Did you really have to bring up Hentai? I mean, really. Do you want to try to explain it to Sage when he doesn't even know what a DVD is?"
"Don't look at me. I've kind of given up explaining most things to him. Sometimes I think he doesn't /want/ to know stuff." Kieran says shrugging a little bit as he playing his guitar for the moment.
Tara purses her lips. "That's not really the point. I mean, I know I'm not little miss polite or anything, but, really, when you're talking about dressing up for cons, Hentai just kind of comes out of nowhere. It's like shouting 'PENIS' when everyody's talking about crocheting."
