Post by Violet Kurosawa on Feb 24, 2017 6:19:46 GMT
"Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit," the young, pink haired girl muttered as she wandered the hallway of the dorms and made her way to the staircase. It was ten o'clock, and Violet still wasn't asleep yet. It would probably be another sleepless night for her, and it was driving her crazy. Why couldn't she just be a normal person? Why did whatever God was out there, if there even was one, curse her to be this way? It didn't make sense! She had lost everything because of them! Her parents, her home, her...
"Tammy..."
She shook her head, steeling her face as she made her way down the stairs, and into the student lounge, eyes glistening behind her sunglasses with unshed tears. They would come, and she wasn't going to let anyone see them. Mentally, she ratted herself out. This was as idiotic as everything else that was happening! Violet Kurosawa, the girl that was so fucking hardcore, that almost everyone back in NYC was scared of her, crying because of some fucking bitch that decided to abandon her?
"Whatever," she muttered to herself, lifting her glasses to wipe away a stray tear, before going to the lounge, and flicking on the TV. Maybe there would be something stupid to watch, somewhere away from her dorm mates, and away from the world.
The pink hair was the first thing that grabbed Wren's attention. The second was what looked to be a thin dark cloud covering the girl--no, like literally. Perhaps 'cloud' wasn't the best word, but the stranger was surrounded by a layer of visible darkness, and that stood out. Especially against such a bright hair color. Who wouldn't be curious about that?
Wren had just stepped into the stairwell as the girl hurried past her and rounded a corner up to the next flight, likely heading in the direction of the student lounge. Wren was getting in late, having snuck out into town looking for something fun. It was boring being the new kid with no one to hang out with, and wandering around town at night just to feel rebellious turned out to be just as, if not even more boring.
So maybe it was an ill-advised impulse, especially if curiosity over the girl's likely power-related odd appearance was what drove it (her grandmother would have whacked her upside the head for such rudeness), but rather than stepping off at her floor, she continued on to the student lounge. Wren didn't follow at the girls' heels or anything. That would be creepy, right? Yeah, instead she hung back a few moments and then wandered into the lounge. If she hadn't gone there, she would have been in her own dorm, after all, so there was no point in following closely if she knew where she was headed.
And sure enough, there she was. Flipping through TV channels.
"You bored too?" Wren asked, Southern accent glaring as ever, as she stepped inside, gesturing at the TV. Why else would someone be thumbing through TV channels alone at night?
She made her way over to the minifridge and started nosing through it, trying to play off the awkwardness of having barged in on some stranger's me-time.
Post by Violet Kurosawa on Feb 25, 2017 3:29:24 GMT
The second the other girl spoke up, Violet sat up like an arrow, turning her head towards the source. Her sunglasses numbed her sensitivity to light, but also fucked up her mediocre night vision. Slowly, she raised her sunglasses, until noticing the girl, and assessing her thoroughly. Short, or at least shorter than her, brownish auburn hair... Were those freckles? Probably. She couldn't see very well, though. She hadn't been very good with night vision, even as a kid.
She reached up to wipe away a stray tear, masking it as just rubbing her eyes, before speaking back to the girl. "Y-yeah," she muttered, giving a small invisible nod that one wouldn't be able to notice unless they really looked at the girl with the shadowy aura.
Why was she giving this girl the time of day? It didn't really make sense to her, but right now, she didn't really care. "Do they have any beer in there? What am I saying, of course they don't. To actually expect something like that from a school would be stupid," she continued, slapping her forehead. "Let me ask a different question. Any soda? Anything that someone can actually drink?"
Wren furrowed her brow as she busied herself nosing through the minifridge. It could just be because the person was tired, but she sounded kind of upset. Not that it was any of Wren's business. It was actually kind of awkward to think that she had waltzed in on someone's private pit of despair. But even so, a part of her was concerned. Like witnessing a car wreck and pulling over to help simply because you noticed and you feel like that gives you a responsibility to the victim.
...But Wren was probably just reading too much into it. As said, it wasn't her business anyway. And even though she liked helping people and making them feel better and all, she wasn't the kind of self-righteous do-gooder who prodded her way into people's problems uninvited just to feel good about fixing them. Messiah complex, she thought to herself with disdain, remembering a few back home she'd crossed paths with. Never pleasant company. Always bragging about the sacrifices they made for others...ugh.
"Beer," she grinned to herself, amused by the question. God, she missed beer. Beer, weed, all the joys a high schooler had to know someone for. It was so easy back home with the people she'd known pretty much all her life. Now, the new girl in town, she was doing without a lot of things. Company chiefly among them. Wren had only drunk and smoked socially, anyway. What was the point of doing anything alone? "Yeah, I wish. There's some soda in here, though. You want Dr. Pepper, Coke, Sprite...?" Her voice trailed off, waiting for the girl to make a request.
"Yeah, I wish. There's co--" Curses! Yanks don't say coke unless they mean COKE. "Soda. You want Dr. Pepper, Coke, Sprite...?" Her voice trailed off, waiting for the girl to make a request.
No beer, but...like a true southerner, Wren had some Jack Daniels squirreled away back in her room. She had never lived outside of Tennessee, and she couldn't imagine the Jack being half as good as it was in its homeland. Plus, she was afraid she might not be able to find anyone over 21 to get stuff for her for a while. New girl and all. So, though she'd had no real company and thus no excuse to break into it even once since she'd arrived here, she had a pint tucked in the back of her closet.
Not that she was willing to spill that info just yet. For all she knew, this girl might be a snitch who was just trying to joke about beer to be likable. Wren had no idea of knowing. They'd barely said two sentences to each other. If she didn't trust her roommates, why trust a girl she just met?
Still, her roomates hadn't really interacted with her much. And the idea of actually having company for those vices again was more tempting than Wren had anticipated.
Last Edit: Feb 26, 2017 14:16:45 GMT by Wren Averett
Post by Violet Kurosawa on Feb 27, 2017 1:37:30 GMT
Violet listened as the other girl nosed through the minifridge, looking for whatever she could scavenge, while Violet herself flicked through the channels on the TV, trying to find something, ANYTHING, to watch. Easier said than done, though, since everything on was mostly boring old sitcoms that had been cancelled for the past whatever amount of years. BET, ABC, CNN, blah blah blah. Boring.
"Who doesn't? I'll just have a Coca-Cola, I guess. The only thing in there that sounds at least somewhat appetizing," she muttered, looking over the back of the couch at the girl. She had laughed at the Coke reference, though, knowing what it meant and finding it amusing, to say the least.
Violet had no idea why, but part of her was... Well, not interested or anything. More just... Intrigued? By the girl in question. They didn't know each other, but the way the other girl talked in that southern accent was cute, and so were her mannerisms...
No. No, it wasn't, she didn't know this girl, she didn't like her. It didn't matter, anyway, since they'd probably never see each other again after this encounter. Violet lifted her sunglasses to rub the bridge of her nose, before setting them back down so she could actually see the TV. Dammit, she hoped that this whole "Sensitive to light," thing wore off soon. She was getting pretty sick and tired of having to wear sunglasses at all hours of the day.
She sat up, patting the seat next to her to motion the girl to sit down, looking at the TV. "Nothing to watch. Not for me, anyway. Anything you'd recommend?"
Wren smiled in relief at the open minifridge. She'd gotten a small laugh out of the stranger. Good. So this exchange was going over well. She hadn't made a fool of herself. And actually, she didn't seem to be intruding either. Maybe the other girl was just being polite, but she didn't act like she wanted to be left alone. Maybe she was as hungry for company as Wren was. Wren had been on campus for a couple weeks and had never this person. Was it possible that she was new too?
That would be great, actually. And not just for the whole "I'M NOT THE NEWEST ONE ANYMORE" bit. It would just be great to have someone to talk to who was as lost as she was. Lost in the fish-out-of-water way. Wren had gone from living in Nashville, which was by NO means a small town, but had a small-town heart among the locals. Southerners could be like that. It was easy to make connections there. Especially when you've lived there since you were an itty-bitty kid and had known so many people for so long. Living in a whole new town around a bunch of new people who already seemed to know everyone else and already seemed to have their own groups of friends and their own people to talk to was exhausting.
Wren felt like she'd been dropped on another planet, and if this girl felt the same way, that would be really refreshing. Someone who was in the some boat, who freaking got it.
Wren came over with the coke holding a can of Dr. Pepper for herself. She handed the can to the pink-haired girl and gladly obliged when she was invited to sit down. Sunglasses?
Sunglasses? At night in a dark room? How come? Maybe the girl was high, though she didn't sound like it. Hiding a black eye? But she had thought she was alone a little while ago. She was probably nursing a bad hangover. Or maybe a migraine. Wren understood those all too well, and it was a pretty common affliction among mutants, it seemed. She'd had a small headache earlier that was almost gone now, and that was just fine by her. Small headaches meant that her power had just turned off, that she wasn't drawing in the eight-legged masses at the moment, and that she wouldn't be for a while. A headache was good news. Especially when it was a small one, meaning the power hadn't drawn too many to her while it was active.
"Hmm," Wren chewed at the corner of her lip. She didn't watch TV. She binge-watched on Netflix and wasted time on YouTube, but wasn't big on TV. Besides, with two rugrats and an old lady back home, all the communal TVs were usually on some little kid shows or some old-person bullshit, like obnoxious reality shows, soap opras, settler/farmer/Little-House-On-The-Prarie/Waltons themed shows, etc. And we won't even get start on Fox News. Shudder. Not that Wren couldn't watch TV in her own room, but who would want anything to do with TV after all that chatter?
"Here's an idea," she said, taking the remote. She stole glances at the girl as she flipped through the guide. The dark room made that lingering shadow over her even more intense like it was just a little darker around her. It made her even harder to see, even with the TV light, but from what Wren could gather she was...actually really pretty. More intriguing than anything, though. Dark sunglasses, veiled in darkness, pastel pink hair...like the opposite of normal in every instance. She liked it. It was nice. Refreshing, even. This place was anything but normal, but most of the kids here seemed like they were at first glance. Like they weren't all mutants ripped out of their comfort zones and dropped here. This was a living acknowledgment. Someone who's entire being took that oddity and just owned it.
Wren scrolled through the guide and stopped on the Bill O'Reily Factor. At first she wanted to roll her eyes, remembering her grandmother's reverence for the ass, but then she selected it.
As Bill went on some conservating ranting, Wren fished a crumpled receipt out of her pocket and grabbed a pen from the coffee table. She flipped the receipt to the back and smoothened it out, and drew a line down the middle.
"I have Fox News Bingo boards somewhere, but this will do for now. Do you want to be the racist or the homophobe?"
Last Edit: Feb 28, 2017 8:48:41 GMT by Wren Averett
Post by Violet Kurosawa on Mar 1, 2017 2:25:00 GMT
Violet was, very surprisingly, having a good time. Sitting down in the middle of the night, her sunglasses dulling the pain of the light that reflected off of the TV, and just relaxing with... A friend? Could she call this girl her friend? She seemed friendly enough, but Violet didn't trust her fully yet. No smoking in front of her yet, no letting her in on any vital secrets, no nothing. Not yet.
It was also nice to not be alone anymore. She had... what? Axel, maybe, but he was like... Old. Really old, older than the teachers here probably. She didn't know his exact age, but somewhere in the forty range. She thought about this while looking at the girl again, handing over the remote control and taking the Coca-Cola in exchange. "Put on whatever you want. There's nothing good on TV right now, or ever," she said with a small but bitter chuckle. "Maybe you'll have better luck than me."
"Ooh, an idea," she said monotonously, waving her hands in mock excitement with a small smile on her face, and as soon as the Bill O'Riley fucker came on, she let out a groan, throwing her head back in annoyance. "Jesus Christ, couldn't you have chosen something...?"
She stopped at the mention of Fox News Bingo. "Never heard of it, but I'd be down more for racist than homophobe."
Wren held a bemused grin as the girl expressed her initial disdain for Bill O'Reily. Good. They were on the same page here. And more than that, it was always amusing to see people get frustrated before they realized they'd be making fun of him.
Wren sighed a little and chuckled. Racism was always the better game piece when playing Bill O'Reily Bingo without a board. Recent weeks hadn't had nearly as much to do with homophobia as they did racism. Perhaps Wren should have gone with racism or misogyny? ...Nah, this would do just fine. Didn't Trump just revoke the bathroom bill that protected transgender kids? Surely there'd be some mention of that tonight.
...Oh, come on. What's the point of sharing a country with people harboring such backwards opinions if you didn't get to have a little fun with them? This would be better as a drinking game, though. Always was.
"Racist it is," she said, writing an 'R' above the left side of the little scoreboard, and a 'H' over the right. She underlined them and sat back.
Bill went on his usual ranting about liberals, praised Trump a little bit, then started going on about immigration and undocumented immigrants and what not. "Shit," Wren muttered, and she drew a "B" under the pink-haired girl's half of the paper, then showed her.
Wren could be pretty competitive, so chance games like this could be tense. Still, the tension was fun. "We should make this interesting. Make a bet or something." Not the best thing to throw out when she was already losing. But why not?
Post by Violet Kurosawa on Mar 2, 2017 6:51:27 GMT
Violet let out a small laugh as the other mentioned Fox News Bingo, somewhat excited to try something with the mystery girl who had burst onto the scene, and ended up being actual good company. It was a surprise to her to genuinely enjoy being with another person, especially someone who had just put on a racist bigoted asshole of a man. This would be mighty interesting.
She watched as the other girl wrote a big R on her paper, a smile on her face. "So, what exactly are we trying to do here? I assume get bingo, but how," she asked, eyes focused on the other girl who was now writing a B on her paper. "Oh, I see."
She was already winning, so this was... Exciting? It was interesting. She only ever got that rush of dopamine from drugs, alcohol, taking risks that got bigger and bigger. It was so strange... To be happy without putting herself in mortal peril. In fact, it was kind of nice.
It kind of reminded her of Tammy. The other girl, she meant. Something about her was alluring, and interesting and compelling... Ugh. She must've sounded like a psycho, or looked the part, what with her bright pink hair, halo of darkness, and the fact that she was wearing sunglasses at... What, twelve AM in the morning?
"A bet? I'd be down with that. I'll give you... Two boxes of cigarettes, if you win. What do I get in return?"
Wren nodded. "Yep. When he's racist, you get a point. When he's homophobic, I get a point. You've got the better gamepeice, I think. Race has been a hotter topic recently." She shrugged. "We'll see. Oh, and if the topic of racism continues for more than two minutes, you get another point."
Speaking of which, Bill's nagging about the wall had been going on for a little while. Wren took a glance at her phone just to mark the time. 12:34. At 12:36, she'd call it.
Wren wrinkled her nose when Violet offered the packs of cigarettes. She never touched the stuff and frankly hated the smell of them. Well, menthols didn't smell too bad, but still. It was a gross habit and so many of her guy friends had loved it just because it made them feel cool and rebellious. That and the dip they swiped off their old men. Shudder.
"I don't smoke that shit. What kind of a prize is that?" Weren't smokers particular about their brand anyway? Or did Violet meant she'd buy two packs? "If I'm putting smoke in my lungs, it's good smoke." She gave Violet a cautious sideways glance to gauge her response. She doubted a girl who just offered her cigarettes was going to be offended by weed, but just in case. The drug community was rather tight-knit in Nashville. You had to know someone, and most people knew the people they knew since childhood, so it was never a problem. You couldn't just walk down the street and find a dealer. That was sloppy. It was all referral. But by the same right, you had to be careful who you let into that circle. Especially in the private schools Wren had gone to. It was hard to tell who was going to be the weak-willed snitch after their latest religious experience.
Of course, Violet wouldn't act offended by the inference. So Wren would continue.
"How about some bud? If I win, you'll roll a joint for me. My plug's back in Tennessee. And...I can't roll stuff myself." She glanced off and scratched at the side of her face. It was really embarrassing, but Wren had never had to roll anything herself. Whoever she was smoking with did it for her. She never really smoked on her own, either. It just felt so pointless. What was the point of smoking alone? To be high and lonely?
"If you win...hm..." What did Wren have to offer? Other than...ugggggghhhh.... "I've...got a bottle of Jack Daniels back at my dorm. Blood of the gods, straight from Olympus." In other words, TN whiskey straight from TN. And yeah, maybe Jack was bottom shelf, but this was straight from the motherland, and Violet was talking to a Southerner here.
It almost physically hurt to offer it up, especially since she was already losing. But...it had to be fair, right? Besides, it wasn't like she couldn't get any more next time she visited home. "Win and it's yours."
Last Edit: Mar 2, 2017 12:00:47 GMT by Wren Averett
Post by Violet Kurosawa on Mar 3, 2017 7:53:39 GMT
Violet watched with a bit of curiosity in her eyes, a smile forming on her face at the thought of winning the bet. Yeah, she was going to win this for sure. "There are official bingo things for these? We could probably just, you know, look them up," she offered, pulling out her phone to show that that was a certain possibility. "I mean, if you wanna."
She was quite surprised at herself for actually willingly giving this girl the time of day, instead of just punching her lights out and not giving more of a shit than that. However, it was twelve in the AM, so there wasn't much to do other than make a new friend who she would probably end up fucking up around, and then she'd be alone again. Of course that was what was going to happen. Just like with Tammy.
She ran a hand through her hair, frizzing it up slightly before listening to the girl speak. "Well excuse me, Princess Ix=Nay Cigarettes," she sneered, before laughing it off. "Fine, no smokes. I might be able to get you a weed thing, or whatever. I've got connections." When it was her turn to be offered something, the other girl already had something up her sleeve. "Hell yes, I'll take that Jack Daniels. I fucking hate that you can't get anymore good shit without travelling half an hour on foot to the town, and then talking to some jack-ass." She pulled out a cigarette, but before lighting it, she hesitated, looking at the girl. "You don't mind, do you? Well, then again, I really don't care if you mind."
"I never caught your name, by the way. Violet." The girl, now known as Violet, held out a hand to shake. "Yours?"
Look up the bingo boards...why hadn't she thought of that before? Wren huffed a laugh and took her phone out. "Well, I wouldn't call them "official", but lots of people have made them. I'll show you the ones I use."
Wren tapped through her phone for a couple seconds and then showed Violet a bonafide Fox News Bingo card. "Cool, huh? Here," she handed her phone over to Violet. "Text that picture to your number, and I'll pull up another card on my phone when you're done."
Wren laughed when the girl teased her about being perturbed by cigarettes and rolled her eyes when she said how she wouldn't care if Wren minded her smoking. "Well, aren't you considerate," she said, chuckling. This girl was just so...easy to be around. Like, there was no misunderstanding, no second-guessing. At all. She was incurably honest. "Fine, do whatever. But I'd be careful about smoking inside. Especially in the student lounge. There might be, I don't know, smoke alarms?"
Wren grinned, pleased with her own response, and hopped off the couch to rummage through some of the drawers and cabinets, returning with a package of little-bitty beads, presumably left over from someone's class project. She carefully removed the scotch tape keeping it closed, and laid it on the coffee table. If Violett was done with her phone, she'd bring up the second card and lay her phone down on the table.
"Markers," she said, taking a bead and placing it on the "DENNIS MILLER ISN'T FUNNY" free space on her phone screen. This was actually much better. She was bound to lose playing against Violett the other way. This way they both had an even shot, both of them looking for all signs of ignorance and just lucking out by what order they came in.
Then it was time for the introductions. Violet. Violet. Hm. Wren like the sound of that. Actually, she loved the sound of that. And it fit this girl somehow. It fit her in the way that it didn't fit her. There was nothing flowery about this mythic bitch. Not a thing. Unless you were talking about a poison flower, at least. But it was such a pretty, dignified name, and that worked for someone who seemed so honestly, sincerely herself. And it also kind of matched the whole unapologetically odd theme, having a flower name, a pretty name, while being so tough.
And yeah...to say the least, Violet was a very pretty girl. Even if she was tough as nails, it was cool that she had a name as pretty as she was.
"Wren," the Southerner said, taking Violet's hand in her own and shaking it. "Wren Averett." She studied the texture of Violet's palm, or she tried to at least, but the most she could tell was that her hand was a little cold before the handshake ended.