fandomhighdorms | Fourth Floor Common Room, Wednesday Morning, WTF?

Fourth Floor Common Room, Wednesday Morning, WTF?

Rinoa absolutely needed to go over to this Happy Place with the dancing mouse and all of the rides and hats that everyone had been talking about. And she planned on making Squall take her, later on.

But right now, she was curled up in the fourth-floor common room, watching the ... absolute strangest movie she'd ever seen. It was like a trainwreck; she couldn't quite look away.

It was a disaster movie, but she couldn't quite figure out what it was that was supposed to be ending the world: the prostitutes, the ice cream treats, the zombies, the midgets, or the brass instruments. Apparently it was supposed to be the brass instruments, since they had top billing, right there in the title:

Death by Flugelhorn 2: Jazz Solo from Beyond the Grave.

This was a sequel? How did the first one ever get made? Why did people watch this?

More importantly, was there enough popcorn? Because she was going to stick to this movie until it made some kind of sense, and that could take hours.

(This was inspired by a completely insane Twitter conversation that started as "I misread 'comet' as 'cornet,'" and spun into madness from there. Fry said it needed to be a common room flick, and thus, it is. SO SO SO OPEN.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Raven just happened to be passing through on her way down from the fifth floor and stopped. And stared.

"Hello, Rinoa," she finally managed to say. "How are you doing? I hope you were not ill during the recent affliction that struck the island. And why are those small women wearing corsets and garter belts while blowing horns and eating ice cream?"

They were efficient multitaskers?

"I'm ... better now, thank you," Rinoa said, carefully hiding her hands in her lap. She had borrowed a pair of Squall's leather gloves, and was hoping people might think she was doing that for cutesy, boyfriend-related reasons. Not because her fingers were still ... misshapen.

More importantly ...

"I think," Rinoa said, narrowing her eyes and squinting at the screen. "Okay. I think those hooker zombies are either trying to save the world, or end it."

She had narrowed it down to one of the two.

Those people wouldn't be empaths, but Raven picked up on Rinoa's embarrassment and did not press.

"They are zombies as well?" Raven said, peering at the screen. They weren't as decomposed as the zombies in Caritas, but they were shambling. "I would hope that despite their affliction they would wish to save the world. What would ending it serve?"

"I don't know," Rinoa said. "Someone wants to end the world. Or maybe not. Maybe something is trying to end the world, and only these prostitutes can stop it. Maybe it's the flugelhorns."

She bit her lip before braving a question.

"Do you ... know what a flugelhorn is? Because I don't."

"I have never heard that word before," Raven had to admit. It must be the instrument one of the midget hooker zombies was playing, she figured, but it sounded almost...dirty.

"If it is indeed the musical instruments they are using, perhaps the noise frightens away whatever is going to destroy the world?" she suggested. Hey, she lived in Fandom, stranger things had happened.

"Or maybe it's summoning it," Rinoa said with a shudder. "Let's hope you're right. Maybe these people are banding together to stop the world, using only ... flugelhorns."

It did sound dirty. And not in the fun, kinky way that made you want to run out and buy one, either.

"I wonder if that is something the island has on hand in case of emergency," Raven said idly.

It could actually come in handy some day if this were a documentary!

"You know what this means," Rinoa mused. "We should go get some flugelhorns and stash them in the weapons locker."

Well.

"After we figure out what flugelhorns are."

Maybe Turtle and Canary carried them?

Squall had gone looking for Rinoa, not in some obsessive stalker sort of way, but... Well, okay, YES, in an obsessive stalker sort of way, but it's not like that was bad, right?

Regardless, he'd found her in front of this movie, and so now he was just going to stare at both her and the television.

"..."

"I don't get it, either," Rinoa offered, helpfully. "I can't look away. It's like I've been hypnotized. I keep waiting for it to make sense."

"I don't think it's going to," Squall offered. "It's... There's a style of art that deliberately doesn't make sense, in a symbolic way. I forget what it's called. I think this is that."

Rinoa was trying to make sense of that. And failing.

"... Stupid?" she guessed.

"Well, yeah, of course. But there's an actual name for it, too."

He sat down next to Rinoa and stared at the television some more.

"Maybe the writer based it on a dream they had? While on drugs?"

Rinoa had to give that some consideration.

"Okay, that would work," she said. "So they hallucinated, and then slept it off, and this happened. I can't stop watching. It's like I'm convinced that any second now, something's going to click and it'll all make sense. But it never happens."

"I don't think there's any possible click that could make it make sense," Squall answered. "It's too strange."

Seifer was bored. His 'date' with the twins wasn't for a few hours yet, so he was just wandering through the dorms. And this was what he stumbled on.

"Cool," was what he muttered as he sprawled on the couch and reached for Rinoa's popcorn.

People like Seifer were probably the ones who made the movie.

She held the bowl out without complaint.

"Have you seen this before?" she asked. "Because I am not following this. I mean, at all. I can't even tell which side I'm supposed to root for."

"Root for the midget prostitutes. They're waist high and they bite." He can't look away.

"That ... sounds vaguely dirty and really, really bad," Rinoa said, wincing. "Tell me that just came out wrong?"

Edited 2011-08-10 23:00 (UTC)

Seifer wasn't going to tell her anything, he was just going to sit over here and chuckle at her.

That meant she was going to throw popcorn at him.

He used to date her. He knew she was a brat. This should not be entirely unexpected.

He just looked over at her and smirked. "One day, you're going to do that, and find yourself wearing the rest of the bowl."

They weren't dating now, so he could totally do that.

So, Stephanie's boyfriend was currently a tiny baby pony, which was in some ways an improvement from "turning grey and patchy" and in other ways incredibly annoying, but after making sure he was fed and comfortable (which had involved asking Oracle for pointers on the care and feeding of awkward-legged foals, and thus weathering O's subsequent laughing fit) she had free time before class.

She'd only been wandering into the common room in search of breakfast (there were no waffles in the lower floors' freezers that she could see, what a travesty!) when she caught sight of the TV.

". . . um." Look, things got cracked out in Gotham sometimes, but . . .

"Hi," Rinoa said. "If you want to change the channel, you can."

Give her five seconds to reconsider that.

"No, you can't, I mean, because I can't stop watching this. It's the worst movie ever and I can't turn it off to save my life. I have no idea what's going on right now."

"Holy crap," Stephanie said ever so eloquently, letting the search for breakfast fall by the wayside in favor of staring openmouthed at the TV screen. "What is this supposed to be, a disaster movie? Well, it's one on multiple levels whether it wanted to be one or not."

One second. Then two. Then three.

"It's fascinating."

Why? Not a freaking clue.

Rinoa was, to be honest, relieved that Stephanie understood the violent pull that the movie had.

"I know, right?!" she said quickly. "I can't stop watching. I have no idea who anybody is. I don't know who the good guys are. I'm not sure who's trying to end the world and who's trying to save it. I can't even figure out if the prostitutes are the zombies or if the other people are the zombies or if there are just competing groups of zombies. I think maybe some of those trumpets are bringing people back from the dead. That much I got."

"I hate when that happens," Stephanie deadpanned, flopping onto a patch of the floor and kicking her feet up in the air behind her. "Pesky cursed brass instruments. If they're not bringing people back from the dead, they're drowning anyone who hears their music in the icy waters of the North Atlantic, or giving people an uncontrollable urge to dance the Charleston, or . . ."

She squinted at the TV. "Oooh! Hey! Maybe they're fighting over who gets to end the world and who gets to save it?"

"Do you think they're cursed?" Rinoa asked. "I hadn't even considered that. I'm not used to musical instruments being cursed. Rare artifacts, sure, but if you pick up a rare artifact and carry it around, you're kind of asking for trouble."

Or you should at least empty out your knapsack when you developed rashes and started gnawing on people's ankles.

"That would be an awesome movie," Rinoa decided. "Competing teams trying to save the world. One gets bitter and decides to end it. And then the one trying to save it fails, so the one ending it has to come back around to the good side and help undo what they did."

"I was actually mostly kidding," Stephanie admitted. "Cursed musical instruments aren't a dime a dozen or anything. ~~The Middleman reference was just irresistible.~~ If they were, every high school ever that had a band could've accidentally ended the world by now."

. . . oh, maybe that was what had really happened to the multiverse. Never mind the Crisis. HA. Anyway.

She snickered. "It'd have to be a movie. If it was on TV, it'd be a never-ending vicious cycle, and a ridiculous reality show, and Bruce would probably get stuck watching it on the fifth floor TV every day."

"My mother always said some pianos just felt off," Rinoa said. "But I don't think she meant they were cursed. Just that they weren't made as well, or something like that. I've seen some of Bruce's problems with the fifth floor TV before. Did he make it angry somehow? I told him he should try apologizing to it. I don't know if he ever did."

"Not that I've ever seen," Stephanie remarked. "Your mother's a musician?"

That was kind of cool. She might be a tiny bit jealous.

Rinoa flashed a quick smile at the other girl.

"She was a lounge singer in a hotel in Deling City," she said. "The war was on, so most of the patrons were soldiers. That's how she met my dad."

When she said it like that, she had to admit it sounded romantic. Which she hated doing, because she still loathed her father, even if she was reluctantly starting to admit that maybe -- maybe -- he wasn't the complete bastard she made him out to be.

Maybe.

Stephanie smiled back, if a touch uncertainly since she'd noticed the past tense; not that she'd leap to any conclusions there, but.

"That sounds kind of sweet," she answered, since from her point of view that was exactly what it sounded like. "How about you -- are you musical at all?"

"I'd probably think it was sweeter if my dad wasn't such a jerk," Rinoa admitted with a laugh. Much safer territory, right there. "Maybe I'm just too hard on him. I can play piano, but I don't sing very well. What about you?"

Edited 2011-08-10 23:01 (UTC)

A flash of sympathy showed in Stephanie's face. "I know the feeling. My dad's a grade-A total slimeball, which is not me being hard on him," she admitted. "Me? I'm the last person you want to hear singing. I'm more of a sports gal myself."

"I'm sorry," Rinoa said. "We should form a club, about our dads. I don't think mine's a slimeball, so I probably have it better than you. He just decided to turn into a robot and become a total jerk, and act like I wasn't even there."

To be fair, Rinoa's father had not been very good at coping with grief.

"What is yours like?" she asked. "Unless you don't want to talk about him. We can make this room a Dad-free zone."

"I don't mind," Stephanie said quickly. "But I'm pretty sure nobody needs to hear all the sordid details of his repeat trips to jail, so we can totally make it a Dad-free zone. Besides, this movie's more . . ."

She had to pause and squint at the screen.

"Did the color guard just get into the mix?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Fourth Floor Common Room, Wednesday Morning, WTF?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject