Third Floor Common Room, Thursday Night

[thatwasafreebie.livejournal.com]

Maeby was bored. She didn't have any homework, and she was lying to Mort about her script revisions -- ugh, she wasn't bored enough to start on those -- and she was out of games for her DS. She was going to buy more but apparently her DS was obsolete or something? Such bullshit, that thing had been new when she got it. Jumping like half a decade into the future was some kind of sci-fi rip-off.

So Maeby was in one of those common rooms, flipping channels on the TV.

"Jerseylicious?" she announced, to the empty room. "There is nothing -licious about Jersey."

Not that she'd ever actually been to Jersey. It was the principle of the thing.

She wasn't sure why she was leaving it on Parking Wars. Schadenfreude, probably.

(OPEN)

Comments

[catchmeifyoucan.livejournal.com]

"That's what I keep saying," Frank agreed as he emerged from (where else?) the kitchen. "The future is weird."

...

"Hi, also."

[thatwasafreebie.livejournal.com]

"Hi," Maeby said. "The future is a total rip-off. For one thing? No flying cars. Aren't we all supposed to be living in space by now?"

Said the girl who was all of seven years ahead.

[catchmeifyoucan.livejournal.com]

"I wish," Frank said earnestly as he flopped down on the couch with an apple. "That would be way better than dealing with all the stairs. You have to question the architectural skills of people who decide to build a town uphill, you know?"

[thatwasafreebie.livejournal.com]

"It almost makes me envy GOB's Segway," Maeby said. Almost, because that thing would never be cool. Ever. "But I don't mind it as much. Makes me think of Boston. LA wasn't nearly as fun."

This might be because she had been living on an unfinished model home lot. Possibly that.

[catchmeifyoucan.livejournal.com]

"Really? It looks like it'd be so fun from movies, though," Frank protested. "All those famous people and everything."

[thatwasafreebie.livejournal.com]

"Turns out famous people are complete divas," Maeby sighed. "They refuse to go on set because their spring water isn't the right brand, that kind of thing. It's like, please, eat more of the budget here because you have an artistic temperament."

[catchmeifyoucan.livejournal.com]

"Huh." Well, that had to be unfun. "Wait, how do you know all that?"

[thatwasafreebie.livejournal.com]

"I interned at a studio last summer," Maeby lied.

She wasn't sure why she lied, either. It was sort of a bizarre reflex. Possibly compulsive. At least this one was nearly the truth. Ish.

[catchmeifyoucan.livejournal.com]

And Frank, future con man but current naive little thing that he was, fell for it instantly. "Cool," he said earnestly. "A studio for what? What did you get to do? Did you meet Steve McQueen?"

[thatwasafreebie.livejournal.com]

"A ... movie studio?" Maeby said, giving Frank a strange look. "Isn't Steve McQueen, like, dead?"

[catchmeifyoucan.livejournal.com]

"Not... where I'm from." AWW, THAT WAS UPSETTING. "I'm pretty sure he's in his twenties." Frank cast a mournful look at his apple, then added, "I'm from 1959. By the way."

[thatwasafreebie.livejournal.com]

"Are you serious?" Maeby said. "Whoa. So, like, the entire hippies era, and Vietnam, and disco, nothing?"

As well as anything later than the late 70s, Maeby.

"I'm from 2005," she explained. "So, like, he'd be in his seventies or something? So he might have died from old age or something. Which is seriously creepy to think about."

[catchmeifyoucan.livejournal.com]

None of those words inspired more than a slightly confused look from Frank, so yeah, no.

"Maybe," Frank said hopefully, then decided not to dwell on the sad. "Well. He was really cool when he was in his twenties. Any fun studio internship would've been for a movie he was doing." Okay, Frank. Sure. "What movies were you working on?"

[thatwasafreebie.livejournal.com]

"Hey, maybe he died in a really cool burn-out," Maeby suggested. This was her idea of cheering him up, yes. "Like one of those benders and he's now an icon because oh, he died all tragically. Like James Dean."

Maeby wasn't even sure Steve McQueen was actually dead. Just so Frank knew, here.

"I did some running around on the set of Love, Indubitably," she said. "Fetching coffees for people and being ignored. By the way, terrible movie. Don't go see it."

No, really. She had only greenlit it because it was going to make a lot of money. It was a pile of crap. Just check the reviews.

[catchmeifyoucan.livejournal.com]

"I guess that'd be pretty cool," Frank conceded, perking up a little. Because blazes of glory were where it was at, yo. "James Dean was awesome. And we got to skip school the day after he died, so there was that too."

Priorities.

"Do they still make good movies?" Frank inquired. Then, blushing a little, he amended, "I mean, I've just seen, you know. This." He gestured at the orange people running around on the screen. "And a few things in class that were kind of... weird."

[thatwasafreebie.livejournal.com]

"You did? Really?" Ugh, now the 50s sounded pretty cool. How was that fair? "We don't miss for things unless they're huge. Like 9/11."

Um.

"Forget I said that," she added, waving a hand. "Movies ... most of them suck but you can find really great stuff if you look. Try indie studios, they're actually making stuff that does cool things instead of just cranking out mindless sequels to movies that weren't that good to start."

[catchmeifyoucan.livejournal.com]

"Indie studios," Frank repeated, nodding. "Sounds good. Thanks." And no Love, Indubitably, which was also good to know, because Frank was sure to become a sucker for rom-coms once he, you know, figured out what they were. "Any other advice? Recommendations, maybe?"

[[and I sleep! sp?]]

[thatwasafreebie.livejournal.com]

Maeby was seriously tempted to use her powers here for evil, to drum up box office support for whatever came out from her studio next. Except she wasn't exactly on the hook for box office any more, and more importantly, she didn't feel like bothering.

"Depends on what you like," she said. "Some people go for snooty foreign flicks with subtitles, and some people like drama, and some people even go for those Adam Sandler movies. ... Don't go for those. I mean, the first one's all right, and then they all start being the same movie over and over again."

(NP and sorry zomg I have been Offline!)

[catchmeifyoucan.livejournal.com]

"Huh." Frank mulled that over. The options seemed to be... kind of lacking, especially when he thought of what he liked to watch, back home. "Do you still have... action movies nowadays?" he tried hopefully. "Like with the smooth guy who knows what he's doing and gets into car chases and a ton of trouble, but eventually he takes care of all of it and wins over a pretty girl?" He blushed a little. "Those are my favorites back home."