fandomhighdorms | Fifth Floor Common Room, Sunday evening

After a shower and change back into her civvies, Jessica made her way back to a nice, comfortable, public spot in the dorms. It had been a very weird few days, including a couple straight days of aggressive violence toward apparently no purpose, unless this weather machine thing was a big deal in a place that rained food regularly.

Still, at least she got to do some pretty interesting engineering and had SHIELD paperwork to fill out about the latest interdimensional weirdness around here in her future. That was something. Specifically, it was something to put off until a little later. For now, she was more than happy to settle for some kind of fluffy holiday junk about a postal worker who falls in love with a person who answers mail for Santa, who you could tell is quiet and lonely because she sometimes wore glasses.

Stupid but non-violent? Sounded good to Jessica tonight. And it was a great excuse for popcorn.

[OOC: Saw a commercial for that while watching Psych reruns last night. I'd watch it if I didn't have several sports-related things I'd rather watch instead.

Anyway, open CR post-BDE!]

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"I'm tired," Jim said once he found an occupied common room and flopped down on the couch. "What are you watching? Anything good?"

"It would be a stretch to call this good," Jessica said. "Can you settle for inoffensively crappy?"

"After this weekend? Yeah," he said, settling in and stretching out his legs. "You have fun with all the mayhem?"

"Oh, yeah. I've always wanted to reconfigure weapons for use in a big old fight," Jessica said. "So cross that one off my bucket list."

"That what you spent your time doing?" he asked, amused. "Gotta say, the weapons those guys brought were pretty cool."

He could give the Hyperion guys that much of a compliment.

"And now they're junk," Jessica said. "So it was a lot of work without much long-term benefits. But that's life as an engineer, I guess."

"They still look cool?" Jim tried, shrugging. "You could turn them into art, Jessie!"

"The art world will love me. I promise to send you post cards when I have an exhibition in Italy," Jessica said.

"And I will frame each and every one of them," he said, nodding. "And I will say that I knew you when you were just a tiny fish in a big pond."

"That's going to be the name of the exhibition. Tiny Fish//Big Pond," Jessica said. "Two slashes between the two phrases, because that's more artistic."

"Do I get some creative credit for that?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "I've copywritten it and everything."

He hadn't.

"Nope. I'm just going to blatantly steal it and not even mention you in my autobiography. I'm sorry, that's just the business," Jessica said.

"So, I'll sue you," he countered. "That's business."

"I'll drag it out for years with my big art lawyers, but don't worry, you'll still make money in the meantime with a tell-all book," Jessica said. "It's how the system corrects itself."

"You know a lot about this," Jim said, squinting over at her. "Had this happen before or too much television?"

"Pure guesswork," Jessica said. "I doubt the art world really works like this, but it would be exciting."

"I don't know if I'd have the patience to write a tell all book either," Jim noted with a shake of his head. "I'd have to pay someone to do it for me and make up a bunch of juicy lies."

"Just call it a fictional biography and I won't even have grounds to sue," Jessica offered.

"Does that mean I'd get to replace your name with a funny, made up but close enough to point to your real identity name?" Jim asked hopefully.

"Not 'Jennifer Wrote,'" Jessica said. "That's my one rule."

Jim glanced over at her. it took him a second to actually get that before he snickered. "Yeah, I'd be a little more creative than that. Though, Jennifer Wrote actually has a nice ring to it. Maybe if I get desperate."

"Nope. You can't have it. That's going to be my clever pseudonym if I'm ever a spy," Jessica lied. Her actual alias was 'Jennifer Carpenter.' But she wasn't going to mention that.

"Well, now you've told me your future spy name so you're clearly going to be the absolute worst spy ever," Jim decided.

"You're from the future, JK. By the time you're born, I'll already be famous for my career of service," Jessica pointed out.

"Funny, I don't remember hearing or seeing your name around my time," he said, shaking his head. "Must be a pretty minor celebrity."

"Spy famous is different than regular famous," Jessica explained. "It's like being in a genre TV show. You might get huge lines at conventions, but that doesn't mean the average parent has any idea who you are. But you're still famous."

"So, how do you know you're gonna be famous and not completely fizzle out?" he wondered. "Besides your confidence and everlasting optimism, I mean."

"90 percent of everything is confidence," Jessica said. "And if you can fake that, you can do pretty much anything, because that is really hard to fake. It's probably easier to just learn how to do whatever and gain real confidence."

"You sound like a self help book," Jim laughed, shaking his head. "Ever thought about going into motivational speaking?"

"I like to think that every word I speak is motivational," Jessica said. It was very zen.

"How very zen," Jim said because yes, it was. He wasn't even a mindreader. "You sure you want to be a spy or an engineer and not some monk?"

"Well, I don't feel the need to fully commit to anything yet, so monk is still on the table," Jessica said.

Fifth Floor Common Room, Sunday evening

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