fandomhighdorms | Third Floor Common Room, Monday Afternoon

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Third Floor Common Room, Monday Afternoon

Eleanor had signed herself up for a Philosophy class, assuming it would be interesting. It was. It just also made her mind hurt. She had been cooped up all weekend with the same book; she had decided to read in the common room today, in the hopes that the change of scenery might improve the matter.

The book she was currently coming to terms with was Rene Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy, particularly Meditation I, wherein Descartes began arguing that the senses could not be trusted and that very few experiences could be accepted as factual, except the bare fact of existence itself.

It wasn't that she disagreed, exactly; it was just that it was really disconcerting to realize that he was right. And to wonder if perhaps he was wrong about existence, itself, and to extend that outward.

She was highly interrupt-able, especially if you wouldn't mind hearing about epistemology.

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"...Descartes, really?" Joker asked, conversationally, as he headed towards the couch. Skippy cooed and headed off up the stairs with Joker's bag to drop it off in his room.

"I mean, that's not exactly light reading, is it? 'I think, therefore I should do it waaaaay too much'?"

"It's homework," Eleanor explained with a laugh. "I have a philosophy class and it's been assigned. I think, therefore I slog through translated French texts."

She nodded to the doorway, although the creature had already departed. "Or perhaps I think, therefore I hallucinate space monkeys."

"Oh, you're not hallucinating him. He's there. You're misremembering him having not been there, that's all. I mean, the alternative is that he appeared out of nowhere and altered my memory so that I'd take him in. Which... is really creepy to think about. And either one would be just par for the course on this crazy, crazy island." He sighed.

"Oh, there are rather more options than that," Eleanor said, closing the book with her finger placed to hold her spot. "For one, either of us could be dreaming this conversation. Perhaps I've been asleep since Thursday, and when I see you next in class, you'll ask 'what spacemonkey?'"

"Or, I could just be messing with you," Joker added. "I mean, I'm not, but from your perspective -- which, according to Crazy French Math Guy, is the only one that you can trust -- I could be."

"Exactly," Eleanor said. "I can't assume truthfulness on your part any more than you can assume truthfulness on mine. Besides, there's a remote chance that you don't exist at all, except as a figment of my imagination, so how could I possibly trust anything you say then?"

"Well," Joker said as he lowered himself onto the couch beside her, "that depends. Is your imagination really capable of coming up with the amount of sheer concentrated awesomeness that you see before you? I'd hate to think I was so common."

"It's a matter of perception, isn't it?" Eleanor giggled. "Perhaps I'm not appreciating the true awesomeness that the real-you would exhibit, but my primitive mind is simply telling me, 'there is awesomeness here that is too great to behold' and I'm reacting accordingly. So that hasn't proven your existence, yet."

"Well, okay, A) your mind isn't anywhere near quote-unquote 'primitive', and B)... so, you've condemned me to existential uncertainty? Man, I thought we were tight. Le Sigh."

"It's only primitive in its ability to process the awesomeness of you," Eleanor said, mock-seriously. "In all other aspects, my mind is quite sharp. I'm afraid we're all condemned to existential uncertainty. I might still be in Rapture, dreaming this. You might still be on that space station. Except you aren't, because I happen to know that I exist, but you can hardly take my word on that."

"Your turn for a little light reading?" Victor asked when he wandered into the common room. "Hey, Eleanor."

"Well, then," Joker, mock-sighed. "I guess you're stuck in existential uncertainty, anyway. Me, I'm-a take the 'get out of emo free' escape hatch. I firmly choose to believe that, unless I have a very good reason to think otherwise, reality is just as my senses describe it." He grinned at her. "Which, y'know, Fandom, so it's kinda hard sometimes, but that's where I'm at. I'm not on a space station -- I'm here on Earth, in the dorms of a boarding school. The couch beneath us is soft and fabric-y, with the occasional poking spring. If we turned on the television, there would be a lot of shows that were mildly entertaining without being any good to choose between. Over there is in fact a refrigerator, which probably has ice cream in its freezer. Ice cream is tasty. You are here, and not back in Rapture." He waved his index finger in the air, and then pushed it forward slowly, aiming to gently poke her shoulder. "And you are soft in all the right places and you smell very nice."

Joker waved and left his hand up in the air. "Hey, Vic! How's it hangin'? Up high!"

"Hello again," she said warmly, looking up from her book. "We should alternate the heavy reading. Next time, you can bring a non-Euclidean geometry textbook, and then I'll try quantum physics."

"Personal question, Moreau," Victor said lightly. "Nah, it's good. I'm kind of taking it easy this semester so far. You?"

Eleanor burst out laughing. "There, you see?" she said. "Thus you have proven your own existence. 'I think, therefore I flirt.' Had I created you, I might have given you some sense of restraint."

She nodded towards the refrigerator. "Do you really think there's ice cream?" she asked. "I doubt I can use the 'escape hatch' reasoning on the next test, but that's no reason not to set it down for the night."

"That would be the best study date ever," Victor said -- and the sad thing was, he really did think it sounded fun. "I should get something solid on chemistry, too. Last week the class here was about Alka-Seltzer."

"I'm sure we could find a textbook on organic chemistry," Eleanor said excitedly. "Benzene rings and catalysts. Isn't Alka-Seltzer just carbonated tablets? Did you have to sing the jingle?"

"Uh... Up high?" The flat palm, which had been looking for a high-five, closed so that Joker held it like a sock puppet. "I don't think it's gonna happen, buddy," he sighed. The hand shook side-to-side in a "no", and then drooped sadly.

"See, now look what you've done," Joker told Victor. "And this place, too. I've got such a light schedule, which is just so... wrong." He gestured with his free hand at the one that was still drooping. "Just look what it's brought me to!"

"No, he just dropped the tablet in water and then told us to watch a movie," Victor said, still incredulous. "And that was it. I have no idea how I'll get through college after two years in this place, man."

"Cogito, ergo sum'n-sum'n," Joker agreed, with a grin. He looked over at the fridge and shrugged. "It usually does, doesn't it?" he asked. "I'm not sure who actually restocks it, but I'm pretty sure it's not any of us. Wanna take a look? I'd offer to get up, but... Well, you know." He gestured at his legs, and then looked towards the empty stairwell. "And my monkey is VERY LATE IN RETURNING!"

"That's ... almost worse than not doing any chemistry at all," Eleanor said, shaking her head slowly. "None could just be an accidental oversight, whereas that seems like a deliberate choice."

It made sense to her, anyway.

"What schools are you looking at?" she asked. "I hadn't thought much about college. I suppose I ought to go."

"I don't miss the monkey," she admitted, "but I don't mind scouring the kitchen for ice cream. Any preferences on flavors?"

She wasn't going to say the rest. It was fairly shameless. Except ... this was Joker, who had once tried to name all the bits of phallic art they'd found at the street market. Since when had either of them bothered with shame?

"You know," she said, while she was digging through the freezer, "speaking of perception, you were a bit inaccurate earlier. You might be able to smell me, but you don't know what places I'm soft in."

It was easier to say horrible things when you weren't actually looking at the other person.

Victor flushed ~~while his mun facepalmed for having misread the tag~~.

"See, that's what I get for spacing out," he said ruefully. "Sorry for making your hand sad. Think it still wants a high five, or is the moment gone?"

The hand perked up immediately and "nodded" at Victor, and then Joker waved it in the air again with a grin. "Not too hard, now. I'm fragile."

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Third Floor Common Room, Monday Afternoon

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