5th floor common room, Monday evening

[bestatmystery]

Lottie sang a little popcorn song to herself as she danced around with a very large bowl of the stuff, shaking it about a bit to help distribute the butter and salt she'd put on it properly. She danced her way over to the couch where she flopped upside down and switched on the television.

She flipped through the channels extremely rapidly for a few minutes before pausing for breath on some show about hunting furry monsters in the Florida Everglades.

Have finally cracked it, she texted Shauna as she settled in to watch. Mr. Bough is def an elderly FLORIDA SKUNKAPE.

[Open!]

Comments

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

This wasn't Nathan's floor but branching out was good or something. Plus, he smelled popcorn and couldn't resist. Growing boy and all.

He wandered in, glancing at Lottie and then at the television, brow furrowing. "That thing is...hairy."

[bestatmystery]

"Meet Mr. Skunkape!" Lottie said cheerfully. "Word is he's well smelly, to boot."

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

"Skunkape?" he repeated, squinting. "Is that a mixture of a skunk and an ape? Really? They can breed?"

[bestatmystery]

"I think it's just an evocative term," Lottie said. "It looks like an ape and smells like a skunk."

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

"That makes more sense." And didn't make his brain hurt. "Thank you for telling me that before I got too far in trying to figure out how they could breed. It would have been messy."

[bestatmystery]

"Like when you get those mixes of really different sized dogs," Lottie said, with accompanying mystifying hand gestures. "I think it helps if the lady dog is bigger."

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

"Does it?" His knowledge of animal breeding rules was very, very limited. "Why does that help?"

[bestatmystery]

"I do not think we're at the point in our relationship where I get into sexual mechanics with you," Lottie said.

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

Nathan held up a hand. "I didn't know if it was something simple, that's all. I know very little about..."

He blushed slightly.

"...that sort of things. That's all."

[bestatmystery]

"That's adorable," Lottie said. "I thought they'd teach that sorta thing in primary school over here, these days."

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

"I'm not from here," he explained, shaking his head. "And the public school I did go to kicked me out."

For good reason but still.

"I don't know things like that."

[bestatmystery]

Lottie looked at him thoughtfully. "Do you have the internet?" she asked.

There was more than one way to learn a thing, after all. Not that the internet was a very reliable resource.

[halfbad.livejournal.com]

"I do now because Barry gave me a tablet," he told her. "But, it doesn't really help when you can't read."

Which he couldn't. Still.

[sciclone]

"Okay, this looks amazing," Cosima said approvingly as she wandered in and claimed a seat. (Not her floor, but whatever -- she could be social.) "I like how you can see the seam on the ape guy's costume."

[bestatmystery]

"Well duh," Lottie said. "It's a DRAMATIC REENACTMENT." She held out her popcorn bowl to Cosima. "Snacks?"

[sciclone]

"Of course," Cosima said, grabbing a handful of popcorn from the bowl. "You have to have snacks when you're watching dramatic reenactments, right? It's edible and you can throw it at the screen."

[bestatmystery]

"I like the way you think," Lottie said, grinning. "You know, that skunkape should work on his image. Wendigos are far cuter."

[sciclone]

"Well, Canadian," Cosima said knowledgeably, after a little smile of thanks. "I swear everything from up there is adorable. Also, it helps that they don't have skunk in the name."

[bestatmystery]

"It's a terrible name, that," Lottie agreed. "They should fire their publicist."

[sciclone]

"D'you think skunkapes have publicists?" Cosima pondered. "Like, how would you get into that line of work?"

[bestatmystery]

"By not paying enough attention in maths," Lottie said. "Or skippin doing your homework."

[sciclone]

"So that's why I take AP classes," Cosima mulled. "To avoid life as a monster's PR person. That's ... actually a pretty motivating idea, Lottie."

[bestatmystery]

"I'm a a highly motivating person." Mostly by being a prime example of what not to do, when it came to school. "Though I think a skunkape is more of a cryptid, than a monster."

Monsters did things like stalk vagrants and eat hope. Cryptids wandered about and did animal things like scare burglars and your friend's mum.

[sciclone]

Cosima made a face at herself. "Cryptid. See, I was trying to think of that word but I wasn't sure I'd say it right. Cryptids are more human-like, right?"

[bestatmystery]

"Not necessarily," Lottie said. "Cryptids are more like . . . weird animals. Like when my best friend adopted a juvenile wendigo 'cause she thought it was a big dog. We could tell he wasn't really very dog-like, but he was still a kind of animal."