First floor lobby, Wednesday

[intotheout]

Selling dance tickets was probably Tip's least favorite part about being on Student Council on a normal day. On a day where she'd much prefer to be hiding in her room . . . weren't her hormones tired?! The rest of her was! Her arms still ached from smashing metal in class yesterday! Among other things!

But here she was, as a dutiful StuCo representative, sitting at a table with a cash box and a roll of tickets for the prom, trying to distract herself by scrolling through Tumblr.

And kind of wishing her tumblr aesthetic had gone more for "absurdist comedy" than "things I find pretty".

[open!]

Comments

[intotheout]

"Only in Fandom is 'death by horniness' an actual concern."

[always_someone]

Norman had no idea how badly he needed that laugh until he was laughing, but here he was, getting that out of his system, and then shaking his head with a smile.

"Only in Fandom, I guess," he agreed. "Hey, would you like some company while you sit here? I can keep to the other side of the table."

[intotheout]

"To make sure I don't jump you?" Tip teased. She pushed the other chair over with her foot in invitation. "Sure. You're much more distracting than the internet is right now."

[always_someone]

"To make sure I don't jump you," Norman joked back, and then slipped into the seat. "But the internet is a dangerous place to be right now, anyway. Unless you're playing on one of those pet sites or something."

If you were getting uncomfortable looking at Neopets, something was definitely amiss.

[intotheout]

"Tumblr," Tip admitted. "It was a tactical error. But weirdly a step up from reading romance novels in the library."

[always_someone]

"Huh," Norman said, looking thoughtful. "You'd think it'd be worse, with with all the, um, visual aids?"

He had no idea how this sort of thing worked for most people, he was realizing.

[intotheout]

"There's at least a little of that," Tip admitted. "But then there are angry social justice posts interspersed throughout."

It made for a very weird scrolling experience, right now.

[always_someone]

Norman paused to picture that, and then just kind of slowly nodded.

"That sounds like some really strange whiplash, actually."

[intotheout]

"Yup. Never thought of activism as actively hot before."

[always_someone]

"Though I guess there is something inherently satisfying about somebody being right for all the right reasons," Norman mused. "Tell me about a good one, then we can both feel weird about social justice."

He was mostly joking.

[intotheout]

Tip snorted. "Alright, let's see. There was a trans student whose picture wasn't going to be in her yearbook because of made-up dress code violations. But then her fellow students went ape-shit on the principal and they had to put her back in."

[always_someone]

Aw, Norman had to grin at that.

"They had her back? That's awesome," he replied. "What is wrong with adults, anyway? They think they know us better than we know ourselves."

[intotheout]

That got another epic eyeroll. "Do not get me started on grown-ups. I'm still not totally convinced human brains don't just atrophy after the age of about 30."

And it was only that old because Kanan had proven to be mostly not an idiot, let's be real.

[always_someone]

"I wonder if it's at least partly a matter of collective knowledge," Norman mused. "I mean, that we learn everything that generations before us knew, filtered by whatever our parents saw... but then we get to live and see where they're wrong, while we're still new enough at life to be able to pick out their biases, too."

He shrugged.

"My Grandma's pretty great," he offered, "but I didn't really get to know her until after she died. Maybe she got better after she lost her atrophied brain after all."

[intotheout]

"Oh sure, if you want to be, like, realistic and fair about it," Tip said. "Yeah. I mean, loss of neuroplasticity definitely is a thing, even if my brain atrophy theory is bunk. But I also think there's a point where you get old enough you stop caring about being right all the time and start listening to people again. The ones that aren't full of crap, anyway. The ones that are full of crap you just shout at."

Chief had been an amazing role model.

[always_someone]

Okay, Norman had to laugh at that.

"Grandma still shouts at Dad," he admitted. "Even though she knows he can't hear her. I think it makes her feel better about raising such a jackass."

Norman loved his father, sure, but... Jackass.

[intotheout]

"Personally I look forward to the days when I get to shout at people with impunity." She was planning to have a cane to whack people with, too. "I can see wanting them to just go on and on, even after your body's gone."

[always_someone]

"I mean, once your body's gone, pretty much everything you do is going to be with impunity," Norman noted. "At least unless you're strong enough to be able to affect things on this side again. But not many ghosts ever get to that point, really."

His grandmother would mostly just be happy to be able to throw things at her son from time to time, admittedly.

[intotheout]

"What makes one ghost stronger than another?"

[always_someone]

Norman shrugged a little.

"Something about their force of will and strength of spirit, I guess," he replied. "I've only ever met a couple of really strong ghosts, and they were both..." He waved a hand around. "I mean, they were both like me, when they were alive."

There was no way to say that and not sound like he was bragging. He kind of hated that.

"Even if all my weird great uncle did was unroll some toilet paper and flood the school bathroom."

[intotheout]

. . . Huh.

"So whatever it is that makes it so you can see ghosts is probably going to make you an extra-strong ghost when it's your turn?"

[always_someone]

Norman's shoulders hiked up a little.

"Unless I go peacefully and just move on, I guess," he replied. "If there's something to stick around for, maybe I will be, but that's not exactly a life goal of mine."

In his experience, death was a lonely thing for most people. Sure there were other ghosts, but most of them didn't tend to talk to each other.

[intotheout]

And Tip had just kind of figured everyone who died in Norman's world became a ghost automatically. Though she supposed that would end up with a very, very crowded world.

"Do you mind if I ask why your grandma stuck around, then?"

[always_someone]

Norman smiled faintly, fondly.

"She says there's no canasta in heaven," he shared. "But... she promised she wasn't going to let me deal with being what I am alone. Mostly, she's keeping that promise."

[intotheout]

Tip nodded slowly, frowning. She'd never actually had any grandparents -- her mom's parents were never part of her life, and she didn't know who her dad was -- but they sounded pretty cool.

"Is it a total either/or kind of thing? Or can she move on someday when it looks like you're going to be okay?"