Logs:Squepsi
| Squepsi | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia | 2024-12-21 "Easily half of mutant horror is hilarious." |
| Location
<NY> Some Park - Upstate NY | |
It's not actually that far from the city here, but really, it wouldn't matter if it was; with some advance preparation and a lot of wedged-open doors, the trip has been a matter of walking through a door into a cozy little cabin tucked away out here. It's far enough that there's nobody around to complain about the raucous teenagers who have been inhabiting this dale all night. There's a roaring fire pit going on the far side of the campground, music blaring, s'mores and hot cocoa and spiced cider and plenty of other more booze-laden drinks being shared around, but over here things are still properly, frigidly welcoming in winter. A huge patch of bare flat ground has been converted into a temporary skate rink. At some point quite recently there was a more or less proper hockey game going, buuut without more or less proper hockey protective gear this has taken a small break for some first aid and drinks (the kid who is being patched up over by the fire now seems unduly pleased with his developing new battle scars). It's turned now into some free skating, some still-dicking-around-with-the-hockey-shit. Gaétan is solidly in this latter camp -- he's just laid out a number of targets at one end of the ice, comprised of empty beer and soda cans arranged into various configurations. He's skating back, stick in one hand and beer in the other, toward -- are there lines on this rink, absolutely not, but there's a tree off to the side they've been using as kind of a benchmark for the center line. "Okay, called shots only though," he says as though he has not totally already forgotten how many points any of these arbitrary targets are worth. These are borrowed skates -- Roscoe has skates at home that fit him when he was six inches shorter, a few years ago -- but he's been handling himself reasonably well on the ice given his long hiatus. Not well enough to dick around one-handed, though; his beer is chilling in a snowbank off to the side. He's switching his stick between his hands, tilting his head at the targets with one eye squinched half-shut like he's looking through a scope, then tilting his stick into the crook of his elbow to frown at the targets, index fingers and thumbs held out like a frame. "Blatantly discriminatory," he says, "how are those of us without technique or skill supposed to play." Though then he is elbowing the stick back into his hands -- "Oookay, I got this... Diet-Pepsi-Squirt thing." Gaétan lifts his beer like it's an answer to this -- and maybe it is because his solemn answer is, "Handicap." He chugs the rest of it in one long gulp before whirling off to add it to the "future targets" stockpile. He's grabbing himself a new one (for Roscoe's sake, of course, magnanimous!) from the ice-side "cooler" -- mostly just a bunch of for-later cans and bottles tucked into the snow -- and returning to Roscoe's side. "I believe in you, get the -- Squepsi." Roscoe gives this a small, snorting giggle, now carefully getting himself situated, bapping the puck around in a series of tiny, showy, wholly unnecessary taps with his stick, looking from puck to targets back to puck a little more nervously and a little more competitively than just dicking-around-with-the-hockey-shit really warrants. "'Squepsi' sounds like some kind of Jell-O Pokemon," he says thoughtfully, before he shoots; he takes out a wholly different target, though one of these cans skitters into the Squepsi and topples it anyway, with an oddly pleasant chorus of hollow metallic tink-tink-tink. Whether or not this counts as 'calling it', Roscoe is definitely taking the win -- he fist-pumps to himself, then carries on as though he hadn't interrupted himself: "Or like, if Miami launched a skincare line." He fluffs at his mop of hair, then sets off after the puck in a slow, shuffling glide. Collects the puck with no problem, though the scattered beer and soda cans give him more pause. Gaétan is gliding a little aimlessly one way, then skating backwards back to where he started. Somewhere along the way he's collected a small flattish rock that is perhaps accidentally on the ice or perhaps earlier someone was using it as a puck, and he's also bapping this around lightly. He whoops enthusiastically at the wrong clattering target and then just as cheerful when the right one goes down. He's pumped his stick into the air and when he puts it back down is probably not trying to assist in the cleanup efforts when he lightly clatters his rock towards a can that started to slide this way, but it does at least push the can to skitter back in a more relatively concentrated direction of mess. "-- Oh shit someone took down the trash bag." There had been one at some point -- Gaé is looking forlornly at the distant country of The Bonfire (with its fresh trash bag stocks) and deciding this is a problem for later. He's now going down to at least nominally help with some of the scattered cans, though this soon turns somewhat habitually into batting one of the beer cans around like a puck. This is probably not helping, actually. "Squepsi's gonna be the name of a new race of creepy-looking-but-ultimately-harmless aliens they introduce next season of MID to teach the mutant cops an important lesson about not discriminating." It takes a little bit of doing, but Roscoe manages to kneel/crouch down on the ice to start collecting most the cans back into their target formation, at a patient and somewhat plodding pace, sort of awkwardly cradling his stick between his shoulder and cheek. "Man, their hair and makeup and CGI budget must be going way up, lol." With the can in one hand, he's tapping out a cheerful, tinny tattoo -- "I love it when they try to be relevant, funniest Very Special Episodes in the world. Two episodes later they'll relearn the value of discrimination and the true meaning of law and order will be restored." He tilts forward a little, makes a little goal for Gaé to shoot his beer can at, fingers open in L shapes in front of him, held low on the ice (this looks more like a football goalpost than anything hockey-related but whatever.) "You'd think the media landscape would have noticed the potential for actual mutant comedy by now," he adds. Gaé snorts, head shaking as his breath puffs out in a laugh crystallizing in front of him. "Hey I heard they're adding a whole second mutant actor next season that makes their bootlicking practically progressive." He's stopping to take another swig of his beer, which might account for a little of the squintiness with which he's looking at Roscoe's goal. He knocks the can -- it skitters down the ice, on track to skate by juuust a smidge to the left of the makeshift finger-target -- his generous handicapping is clearly starting to do its work. "Oh my god let me tell you some time about this new hire at my brother's place. Actually he might be solidly mutant horror but, like, hilariously." Though Roscoe tries graciously to move the goalpost for Gaétan he's not quite fast enough, and the hasty movement tilts him out of his crouch hard on his ass. "Ow," sounds more surprised than hurt, at least, and so does his laugh. "Easily half of mutant horror is hilarious," he says, a little scoffily, as he tries to worm his legs back underneath him, one arm stretched out hopefully for a hand up. "Sucks you're a flatscan or you coulda learned that in Lassiter with the rest of us." This is with a very toothy, dimpled smile. Probably he is kidding when he adds, "The fun way." | |
