ArchivedLogs:Fashion Statements

Fashion Statements
Dramatis Personae Anole, Ellin, Lyric, Shane
In Absentia	2016-01-04 Everyone want some of this.
Location <XS> Music Room - FL2
Wide and spacious, seating in this soundproofed room comes largely on the sweep of gentle risers that afford the teacher an easy view of all the budding performers, and add another dimension to the acoustics of the room. Instruments of all types are carefully stored around the room, and a grand piano, immaculately upkept, takes the position of prize near the back. In a nod to the eclectic studies of the students, digital mixing equipment and turntables rub shoulders with the classical instruments. Music stands sit in front of most of the seats, and the only windows look out out over the side of the school grounds. First day back in classes, and some people are juuust not ready to get back into the swing of /work/ quite yet -- things in the music room at the moment sound kind of like they're rocking, right now. A very lively drumbeat, fast and intricate, resonates through the room from where Lyric is seated, legs curled around a djembe. She's dressed brightly, pink linen trousers and an elaborately embroidered green and white tunic, pink and white headscarf tucked and folded neatly around her head. A wide smile is on her face, one foot tapping out a beat, head bobbing, eyes focused over on her current musical partner. Shane isn't nearly so bright, black jeans, black button-down, black hiking boots; at least his gleaming blue skin adds colour to him, always. Woven in among Lyric's beats is his own improvised melody, fluttering light over top of the throatier percussion. Violin tucked under his chin, his eyes are half closed; where Lyric sits, he moves, stomps, spins, in time with her rhythm. And then there's Ellin. She loves music, and sure... she may not have been invited to jam exactly, and she hasn't reserved the room or anything, but she can certainly peek in. Seeing the two with their instruments zoombing along, she files in, one after the other, until she stops along the wall. With all five of her arrayed along the wall, she claps lightly in time with Shane's stomping. Trying to be unobtrusive anyway. It's the drumming that attracts one small lizard, skittering in after the Ellins and lurking up above the doorway crouched against the wall. Then the ceiling, Anole making his way over to the far side of the room to stick up in a corner within Lyric's field of vision, peering down at the others. One hand detaches from its grip on the ceiling to wave. Tentatively. Lyric glances up when the door opens, smile transferred to the others arriving. Her music doesn't skip a beat, though, at least not until Anole's wave. Her chin lifts, tipping up to him in a quick nod. She continues a few more measures, crescendoing to a final roll and then stopping. 'Sudden audience,' she signs to Shane, grin not faded. 'Everyone want some of this.' Shane's eyes open wider when people start arriving, a small flutter rippling down his gills. He doesn't stop playing until Lyric does, though, lowering his instrument to his side after. Then putting it aside entirely so that he can answer Lyric: 'Some of /you/, probably. You have some kind of magic.' He flops down into a chair, jerking his chin -- up. Generically. Hi. Everyone. 'Sup.' Anole skitters downward, creeping down along the wall till he is perched on a windowsill. 'That so good.' His signing does not come nearly so fluently as the other two. 'Yes I want some. You.' His nose wrinkles, cheeks darkening a deeper shade of green. 'I mean looking. At you?' One of the Ellins pulls a book from her bookbag, and begins flipping through it, while the one with the number Three on it signs,'Sorry to intrude. I just heard the music and I wanted to come peek.' Number Five looks up and waves at the Anole gently, even as the rest of her look on sheepishly. 'I wish I could handle some music that well. You both sounded lovely.' Lyric's eyes dart between the others, her smile easing as her hands come to rest on the drums. 'Thank you.' The balls of her feet bob lightly against the ground. She stifles a rough bray of a laugh, shaking her head. 'Looking /for/ me?' she ventures hopefully. 'You can look at me too, that's fine.' One hand plumps at the back of her headscarf as if primping up her hair. 'There are lessons here,' she adds to Ellin enthusiastically. 'Never late to start learning.' "Psh." Shane shakes his head dismissively, scraping his chair back against the floor till he's positioned -- somewhat more triangulated with the others, from Lyric's vantage point. 'If I gave a fuck about intruding I'd go somewhere private. -- Wait, what the hell is it you want?' He's squinting at Anole in bemusement. Then looking at Lyric. Then at Anole. 'Not /wrong/ she does look R-A-D.' 'I know how to sing a bit. Choir. But when it comes to the instruments, I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. I can dance. I can cheer. I've had lessons before. It did not work out. But it's nice to be encouraged, anyway.' Ellin flickers eyes between Lyric and Anole, before she signs,'She's kind of a B-A-D-A-S-S.' She giggles when she signs 'badass'. Four lifts an eyebrow at Shane as if to ask 'am I seeing things correctly?'. Because she is a bit of a busybody, probably. 'Drums are so complicated.' 'Wanted her,' Anole signs, brows furrowing deeply as he tries to make his way through this. Points at Lyric. 'I mean I wanted --' His head shakes, claws lifting to scratch against the hard shell atop his head. 'Help. I need to know. Things. About,' he pauses a long while before giving up looking for a word and spelling out: 'F-A-S-H-I-O-N.' His hand waves out towards -- all the others in the room. 'I don't know much. Probably you all better. At clothes.' 'Dance also awesome,' Lyric opines cheerfully. Her eyes brighten further, and she bounces slightly in her seat when Anole explains. 'Oh! Fashion! You want to look /good/? Is there someone you want to look good /for/? Some /thing/? Or just in /general/? With your color you could make so many things /pop/.' 'That's us. Very own pep squad.' Shane tips his head back against the back of the chair, his shoulders lifting in an uncertain shrug in answer to Four. He's just looking kind of confused until the explanation -- at which point he sags juuust a little bit lower in his seat, shoulders hunching fractionally inward. 'Huh. That's a new interest for you.' 'You don't even need a reason to look good. Though she's right, you are totally set up for flash. I could totally see you in a purple suit.' One suddenly jumps up onto her feet and goes rushing off,'Oh, we can take measurements and everything. We could totally do a fancy dinner. Make new clothes, then have a fancy dinner. I think I have a few tophats in here... Does anyone like tophats?' Yes, she's having number One search through her clothes and belongings and the like. 'I have some bowties, I think. A few things that my a-s-s-h-a-t grandparents bought me that I never wore. Could take them in.' Five meanwhile, is engaging Lyric,'I love dancing. I was on the S.T.A.R.R. team back where I'm from. Jazz tap for a while, too. You dance?' Enthusiastic, a tad bit. "{No, no, no,}" Anole says this aloud in Spanish before catching himself and switching back to sign. 'No I not want clothes. Not for me. But other people, you know fashion? And Lyric you good sewing. Sometimes...' He stops, frowns, rubs his hand against his forehead. 'Many people here not have clothes. Nice clothes? Sometimes we have things. Dances. Parties. Fancy dinner?' He adds this with a crooked smile to Ellin. 'Stuff. Kids not go why? Not afford clothes. Or --' He holds up his lopsided clawed arm with its covering of spikes. 'Or stores not have for them. Right clothes. I think maybe start,' His expression is screwing up more as he struggles haltingly through this signing, 'P-R-O-J-E-C-T, get help, make a nice set. Nice clothes. F-O-R-M-A-L. For everyone cannot buy. Then dances, not embarrassed.' Lyric is quiet, here, fingers tracing lightly against the skin of her drum as the others chatter around her. 'S-T-A-R-R team?' Her brows lift, questioning. 'I dance. On the school team here.' Her lips are pursing as she considers Anole, though. 'You want -- help to design clothes for --' A beat of hesitation, eyes flicking up and down over him. 'Kids like you?' 'Freaks,' Shane supplies helpfully during Lyric's hesitation, his lips peeling back into a veeery sharptoothed grin. 'Be a project, for sure. Useful one, though. Maybe take one step towards making the freaks here feel a little more like people instead of just dumping another set of school sweats on us and thinking that's fine. And kids with non-standard body configurations --' His hand seesaws in the air. 'Won't be /so/ many that you'll be swamped forever.' 'I haven't really joined any teams. But yeah. S-T-A-R-R team. I don't really know what it stands for. It was sort of the school's performance team. A club for people who were in more than one performance related e-x-t-r-a-c-u-r-r-i-c-u-l-a-r." Cue One returning to the room with what LOOKS like a heavy box. That is actually deceptive, as it is mostly fancy hats by bulk. A couple of tuxes, some shoes. Almost all of it looks pretty unused, for the most part. 'My grandparents just sort of buy me boy clothes every time they visit and I never wear them. The rest are in storage. Can you do something with these? Maybe alter them?' Anole nods, now, a little more relaxed once his meaning has gotten across. "{Yes -- um}" 'Yes. Yes, kids like me. I don't have a list yet. Wanted to see first. If you will help. Then can find everyone who need. Maybe,' he says with a small sheepish curl of smile, 'probably better someone like me do the asking.' He looks at the box of clothes uncertainly, looking up again at Shane and Lyric as if they can Approve them. '... why your grandparents buy you boy clothes?' Mostly /he/ just looks confused. 'Ohhh.' Lyric nods at this explanation. 'I get it. I don't think we have a team like that.' She taps her fingers against her chin, nodding once and then getting to her feet. 'Probably!' she tells Ellin brightly. 'I'll know after I know who I have to make clothes for. You let me know. Sooner the better, if we want everyone tricked out for prom!' 'Be making /someone/ look good for prom anyway,' Shane decides, glancing over the box with a quick flash of smile. He gets up, too, rolling his shoulders briefly before moving to put his violin away. 'It'll be a nice thing you're doing. I don't think the teachers get how awkward it can feel.' 'They buy me boy clothes because they think being t-r-a-n-s is 'playing dress up' and a 'phase'. We don't exactly see eye-to-eye. Anyway, I'm kind of tall, so a lot of it will probably need to be altered. Help yourselves, really.' The Ellin moves back from the box and joins her other selves on the wall, while four continues sighning for the rest of them,'Adults have to find a way to be sure of themselves to teach kids like us. Comfortable in their own skins. They try to get it, but... wanting to understand something doesn't make you able to do so.' Anole's eyes open wider, his cheeks colouring abruptly. "Oh! I'm sorry, I --" 'didn't know. I thought -- I mean I didn't -- know that you -- I...' He dips his head, cheeks puffing out briefly. "Right." 'Thank you,' he manages, slightly (slightly) less flustered. 'This is really helpful. You not mind I keep the box? Figure out who need what?' Lyric's tongue presses up beneath her upper lip, eyes dipping down to the box and then back up to Ellin. Down to the box, back up to Ellin. 'Transgender,' she demonstrates the sign against her chest. 'There is an older sign but not preferred now.' She scoots her drum back against a wall to join several others, curling her fingers in a wave to the others. 'I should go. Already so much homework can you believe? Definitely let me know. We'll get /everyone/ looking like models.' With a bright-bright smile, she traipses back out of the room. Shane snaps the clasps shut on his violin case, nostrils flaring in a sudden sharp snort. "Fuck adults," is his opinion. 'Have you tried telling your grandparents to eat shit? Or have a clothes-burning on their lawn.' He nods, decisively. 'Good luck with your --' He shakes his head. 'Things. Stuff. See you soon.' Three repeats the sign to herself, lifts an eyebrow for confirmation, then smiles,'Thanks. I'll remember that one. I'm sorry you have so much homework. Lemme know if you wanna dance sometime. I love it.' She smiles, unabashedly at Anole, laughing,'Oh it's totally okay. It's almost a compliment. I would be more disappointed if you DID know right off the bat. Anyway, keep it all. I don't mind. You want any of this?' That asked of Shane. Still, Two addresses Shane directly,'Because they're my mom's mom. Someone might wear this stuff. None of that hurts me. I'm comfy with who I am, and I don't want my mom spending the last of her parents' life being angry at them. Besides, my parents are supportive, and that's all I need.' Anole nods, curling his arms around the box to lift it. "Soon. I hope that's a promise." He looks a little uncertain at Ellin's answer on the matter of Grandparents, but doesn't argue with it. Just starts heading out with the box -- pausing only long enough to see if Shane /does/ want any of it. "Mmm." 'Guess that's all you need. At least they're coming in handy, now.' Shane's brows lift, but his smile hasn't faded. He doesn't, actually, answer the question of Clothes. Just plucks up his violin case to head out.