Logs:Stiff-Necked People

Stiff-Necked People
Dramatis Personae Dallen, Roscoe, Spencer
In Absentia Bryce	2023-10-25 Yep, still Jewish.
Location <XAV> Dallen, Spencer, & Roscoe's Dorm - XS Second Floor
What was once a generously-sized double-occupancy room is now a reasonably-sized triple room, furniture arranged neat and compact to provide each of the residents a bed, a desk with a hutch, a dresser, and some closet space. It's not intuitive which desk goes with which dresser goes with which bed -- maybe even less so when taking into account the hodgepodge of decorations, which includes a stylized two-suns Tattooine poster, creepy-cute paintings and creepy-cool sculptures, various playbills, rainbow-glass candlesticks and potted plants, robots and Lego racecars, and rather prominently, a large framed poster of a modestly-robed, soulful-eyed Jesus, holding an oil lamp aloft and extending a beckoning hand. Roaming the floor like a Roomba is a spidery little robot, not quite a Sentinel, but perhaps a touch too similar for comfort. There is a brightly colored blown-glass mezuzah mounted vertically in the doorway. It's early in the evening, and Roscoe's desk is cluttered with homework for tomorrow, but rather than doing any of that, Roscoe is sitting cross-legged in his desk chair, busily messing around with a well-worn deck of cards, shuffling and reshuffling, stacking and restacking, sorting and resorting. It's not cold in this dorm room, however autumnal it is outside, but he has the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up anyway, the drawstrings tied neatly at his chin. Dallen, on the other side of the room, is very diligently working at his homework. He has an "unfinished" stack on one side of his desk and a "finished" stack on the opposite end, and has been converting one to the other at an clip. He's wearing a light gray short-sleeved button down and dark gray slacks, even his socks white with gray toe and heel caps. His head is bobbing slightly while he works, and his body rocking slow, as if to music only he can hear. Where there had just been two kids in the room, now -- -- there are three! Spencer appears beside the bunk bed, holding a rotund one-eyed beagle whom he presently sets down to roam the room, snuffling intently. He's wearing a black canvas jacket with a big red heart-shaped patch on the back, a blue t-shirt with the eponymous goose of Untitled Goose Game, holding a knife in its bill, black jeans, and red sneakers, his kippah styled as concentric rainbow bands. "Whoa!" This only comes as Spence is straightening back up, his eyes wide. "Am I in the wrong --" He stops, blinking a few times. "Nope, right room. Oh wow!" He gasps, and disappears -- -- to reappear next to Roscoe's desk, peering at what's visible of his face under the hood. "Roscoe?! Hey! Welcome to Mutant High. Who'd you bring with you?" He's turning to beam a smile at Dallen, now. "Hi, I'm Spence! I'm your new roommate! Oh and that's Obie." He points at the beagle trundling over to sniff at Roscoe's feet. "He's friendly! When he notices you." Roscoe looks around at Whoa, then leans sharply back when Spencer appears at his side, dropping half of the deck to scatter into his math homework -- "Whoa!" he echoes. "Jeez, I can't get used to you doing that. Hi, Spence." As Obie wanders closer, Roscoe tucks his feet up underneath him on the chair, frowning sideways down at the dog -- "Shoo," he adds. Dallen doesn't quite jump when Spencer shows up, but his shadow does. That side of the room is darkening subtly, and his face is going pale. "Hi." A little hesitant, a little uncertain. "I'm Dallen." He's tilting his head as he peers at Spence. "You're Spencer Holland," he says, hushed with awe, turning to Roscoe. "Is he the Spence you went to camp...with..." "NIce to meet you, Dallen!" Spence shoos Obie away from Roscoe's feet. "Don't worry, he doesn't live here. He's just visiting. Yup, that's me!" He looks from Dallen to Roscoe, frowning now. "Camp? We didn't meet at -- ohhhh..." He nods sagely. "Ah yes, the camp days..." Was he about to make things up about his and Roscoe's summer camp adventures? Maybe, but now he's looking past Dallen at the swelling shadows, gray eyes going wide with wonder. "Oh, that's so great!" he blurts. "Unless you don't like it. But it's so cool!" The camp days... Is this a fib worth committing to, at this point? Probably not, but Roscoe's not a quitter, he's pressing gamely on. "Mm-hm, the very same," he says, not looking at either of his new roommates -- instead he is gathering his dropped cards back into one hand. He doesn't seem to react to the shadows at first -- possibly, from his vantage point under the lofted bed, the effect is not as drastic -- but after a moment he says, "I can't get used to that, either. I feel like I'm living in Halloweentown." "What's so great?" Dallen asks blankly. It seems to be a game effort on his part, too, to commit to his roommates' obvious fib (or maybe he's just that ~~gullible~~ trusting). "Was it a mutant camp?" His expression starts to skew toward horrified, and the shadows behind him grow larger and sharp-edged with menace. "Did you get kidnapped from summer camp? I'm sorry you don't have to answer that, it must have been so scary!" He's bending down, rubbing his fingers together in an effort to attract the dog's attention. But looks back up to add, puzzled, "Wait, what can't you get used to? Just sort of...this school?" "Uhhh yeah I guess it was like a. Mutant camp." Spence chews on his lower lip and seizes eagerly on his first opportunity to change the topic. "Oh! I mean the shadow puppet thing you're doing." He glances at Roscoe. Back at Dallen. "Probably that's what he meant, too? Cuz it's kinda. Spooky. Which is great!" He adds hastily, though, eyes growing wide and maybe a little more concerned now as Dallen's shadows get even spookier. "I guess my thing's kinda spooky too --" He breaks off and points at the shadows looming up behind Dallen, voice a little hushed and a little hopeful. "Are those just shadows or do they like. Do anything else?" "Space camp," Roscoe says with a snort, at the same time as Spence; he's turning sideways in his chair, letting one elbow drape over the backrest, setting one foot tentatively on the floor now that the dog has ambled away, fixing Dallen with a scrutinizing squint. "You're doing your thing a little bit," he says. "Do you have like, night vision too or something, can you not see it? Some people get like, side effect bonus mutations." "I didn't know there was mutant space camp," Dallen says with interest. Then he looks over his shoulder where Spence is pointing and yelps. The shadows almost consume that side of the room briefly, then shrink back down. "Sorry," he says without looking back at his roommates, still squinting suspiciously at the shadows. "They're...I don't know. They're mostly just shadows, but sometimes um. They seem kind of solid? I don't have night vision, though. This is all I do and I can't even really..." He's finally wrestled the shadows back into their proper places. "It kind of just happens." He's distracted again, though, looking at Spence this time, his head tilting to one side. "Oh! So...you're Jewish, right?" He sounds weirdly hopeful about this. Spence flinches when the shadows loom large, but Obie seems unconcerned. He's wandering vaguely in the direction of Dallen's, chair, sniffing at the floor in a nonchalant fashion, tail wagging slow and intermittently. "It's like that at first sometimes. I couldn't really control my teleporting for years. You're gonna have so many people helping you with that here, I bet you'll be a shadows master in no time." He blinks at Dallen again. Reaches up and pats at his head to check that he's wearing a kippah (check). "Yep, still Jewish." Though he hastily adds, "I don't like, stop being Jewish if I'm not wearing that. Why?" Roscoe shifts his squint from Dallen to the wall behind him as the shadows start to recede. "You'll get the hang of it," he says, though not quite encouragingly -- if anything, his tone is a touch dour. His head was beginning to dip down, on its way to tuck over the back of his chair, but at this sudden change in topic, he perks up again, looking sharply back at Dallen. "Yeah, why?" he prompts. Dallen frowns. "I don't want to be a master of shadows," he says. "But I guess it's better than them being my master?" He sounds very unsure, but more relaxed now the shadows are firmly under control and he has a dog to pet. "Oh, I'm just excited because I haven't really known any Jews! But I've read a lot about your people..." He's perked up and dragged a banker's box out from under his desk, where he's put the books that didn't fit on the existing shelves, and starts rooting through it. "And I'm a descendant of the House of Joseph, so we're like, distant cousins! I hope we can learn from each other and work toward the gathering of Israel." This has the sound of something he's rehearsed, extensively. "Starting from within our hearts! Here, please accept this in celebration of our shared heritage!" He is holding out toward Spence, reverently, in both hands, a black hardbound book printed with gold lettering across that reads, in modern Hebrew: The Chronicles of the Nephites. Spence's smile goes a little lopsided, then starts fading as Dallen explains, not uncomfortable -- not yet -- so much as just confused. He's just starting to look uncomfortable when the book comes out. He squints at the Hebrew letters, mouthing the words as he sounds them out, and the discomfort tumbles away into sudden comprehension. "Ohhhh..." Granted, it's not a pleased comprehension. "So like. I've already read the Book of Mormon --" He scrunches one eye. "Okay, parts of it. In English. Cuz I don't actually read Hebrew that great. And I'm always down to learn but I'm not interested in getting gathered." He ducks around the offered book and scoops up the beagle who's still wagging vacantly in Dallen's general direction. "I'm gonna get Obie out of Roscoe's hair, but uh, I'll be back with supper!" Did mean for supper? Inquiring minds will have to wait to find out. "Oh man I got two roommates!" he blurts in excitement before disappearing -- "Okay --" Roscoe starts cheerfully, but "Bye" comes out only after Spence has disappeared. Still, Roscoe doesn't hesitate at all before he rounds just as cheerfully on Dallen -- "Dude, are you trying to deJew Spencer Fucking Holland?" He lets this hang for just a moment before he adds, with great relish, "Lol." Dallen looks delighted at the news that Spence has (sort of) read the Book of Mormon, then subsides at the rest, brows, scrunching with perplexity. "Oh, sorry, I thought that was your language!" He looks down at the book in their hands, blushing dark, the shadows immediately around them wriggling briefly with discomfort before settling again. "The gathering -- isn't all literal! But I shouldn't have been insensitive considering the war in the Holy Land right now." He ducks his head and retracts the book, holding it to his chest. "We can still learn from each other though and, bye?" Maybe he's wonder whether Spence meant to say "for supper", but now he's tilting his head at Roscoe. "Oh! No no no, I won't want to de...de-anything. It's just that the Restored Gospel is especially important for God's Chosen People, and I wanted him to know about the new Covenant and new Zion, too." He's blushing again. "It probably came out kind of wrong. I'm kind of awkward and I'm used to having my brother's help with this. I'm sure he'll come around, he's already got a start!" A little shyly, he adds, "Do you want to read scripture with me for a bit, before supper?" He looks down at the book and puts it quickly away. "In English, not in Hebrew. Maybe...you can help me talk about the Gathering of Israel more diplomatically." "Shoot, next time you should definitely ask Bryce to back you up, like a good-Mormon bad-Mormon kinda thing," Roscoe proposes. He looks like he's about to add something else to this when Dallen goes on, and Roscoe's mildly amused expression freezes on his face, like he's buffering. His eyes dart from Dallen down to the bank box, and widen slightly. "Oh," he says, his voice pitching sharp with uncertainty, "uhhhhhh..." -- reappearing almost exactly where he had been last, Spence has in the interim swapped his dog for a large tray laden with food. The servingware is intensely mismatched, the dishes eclectic as well, but with a certain harmony: round bowls of rice, salat aravi, hummus, crispy fried tofu, chipotle salsa, and fresh corn tortillas. His excitement hasn't worn off, and he's smiling, joyful and seemingly just pleased with himself, "Who's hungry?"