Fashion! Releasing Your Inner Superhero, etc. [Thursday, May 21, 1st period]

[nocapesomg.livejournal.com]

"Today we will begin the most important part of your costumes!" Edna announced as she wheeled in a hanging rack full of spandex body suits. Oh, you lucky people, you. (Don't ask how that last one snuck in there. It had been a Very Terrible Costume Concept.) "Measurements!"

She ignored any horrified looks or attempts to hide under tables. "Ms. Davis, my assistant," she nodded at Brooke, "and I will be measuring you so that the costumes you create for yourselves will fit! While you are waiting, come up with two preliminary concepts for your ensemble--include your logo from last week on one of them--and then ask a fellow student to critique!"

She made shooing motions. "Go! Scatter! Create!" She pointed at one student at random. "Except you. You get to wear Spandex first, darling."

Comments

Re: Create!

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah grinned at her. "Thank you!" She gave a mini-bow from her seat, and leaned forward on her elbows. "I love music. No training, but it's fun. What's your favorites?"

Re: Create!

[17andinfected.livejournal.com]

"Opera," Shilo admitted. "And rock music. How about you?"

Re: Create!

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Mostly rock, and some alternative. My friend Alice works at Groovy Tunes on Wednesdays, and so does Hurley. It's got a great selection, if you want to pick up some new stuff," Dinah said. "Opera, wow. It doesn't all sound alike to you? I think it always being Italian or French or whatever throws me."

Re: Create!

[17andinfected.livejournal.com]

"I know both of them," Shilo said with a smile. "And it really depends on the singer. There was a great singer at the Genetic Opera called Blind Mag."

Re: Create!

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Genetic Opera. Where was that?" Dinah asked, adding a swooshy coat to one of her designs just for the heck of it. "That's kind of a cool stage name."

Re: Create!

[17andinfected.livejournal.com]

"Um. The future." Shilo started debating what her mask should look like. "I don't think she really liked it. Mag was born blind, and then got the chance to be able to see. But it came at a price."

Re: Create!

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah frowned, wariness creeping into her expression. "I'm thinking this isn't one a health insurance company would cover, hunh?"

Re: Create!

[17andinfected.livejournal.com]

Shilo let out a quiet, bitter laugh. "There was no health insurance." She looked up at Dinah, her expression dark. "There was only GeneCo."

She looked away. "Mag's eyes came at the cost of her freedom. She had to sing for the Genetic Opera, or face repossession."

Re: Create!

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah swallowed down nausea. As bad a dystopia as she'd heard of yet. "I'm sorry to hear that." She was quiet a second, then tentatively asked, "Did everyone know this? No one could do anything about it?"

Re: Create!

[17andinfected.livejournal.com]

"Oh, yes, everyone knew. Repossessions were a fact of life," Shilo replied, sounding oddly bitter about the topic. "You were ninety days late, the Repo Man found you and took back GeneCo's property. The fact that Mag's contract with the Genetic Opera had the stipulation of her losing her eyes if she ever left was just more content for the pages of the gossip magazines."

Re: Create!

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Ugh," Dinah said fervently. She paused, and then said carefully, "I'm glad you're here now, even more. That kind of world sounds too risky to stick with, if you've got a choice."

Re: Create!

[17andinfected.livejournal.com]

"But I promised Daddy-" Shilo stopped to swallow hard. "I promised my father that I would change the world for him. If I can't do it here, I may have to go back. To set things right."

She looked at Dinah. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have dumped that all on you. It wasn't any of your business."

Re: Create!

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"I asked," Dinah said, because seriously, someday she'd learn to stop doing that. Not today, though. "And it's okay to take a break here, before you go back. If you go back," she stressed. "That doesn't sound like anything you can change overnight, in one blow." She was quiet for a second, then carefully said, "A lot of people here are trying to change their worlds too."

Re: Create!

[17andinfected.livejournal.com]

Shilo sighed. "Enough people are unhappy there," she said, sounding sad. "Sometimes it just takes one person saying that enough is enough to get a revolution started."

She folded her arms on the table and then put her head down on them. Her voice muffled, she added, "I just hope that I can change something here that will affect there."

Re: Create!

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

Dinah frowned a moment, then finally got it. "You want to change something here, so that future never happens. Shilo...." She really wasn't sure that was possible, but how would she know? "That's pretty ambitious."

Re: Create!

[17andinfected.livejournal.com]

Shilo looked up. "I know," she admitted. "But I have to try. I don't even know if I can get back there, short of aging. I only got here through some kind of weird time jump."

Re: Create!

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Hunh." Put like that, maybe it wasn't so impossible? "If you just had it as a life goal, maybe... yeah. I guess you could do it. Somehow." Dinah looked meditative, intrigued by the idea. "Would you go into medicine? Or maybe politics, make sure that nothing like that was allowed?"

Re: Create!

[17andinfected.livejournal.com]

Shilo frowned. "I'm not really interested in either of those fields... but I guess when you put it like that, those are the options I have to choose."

Just what the world needed. Another Doctor Wallace.

Re: Create!

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"There's always publicity, and reporting on the truth, too... or music if you want to inspire people," Dinah said, since Shilo looked a little bummed about that. "Look at Bono. And Sting. And lots of others. They get their message out."

Re: Create!

[17andinfected.livejournal.com]

Oh, but did that get Shilo's attention. "Sing? And governments would take me seriously with the politics thing?" she asked, looking a teeny bit more hopeful.

Re: Create!

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Protest songs are this huge, time-honored thing--" Dinah realized, maybe not so much where Shilo was from, if the governments were blackmailing singers. "You know who you need to talk to? Either Alice, or my friend Priestly. They both know lots more about music than I do, and Priestly's really into the political side of it." Mostly. He aspired to be. "Or check it out in the library, I bet they've got a zillion articles-- oo, LiveAid. Farm Aid. All these concert benefits to raise money and political awareness." Dinah nodded hard. "Is that what you really want to do? Sing?"

Re: Create!

[17andinfected.livejournal.com]

"Well, I mean, I like music and I'll sing along to it, but I don't know if I have a good voice or anything, and even if I did I couldn't guarantee I'd make it as a singer, let alone be popular enough to have people be willing to support my message-"

BREATHE, Shilo. And stop making excuses.

Re: Create!

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"So that's a 'yes' I'm hearing?" Dinah guessed, smiling wider. "Dude, that's what school is for. To learn all that. Not everyone becomes a superstar at seventeen. You can be here and figure it out, and then go out and do it right."

Re: Create!

[17andinfected.livejournal.com]

Shilo finally stopped talking. "You... mean that?"

Re: Create!

[blondecanary.livejournal.com]

"Welllll...." Dinah cajoled. "I'd have a better idea, if I could hear you sing." She looked around, and lowered her voice. "It doesn't have to be loud. Just a few bars?"