Library, Monday

[intotheout]

It was a slow day in the library today. All the books were behaving -- well, like actual books, instead of like semi-sentient little monsters -- and Tip got her morning shelving duties out of the way pretty quickly.

Which was good, because today was the day that Bill had decided to debut his one-bot show: "Billboard: how an unlikely friendship brought a bot to life and saved the Boov race, a water ballet".

It was an epic production, full of bubbles and intrigue, that Tip could only really follow because she'd actually been there for most of it. She made sure to "ooo" and "ahhh" in all the right places, even as she eyeballed the bubbles to make sure they wouldn't get anything wet that couldn't handle it, then gave Bill a wild round of applause when he was all done.

"That was beautiful," she told him. "I especially liked the way you choreographed it all to songs that have become internet memes."

Bill zipped around in excited circles, then came back to hover in front of her, letting off another questioning bubble.

"Well, I would say maybe figure out a way to include subtitles for your non-Boov audiences. Like they do on operas. Also: when did we meet an octopus? I don't remember that part."

And that's how Tip ended up spending a good chunk of her library shift hearing a billboard's opinions on artistic license.

[open!]

Comments

[intotheout]

"I'm not sure anyone knows for sure," Tip said. "Sometimes it seems to just . . . like screwing with people. Not that that helps, I'm guessing."

[white_oleander]

Astrid wished she was more scientifically inclined, so that she might feel motivated to find the answer to her own questions, then, but she'd tried pouring over some physics books, and they'd only made her head hurt.

"I just don't get it," Astrid admitted with a resigned sigh, rolling her eyes back for a moment. "But at least a few other things make a little more sense now, even if so much more doesn't. And, hey, I guess it's good to know that Prince was wrong, right?"

Was that reference even remotely relevant anymore? A reference to a year almost two decades ago? A year further back than Astrid had even been alive?

...and there were the headaches again..

...and please don't tell her about Prince. Princess Diana had been bad enough.

[intotheout]

"Which prince?" Tip asked.

She was young enough not to immediately think about 'partying like it's 1999', sorry Astrid.

Just wait until you find out you're probably older than her mom!

[white_oleander]

Ooh, that should be fun. And the real kicker was, even if her passport said 1977, there was no way in hell anyone was going to believe she was 21 with a face like that.

"Never mind," Astrid shook her head a little, took a moment to massage the building ache in her forehead, and groaned slightly. "And how can you just be so...casual about it?" she wondered. "Do you just...get used to it? Does it ever stop just...being....weird?"

And to think, she probably had four whole years ahead of her to try to get used to it.

[intotheout]

"I watched my mom get abducted by aliens when I was eleven," Tip said. "My threshold for 'weird' is a little warped. But yeah, I mean, you'd be amazed at what people get used to.

[white_oleander]

And that didn't sound quite so crazy anymore, did it? Still weird, of course, but so was watching your mom get dragged away to prison.

So maybe Astrid hadn't been going crazy after all. And maybe she was just as weird as all the other people here. But was it really something she'd want to just get used to?

She was quiet for a moment, her troubling thoughts evident in the crease of her brow, and her sigh this time seemed to have a little resolve to it. A resolve to move on for now. She might not exactly want to get used to it, but she could be an expert at shoving it aside and trying to ignore it.

Because that was so much better.

"Anyway," she said, "I didn't just come here to bug you with all my problems. I was hoping I could also use the computers for a bit."

[intotheout]

"Of course." Tip waved Astrid in the right direction. "Let me know if you need help getting them to work for you."

Since she'd time-traveled from the 20th century and all.

[white_oleander]

Astrid wasn't sure if that was sincere or sarcasm, but she couldn't help responding either way. "I'm not from the Stone Age, Tip," she said. "I know how to use a computer."

Marginally.

...she was going to be spending the next few hours pretending she knew what she was doing and getting hardly any work done out of a sheer stubbornness not to ask for help now.

She was getting better, though.

[intotheout]

Oh Astrid. You were getting so close to being filed away as an "adult" in Tip's book.

That wasn't a good thing.

"Right. Sorry. Go for it."

This was so going to be just like when her mom first tried to use FaceTime.

[white_oleander]

Older. Than. Your. Mom, Tip. With virtually no normal interactions with her own peers under her belt.

Adult was more than fair.

"Thanks," Astrid said, and started that way, but she did stop. Because while she might not want to admit to being fairly new to computers, she knew she wouldn't have any trouble getting away with her cluelessness about something that was invented in...what was it that she found out? 2005?

"Although..." She paused, turning back. "...are you familiar with a thing called YouTube?"

And there it was, probably a nice firm turn of the key in the lock on that file.

[intotheout]

Now now, being willing to admit it was a point in Astrid's favor!

In Tip's world, adults were perpetually clueless and stubborn about it.

"I may have dabbled a bit in it," Tip said. "I'm not a regular vlogger or anything, but I can find my way around."

[white_oleander]

"Do you think you could show me how to put a few pictures up on a slide-show or something?" Astrid asked, and she took a moment to shift around in her bag until she found a small thing that looked like a USB port with a weird cactus thing on it...she hadn't asked. "Prompto gave me this; he said it has the pictures he took for me on the trip last week are on it, but I don't know how to get it from...this onto the YouTuve I made for my Captain America puppet."

But, sure, Astrid, you weren't weird at all.

[intotheout]

Oh yeah, everything was totally normal here.

“Puppet?” Tip asked with a small laugh. “Slideshows aren’t too hard. Do you have a song you want to set it to?”

[white_oleander]

"Yeah," Astrid grinned a little, albeit sheepishly. "Have you ever been in one of Capain Rogers and Mr. Stark's classes where they play those PSAs with 'Captain America,'" you could practically hear the quote marks, "and remember that one summer activity where we had to make sock puppet PSAs? Well, of course I had to make a Captain America one. And when I brought it to class, Mr. Stark suggested the YouTube thing."

She shrugged a little, but a proud little smile lingered. "So, obviously, it's got to be something really patriotic, because it's all the shots of my Captain America puppet in D.C."

Captain Rogers was going to love it. But probably not half as much as Mr. Stark.

[intotheout]

"Check out Astrid, with a devious side," Tip said approvingly. "Okay, there have been some really trashy patriotic songs in the last couple decades. I'm sure we can find something truly awful."

[WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT I TOTALLY HIT POST ON THIS AGES AGO]

[white_oleander]

Astrid ducked her head to hide the faint blush that sprung up at that, as well as the slightly uncomfortable expression. Devious? This? ...Yeah, sure.

"I was sort of thinking just an old classic standard," she admitted, "but now you have me intrigued."

[intotheout]

"The trick will be finding one without earworming myself. They got kind of inescapable back home around the 4th, at least before the invasion."

Something about aliens taking over the entire planet had made her America somewhat less nationalistic, thankfully.