Just another Fucked up monday

[Phil Lim]

"What time on Saturday?" Phil wanted to know. He couldn't ditch the club two weeks in a row, so he hoped that it was at a time that wouldn't conflict.

He shrugged at Dare's query into their dressing up. "Ehh, not exaclty. Perhaps if I could find more people who were interested, but so far it's just me. I drag the others along with me," He admitted. "I usually do dress up, it's more fun being someone else. Although, I didn't today, I wasn't feeling that up to it this morning. The good thing about steampunk, though, is you aren't stuck with historical accuracy. It's definitely a fashion you can improvise with, which is good, historical accuracy isn't cheap. Although I have to admit, I think it would be amusing if someone of the female persuasion were to wear a bustle to school. It's not against the school dress code, I checked. Could be difficult to maneuver, however, so I have yet to convince anyone they should try it." He sighed sadly.

The Korean boy raised an eyebrow at Dare's admissions about swords and arrows over guns. "Older weaponry can be much more brutal. They definitely look cool, though, swords. Guns used to, back when everything was made to be pretty as well as functional."

He looked pained at the mention of the United Nations; they commanded absolutely no respect from him, or anyone else he was friends with. "Ah, of course, the United Nations. They're very....very....." He struggled to come up with a word that expressed his disdain in the vaguest way possible, so as not to offend his companion; his vocabularly, however, failed him at that moment, so he decided to change the subject.

"Don't worry, you don't have to actually know anything about our geeky hobbies, we'll gladly teach you. Before you know it you'll be attending conventions with prop weapons and dragon-puppets on your shoulder, having your picture taken with Slave Girl Leia." Leia was actually not his ideal, but she was popular enough with his crowd that she seemed safe to use as an example.

[Dare Madison]

Dare looked at Phil and drew in his breath hoping Phil was free Saturday late afternoon and evening. “The band members usually start showing up around 4pm and play and then we eat around 7 or 8 and they play some more. But you can come any time after noon. My dad doesn’t like the bell rung before then. You could bring your friends if they would want to come, just let me know before Friday so I can plan dinner,” he said thinking it would be fun and they could hang out by the pool if the kids got tired of jamming.

“Steam punk? That’s like H.G. Wells and the Time Machine, right? Well the Victorian era kind of mixed with technology in a sci fi kinda way? I read about that and thought it sounded like fun. I am not sure how well I would fit… long hair wasn’t really the thing then and I don’t ever want to cut it. I suppose I could put on a bustle, but I don’t think I would make a very pretty girl, my mouth is too big.” He’d never really thought about cross dressing, but he wasn’t adamantly opposed to it. He’d even worn a kilt on stage once for a bet. It wasn’t something he would want to do as a life style, but he was very easy going for occasional situations.

“I think I would go more for an epee or saber. Fencing seems elegant. Maybe I will get my dad to hire me a fencing tutor. He always worries I don’t get enough exercise. He will adore you for getting me to move around more than dancing around with my guitar. Not sure why he thinks I have to do all the things that he doesn’t really do, but I guess it is out of love rather than hypocrisy so I let it go,” Dare said with a smile that showed the love was obviously returned.

Dare grinned wider at the thought of going to a convention. He had always thought they looked interesting. “I went to a Harry Potter thingie in England. Does that count? It was kinda fun. I didn’t dress up though. It was just chance we were in the same hotel it was happening in. I have my picture taken with the Weasley twin actors.” He found them a lot more interesting than Slave Girl Leia if he felt like confessing the truth, but he wasn’t to that point of trust yet.

[Phil Lim]

Phil breathed a sigh of relief. Meetings were always over before 4pm, so there was no worry he would have to decline. "That sounds spectactular." He accepted happily, "Just tell me where to go and we'll show up. He doesm't mind garb, I hope." Rock fans frequently dressed up, too, so perhaps he wouldn't mind; it was just a different kind of dressing up.

"Something like that. It doesn't have to be Victorian, though, you can use other cultures than just England. There's a whole subgenre devoted to mixing western conventions with steampowered technology, called Wierd West, and there are some people who do revisionist history like, if Alexander the Great hadn't died, what would the world be like in 1880. And we kind of mix with the dieselpunks and other alternate history fans, I guess because there aren't that many of us individually." He mused, then added, "Plenty of guys in steampunk have long hair. Just try asking for the steampunk with the long hair at a convention, that's not nearly specific enough."

He had to agree that fencing seemed interesting. "I think they used to have a fencing club, but it died from lack of interest. Maybe you could try and start one again." He suggested.

"A Harry Potter thingie? Was it a book signing?" But then Dare mentioned having his picture taken with some of the actors. "Oh, I'm jealous." He laughed. "They attend a lot of conventions, those two, I don't know how they have time to do anything else. I can't say I've ever actually met any convention guests, though, the lines are always insane. The hours long wait to get into the con proper is enough for me, after that I'm done. Dressing up is the fun part! Mew and I were gonna go as Anpanman and Baikinman for Anime Expo. We're gonna try and get Maggy to be Melonpanna. Could probably come up with someone for you." He paused, contemplating costuming, then, "Do you like Rocky Horror? There's a local theater.....we keep meaning to go, but we just haven't yet."

[Dare Madison]

“We’re downtown, the Union Lofts at 8th and Hill, apt 1001, the penthouse loft. I will leave your names for the doorman and he will send you up on the elevator,” Dare told him knowing he would let them know again later The security was high at their building mainly because of the fan girls. There were guy fans too, but they were nowhere near as persistent as the female version was.

“Steam punk sounds great. I will look into it more so I can be sure I do it right. I don’t want to embarrass you guys. Maybe I will grow a poet’s patch if I can, there’s not that much facial hair growth, but maybe there is enough for that. I don’t know how I would look in a bowler or a top hat,” he was excessively worried about doing this right, which was unusual for him as he usually wasn’t very particular about his dress.

“Do they have someone that can teach fencing? I’m not sure I would like it if it was just a bunch of kids flailing at one another with epee’s. I want to learn all the etiquette and conventions and stuff,” Dare said, wanting the elegance of the sport rather than the power associated with weapons.

“It was a kind of like… I don’t know. There was classes and they took the people on tours of some stuff. But they had a room with stuff to buy. That’s where I met the Phelps twins, everyone was in school uniforms. It was interesting. They even did Quidditch but on the ground of course and there was no snitch. They had people throwing balls for bludgers. Was rather interesting to watch,” Dare explained, wishing he could do a better job of it.

“I have watched Rocky Horror, but never been to a theater for it. My dad has told me about it. He used to do Riff Raff in a floor show. I would love to go sometime,” he said, though he wasn’t sure he could dress in a corset or anything.

[Phil Lim]

Phil had apparently not described Steampunk correctly, if Dare was afraid he might do it wrong. "...I'll send you some links, so you'll get an idea of the sartorial side of Steampunk. The Steamfashion livejournal is useful, so is Brass Goggles, both the blog and the forum. There's no doing it wrong, if anyone tells you there is hit them with your walking stick." He implored seriously, "There are certain trends that are overdone, though, for instance, the mechanical arm. It can be very cool when done correctly, but so many people flock to that type of character that it's really not interesting anymore. It's too bad, really, there's so many different types of characters you could explore. You don't have to wear a top hat or a bowler, you just need to come up with your character, first. Decide on country, and if the culture is shaped differently, and then decide how to dress from there."

He shrugged when Dare asked if there was a fencing teacher. "I don't rightly know, I didn't pay that much attention." He admitted. "But I'm sure somewhere in Los Angeles there is a fencing instructor, if that's really something you're interested in."

He nodded enthusiastically at the description of the Harry Potter spectacle. "That sounds neat." And perhaps more akin to roleplaying than a convention, to be honest. He would definitely try and rope Dare into joining in both the tabletop and the LARPing he and his friends routinely engaged in.

"I haven't seen it, either." He admitted, dropping his voice to a whisper. "Mew went, once, but he wasn't dressed up. He said they made him strip to his underwear, so I suppose we have to scrounge up something costumey if we do go. Although I'm not sure my parents would approve." He added uneasily. They were very wary of anything that involved gender-bending or overt sexuality, which perhaps was why people sometimes expected that his religious and political beliefs echoed his parents; this happened to be entirely untrue, however. He seemed to defy them at every turn, though they had come to tolerate his choices (or at least refrain from verbal hostility).

"It's supposed to be fun, and with a group it can only be better." He reasoned, determinedly removing his parents from his mind. Thinking about them was not going to improve his mood any. "I doubt we could get Maggy to go, so it would probably just be the three of us." He almost asked if Dare knew anyone who might go with them, but then he remembered that the younger boy had admitted to being relatively new in town and not knowing anyone.

[Dare Madison]

Dare smiled, glad that Phil didn’t laugh at his lack of knowledge. “It would be great if you could send me some links. Here is my card, it’s got my email and website on it as well as cell and my agent’s number.” The card had the heading Paranoid Phantasm- Dare Madison : Lead Guitar, Vocals and co-founder. “That’s my band… well we’re not sure whether we are sticking together or not. Some of the members wandered off while I was touring with my dad. We did one CD that my dad produced for us, we had a single and got some decent airplay, not top 100 or anything but still…”

“We should definitely go to Rocky Horror. I bet my dad would help us with clothing since he has done it before. He is pretty cool about things. I am looking forward to meeting your friends. Is Mew your best friend?” Dare asked, feeling a bit jealous even though he had just met Phil, he was becoming attached. Maybe too attached. Things changed so quickly in his life that it hurt to let someone become important. He had first become aware of that when he was six

[Phil Lim]

Phil slipped the card into his pocket, and pulled out his calling cards. "Well, I suppose if we're exchanging cards..." He handed one to Dare, "There, now we can more easily share information."

He hadn't heard of Dare's band, but then most of the music he listened to was more or less mainstream. The only exceptions were a number of the anime and J-pop bands that Mew liked, and perhaps the K-pop bands, but most of those were pretty much mainstream in South Korea, so he wasn't sure if those counted. "I'm afraid I haven't heard of you. I'll have to check you out. Does your website have samples?"

"That would be most excellent, if your father could provide us with costumes." He was getting excited about this already. Now he just had to hope that his friends would agree to go. They had been meaning to, so it shouldn't be too hard to convince them. A new person should only make it more fun.

He hesitated when Dare asked if Mew was his best friend. He had always reserved that title for Maggy. but then the two boys did spend quite a bit of time with each other. It was probably more correct to say they were together his best friends. "Yeah, something like that." He agreed at last. "Him and Maggy." He clarified quickly, as though it were very necessary to point out he spent equal amounts of time with the two of them.

[Phil Lim]

OOC: JP between Dry and Ar

BIC:
Dare nodded. "Yeah there are some videos and samples on the website. Plus all my pertinents like I prefer boxers to tightie whities. It's absurd what people want to know about musicians. I even had some throw boxers at me in Europe. It was pretty embarassing. Oh... I thought Maggy is your girlfriend... well I guess she could be both."

People seemed to frequently assume that Maggy was his girlfriend, and though he had at one point attempted to recruit her to pretend to be, she had essentially rejected that offer when Tyler Durnham came into the picture. It was odd, because she claimed not to like him, and she was constantly avoiding him, yet she had apparently actually enjoyed her date with the football player. If he had paid more attention, he would have empathized with her position more. They were, after all, essentially behaving in the same manner. "Ah, no, I don't have a girlfriend." He admitted, "we're just friends."

"Oh, okay, " Dare murmured still not sure what that meant about Phil's preferences. It wasn't so much that he was crushing on his new friend, though it was a future possibility, but that he wasn't sure he could trust his own proclivities to someone who wasn't gay. "Do you have a girlfriend?" he asked trying not to sound like it was important to him.

Phil was fairly certain he had just answered that question, but maybe he hadn't been quite as clear as he'd meant to be and had only answered the one about Maggy specifically. "No." He answered shortly. "What about you? I guess you must have tons of girls all over the world." He joked. He very fortunately could not read minds; even a hint of a crush would have made this entire encounter incredibly awkward. Though it might have been easier to reject someone when the crush wasn't mutual. "You can probably get some groupies here, too."

"We did better in Europe than here... I have groupies, but they are all girls and I am not really interested. But please don't spread that around. Our agent says it is better that I seem available," Dare said watching Phil to catch his reaction. He decided it was better to know whether Phil would hate him now before he got attached.

"Ah." Phil glanced away quickly for a moment, "Of course. I would never divulge your secret. It's really quite...." He paused, "Courageous of you to entrust anyone at all with it." He privately wondered if the agent had other reasons for asking his charge to keep silent on that issue. In many (most?) places it wasn't an issue. "The students at Gould are quite accepting of....your sort of proclivities." He offered. Not that this stopped him from attempting to keep his own secrets, but then his issue was with his own beliefs, not anyone else's.

Dare chuckled. "I don't think that she is worried about my safety. Me getting bashed by haters might sell records... no its because teen girls buy more records if they think they might be my girlfriend someday," he admitted with a blush.

"That's a bit misleading, isn't it?" Phil chided with a frown. "And there are gay musicians who manage to sell records without problems. You just need to change your base from teen girls to everyone else."

It was at that moment that the bell rang, and he hoisted his bag onto his shoulders. "I suppose that means we should get to class." He realized, heading to the wide double doors at the end of the cafeteria. "I will definitely email you those links, and check out your music." He promised, and with a wave he departed.

<wrapped>