it all keeps adding up, i think i'm cracking up;

[notachickenhawk]

Characters: Tobias and open.
Setting: Floor 14, Floor 63, and Floor 87
Format: Either.
Summary: A day in the life of a birdboy?
Warnings: Probably nothing aside from usual body horror if he morphs. Maybe mild language?


[Floor 14]

[Even with everything that happened, Tobias is still a teenager. A nerdy teenager, at that. So it's not really that surprising for someone like him to be on the media floor, playing a video game - an FPS, specifically.]

[What is probably surprising, at least for other people, is that he's still in his hawk morph, perched on the controller. One talon is on the stick controlling movement, and the other is resting on the face buttons.]

[… These graphics are awesome.]



[Floor 63]

[Birds are not made for water, generally - at least not hawks. That's just not something they do. But Tobias is fighting that instinct today as he rolls himself out into the water.]

[Today, he's decided to use his dolphin morph, despite having almost been drowned acquiring it. There's just something about being a dolphin that's sheer fun, even though he's eyeing some of the fish uneasily. Still, the dolphin instinct takes over, so anyone heading through this level will see a dolphin speeding around, chittering and trying to play with the fish.]

[Every so often he pokes his head into the column of air around the stairs, spraying out a wet breath from his blowhole and sucking in another fresh breath before zooming away again.]



[Floor 87]

[It's not totally unlike Tobias to sit and admire wildlife. He's part of the wildlife, after all. He'd smell the flowers, but his sense of smell is way inferior to most of his other senses now. Even still, it's not that hard to spot the flash of reddish-brown from the stairs.]

[It's starting to get harder to spot him, though. Tobias closes his eyes, hunkering down a bit. A nap shouldn't hurt, right?]

[Hasn't he seen this in a movie somewhere?]

Comments

[bloodyashes]

[Actually the book is older than that, not that Asch would know. But anyway. He's glad you're satisfied with the perch, at least, and settles back comfortably into his best imitation of a pile of clothes on the beanbag.]

I still have no idea what you're talking about.

[notachickenhawk]

<... Basically there was a scene in a movie with poppies. The movie was based on a book. The movie is also really popular where I come from.>

[That's about it, really.]

[bloodyashes]

...What's a movie.

[Look, all he's getting from the translation is some kind of moving picture this isn't helpful.]

[notachickenhawk]

[That's basically what it is though...]

<It's a series of moving pictures. Like... uh.>

[How to explain this as simply as possible.]

<It's like someone painting a series of pictures really really fast and storing them. But sound is also captured with it. Then you can play back the pictures with different devices and watch it later. Sort of like uh... if you could take a play, but watch it whenever you wanted.>

[bloodyashes]

[See, now that makes sense to him!]

Like a record with visual data.

[He's totally smart and he now totally understands Earth technology. Not.]

[notachickenhawk]

<Yeah. That works, too. I don't think people have used records in ages, though.>

[Or at least the previous generation. ... It's about the same to him, shut up.]

[bloodyashes]

It's what we use on Auldrant, for the most part.

[Honestly the fact that both their worlds even developed record players is a weird to not be commented on.]

[notachickenhawk]

<Yeah uh. I kind of get the feeling that the technology in your world is... well most people in my world would consider it old, I guess.>

[bloodyashes]

I've gotten that idea.

[No harm in saying it, Tobias. It's pretty much the truth. Their computers are still text-based, for a start.]

We seem to have a few things other worlds don't, mostly the fonology-related sciences.

[Like, ya know, fomicry.]

[notachickenhawk]

[How do you even have computers when you don't have movies.]

<I still don't get what that is. Fonon... things.>

[bloodyashes]

["Because fonons, that's why" could be the subtitle if this entire thread.]

They're energy particles on a scale with atoms, which respond primarily to sound. It seems like they only occur on Auldrant.

[At the very least, no one else seems to have them.]

[notachickenhawk]

<Weird. Though probably normal for you. I really don't have room to call anything 'weird' anymore.>

[Talking bird and all.]

[bloodyashes]

It's fairly normal, although it does require training to sense fonons in anything more than the most basic sense, much less manipulate them to any degree.

[He pushes himself up into a better sitting position on the beanbag.]

All matter on Auldrant has some ambient level of fonons, and that includes people.

[notachickenhawk]

<But if everything's made out of them and you can sense them, how do you not get super overstimulated by sensing them all the time?>

[bloodyashes]

...It's like taking a bath, I suppose. When you first get in, the water feels strange, but after a while, you don't notice it.

[After all, there's no one on Auldrant who hasn't been bathing in fonons their entire lives. Not worth commenting on unless it's unusual.]

[notachickenhawk]

<... Huh. I guess kind of like me with hearing animals all the time.>

[Speaking of which, he tilts his head to the side and listens.]

<Also there's something heading into the floor below us. It's not a person but it's also not coming up.>

[bloodyashes]

[There's a pause - Asch cocks his head the other way and closes his eyes. Nothing.]

Pretty rare to run into someone with better hearing than mine.

[notachickenhawk]

<Hawks have good hearing and good eyesight. How else am I gonna spot a rat hidden in a field from a hundred yards away?>

[bloodyashes]

Makes sense enough.

[Can't expect someone who isn't human to run their senses from the same baseline as a human's.]

My hearing is better than most people's, but that's not atpyical for a Seventh Fonist.

[And because he knows Tobias is going to ask.]

It's the sound fonon.

[notachickenhawk]

<Ah.>

[There's a pause, and then -]

<And also yes I can see the dirt on your face. You need to wash behind your ears more.>

[Is he messing with him at this point? ~who knows~]

[bloodyashes]

[If there's one thing he learned from Jade, it's that if you don't acknowledge someone messing with you, it's like it never even happened.

...He'll be scrubbing his ears the next time he takes a shower, though.]

To be more specific, I'm isofonic to the Seventh Fonon - my natural fonon frequency is the same. That's why I can use solo hyperresonance.

[Because explaining that is better than acknowledging the ways Tobias might be messing with him.]

[notachickenhawk]

<That's that thing you showed me before, right?>

[It seems pretty nifty. Also being like this is kind of weird since he can see everyone's pores and stuff.]

<Look away for a sec.>

[He hops to the ground and morphs human, thankful that the skintight suit has kept itself in his morph. Once he's sure everything is in place, he stands, stretching a little.]

... There.

[bloodyashes]

Yeah, it is.

[Saying he's not curious is a lie, but he obligingly looks the opposite way until Tobias' voice is something he can actually hear outside his head.]

...Don't you have any other clothes?

[The suit... bothers him. It's a visual sign that they're nothing but captives. Even if it's what they're all wearing under the glamour anyway, Asch hates seeing it.]

[notachickenhawk]

I do, but if it's not tight-fitting it won't stay in the morph. It'll shred if I get bigger and it'll just fall off me if I get smaller.

[bloodyashes]

[...Okay, that sounds like a pain in the ass. Asch folds his arms and sinks back into his beanbag.]

I'm sick of my only options being clothes I hate.

[Uniform of his first kidnapping or uniform of his second kidnapping. Not a lot of options, but at least the first one is broken in and comfortable.]