This one is my favourite of Round 1. There’s a lot of profanity in this, er… story, so I guess I should warn about that at some point. This is where it got really in your face, though.
Icon credits: First and Second.
homerunhero jostled shillelaghins. (4x)
homerunhero: HEYO
YOU HAVE NO IDEA DO YOU
shillelaghins: What?
shillelaghins –> Ronit
Still chuckling to herself, Ronit leafed through her current textbook. All of her textbooks for the term had been a gift from her publishing mogul grandfather. He tended to splurge like that at unexpected intervals.
The important thing was that she could scribble all over these textbooks with impunity. Which she often did. Her only caveat was that all margin notes had to have something to do with school. Sometimes this stretched to getting phone numbers from cute classmates.
Most of her friends required enough attention that she had to use the Busy or Away status buttons while she studied. But Vivane was, oddly enough, quite low maintenance. While she could carry on a conversation for hours with the right encouragement, she also tended to amuse herself, only popping in occasionally to posit some theory or point out how awesome she was. In case anyone had had the audacity to forget.
And she was awesome. Ronit looked up to find a new link in her chat window. It led her to a new post on Vivane’s personal blog. Part of her newest thesis. This one supposedly had military applications. “The use of demoralising t-shirt slogans to lower enemy morale,” Ronit read, then snorted.
Even if she was joking, it was a pretty solid paper. It was also below what amounted to a monologous discussion over similarities between the Reign of Terror and the Crimean war.
Ronit wondered if the present would be a time machine. She had mentioned how much her free time had dropped lately. She couldn’t discount anything when Viv was involved.
—
homerunhero –> Vivane
There was not much room in Vivane’s room for Vivane herself. Never mind that she was about as tidy as a blind goat, but most of her room was also taken up by what she referred to as her ‘rig’.
Technically, it was a computer. But it was a computer in the same way that a Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II was a mode of transportation.
There were three monitors, each showing entirely different projects, and a keyboard with so many extra functions that she was considering replacing it with a synaptic system. Much more efficient. The only problem was her hair.
Vain was a sound in her name, and although it was a flaw she possessed, the snowy environs of her home also made removal of anything that provided warmth a prohibitively stupid idea. Also, Vivane liked to wear cropped spaghetti strap shirts and shorts that could double as swimsuit parts. If she couldn’t live in Barbados, she could use her massive brain to pretend. And compensate by wearing her hair nearly as long as the legs she was overly arrogant about.
She spun her chair and then rolled out of it, landing in a pile of dirty clothes. Ro would love her present. There was no reason why she wouldn’t. It was perfect for Ro, a busy, fashion-conscious student with no time to read and no reason not to spend more time outside.
The solar panels had been the easiest part. The hard part had been packing the thing. But it would get there soon enough, and Ro would have every use for it.
Notebook Pages 