bodiesalldayglo

[bodiesalldayglo]

Scott clung to Ramona on the doorstep. In his mind she was larger than life, a bound princess who he could only rescue by finishing his 40-hour work week, or a twenty-ton giant who would smash him with her club if he slipped up somewhere. But holding her like this, she was small and soft, and he couldn't remember why he'd been so nervous, even as she laughed at him.

He followed her inside, and took the tea only with great reluctance. He would have preferred his hands to be free. Nevertheless the tea was decent enough. Ramona and her tea. Suddenly he felt like it would be a waste to go out at all. How many chances would they have to be here, just like this, to stare into each other's eyes, relax, nowhere to go and nothing but time? A few thousand? A few hundred? It would never be enough.

But he said, anyway, "Sure. Sounds good to me. Find some new record shops? An art exhibit? Experimental yelling while suspended upside down from our feet? That sort of thing?"

[bodiesalldayglo]

    At 5:30, something dreadful happened. Scott's manager approached him and said, "Scott - you're actually over on your hours this week. I don't really feel like paying you overtime, so go ahead and head out early today. Have a good weekend." Just like that, he walked out the back door and felt the cold wind, breathed in the icy air that signified another work day over.     Shit, shit, shit, he thought to himself. Time to do things. Thiiiings. No, this is good, though, I have more time. Maybe I can calm down before eight o'clock. Have a shot of something.     He walked across the street without looking either way, into the little shopping complex on the other side. Before he could talk himself out of it, he clattered into the ubiquitous barbershop that every strip mall in North America has.     "One haircut, please," said Scott to the lady at the desk. "Conservative businessman's. Very stylish." The desk lady advised him to repeat these remarks to the actual hairstylist, who would get to him when his turn came in about ten minutes, after the people seated before him got their haircuts. Scott took his seat between a mother holding a sleeping baby and a middle-aged man who might have been a cop or a firefighter. For all his personal evolution, Scott had not yet evolved the trait of sheepishness, and he bore their confused looks without noticing.     Twenty-five uncomfortable minutes later, Scott strode from the salon as a much more compliant member of normal society, equipped with a sheet of hair care tips that the stylist had insisted he take after learning his philosophy of hair care. ("Wash it occasionally; all soap is equal; combs are for girls.") His brown hair, with a freshly washed and gelled lustre, was parted on the left and combed in gently curved shining lines across the top of his head, short on the sides and straight in the back. He felt the tingle of the breeze on the tips of his ears for the first time in many years.     Scott dashed to his apartment to get ready, and more importantly, to goggle at himself in the mirror.     "Whoa... I look... manly. Look how manly I am," he said to his reflection. "I should wear a shirt with buttons. Fuck, maybe I should wear a tie. And slacks." He rummaged through his closet and found, beneath the pile of t-shirts and holy jeans, a pair of brown corduroy pants. No ties, and no buttoning shirts that weren't made of flannel. He did, though find a pair of black suspenders that he'd bought for a gig at a thrift store in Missisauga. He combined these with a white t-shirt, and found that this was not a horrible outfit for a newly manly man. Scott felt that he looked sort of like a 1950s longshoreman, if you ignored his unremarkable body and bright, happy eyes.     "What would a 1950s longshoreman do before a night with a girl..." mused Scott. He opened the cabinet over his stove, revealing a bottle of bourbon whiskey with fancy gold lettering on the label. (Gift tag still attached. "This will come in handy someday. Happy birthday - Love, Wallace.") "He'd have a stiff drink, yeah, that's right," he said, in what he imagined the voice of Marlon Brando to sound like, and poured what seemed like a decent amount into the cup nearest at hand. (A faded plastic souvenir cup from Niagara Falls.) Scott tossed it back, and swallowed with a great effort. "That's the worst. Drinking is evil," he said.     It was, at this point, only six-thirty. As he paced back and forth, checking his appearance, his haircut-instilled, whiskey-boosted confidence gradually began to fade. I told her I'd tell her what I was thinking about, he thought to himself. But maybe I should just play it off and have a good time. She'll forget. I can forget too. Say, "Oh, it was nothing. I was just confused about a really hard math problem." Or something. Nah, that's no good, either, though.     He took out a sheet of paper and wrote his thoughts down.     1. What is the problem?     - I'm going nowhere in life and I'm worried Ramona's gonna get bored with me. She went out with Gideon, and he was a big deal. I need to be a big deal too, therefore.     - But she broke up with Gideon. She just wants something simple. Something nice.     - She can get that lots of places, though. I gotta stand out for some reason.     - You already do, obviously.     - I can't still work at the Happy Avocado when I'm thirty.     - But it's easy and it pays my bills.     - What if Ramona wants to buy a house?     - Forget that American dream crap. You live in Canada. Go live on a commune.     - Maybe we should live on a commune. That would be a plan. A plan would be a start.     - A man makes a plan. This is obviously true because it rhymes.     - Why didn't I ask anybody for advice before tonight?     - All my friends are morons. Except Wallace.     - What would Wallace do?     - I think Wallace would go to school and become an investment banker.     - Yes.... that's what I'll do. I'll become an investment banker!     - What is that, actually? I have no idea.     - I should go pick a fight with someone. Life was easy when I was fighting exes every day.     - Should I ask Ramona what she thinks? But then I'm indecisive. Maybe I should just fake it. "Ramona... I've decided I am going to become an investment banker. In Bermuda. We must move to Bermuda immediately."     Suddenly it was 7:30, and Scott had to put his shoes on (the same shoes as always; changing his image would not be a rapid process) and head out the door. He crumpled up the sheet of paper and threw it in the wastebasket, grabbed a jacket that was much too light for the prevailing weather conditions, and walked to the bus stop.     Too soon, he arrived shivering on Ramona's doorstep, a little early, in fact. It took him several seconds to collect himself enough to push the doorbell.     Ramona appeared before him, and the sight of a hint of lavender bra strap peeking out over a bare shoulder, trying and failing to hide behind a none-too-thick black tanktop sleeve, pushed the thrash metal band playing in Scott's mind to 180 beats per minute. He was overcome by some nameless combination of all-consuming love, clawing lust and absolute, blank shock. He wanted to rip all her clothes off and throw them out a window, and scream as loud as he could, and also, when she tilted her head and said, "Scott? Hi, Scott... Scott?" to run away in a blind panic until he found a hole deep enough to disappear into, forever.     "Oh, ah, hey, Ramona," said Scott, mechanically, each word coming out with the friction of a machine that's never been oiled. "We should er...." (go to a fancy jazz bar!) (go out to the lake and look at the stars and the skyline!) (shoot up some really powerful amphetamines!) He reached up to run his fingers through his hair, but it was all gone. "Go for a walk, maybe? Down to the playground? I haven't quite figured out what to do tonight yet..." (walk? i don't want to do that... ugh...)

While working at the Happy Avocado, Scott Pilgrim had developed an interesting philosophy about time. At the outset, he had not been very familiar with tedious work, and so he was somewhat surprised to learn what nearly everyone already knows: that time slows down when...

[bodiesalldayglo]

goodness I feel really shitty for doing zero things on here ;;; 

[bodiesalldayglo]

is the scottpilgrimvstherp still active? or should we make a fresh one?

I think a fresh one is in order. That ring is still active, somewhat but I'm not in it and all its good characters are taken.

[bodiesalldayglo]

(OOC)

So I kind of want to resume roleplaying, but I've been out of it for such a long time that I've forgotten how to go about it... Help, followers. Halp, even.

[bodiesalldayglo]

uhm hello scott i recently started rping ramona and im looking for rp partern I'm wondering if you'd like tooo... to rp with me

Yeah, for sure! Show me your tumblr and I'll follow you, and we'll go from there.

[bodiesalldayglo]

While working at the Happy Avocado, Scott Pilgrim had developed an interesting philosophy about time. At the outset, he had not been very familiar with tedious work, and so he was somewhat surprised to learn what nearly everyone already knows: that time slows down when you're having a bad time. Relatively quickly, he determined that if his moods could affect time, he could change his own moods, and thereby gain certain limited powers of time travel.

Usually, making use of this was simple enough - he would be as jolly as possible at work, and then time would go by faster. Scott was quite pleased with this discovery, and wrote it down in his notepad on a list titled, "Superpowers I Have." For a few days he went around bragging to Neil and Stills about it, though when he tried to demonstrate it for them, they were not convinced.

On this particular Friday, he was learning, to his great discomfiture, that his power over time was much less complete than he'd hoped. Today, as with many days previous, he was trying to have a miserable time at work to make time go slower, and it was not working. This was because, as it happened, he was actually significantly more miserable at home lately. While at work Scott had no shortage of menial tasks to attend to: scrub the pans. Fry some shallots. Fry some rice. Chop the carrots. So on and so forth. As normally boring as these activities were, he found that they required just enough attention to enable him to zone out of conscious thought

At home, Scott had of late been confronted by an old enemy, whose powers were ever-increasing. The enemy went by many names, but those which Scott knew best were Doubt, Introspection, and the Future. Scott's relationship with Ramona Flowers had carried on just like a happy fantasy for the last however-many months, and Scott felt serious concern that it was actually that: a happy fantasy, which The Enemy would soon smash into so much delicious watermelon pulp with his heavy Reality Sledge. (In his mind, it looked very similar to Ramona's hammer, which lay disused in her hall closet.) Every time he came home from work, Scott's thoughts entered into a recursive loop: "We can't go on like this forever, can we? We've been together for a long time. I need to change. Cut my hair. Wear nicer clothes. Try to get a real job. But she started dating me because of who I am now! What if she doesn't like me anymore after this? No, that's silly. I need to show more confidence. But then what if she thinks I'm not paying attention enough? Maybe I should ask her what she thinks. But then she'll think I'm not capable of making decisions on my own!" These are all really very natural thoughts for any young man in a relationship to have, but Scott didn't know that. Young men very seldom do.

So Scott went to bed very early each night, because sleep would make work come faster, and at work he didn't have to think. And, in spite of his time powers, work went by fast, and time by himself went by like a slow flow of magma hardening with the enormous weight of stone on his cerebral cortex.

This day, of all days, was going by at warp-speed - Scott was flooded by thoughts of "It's too soon! I don't have time to get ready! I have to think!" For, yesterday, Ramona had said on the phone, "Scott, you seem like something's bothering you. Do you want to talk about it?" And Scott had said, "Oh, nothing important. Maybe we'll talk when I see you on Friday evening," which was the designated day of the week when they always went on the silliest date they could think of. (One day a week being as much as they could promise each other, for sure, given Ramona's frequent disappearances and Scott's surprisingly active social life. It had the added effect of making the various other times they saw each other like a bonus. "A sexy bonus," Scott thought.) Friday, which normally took eighteen days per week to arrive because Scott looked forward to it so, had arrived by seemingly running over Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in its haste.

It was Ramona's turn to think of where to go, and Scott knew the text message informing him would come any second now. His shift would be over in two hours, and to stop himself thinking about what he'd say, Scott had instead started thinking about the exact sequence of events he would undertake upon leaving work.

"I think I'm gonna get a haircut. A real business-y one. Like Don Draper," he said out loud.

"Deja de hablarte a ti misma," said Rodrigo, the dishwasher.

"Yeah? I think she'll be impressed, too. It will symbolize... something. I gotta think of what," said Scott.

Rodrigo sighed. He contemplated holding Scott down and spraying him with caustic cleaning solution until he shut up, but reasoned that compared to dealing with the Sinaloa, two more hours of this idiot was nothing. So he resumed washing the dishes.

[bodiesalldayglo]

(OOC)

Cool Scott guy is back by request, for a limited time.... only?

[bodiesalldayglo]

i acquired this glorious Scott Pilgrim hoodie today

[bodiesalldayglo]

meanwhile, elsewhere... (ooc)

1. I wouldn't mind roleplaying again. I tried to organize a ring of my own, but I sort of knew all along that I don't really have the mentality to be an administrator or a recruiter. That stuff is lame. I guess I'm an independent now. If you want to do some SP-RP-ing, let me know, I'll do that.

2. I also want to write other things, though. I therefore have made another, all-purpose, personal, tumblr:

http://theowlsarestillaround.tumblr.com/

I hope some of you will follow me there. I'm mainly going to use that to write original fiction, and things of that nature. If anyone wants to co-write things with me, or do other types of roleplaying, I would be very happy to do that with you.

3. I don't know how often I'll use this tumblr now - we'll just see. If we never meet again, happy trails - it's been fun.

[bodiesalldayglo]

a Scott Pilgrim Christmas

“December 23rd, 2012 is the coldest day in the history of Canada. Frost giants have been observed sailing down the St. Lawrence on a raft made of maple trees. We ask that the citizens pray to Odin and Thor for deliverance.” Scott Pilgrim narrated to himself as he got dressed. It really was cold outside, though perhaps not as cold as he made it sound, and Scott had a backpack full of presents to give out before everybody left for Christmas.

“Our research has uncovered that the Norse gods can be summoned by performing the ritual chant. We repeat it as follows.”

Scott made a series of howling and whistling noises as he strapped up his moon boots. He put on his parka and ventured out into the snow.

-

His first stop was Stills's place, because it was closest. It appeared he was the only pedestrian bold enough to brave the wintry conditions – the snow was easily a foot high in places, and the snow plows weren't interested in clearing out this residential neighborhood.

Stills was outside shoveling his driveway. He had his back turned, so Scott decided to give him fair warning, sportsman that he was.

“OOOWEEEEEEEOOOOOOO! Frost giant! I will dispatch you back to Jotunheimr!”

Stephen Stills knew this threat, and dashed for the cover of the corner of his house. Scott was too quick for him, though – he'd rolled up a snowball in advance, and let fly with all the power of his imaginary Viking ancestors. The icy projectile nailed Stills squarely in the hip, and the impact knocked him dramatically off his feet. There was perhaps a bit of acting involved.

Scott crept up to his vanquished opponent, wary of any reverse. He reached inside his bag.

“Mercy, conqueror,” Stephen Stills whispered.

“By this, you shall be defeated, forevvvvveeeerrrrrrrr,” Scott moaned eerily. From his bag, he pulled a little gift-wrapped box, roughly the size of a nice bowl of cereal.

Stills popped up to his feet. “Oh, thanks, Scott.” He took the package, and opened it up.

“It's a phaser pedal. So you can write spacier songs. Or something.”

Stephen Stills smiled, genuinely. “Thanks, Scott. Wow. That's... really nice of you. Damn. This is like the first Christmas gift you've ever gotten me, isn't it?”

Scott thought for a second. “Yep! See? I'm growing up. Or something. I'm a mature adult.”

“Yeah. That's why you're running around screaming about frost giants, right?”

“I think heroism and self-sacrifice are the true signs of maturity,” Scott beamed.

Stills shook his head slowly. “Dude, come in the basement real quick. I have cider. Real cider.”

-

Scott and Stephen sat on the old ragged couch in Stills's basement. They drank cider, which Stills claimed to have made from apples he'd picked himself, with spices he'd harvested near the roots of Yggdrasil, the World-Tree. Scott believed this. In a corner of the room, Neil Nordegraf lay on the floor. He'd tangled himself up in the red Nintendo hoodie that had been Scott's present to him; now he lay on the floor writhing. Scott and Stephen assumed this was normal.

“Shouldn't you be huddling with Ramona around a fireplace or something?” Stills asked.

“Hmm.... probably. She went back to America already, though. We're going to a ski lodge next week. For skiing. In Quebec. That was my gift. It cost all the money. She seemed unusually happy, though. I think this is the secret, Stills.”

“The secret.”

“The secret to life, the universe, and everything.” Scott stared into his cup of cider.

“Scott, it occurs to me that if you didn't buy everybody nice gifts, we would probably all abandon you, because you're crazy,” Stills observed.

“Whatever, man. I'm the only thing keeping you safe from frost giants. You should be paying me. Like, a salary. It's a full-time job.”

“Aaaaaaand I'm gonna go back to shoveling the snow,” Stills said. “Thanks for the gift, though. There should be something under your tree when you get home.”

“Merry Christmas, Stephen Stills. Merry Christmas, Neil!” Scott called, as he left.

Neil wriggled his appreciation from the floor.

-

Scott continued his trudge. His inner energy resisted the cold. He imagined himself one of Napoleon's soldiers on the doomed march to Moscow.

“Oh, my captain, we surely will perish in these conditions! Sacre bleu!” He affected his best French accent, which was much more French Canadian than anything.

Next up was Kim Pine. Easy to buy gifts for, hard to give them to. Unsurprisingly, when Scott arrived at her house, she was not outside.

“For the glory of Napoleon!” cried Scott Pilgrim, as he wound up another snowball. This was a big one – not quite volleyball-sized, but nearly. “Long live the French Empire! We die like heroes!”

He wound up – he would fire this at Kim's front door. By no better means could he make his presence known.

As his arm unspooled, Kim Pine, in penguin onesie pajamas, opened the door to investigate the inexplicable yelling occurring outside her house. But the snowball was already thrown. It hit poor Kim squarely in the face. She gave a muffled cry, and toppled over backwards.

-

Scott scrambled through the open doorway. Kim had her face in her hands.

“Umm. Sorry, Kim,” Scott mumbled. He handed Kim his scarf, and she used it to dry her face.

Kim sat up. There was a little cut on her upper lip, and maybe a tear forming in the corner of her eye. She looked at Scott, and there was a look in her eye that spoke of black holes and terminal diseases.

Then she pushed Scott onto his back, and grasped him by the collar, and smacked him with the back of her hand, repeatedly, saying, “You. Need. To. Grow. Up. Or. I. Will. Kill. You.”

When he couldn't take any more, Scott grasped Kim's wrists. “Kim. You are absolutely right. That is why I am here. I am here to bring you Christmas. I regret the snowball deeply, but I think it probably creates a more authentic Christmas experience.” Kim's glare dissipated, but only a tiny little bit. Nevertheless she let go, and they stood up.

Scott reached into his bag, and pulled out Kim's gift, also neatly-wrapped like the last one, with a bow on. She opened it wordlessly.

“What is this, exactly?” she said.

“It's the most horrible Japanese thing I could think of. The Guinea Pig DVD box set. Twelve hours of torture and gore and stuff. It seemed right up your alley,” said Scott, scratching the back of his head.

Kim raised an eyebrow. “Most girls would expect maybe some earrings, or lotion, or something...”

“Like I know how to buy any of that. Besides, you're not most girls. I actually know what you like. Come on, can we watch some of it? Help me understand, Kim. Help me understand horrible Japanese things.”

Kim no longer glared, and instead her eyes sparkled for a moment. And then she realized that her lip was bleeding, and she put her hand to it and winced. But then she hugged Scott, anyway.

“I think this actually makes me hate you more. But, in a good way. Or something,” she murmured into his coat.

“Close enough,” he replied. Scott put his hand on Kim's chin, and gently raised her face towards his own. He looked into her eyes, and said, “Kim Pine... do you have any popcorn?”

[bodiesalldayglo]

to my followers:

in the near future i will start doing things again

stay tuned to find out what they are

maybe we can do them together

[bodiesalldayglo]

((happy thanksgiving, y'all. i'm going to start posting on my own one day here soon, even if i can't motivate my ring members to do it with me.

i'm thankful that i met all of you.))

[bodiesalldayglo]

((let's get back to work, y'all))

Ultimately, Kim Pine fell asleep, and Scott, feeling unexpectedly benevolent, stopped kicking her seat. Scott had no headphones, no Game Boy, nothing of that nature, and so he had to just ride, and wait.

He thought about talking to Stills... that was kind of strange. Since the band had broken up the first time, Scott hadn't really hung out with Stephen Stills, and now he felt like he had to carefully choose his words if he wanted to talk to Stills. Stills was kind of gruff, and Scott actually took that a little more seriously now than he had in the past. He wondered if Stills thought he was a loser. It seemed likely.

Scott couldn't keep this level of introspection up for long, and he dozed off into a state of half-sleep. He had a dream that seemed kind of real - about laying his head on Kim Pine's shoulder, and sleeping. He thought he could feel her arm around his shoulders, but then Stills stopped suddenly at a red light, and Kim Pine was a suitcase, and her arm was the seatbelt. Oddly, he felt, woozily, a terrifically sad feeling that the dream wasn't real. In vain he tried to fall back asleep to get back into the dream, but his brain was onto him, and anyway they arrived at their destination, and Stills woke him up all the way, and Scott forgot about it.

-

The venue of their first show as the reunited Sex Bob-omb was an odd one - an indoor playground/arcade/fun center.

(It's this: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g181744-d1063191-Reviews-In_Play_Inc-Newmarket_Ontario.html)

Apparently some local promoters had rented it out for a night to have a big party, and Stills had set them up to the be the entertainment.

"We're playing at a fun center?!" Scott asked, incredulously, as they unloaded their gear. "This is awesome! Do we have to be on stage the whole time? I wanna go to the arcade. Why have we never been here before?"

[bodiesalldayglo]

Scott did not know where they were going, and even if he did, his knowledge of geography was so limited that he wouldn't know where they were right now anyway.

He examined the landscape outside. It was uninteresting. So he jammed his knees into the back of Kim Pine's seat again.

"I just want you to know, Kim, that I am definitely doing that on purpose. It is boring back here. And I'm trying to improve your spinal health. It's good for you. I want what's best for you, Kim."

Stephen clambered back into the driver’s seat and looked at Scott and Kim. He hadn’t actually planned breakfast specifically, but he’d incidentally managed to allow enough time for them to stop and get something, albeit something quick. They couldn’t hang around too long. ”We...

[bodiesalldayglo]

"Good morning, Stills," Scott said, still bleary. He tossed his goods into the van, paying no real attention to how they landed. "My policy of letting you plan everything has never let me down before. So I'm gonna assume you planned some breakfast."

Scott climbed into the back seat, squeezing in next to a suitcase. "Kim Pine, always a pleasure. You look perky, as usual," he said to the already-present Kim; he'd not actually looked at her.

“I hate you,” Kim Pine greeted Stephen Stills flatly when he turned up at her place with the van. She was loading her things in the back, and she looked him dead in the eyes and repeated herself. “I seriously hate you. This was a stupid idea, and if things go as poorly...

[bodiesalldayglo]

Scott Pilgrim was dedicating his life to a new level of foresight and planning. He'd written this on a note, and stuck it to this bathroom mirror. "Foresight and planning!" it read. He'd been compliant with his new life directive: the night before, he'd thrown all his clothes into a duffel bag, along with his toothbrush. In the old days he would've done this right now, as he was waking up, trying to find his cables and picks, and his other sneaker, and looking for something to eat, and finding nothing. But now - foresight and planning.

Scott was going on tour, or maybe a mini-tour, with Stephen Stills and Kim Pine. It was the "Sex Bob-omb Reunion/Farewell/Exposure Tour," or something, and it was Stills's idea, and it was all very last second. Scott was going along with it because... what else was he going to do?

He sent a text to Ramona as he looked for his keys. "Heading out soon. Work hard. Stay on your grind. XOXO." That was one thing - she had a job, a steady job that paid for a nicer place than he had. He was, if not unemployed, at least not very employed. So maybe he could pick up on some of that motivation and drive that Stephen Stills seemed to possess. If I can be the BEST BASS PLAYER IN THE WORLD, maybe... that can be something to do with my life. 

"And maybe Ramona will leave me alone about it already," he mumbled, pulling on a t-shirt. There will definitely be tons of, like, talent scouts. And managers, and stuff. This is Canada. World music country region capital zone. "Yeah. Let's do it. Let's do it!!" And he pumped his fist, and no one saw.

So he went outside, sat on the doorstep, and watched for Stills to arrive with the van.

A Gig is a Gig is a Gig is a Gig is a Gig...

Stephen Stills emitted a grunt as he hefted two amplifiers into the back of the van. He couldn’t help but smile a little to himself as he shoved them further into the trunk. He’d managed to get Scott and Kim to come along with him, the next week or so scheduled to be full of driving and playing shows. So many in one week was pretty much a dream come true compared to his bands’ statuses in the past, and he was pretty determined to make this go as planned.