Is it bright on Planet Cool?

[Pippi]

BRYONY ADAMS: PREGAME START


Why did I never decide to get prescription sunglasses again?

Bryony had assumed that, in her 17 years of being alive on this planet, she would have become accustomed to the Kingman heat at some point. As it turned out, this was a horrendously misguided assumption, because she still felt like she was sitting in an oven. The awning outside of The Diamondback went some way to alleviate this, but still, Bryony wished that the inside wasn't packed.

It wasn't even that hot of a day, all things considered.

Bryony's bedroom had a fan in, and she wished that she was back home right now, sitting on her bed, idly doodling or watching the latest episode of Hell's Kitchen. But Beth was in a particularly unpleasant mood, last time she'd checked; something about a failed test, or an ex-boyfriend, or something else not worth getting in such a fuss about. When she was in this sort of mood, the only thing that seemed to make her life better was making Bryony's life worse, and no closed bedroom door was going to stop that. So that was how she had ended up here.

In all honesty, it probably would have been a smarter idea to have visited the museum again, seeing as it was generally a lot cooler inside there, but Bryony generally liked visiting with a sketchbook and pencil; or at the very least, a scrap of paper and pen. She'd also checked her purse after walking to the end of the street, to discover she only had enough money for the bus, entry to the museum or for ice cream. And really, who could say no to ice cream?

Bryony sighed, putting her elbow on the table in front of her, and her hand on her chin. With her other hand, she used her spoon to gently nudge her ice cream from side to side. She hated to admit it, but she was a little bored. Given how she was the polar opposite of sports inclined, and how too much exposure to the sun made her look like she was cosplaying a raspberry, good weather wasn't too much of a draw for her.

Bryony looked down at the lurid blue ice cream sitting in front of her, holding up as well in the heat about as well as she was. Bubblegum flavour. Her favourite. The Diamondback almost never seemed to run out of it, either. Slowly, she took a spoonful and lifted it to her mouth, careful not to spill any on her new t-shirt, the Pentakill logo printed on the front.

Maybe one of her friends would pass by, or even better, be on a similar sort of ice cream hunt. That'd be nice. Just sitting here, idly chatting away and stuff. Yeah. Until that happened, though, there was one other way of staving off the boredom. Bryony fished about in her jeans pocket for a couple of seconds, before pulling out her 3DS, flipping it open, and angling herself so that the sun wasn't shining directly on the top screen.

Propeller Knight wasn't going to defeat himself, after all.

[CondorTalon]

((Sandra Dyer continued from The Weekly Grind.))

They say that stealth is the essence of a good greeting. 'They', of course, being Sandra in this scenario. So when she saw Bryony sitting by herself at the Diamondback, she knew she had to say hi. You know, the Sandra way.

Actually, Sandra was hankering for some ice cream right now anyway. That Bryony was also there was just a coincidence, but a fine one all the same.

As she quietly tiptoed up to the girl, she noticed she was playing her 3DS. She peered over, being as careful as possible not to show her big, dumb grin in the reflection of Bryony's screen. Bryony was playing Shovel Knight, if she was remembering the name correctly. Even though Sandra didn't really consider herself a gamer, she knew a lot of people who were, so she liked to stay informed.

Sandra also knew that games were serious business, so she had to find a good time to attack, lest she be on receiving end of a fit of gaming anger.

She backed up a bit, crouched, then pulled her scarf up to cover her mouth, and crept toward Bryony.

She waited for a lull in the gaming action, then put herself close to Bryony's ear and whispered:

"Heeeeeeeeyyyyy, Bryonyyyyyyyyyy..."

[Pippi]

Bryony sighed and made a quiet disgruntled noise, as she spectacularly mistimed a jump, sending Shovel Knight face first into a cannonball and then into a bottomless pit. Bryony hated to brag, but she was fairly decent at platformers; she'd been playing them since she was about 10, after all. Yet she was still far from flawless, as proven by the little blue knight reappearing at the last checkpoint.

Bottomless pits were the bane of her gaming existence, and Bryony was just thankful they didn't exist in real life. She didn't even have the game's music as a saving grace right now. She was in a public area, after all, and she didn't want to be rude. Blaring music at full volume around people who probably wouldn't care for it, no matter how good it was, was not how you made friends.

Bryony shuffled a little in her seat, adjusting for the movement of the sunlight, and prepared to start an attempt on this section of the level again.

Then she heard a voice directly in her ear and she felt her soul leave her body, which had itself leapt out of the chair in sheer terror and surprise.

Somehow having managed to hold on to her DS through all that, Bryony spun round to see who the perpetrator was. As it turned out, the culprit was one Sandra Dyer, a grin the Cheshire Cat would have been proud of plastered on her face.

"J-jeez, Sandra, that's not cool! I'm gonna have grey hair by the time I'm twenty at this rate!"

Bryony tried to put on a serious tone, but she was no actor, and the broadening smile on her face gave the game away immediately. Sandra was her friend, even though they had almost zero shared interests; she was just so friendly and easygoing that it was almost impossible not to like her.

"Um... how's it going?" Bryony asked, closing her DS and gesturing to the chair opposite her. "Is the heat, uh, affecting you as much as it is me?"

[CondorTalon]

"Probably. I mean, I did decide to come here to get some ice cream," Sandra replied, finally lowering the scarf from her mouth. The heat never bothered Sandra as much as it did some other people, it seemed, which was why she was able to wear her scarf like this. In the summer, though? Forget that.

"See, yeah, I was going to get da cream, but I saw you, and I thought I'd try a magic trick that I saw on the Internet once. Levitating a person in the air," she said, switching to a flourish at the last sentence. Then she made an exaggerated thinking pose and continued, "I must have done something wrong though, 'cause it only worked for a few milliseconds."

Her smile returned at that statement.

She backed away a bit, before doing finger guns at Bryony.

"I'mma get me some of that sweet cream. Keep my spot open, 'kay?"

Then she headed into the store, fishing out her wallet.

[Pippi]

Bryony had nodded sagely at Sandra's first remark and laughed at her second, before replying with a "S-sure, no worries" as Sandra went to grab some ice cream of her own. She watched her friend disappear inside the parlour, scarf fluttering with every step. It was, in Bryony's eyes, quite miraculous how Sandra managed to seem completely unconcerned by the heat. She played sports all year round, and only seemed to be separated from her scarf on the hottest days of summer.

Really, it was another thing Bryony admired about Sandra. The apparent heat resistance was just a start; she held herself with a self-confidence and poise that Bryony could only dream of having. People liked Sandra, often instantly, and whilst Bryony could see the huge leaps she'd made in terms of her social life, there were still people she'd known for years that – well, 'knowing about one another' was the extent of their relationship. Sometimes, approaching a new person was like covering your head in barbeque sauce and sticking it in a lion's mouth.

Bryony let out a wistful sigh, and turned back to look at the empty chair in front of her. She was getting there, though; that was the important part. There was no point in beating herself up just because Sandra was able to gain friends more easily than her. That was just how the world worked when one person was energetic and the other was... well, not.

Bryony pushed her train of thought to the current topic at hand; keeping Sandra's chair available. She guessed she could just... watch it to make sure no-one took it, but what if someone just came along and sat there because, hey; free seat! If it was a stranger, then Bryony doubted she would be able to muster up the courage to shoo them away. Maybe she should put her feet on the seat instead?

Stretching her legs out as far as they could reach, Bryony was just about able to touch the edge of the seat with the tips of her toes whilst still keeping an upright position. No, that wouldn't be worth the extra hassle. She'd just have to give her most menacing glare to any would be chair stealers.

Although that was more akin to an angry kitten than anything else.

[CondorTalon]

Sandra returned shortly, one chocolate chunk ice cream richer. Sandra really enjoyed chocolate ice cream, but putting chunks of chocolate in chocolate ice cream? Genius.

"I have returned, friend!" she said triumphantly, as she sat down on the chair opposite Bryony and set down her ice cream.

She took a spoonful of the cream, and brought it to her mouth.

"Sho, how'sh dife meen chritig yo?" Sandra said. In her eagerness to eat the ice cream, Sandra forgot about basic manners. There was a short pause as she pulled the spoon out of her mouth, and swallowed the ice cream.

"I mean, 'how's life been treating you?'" she repeated, this time with more comprehensibility.

[Pippi]

Thankfully, Bryony was not forced into using her decidedly-not-threatening intimidation tactics. Sandra, it seemed, had decided on her ice cream of choice very quickly. She had also, most likely, not had to repeat her choice three times because of how quiet and stuttery her voice had been. Bryony took a quick glance at what ice cream exactly Sandra had decided on.

Ooh. Chocolate. Bryony had to admit, she did love chocolate a whole lot. Not as much as bubblegum, sure, but if she was offered it, she wouldn't say no. Maybe she could find a way to swipe some from Sandra...

Bryony had a spoonful of her own ice cream hovering half way between bowl and mouth when Sandra decided to speak in some long dead language. Was there even a single English word in that sentence? Bryony looked at her friend with a mixture of confusion and concern. Was this... some kind of reference that Sandra expected Bryony to understand? Had she completely missed something, here? Was she just being completely stupid, and Sandra had, in fact, said something audible but her own brain hadn't managed to process it?

Thankfully, none of Bryony's fears turned out to be true, as Sandra repeated her question, this time without the handicap of a spoon in her mouth. Bryony giggled as the realisation set in, then swallowed her own spoonful of ice cream before tapping her finger against her chin thoughtfully.

"Um... well, it's been... average, y'know? Nothing to really complain about, I guess. Well, um, aside from last night's episode of Hell's Kitchen... but you probably don't care about that, huh? I'm just out here cause... uh... Beth's going on a bit of a rampage right now..."

Bryony was silent for a moment, looking down at the surface of the table. Sometimes she wished that she had a better relationship with her sister. Honestly, anything would be better than what they had right now. Bryony wanted to care about Bethany, but it was so hard to do so when her sister had never showed evidence that she felt the same way. Having to come home to someone who seemed to actively enjoy making someone else's life a misery just... really, really sucked.

Looking back up at Sandra a little too quickly to be natural, Bryony willed her smile to return to her face. She just needed to think about anything else. There was no point in feeling down about something she couldn't change, after all.

"I, um... I think I know why your magic trick didn't work..." Bryony said, smile slowly growing as she tried to think of something to disperse the negativity.

"I've been, um.... working out and stuff... these guns must have been holding me down..."

At this, Bryony mock-flexed, looking at Sandra with eyebrows raised. She could only hold the pose for a couple of seconds before she collapsed into a fit of giggling.

Is laughing at your own jokes a good sign or a bad sign? I can never tell...

[CondorTalon]

Sandra didn't want to laugh at Bryony's little quip. Not because she didn't find it funny or because she didn't want to find it funny. The comment was so unexpected that it crossed over into being worth at least a chuckle.

No, the reason Sandra tried to keep her laughter unreleased came down to the simple fact that she currently had large spoonful of ice cream in her mouth, and she didn't want it running down her chin and onto her scarf.

To that end, she covered her mouth as best she could, made more complicated by the fact that the spoon was still in her mouth. Still, she managed to avoid letting any ice cream fall out of her mouth, at the expense of having some of it go down her windpipe instead.

She hacked and coughed, ejecting the spoon onto the table. She hit her chest a few times.

"B-Bad timing! That was... well it was good timing, but it was also bad timing!" Sandra cried, breathing heavily, as a few stray tears formed in the corners of her eyes.

[Pippi]

((Sorry this took so long D: no real excuses I'm just bad at things))

That was... not the reaction Bryony had been looking for. Not at all. It hadn't been the greatest joke in the world, Bryony didn't consider herself the paragon of humour after all, but she had hoped it would have produced at least a chuckle from Sandra. Instead, her friend had started choking. Bryony stared at her, stunned and wide eyed, hands covering her mouth.

Before Bryony could really start panicking, however, the spoon bounced twice against the table, and Sandra seemed to have - mostly - recovered. Just a case of bad timing, food going down the wrong way. Bryony breathed a sigh of relief. She had no idea what she would have done if Sandra had really been in trouble. She hadn't done any sort of first aid course or anything, could only remember the basic idea of CPR, and her first reaction to what had just happened was to freeze in place.

The important thing to remember, though, was that nothing more HAD happened. Everything was fine. It was fine.

"Oh gosh, um, I'm super sorry!" Bryony said, hands slightly obscuring her words as they hovered between covering her mouth and trying to help Sandra. Not that she knew how exactly she was planning on helping her anyway...

"Are you, uh, okay? Do you want me to grab you some water?"

[CondorTalon]

((It's okay, it turns out that I'm also really bad at being punctual.))

After Sandra waited to clear it up a bit, she calmed down. She hit her chest a few more times as her breath returned to her.

"No, no, I'm fine. It just... took me by surprise, is all," Sandra said, hands balled into fists as she cleared her throat.

After Sandra had returned to a baseline state of 'not choking', her smile returned to her face. She, apparently thinking that lightning never strikes twice, immediately scooped another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. At least having learned her lesson from last time, she at least waited for her mouth to be empty before speaking.

"So... the game you were playing... it was uh... Shovel Knight, right?" Sandra asked. She'd look like a huge idiot if she got that one wrong.

[Pippi]

Bryony had a slightly stunned look on her face as Sandra instantly took another spoonful of ice cream the second she had recovered. It was... it was something to behold. Could it be considered resilience and an unwavering sense of optimism, not letting a single thing get her down? Or was it simply a good old fashioned case of 'I want to eat this ice cream goddamnit and nothing short of literal death is going to get in my way?'

Actually, thinking things over, it was almost certainly the latter.

Bryony looked on, apprehension still visible on her face, as Sandra continued to eat, her friend wisely electing to finish her mouthful before speaking. That look of apprehension quickly shifted to one of surprise as Sandra managed to correctly identify the game she had been playing earlier. Bryony had never taken Sandra for much of a gamer – sports had always, always been her thing – so she guessed her friend must have done some serious research to have got the correct name.

"I, uh, yeah, it was! It's not an easy game, but, um, I've been trying to make a push for completing it recently..." Bryony smiled absent-mindedly, stirring the ice cream around in her bowl a little. "I'm kinda surprised you recognised it, honestly, it's, um, not the most... mainstream of games..."

Bryony opened her mouth to carry on speaking, then closed it and looked down at the table. Another second passed, then she looked up at Sandra again. Sure, she didn't play video games as much as Bryony herself, but they were both friends; Sandra wouldn't judge her for talking at greater length. Plus, whenever Sandra or someone else with radically different interests to Bryony talked about what they liked, they always managed to make it sound interesting.

"Actually, um, I've... I have already completed it. I already bought it on Steam, on, um, my computer. I guess it's a bit of a waste of money, but, like, um... I really enjoy the game! I grew up playing these sorts of old-school, retro platform type games, so having a game recently come out that plays the same was a, um, pretty nice surprise. I'm just hoping that Bloodstained and Mighty Number 9 turn out as good..."

Bryony could feel the heat in her cheeks, the sort that always appeared whenever she ended up talking at great lengths about the things that she loved, but her smile remained on her face. Yeah, Sandra would probably still be cool with it. There was a line, and Bryony didn't think she'd crossed over it.

If she'd started talking about Steam Sales and DLC and other impenetrable jargon, then that'd probably have pushed her over the line.

[CondorTalon]

Bryony seemed surprised that Sandra knew about Shovel Knight. On the plus side, she'd managed to get the name right. But Bryony was right that it wasn't the most mainstream of games. In fact, Sandra probably wouldn't have heard about it all, it in weren't for a certain streamer friend of hers.

Bryony continued to talk about games, and Sandra had to make an effort to follow along with the topic of conversation. Most of the stuff she knew about video games, she'd talked about with Vinny, but some of it she barely remembered. If it hadn't actually been played on the stream, Sandra had trouble grasping it.

"Ah, yeah. It looked really hard from what I saw of it. Oh, uh, I've never actually played it, haha. But, uh, Vinny was streaming it a few times, so that's how I know of it. Uh. It was actually funny to see some of the parts where they died over and over."

Sandra wasn't a gamer, not really. She kind of wanted to get into them, after watching Vinny stream, but they looked super...

Hard. Scary. Frustrating. Pick one.

Although, she guessed that's what made them good streaming games. Maybe she would ask one of her friends for some easy games she could play.

[Pippi]

Well that would explain it. Bryony hadn't known for a fact that Sandra and Vinny were friends – she was far too preoccupied with increasing her own circle of friendship to pay incredibly close attention to other peoples' casual friendships – but the fact that they were made sense. They were both friendly, personable people, after all. It seemed almost inevitable to Bryony that they'd end up being friends, and for Sandra to catch a couple of Vinny's streams. It was the sort of thing she'd do, even if she wasn't wholly interested in video games.

Come to think of it, Vinny was another person Bryony aspired to be more like. Whenever they hung out, Vinny always seemed to be enjoying himself with whatever they was doing. It wasn't that Bryony didn't enjoy herself when she participated in her own hobbies, but Vinny's enthusiasm was always infectious. She'd often have one of their streams on in the background whenever she was sketching, although she only actively participated in the chat when there weren't many other people watching, or only making small, generic statements when there were more people. There was something about putting her voice out there, online, for other people to see, that intimidated her. She felt certain that whatever she said, somebody would find a way to make fun of her for it. It was the same deal with League, or Smite. She communicated solely with pings, and kept All Chat turned off at all times. One ill-timed comment could ruin her entire mood.

Oh. Uh. Shit. Bryony's mind had kinda drifted off there, hadn't it? Bryony shook her head, focused, and looked at Sandra with her best attempt at an apologetic smile.

"Oh, um, gosh, sorry. You just, err, reminded me of something, and I guess I... spaced out, a little."

Bryony gave a small laugh, and quickly ate a spoonful of ice cream to hide her embarrassment.

"Anyways, um... I didn't know you watched Vinny's streams too! I think I caught a couple of the, um, Shovel Knight ones... they died a lot on Propeller Knight's level. Knowing Murphy's law, though, I, um, always end up catching them when they play horror games... especially at night..."

True, horror games were always less scary when Bryony had a Vinny, or a Mark, or a Michael and Gavin to share her terror. Still didn't stop her from turning on every light in the house whenever she needed the bathroom during the night, after watching them, though.

"Part of me wants to try streaming too. I mean, uh, I'm kinda decent at most games, I think, especially SMITE. I just, I dunno... I don't think people would wanna watch me stutter and fail to think of anything to talk about for hours on end..."

[CondorTalon]

"I'd watch you stream," Sandra said casually, scooping up the last bit of ice cream from her bowl into her mouth.

And she would, too. After all, even though she wasn't a gamer, she had gaming friends, and Sandra always liked to hang with her friends, even if they were doing something she had no idea about.

"As for what you could talk about... hmm, I dunno, you could go for an educational angle or something, to teach newbies like me what's happening. I watch Vinny's streams a lot but half the time I don't understand what's happening!"

Sandra shrugged.

"I dunno, I think you could do it if you wanted to."

[Pippi]

It took a couple of seconds for Bryony to realise her mouth was hanging open. Sandra's comment had taken her by surprise. She just wasn't really used to such earnest enthusiasm when it came to her little pipe dreams. Admittedly, this was partially because it was pretty rare for Bryony to actually share her secrets with other people, but she felt as though she had good reason to for... some of them. On top of that, the last time she'd mentioned her potential desire to stream, it had been to her parents, and as luck would have it, Bethany was in earshot at the time. It was still something she taunted Bryony about.

The more Bryony thought about it, she wasn't sure whether she was more surprised at Sandra's comment or the fact that she'd even mentioned it to her in the first place.

Bryony closed her mouth to stop her looking so stupid. Then she realised she still had a spoonful of ice cream prepared, so she opened it again.

"I, um... I mean, wow, uh..." Bryony paused for a second, giving herself time to think, as well as the equally important time to have another spoonful of ice cream.

"I guess, um, I could go for that angle, yeah. Yeah, definitely! I mean, um, it'd probably be more interesting for people to find stuff out about a game from someone talking to them about it rather than by reading a walkthrough or something... I just, um, hope I don't freeze up in the middle of my sentences. 'Specially if there's, uh, a ton of people watching. It's why I always hated acting and theatre and, um, all that stuff."

The gears in Bryony's brain were beginning to go into overdrive. Maybe the more educational route would be a good course of action. Sure, there were a lot of youtube videos talking the mechanics of games to death, but maybe she could aim for the secrets or hidden areas of games, whilst still keeping things fresh and interesting for the viewers. That just left the main question of what games she could play. Platformers were easily her forte, but she knew quite a few people had already done stuff like Shovel Knight before. She could always try her hand at Mighty Number 9 when it came out, but that would go against the whole 'educational' thing if she herself was a newbie to it, wouldn't it? Perhaps she could look towards some of the DS Castlevania games, or one of the Ratchet and Clank games. They had plenty of secrets, after all. Ooh, or maybe Shantae? And of course, you couldn't really go wrong with League or Smite...

Bryony hadn't even begun to factor in stuff like recording software and a decent microphone before another question entered her mind. She doubted Sandra would be leading her on in anyway, but... she still felt like she had to make sure.

"You'd, um... you'd really watch me stream? If I decided to?"