ใ loving the trust, itachi, but— ใ If you're wanting specifics, that one's a little above my pay grade.
There are enough resources. They're not always distributed equitably, ใ she makes a face, ใ but that's a separate, incredibly fucked up topic.
Point is there is enough of the world to keep everyone fed and happy. ใ if humans would stop destroying the environment ๐ซ
dropping to a sitting position, gwen waves him over. after he joins her, she points across the east river. ใ That's Brooklyn. Follow the river, that's Queens, where I live. I haven't made that walking tour yet.
๏ผ haha, humans, stop being bastards, that's a good one. she waves him over and he joins her, though does not duplicate her sitting — preferring to stand.
#justanimethings. for the love of god, don't put him on a power pole or a radio antenna or any other nonsense high thing. ๏ผ
ใ she laughs. ใ No. The mayor lives here in Manhattan. Queens' name is a holdover from when we had a king.
Long story very short, thirteen colonies did not like the king. Had a whole war of independence. Got our independence. And the United States was born. ใ with baseline enthusiasm: ใ America, fuck yeah.
๏ผ that, he supposes, is perhaps the singular point in america's favour that he's heard so far. ๏ผ
Was there something in particular you wished to show me?
๏ผ it isn't a protest, so much as his tendency to eschew small-talk and actions that do not have a direct and often immediate purpose. sorry, gwen, he is absolutely a workaholic, even here. ๏ผ
Guessing you mean my high school and not my university. The latter is uptown.
ใ she motions in the general direction of empire state u. ใ
I was only there a semester and a half before I had to drop out. If you want my school-school, you'll have to give me a minute to simulate it because that's in Queens.
ใ forest hills, to be precise. her neighborhood. ใ
The difference is a matter of age and materials learned?
๏ผ look, ninjas graduate their academy and that's it. there is no higher education except under a mentor, a shinobi who specializes in your preferred area of pursuit. ๏ผ
I have no preference. Whichever you would find easiest.
Yeah. We get more or less the same education ages 5 through 18, ใ she explains as she turns off the simulation. the wind and the buildings vanish around them, leaving them on the floor of the simulation room. she works as she talks. at this point, she has a deft hand creating simulations from the ground up. ใ
There's some variety like if a school specializes in sciences or art and music, but in general, it's a similar curriculum. University, you choose what you want to study: music, communications, chemistry, medicine… Sky and course catalog is the limit.
ใ and how quickly a course fills up. that's a big one.
the simulation flickers to life around them. midtown high is a brick-and-mortar building comprising four floors, its name above the doors. trees cast shade over a green lawn where students would mill in good weather before and after school. yellow school buses wait in the road.
๏ผ his brow raises faintly as she says eighteen. academy graduates are almost unilaterally twelve, unless they are held back or happen to graduate early — he cannot fathom a world where one remains in such a setting until they are that age.
seriously, what are they learning.
he surveys the school, which evokes none of the same feelings as the academy — the structure may be superficially similar, but the lack of training dummies in the yard alone sets it apart. it's bigger, certainly, than any building in konoha — or in any of the other villages or cities he's seen, but he supposes that makes sense with how disproportionately large her new york is. ๏ผ
May we enter?
๏ผ how complete is the simulation, he does not say. ๏ผ
You wanted to see the school, so unless you have X-ray vision, we kind of have to. ใ huh. ใ I wonder how X-ray vision works in this room.
ใ is the simulation that perfect? or would it be a wall of ones and zeros? oh shit, could they see the matrix?
gwen leads the way inside. the interior is as she last saw it. the bulletin board is crammed with announcements. a banner on the wall reads congratulations to her graduating class. the fine hairs on the back of her neck rise.
looking away, she slides off her jacket and tosses it down the table outside the metal detectors. a web-line grabs it before it can start to fall and returns it to her once she's past. ใ
Where'd you want to—
ใ the blaring of an alarm cuts her off. gwen nearly jumps out of her skin. ใ
๏ผ regardless of its nature as a simulation, he is still cautious. not prone to overconfidence or arrogance in any setting, sharp red eyes take in their surroundings in exacting detail. she steps through the odd door frame without a door, and he follows after a moment.
the alarm trips, and he — absolutely anticipating some manner of attack (he does not trust that the simulation room cannot be hacked, after all, and its reality is a matter of perception) — uses shunshin to get to gwen's side in the span of half a heartbeat, covering her back. she is capable enough in her own way, which is perhaps the only reason he does not simply take her by the wrist and use the body flicker to get them both back to the school's doors.
the alarms are loud, so he switches to the earpiece — ยซWhat is happening?ยป ๏ผ
ใ the alarm ends, gwen is fairly certain her heart is about to jump outside her body, and spider-sense continues to not give her a heads-up. she takes a breath, then answers him verbally. ใ
You set off the metal detector.
ใ she could ask how many knives he has on him. but the answer is sure to depress her further so, for once, gwen takes the route that preserves her mental health. ใ
๏ผ he glances towards the odd doorframe again, instantly making the connection between his step through it and the klaxon, and his jaw juts stubbornly off to one side. ๏ผ
Can you remove it from the simulation?
๏ผ the answer would absolutely depress her, smart thinking, refrain from asking. itachi should rightfully clank when he walks. ๏ผ
Yes? But you're already past so…I think we're good. ใ turning around, she waves over her shoulder in the director of the metal detector. ใ Just remember to avoid it if we leave through those doors.
ใ in the meantime, she will attempt to wrangle her heart, which has decided it would rather explode than be subject to more stress. a mood, if gwen is honest. around her neck, a black necklace formed except it shifts and stretches, delicate string-like pieces tasting the air. ใ
๏ผ he hates this place already. why is america like this. he gives the metal detector a faint, dour look and then falls into step beside her. ๏ผ
It is meant to announce when one is armed. ๏ผ literally wild, shinobi academies would consider it significantly more strange were one not armed. ๏ผ I did not realize your world necessitated such actions.
cw: america/guns/schools. this entire thread will be a content warning from here
ใ gwen breathes a humorless "ha!" the tip of her tongue presses against a molar. ใ
Yeah, that's not my world. Just my country, and its valuing guns over the lives of kids.
ใ her sarcastic smile fades. ใ
Not that metal detectors do shit.
ใ something haunted crosses her face before she looks away. around her throat, the symbiote spreads. black threads wind over the shoulders of her jacket, almost vanishing against the black leather but for the way they stretch above it. ใ
๏ผ it speaks to a political situation he does not understand with any immediacy, and wisely — he keeps his mouth shut. something about gwen's ongoing reaction to this place, and the way venom is standing on alert is ... concerning to him.
very gently, he reaches out and touches her elbow. ๏ผ
Gwen.
๏ผ just her name, but what it infers speaks volumes. are you all right? ๏ผ
ใ there is a question in itachi's pronunciation of her name. gwen chooses not to hear it. delicately, she pulls her arm free. ใ
Cafeteria is on the first floor, library on the second. The science labs are between the second and third floors. Outside are the football and baseball fields and the running track. I throw a mean javelin, and that was before I got super-strength.
Aside from that there's the gym, the music room, art room, computer labs… Everything else is pretty much classroom.
ใ in contrast to before, her voice acquires a brighter tone. a note in it rings false, however. like she's putting on an act. (she is.) rather than let her thoughts catch up to her, gwen starts walking. she is not fully aware of what she is saying. (it doesn't really matter.) posters line the walls between students' lockers; again and again, the word "prom" is repeated. she ignores it as she tries to ignore the crawling sensation at her back removed from the symbiote. ใ
๏ผ warning thrums along the web of his awareness, and itachi is absolutely silent as he follows her. his brow is drawn down, jaw set. this has begun to feel like tsukuyomi, though he cannot divine exactly why. the dreamlike way, perhaps, she drifts through this place like a ghost.
he mentally tabulates what he knows of her history, and what this place is like to hold for her. some things are shadowed, grey, others as bright as a clarion bell.
she prompts him for a place, and he thinks of the drums she has webbed to the ceiling in her room aboard the ximilia. ๏ผ
ใ gwen leads the way up the stairs. they pass by vending machines flanked by water fountains. they pass by classrooms, more lockers, a forgotten backpack, a half-empty water bottle left on the fire extinguisher. they pass by the bulletin board outside the english lit class, decorated with poems. the one in the middle starts, "natureโs first green is goldโ"
school without the chatter and shouts of students, without the slamming of locker doors, without the stomping of hundreds of feet up and down the stairs proves unnerving. (there was a moment. a second of absolute silence.) the roof feels like it's dropping close to her head.
behind her, itachi makes no noise, and gwen finds herself talking just to provide a buffer between herself and the walls. ใ
—Em Jay wanted us to be famous rock stars, but we didn't get the band together until senior year when she and Glory got detention for punching a douchebag and bonded. Betty, we recruited after she hijacked the PA system to belt death metal songs. Back then, we called ourselves "Murderface" after Betty's cat. I'm still shocked the school agreed to let us play the prom with that name.
ใ when she laughs, a brittle note so faint it could well be imagined underlies it. ใ
We'd practice here after school. Midtown High: where the Mary Janes were born.
ใ pushing open the door to the music room, gwen invites itachi through. most of the space in the room is taken up by folding chairs and sheet music stands organized in an arc facing the board. a piano takes up the corner opposite the door. the walls are painted with musical notes and genres while the windows look out to the athletic fields. toward the back, a variety of drums are organized against the wall including a drum kit. it is here gwen heads. picking up the sticks, she plays a quick little improvised beat. the sticks twirl almost fluid in her hands. ใ
๏ผ about half of what she says is inferred through context — rockstars, not a meteor, douchebag, someone who is perhaps a bully. death metal - a genre of music? not a metal that is deadly.
gwen plays the drums, and he watches her. he is still silent, arms folded impassively.
no shinobi academy would ever have a room like this. there are genjutsu that operate via sound and music — but those tend to be passed down along family lines, instruments learned in the home, their melodies jealously guarded. but he is far more concerned with gwen than in unravelling the fated strings of her school. ๏ผ
ใ gwen smiles. ใ Because Em Jay is a force of nature.
ใ her expression turns far away; her playing does not miss a beat. ใ
We got attacked by ninja one time—long story. They were wielding katana, nunchucks, I'm pretty sure one of them had wire. Meanwhile, all we have are our instruments. Didn't faze Em Jay. Just a girl from Queens, and, ใ laughing, ใ she swung on a fucking ninja with a guitar.
ใ gwen wraps her hands around both sticks. she holds them in her lap. ใ
Whatever Em Jay wants, she just…goes for it. Usually drives me up a wall, but, ใ gwen clicks her tongue, ใ I love that girl. After graduation, she insisted we get the band back together. That was when we rebranded as the Mary Janes.
๏ผ at her description of ninjas, his eyebrows lift an incremental notch for his hairline. he knows, of course, that he cannot judge this world by the standards of his own, but it is still difficult to come up with more than a dozen reasons as to why a ninja cell was attacking a civilian school, unless it was a matter intended for ransom, or one of these girls was the child of an important politician or other social figure. if they were rogues, if they were paid, if the point was the fear from the chaos, if, if.
— though the other possibility, of course, is that gwen herself was the target. daughter of a police chief, it is not impossible to imagine that there may be considerable clout behind that in a place of this size. or, perhaps it was done on her own merits, as spider-woman. especially possible if she was known to protect the school (and how public was her identity, then? she said she had been in jail, which presumably means whatever she had done to conceal it was stripped away.)
his sideways gaze turns speculative on her, and he takes it upon himself to drag his fingertips across the strings of a guitar. he only knows what they are from newt, and the source of that knowledge makes his expression sour faintly (less because he actively dislikes newt, and more because every single interaction he's had with the man has left him exasperated, confused and grudgingly tolerant of his intelligence.)
it is obvious with the telling that there is both deep love, and something else at its edges — a little sharper, a little darker, in gwen's feelings for this girl. he is not familiar enough with the nuance of such emotions to identify it with any certainty, he only knows that it is there. he does not think it is gwen's feelings, necessarily — her nature is to be forgiving, to be kind — but something caught in a fractal of friendship's reflection.
his gaze cuts away. he studies the sports field, visible through windows that are large to let in the light. ๏ผ
Are such aspirations common in your world? Playing music in that way.
If you're one of the few to make it big, it comes with money, fame, and prestige so…Yeah. Not easy, though. Takes skill, hard work, and a good deal of luck.
We have the skill. And Em Jay, Glory, and Betty are some of the hardest working people I know. Em Jay especially.
ใ when she returns the sticks to their spot, they are both covered in tiny black spiders. slipping her hands into the jacket's pockets, gwen shrugs further into it. her eyes follow itachi's out the windows though she does not look at anything, only through. ใ
She was the first one to put it together: that me and Spider-Woman are one and the same.
ใ only may parker figured it out sooner, though the old woman did not breathe a word except to reassure gwen of her love. even gwen's father never realized his daughter was the fugitive he was hunting until gwen took her mask off in front of him. may and the girls, her father—ben, in his own way—they all sought to protect her. (she knows, but sometimes, she still wonders why.) ใ
We can keep going, ใ she says, standing up. gwen clears her throat. ใ There's not much else here unless you want to pick up bass. Which you should, we need a bass player.
ใ not saying that the image of itachi on bass would be the greatest thing ever…except it absolutely would be. ใ
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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There are enough resources. They're not always distributed equitably, ใ she makes a face, ใ but that's a separate, incredibly fucked up topic.
Point is there is enough of the world to keep everyone fed and happy. ใ if humans would stop destroying the environment ๐ซ
dropping to a sitting position, gwen waves him over. after he joins her, she points across the east river. ใ That's Brooklyn. Follow the river, that's Queens, where I live. I haven't made that walking tour yet.
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#justanimethings. for the love of god, don't put him on a power pole or a radio antenna or any other nonsense high thing. ๏ผ
'Queens'? Does your city's leader live there?
๏ผ that's what that means, right. ๏ผ
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Long story very short, thirteen colonies did not like the king. Had a whole war of independence. Got our independence. And the United States was born. ใ with baseline enthusiasm: ใ America, fuck yeah.
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๏ผ that, he supposes, is perhaps the singular point in america's favour that he's heard so far. ๏ผ
Was there something in particular you wished to show me?
๏ผ it isn't a protest, so much as his tendency to eschew small-talk and actions that do not have a direct and often immediate purpose. sorry, gwen, he is absolutely a workaholic, even here. ๏ผ
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Only my playground. ใ she looks over the city with a serene smile. even itachi can't ruin new york for her. ใ
There anything you want a closer look at?
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Your school?
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ใ she motions in the general direction of empire state u. ใ
I was only there a semester and a half before I had to drop out. If you want my school-school, you'll have to give me a minute to simulate it because that's in Queens.
ใ forest hills, to be precise. her neighborhood. ใ
no subject
๏ผ look, ninjas graduate their academy and that's it. there is no higher education except under a mentor, a shinobi who specializes in your preferred area of pursuit. ๏ผ
I have no preference. Whichever you would find easiest.
no subject
There's some variety like if a school specializes in sciences or art and music, but in general, it's a similar curriculum. University, you choose what you want to study: music, communications, chemistry, medicine… Sky and course catalog is the limit.
ใ and how quickly a course fills up. that's a big one.
the simulation flickers to life around them. midtown high is a brick-and-mortar building comprising four floors, its name above the doors. trees cast shade over a green lawn where students would mill in good weather before and after school. yellow school buses wait in the road.
gwen shrugs further into her too big jacket. ใ
Midtown High. Four years here.
no subject
seriously, what are they learning.he surveys the school, which evokes none of the same feelings as the academy — the structure may be superficially similar, but the lack of training dummies in the yard alone sets it apart. it's bigger, certainly, than any building in konoha — or in any of the other villages or cities he's seen, but he supposes that makes sense with how disproportionately large her new york is. ๏ผ
May we enter?
๏ผ how complete is the simulation, he does not say. ๏ผ
no subject
ใ is the simulation that perfect? or would it be a wall of ones and zeros? oh shit, could they see the matrix?
gwen leads the way inside. the interior is as she last saw it. the bulletin board is crammed with announcements. a banner on the wall reads congratulations to her graduating class. the fine hairs on the back of her neck rise.
looking away, she slides off her jacket and tosses it down the table outside the metal detectors. a web-line grabs it before it can start to fall and returns it to her once she's past. ใ
Where'd you want to—
ใ the blaring of an alarm cuts her off. gwen nearly jumps out of her skin. ใ
no subject
the alarm trips, and he — absolutely anticipating some manner of attack (he does not trust that the simulation room cannot be hacked, after all, and its reality is a matter of perception) — uses shunshin to get to gwen's side in the span of half a heartbeat, covering her back. she is capable enough in her own way, which is perhaps the only reason he does not simply take her by the wrist and use the body flicker to get them both back to the school's doors.
the alarms are loud, so he switches to the earpiece — ยซWhat is happening?ยป ๏ผ
no subject
You set off the metal detector.
ใ she could ask how many knives he has on him. but the answer is sure to depress her further so, for once, gwen takes the route that preserves her mental health. ใ
no subject
Can you remove it from the simulation?
๏ผ the answer would absolutely depress her, smart thinking, refrain from asking. itachi should rightfully clank when he walks. ๏ผ
no subject
ใ in the meantime, she will attempt to wrangle her heart, which has decided it would rather explode than be subject to more stress. a mood, if gwen is honest. around her neck, a black necklace formed except it shifts and stretches, delicate string-like pieces tasting the air. ใ
cw: uhhhhHHHHmerican..... highschools/weapons mention
It is meant to announce when one is armed. ๏ผ literally wild, shinobi academies would consider it significantly more strange were one not armed. ๏ผ I did not realize your world necessitated such actions.
cw: america/guns/schools. this entire thread will be a content warning from here
Yeah, that's not my world. Just my country, and its valuing guns over the lives of kids.
ใ her sarcastic smile fades. ใ
Not that metal detectors do shit.
ใ something haunted crosses her face before she looks away. around her throat, the symbiote spreads. black threads wind over the shoulders of her jacket, almost vanishing against the black leather but for the way they stretch above it. ใ
no subject
very gently, he reaches out and touches her elbow. ๏ผ
Gwen.
๏ผ just her name, but what it infers speaks volumes. are you all right? ๏ผ
no subject
Cafeteria is on the first floor, library on the second. The science labs are between the second and third floors. Outside are the football and baseball fields and the running track. I throw a mean javelin, and that was before I got super-strength.
Aside from that there's the gym, the music room, art room, computer labs… Everything else is pretty much classroom.
ใ in contrast to before, her voice acquires a brighter tone. a note in it rings false, however. like she's putting on an act. (she is.) rather than let her thoughts catch up to her, gwen starts walking. she is not fully aware of what she is saying. (it doesn't really matter.) posters line the walls between students' lockers; again and again, the word "prom" is repeated. she ignores it as she tries to ignore the crawling sensation at her back removed from the symbiote. ใ
Up to you where you wanna go.
no subject
he mentally tabulates what he knows of her history, and what this place is like to hold for her. some things are shadowed, grey, others as bright as a clarion bell.
she prompts him for a place, and he thinks of the drums she has webbed to the ceiling in her room aboard the ximilia. ๏ผ
The music room.
no subject
ใ gwen leads the way up the stairs. they pass by vending machines flanked by water fountains. they pass by classrooms, more lockers, a forgotten backpack, a half-empty water bottle left on the fire extinguisher. they pass by the bulletin board outside the english lit class, decorated with poems. the one in the middle starts, "natureโs first green is goldโ"
school without the chatter and shouts of students, without the slamming of locker doors, without the stomping of hundreds of feet up and down the stairs proves unnerving. (there was a moment. a second of absolute silence.) the roof feels like it's dropping close to her head.
behind her, itachi makes no noise, and gwen finds herself talking just to provide a buffer between herself and the walls. ใ
—Em Jay wanted us to be famous rock stars, but we didn't get the band together until senior year when she and Glory got detention for punching a douchebag and bonded. Betty, we recruited after she hijacked the PA system to belt death metal songs. Back then, we called ourselves "Murderface" after Betty's cat. I'm still shocked the school agreed to let us play the prom with that name.
ใ when she laughs, a brittle note so faint it could well be imagined underlies it. ใ
We'd practice here after school. Midtown High: where the Mary Janes were born.
ใ pushing open the door to the music room, gwen invites itachi through. most of the space in the room is taken up by folding chairs and sheet music stands organized in an arc facing the board. a piano takes up the corner opposite the door. the walls are painted with musical notes and genres while the windows look out to the athletic fields. toward the back, a variety of drums are organized against the wall including a drum kit. it is here gwen heads. picking up the sticks, she plays a quick little improvised beat. the sticks twirl almost fluid in her hands. ใ
no subject
gwen plays the drums, and he watches her. he is still silent, arms folded impassively.
no shinobi academy would ever have a room like this. there are genjutsu that operate via sound and music — but those tend to be passed down along family lines, instruments learned in the home, their melodies jealously guarded. but he is far more concerned with gwen than in unravelling the fated strings of her school. ๏ผ
Why 'Mary Janes'?
no subject
ใ her expression turns far away; her playing does not miss a beat. ใ
We got attacked by ninja one time—long story. They were wielding katana, nunchucks, I'm pretty sure one of them had wire. Meanwhile, all we have are our instruments. Didn't faze Em Jay. Just a girl from Queens, and, ใ laughing, ใ she swung on a fucking ninja with a guitar.
ใ gwen wraps her hands around both sticks. she holds them in her lap. ใ
Whatever Em Jay wants, she just…goes for it. Usually drives me up a wall, but, ใ gwen clicks her tongue, ใ I love that girl. After graduation, she insisted we get the band back together. That was when we rebranded as the Mary Janes.
no subject
— though the other possibility, of course, is that gwen herself was the target. daughter of a police chief, it is not impossible to imagine that there may be considerable clout behind that in a place of this size. or, perhaps it was done on her own merits, as spider-woman. especially possible if she was known to protect the school (and how public was her identity, then? she said she had been in jail, which presumably means whatever she had done to conceal it was stripped away.)
his sideways gaze turns speculative on her, and he takes it upon himself to drag his fingertips across the strings of a guitar. he only knows what they are from newt, and the source of that knowledge makes his expression sour faintly (less because he actively dislikes newt, and more because every single interaction he's had with the man has left him exasperated, confused and grudgingly tolerant of his intelligence.)
it is obvious with the telling that there is both deep love, and something else at its edges — a little sharper, a little darker, in gwen's feelings for this girl. he is not familiar enough with the nuance of such emotions to identify it with any certainty, he only knows that it is there. he does not think it is gwen's feelings, necessarily — her nature is to be forgiving, to be kind — but something caught in a fractal of friendship's reflection.
his gaze cuts away. he studies the sports field, visible through windows that are large to let in the light. ๏ผ
Are such aspirations common in your world? Playing music in that way.
no subject
We have the skill. And Em Jay, Glory, and Betty are some of the hardest working people I know. Em Jay especially.
ใ when she returns the sticks to their spot, they are both covered in tiny black spiders. slipping her hands into the jacket's pockets, gwen shrugs further into it. her eyes follow itachi's out the windows though she does not look at anything, only through. ใ
She was the first one to put it together: that me and Spider-Woman are one and the same.
ใ only may parker figured it out sooner, though the old woman did not breathe a word except to reassure gwen of her love. even gwen's father never realized his daughter was the fugitive he was hunting until gwen took her mask off in front of him. may and the girls, her father—ben, in his own way—they all sought to protect her. (she knows, but sometimes, she still wonders why.) ใ
We can keep going, ใ she says, standing up. gwen clears her throat. ใ There's not much else here unless you want to pick up bass. Which you should, we need a bass player.
ใ not saying that the image of itachi on bass would be the greatest thing ever…except it absolutely would be. ใ
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