ArchivedLogs:Moving Pictures

Moving Pictures
Dramatis Personae Jackson, Shelby	2013-01-15 '
Location <NYC> Inkline Studios - Lower East Side
The front room of Inkline Studio is small, and does not, particularly, look like a tattoo parlor at all. Framed surrealist oil paintings line the walls instead of the typical flash ink, although interspersed are a handful of tasteful, artistic photographs of various people displaying their tattoos that might give away the nature of this business. Black leather armchairs cluster around a low glass coffee table; large black binders that sit on the table contain portfolios of the past work done in the studio. A glass counter stretches along the length of one wall, a plethora of various body jewelry on display; the 'front desk' sits at the far end of the counter, computer and cash register and large file cabinet making up the work space. The piercing and tattoo rooms are in the back, brightly lit and sterile, with doors closeable for privacy. Calculations have performed, calculations designed to ensure a tattoo studio that is as empty as possible without being closed. Shelby is, after all, looking to corner Jackson for talk that he'd made clear he would prefer went unheard by others. The teenager strolls by Inkline first, glancing casually through the windows, and then performs a second pass to get a better look at the interior. Only then does she push the door open and slip inside out of the bitter cold of rapidly approaching evening. Having been here once, she knows the way to the counter and proceeds forward, unwrapping a hodgepodge-yarn scarf from around her head to expose her face. The bruise that had decorated her cheek has all but gone by now but she's still looking a little pale, a little tired. "Hello? My Little Pony dude?" Jackson peers around the door of one of the back rooms at this, a quick smile curling his lips. "Not today," he says, amused, peeling off a pair of purple gloves and dropping them in a trashcan before moving to lean against the doorway. He is still colourful enough, today, but somewhat less neon; black hair with only a single streak of bright red in it, black jeans laced corset-like up their sides, a sleeveless shirt diagonally striped in black and red. Sunglasses, still, large and mirrored. "Hey." For a moment he's quiet, perhaps looking Shelby over. "You been alright? Look a little peaked." "Whoa. Where are the sparkles?" Accusations of peaked bring out the sass...or maybe that's just normal operating conditions. Shelby dumps the scarf on the counter, a sign that she intends to stay for a little bit. The outer layer of black puffy jacket is worked on next, exposing a grungy sweatshirt; it's warmer in here than out there. "It's been kinda crazy. Um...you okay? How's the dude who got shot?" she asks, striving for a casual tone but failing somewhat--it doesn't help that she's looking him over for signs of more than sparkles. "Hive said he didn't die or anything." Jackson lifts a hand, waggling fingers lazily in the air -- sparkly red, with a little black star set into the thumbnail. "Some days are sparklier than others," he says, ambling over to perch on a stool behind the counter. "M'aright," he says with a shrug, "good thing about startin' off the week with gunfire means it's only likely t'get better. Mmm." His brow furrows, and he shakes his head. "Yeah, no, he didn't die or nothin'. He's recovering. He'll be aright." The smile he offers Shelby is small, and crooked. "Sorry about that whole, uh. I mean, it's not /usually/ quite so bloody when we're servin' food." Somehow the sight of -some- sparkles reassures--enough that she's able to crack her own crooked grin at him. "Yeah, good thing," she echoes. "I guess. Someone tried to hit me with a broom the day after but that's better than bullets." The jacket is folded around her arms before she leans against the counter. Her brow rumples. "You're not pissed at me? I mean. I'm sorry I went off and got the guy shot and all, I am, I kinda wanna tell the guy I'm sorry if he's okay with it. But no one else has said sorry either." "A broom?" Jackson's nose wrinkles. "That seems so -- seventies sitcom. Why a /broom/?" He is turning idly back and forth on his seat in steady rotation. Because it's a spinny sort of stool, so why /not/. "Pissed?" This gives him a brief moment of confusion. "No. I mean, it wasn't your --" He hesitates, frowning slightly. "I don't think most people are really /used/ to just having guns -- uh. Interrupt dinner. I could ask him if he's okay with it," he says with an uncertain shrug. "I don't think you did it on /purpose/. It was just. A bad night." "Yeah, you know that bagel place down by Times Square? The people who own it are asshole racists. Except not like -race-, you know? Melinda was totally badass making the lady back down before she got us -and- I scored us some free bagels though so it was okay." Shelby rocks forward on the counter, her arms braced in a way that lets her lift her feet up off of the floor. La la la. "It was a fucking -awful- night. I'm glad you're okay though. And that guy didn't like, die or anything," she repeats. "Since he's still alive, you think I could maybe get that transfer paper off of you?" "Where'd you go, anyway, after all that? Hopefully somewhere without people shooting." Jackson bites down on his lip, considering. "There's a lot of bagel places," he muses, "do you mean the /good/ one cuz I hope not. Their bagels are awesome." Her request ears a quicker grin from him, brief and bright. "Oh, yeah, sure. Mmm. Gimme a second, alright?" He spins again. Maybe he needs the extra time to make himself /dizzy/. It is not until another loop around on his stool that he slides off, heading towards the back, though he keeps talking as he disappears into the back room. "There's a bagel place a couple blocks away by Stanton and Orchard where the people are rad /and/ if you go a couple minutes before close they'll give you a /bag/ of them for the price of one. The cinnamon ones are delicious." "Around." Shelby shrugs along with the answer to his question. Further information is not forthcoming. "I can't remember the name, it started with a...Z..." The teen trails off to watch the spinny business, her pale eyebrows scootching up on her forehead. That...looks kinda fun. Her grin returns. "I'll have to check it out, sounds pretty cool. A whole bag of them..." She waits. Waits until Jax has disappeared. Waits until his voice sounds as if it's coming from a distant point in the shop. Then she slips around to the other side of the counter and lays claim to his chair. With a hand braced against the counter, she sets herself to spinning. There are some noises coming from behind his door. A hum of machinery. A chhhk of paper being spat out. "Yeah, a whole bag. Whatever wasn't sold, they can't keep 'em anyway. /Way/ nicer than the bakery on Forsyth, they throw everything out and then pour /bleach/ over it just to make sure nobody eats it from the trash." The spinny stool is /very/ spinny. It even makes satisfying swooshing noises. "You don't have any, uh, special requests for these pictures, do you? I just kind of nabbed some stuff out of my sketchbook." "Bleach?" Shelby completes a revolution. "That's fucked up, man." Another revolution. "Nah!" Another, and another. "Just whatever. For practice...whoo." She grabs onto the counter, her upper body continuing to wobble for several seconds after the stop. A quick shake of her head does nothing! At least at first. But when the dizziness passes, she slides to her feet and just boldly breezes through the boundary marking entryway and back work room. It's not like she's a -stranger- or anything. "You got anything you'd like? I could practice it on you. What d'you do, anyway? Are you like a chameleon or something? I was thinking about it, the whole...where'd your tattoos go, thing." "A chameleon?" The back room is almost clinical in its sterility. Full of cabinets. Trays. A padded table, hinged in multiple places. An autoclave on a back counter. Jackson has commandeered /another/ stool. Also spinny. He's not spinning at the moment, though, just tapping fingers against the counter and retrieving sheets that a small machine is slowly spitting out. "Naaah, I mean. It'd be cool in terms of time, but I /like/ getting tattoos the traditional way. Feels like cheating without the pain. I'm not a chameleon. I." He frowns, for a moment, glancing over towards Shelby as she enters. "Um. I play with -- light. What do /you/ do, is it all with pictures?" Hey look, a counter! Shelby toodles on over to pull herself up onto to sit, without asking whether it's appropriate. She leaves her feet hanging, swinging them a little but not allowing her heels to hit the doors beneath. "You know. Change your colors...light, huh? Like the kid last night? At the arcade. Man, he was wasted. But he had this thing with his clothes," she says, swirling her hands through the air to demonstrate...well, swirliness. "I just make pictures move. Big ones, little ones, they do what I want 'em to. It's kinda fun. Like cartoons except they do what I say." "Kid last night?" Jackson asks, a little confused. "Sorry," he adds, mild, "d'you mind getting down off there? I only just cleaned everything and they're pretty finicky about it all here. You met another --" He swirls his hand through the air, too, vaguely, only where his fingers trail they leave behind a wispy swirl of shimmering blue that lingers for a moment and then fades. "Really? So you -- animate things. Except for /real/? Cuz that's way cool." "Holy fuck, that's awesome!" Shelby leaves the counter without complaint, landing with a thunk and waving at Jax in a way that indicates he should do it again. "Kinda like that, yeah, except it was all over his clothes. He passed out, Hive took him to his place, I think. Tag? Like grafitti. That was him. Man...if I could do that...can you draw in the air?" The idea hits her all at once, brightening the light already there in her eyes. "Like you can do with sparklers, or fire? And yeah...that's how we got kicked out of the bagel place. The asshole in charge said something about mutants, so I, uh. Kinda made all the pictures come to life." "/Tag/?" This gives Jackson pause, a momentary startled splutter, his expression caught somewhere between surprise and amusement. "I didn't even know they -- /seriously/? /Drunk/ Tag? That must be preeeetty colourful. He went home with Hive?"  He scrubs his fingers for a moment beneath his sunglasses, and then reaches to retrieve another small couple of squares of paper from the machine. "I can draw a lot of places," he adds, a moment later. "Man, it sucks to hear they're jerks there, though. I guess a lot of places are. Did you at least startle them before they gave you the boot." He is spinning around on his stool to face her, as he talks. In front of him, more colour is growing. Not a formless shimmer, this time; this time it has a shape, a black-and-chrome robot with large glowing eyes and some sort of red engine strapped to his back, crouching down low on the floor with one metal finger outstretched. "Does it have to be two-dimensional?" he wonders, belatedly; the picture in front of him certainly /isn't/; it looks solid and real enough that it might be tangible. "Yeah, Tag," Shelby confirms. "He was pretty nice, even when Hive was being an asshole about...y'know. Before he apologized." But her answer is distracted because shiny! She stares, expression somewhere between the fascinated and thoughtful. "I...don't know. I mean, I never really...just...hang on a sec, okay? Keep it like that?" Because she needs a moment to back up and study all of it at once, before circling a few steps to get a look at the sides, aaaaand then to face it square again. Her jaw sets. She concentrates. "...just a picture...it's just a picture..." Her brain takes some convincing but after a moment, the robot's outstretched finger curls--now it is a fist's pointing. "Hive's like that a lot," Jackson says with a small twist of smile, "but he's a real good guy. Under the cranky." He watches Shelby with as much fascination as she is looking at the robot. When the robot's finger moves, he shivers, tensing briefly and then relaxing to lean closer and watch the image, curious. "Woah. That's. /Huh/." His fingers drum against the side of the stool. "What if the thing was already moving? Like. A movie. Can you make things already animated be animated -- /different/?" Success! Shelby actually throws up the touchdown arms and hoots her victory. "Sweet!" So much celebration for such a small change. But after that small change, as she gets the hang of affecting an image hanging on air instead of a surface, things pick up a little--the robot slowly straightens up and sets his fists, superhero style, against his hips. "Huh? Oh, sure, movies, cartoons, whatever. Just if it's big like this it takes more out of me, y'know? I hooked up with this tagger down in Tampa once, she was awesome. She'd paint these big murals, y'know? Then we'd sit back and wait for lots of people, and I'd set it off, but I couldn't do it for long. Can -you- make this guy move?" "You should get together with Tag," Jackson says, his smile widening at Shelby's celebrating. "He can paint all kinds of exciting things. It's gorgeous." The further movement of the robot puts another small shiver running through his arms, but he watches it with a growing appreciation. "So it doesn't matter where the picture is? That's cool. Do things stay once you change them? I mean, /this/ guy won't stay. But if it was on paper --" He plucks one of the finished transfer sheets off of the small pile he holds, offering it to Shelby; on it is a line drawing in pale blue of some sort of horselike creature, though with a fishtail and webbed feet instead of hooves. "If you make it move does it stay how you leave it? Or will it go back to normal automatically?" In front of him, the robot is moving. Rolling one shoulder slowly, then the other; it lifts a hand to flick a button on the turbine attached to its back. The engine starts spewing out a stream of white, which floats up to the ceiling to form clouds overhead, thick and cotton-puffy. "I can make it move," he accedes, "but it /feels/ weird when someone else does it." "Oh, sorry about that." Not that she sounds genuinely apologetic, or looks it either--she's staring up at the clouds with the sort of grin that kids wear to Disneyworld. "That's pretty fucking cool, man. I mean...when you said light, I figured it was just flashlights or whatever," Shelby says as she looks back at him and reaches out to accept the sheet of paper. Making the drawing there move comes much easier; with a flick of its tail, the hippocamp begins to swim over the sheet it's trapped on. It seems constrained by the edges, swirling away from them the way a goldfish would from the edge of its tank. "If I stop thinking about it," here she does, and the image freezes, "it just stays that way. 'Cause it's there, you know? It's already made." "Not bad," Jackson clarifies with a shrug of his shoulder for the semi-apology, "just weird. Like something's pulling at --" He shrugs a shoulder, eying the robot thoughtfully. "Takes more thought to /keep/ him there." He tips forward on his stool, watching the hippocamp move a grin not dissimilar to Shelby's. "Woah," he says, and turns the grin up from the paper to Shelby. "/Man/ could you wreak havoc in the kids' section of the bookstore. -- Oh, /gosh/, or the Met." It's unclear whether this thought amuses or horrifies him. "When I first took off, me and my friends'd go to the museums or whatever. It was pretty funny," Shelby admits. "Haven't been to one as big as the Met though." As she talks, she turns and sets the sheet on the counter, then places the tip of her right forefinger against its surface. The drawn critter reanimates and begins circling that digit, brushing up close. "This is what I wanted to do," she explains with a glance at him, "I figured it'd be easier to figure it out, moving it from paper to something else, if I used paper that was made for it." Jackson swivels on his stool to rest his elbows on his knees. Behind him, the robot stops sputtering clouds out towards the ceiling, freezing in place where it is. "I can get free passes with my student ID," he says, lips twitching, "though I'm not sure I should be /encouraging/ --" He trails off, watching the picture -- and Shelby's finger -- curiously. "Is it? Easier?" Quick and quiet, his teeth rattle at one of his lip rings, worrying at it while he watches. "I mean, /I/ like my needles but man there's a lot of people who'd love if they could get body art without the pain. Or," he admits, with a note of amusement, "get /rid/ of the art they've already /got/." "Yeah? Why not? We oughta go, it'd be hilarious. Take Tag, Hive, Melinda..." People who, Shelby seems to think, would appreciate a virtuoso performance of terrifying the public. She's frowning down at the paper and not seeming to have much luck yet in transferring it from paper to skin, but the drawing keeps circling back for another pass. When she lifts her finger tip to check it, it's smudged with grey. "If I could figure this out, I could totally do that. Hell, if they wanted the Mona Lisa on their back I bet I could do -that-...you think it's harder for you to keep your stuff here 'cause you have to make it? I'm just using what's there already." "It /would/ be hilarious," Jackson agrees despite himself. "Maybe some weekend... man, my kids would flip." His fingers drum against the stool, and he turns to look back at the robot -- still in place, though a little less solid-looking than it had been. The image grows clearer again as he looks at it. "Probably," he agrees, shrugging a shoulder. "Some part of me has to keep thinking about it or it'll --" He flicks his fingers, and the robot vanishes. The clouds overhead, too. "It's easier with things that are -- on me? Changing things that are /part/ of me is like second nature." His fingers spread demonstratively, the glittery red nailpolish vanishing, soon replaced with shiny chrome-silver instead. "But stuff I'm not carrying around is like. I constantly have to /remember/ what I'm doing with it. I hope you work that out." He nods to the smudge on Shelby's finger. "If you could put the Mona Lisa on someone's back you'd make bank. Real ink is /finicky/ to get into skin if you want it to look sharp. I guess there's kinda a limited client base who'd want one of us /mutanting/ their skin up but the people who would be down would love it, I'm sure." "You got kids? Seriously? I don't wanna get no kids arrested, dude. I mean, no offense, I bet you're a good dad and all but people get pissed when you fuck with art." She uses a tone that implies she's not entirely certain -why- but there it is. "We might have to run for it or whatever," Shelby completes the warning before attending with interest to the color-changes on his nails. "That is so sweet. Could you do it to me? Like give me pink hair? I tried dying my hair once but it didn't do so good." As she speaks, she absently prods her finger against the picture again, poking the hippocamp in the belly. It squirms. "It's funny how there's like, normal people out there who think we're hot shit. I met this guy, he said we should set up a website for it. For all the sex freaks," she confides with a grin. "Seriously," Jackson says with a grin, "but it's not. Uh. They're not much younger than me," he admits. "Adopted -- And Shane's pretty good at getting arrested on his own. -- /anyway/ I can make people invisible. That helps with not getting arrested. But I'll only help if you make sure to put things back once we're done." Shelby's hair is turning pink as he speaks, and once it is all a bright shade of neon pink he waves fingers at it in indication. "It won't stay, though. Tag can dye it and make it /stay/. This'll only be pink till I forget about it. Or you leave. Uh." He blushes deep at Shelby's last confession, wrinkling his nose. "I know. There's already sites -- I've had a couple friends get, er. Offers? People are into wings. Claws. Different coloured skin. But my kids are like. /Fifteen/. I'd explode anyone's /head/ if they tried putting them on some porn site." Delight! Shelby lifts a lock of her hair, pulling it straight forward to admire the shade. "That," she proclaims, "is fucking -amazing-. Even better than getting ink. I'll have to...to..." Wait, what did he say? Her head cocks, asking that question without the teen having to say a word. She eyes Jax for a moment, starts to speak, thinks better of it, then reconsiders. "Shane, huh? He like...blue?" Aaand just in case the answer is in the affirmative, she also asks, "Can you -really- explode people's heads with this shit?" "It's definitely more convenient than hair dye," Jax says with a laugh. Then eyes Shelby right /back/, her own eying reflected in his mirrored glasses. "Y--eah," he says cautiously. "Both of them are. Blue, sharp teeth, fingers --" He lifts his own hand which, demonstratively, grows claws and webbing. "You know him?" He sounds a little worried at this concept. "Um. I don't /like/ to explode heads, but, yeah." "Nope, just guessing." Oh, look at the time. Shelby picks up the paper and rolls it into a tube. There are plenty of others left to grab but she's just going to take the one, thanks. "So thanks for this," she says, air-tapping the tube in his direction. "If I manage to pull it off, I'll totally let you know. Maybe I could apprentice if it works, become the real deal or whatever. I draw a lot too." But for now, she's just going to faux-casually stroll back towards the counter where she'd left scarf and jacket. "Hey, you forgot the others." Jackson has a few more sheets of the transfer paper, largely designed with other mythical creatures. He hops off the stool to follow Shelby towards the counter, dropping the rest of the papers onto the countertop. "But, er." For a moment he just stands, leaning palms against the counter. "Uh. Yeah. Definitely let me know. It'd be way cool if it worked." Shelby side-eyes Jax as she shrugs into her jacket, probably trying to gauge whether that posture he's adopted is protective dad posture or not. But when her head remains intact, she gives him her best grin. "Right, I forgot...you're awesome, dude, thanks." Once the scarf is thrown around her neck, she gathers up all of the papers and recreates the tube, thicker this time. It's used to salute him. "Cooler than cool, -if- it worked. But hey, I made your robot move. This should be easy peasy, right? Oh, hey, if you see the guy who got shot, let him know I -was- worried and I'm real sorry?" Jax's lips twitch, slightly, up into a quick smile that is soon to fade. "No problem," he says easily. "M'sure you'll get it with practice. And yeah. I'll tell him." He gives her another long look, but there is no head explosions. Only a waggle of fingers, and he settles back on his stool. Maybe to draw. Maybe just to spin around aimlessly. Whee.