Skip Navigation
Burning Reels
|
Post by Redgrim on Jun 5, 2015 0:40:04 GMT -5
With the snow finally melted away and the passing of the damp days of spring, it was finally the time of year that Sandra could safely set foot outside of the school. What better day for a person with heat deficiency than one where the clouds seemed to have retreated, allowing the sun to reign supreme and roast the lands. It was a refreshing bit notion to Sandra, not that she was one to enjoy the outdoors all that much, but being cooped up in her room for too long was causing her to feel a bit stuffy.
The wee woman was trekking her way through the fields of Foresta, passing glances looking at her with oddity as they began to notice her hefty black sweater on a day that was calling more for shorts and tank tops. Once getting over her apparent want for a heat stroke, people would then notice a tripod and dinky camcorder slung over one of her shoulders, a metal pale filled to the brim with water in the other. Given her rather frail arms, she was forced to slog slowly across the courtyard, but she was managing it.
Once she found her preferable spot, a site near the forest line, she let everything drop. She felt like dropping herself, but she had some work to do. “Sigh, of course I had to pick a cast that actually cared about their marks in school. Pft, whatever. Summer’s coming along, so hopefully I can get them back, in the meantime though, I can continue to talk to myself” she suspiciously peered back to check if anyone was watching her. “And hopefully I can get away with it without someone thinking I’m crazy” she added as she began to prop up her tripod.
She plucked off her glasses and glued her right eye to the scope of the video camera to get a good view of her shot. Without actors, the most she could do is do some tracking and insert shots, so when she does have the bulk of her important footage she could quickly get to editing it. That was the plan, but things happen during and after a shoot’s been finished. She knew that, but getting the basics out of the way would help get her mind off of the fact that her film had been put off for a couple of months now.
She hit record and less than a minute later stopped. Sandra’s face came back up smiling as she placed her bulky glasses back on. “Perfect! Now let’s just hope that no one touches this specific line of trees for the next couple of months. With any luck though, I’m going to be the one that fucks it up.” she nodded as she placed her hands on her hips.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2015 21:05:59 GMT -5
Today’s hat was one of Ronnie’s favourites—a red, fuzzy snapback cap with Elmo’s face embroidered on the front. She had chosen it not only because she needed that boost of confidence while exploring her new school, but because she also needed a hat that would make her look as awake as she wanted to feel. Because, alas, Ronnie was still fighting her jet-unrelated jet lag. Which was why she exited the entrance hall into the courtyard, where she could feel the sun further browning her already brown arms, and letting her brain know that it was not the time of day for sleeping. But regardless, she yawned—then stopped in the middle of the unconscious action, now conscious of it—and shook her head hard enough for her glasses to go askew.
‘No!’ she told herself as she walked further into the courtyard, her strides more stubborn with determination. She had to keep busy somehow—perhaps she could find someone to be friends with, and then hang out with them. She had already made plenty of attempts with others, but the results hadn’t been fulfilling. Ronnie had chalked it up to the fact that everyone she had approached so far was already with other people, so they were too busy to make new friends. And that was okay—she just needed to find someone who was alone. It made sense. People who were alone where people who needed friends, right? Ronnie yawned again, and didn’t catch herself.
Looking around the courtyard, she chanted a little rap to herself, bopping herself along to the beat of her words. ‘Gonna stay a-wake, Gonna stay a-wake, Gonna stay a-wake, awake, a-wake, awake…’ Ronnie didn’t even see the groups of students hanging around the courtyard—her attention was immediately fixed to a lone student (much older than her, but that had never stopped Ronnie before), wearing a black sweater and carrying a bucket of water and some stuff Ronnie had never seen before. The other student was so mysterious as Ronnie watched her set up her equipment at the forest line, use it, and then place her hands on her hips.
Ronnie had to befriend this student and investigate the cool mystery-task immediately. ‘Hi, I’m Ronnie,’ she practised to herself in a mutter as she sprinted over. She skidded to a stop a metre away from the other student—a distance Ronnie deemed safe enough to prevent accidents with her strength. ‘Hi, I’m Ronnie!’ she chirped. She beamed. Her introduction was just as she had practised on her way over. ‘Whatcha doin’?’
|
|
|
Post by Redgrim on Jun 9, 2015 22:22:15 GMT -5
Sandra rubbed her chin for a bit, trying to think of what other shots she would need around this location so that she didn’t continuously move her equipment from point A to point B and back too often. It was the unfortunate part of her being a guerrilla style filmmaker and it didn’t help that this was her first production either. She didn’t have a problem with moving her camera, it was more so the pale of water. For one, it was heavy and add on the fact that she would prefer to not spill any it was quite cumbersome to lug about.
While she was caught in thought, a tiny voice squeaked from behind her. She wore an odd grimace as it wasn’t often that she was approached by strangers, but then she remembered that she spent most of her time in her room so the opportunity didn’t come up as often. She peered over her shoulder and didn’t quite see anything, and it wasn’t until the little girl’s second sentence that she fully turned around. She tilted her head down in order to even notice the kid, which was a strange sensation for Sandra to say the least, to the point that the weight of her glasses were becoming more apparent to her than usual.
It was a kid, what was she supposed to do around these things? Her usual open and looseness with people was slightly off put as she wasn’t sure if she was even allowed to be vulgar around kids. Well, after this conversation she’ll probably be reminded by a teacher. “Uh, hi there, I’m Sandra” she spoke rather reluctantly. She was already hating the fact she had to restrict herself. She really didn’t enjoy hanging around kids.
She twisted back to view her set up, as the little girl, or Ronnie rather, seemed to be interested. “Oh you know, just shooting some shit…” her eyes squinted for a moment as she realised she dropped the s-word around what looked to be a ten year old (she was close). She gritted her teeth and muttered “Dammit” under her breath. “I mean, I’m filming some scenes for a movie” Thinking before speaking was going to be hard for her.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2015 0:29:57 GMT -5
She bounced on her toes as she waited for an answer, her orange light-up sneakers flashing at each bounce. It seemed like she was waiting forever, as Sandra didn’t seem that enthusiastic about talking to Ronnie. But that was okay, Ronnie decided, because she could be enthusiastic enough for the both of them! She adjusted her cap a little so the sunlight wasn’t in her eyes when she looked up at the older student. Her face screwed up at the swear word, a little upset because she knew it was rude, but her smile returned when Sandra corrected herself. ‘It’s okay! Don’t worry! I forgive you!’ Ronnie said reassuringly, as though Sandra was just as bothered by the word as she was.
Her eyes then widened as she realised what Sandra had said in her correction. She shuffled to the side around Sandra so she could see the equipment better, her face slowly becoming bigger and bigger as her mouth opened in excitement. She gasped loudly. ‘You make movies?! That’s so cool! Is that your camera?’ She took a small step back before she pointed at the tripod, because as far as she knew, it was part of the camera. ‘It’s a really big camera! Can you take selfies with it? What’s the movie about? What’s the bucket for? Is it in the movie?’ She spoke fast, her questions spilling out one after another like the result of a broken dam. Finally, she stopped to let Sandra speak after her last—and most important—question: ‘Can I help?!’
|
|
|
Post by Redgrim on Jun 10, 2015 9:51:09 GMT -5
The swear word seemed to pass through the little kid just fine, though Sandra wondered how many times the girl will enthusiastically forgive her for her slip ups. It was something she was willing to test, but again she wanted to avoid an uproar from the teachers about her not so PG-13 choice of language. Well, if they didn’t want her hanging around little kids then they should be handing out pamphlets with a warning of ‘Students to avoid’. Her ‘gift’ should be more than enough to put her on that list.
Sandra shrugged off her attempt at reassurance, which then led to the barrage of questions. In most cases she would be all for the discussion of what was going on, but the child was more so being pesky and she had to proactively watch her own words before spewing them out. “Yes, in the making of one” she stated as she slid back to the side of her camera, more so a precaution to make sure the child didn’t knock the thing over. She decided to take the device off of its mount to further insure that it was within a safer set of hands, given how jumpy the kid seemed to be it was probably the better idea considering how expensive the camcorder was. “Well, it sure as sh-shoot ain’t the school’s camera, I don’t think we even have a media arts division. And no, there are definitely bigger cameras than this, trust me” she stated as she peered back at her palm-sized video recorder.
Ronnie’s next question was irksome to say the least. She was almost certain the kid was saying that in an ironic fashion just to sound stupid, some of her friends did that too. She felt like she was being completely sincere with her selfie comment, which led her thought pattern to read something like: ‘I’m going to smack a child today, I’m going to beat up a child out in the open where everyone can see. I don’t want to do it, but it has to be done.’ Which translated into words as “I suppose you could, but it would be like hunting deer with an orbital space cannon. You know, completely unnecessary” she explained in a defeated tone after a disgruntled groan.
After that point, her questions were too rapid fire for her to answer in a sensible way. She supposed she could just give the last four in a rapid succession of one word for each. “A monster terrorizing students. The bucket is to put out fires. No, it doesn’t get top billing. No, at the moment all I need is me and my camera” she answered in a swifter tone of voice, somewhat surprised that one of her sentences didn’t contain another cuss. While she was sort on staff for her production, she only really needed a set of actors, and she didn’t really need a child for the film, unless she wanted to add a kid to the death list. She wasn’t sure if she was allowed to have a child die on film (not literally).
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2015 23:47:07 GMT -5
She took yet another small step back as Sandra moved around to the camera. Ronnie hadn’t had any accidents at Foresta yet, and she wanted to keep it that way—especially around an important, movie-making camera. But she still kept bouncing on the spot while waiting for answers, which still felt like they couldn’t come fast enough for a little girl trying to fight jet-unrelated jetlag. When the answers came, she just listened, nodding with pure enthusiasm. Occasionally, she fiddled with her purple-framed glasses as she did this, because her bouncing and nodding was making them slowly slide off her nose.
‘And no, there are definitely bigger cameras than this, trust me.’ Ronnie gasped at both the idea of cameras larger than the tripod and camcorder combined, and the fact that Sandra had separated the ‘camera’ into two parts. She stopped her bouncing and switched to some fidgeting with a frill on her skirt so she could watch Sandra’s reaction more attentively, and figure out if the separation meant that the camera was broken or not. ‘Oh! You can take it off the stand! So that’s how you’d take selfies with it…’ She laughed a little at herself, and resumed her bouncing and listening. She pouted at Sandra’s defeated tone and apparent disinterest in taking selfies—but there was no time to say anything as the flood of answers continued to match Ronnie’s flood of questions.
‘Aaww,’ was her response to Sandra’s decline for help. ‘Are you sure? I can carry the bucket for you! I’m really good at carrying things! But I shouldn’t carry those’—she used both hands to point at the tripod and the camera simultaneously—‘because sometimes I break things.’ She spoke fast again, her tone pleading and matter-of-fact in her admission to breaking things—because admitting flaws just wasn’t a shameful thing to Ronnie. Ronnie beamed again. The pleading continued—and then, there were more questions. ‘Pleeeease? The movie sounds so cool! What kind of monster is it? A dragon? Is that why you have fire? Wait, won’t putting a fire and a monster in be dangerous? How do you do it?’
|
|
|
Post by Redgrim on Jun 11, 2015 11:22:25 GMT -5
The constant and frantic movements of the young girl was enough to even make Sandra readjust her bulky glasses. In that sense, she could feel some sort of connect to the child albeit a very small kind. She was never that energetic as a child, in fact she was far quieter when she was around the kid’s age. That might have to do with the fact that she grew up in a household that nearly everyone was too afraid to even be in the same room as her, her mother even brandishing a fire extinguisher whenever Sandra was in sight. After reflecting on that though, she began to feel a bit lousy about the way she’d been acting towards the child, since she wasn’t exactly giving her a fair chance. Although, Ronnie was still relatively annoying.
She winced as the tiny girl uttered the word selfie again. Sandra sighed and let the comment pass for now, though her mantra from before was playing through her head, but hopefully she wouldn’t end up smacking a child today. There really wasn’t much more she could say about selfies without bringing up another cuss or two (she would also be disappointed to know that Microsoft Word registers selfie as a word).
She peered back at the bucket as the girl requested to carry it along. It was rather heavy for Sandra considering her lack of any sort of muscle, but she didn’t exactly expect the smaller girl to be any more capable of it than herself. Then again, she could have some sort of power that would aid her in that, Sandra could ask if she did, but Sandra made it a point to never ask someone what their power was since she would prefer the same to be done for her. Besides, she didn’t want to drag the kid along to every place she was going to film something. She didn’t really have a game plan besides wander around the school and look for some interesting places she could shoot. Frankly, she didn’t want to spend that much quality time with Ronnie. “I guess you could carry the bucket… Only if you can prove you can handle it the next time I need it moved.” She answered vaguely as she rubbed the back of her neck.
“Psh, I don’t have the budget for a fu- fu-… fun little dragon. My monster of choice is Sasquatch, getting a rubber costume of that thing is cheap and easy to find. And no, the bucket is in case of accidental fires. You know, Smoky the bear and all that crap.” Crap was a safe word to use, right? Whatever. “The secret to filmmaking is to use fake stuff and try to make it look real… Unless you’re an Italian filmmaker. If you like animals, don’t watch Italian movies.”
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2015 3:47:58 GMT -5
Ronnie took Sandra’s reluctant and vague answer as a yes. After all, Sandra would need it moved eventually, right? And Ronnie knew for sure that she could handle it. ‘Yeessss,’ she hissed with a twirl and a fist pump into the air. As she continued to listen to Sandra’s explanations, the excitement within her was over-flowing—she did a jump on the spot, as if to get rid of all the excess energy, then readjusted her glasses and her Elmo cap, and then it was back to the bouncing on her toes. She was aware that Sandra had really intended to say ‘fucking dragon’, but like the previous censored swears, it didn’t bother Ronnie—Sandra was clearly trying, and that was enough.
‘Italian?’ She paused her bouncing again to think about what Sandra meant—then she pouted and frowned. ‘I won’t ever! I promise!’ Her tone was stubborn, and for a moment, she was determined to remain as absolute as her words. But then her frown deepened as she realised there was a lot that Sandra said that she didn’t really understand. ‘Wait, what’s a “Sasquatch”? And what do you mean by “Smoky the Bear”?’ She paused to consider the latter in its context—she wasn’t American, so the reference was lost entirely. Then she gasped. Her eyes widened to the size of swimming pools, and she began whipping around to scan the tree lines. ‘There’s a magic bear that makes fires here?!’
OOC: Sorry for breaking the posting flow. Had to marathon the new season of Orange is the New Black.
|
|
|
Post by Redgrim on Jun 13, 2015 11:29:47 GMT -5
Sandra shouldn’t have really been all that surprised by the fact that the kid didn’t get her references. Given the fact that just by looking at her it was quite apparent that they didn’t have the same nationality. Considering that the school was open to any and all countries as well, it wasn’t out of the question. Being at such a young age, the girl was probably not going to understand most of her references, not that that was foreign to her, many people didn’t quite grasp her obscure pokes at not-so-popular culture.
Sandra wasn’t going to correct the little girl about the fire bending bear possibility, because for all she knew there probably was a bear somewhere in the forest that did spew flames. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing she’d heard of that lived in the woods around Foresta. In fact, she absorbed a fire composed salamander not too long ago. Not willingly, it just sort of happened. She doesn’t understand it either.
She partially scanned the treeline as Ronnie whipped her head around, no doubt trying to sneak a peek at Smoky himself. “You know… Yeah, there probably is.” She slightly snorted at the irony of the girl mistaking Smoky for a bear that started fires. “Sasquatch though, he’s more so-“ just as Sandra was about to complete her sentence, a glowing orange ring burst out from her stomach region, searing through the bottom half of her sweater and hovered around her body like a suspended hula hoop. Her eyes instantly went buggy. Her immediate reaction was to toss her camera into a nearby bush and in a swift motion pushed the other girl to the ground whilst hastily instructing “Get down!”
Given that she was quite far away from most others, her next instinct was to flee to a less vulnerable area, but her time was up the moment after she knocked Ronnie out of the way. A shockwave of furious fire and heat erupted from her body. The flames flickered through the air, an eerie scorching roar subtly packed within the whooshing sound effect of its movements. The fire flew for a good couple of meters before finally petering out, though not before catching a couple of trees and bushes in the crossfire.
The source of the blast, Sandra, began to teeter in place for a moment or two, her face looking to be somewhat dazed by the entire process, muttering something along the of "Ooo, that one didn't feel so good…” as she rubbed her forehead pensively. She wasn’t too cautious of anything just yet, knowing that if Ronnie stayed close to the ground she would be relatively fine. The tree on the other hand probably got a sprinkle of the flames. “THAT’S what the bucket’s for” she hollered at the little girl as she began to whisk her sweater off and rushed to any nearby flames.
(OOC: No worries.)
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2015 6:39:44 GMT -5
There wasn’t even a squirrel in sight, let alone a fire-breathing bear. Ronnie deflated a little—her shoulders slumped, or for a moment she was perfectly still—until Sandra reignited Ronnie’s hope. ‘Really?!’ She said, whipping her whole self around this time, but she quickly stopped on account of the slight snort Sandra made shortly after. ‘Hmm…or are you playing a trick?’ She was playful in tone as she turned back to Sandra, fingers stroking an imaginary beard as she listened to the beginning of Sandra’s explanation of Sasquatch. But her mock-analysis of the older student was dropped immediately when she saw the fire burn through Sandra’s sweater. Ronnie took a small step towards her. ‘S-Sandra…? What’s wrong?’
Her brows knit together in confusion and concern as Sandra tossed her camera, but Ronnie took that as a cue to step away rather than towards—so slowly, she backed off. But apparently, it wasn’t fast enough for Sandra, who moved to push Ronnie down. ‘No, no don’t touch me!’ She screamed as she was pushed to the ground, but otherwise she offered no resistance to the action—Ronnie didn’t want to hurt Sandra, after all. She screamed again, shrill and ear-rumbling, when the fire erupted, and covered her face with her arms—though none of the flame touched her, she could still feel the heat on her skin, and smell the smoke as it passed. She didn’t get up until she heard Sandra mutter something she couldn’t quite hear.
‘THAT’S what the bucket’s for,’ Ronnie heard Sandra yell over to her. ‘What was that?! Did you do that?’ Ronnie asked regardless, still having not processed what had happened. She fumbled a little as she quickly fixed up her askew glasses and her Elmo cap. Then she gasped as she saw the fires. ‘Ooooooh!’ She exclaimed in an “I get it” sort of way. ‘You had an accident! That’s okay, I have them all the time.’ She hurried after Sandra, moving to pick up the bucket of water on the way. Of course, it was easy, but she had to slow her run to a speed-walk as the water threatened to slosh onto her light-up shoes. ‘I got the bucket! Are you okay?’
OOC: Is the C-Box "expired" for you too, or is it just me?
|
|
|
Post by Redgrim on Jun 14, 2015 20:40:40 GMT -5
Sandra’s initial target was the bush she hastily hurled her device within, snuffing out the embers that threatened to engulf the shrubbery with her handy dandy half scorched sweater. Luckily it was black and the burn marks were hardly noticeable, but unfortunately it would be yet another article of clothing she had to lay to rest thanks to her ‘gift.’ The shirt she was wearing underneath wasn’t doing much better, now being transformed into a makeshift midriff top.
The little girl’s screams were like nails on chalk board, yet another reason she didn’t enjoy hanging around younger children. Sandra was irritated that she had to push her around, but a quick command wouldn’t have been enough and frankly she wasn’t looking to have her first victim of her powers be some innocent, albeit slightly groan inducing, kid. Such thoughts were quick to pass though as her flames were igniting some of the greenery, thankfully at a slow rate since the blast wasn’t quite weaker than usual, it released an odd cramping feeling though. At this point in her life, the girl was used to these sort of thing happening on a semi-regular basis, but the dull pain growing inside of her was something new. She’ll give her powers one thing, they sure liked to switch the rules around a lot, unfortunately never in a good way.
Sandra swiftly scanned the area around them, noticing mostly that the people that were lying about were either hightailing it back into the school, or just noticing what was going on and preparing to flee. Good to see the usual unhelpful response from the other students, really doing her a solid. On the bright side, after this was all over there won’t be anyone to get in the way of her shots.
On the other hand, there was at least one other student trying to help. Sandra head twisted back as she heard the girl’s shrill voice start up again. She asked the obvious, and in response the living heat sink grew an exaggerated frown on her countenance and shrugged. “Eh, more or less. Feels like a god damn jackalope ninja kicked my gut though.” She replied, not really taking note too much on the fact that the foot shorter girl was able to waddle her way over to her side with the bucket in tow in a faster manner than she ever could herself. Her head drifted off to the side again “Shit, I swore again… I’m really not good at this” she silently muttered to herself.
She peered back down at Ronnie, sighing once more. “You know, I see you got the bucket and everything, that’s great. Problem here is the FIRE’S OVER-“ she attempted to calmly explain to the little girl before being cut off once again by a echoing roar that sounded somewhat similar to the strange growl that was laced in her explosion. The source seemed to be coming from the forest, if that wasn’t already evident by Sandra’s curiously confused glance at the treeline. “Oh, that’s probably not good… Just quickly splash those trees over there and then we should probably run. Whatever that is, I don’t want to deal with it” she groaned lazily.
(OOC: Yeah, you’re not the only one, I gotta go kick Seren’s lazy butt)
|
|
|
Post by Redgrim on Dec 2, 2015 12:16:25 GMT -5
Unfortunately for Sandra, in the end she did have to deal with it. She couldn’t just merely abandon the fire, nor the child that went to work on cleaning up the gruff girl’s mess. The two were quick to silence most of the flames, but within a span of a couple seconds of the distant roar, the creature that uttered the unpleasant cry had finally appeared on the scene.
The being looked to be fire incarnate, a creature that was completely composed of flame and nothing else. It was in the shape of slender salamander, though at a scale at which it could rival a lion easily. The luminous lizard quickly scurried from the treeline, leaving a trail of flickering flames in its wake. Its movements were toward Sandra and it seemed rather deadest on ramming into the wee woman.
Sandra felt inclined to relive a flashback to the last time a creature of its nature had done that during a skirmish with the cloned boy. Frankly she didn’t want the thing to get anywhere closer to her despite the fact that the being couldn’t quite injure her. The plasma it was composed of couldn’t quite hurt her, in fact if anyone could tank a hit from the simmering salamander it was her.
Sandra strode into a sprint, but being that she was not nearly as fast as… well anything. Her cardio was complete trash. Her attempts at escape were in vain as the fire elemental rushed at her as though it was a crocodile dead set on chomping down on its prey. In a matter of minutes, the creature was able to outpace her and leapt at her in a furious manner, bellowing roar of victory as it clashed against her skin. The girl tripped up as the being began to absorb into her skin, by the time she splattered against the lawn the creature had already disappeared and gained entry way into her body. Nothing further happened after that point.
The walking talking heat sink lifted herself off the ground slightly, her eyes peering around in a rather curious manner. She would’ve asked how she was not dead yet, but considering that the situation was a mirror reflection of something that had already happened, she wasn’t too confused by it. That being said, she didn’t understand it either. “Did that thing seriously come all this way to commit suicide? I’m getting real sick of these weird magic creature, they don’t make any damn sense” she muttered to herself as she regained her footing and began to brush herself off. “I really hope there’s someone on this campus that knows this kind of shit…”
|
|
|