Through the Looking Glass: Chapter Five

"Oh man, you really did get them!" Ellie looked delighted. "Let's see this movie, guys!" She looked at the androids, "One of them threw a potato chip! I'm so proud!"

Asher handed Esk a container of pills. His pockets were always well stocked. He looked at the androids, amused.

James came over and slapped Asher on the shoulder. "Ready to try and sing Satare musicals? It's gonna be sooo impossible!"

Asher made a face.

Kay shook his head, he looked really quite uncomfortable and was trying so hard not to show it.

Esk nodded thankfully to Asher and dry swallowed a couple of pills.

[Well, if nothing else, it'll be a test of your linguistics.] Kay wrote to Asher, holding the screen so James couldn't read.

"Threw a chip!? that's awesome guys!" Matt looked to the androids enthusiastically as he headed over to the computer to hook that up instead of the com. "Okay, so this one is apparently a musical romantic comedy." He snickered.

Esk groaned.
Three of the worst words. Musical... romantic... comedy. "Just kill me now."

Matt grinned at him.

Asher smiled at Kay, "Yes, I think it will be."

James looked at the hidden tablet screen suspiciously. "You guys are waaay too secretive."

Asher patted James on the shoulder. "Don't worry, we're not talking about you." He blinked, "Throwing things. Hmm, that's a good sign. As long as they aren't heavy things, of course."

"My babies are growing up," Ellie said proudly.

"totally maternal. " Matt snickered. "be afraid Shane, be very afraid." He set up the computer and started the movie preamble.
"Movie time! It has subtitles but I can't guarentee the accuracy or quality."
He waved Luka over, she looked bewildered.

"This is either going to be horrible, or very very entertaining." She remarked.

"or both!" Matt grinned.

"I hate you already." Esk told Matt flatly.

Kay looked innocently to James and shrugged.

Shane chuckled and watched the others come in, waving to them as they did

Quinn found a spot to sit down and summoned a quill, ink bottle and parchment. Magic allowed the items to float as Quinn wrote something down, and then waited to watch the movie.

Esk found somewhere to sit and look annoyed.

Kay kept his distance from people, opting to sit a little way from the group.

Mourn hopped onto a desk and crouched there, head tilted, curious about this subtitled madness. The other movies had been weird, weirder because he couldn't follow what was actually happening. There was a lot of dancing about and general strangeness which made even less sense without sound.

"Wanna adopt androids when we're old?" Ellie joked. "They're so cute!" She waved at Luka, "Excited to see your people singing?"

Asher sat near Kay, shaking his head.

James went to stand near Ethan, who was scowling. As usual.

"I'm both excited and terrified. I mean, we sing.. but we don't usually make.. this sort of movie." Luka laughed. "it's going to be very surreal."

Matt grinned at her. "right?"
He settled down to watch.

Rigel and Dawn made their way in and looked at the group "What's going on?" Dawn asked curiously

"We're watching horrifically sappy musicals to train moronic little robots to think," Ethan said grumpily, folding his arms more tightly.

James nodded. "It's more fun than he makes it sound though. Wanna join us?"

Dawn laughed and shook her head at that description "Horrifically sappy?" She asked but she and Rigel came over to find seats "Sounds interesting anyway"

"I found Satare musicals!" Matt grinned.

"He's forcing us to watch awful musical comedies written by the mirror Imperium... and it's already worse than I imagined." Esk remarked dryly.

Kay glanced to Asher. Yeah, this was kinda weird.

The movie was very very strange and hard to follow. it began with an elaborate song and dance number with obligatory female lead lamenting her failure in love. Or... something. The subtitles were a bit iffy and even for those who could understand the language, the rhymes and analogies were pretty awkward.

Luka stifled a laugh and settled down to watch this madness.

Asher smiled goofily at Kay. He understood about 60% of the words while the people were singing, because he wasn't used to hearing Satare sung. And then the plot made no sense anyway. But at least it was entertaining, in a weird way.

One android tried to sing along. Apparently he knew a bit of Satare.

[This is really really bizarre.] Kay wrote. It really was quite baffling.

"this universes' Satare are fucking insane... " Esk remarked.

"Why is she singing about her cat?" Luka asked.

"She's singing TO her cat." Esk told her.

"Oh no... don't wish it into a human! bad idea!" Luka laughed.

"I hate you Matt." Esk called.

"No you don't!" Matt yelled back.

"Hasse... dich... " Esk glared.

Matt laughed.

Shane, Dawn and Rigel were lost as far as the words were concerned. None of them knew the language that well if at all in the first place.

Asher nodded in agreement. "I'm glad it's not just me. This is odd." He whispered in Satare <<I understand about half of this singing>>

Ellie watched the subtitles, which made little sense, and laughed at the unintentional hilarity of them.

Soon enough she bumped into some cute tall redheaded man and a series of comic slapstick silliness ensued with her trying to talk to him and various things stopping her.

Esk groaned.

Matt laughed at him. Honestly esk's reaction was the best thing about this.

Kay smiled softly [<<I'm a native speaker and even I can't follow what she's going on about. I think she's wishing her cat was a real man because he's... the best thing in her life? I really am quite lost. >>] He looked at Esk, amused by his dramatics. [<<I am now understanding why matt enjoys inflicting these things on Stellan though. >>]

"What are they doing? They seem very unsteady," one android said.

Ethan sighed. "This is worse than Terran art films, if that's even possible."

Asher laughed and shook his head. <<I don't think I've heard anyone sing to an animal like that in a movie before. Your brother is handling this surprisingly well>>

[<<his surface thoughts say otherwise.>>] Kay shook his head.

"Calling it now, that guy is the cat." Esk nodded.

"Ew." Luka told him.

"If i'm right, you owe me 20 credits." He told her.

"I don't want you to be right!" Luka lamented. "But you probably are."

Matt snickered. "Well the cat WAS ginger."

"After all the torments we've suffered, this.. this is the worst." Esk told Matt.

Now the woman was telling her friend about the guy, and spots him at the laundromat. She keeps trying to run into him so she can talk to him but still everything gets in the way.
Finally they meet.

"Run guy, she's a creepy stalker!" Esk called.

"Maybe he digs persistence?" Matt shrugged.

"She's nuts and what the HELL is that woman wearing!?" A random background woman was wearing some sort of elaborate hat and an outfit that screamed some comic prat fall is about to occur involving her.

"I think you're right, the universe's Reich is just crazy." Matt nodded.

"So... so crazy... " Esk nodded.

<<Poor guy>> Asher said, amused.

"Shapeshifters are hot," Ellie said, nodding. "Right, Asher?"

Asher looked at the ground, trying to not smile. Oh Ellie.

"Come on, hot shapeshifters!" Ellie grinned at Matt, "You know what I mean, you have one too!" She leaned against Shane, hugging him.

Shane chuckled and watched, ignoring the captioning now, since it was so obviously off by now.

Quinn scratched away at the parchment, nodding at the movies, looking only mildly interested.

"Oh yeah, my shapeshifter is totally hot." Matt grinned.

Esk rolled his eyes.

Kay looked sheepish. Yeah no... he'd never been a ginger cat... nope, that never happened. <_<
He glanced to Asher and tried to keep a straight face.

Luka glanced over at Quinn's parchment, curious.

Mourn was laughing to himself over the silliness of the subtitles.

Quinn paid no attention to Luka's nosiness, hardly noticing her as the Entropium's calligraphy practice had obviously paid off with the elegant curves and lines that thickened and thinned with the Quill's angle. It was written in the Entropium Language, however, and the words remained unknown to anyone not knowing otherwise. She dipped the quill into the ink bottle and continued writing.