text | un: rjlupin

[xxxxx]

A few of us have been talking and we're already tired of being broke, so we're wondering what everyone hopes to do here job-wise, what you did before, and how you go about explaining it to the locals if they want to know about your previous floor-sweeping or shelf-stocking experience before allowing you to sweep any floors or stock any shelves. Especially if your job back home was a little more complicated than that.

And have any of them asked any of you for references? Do they actually check them?

Does anybody have any experience with making up false references wholecloth? Can we begin acting as one another’s references?--which is a terribly trust based suggestion, we realise, and so the following question,

Should we design a character test for the sake of honest false reference corroboration? (‘We’ is the general ‘we’ not the ‘we’ asking these questions.) Is there anyone here who is not a reliable hard worker that the rest of us should be sure not to refer for anything?

Before anyone feels the need to point out that unreliable lazy workers will lie: yes, thank you, please see similar discussions following the questions about murder.

[ For the record, this is the product of a phone and its tiny keyboard being passed around among several different curious people. Remus just drew the short straw, because there is no justice in any world, and has to post it. Also, threadjacking super encouraged if you feel the urge. ]

Comments

meanwhile, back on the roof

[barreling]

[ Wynonna's phone pings. ]

Aww, you took out my best lines. "Complicated?" What, were you afraid this would turn into another murder post? Because just for the record, killing demons does not count as murder.

[xxxxx]

[ Remus is too tired, sore, tipsy, and secretive to start any Well, As A Dark Creature wizard justice debates. Besides, most of the demons he knows are basically animals. He tips his phone at her instead. ]

That's a debate you can start under your own name.

[barreling]

[ Wynonna scoffs at this. She is never too tipsy for that. Probably. Certainly not yet. ]

Where's the debate? They're literally already dead. Boom, I win.

[doggo]

[Grindylows, kappas, kelpies. Sirius doesn't know any of them personally. He's still paying attention, in case she starts tipping into a category he does know more personally, e.g., the werewolf sat somewhere vaguely between the two of them.

He takes another drink. And, instead, dryly:]

I can see why you're employed as a demon-killer, if those were your best lines.

[barreling]

Hey pal, it's not like you got put in prison for cutting anyone with your razor sharp wit, is it?

[doggo]

[excuse what]

Don't talk about what you don't know about.

[barreling]

[ giant eye roll, that's what ]

If that's your best comeback I'm pretty sure I know I'm right.

[ to remus: ]

Is he always this much fun?

[xxxxx]

[ Without looking up, but with a hand blindly extended to briefly grip Sirius by the shoulder in solidarity: ] Fun isn't permitted where we're from. That's why he went to prison.

[ Making light of that feels wrong, but it also feels like it will move them safely and swiftly past the subject and into something less likely to cause headaches. ]

I'd have thought being an assassin without being a good liar would be a bit difficult.

[doggo]

[Gripped shoulder works halfway, like a very thin thundershirt on an nervous dog. Sirius concedes to the joke without comment, and without biting anyone. For now.

He leans over to look at what Remus is talking about.]

Perhaps everyone's very up front where he's from. Assassins wearing name tags.

[There. Look. He's fun.]

[barreling]

Maybe murder's not illegal in his world?

[ Wynonna guesses, in a tone that suggests she finds that idea as ridiculous as Sirius's nametag ]

And assassin's a totally normal job, like-- ooooh, Remus. Shared his body is that in a sexy way or a creepy way because I could totally see this being either?

[doggo]

[Okay but Sirius is on Remus' side, always

but]

That one does bear explanation.

[xxxxx]

What?

[ Give him a moment. ]

Oh.

[ Give him another moment, this one to pinch the bridge of his nose. ]

There was a problem with the training [ there's a pause, because he is both a wizard and from 1994 and a lot of this is Too Much ] simulation... [ thing. ] We traded bodies, but only in our heads. A Polyjuice hallucination. [ And then, more confidently scandalised: ] I am fairly sure he's a teenager.

[doggo]

[Simmy lation. The thing about being a wizard from 1994 is really two things. One, mix-ups like somehow having your mind briefly in the mind of someone else, thanks to a hilarious turn of events and some small error quickly righted by a countercharm or something. Possibly a mediwizard or your best mate if it's not too dire.

Second thing about being a wizard from 1994 is that you can accept things that make very little sense to you, because much of your interactions with the muggle world have made very little sense to you. Remus has a leg up, having been around small technologies and grandparents who probably had toasters, whereas Sirius generally accepts revelations like simmy lations with a sort of, oh, all right, then. Whatever you say, muggles.

That doesn't mean he's not going to laugh. He is definitely going to laugh.]

Fairly certain? I'd think you'd be terribly certain, after sharing his body and all.

[xxxxx]

He could be in his early twenties. I didn't ask. There was a lot going on.

[ Muggles. Space gods. Body swaps.

Here, too, there is a lot going on. Bug murder and spider hunting and bewildering abbreviations like yk. Remus briefly moves his screen closer to his face, nearly to touch his nose, as if everything will make more sense that way. ]

How is it that we aren't the strange ones?

[doggo]

Sheer chance, I think. Or perhaps we're all equal amounts of strange, comparatively.

[Sirius takes another sip of mystery alcohol to help ratchet down his nerves. It does help, a little. He uses his cup to gesture toward Wynonna.]

Ask her. Although if our example is someone that goes around hunting demons-- [and like what even, says his tone] --perhaps we've chosen the wrong control to this study. Has anyone said anything at all useful?

[barreling]

At least I'm not the ones running around looking like a homeless dude who robbed the Hamburgler, and the plucky church organist he's holding hostage [ Wynonna replies without looking up from her device.

After a minute she does, to shake her head. ]

And no, nobody's said anything helpful. This one guy seems like he might be gullible enough to give us references but on the whole I feel like this post just went [ she makes a woosh noise and zooms a hand over her own head ]

[xxxxx]

[ Hamburgler is a nonsense word, but the rest of it makes enough sense for Remus to feel vaguely insulted in that unhurt, impressed, completely unbothered way that comes with making witty but slightly mean friends—so he's very familiar—and to spend Wynonna's stretch of silence trying to communicate to Sirius, via gesture and silent mouthing, that if they'd only worn their tall pointy wizard hats she'd have understood. ]

Charitable, [ he corrects, with regard to gullible, ] and kind.

[ But she isn't wrong about the rest of it. Remus squints at the little screen. ]

Maybe next time we should number the questions. Like an exam paper.

[doggo]

Maybe next time you'll choose insults we'll understand.

[That's to Wynonna. Hamburgler indeed. Truthfully, Sirius is not actually all that offended. He's said worse, and from context and the way that she's said it, there's very little malice meant.

Still. It's the principle of the matter.]

The numbers might cause more confusion. [Also, with an amused glance:] 'Next time'? Next time I suggest we save the questions, drink double instead.

[xxxxx]

Quitter, [ Remus accuses. Then, as an afterthought, around he lip of his bottle: ] Hamburgler.

[doggo]

Plucky church organist.

[Dire and sirius serious. That makes it sound like an insult.]