oceanicbutterfly | RL post: Urara sings

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RL post: Urara sings

The stage is in the middle of a shopping mall. For a good 45 minutes prior to the performance, Karen is off backstage somewhere.

Youtube link. Karen is unexpectedly onstage as a backup singer; she hadn't mentioned to anyone that she'd be doing this, mainly because she didn't know--a good part of those 45 minutes were spent on a last-minute rehearsal.

After Urara's done singing and is busy talking with her manager, Karen finally gets a chance to look for Mikaela.

[Slight futurepost, probably backdating replies--just found out I'm busy this afternoon.]

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Mikaela'd been dropped off not too long before the performance started, just about long enough to find a place to watch. She wondered where Karen was, but didn't have long enough to get worried about it.

She watched, applauding and cheering when Urara's performance was over even if she'd had no idea at all what was said. It had still been fun, and hey, she thought she recognized one of those backup singers up there~! So she waited for the crowd to dissipate a little, and started making her way up to the stage, hoping that Karen would still be hanging around.

There she was! "Mikaela!" Karen shouted, waving. "Hello!"

She spun at the shout, caught the waving out of the corner of her eye, and waved back. "Karen!" She hurried on over, grinning. "You didn't tell me you were gonna be onstage too!"

As Mikaela approached, it abruptly occurred to Karen that she'd never had a conversation in English with a native speaker before. Images of Nozomi awkwardly saying "GUDO MOANING! SANKYU BARY MOCH!" flashed through her head, and she hoped she wouldn't embarass herself too badly.

"I did not know," Karen said. "It was a decision at the last minute--it was a last-minute decision," she corrected herself, wishing she had a backspace key. "We had the matching clothes, and then..."

Mikaela was nodding, hooking her thumbs through her belt. "Spur of the moment kinda thing, huh?" She'd noticed Karen's correction, but she was polite enough not to mention it. "You were really good! And your friend, too!"

"Thank you!" Well, she wasn't laughing. That was a good sign. "Aiyul tell her that you said that." I think I just mangled "I'll." I should have just said "I will." "I'm glad her singing was good."

Discrete Mikaela is discrete. "Thank you~! I mean, like, I have no idea what she was actually singing about, but it was still a fun song!" She flushed slightly, the discomfort of anyone admitting they didn't know something, especially something as fundamental as a language.

"It's a song about being happy, because she is with her friends," Karen said. She was starting to feel better now--Mikaela wasn't getting confused by what she said, so she must be getting things right.

Mikaela smiled. "It definitely sounded happy, yeah," she said with a laugh. She glanced around at the mall, then said, "Y'know, it's kinda funny. 'Cept for everything being in Japanese, this looks just like any mall at home."

"It does?" Karen looked around a bit as well. "I would have expected them to look different."

"Yeah, so would've I!" Another laugh. "I don't know whether it's awesome or a little weird that they're so close."

"I think it's good for them. This way you feel like you're in the mall at home. So you buy things and spend your money here." Karen laughed a little, too. "A trap!"

"Oh no!" she feigned exaggerated distress. "Not that it's hard to convince Americans to buy stuff, or anything."

Karen wasn't entirely sure she understood, but... "When you have to work hard, it's nice to do something easy sometimes."

She nodded. "That's definitely true," she said. "Although I know a few people who could still stand to learn that."

"Oh?" Karen actually wasn't entirely sure what Mikaela meant, but hopefully she'd elaborate and it would become clear.

She glanced around, and leaned in a little, lowering her voice. "Optimus," she explained. "He doesn't ever let himself have any fun."

"Oh!" Karen said, a little too loudly. That settled that. Quieting down a bit, she said, "Actually, Nuts is like that, too. He'll read books, but that's all."

"That's better than nothing, at least," she said. "Sometimes I think Optimus has got, like, a switch or something I'll have to flick to get him to relax a little. He's so serious all the time."

"Hmm... maybe he should start reading books?" Karen was being serious when she said it, but almost immediately an image of Convoy trying to read a tiny, human-scaled book popped into her head, and she didn't quite manage to stifle the laugh that resulted.

Mikaela snickered too, because she was hit by the exact same image, and it was as amusing in her head as it was to Karen. "Maybe I can get him some audiobooks to listen to!" she said.

"That's a good idea." Karen thought for a moment. "But what would he like?"

"...That's a good question." Mikaela's expression became thoughtful as she considered it. "Maybe something historical? He seems like the kind of guy who wouldn't mind reading about people."

"Yes, that sounds like him," Karen said, then caught herself. "I don't know him. But from what I read, it sounds like what Convoy would like."

"I bet I could find something about, like, the history of world cultures, or something," she said, nodding. Then, changing the subject, "I...I wonder how different what you read is from what I, y'know, know."

"I'm not sure." Karen thought back to the website she'd found. "It was all in English, so I might have read it wrong. But it seems like the cartoon and the movie are different, so no one really knows what the movie is like."

"...There was a cartoon too?" Yes, somehow she managed to miss this.

There's an awkward pause.

"I... didn't mention it, did I?"

"I don't think so, no." She shakes her head, for emphasis. "Although I...I guess it kinda makes sense..."

"I've only seen a little bit of it. It's old, from before I was born. It was popular, though, and a lot of people remember it and keep talking about it."

[I nearly put in a reference to that Lucky Star video, but that hasn't happened yet.]

"That's wild..." She runs one hand through her hair, pulling out the ponytail holder and combing her fingers through. "There've been...hmm, five universes with Cybertrons in them, I think, on triple-D. I wonder if each of them is, like, a different movie or cartoon show or something..."

"I'll have to explore it some more at some point. Then I can tell you what I find out, and you can compare it to what you know."

[And thus Karen is doomed to begin reading the Transformers wiki regularly.]

"Oh, would you? I'd appreciate that a lot. This is...this is really weird, knowing that I--that we're all...fictional in other worlds..."

((LOL.))

Karen nodded. "I know what you mean. Just thinking about the thought is already weird for me. I've been talking to Maka-san about it. I think the worst part of the idea..." She trailed off.

She waited a moment, but when nothing more seemed to be forthcoming, she prompted with a, "Yeah...?"

"Well... it's... fans would..." Karen suddenly felt a strong need to keep her legs together and cover part of her pelvis with her hands. "I think about... what people might... be drawing."

"..." Suddenly, some of those pictures Grimlock likes to post make a lot more sense. "Oh my god."

...Oh, no, I did it again. "D-don't worry! You're in a live movie, and I'd probably be drawn. So it won't be so bad for you."

"Y-yeah, that's a good point. 'S harder to draw real people than, like, cartoons and stuff."

"I know I shouldn't be worried. They think I'm not real. If people from my world drew those kinds of pictures of me, then that would be bad."

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RL post: Urara sings

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