Music is in the air and sharks in the sea [Mingle]

[ourearth]

Date: 24 August 2019
Characters:OPEN
Note: Like all welcome mingles, this is a SoL free-for-all mingle meant to get new characters involved by centring around something relevant to them. Without further ado, please welcome Celestial Ray Jones, Sacrament Lucas Jones and Torin Byrd!

---

The summer is drawing to an end, but not without one last big event: A day-long music festival that's spread out over the Greens and the nearest bits of the shoreline. One stage sits just below the tideline, so sometimes there's water around it and sometimes there isn't and one stage sits higher up on the Greens. Many bands and singers have come from both the local and wider area, and the festival has even has managed to acquire two big-name headliners: Bryan Adams and Busted, so all ages are catered for. The general music styles range from rock to pop, nothing extreme on any ends but still a wide enough range to not be boring.

The entrance fee is cheap and there's family discounts, so there's a lot of locals but also a good deal of people from further away, and due to the scenic location there's even people from further away than London in attendance. Especially since the weekend is blessed with perfect weather, just overcast enough for people to not get too many sunburns and heatstrokes but sunny enough that there's no worries about rain.

It also helps that the festival is fundraising for a cause that unites all ages, classes, and any other disparaging groups: Dinosaurs. Who doesn't love dinosaurs? Exactly. We all come together for dinosaurs. Or that is what the organisers say in the opening speech. Fact is, the kids' corner of the festival is dinosaur themed, a few people in dinosaur suits hang around, there's dinosaur themed food, and there's a group of party tents explaining what the fundraiser is for. And, more excitingly, displaying some dinosaur artefacts - bits of a skeleton arranged to make it clear where in the dinosaur they went, a fossilized egg, and a stone with the imprint of a dinosaur in it. Because this is what the fundraiser is about: The town museum has managed to successfully campaign for an additional room in the context of the renovations necessary after the controlled WW2 bomb detonation last year. And the director of the museum has been working closely with a paleontology professor from the local uni to dedicate that room to what they can reasonably call dinosaur ages. Well, and everything else that came before the time that the up-until-now "oldest" room in the town museum covers. But mainly dinosaurs.

They even have a very specific thing they're fundraising for, the two explain when they're on stage in-between acts: One specific full dinosaur skeleton that was found in Mossgate during the Victorian age which has been in private hands up until now will be auctioned off in a couple of months, and of course Mossgate's town museum has a very special interest in acquiring that fossil.

All in all, it's a typical festival: Drinks and food can be bought, the music alternates between the two stages to give the next showact time to set up, and such. There's more security than there would be normally, and the bag checks are more intense, but with the things that have happened in Mossgate in the last year that's maybe not surprising. ...And when Busted plays on the sea stage at high tide, there's sharks circling the stage. They don't attack anyone, just circle, so everyone just writes it off as a publicity stunt. After the first song, the band even says that they brought mascots, so all is fine, right?

And they make sense, a band member quickly supplies. After all sharks are very closely related to dinosaurs, closer than almost any other reptile!

Comments

[deathrae]

I.

It's a mark of how detached Ray Jones is to the life in which she grew up that she doesn't consider trying to use her family's status to get into the concert for free. She pays the meagre fee, like everyone else, and with the help of a dark blue hoodie with little fin designs sewn into the hood and sleeves, she looks far less assuming than any of the teens hanging around - the majority of whom are taller than her - and so it's easy for her to stay under the general radar.

(Not that being invisible has ever really been an issue for her - she grew up making a point to stay out of the limelight. If people noticed her, it was usually more of a double-take than a screaming fit. Plus she's been here for six years or so, locals are used to her now.)

Mostly, though? She is entirely here for all the dinosaur stuff. Ray fucking loves dinosaurs - not with the same passion as fish, maybe, but hey, some dinosaurs were fish, and also dinosaurs were awesome. So she spends most of her day geeking out at the dinosaur displays. "Isn't it amazing how the skeletal structures between dinosaurs and modern lizards hasn't changed, like at all? And- and look, you can see where it must have been attacked by another dinosaur at some point, the specific patterns of indentations in that bone..."


II.

...okay, so admittedly, she might also be here for the Busted concert. Sue her. The guys were super nice and their music was fun. They were her go-to after Lucas left.

Unfortunately, she ends up barely paying attention to the first bit of their set because there are motherfucking sharks in the water. Yes there are supposed to be sharks around here in August, they're not exactly seasonally inappropriate but why are they hanging around the inter tidal zone like this.

It's obvious to anyone who sees her - especially those who know Ray and her obsessions - that she is practically vibrating with restraint to keep from leaping into the water to go swim with the random-ass sharks.

I presume they'd at least know each other by name, if not in too much detail?

[iamnotgod]

Walter is similarly low-key at this concert today - dark-colored clothes, long-sleeved shirt and cargo shorts - though he's really only here as part of supporting the museum.

He's not quite as gung-ho about dinosaurs as certain people he knows. He appreciates them, sure, and he'd read about them with as much enthusiasm as he'd had anything else, in those early post-cult days - but he wouldn't call himself an expert.

Like Ben. Or, clearly, Ray Jones.

"Morning, Ray. Certainly seems like they've made a perfect setup for you, with this sort of historical spread."

He's not completely In Her Space when he speaks up, though hopefully she's spotted him in her peripheral vision first.

Judging by your app she'd probably get along well with his sister 8D

[deathrae]

She's a bit too invested in dinosaurs to not look up a bit quickly when she hears Walter, but she doesn't seem otherwise startled. She gives him a grin, in fact.

"Hey Walter. It's, uh. Well, it's not exactly my discipline, but like-- come on. It's just so cool seeing stuff that existed, like, millions of years ago, what are the odds that we'd ever even find this kind of thing again, where it's so intact that we can actually work out what exactly happened to it?"

There's a sparkle in her eyes, that's normally reserved for her passion for marine biology.

I.

[scarsolderthanyou]

Sam is here mostly to visit an old friend who's involved in the dinosaur stuff, but while he waits for a chance to catch up with him, he's just kind of wandering around aimlessly, hands in his pockets and squinting a little at anything less than a couple feet away.

Which means, since he spots Ray at a distance, he can approach without squinting. He grins at her ramble. "If I wanted to hear somebody gush about bones, I'd have found Torin first. Hey, kid."

[deathrae]

A light blush creeps onto her cheeks at Sam's teasing, but she gives him a grin nonetheless. "Hi Sam. I'm allowed to think they're cool - some fish are so old that they're practically dinosaurs too, you know."

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie grimaces as she spots Ray out of the corner of her eye during Busted's performance because honestly noone should be eyeing up anything related to Mr. Evil with that level of enthusiasm.

"You look like you want to jump in," Sadie concernly comments to Ray during a lull in the music, "I don't think it would be a good idea."

Sadie adjusts her large sunhat as she glances back out at the sharks, "It'll be hard enough to get Busted off of the stage safely."

[deathrae]

"I'm not actually going to," she says defensively, and with a slight pout. "I'm concerned for them, though-- th-the sharks, I mean. What if they try and eat the floats holding the stage up, or get caught in the weights or something?"

She definitely cares more about the sharks than the boy band. "Busted will be way easier, just get a plank or something."

II

[mockeryofthedivine]

"Well hello," Lucas says, as he sidles up alongside his sister. Hands in his pockets, he leans over to peer at the circle sharks with curiosity. "What do we have here? Some new friends of yours, Ray-ray?"

Because of course, he knows full well just how obsessed she is with fish. Always all about this fish, his little sister.

[deathrae]

She spent the last six years dedicating herself entirely to fish, she's earned her right to geek out.

"I hope so - I'm trying to work out what kind they are but it's really hard based on just their dorsal fins alone. Maybe they're tagged, I can probably ask someone at Mossgate Uni if they know anyone who's got trackers on these..." She stands right up on her toes, bringing her height up near Lucas's chin. "I dunno, maybe a porbeagle? It's all sharp like a great white but we don't get those here, it's too cold."

I

[dreamtamer]

Thom loved dinosaurs. He always had. His room at home was filled with drawings and models and he was a devoted watcher of every dinosaur themed tv show, no matter how terrible.

So of course when he finds out that there's a corner of the festival completely devoted to them he immediately ignores all the concerts in favor of exploring every exhibit.

He stands and listens in fascination when she starts talking about the dinosaur skeletons.

"Really? You can still tell all that? Do you know what kind of dinosaur attacked it?"

[deathrae]

She is privately delighted at the younger teen hanging on her every word, and grins at him.

"Probably something really hungry, those are pretty small teeth on a pretty big bone. So probably something little, uh..." She holds one hand up and squints. "Like, something about the same size as a swan? But also lots of them all attacking together to bring their prey down. Like wolves attacking a deer."

[lovedramamoron]

Even months after the echo that had awakened them, Jimmy still hadn't quite got the hang of his heightened observational abilities. Most days he could get through by focusing on what he needed to know and ignoring all the irrelevant parts.

But every now and then he couldn't help but notice things that sent up an immediate alarm. Sharks in the water definitely qualified.

He steps up beside the other person he noticed watching them, torn a little between staying far away from them and wanting to get closer to see one. He'd never been this close to one before.

"Is it normal for sharks to show up here?" he wonders.

[deathrae]

"I mean, here in England, specifically? Yeah, sure. We have a bunch of sharks that migrate through oceanic climates and pass through U.K. waters - you know that there are basking shark watching tours you can go on in Scotland - but like--"

Ray gestures helplessly at the sharks circling the stage. "Sharks don't normally come this close to people, it's-- there's no point, there's no food or anything they can fit in their mouths to investigate."

[bravelyplucked]

[I]
Torin's in his element here, really. He's pretty much a celebrity guest at this point in his career--it wouldn't be at all unusual for him to be recognized as the host of Torin's Dinosaurin', an educational kids' show that initially got aired in the mid to late 90's and rerun in syndication for years after. He's teaching and doing research at Mossgate University these days, and he's absolutely down to help the museum out with some artifact wrangling. He's personally overseen the exhibits there, and, though most are there for the music, probably, he's still hanging around said exhibits going into Teacher Mode. "Any questions about anything?" Because he can answer them and then some--the man can't shut up about dinosaurs.

[II]
So the sharks had been a little concerning, true, but all other concerns went out the window when the band member started talking about them. This is because the guy was totally and completely wrong. Torin cannot let this stand. He's all but shoving his way to the front of the crowd at this point.

"Actually," he says quite loudly--how did he get a microphone?--"sharks aren't related to dinosaurs at all. They're fish. They were around in the Cretaceous period, true, but that does not make them dinosaurs." He's getting his lecture on now. "Dinosaurs' closest living relatives are birds, and, if you must name a reptile, the crocodile is rather close though not a dinosaur itself."

He's just going to keep right on going if no one stops him.

I

[dragoonrouge]

Okay, so Sadie might be a little star struck, afterall Torin's Dinosaurin' and David Attenborough where two of the driving factors behind Sadie's love of nature and science. So that fact that Torin was here and answering questions meant she had to go along.

Tentatively putting her hand up, her faces flushes slightly as Torin points to her and the attention of the crowd turns to her, her ears twitching nervously underneath her sun hat.

"Ummm, well. I-I was wondering if you could explain why dinosaurs developed ornithischian and saurischian pelvises?" She stutters before gaining confidence as she asks her question, "Was there a particular advantage to having one or the other?"

[bravelyplucked]

"Well, that's some of what we're researching." Torin laughs. "It's one of those things people will constantly argue over--I'd like to think that things would just be boring if they were the same. We can only guess that the differences helped the dinosaurs in moving the way they'd need to in order to fill their niches."

II

[mockeryofthedivine]

"They're musicians, darling," Lucas remarks with easy familiarity, as he strolls up to nonchanlantly stand nearby. "Well. Not just musicians. Band members. They have simple little minds. You can't expect anything remotely resembling actual intelligence from them."

He gestures up to the stage then, in a dismissive wave.

[bravelyplucked]

Torin arches an eyebrow both at being called darling and this assessment of the band members. "I'm not engaging in a discussion, I am preventing the spread of misinformation."

That the band members were wrong doesn't faze him. That they might make others wrong in their ignorance? That's a problem.

II

[iamnotgod]

Walter's not one of those people stopping him - though he's tapped into some of the liveblogging posts, and subsequently wincing at what he's finding there - but he'll approach Torin once he's exhausted himself and the band has left the subject matter.

"Nice work, speaking your mind back there," he offers, genuine smile on display.

"I couldn't have done it, with that much attention on me."

And Torin would have the experience to back it up, on several levels.

[bravelyplucked]

That gets a laugh out of Torin. "It's not speaking my mind as much as it is preventing the spread of misinformation--and you get used to that much public speaking." Goodness knows he'd done it enough in the past.

III

[deathrae]

"Though that's not to say that fish didn't exist in Cretaceous and other prehistoric periods," a young woman's voice cuts in before Torin can ramble on too long for himself. "We have evidence that there are certain species of sharks and whales whose ages date into the hundred, and varieties of fish in hadopelagic zones that we don't even know exist - not to mention coelacanths, where it's suggested they evolved into their current state like, forty-four million years ago and haven't had any remarkable changes since."

oh god oh god she's arguing with Mister Torin this is insane and her mouth won't stop. "And if current theories of evolution hold that all life forms were aqueous based before they started evolving to perform better on land, then technically you could consider the theory 'dinosaurs evolved from sharks' more accurate than the other way around."

II

[scarsolderthanyou]

And there's his buddy. Going off on somebody. Sam sighs and arrows himself right over there to intervene. "Torin, there you are. I've been looking for you, asshole." Will interrupting with a playful insult be enough? It might not be enough, but he'll try that first.

[mockeryofthedivine]

I

Lucas had whined and bitched and complained - but in the end it all ended up being for show, and he'd allowed his sister to drag him along to the music festival. Truth was, Lucas did actually enjoy music festivals. They'd been one of the few highlights of his youth. Particularly the ones where he'd been able to slip away from the family and make his own trouble

Which, of course, is exactly what he's doing now. Naturally, he's almost immediately managed to find the booze. And the shaved ice. Which has been vastly improved by pouring some of said booze into said shaved ice. Fortunately, this particular variety came in a cup rather than a cone, something which more easily facilitated the addition of alcohol.

"Yes, utterly scrumptious, I know," Lucas will say with a grin, to anyone who might look at this display for a little too long. His accent is strange - some kind of mishmash of different places, difficult to place. "But don't look at mine. Go fetch your own."

II

Later - when Lucas deigns to actually listen to some of the music - he lurks near the beach stage, watching the supporting acts with a critical eye. He will protest - loudly - that music isn't his interest, as much out of spite for his father as anything else. But he still grew up immersed in the musical world, and has developed quite a good ear. He can recognise talent when he sees it. And, of course, utter mediocrity.

"Now that's just sad," Lucas remarks, after one particularly poor showing. "Bad enough that they had to subject us to their poor pitch and terrible sense of rhythm, but did they really have to shoe in all those utterly nonsensical references to dinosaurs? I mean really. 'You're the T-rex of my heart'? Please."

I

[iamnotgod]

Walter looks moderately offended at Lucas' passing judgment - but then, this wouldn't be the first time they've had a conversation like this.

"I think I'll stay sober for this concert, if you don't mind."

Still, he's not walking away; he doesn't feel the need to be that passive-aggressive this early in the day.

I

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie just stares at the man with the sort of bizarre accent that she heard from ex-pats back in London.

"I'm sorry, but did you just steal that from the bar?!" She asks incredulously, "Alos, who drinks this early in the day?!" There is the sort of judgement there that only a teenager can quite pull off.