We're All Stars Now

[noncomformist]

Who: Henrietta and You
When: Throughout 6/22
Where: Main Street U.S.A., the Library, and Joffrey's Coffee Shop
Summary: A ten year old goth is dismayed by the poser magical kingdom she has found herself trapped in.
Warnings: Vulgarity, tobacco use, hardcore goth


A. Main Street U.S.A., Morning, 6/22

[What child doesn't dream of Disney World? The sights of the park is the dream of just about every American boy and girl. The idea of being able to cut loose and be in Disney World would unattended would give just about any pre-teen a heart attack out of pure joy. What child would possibly hate being here?

The answer is this child.

Henrietta stalks Main Street, cigarette holder in hand as her eyes dart from one building to the next. Somehow her frown just grows deeper as she looks from store front to storefront, colorful and magical, before her eyes dart to the castle at the center of it all.]

Oh my God.

[She takes a slow drag on her cigarette.]

This is so lame. So lame.

B. The Library, Afternoon

[Eventually Henrietta finds her way to the library. She isn't the biggest reader, but maybe they could have something, anything, interesting. At the moment she's flipping through books, annoyed, as she tries to find something worth reading.]

Where the fuck is the occult and dark arts section.

C. Joffrey's Coffee Shop, Evening

[As lame and conformist as this place is, at least it has coffee. Sure, it's not as dark and dingy as The Village Inn was, but at least there's something with even a little goth here. She's taken a seat in the corner of the shop, drinking cup after cup of coffee and smoking the whole time, writing something down in a notebook.

If anyone tried to look at it, it would appear to be poetry. Dark poetry. Soul cutting poetry, that only a ten year old with their ten years of wisdom could write.]

Comments

[supoorhero]

[Far from rolling his eyes, Kenny sighs.]

It'd be really fucking undignified to be killed here. Especially if it turns out, like...it's not nice or cool at all, like it's being run by psychopath super villain Illumanati guys who're just pretending to be Disney.

[Somehow, he wouldn't be surprised. It also gets him to hurry up cleaning, because what if they're already attracting the attention of said psychos? The waitress could be a plant. Spooky.

When he's finished:]

You're friends with Stan, aren't you?

[noncomformist]

I don’t think something, like, the mob would pretend to be Disney. They’d just work for Disney.

[Wow Kenny. You are just cleaning this table like a motherfucker. She’s kind of surprised at how hard and nervously you’re going at it.]

Who, Raven? He went back to being a conformist.

[Or at least always had been one. He didn’t really seem to get the goth thing in general.]

He was alright.

[supoorhero]

Or they're the same thing. Disney's gotten pretty fucking weird before.

[He thinks they've ditched the purity rings though. So at least that's out. Hopefully.

...Please God, don't let them bring back the purity rings.]

I dunno, I thought you guys still talked. You, the tall guy, the kid with the weird hair, and that little kindergartner who wears lipstick.

[noncomformist]

I’d believe. Disney isn’t natural. It’s all about singing birds and true love and other unreal crap.

[She seems to think on that a moment.]

Sure. We talk to him. But we’re not friends. Goths don’t do friends.

[Thats just a rule of being goth. Sure you have people you like and they’re LIKE friends, but you don’t call them friends. Basically, being goth is like the longest running LARP possible.

She’s quiet a second, then adds.]

We have names.

[Usually that shit wouldn’t bother her. But he’s like the one person here from home. It wouldn’t be goth to care about that detail yeah. But still, lacking the others in her clique, she kind of does.]

[supoorhero]

[Slowly:] So...you have people that are like friends, and you do things with them that you'd only do with friends, and you're always together, but you're not. Friends.

[Inception.]

...Okay. [Fair enough.] My name's Kenny. What's yours?

[noncomformist]

Whatever.

[She dismisses that immediately. Kenny just isn’t goth enough to get it. He’s goth enough to see past it and completely nail it, but not get it. Clearly.]

I’m Henrietta. It’s a pretty goth name. It’s the one thing my stupid parents did right.

[supoorhero]

[?????]

I guess that sounds pretty goth. Better than something fruity and lame like Vampir or Nightass or whatever those other kids call themselves.

[It's a little exhausting pretending he's out of the loop, but ykno. Secret identity business.]

So what's next?

[noncomformist]

Tch. Vampire kids are such posers. One of them didn’t even know vampires are hurt by sunlight.

[She sighs, blowing cigarette smoke out as she rests her head on one of her hands.]

See what else is here. Not like I’m leaving anytime soon.

[she pauses again.]

Kenny.

That’s the name of that Karen kid’s brother. That you?

[supoorhero]

I know! That Hot Topic burned down like a million years ago and they still dress and act like it puked all over them.

[It gets a bit of a laugh out of him and for a minute he's back to high spirits. It lasts for a good five seconds before the hidden elephant in the room rears its head when she asks her next question.]

Uh-huh. Karen's my little sister. [No big deal.] Are you "friends" with her?

[Special emphasis on the word, mainly because of her last comment.]

[noncomformist]

Yeah. We thought burning it down would get rid of them but it just slowed them down.

She’s pretty goth, so she’s alright. [Which is Henrietta speak for liking her.] That douchebag Mike almost turned her into a vampire if it wasn’t for that new kid and some kid with pretty goth dark powers. I helped.

Oh yeah. Eric Cartman was there too. He didn’t.

[Yeah Kenny some of your friends suck at maintaining a secret identity.]

[supoorhero]

Not that goth. [It's...still something he has to get used to, just give him time.] She told me a little bit about that, said some really cool dark chick saved her from Mike and his dumbass dad and...Corey Haim too, I guess.

[Yeah, this kind of thing happens all the time.]

Didn't know that was you. Guess that explains a lot; especially since things managed to get done even though Cartman was there.

[Part of him wonders what would have happened if they just left him in that jail. Missed opportunities.]

[noncomformist]

Trust me. I can see it in her soul.

[Sorry Kenny. In her own way she means that to be reassuring, as much as even letting Karen entertain this is sort of a compromise.]

I don’t fuck around about putting down vamp kids. Your sister’s guardian angel helped though. Now he was hardcore.

[supoorhero]

I guess it's better than her being like Mike and his stupid friends. I just hope it won't change her too much if she keeps this up.

[Okay, this is a damned if he does, damned if he doesn't moment because if he reacts the way he really wants to (pleased and happy!) if would definitely be suspicious, BUT if he tries to play it off like a cool guy, that'd be just as weird. So Kenny just...rolls with it somewhere down the middle.]

She has a lot of people who look out for her. It's...really nice.

[noncomformist]

Death’s better than being a vamp kid.

[Also meant to be comforting. Needless to say, Henrietta isn’t so great at being comforting.]

You get along with your family, huh?

I don’t. Family are assholes.

[supoorhero]

Um, sorta. [No.]

Don't you have a brother? He's not an asshole, last I remember. [And god, is Kenny trying to forget. Still, it needs to be asked for appearances.] And I bet they'd be worried about you if they knew you were here.

[noncomformist]

What, Brad?

[She clacks her teeth, grimacing.]

He’s a little leech. Was. Wherever he is.

[Sge doesn’t know and doesn’t care where that is, is the front that she tries to give off. But she has to admit, a part of her does wander where the little freak is. Even if he only came back to flip her off.]</small)

[supoorhero]

[Probably somewhere around Pluto. But who knows. It's not Kenny's problem, so maybe it's best to leave things be for now.]

What if he was taken here too except way earlier than we were? Maybe they have him put to work underneath Pirates turning the cranks that move the ride and cleaning up all the ashes people dump of their dead family members.

[He's not even really kidding, because if slavery's the intention here that's exactly what he could see happening to them.]

[noncomformist]

Whoa.

[Henrietta actually hadn’t heard that before. Disney has seemed so conformist and happy sappy that it made sense. It had to have that darkness underneath. That goth feel. Because that was real life.]

The Pirates of the Caribbean ride is probably super haunted we should check it out.

[supoorhero]

Hell yeah.

I saw on YouTube that one of the skeletons in the ride is actually real. I don't know if that's goth enough, but it's pretty awesome all the same.

[Also horribly morbid and weird, but he'll cross that bridge once the mystique of actually fucking around Pirates of the goddamn Carribean wears off.]

I wanna see it, but up close, not in one of the dumb boats.

[noncomformist]

That’s hard goth.

[She takes a deep drag from her cigarette before flicking it to the ground.]

Let’s do it.

[supoorhero]

Woohoo!

[That's the quickest you'll ever see Kenny hop out of a chair. Images of Bradley toiling in some evil slaver's basement are put on the backburner.

Annnnnd off they go to have some good clean fun and potentially die from their hubris!]

[noncomformist]

[As nice as the idea of Bradley being reduced to a slave is, there are more important things to do, like rip off a Disney ride and maybe die.

Let’s get this show on the road.

The ride itself is...okay. It’s surprisingly not AS lame as she thought it would be. Pirates are in their own way kinda goth. Still she isn’t going to look too excited. Or say too much til they come up on the skeletons.]

That it?

[supoorhero]

[It's the first time he's ever been on Pirates so there's a lot to take in, and surprisingly very little in the way of Johnny Depp so far. Fine by him. If he wanted to ruin his day he'd watch Mortdecai again.]

Uhhh, I think... It's been a while since I watched the video.

[Their dopey little boat turns the corner and there it is, a spooky skeleton on a fake sand dune propped against a captain's wheel. Seems as good a place as any to check it out.]

Let's get off here.

[Kenny stands up, and as soon as the boat gets close enough, he smoothly hops out and onto the dune. He holds his hand out for Henrietta.]

[noncomformist]

[Her goth pride wants her to try getting out without Kenny’s help, but with how uneven her balance is on the damn boat she reaches to take his hand. She looks around a bit as she gets off.]

Maybe this place isn’t a complete conformist shithole.

[Its dark and looks like a pirate cove. But even despite her goth sensibilities of not giving a shit, Henrietta’s still a kid, and her imagination is as strong as Kenny’s, even if pointed a weirder way.]

Oh yeah. This place is totally haunted.

[supoorhero]

Totally. [He can't stop the whispered awe from slipping into his tone.] Ghost Adventures would kill to do what we're doing.

[And it definitely beats running around Kyle's basement in the middle of the night like an idiot trying to summon his grandma's ghost. No, this is legit.

Something seems a little...off. It might be because they're in the dark and there's already an obvious gloomy atmosphere, but stepping off the boat seemed to trigger something; he can't hear the track moving.]

Did the ride just stop?