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Layla doesn't come in here an awful lot, mostly because often enough she doesn't have much in the way of money to spend on comics or coffee shops, but there are times when she just can't resist the allure, and she wouldn't be a Mastigos Master of Mind if she couldn't manage to prevent herself from buying more comics than she could afford. At the moment she's slowly ambling along one of the walls, dressed in skinny jeans and a t-shirt that shows the goose from Untitled Goose Game running away from and angr Marvel Thor with Mjolnir.
Calamity doesn't have much in the way of money either, but they sure as hell spend what little they have on comics. And a bright pink and blue coffee drink with whipped cream, glittery sprinkles, and cotton candy on top. They're at one of the tables, a leg tucked underneath them, the hood of their ratty sweatshirt on their head as they peruse a comic that they've pressed flat against the table. They glance up to eye the other patrons occasionally, and when they see Layla's shirt, they try to catch her eye to give her a grin.
Layla's first reaction when she spots someone over at a table grinning at her is a slight frown, and then she seems to realize that they're looking at her shirt. She glances down at it, looks back up, and flashes a big back. She turns back to the racks of comics for just a second before looking over at Calamity again, shrugging, and heading over toward them and their table.
The small human gives her a thumbs up at the shirt, and goes back to reading. So when the nerdy shirt-wearing woman shows up in front of their table, they kinda blink in surprise, tilting their head curiously.
"...Hi? I uh...I like your shirt."
Layla answers, "thanks," then pulls out a chair and invites herself to sit at the table. "What the heck are you drinking? That looks like something barfed up by some kind of sparkle demon, so I'm curious if it actually tastes good."
"Cotton candy milkshake." Sluuurp. "I love 'em, 's my favorite drink here. This an' my pulls for the week is like, the best way to spend time. They do a lotta good drinks though, and - d'you like cinnamon rolls?"
"That sounds like a delightful abomination," Layla responds, eyeing the drink. "And I do like cinnamon rolls. Both the sticky, delicious treats and the kind that are too good for this world, too pure." She holds her hand out. "Can I try a sip of that?"
"..." Calamity gives her a quick look-over, and then shrugs and pushes the drink in her direction. "Yeah sure, whatever. But yeah they have chocolate cinnamon rolls. They're so fucking good, I get 'em like...once a month when I can."
"I uh...I'm Calamity? By the way?"
Layla picks up the cup, takes the straw between her lips, and takes a sip of it. A small sip, enough for a taste but not an attempt to hog it, and then she offers it back while processing the flavors. "Not bad, but not as much my thing. I'm pretty sure chocolate cinnamon rolls would be more on target, for me. Not as colorful, though." She smiles again. "I'm Ellie, she/her pronouns. Calamity. That's a good, classic moniker. Evocative of Calamity Jane, at least to me."
"Oh - they/them, for me." A smile that's actually a touch warm. "Picked my name out all by myself. D'you come in here a lot?" Calamity takes the drink back and slurps again, looking at Ellie curiously.
"Well, I like the choice. If you want me to let you in on a secret? I picked mine, too. It's not my real name, or even a nickname for my real name. I just don't really like my real one," Layla says, because sometimes candor is as good as deception for hiding things, and sometimes it's nice to talk to people. "I come in here once in a while, when I'm pretty sure buying a comic or two won't leave me choosing between being late on rent or skipping meals."
"Yeah, Calamity's my real name," they say with a smirk. "Ugh yeah, comics are like...I scrape shit together. 'Cause it's the only thing I got, you know? Life's kinda not worth it without 'em sometimes, so...I figure it out."
Ellie's smile becomes a little sheepish, "poor choice of words on my part, sorry. I didn't mean to imply yours wasn't real." She leans back and crosses her legs. "I tried doing my own comic once. I'm not so great at the story lines, though. I can handle art, but I just couldn't make a story I really wanted to tell come together."
"Wait, really?" Calamity lights up at the mention of Ellie making her own comics. "That's sweet though, I bet you could find someone to help write - a lotta comics have different writers and illustrators, you know?"
"I mean, I'm not the best comic book illustrator, but I do make art for a living," Ellie says with a self-deprecating smile and a matching shrug. "You're right that I might be able to find someone who wanted to write, if they found an artist. I just..." she makes a gesture with her hand, lifting it up and waving her fingers about. "I got distracted with other projects once I put that aside temporarily."
Calamity keeps their pale green eyes locked on Ellie while she speaks, intensely curious. "What sorta art?" Their comic lays open, entirely forgotten, but they take another sip of their milkshake.
Ellie takes out her phone, unlocks it with a passcode rather than biometrics, and starts poking around like she's searching for something while she talks. "I work in a number of different mediums. I prefer painting for things I'm actually going to try to sell, although lately I've had a couple of contract jobs doing digital stuff for websites. I wish I was known enough that I could just do what I wanted and have people pay me for it, but I'm not." They frown. "I forgot I cleared this out recently."
"...Oh." Calamity's face falls a little when it seems like they're not gonna actually get to see any art. "This place puts up like, local art sometimes?" They gesture to the walls, where a variety of vibrant and comic related art hangs. "But like...'painting' is kinda vague. D'you paint people, or...?"
"Wait!" she says as a realization hits her. "I think I have some stuff saved online." She starts poking around on the phone some more. "I do a lot of things based on the weird things your brain thinks up in your dreams. Well, my brain does anyway." She turns the phone around to show Calamity a watercolor painting of frightened looking human figure with a wall of eyes behind them, turning to look over their shoulder. The eyes look like they're rushing to move out of the field of view, staying just out of sight. The colors are dark and look like they're intentionally bleeding together, and the eyes all seem to be portraying different emotions, all negative. There's some that look angry, some that are brimming with tears, and so on.
It's not great, it's just pretty good.
They lean in close to get a good look. "...Cool..." they say after a moment. "Dream shit's wild, I like it. I don't do any'a that shit, not really creative or anything, but." They wrinkle their nose at the self deprecation. "It's awesome, an' like...I get how much work it is, too."
"I use a lot of my art as a way to get weird things that are in my head out of my head," Ellie explains. "Sometimes I just get a weird idea for something that I think just seems like it would be cool, and go running off after it. I'm trying to figure out how to make something work after a friend talked me into trying it again."
"Huh. That makes sense - mine just kinda stay in there until I can't stand it and go find something to scream at," Calamity says with a huff of laughter. "An' like, even if it's not somethin' you make bank with, 's still somethin' you like to do though, right?"
"There's this concept, it's Latin I think, called afflatus," Ellie starts to say. Then she cracks a smile and says, "not quite the same as a flatus, as two words, which would be a fart. Afflatus is the idea of a divine creative impulse, like something is blowing on the spark of your creativity and setting it aflame. Sometimes it's less about enjoying it, and more just needing to do it. But most of the time, yeah, I enjoy it. Sometimes I scream while I'm doing it."
Calamity snorts at the fart joke, but listens with polite interest. It concept doesn't go over their head, but the words 'divine creative impulse' do make their eyes glaze over slightly, like it's not the kind of thing they're going to process and remember.
"...'S worse ways to let the shit out that's gotta get out, I guess?"
"Not interested in the divine?" Layla asks with a smile. "You can think of it in other ways, too. Your muse. Needing to vent your feels. Whatever. That's really what it's about, yeah. Feeling like you've got shit in you that you need to get out, and that being your way. It works for me. It might not for other people. Some people run, or box. Or do drugs. Or, I don't know, become arsonists."
"Yeah, that makes a lotta sense. To me." Calamity returns the smile and slurps on their milkshake. "Just art, for you? To vent, or whatever?"
"Mostly art," Ellie says with a shrug. "I'm not into the vices so much. Well, not the drinking or drugs ones, anyway, or the fire starting. I have a lot of hobbies, but not a large number of outlets for excess emotions." She smiles. "You?"
"I...smoke?" Calamity scrunches up their face as they think. "But uh..." a shrug. "I dunno. I walk around a lot, maybe it gets out that way sometimes?"
"Could be!" she says obliviously. "There are people who just don't seem to really have that kind of need to express themselves, either. Or who get it out just through associating with their friends and family." She turns the phone off and tucks it away. "People are widely varied, aren't they? Even if in a lot of ways they're all so much the same."
"Sure are." They nod. "So uh...what sorta comics do you read?" Changing the subject before shit gets too metaphysical, it seems...
"A mix of things like your more typical marvel and DC comics, and a lot of graphic novels," Ellie says with a glance over at the shelves. "I enjoy a lot of things that really dig into important matters and make you think, or wonder if you've been looking at things wrong all along, but I came here today just hoping to find some good, simple, straight forward mutants keeping everyone safe."
"You find what you're looking for?" Calamity looks Ellie over for evidence of a bag of purchased comics. "I read a lotta different shit, so if you want help or anything." They shrug, downplaying their interest in helping her.
"I hadn't found anything yet, and then someone distracted me," Ellie says with a sarcastic testiness in her tone that's belied by the laughing smile she's wearing. "Do you have any suggestions? What are you reading there?" she asks with a nod at the comic on the table.
"Runaways. I'm kinda obsessed with it right now..." They hold the comic up so Ellie can see the cover. "...Have you read New X-Men? The Grant Morrison one."
"Runaways has a TV show too, doesn't it? I haven't watched it, but Hulu likes to tell me about it." Ellie leans forward to get a look at the cover. "Grant Morrison has done a fair bit of work that's been up my alley. Invisibles, The Filth, and so on. If he's doing New X-Men that seems interesting to me, for sure."
Calamity grins. "I was gonna recommend Invisibles. Haven't seen Runaways yet, but yeah. I guess it's on Hulu." They shrug. "I did track down the new Doom Patrol though, 's pretty fuckin' solid."
"I haven't had a chance to read it yet," Ellie admits with a smile. "I ended up buying ODY-C the last time I wanted to buy something and was thinking of buying Doom Patrol. I guess I could renew my Hulu subscription some month, and watch the show for the Runaways too, if it's any good."
"...Or you could torrent it? Prob'ly pretty shit quality, but 's better'n nothing. And free. Doom Patrol's really good, I got a buncha the old issues from a friend, 's really fun to like...see how shit's changed? An' it's weird in a way that I really like."
"I like weird in general." Ellie's smile widens. "You saw an example of my art. I'll have to check that out when I get a chance. Maybe I can pick up something today, in fact."
"The newer ones are different weird, but still pretty out there. It's about a bunch'a fuckups with shitty powers, and they kinda gotta save the world anyway, so shit gets wild. 'S definitely one'a my favorites. Runaways is getting up there now too, though."
"Oh, yeah, that sounds like my kind of thing," Ellie agrees with some enthusiasm. "Definitely going to be getting that, then. I can just... skip getting coffee a couple of times this month."
Calamity's face falls a little, and they nod. "Yeah, I know how that is. Hope it's worth it? Feel kinda shitty if I recommended something that you didn't like - but I'm usually pretty okay at it. Hopefully this time, too." Then their pocket vibrates, and they grimace as they pull out an old-as-fuck looking flip phone. It's pretty beat up, but clearly it works just fine, because Calamity checks the text and then sighs. "I gotta head out - 's cool meeting you, though. You gotta lemme know if you like New X-Men or Doom Patrol. And - if you really like it and wanna read some of the out-of-print shit, I...could prob'ly hook you up." A small smile, and they finish off the rest of their milkshake before closing their comic and standing.
"You want to give me your number or something, then?" Ellie asks with a tilt of her head. "So that, y'know... I have a way to get in touch to let you know? Otherwise you'll spend the rest of your life wondering if that girl with the goose and Thor shirt liked your comic recommendations or not, and who needs that kind of regret?"
"Heh - sure, yeah." They put their phone away, and wait for her to get her phone out again to recite their number to.
Her phone does come out again, and she types a few things into it while looking up at Calamity. "Alright, go."
Calamity recites it, and also spells out their name if it looks like she needs the help, and grabs the shabby backpack hanging off the back of their chair. "See you around?"
"Yep, have a good night!" Layla says with wave, and she starts getting up to go back to perusing comics.
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