Second Chance Meme!

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Okay, rocks fell, everyone died. Too bad, valiant meatshippers! But the good news is that you've all be reincarnated!

...as baseline humans on modern Earth.

Maybe you're waiting at a coffee shop, and you spot someone out of the corner of your eye that looks strangely familiar. Maybe instead of strangers from universes far apart, you and your close CR are now childhood friends who have always been together. Maybe you meet a former enemy as a friend, or a former friend is now a bitter enemy.

Are you a college student? A high-powered lawyer? A kindhearted schoolteacher?

What would your life have been like had you been born under different circumstances, and you met your fellow crew once again? If you had a second chance? Would you still fall into the same habits, be a victim of the same misfortunes? or would you use the opportunity to be someone completely different?

1. Post with your character, or tag someone else.
2. Set up the scenario you want to explore!
3. ???
4. Meme!

Comments

[encourage]

She's that girl. The strawberry blond (you're fairly sure she dies it, or else she spends just that much time in the sun, which seems impossible, but her hair's just the oddest strawberry blonde-auburn-red-whatever it is) who gets the seat in the back of the room because you were goofing off one time too many, and the teacher knows she's paying attention. The teacher's wrong. She read the material already. She's sitting back there doing homework and still piping up with answers in that almost-smug tone that seems to say See? See what I know?

Yes. Yes, Sakura Haruno, we do see what you know.

She knows the head cheerleader. She argues with her over calculus of all things, though it breaks down into jabs at each other's love-lives. They do this at least once a week, and she still swears their enemies. "Ino? We don't talk much." But you know they call each other on the slow afternoons between her evening classes to "get ahead" and the kickboxing lessons she picked up in middle school.

Which is another thing. She was always a goodie two-shoes, teacher's pet, or by now it seems like it. Those few years in primary school don't stick out in memory anymore, when she was just another teased little kid with confidence issues. It's hard to see those now, with all that drive and energy to a life-goal she already seems set on.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"I'm going to be a gene therapist with a secondary degree in psychology."

Especially when she says all that with a straight face.

None of that seems to matter right now, as she sits in the local coffee shop where the not-quite cool kids stop my sometime, in one of the less pristine parts of town. She's got some kind of fancy tea latte, sipping at it while leafing through a book from her night classes at the local community college. Ishmael or Bobtail or White Teeth or maybe even Portnoy's Complaint. Her kickboxing studio's just down the street a block or three, and she's got some time to burn before it's back home and back in time with her parents and her own expectations.

Oh yeah.

You know that girl.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard, on the other hand, is that underachiever.

The one that all the teachers know is smart, because he figured out how to use the equipment in the chemistry lab to make a cherry bomb and shut down the school for a three-day weekend.

The one that all the security guards know is somehow involved with the drug culture, but who seems almost smug to be taking the occasional urine test.

The one who scrapes by with exactly a 70% in every single class, who somehow 'tutors' his friend into getting an identical 70%, but who can't be proven to be cheating.

The one who works at Best Buy but almost definitely steals from Gamestop.

The one who's never dated but always knows about a breakup before the participants do.

The one teachers can't say they've failed because hey, he somehow got into a good business school, but they can't say they've helped because he didn't seem to pay attention to them at all.

Not influential enough to be a wild card, not helpless enough to slip through the cracks, and almost certainly using his stop at the coffee shop to steal from the tip jar.

The cafe's full, so he takes a seat next to that strawberry blonde girl. "You mind if I sit here?"

[encourage]

She picks up her book and shifts it toward what she's already marked as "her" half of the table -- a little less than half, but it looks like more when it's full like it is now. Her, "No, not at all," is faster than her processing of his voice. Her answer would have been the same, but her smile might have been a little less sincerely polite.

And a little more openly curious. "What'd you get?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

He sprawls out in his chair and takes up 'his' half of the table with his elbow, propping his feet up on the trim against the wall.

"Uh, I'm pretty sure someone smart as you can read 'Red Bull'," he says, motioning towards the can. "You're in my AP calc, right?"

[encourage]

She rolls her eyes, looking back down to her book. "Must be. Clearly it can't be AP English."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Yeah, I hear 'Red Bull' might be a challenge word this year. Given how much funding they're cutting the school budget, it's amazing any of us can read." Which is exactly why he mostly learns on his own. "Not that I care."

[darknight-ren.livejournal.com]

Working at the cafe isn't the best job, but Ren needs the extra money. He'd said he hadn't had the money for college when he set out on his own, and then he'd gotten the brilliant idea to propose to his girlfriend when he didn't have enough money for that either. A second job was his lifeline.

"Anything else I can get you?" he asked Sakura.

[encourage]

Biting down on her lower lip, Sakura hums in the back of her throat. "Hmm, actually, how about a bagel?" She can use some of the energy after all she's been doing so far today.

[darknight-ren.livejournal.com]

It always bugged him when customers were vague in their orders, but Ren really needed the job, so he just asked, "Which flavor? And would you like cream cheese, butter, or jelly?"

[encourage]

"Sesame seed with butter would be great, thank you!" Sakura flashed him a smile. "Sorry, I've been distracted today. How's your day been?"

Chatty while waiting. One of those ones.

[darknight-ren.livejournal.com]

Yep, one of those. Ren was going to have to make short, polite conversation now and keep his boss from yelling at him for either not being friendly to the customers or being too chatty with them.

"I'm doing fine," he answered. "I'll bring that right out for you."