itsaboutstandards

[itsaboutstandards]

sjazzboy:

That…was a bit of a convoluted thing to follow, to be honest, but he thought he got it. And caring about a pet was probably pretty important. He’d never had one, but he did know they were really important to some people. Henry considered getting a dog or a cat before getting back to the conversation. “Oh. Well, I hope she’s alright then, glad it seems like she’s doing okay.”

“Hmm? Yeah. She’s doing great,” Billy said, laughing a little at the end of the sentence. “I just have to remember in the future that dogs can’t have onion rings. Who knew?”

He shrugged, trying to play off the awkwardness of the situation. He stole another glance at his phone. The transducer was at… 85% capacity. If this time he could get it to charge all the way up, he might actually be able to preview it here soon….

“Right..so….. see you at the mixer?”

[itsaboutstandards]

sjazzboy:

“All for free stuff,” Henry agreed with a smile. Then Billy pulled his phone out of his pocket. Normally it didn’t bother him so much, people checking their phones if they got a message or something. It happened, it was human nature, it might be important. But something about the way Billy seemed so engrossed made him curious. “Everything okay?”

“Oh! I… uh… my dog’s having a bit of a reaction to something I gave her? I asked my neighbor to watch her for a few hours so I could run some errands and….go to… the mixer…,” Billy started to trail off, feeling like his excuse wasn’t exactly water tight because who would go to a party when their dog was dying? “I mean, I’m sure she’s fine. I just. — I didn’t want her to be alone right now? And that was my neighbour texting me back and she’s fine. — My dog that is, not my neighbour… Though I’m sure she’s fine too.” He ended with a nervous nod. That should just about fix it, shouldn’t it?

[itsaboutstandards]

sjazzboy:

“Ah, cool.” Henry didn’t play Dungeons and Dragons, but he could see how some people might find it fun. “Yeah. You know, I don’t think I run into new people here so much, actually.” He wondered about the chances of meeting people at the mixer. Probably pretty decent, he couldn’t know everybody, right?

“Yeah, you’re right,” Billy said, relaxing again at Henry’s admission he didn’t play D&D. Now all he had to hope was that the other man wouldn’t all of the sudden take it up. “I don’t think very many people move.. here. But hey, free drinks. Can’t be all that bad.”

His pocket buzzed with an alert and momentarily forgetting — or forgetting that he should care — that he did care — he pulled out his phone and checked to see which one of his inventions needed his attention now.

[itsaboutstandards]

sjazzboy:

“Ah. Cool group name. Y’all into superheros and villains and all then?” He was willing to roll with that answer, it wasn’t like people didn’t come up with group names. “And yeah, I thought I’d go and stop by. You?”

‘It’s our Dungeons and Dragons group,” Billy said, cringing again at the response. It wasn’t implausible, but he didn’t know anything about D&D. This was a lie he could be tripped up in…. “Yeah, I mean, I thought it might be cool. Meet some new people…..”

[itsaboutstandards]

sjazzboy:

Henry tilted his head at that. “Henchmen?” It was an interesting choice of word to say the least. But being a comic book, superhero fan he was curious about what had inspired Billy to use it.

Billy’s eyes widened slightly. Of course he’d said that out loud…. “You know… henchmen. It’s…like a group name. For my friend group. That I have — had! outside of here. Were you going to the mixer later?”

[itsaboutstandards]

sjazzboy:

That gave him a bit of a clue about why he might have reacted the way he did. He smiled at Billy. Nobody should feel forgotten on their birthday. “You’re welcome. And hey, for what it’s worth, I’m usually in that same boat too. More acquaintances than friends and all that.”

Billy returned the smile; some of the anxiety of feeling like he was under a sudden spotlight fading back into the background. “Yeah. Or henchmen.” He cringed. As much at the slipup as at the realization that he had just relegated his only friend outside of Apple Barrow into ‘henchman’ status.

[itsaboutstandards]

sjazzboy:

Henry shrugged, wondering if he’d touched upon a sore spot given Billy’s reaction. “Heard it or saw it like some announcement somewhere, I guess. Small town?” He’d never really lived in a small town before, but information kind’ve spread and people knew each other right?

“Yeah, right. Small towns,” Billy said, nervous as ever. He took a deep breath, trying to calm some of the social anxiety that always seemed to flare up whenever he actually had to speak to people outside of his blog. Or outside of his Doctor Horrible persona…. “Thank you. For remembering. Not…many people do….”

[itsaboutstandards]

“No, no, you’re right. It’s..my birthday,” Billy said, a little more sullenly than the occasion would usually call for. “I just... how did you know it was my birthday?”

@itsaboutstandards

“Hey, I think I remember something about it being your birthday? So, happy birthday! Or, you know, just ignore me if that’s wrong.”

[itsaboutstandards]

internationallyincoherent:

Skszp was caught more off his cool, natural guard than he was expecting to be when he was about to collide headfirst with someone else. Wait. Someone else? There was another soul in a body in this room with him? …Great.

Skszp simply gave the man a slow, casual shake of his head, his fringe falling a bit more in his face, to assure the man it was fine. He took a second to check his company out, noticing he seemed quite anxious and jumpy. Clearly, he was even less used to this sort of thing than Skszp was.

“I suppose you were not convinced there would be many attendees, either, when you heard about this?” 

Billy’s eyes widened, watching the man surveil his surroundings. He was unprepared and underarmed if the man tried to attack him. While he did have a couple of inches of height on the man, it wasn’t immediately apparent because of his slouching. Slouching that only. got. worse seeing the man he had barely collided with.

“No. I mean, yes, I was expecting more people to show up, but when I arrived, I was surprised to see that people were already here since it looked relatively dead outside so seeing anyone right now was a bit of a surprise, but seeing someone at all was expected and hi,” he spoke quickly, rambling a worse version of his train of thought than what was currently coursing through his brain, “Billy is my name.”

[itsaboutstandards]

internationallyincoherent:

Skszp walked quietly into the cafe, peering from beneath his near-sight-inhibiting fringe as he took a casual glance around the place for any signs of life. He had immediately become very skeptical when he saw the announcement about this arranged encouragement to socialize that there’d likely be anyone joining him, but he figured he’d humor the absent, omnipotent unknown in charge and go. Too much was going on back at his place, as routinely as it always did, anyway.

Billy walked into the café too see another man had already arrived. Well, not so much saw him as nearly bumped into him.

“S-sorry!” he managed. Social interaction was not his strong suit. But if he didn’t try now, how was he ever going to be good enough to just be himself? How would he ever be good enough for Penny when he went back home? If he went back home…. So far, the biggest plus he’d found was Apple Barrow’s distinct lack of hardware-loving ‘superheroes.’

[itsaboutstandards]

“South Carolina,” Billy nodded. “Seems like an...interesting place. They have the salamander as their state amphibian, right?”

“I got in a few weeks ago. You know, I thought it would be a bit of a layover between my old place and this new place I was considering, but I actually kinda like it here. Bit weird that no one’s ever in the shops, but generally, it’s a good town. What do you think?”

Rutledge smiled charmingly, although it was more like in the way a shark might smile at a fish. “I am, yes,” he said, nodding and rolling up his jacket sleeves. “I only arrived from South Carolina a couple of weeks ago.” And, he didn’t add, it’s only just getting warm enough for me not to feel like I need to cover up my entire body.

“Have you been here long?” Usually he knew to ask open questions - but in this case it seemed like Billy would talk at length whatever he said.

[itsaboutstandards]

“That’s what I’m hoping. More professional photographers would be able to get better shots, prettier landscapes… but this should give them something better to work with than the relatively medieval equipment they currently have.”

Billy nodded, happy that he was making a connection with someone in the town. This town might not actually be… that bad? He actually started to consider making the town his base of operations when his plan to rule the world came to a head. Which would be soon. Ish.

Again, Henry kept nodding. It was making sense enough, at least the concept behind it all.

“Yeah, yeah. I mean some photography’s kinda more surreal and all, but yeah try and make it more…more like what it’s actually like. That’s cool. Well good luck with that, it sounds neat, I’m sure you’re gonna get some really awesome pictures from it.”

[itsaboutstandards]

“Yeah!” Billy said excitedly. “You see, it would be able to capture a lot more depth because even if you’re not processing all of the waves that are bouncing off of the cones and rods in your eyes, it does contribute to how you view the world and how you perceive what’s going on. Modern cameras are getting more to that point, but there’s still a marked shift between the silver gelatin that photographers used to use for black and white photography which provided a good depth to the photos, but no colours and the less precise colour photography that we have now that people use, but it digitized or just doesn’t have the same richness to the photos. And even if it were it still wouldn’t be like you were there-there which is what all photography is really trying to capture because you’re not just trying to capture what you see a lot of times, you’re trying to preserve a moment.”

Henry nodded along. Okay, so that all made sense enough he guessed. Interesting combination to have somebody who makes shoes trying to develop a new camera on the side, but hey people could have different interests.

“Alright, cool.  So I guess it seems like that spectrograph would be something you’d use. The new camera supposed to be like more sensitive to all that stuff you can’t see kind’ve?” That’s what he thought it was getting at anyway, by being more sensitive it’d be able to capture more or something?

[itsaboutstandards]

“Well, it’s more about analyzing the light spectrum within the photos,” Billy said, starting to feel more in his element. “You see a normal camera aims to capture the visible light spectrum, but there’s so much more to a field of vision than what you can see with your naked eye. And a spectrograph uses a camera to separate waves on the light spectrum so that the levels are more measurable.

“Early spectrographs used photograph paper to record their finding, but what I want to do is—” Billy stopped again, realizing that his rambling was erring a little more on the side of spilling his actual project and not the decoy he was crafting. His recovery though was quicker than it had been originally, more certain that he could talk his way out of his own problem. “What I want to is to create a new type of camera. More megapixels.” Whatever the hell those are.

Okay, photography. That…seemed like it could have something to do with light waves? Maybe? No, he didn’t really get it.

“Are you like really particular about getting specific lighting in your pictures?” If so the guy was a lot more particular and dedicated than Henry was about most things, he never was that particular about details.

“And yeah, exactly. Sometimes things are worth splurging on.” 

[itsaboutstandards]

“Nice to meet you too,” Billy said, shoving the paper into the right-hand pocket of his hoodie.

“So…ah… are you new in town?” he asked the other man, noticing a chance in his demeanour. He seemed nice enough, right? Besides, he could take care of himself if need be. He was Doctor Horrible. Or, at least, he was.

Rutledge smiled and nodded nonchalantly, although he was internally turning the ideas around and over in his head. A smile spread over his pale, freckled features as Billy introduced himself - he felt fairly certain now that he was at least fairly well in with him. “No, no, not at all.” He smiled, much more sincerely this time. “Edward Rutledge. It’s nice to meet you,” he drawled.

[itsaboutstandards]

Billy smiled back nervously, his hands fumbling with a piece of paper as he pulled it out of his pocket. He smoothed the sheet against his leg a few times to get out some of the wrinkles. “Well, you see, the specs for the first one are incredible and it’s really more suited to the space I want to put it in, but the second one has a higher fidelity and I know I should stop being so obsessed with this because it’s not as if I’m going to get my findings published, but—I’m sorry. My name is Billy. Billy Ackerman.”

For a man with very little patience for the human race, Rutledge was putting on a good facade of interest in - well - whatever this man was talking about. He nodded and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m afraid I, ah, wouldn’t know…” He smiled a little, although this was mostly in a sarcastic way.

[itsaboutstandards]

“Oh, uhh, you know, a….. photography side project.” He nodded. That seems plausible, right? I could do photography. Billy hadn’t really thought this lie through, but maybe if he kept to the technological side of why a spectrometer would be necessary, he could just squeak by….

“You’re right. I need to be less concerned about how much space things take up in my apartment, I mean worst comes to worst, I get an actual lab space, right?” Billy asked, his nervousness ebbing slightly.

“Uh…no…,’ Billy said, running his hand over his short hair. “This would be for, uh, side project. Not related to shoes. Which I make. In my shop.” He winced again, shoving his hands into the pockets of his blue hoodie.

“A spectrograph measures light waves,” Billy blurted. He didn’t really think the man would be interested in knowing more about the device, but he had a bad habit of saying everything on his mind. Or nothing. I’m not sure which I prefer…..