o3 ✍ sharpe's confusion ✍ video | backdated to January 26th

[incorrupt]

[ Someone is dressed in clothes that's obviously not his size. His shirt is obviously too big for him and hangs off the side of his shoulder. It's white, and a little dulled and thin from too many washings. The coat he's wearing over the shirt is, on the reverse, a little bit too small for him, the sleeves pulled up tight against his shoulders. The coat is absolutely, completely filthy. It's the kind of coat that you find on a chimney sweep, if chimney sweeps have money to buy coat.

Someone's either thieving from dumpsters or clotheslines or stealing them from beggars. What do you mean, you can buy clothes? Why would you do that when you have free stuff all over the place? Sure, he can pickpocket people, but the easiest targets are in the clinic and he feels bad about stealing from the people who healed him.

Look, just be happy he has a shirt on, okay? He spent like most of the last week half-naked. (He doesn't like charity. Stealing is better than charity, honestly. At least he knows where those things come from.)

The camera spent most of the time stuck onto his shirt before Sharpe tilts it up to his face. Look at his chin! Wait, no, he has it in his face. He stares a little belligerently at the camera for a long moment before he drags a (callused, not very clean hand) through his (sweaty, not very clean) hair. ]

I've got two questions. [ One finger. ] Who knows a man named 'Richard Sharpe'?

[ Two fingers. ]

D'ya think anyone can change their class? Move up the ranks, so ta speak. A rat becoming a gentleman. Summat of that sort.

[ This is important, okay? He knows about his future self (one gets very, very bored on a hospital bed, and he has this tablet thing in his hand), and future Richard Sharpe calls himself a Major. That's puzzling, that's what he is. He doesn't know how he even gets promoted in the first place to Ensign, much less a goddamned Major, commanding entire divisions and maybe even regiments. He's a streetborn rat joining the army to avoid two consecutive murder charges. What the hell? ]

Comments

[whatsupcroc]

What do you mean?

[incorrupt]

I bet me last coin that they made such things fer a patient's "own good", eh?

[whatsupcroc]

That's what they'd say. People usually do, 'cause it's easier than trying to figure out a way to babysit someone else all their lives. I don't know, I've never really known anyone who had to wear one.

[incorrupt]

Whaddya mean, 'babysit'?

[whatsupcroc]

Yoooo... you don't know, or you wouldn't be asking. Babysitting is when you watch over kids, your own or someone else's! Watching over people while the people who usually do are out. Normally you pay people to babysit.

[incorrupt]

They've even got a new word fer 'nanny' in the future, eh?

[whatsupcroc]

Not a new one, just more! People still say nanny too, or au pair.

[incorrupt]

Then why'd you need a new word fer it?

[whatsupcroc]

No idea! It's not like I invented the word.

( Said with a grin. )

[incorrupt]

Strange lot, all of you. [ But he's laughing. ]

[whatsupcroc]

No arguments here! We're all strange. I kind of like it.

( She's glad to hear him laughing, too. It doesn't feel like mean laughter, so she chooses to believe it's one of the better sorts. )

Did you find any of the answer you were looking for?

[incorrupt]

Not quick. Plenty of people willing ta give me answers, but their answers give more questions. [ Huge shrug. ] I stopped carin'.

[whatsupcroc]

Having fun talking?

( Sounds like he got the proper human sort of response, all things told. )

[incorrupt]

I ain't much of a talker, Miss. [ Pause. ] And I haven't even gotten yer name, eh?

[whatsupcroc]

My name's Collette.

( She smiles. )

Just Collette.

[incorrupt]

You always so cheerful, Just Collette?

[ ... He snickers at his own joke oh god Sharpe why so fucking embarrassing at this age??? ]

[whatsupcroc]

( She laughs in turn, shrugging her shoulders enough for the camera to see. )

Oh, I dunno. When it suits me!

( She'd call herself excitable or concerned or whatever it was she was actively "showing" at the moment. Usually it was cheerful. People worked better with cheerful than many other reactions. It helped them look past the unchangable differences. )

[incorrupt]

Aye? And Why'd it suit you now ta be cheerful?

[whatsupcroc]

It's a secret!

[incorrupt]

That's a damned stupid reason.

[whatsupcroc]

Most excuses are!