When All You Have Is A Hammer (And An Angry Teacher)

At school, I was immersed in my own little world. Remnants of snow still remained outside (of course, Colorado), but I was focused on my notebook—not for class, but for jotting down character notes when I didn’t have access to my phone. The classroom was relatively dull, with separated desks scattered around the room, walls covered with shitty student projects and a white board littered with notes no one paid attention to. As much as I wanted the window seat, I got forced into the corner on the other side.

I mean, I still have privacy, but c’mon…

Today the teacher’s assistant, Leon Fisher, was running the lecture instead, which gave me more reason to tune out—it meant Mr. Fisher just adapted from the textbook, and he usually didn’t call on students or care if you weren’t listening.

Okay—this time, I decided to make a female character. I approached the character from a modern Earth setting, as an office worker who was used to mundane, boring work. She was serious and studious about her job, but in reality, the company she worked for was a front for a ring of assassins, with her being one of the best. She had to balance her normal life with her murderous deeds, and often forgot how to truly be a normal person. That sounded like a decent start. Now, the details—

“Mr. Castro, if you’re so inclined to acknowledge me?” Mr. Fisher almost-yelled, and it was then that I knew I fucked up.

I jolted straight. “Uh, Canada?”

The laughs that surrounded me like a dense, awful fog made me wish I was home. Mr. Fisher was a plain man, who always wore a suit to class, had freakishly pale skin like he barely left the house, and black hair that almost covered his striking blue eyes.

He gave me a disappointed look before punctuating it with a sigh. “Mr. Castro, your midterm is next week. I know to most of you I may be repeating information you plan on studying on your own time, but I’m condensing what the book tells you into an easy to digest format. If you can’t find it in you to pay attention, it’s on you. Finnigens?”

Tch. I clicked my tongue and zoned back out when he called on someone else. I wasn’t in the mood for this. For the most part he was one of the better staff here, but sometimes that guy had a habit of acting all high and mighty about learning like the ages of Egyptian Pyramids was gonna matter to me past a week from now.

As soon as the bell rang, I wrote down my last few notes and shoved my notebook away. My bag was over my shoulder in seconds and I sped towards the door, though not soon enough to avoid his voice.

“Mr. Castro,” he said as he sat at his desk. “If you’d still like me to call you that. May I talk to you for a moment?” Nope, I don’t have time for this. I was the only student he called Mr., all because of a dumb argument I had at the beginning of the year over why students get called by their first names, but we always have to be polite and distant with adults. Not like it mattered—at this point I insisted on it out of spite.

“Nope, sorry, busy,” I said. I ran out the door before he could protest. Last class of the day done, now I had to get home and back to my PC to see if dropsgum was online yet. Not like I was eager to RP with her, more eager to prove her wrong, but I knew I’d do a better job at capturing my character if I had the details fresh in my head. Backstory and traits? Done. Personality, done…name?

Juliet Hersey. An elegant first name and a meaningful last name.

I walked out of the main building and got blasted with cold. It took some time to get to my parent’s car, but as soon as I found it in the back parking lot I threw myself in, turned it on and cranked the heater up. The drive home was only five minutes and I’d barely gotten my license a month ago, but my parents trusted me not to get into an accident on the way home enough to give me free reign for the school year.

Five minutes was just enough time for my song to finish, the full version of an opening song for my favorite anime of the season. I couldn’t stop humming it even as I entered my house, which of course incited the input of—

“Are you singing your kid’s songs again?”

My mother, Corina. My father, Wilson, was too immersed in his magazine to comment, thank fuck. I’ll take her misunderstanding over his judgment any day. “It’s not for kids, it has gore, mature topics and—I mean, it’s an intellectually challenging show for older...”

I stopped talking. The disappointment on her face said it all. “I mean,” I said, “it’s for older teens. If you can watch your videos of people trying to commune with true crime victims with tarot cards, I can watch these.”

My father looked up from his magazine and laughed, ruining my short earned blissed. Considering he was only a couple feet away, he’d eventually want to throw his input in.

The way our house was set up was that the living room and the kitchen were the same room, just with the kitchen set up by the door and the living room taking up the other half. The walls were covered with family photos that damn well detailed every life event of mine, a large wall mounted plasma TV, and a couch plus a coffee table placed in front of the TV. My mom kept a lot of her research books stacked onto a massive shelf five seconds from collapsing on its own weight in the corner.

The kitchen itself was simple, a small counter separated it from the rest of the house with the usual supplies and appliances, along with a small dinner table where you could always find my dad pawing through newspapers or calling one of his brothers. There was a door that led into the hallway and subsequently the staircase, which split off into several rooms: the bathroom, my parents room, my room, and my mom’s study.

My room—the safe haven I tried and failed to escape to. I knew I’d have to sit and endure a round of familial torment before I was freed again.

“Okay, mijo,” my mom said in that voice that just reeked of ‘I don’t believe you but I’ll go with it and back-talk you when I think you can’t hear’. I’m not over thinking, I know how she feels even if she doesn’t want to say it.

My dad turned to mom and started speaking to her. “…Augustín—no, no, the computer…” He said—or at least, that’s all I could understand. He never had a good grasp on English, and so defaulted to Spanish whenever he could despite my limited understanding. When he mimed the motion of me typing on my computer and grinned, I turned my back. Whatever he was saying had to be the same ignorant shit as usual.

“Augustín!” My mom yelled, but I didn’t care. She could tear me apart later. I don’t have the patience to put up with this again.

I closed the door to my room (not slammed, I learned my lesson there) and zipped to my chair. I turned my computer on, Eclipse automatically opening as it booted up. I saw I had a few notifications and knew exactly who it was by the profile icon.

Heh. Now it’s my time to shine.

TowersFall: sorry got held up
TowersFall: im ready if you are

…
A few minutes later, she replied.

dropsgum: Omg yeah lets go go go!!
dropsgum: So what’s the setting and who’s starting?? (•ิ_•ิ)?

Setting was more vital for group roleplays where lore and plot events came into the equation, but for a one-on-one, you could spin anything out. I liked to choose locations where there were reasonable environmental events that spurned ongoing responses, like ordering at a restaurant or watching a movie. Of course it was all dependent on the time period, genre, and setting.

It would be the battleground where I’d prove my point at last. I had to pick wisely.