The Magpie Emporium, Thursday (8/11)

[drumsticksandd20s]

Steph was in a notably better mood this week than she had been recently, as she came in to open up the store... and get promptly yelled at by Saffron.

"Okay, okay, I know I haven't been as good at sticking to your feeding schedule for a few days," she said, putting down a bowl of Saffron's favorite wet food as an attempted peace offering. Look, she'd been preoccupied. "Forgive me? Or at least think about it?"

Saffron made a loud grumbling noise, trotted off to the other side of the store, and stayed there until Steph was distracted by doing actual work, and therefore unlikely to notice the cat who was just going to sneak back over quietly to eat without being noti--

"Taking that as a maybe."

[OOC: Open! Please make this headache go away.]

Comments

[pocketpretzels]

“Some of those wireless ones- I feel like they would get lost easily,” Watts said with a grimace.

On the other hand, those giant earmuff style headphones might not be compatible with his typical headwear while outdoors.

[drumsticksandd20s]

"Yeah, those are for people who want to look trendy and don't actually care that much about sound quality," said Steph, who clearly had Opinions on AirPods and had just been waiting for a chance to vent about them. "And can afford to keep buying new ones. How the hell do you even listen to music like a normal person without them falling out every three seconds?"

[pocketpretzels]

“… Trendy?” Watts questioned.

Without realizing he’d done so, he’d picked up one of those giant d20s from the box Steph had been working on before following her over to the counter, and was now turning it over in his hands as he spoke.

[drumsticksandd20s]

They were the good giant d20s, too! Resin, not metal, so they were nice and solid without running the risk of breaking the table, and in some fun color combinations.

"Supposedly they make you look cool," Steph said with an eloquent eyeroll. "And in fashion, or whatever. But how much fun are you really going to have listening to music if you're always worrying about one falling out if you tilt your head the wrong way?"

[pocketpretzels]

‘Cool’ was also obviously not being used in the sense that he was familiar with, but thankfully context let him decipher the alternate meaning there.

Watts nodded. “Anything like that, then, I think we can safely eliminate.”

[drumsticksandd20s]

"On the other hand --" Steph nodded back toward the hat dangling off the flat beholder's eyestalk -- "the over-the-head kind might cramp your style."

She noticed him fiddling with the d20 and grinned as she pulled up a set of earphones on her laptop.

"Maybe something like this?" she suggested. "I should probably warn you, though, these can get a little pricey."

[pocketpretzels]

Watts winced pre-emptively. His mobile phone had so far been his largest purchase, and that had been… yeah.

“How pricey are we talking?” Watts wondered.

[drumsticksandd20s]

Steph scrunched her face up in an apologetic sort of grimace. "Probably not as much as your phone?"

[pocketpretzels]

"Probably," Watts echoed, sounding resigned. "I like the design, though. Unobtrusive," and wouldn't squish his hat, "but not so small as to risk it being lost."

[drumsticksandd20s]

Steph totally got the importance of hats to one's wardrobe, even if hers were much more compatible with her favored style of headphones.

"Depending on how good you want them to be?" Steph took a quick scroll through her search page. "Probably between around thirty to a hundred and fifty bucks, but about fifty should get you a solid set."

She paused. "What can I say, man. Inflation blows."

[pocketpretzels]

Yet more slang that he could at least piece together by context. "No point in investing in a pair at all if the quality's not any good," he decided. Though, to be fair, such things were comparative. The sound of voices over the telephone, for example. Back home, he'd found the sound distorted to the point of being nearly unbearable at times. But on modern devices... it was remarkably clear.

[drumsticksandd20s]

It was the sort of thing you had to deal with, conversing with someone from her canon. At least out of the Arcadia Bay kids, it was her and not Chloe or Max, who would have had some very weird slang to throw around.

"Well, no, that's true," Steph agreed. "You don't want something that's going to fall apart next week. But also, I mean... good's kind of relative, right? Totally depends on what you think is your money's worth."

She levered herself up to sit on the front register counter, one leg tucked up against her chest and the other dangling down with the foot swinging idly.

"What I mean is, there's no point in paying a few hundred dollars for a professional studio grade pair when all you want to do is listen to music and have a good time," she went on. "The quality on those is mindblowing sometimes, but to be totally honest I always think music loses some of its charm if it's a little too crisp."

She was a punk musician who would pick vinyl records over CDs every time. Of course she would say that.

[pocketpretzels]

Steph, you were talking to someone for whom the height of recording technology before coming to Fandom was phonograph cylinders. "So, middle-of-the-road, perhaps?"

[drumsticksandd20s]

Luckily Steph wasn't quite so inclined to hipster-y tendencies as to think those were cool. Still.

"Given the kind of music you like to listen to?" She considered for a moment, tried to dredge up what little she actually knew about listening to classical music (which mostly consisted of things Duckie had said after a few drinks at the Lantern), and nodded. "Yeah, for sure. Even if you don't need to be able to pick out the... third piccolo or whatever, it shouldn't sound like mush either."