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 Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2019 1:55 pm
It should have been easy settling back into normal life after leaving the clinic but Fletch was having a hard time feeling comfortable in his own skin. It was easier when he was with people. Back in rehab he'd been surrounded by people constantly, but now he really only had Lacey, and it wasn't as if she could be there with him twenty four hours a day. She had a job as a bar tender at some ritzy dive, and on weekends she had to go in early to do inventory and make sure everything was stocked for the rush. Fletcher wasn't allowed within a twenty feet of the entrance, not yet. He couldn't say he blamed the girl for her caution, all things considered, but that meant Fletcher's weekend evenings were boring things that left him feeling a little twitchy and, well, empty. So trying to stay proactive, he had headed down to the nearest hardware store after Lacey had left that afternoon with the intent to pick up everything he needed to set up a little corner of the music room at Lacey's townhouse for himself so he could start seriously writing again. He was moving slowly down the aisles hunched over a cart with a few power stripes and cords littering the bottom of it. Black jeans were ripped, hair looked like it hadn't seen a comb in a few days, and the sweater he had on over his black t-shirt looked like something he grabbed off a rack in Goodwill with the tags still on.
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Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2019 4:30 pm
Ella needed a new lighting rig.
Well. Needed was a strong word. Her old one worked just fine--but March was the best month to buy electronics with the holiday season over, and she'd seen a sweet LED backlight that was on sale. She never really expected her streaming to ever get more than a handful of followers back home, but Ella enjoyed having the gadgets to play with and tinker. Maybe she even could take her old lights and make a sign to politely remind her roommates not to drink her gasoline. The possibilities were endless.
She wandered the aisles of the hardware store, thumbing across the apps on her phone and not paying much attention to her actual objective. It just so happened that her eye caught sight of a set of wires in a moving cart, and her eyebrows raised.
"That brand's pretty garbage," she started, chewing on the side of her lip as she glanced over at the person driving the cart. "You get better bang for your buck if you just use the store brand, they're actually pretty solid if you look at the...reviews." Ella paused, lowering her phone out of her immediate attention. That hair...those eyes...was that...no, no way.
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Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2019 5:21 pm
It took him a second or two to realize it was him the the girl was talking to and another second for him digest what it was she was saying, but by the time she'd paused to really look at him he had a handle of the situation well enough to arch a ginger brow at her before he realized she was sort of staring at him. It had him straightening up from his walking-dead slouch to stand with his hands wrapped loosely around the handle of the cart. "Is that so? How are they with surge protection, cause I've got a lot of high end equipment I'll be dealing with." If the overall appearance didn't give him away the voice probably would. It was a little on the lower side, a little rasped, and anyone that'd ever listened to any of Tuck Fhis' hits would recognize him from the backing vocals. Not to mention the interviews, the concerts. He thought he could see her connecting the dots in her mind, wondering if he was who he looked like, who he sounded like. Wondering if she should say something. It was a look he'd seen before, but not so much lately. It pulled at the corners of his lips.
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Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 5:28 pm
"Surge protection's alright, but if you want to be absolutely sure then you'll want a good power strip for everything," Ella shrugged, trying to keep her gaze casual. She knew that face. She definitely knew that voice. And after she'd seen Malaise just palling around at the circus prom before it all went to hell, she'd certainly had Tuck Fhis on her mind more than she usually cared to think about the punk-grunge scene.
But Fletcher Lewis. The Fletcher Lewis, in her hardware store and asking her questions about wires? She couldn't help but feel a little smug upturn to her lips.
"But uhh, don't you have guys that do all that stuff for you?" Ella asked, tilting her head. "I wouldn't expect anyone with a Top 50 hit to have to run their own wiring--or is that just a bass player thing?" She kept her voice low and even, because she didn't want anyone else recognizing who she'd stumbled into and ruining her moment. Maybe he liked wiring his own set-up. That was a fascinating thought.
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Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2019 6:51 pm
At the mention of surge protectors he bent over the cart to root around the tangle of electronics he'd tossed hap-hazardously inside until he found what he was looking for. It was a thick power strip with two rows a plugs and a quartet of USB ports off one end. "You seem to have a handle on things, would you recommend this one?" But the smile faltered a little at her question about having guys to do all this for him and the strip lowered as he glanced down and away, suddenly not so happy to have been recognized. If she followed their music then she'd have known what had happened to him, had to have known, didn't she? Or maybe their publicist had actually managed to keep it from being big news? Fletcher wasn't sure, hadn't wanted to look and had sort of just assumed the worst, but now he wondered. "N..no. I mean, it's just for getting something set up in a home studio. I'd rather do that myself." Nevermind that the home studio in question wasn't at his home.
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Posted: Tue Apr 09, 2019 8:44 pm
Biting her tongue, Ella gave a cursory glance at the power strip, humming a few notes to herself. "That one would be closer, but it really all depends on what kind of current you're rocking with." Ha. Rocking with. Ella's grin got a little wider.
"But that's cool, a home studio is so grassroots," she nodded, her tone unclear on whether or not she thought that was actually a good thing. While she was thinking about it, she started to rummage in the area of the cart that wasn't already occupied by his hand, pinching her mouth in thought.
"Garbage. Total garbage. Oooh, this one's good. Keep that one. What's the amperage on this one...okay, you're good. People always set up their sound cards with too much amperage, and then suddenly it explodes and they get all butthurt because they didn't understand simple math."
"Do you have filters for your microphones?" She asked, looking back up to Fletcher--he seemed a little ill at ease, but that was probably normal for a tortured artist, right? "If you're doing a lot of screaming on your tracks, you're going to want filters. Otherwise the plosives come out too harsh and tinny." He had to know that--he was the songwriter for Tuck Fhis. But maybe...he didn't know. And then Ella Fran would be teaching him. Wouldn't that be something.
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Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2019 5:11 pm
His head tipped a little to one side as he watched her rooting around in his cart, leaning back to get out of her way. She seemed to know what she was doing, better than he did, which he suppose wasn't saying much. Fletcher knew his away around music, the melodies and the compositions, but he'd never had to do anything as complex as setting up recording equipment. He'd had something on his laptop once upon a time. Before he'd met Malaise and Lacey, and before he'd had any dreams of being up on a stage. That hadn't been anything special though. A basic program that'd seemed perfectly fine at the time. The girl judging his electronics probably would have laughed at the old set up. He blinked back from his own thoughts as she asked him a direct question and he widened blue eyes down at her. "Filters?" Screaming? "N...no. No screaming. I'm thinking more instrumental or acoustic." He glanced down at the item's he'd picked out again, then back up at her. "You seem to know more about home set ups than I do, how about helping me out with getting the right equipment? If you have time, of course."
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Posted: Sun Apr 21, 2019 8:49 am
"Oh, you won't need a filter if you're just gonna go organic," Ella waved her hand, biting her tongue while she thought. She continued to rummage, shaking her head, but occasionally she would nod, placing that item in the top of the cart in the 'acceptable' zone.
And then she glanced up at him with a funny little twist to her lips, eyes bright. "Time's a construct of man, you can't 'have' it," she said, her smile splitting to a full s**t-eating grin. "But yeah, I can help out for a little bit. I'm not some kind of nerd with hobbies."
She left the cart to saunter down the aisle, thumbing through cords until she found something to her satisfaction. "Oh, my name's Ella, by the way," she called back, grabbing one bundle, two, and then pausing to look back. "What kind of space are we looking to set up? Do you have a budget set up?" If she was going to build something, she was going to build it right, so she needed parameters.
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