Tidbits

Muffy and Sephy - 2 POVs

This assignment was to write the same scene from two different POVs – first person, and third person omniscient. I used some characters I created for last year's Nano novel that I didn't do anything else with. 

First person:

I'd been in Sephy's room at least every week since we were in year one, but this was the first time since we'd become officially "together." And her parents aren't home. Will she want to do something? Kiss, or maybe just sit close to each other like a couple in a movie, the way aren't supposed to at school? I'm overly conscious of the way the bed sinks under me this time. I glance at the sliver of the mirror on her door visible from the bed and smooth out my hair.

She's sitting at her computer desk, playing that game, Maple Story. "Unfaithful" by Rihanna plays through the speakers, distorted. For a minute, I think she's finding a good time to tell her friends she has to leave the game, but from the way she's leaning eagerly towards her computer monitor I realize she's not planning on logging off. Which is fine, I guess. This is normal for us. I think it's kind of nice, really, to have someone you're so close to that you want to be around them all the time even if you're not doing any specific activity with them.

And it's nice to see her being happy about something. School has been dreadful for her lately, all the cruel rumors that keep going around. I'm not particularly interested in Maple Story but I understand the need to just go on the internet and be a different person for a while.

So I get out my math homework. I tell myself I'll only glance at Sephy once every three problems – if I stare too much she'll get defensive about it. But then when I'm midway through a problem, she lets out this delighted laugh, and I break my own rule and scoot over to the edge of the bed so I can see her screen better.

"What's so funny?" I ask, trying to decipher the horrible grammar in the speech bubbles floating over the characters' heads.

"It's this boy!" she says, grinning. "From Canada."'

I check the chat log.

xXsexyysephXx: lol! you're not too far off :P

xXsexyysephXx: from how I really look, I mean ;P

xXsexyysephXx: now

xXsexyysephXx: imagine this

xXsexyysephXx: how would it be if we kissed?

coolbaseballdude227: idk dat wood b wierd

xXsexyysephXx: lol but weird in a good way or a bad way? ;P

coolbaseballdude227: idk

I read the chat log twice, heart pounding, hoping I'm confused. "Why are you talking about kissing him?"

"It's a prank! He thinks I'm his internet girlfriend!"

"Why does he think that?" I ask. I wish my voice was louder, assertive, but instead it shrinks when I meet her eyes.

"It's just a joke, Muffy! God! It's not like I'm cheating on you!"

"I didn't say that!"

"Well, you're acting like it! It's not like I'm sending him pictures of myself shirtless or anything like that!"

"I didn't think you were!" I insist. "I just think... well, it's kind of a cruel joke, isn't it?"

Third person omniscient

Muffy Madhur Hopkins and Persephone Jean Adkins were now officially a couple, but if you had been watching them, you'd have thought they were sisters. Their identical school uniforms, distinguishable only by the style and color of socks, and similarly styled hair made the lack of family resemblance less noticeable, and they weren't interacting like you would expect a pair of infatuated middle schoolers to interact in a bedroom in an empty house. Persephone was poring over her desktop computer screen, playing Maple Story, a game whose primary appeal for a person like Persephone was the chat interface. Muffy sat on Persephone's bed, occasionally glancing over her girlfriend's shoulder, but never letting her eyes linger there long before she returned her focus to her pre-algebra homework.

Muffy craved affection. She had long since reached the age where, in her family's eyes at least, it was no longer appropriate to offer physical contact on a daily basis. Hugs were reserved for special occasions like funerals. So Muffy got her daily dose of oxytocin from fantasy, and now she was fantasizing about Sephy coming to sit on the bed next to her, and holding her hand, tracing with her pointer finger the line that ran from Sephy's thumb to her wrist. But she didn't know how to ask her friend for attention; she'd always thought it was supposed to happen automatically when you became a couple, and maybe she was correct in assuming that asking Persephone for it would just make Persephone want to withhold it. So instead, she daydreamed, and tried to finish her homework so there would be nothing hanging over her head when Persephone finally did decide to pay attention to her. But if you'd just been watching Muffy without context, you'd probably assume she really was indifferent to Persephone and the game she was playing.

Persephone, on the other hand, didn't crave affection so much as she craved control. Not that she or anyone else consciously knew this, so if you had looked over her shoulder and noticed she was sending flirty, not quite explicit but also not quite age appropriate, messages to a boy from Canada, you would probably assume this was her only internet boyfriend, and that she didn't have a real-life girlfriend at all. But she had been playing Maple Story with the Canadian boy Armeet for about a week before she and Muffy had made their romantic confessions, and she wasn't quite ready to give up on Armeet for Muffy's sake. She already had Muffy, after all. Why worry about her when they had already agreed to be together? Armeet wasn't hers yet, but he was almost there. She'd gotten him to tell her how he imagined she looked like, now she just had to make a "joke" about how he imagined it would be like to kiss her. Then she would ask him to be her boyfriend, and he would be hers, too. Muffy's feelings hadn't even crossed her mind.