iWould Rather
- Title: iWould Rather
- Author: Klaus Schilling
- Disclaimer: I don't own iCarlyShow or Zoey101 or the quoted songs
- Fandom: iCarly, Zoey 101
- Rating: Teenagers
- Summary: Dustin, viewer of iCarly, submits a suggestion for the show. He's invited to the webcast.
- People: Carly, Freddie, Sam, Spencer, Dustin, Quinn ...
- Pairings: Carly/Dustin, Freddie/Sam
1.1
As every evening, Carly went through the comments made by the viewers of the webcast.
Some of them had some ideas for the show.
Sam and Feddie sat by her side, ready to discuss the ideas.
"Hey, watch this:," Carly said "My name is Dustin Brooks. I'm viewing your show since this spring. I've already sent you some boring videos, but now I have an idea for a new segment."
"Wow, another dork that pretends to be creative," Sam snarls, with a snide gesture into Freddie's general direction.
"My elder sister and her boyfriend often entertain themselves with a game called WouldYouRather? It works like this: One participant leaves the other with the choice between two hilarious alternatives, such as would you rather lick Lewbert's wart or spend a year in prison. The other one has to choose and explain his choice. Affectionately, Dustin."
The three friends pondered.
"Sounds like a cool idea," Carly suggested, "Maybe we invite him to the show as a live guest? He looks like a cutie."
Freddie smoked in jealousy because Carly called Dustin cute.
"Grow up, dork! Carly isn't interested in a loser like you," Sam spat into Freddie's direction, hurting his feelings badly.
But then they wondered about Dustin's alternatives. "I'd take the prison. Twelve months are over pretty fast, but if you lick Lewbert's wart, you'll catch a disease that lasts for life." The three of them agreed on this, after having to think for at most five minutes.
Carly wrote a mail to Dustin and waited for an answer. There it was.
"Dearest Carly, I'm a student at a boarding school near LA. My parents live in Great Britain, thus I can't visit them over the next holidays. I'll have to ask my sister, but there might be a possibility: Her room-mate Quinn, a science geek girl, is from Seattle. If I ask her nicely, she might take me to Seattle over the holidays. I'm looking forward to meet you, even Samantha or Fredward. Affectionately, Dustin Brooks"
Carly wonderd: "Quinn as in Quinn Pensky?"
Also Sam vaguely remembered that name.
"That could well be so. When I was in second grade, she taught me to read instruction manuals of technical equipment, and how to repair things like microwaves, cellular phones, ... "
"In other words, she taught Freddie to be a dork."
"Sam, don't you remember? You even beat up a gang of fifth graders that bullied Quinn and called her a spaz or stuff like that."
"Oops, how could I forget, that was the reason for my first detention ever."
Carly nodded. She also remembered that said Quinn had left for a Californian boarding school when they came to Ridgeway Junior High.
Freddie swooned: "I guess she may repair even rockets, such as in Cape Carnival."
Sam wished Quinn would build a one-way-rocket, tie Freddie to it, and launch it to the moon.
1.2
Zoey actually allowed Dustin to spend a few weeks in Seattle.
The bell rang, and Spencer opened the door. "Hi, you are?"
"I'm Quinn Pensky, and this is Dustin Brooks, the little brother of my room-mate Zoey."
Dustin greeted Spencer as well.
"Oh, Quinn! Long time no see. I remember when you invented some new drill for me ... but come in. Carly and her friends are in Carly's room."
Quinn and Dustin went to Carly's room.
Freddie recognised Quinn and huggled her in an almost familiar manner.
"I've really missed your inventions."
"You've been a good pupil, it was fun teaching you all the tech stuff. I see you've applied it to your webcast?"
"Oh yeah, but I've added some other stuff as well, such as the green screen. It allows you to display a virtual background."
"Cool, I think I may have something even better. It allows you to feign a virtual environment, holographically. But I still need to test it."
"OK, I'm all game when it comes down to it."
Freddie and Quinn continued their geek talk which was way beyond Carly's, Sam's, and Dustin's comprehension.
Carly noticed Dustin. He was really short for his age, but cool, smart, and fun. Like Carly, Dustin was interested and versatile in many subjects, without losing his fun over it, and without specialising in weird subjects as freaks do. Carly and Dustin could easily communicate on the same wave length.
For Sam and Quinn, this was really cute, but Freddie watched this with increasing jealousy. But when Freddie came to think a bit closer about it - Carly and Dustin harmonised more after a few hours that Freddie and Carly did after years. So maybe his own obsession for Carly was a bit out of order? He was much too earnest for Carly's friendly demeanour, and his interests were too much restricted for Carly's open-minded attitude. If Carly inteded seriously to take a chance on Dustin, he would be all for it. Yet he refused to admit this openly. Maybe it was just a flickering spark, and Dustin would soon forget everything when returning to his school. But if it was a steady flame, Freddie would be more than happy for Dustin and Carly.
Quinn started to talk to the others as well. "May you believe it. Dustin's sister Zoey had me sign five formulars before she allowed me to take Dustin to Seattle for the holidays. She's going to kill me when Dustin gets scratched or bruised over here."
"Wow, she's worse than Freddie's mom."
Freddie had to sign thrice that he used the correct shampoo at the correct daytime and season , and many other insanities.
Spencer called Carly and her friends and guests for dinner. He had ordered Chinese food.
Dustin and Quinn had to tell many stories about their boarding school.
Quinn told them stories about her nuclear, biological, and chemical experiments. She had even once caused a bio hasard alert.
They told stories about Zoey and her indecisive boyfriend Chase, about aspiring actress Lola, about spoilt egomaniac Logan, and many more.
Spencer liked the general idea of WouldYouRather. He came up with a few examples such as Would you rather wear the same socks for the rest of your life or live in the same house, same story as Mrs. Briggs? That was really crazy.
After dinner, Quinn and Dustin rode back to Quinn's residence. The next morning, Quinn and Freddie would install the holographic system, while the others would go shopping with Spencer and his friend Socko.
2 Carly or Sam
2.1
Quinn and Freddie wired the holographic engine. Freddie wondered about the possibilities, making Quinn explain them all.
"This will allow for, let's say, making Mrs. Briggs appear riding a hippopotamus?"
"Yes, it will, and even more ..."
"Aw cool!"
"even more, when she's here, you may plant her head on the body of a hippopotamus, without her even knowing."
"A bagpiping hippo?"
"Of course! And you should learn how to manipulate the picture. This key combo will allow you to zoom in and out."
"Aw fantastic, I can't wait for testing it ..."
"This combo allows you to rotate the holographic environment., Are you familiar with Eulerian angles?"
"Is that even a word?"
"It is, named for some Swiss mathematician. They are used to describe the rotation of solid 3d-objects. If you don't want to go through college level geometry, ... just play around with these keys until you get the hang out of it."
Freddie nodded. He wanted to test it on something more interesting, so they fetched some of Spencer's sculptures. "This is a sculpture of Sam."
"But this is a fish, and Sam is ..."
"Oh really? But I could swear that Sam was the model. And I think it is really close to reality, don't you think so?"
"Looking closer, yeah, the lips are much alike ..."
"Sam's lips? I wouldn't even think about taking a look at them, they are toxic and caustic and full of gross germs and ..."
"Aw you really do like Sam."
"What? Hell no, I ..."
"Whom are you trying to fool?" Quinn had hit a sensitive nerve in Freddie. She didn't want to hurt him, thus she dropped the topic before it got out of control. "OK, this is the blurring key, this is the speckle key, this key combo tilts the image upside down, this one left and right, this one front and back, "
"Fantastic!"
"Don't forget, you'll only displace the holographic illusion, not the real objects!"
"So how may I create my own hololusion?"
"You edit them using wavelets, more specifically fresnelets."
"Er what?"
"Fresnelets are the elements a holographic illusion is composed of, as the chemical elements are the components of matter. The mathemetics behind it ..."
"OK, I'm not that creative in mathematics, at least now."
"That's OK, you may learn to handle the wavelet editor without all the theory behind it."
Freddie experimented with the wavelet editor. "I want to create a shark-like illusion that devours Sam, er the sculpture of a fish."
"Wow, good luck!"
Freddie tried and tried, and he finally got it to work. "I've got it. Shark attack from above!" Freddie created an illusionary shark that pounced upon Sam from above. Hitting some keys, the teeth turned even sharper. And now ... what a giant shark jaw! Freddie swooned in delight at the thought of Sam getting her hindside pierced by a shark with three-foot teeth.
2.2
During their shoppings, it became obvious that Carly and Dustin had a similar taste for many things.
Sam kept making sarcastic remarks about it, but that was inevitable. Freddie not being around, Sam needed some other victim for her insensate sarcasm.
Dustin wondered how many shops there were in Seattle. Of course, LA had a lot more, but Dustin hadn't yet been allowed to go to Downtown LA without a teacher's supervision, and the occasions for this were rare.
When they returned to their apartment, they were hit by a surporise.
Spencer's sculptures were dancing like robots.
Of course this was Quinn's work, and Freddie had assisted. They whistled innocently.
"Where's the remote control?" Spencer cried at the top of his lungs.
Alas, there wasn't any. The sculptures were voice-controlled.
"OK, Spencer, you need to call each sculpture by its name, and they will stop dancing."
It took Spencer an hour to stop his sculptures.
"I once installed a voice-driven system in my headmaster's office. It could cook coffee, open and close doors, and make imaginary dogs bark."
"Oh, fine, I guess we need something like that for Lewbert."
Everyone agreed that this would be fun.
"I also built lamps that could be activated and deactivated by voice. "
"Hey, I've bought one of those. Unfortunately, I needed to learn Japanese for using them, or was it Chinese? Indonese? Vietnamese?"
Carly laughed about Spencer.
2.3
Finally it was time to launch the webcast. Spencer and Quinn watched it from Spencer's couch while Dustin followed Freddie into the webcast room.
"I'm Carly!"
"I'm Sam"
"Hi you dudes and dudettes out there on the web! Tonight, we have a special guest and a new segment. Dustin, the stage is yours!"
Dustin stepped up. "Hi, you ... whatever, I'm Dustin Brooks, I study at a Californian boarding school. I'm the same grade as Carly, Freddie, and Sam. And at my school, we entertain ourselves with a game called WouldYouRather."
Sam activated the artificial applause.
"Let me give you an example. Would you rather kiss Lewbert's wart or swallow a dozen of living bugs?"
Carly and Sam decided in favour of the bugs. Lewbert's wart was more toxic than any swarm of bugs could be.
Spencer and Quinn nodded.
"If you like this segment," Carly explained, "we will have a special guest each time, and we will ask him the alternatives that you suggest us to ask him. Our star for next week's cast would be ..." Carly didn't know who it would be, she looked at Sam.
"Harry Joyner, I think"
"Oh yeah, it will be famous artist Harry Joyner!"
After another fake applause, Dustin continued a series of random WouldYouRathers. Finally, he had an extra question for Freddie. "OK, so would you rather ... date Carly .." Freddie beamed, before Dustin continued: "or date Sam?"
Freddie's face went pale. Of course, if anyone had asked him that question just two days ago, the answer would have been Carly, without a trace of an hesitation. But the visit of Dustin and Quinn had forced him to think about a few things.
3 Decisions
3.1
Freddie thought about Carly and Sam. Carly was too much different from himself. She was open where Freddie was closed-minded, she was outgoing where Freddie was reserved, she was imaginative where he preferred hands-on experience. The whole applied technology stuff in which Freddie was interested, it would bore Carly to death, and vice versa. This wouldn't go anywhere. Sam, on the other hand, was much like Freddie. She liked to repair and demolish things with her hands, she only believed in what she could smell, touch, taste, see, or hear, she just didn't hide it behind a pseudo-geeky language as Freddie did. Life with Sam would never get boring. And their little bickering would be the spice in their stew, preventing them from passing out for boredom. Oh yes, he really loved Sam a lot. So why did she keep on bickering? Sam had always been ignored by her mother. Her father had hardly been around since ages. She needed nothing more than attention. Freddie's attention. That's why she used to act in such a provocative manner.
"I would date Samantha Puckett," Fredward uttered with determination.
Everyone was shocked, except Quinn who had seen it coming. She tried to explain this to Spencer, but he didn't listen, instead he behaved like an infantile spaz because he would never have thought of Freddie saying something like that.
Even Dustin, who had a crush on Carly, would never have wanted to split her deliberately from Freddie if Freddie had been the one to make her happy.
"Carly, you're my friend, and I know that you deserve something better, someone like ..."
Carly kept trembling in agony when Freddie directed his eyes to Dustin who blushed in embarrassment.
"Dustin?" Carly tried to laugh, but she couldn't because she had come to recognise how much she had in common with that dwarf, and she really liked him and his style and demeanour, even if she hadn't yet thought about the consequences. Now she had to exchange a few words with Dustin.
Freddie stepped up to Sam. "Samantha, I know you don't hate me, you're just desperate, longing for my attention. Now you have it, as much as you want, as much as you need, as much as you can bear."
Samantha tried to deny it, but she couldn't because Freddie's words had been too true. She grabbed Freddie, pulling him closer, and rubbed her cheek against his.
Spencer wondered. "Are we supposed to watch this?"
"I guess not, but Freddie is away from his control panel, thus ..." Quinn rushed upstairs in order to finish the webcast. Freddie and Sam endured in a cute embrace while she stormed the webcast studio. She tried to switch the whole thing off, but, unfortunately, Carly had tried that, too, incidentally triggering the hololusion system because she didn't know or understand how it had been installed. Quinn needed to find a way to correct Carly's accidental damage.
Spencer was astonished by what he had got to see: Freddie and Sam making out on a spring meadow, flowers raining spiraling down upon them, Freddie and Sam kissing under water, little heart-shaped bubbles floating around them, vibrating happily, little arrows emerging from nowhere, penetrating the heart bubbles without making them burst, angels surrounding them, enshrouding them in clouds, ...
Finally, after a dozen of virtual realities, Quinn had found the bug, enabling her to terminate the webcast session. Of course, the whole world, and not just Spencer, had come to watch the two lovebirds.
"Dustin, do you really have a crush on me?" Carly asked
Dustin nodded solemnly. "From the first time I watched the show... it's the way you talk and smile, how you get people of all sorts interested in various things, I couldn't help adoring you for that. With you, I could just be myself and never get bored ... But I don't want to take you away from your friends, especially not from your elder brother." Dustin emphasised the word elder in an ironical manner.
"Dustin, I understand what you mean, especially concerning Spencer who needs me more than I need him. I couldn't give up everything for now. And yes, I know that you wouldn't bore me either, we had so much fun shopping, and your performance today during the webcast ... I've felt totally comfortable with you."
"Maybe later? College time, after college, dystopia ..."
Carly smiled when she heard Dustin talking about the Dystopia, because Nevel Papperman once had cursed her, using that term. "Oh, college would just be fine. I tend towards the liberal studies. What about you?"
"I've been best in mathematics, but it turned out to be too boring a subject for me, so liberal studies would be mine, too."
"Cool, so there should be plenty of colleges that would be fine for both of us."
Dustin and Carly hugged in relief.
"We'll stay in contact , and let's see how things turn out," Carly suggested, kissing Dustin innocently on the forehead.
Dustin beamed and nodded. They were really in the same league. Sooner or later, he would grow anyways.
Freddie read the comments by the viewers.
The WouldYouRather concept was generally deemed cool, it had a lot of potential to be explored with special guests, but the real break-through was the cuteness between Sam and Freddie. Some viewers had always seen that coming, others thought that Sam and Freddie had acted like perfect Hollywood stars. And the hololusion was deemed the icing of the cake. Freddie, Carly, Sam, Spencer, Quinn, and Dustin all cheered and celebrated this cast with a smoothie and Carly's home-made cookies.
3.2
The week after, with Quinn and Dustin having already left for California, Carly lured Mrs. Briggs into the webcast. Teenagers of today had no sense for the fine arts and culture, and Mrs. Briggs was despeartely needed in order to come to their rescue
She bagpiped for almost an hour, unaware of what was happening around her. Well, nothing really happened, but the hololusion engine made Mrs. Briggs appear in the most ridiculous environments of which Carly, Freddie, and Sam could think of. Once more, the quota couldn't help skyrocketing. Mrs. Briggs would never know what she looked like, as a head of six rhinoes, or as the hindside of a hippopotamus on top of a tree. Various monsters entered Mrs. Briggs through the mouth and left her through the other orifices.
Even Lewbert enjoyed watching that webcast.
The kids at Ridgeway School celebrated Carly as their all-time greatest hero, even Gibby who had now become a close friend to Sam, Carly, and Freddie.
Nevel Papperman wrote the best critics ever - voluntarily!
Harry Joyner discovered the potential of Quinn's technique for artwork representations.
3.3
Carly and Dustin kept writing affectionate poems and songs for each other, lyrics that would actually tell them something, unlike chickflick poetry. A few years later, they would meet again at a college for liberal studies near Los Angeles. They would finally find together and be happy ever after. Being done with their studies, they would start their own TV talk show, the successor to Oprah Winfrey's.
Quinn researched holography further, receiving a series of scientific awards while providing Freddie with more technologies.
Having graduated from high-school, Freddie and Sam would work as technical employees for Logan's father Malcolm Reese, one of the biggest movie producers ever.
Spencer would work for Reese as well, being responsible for the background decorations. But, what is more important than anything else, all of them would stay friends forever.
The End