fandomhigh | Intro to the 21st Century, Tuesday, Second Period

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intro to 21st century

Intro to the 21st Century, Tuesday, Second Period

It was the first class and Cindy had made sure to arrive early with coffee and pastries to set up. Considering her class was all about getting used to a new time or place, she figured the classroom should be as welcoming as possible, too. She pulled the desks into a small circle with the desk holding the pastries and coffee in the center.

"Good morning," she said as the class filed in and took their seats. "Welcome to Intro to the 21st Century. I'm Professor Cindy Perrault; calling me Cindy is fine, though I'll also answer to Professor or Ms. Perrault. Here, I intend to teach you enough for you to find your footing in a world that can often be strange and confusing even after you leave Fandom Island. For those of you from the past, some of our scientific achievements might seem to border on the impossible. For those of you who come from the past, much of our technology and social mores might seem frightfully primitive. From those of you who have come from different worlds all together...well, your reaction might fall anywhere within that range or might be something else entirely. Fifteen weeks isn't enough to teach your enough for you to pass as a native of this time and place, but hopefully it will be enough to help you navigate through the strangeness until you're at least comfortable in the day to day life in 21st century America."

Even if day to day life on Fandom conspired to confuse everyone.

"Now, what sets modern-day America from any point in the past, even more than the leaps in science and technology, is its commitment to the ideals of equality." Oh, hello, soapbox. Didn't see you there. "Men and women of all races, religions, and ethnicities are considered equal under the eyes of the law, and efforts are being made to extend those notions of equality to people of all sexual orientations and identities. As a society, we're hardly perfect about either of these things; I'm not about to pretend that racism, sexism, classicism, ableism, or any other kind of -ism have all magically vanished away. That's bull and I'm not about to start this class off by lying to you. But the idea that all people are equal is closer to being realized now than at any time in history. So why am I bringing this up?"

"Since everyone in this room is from a different place or time, I'm going to be cutting everyone a lot of slack when it comes to discussions and disagreements. This isn't a class that's going to try to change your opinions, even if I do try to open your mind a bit. But one rule that I will be enforcing is this: it doesn't matter what your society says about a certain group or class of people; in this classroom we are all equal and will treat one another with respect. If you have a problem with someone in that regard, you are more than welcome to discuss it with me in the privacy of my office, but such opinions will not be aired here. That being said, I don't expect any such problems from you. So consider this a warning and let's assume it will be the last time we have to talk about it."

Cindy gestured to the pastries in the center of the circle. "The first week of classes is traditionally devoted to introductions and far be it for me to buck hallowed Fandom traditions. So help yourself to something to eat and drink, and tell us your name, class, one way that Fandom completely differs from your home, and one way it's surprisingly similar. Feel free to find commonalities between your individual homes as well."

[OCD up]

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With something to eat or drink.

Elphaba Thropp.

Who doesn't have a single icon with food or drink.

Cally

Whose icon says eating but it's actually a drink from the hand of Vila 'Tarrant's brother's going to duel someone to the death, let's party!' Restal. :-P

Rilla Blythe

Who could eat her hat, I suppose?

Warren Worthington III

Budgerigar is derived from a word meaning 'good food,' which is about as close as I get, too.

Jaime Reyes

How do I have no food icons? *fails*

Enjoy your pastries, take notes, chitchat, eye that soapbox Cindy found herself on...

Unknowing of what ingredients were in the pastries, Elphaba refrained from refreshments and just sat down at her desk and adjusted her glasses.

Rilla happily munched on a pastry.

Pastry, Warren decided, was an excellent reason to get up this early in the day, and so he settled back and was quite happy to munch through the lecture.

Share your name, class, one way that Fandom completely differs from your home, and one way it's surprisingly similar. Make messy threads and talk about similarities and differences between your own homes.

"My name is Elphaba Thropp," she began her introduction, with a steady voice and a bit of a dry tone. "I'm a junior, by all accounts. Fandom is different than Oz in many ways, but I suppose after last night the thing that really stands out is that we thankfully do not have television."

She smirked a little bit at that.

"As for similarities, well," Elphaba's face visibly showed her thought process. She had a bit of a difficult time, other than finally saying "I suppose the diversity of different types of people is a similarity."

Weak answer, and she knew it. She frowned, unpleased with herself at being unable to come up with a better answer.

"Considering which gem of a show you were watching last night, I can't blame you for that one," Cindy said, quirking a smile. Unexpected radio broadcast had been unexpected, but useful. "What kind of diversity do you have at home, Elphaba?"

"While they're not common in Munchkinland, there's the Vinkus and the Quadlings, not to mention Animals or the much more common Munchkins," Elphaba said. "There's more than a few intelligent races."

"One day, I'll have to ask you about your home," Cindy said with a small smile. "It sounds fascinating."

And like it hadn't been destroyed by the Adversary, which was veeeeery interesting.

"I'm Cally, and I fall into the sophomore class," said she, with a pastry in hand. After a semester of reserves, those were far from new to her, but that didn't make them any less enjoyable. "I'm from this galaxy's future, and not from this planet, so quite a bit is different, not least the levels of technology and the fact that most of my people are telepathic, while most Earth people aren't."

She took a sip of coffee before adding, "Since I'd been led to believe there were no human telepaths, though, or at least none that could communicate with my species, finding out that isn't true was a welcome similarity."

Edited 2011-01-04 15:33 (UTC)

"What technology from your own home and time do you miss the most?" Cindy asked, curious. "And has finding telepaths that can communicate with you helped ease any sense of homesickness you might have had?"

"The communications systems," Cally answered, well aware of the irony. "If I were in my own time, I could contact my home. Having other telepaths here is.... both comforting, and a reminder of where I'm not, I suppose."

Cindy nodded. "That's a common feeling," she assured Cally. "Sometimes the points of familiarity only serve to highlight just how strange everything else is."

"I'm Warren," he'd spare the class the rest of his name, "and I'm a junior. Fandom is... pretty different from home when it comes to how open-minded people are about the differences of others."

He stretched a wing just slightly to elaborate.

"But I'm actually not from a world that's very different besides. I'm from just a little bit in the future, sure, but really, all that affected was the speed of the internet and how many bad reality shows are on television."

Too many.

"I don't suppose you could give me hope for the future and say 'Not many,' could you?" Cindy asked earnestly. "That would be wonderful to hear."

The wings were interesting. He almost looked like one of the raven brothers with them. She gave him a curious once-over, mostly so it would look like she'd never seen a kid with wings before as per her cover, and then shrugged and smiled. "Here's hoping we get to an age when everyone's more open-minded, reality TV shows or not."

"I try not to get into the habit of lying," Warren replied, apologetically. Television was doomed to just get worse from here, at least where he was from. All he ever bothered to turn it on for was the news, it seemed. "Television's pretty terrible in the future, sorry."

As for the rest... well, the curious look managed to unsettle him just a slight bit, but he stuck it out easily enough until her shrug. It kind of went to show just how much this place had been growing on him, he supposed. He didn't instantly think that he'd made a huge mistake by letting his wings out, and he wasn't making a mad dash for the door.

Win.

"How did you handle your wings before Fandom?" Cindy asked, casually. "They're...what? Seven, eight feet across? That's a lot of wingspan."

The corner of Warren's mouth twitched a little.

"I didn't get out much," he replied, as casually as possible. Really, that was no big deal, right? "And they fold against my back neatly enough to hide under a long coat."

Seriously. Not a big deal at all.

Cindy nodded. "Convenient that," she said and dropped it. "Though you've ruined my hope for the future of television, just so you know," she added with a smile. "You might need to have another pastry to make up for it."

Funny, even though he was introducing himself to the class, Jaime seemed to have a hard time looking at anyone but Cindy.

"I'm Jaime," he began. "I'm a senior, and it never rains anything weird back home. But there are lots of different people with powers and stuff."

"Jaime's our TA for the semester," Cindy said, giving him a grin. "For which he has my gratitude. If there's anything you'd like to discuss with someone who isn't me, he's here for you, right, Jaime?"

It took him a second to register the question, but then Jaime nodded. "Um, yeah. And while it's not the same as this one, I'm from a 21st century earth, so I won't be totally clueless."

Hopefully. Because that would be really embarrassing.

Welcome to class, Jaime!

Unlike his mun, Jaime arrived for class early. You know... just in case Ms. Perrault needed any help setting up.

Or...

Whatever.

Hello, class!

Thanks to

trigons_child for my lovely new comic scans.

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Intro to the 21st Century, Tuesday, Second Period

Sign in (Week 1)

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Listen to the Lecture

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Introduce Yourselves

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Re: Introduce Yourselves

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Talk to the TA

Re: Talk to the TA

Talk to "Professor Perrault"

OOC