fandomhigh | Parlour Games, Friday, 5/17

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Parlour Games, Friday, 5/17

"Welcome to Parlour Games," Jack said, once the class was settled in a standard classroom that had been arranged to look as much like a living room as possible. A couch and some armchairs had been dragged in from some lounge somewhere, and a rug softened the linoleum floor. There was even a side table with a range of hot and cold drinks and small snacks laid upon it.

If the professor was a bit rattled by a few recent voicemails, he was showing absolutely no sign of it as he stood at the front of the group. "My name is Jack Priest. Jack is fine; so is Mr. Priest, or Professor Priest if that's your preference. In this class, we're going to talk about what are called parlour games -- that is, group games played indoors with minimal equipment and absolutely no electronics. I was born in 1881; before I came to Fandom, parlour games were what we did to fill idle evenings when there wasn't anything new to read."

Jack's particular social circle had had a few more interesting hobbies as well, but they were hardly anything to inform a class about.

"We're a fairly small group this time, which is perfect in that it means we can all play together. And for our introductory class, we're playing charades. Normally in charades, each player draws a slip of paper and then has to act out the phrase on the paper. There are some common bits of sign language used, which are on the papers I just passed out. But, as this is our first week, I thought we'd put a twist on it. Each of you, please say your name and then act out one thing about yourself you'd like the class to know. The winner will be whoever guesses the most charades by other students, and your prize is the satisfaction of a job well-done."

He gestured to the first person to his left. "You can start, please."

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Like it's the end of the first week!

Raven Darkholme

Surreal SaDiablo

Rilla Blythe

Sholeh Zeela a Zhahar

(Zhari)

Sparkle

He's not talking long enough to call it a lecture.

State your name, then act out one thing about yourself that you want the class to know.

Technical notes: These threads will be open for messy pinging and guessing until about 8 EST tonight, when Jack will guess any students who haven't been gotten yet and talk to everyone who has been. Hopefully that'll give the game a while to be played out.

Edited 2013-05-17 14:05 (UTC)

"Hi," Raven said, giving the class a little wave. "I'm Raven Darkholme."

She was pretty good at charades back home, but she was a teeny bit stumped at first at how to act out what she wanted the class to know. She finally settled for starting with gesturing to her circle skirt, complete with crinoline (Parlour Games seemed like it would at least involve a minimal amount of watermelons, so she'd gone ahead with one of her favorite skirts, today). She spun a little to show it off, then pointed at her chest, looked around the room, pointed at a clock and shook her head.

If people didn't get any of that, she could always just start holding up fingers.

Rilla clapped in delight. "You're from a different time!"

So was she, judged by the decidedly un-modern nature of her white dress and smart little boots.

Edited 2013-05-17 20:53 (UTC)

Raven smiled and put her finger on her nose, pointing to Rilla. She held up six fingers, then closed both hands into fists. Then she gestured to her skirt and spun again.

The skirt was beautiful. Someone who knew fashion history would hopefully be able to date it, though maybe not Rilla.

It was reassuring to know that some folks were from even further back than she was.

"Very nice, Miss Darkholme," Jack said. "I take it the type of skirt you're wearing was popular where you're from?"

"It's the height of fashion." For teenagers, anyway. "I don't know how famous it would be by now, but I thought maybe someone would know some fashion history."

"I'm Rilla Blythe," Rilla said.

Since Raven had already done a thing about time, Rilla tried to act out where she was from.

It involved shivering, then moose antlers to her head and pointing north.

Edited 2013-05-17 20:56 (UTC)

Raven was stumped. "You're a deer hunter?"

Jack wasn't quite sure what it meant either. "Your pet cow is cold so you're taking it to town?"

"Ha! You too, huh?" Sparkle just grinned and bounced a little as he deciphered Rilla's mime. "We are so going to just take over, aren't we? You're, like, Canadian number... at least three I met since coming here. I'm sure there are more."

A beat, and then with a little bit of a teasing sulk, he added, "And you took mine."

"Hi, I'm Zhari. Zhari Medusah," Zhahar said when it was her turn, since Zeela had already taken the good last name. She tried not to blush, though it sounded ridiculous to her ears.

To the charades, then, to take her mind off of it. She curved her left arm out, tucking her hand against her side, and then vigorously circled the air right above it with her right. Then she mimed turning a button, and pulling something open. Picking up an invisible object, she moved it over and set it down, then did the 'pulling something open' movement, but in reverse.

She tapped her wrist a few times, then tapped her foot a few time in impatience, then brightened, pulled open the patch of air again, and picked up the invisible object and inhaled deeply.

Hopefully people would get it?

Jack's eyes were bright as he tried to puzzle this one out.

"It looked to me like you don't like waiting," he ventured. "And like you have some kind of factory work you don't enjoy."

"You like baking," Sparkle intoned, giving Zhahar a look from across the room. He'd made a point to settle himself as far from her as possible, but really, it wasn't like her pantomime was particularly difficult to make sense of, was it?

Zhari's eye twitched, but she gave Sparkle a cold nod. "Exactly. Well, cooking anything pretty much, but especially baking."

And, because she was petty, she added, "Normally, I'd say I like feeding people, but I've been a little wary about that these days."

Sparkle just gave her a tired look at that, and then shook his head and went to introduce himself.

He didn't need that right now.

"Yeah, so, my name is Sparkle, and..."

He paused for a moment, briefly tempted to mime out that he'd punch anyone who laughed at his name. He decided against it. Instead, he was going to crouch down low, pull a set of imaginary lockpicks from his imaginary backpack, and then expertly pick the lock of a door that totally wasn't actually there. After wiggling his hand around for a minute, he stood back, looking satisfied, and then he turned the invisible doorknob and let himself into whatever place he'd just broken into.

It was totally an important life skill. He could be a locksmith someday. Or something.

Jack laughed. "That one I know. You pick locks."

The fact he could recognize lock-picking more easily than baking ... probably said something about him, yes.

"Yeah," Sparkle replied with a smirk and a shrug of his shoulders. "See, I gave you the easy one."

Sparkle couldn't judge anyone who knew what it looked like to pick a lock. If anything, his respect for Jack went up a little, at that.

He has no TA, so if you want the job, bug him here. Or ask him about anything else.

"Excuse me, Mr. Priest?" Zhari said after class was done. "Sir, I think there might be a bit of a mixup in the class."

Jack smiled at her, warily enough. "What kind of mix-up?"

"I don't think my name is on the roster, even though I know I signed up for this class," Zhahar said, doing her best to radiate innocent confusion. "I'd very much like to remain in this class, so I wanted to talk to you."

She and Zee had agreed that this was the best way to handle it. Impress on the teacher how much they wanted to be in the class and hope that they'd be too happy to have an enthusiastic student to dig too deeply.

Jack held up a finger for 'wait a minute,' then went over to his desk to get the roster. "You're right," he said. "The office is horrible sometimes. But if you want to stay, I've no objection to keeping you."

There was a faint familiarity to Zhahar's scent, but not one he could place immediately.

Whew! Zhari kept that sigh of relief purely internal. Mr. Priest was the only teacher of the lot that had really interacted with Sholeh much. If anyone was going to fuss about her not being in the class, the sisters had bet on him.

She couldn't help but grin as she earnestly told him, "I'm glad to stay. This class reminded me of home."

From her clothing, Jack could likely guess that Zhari wasn't from around here, no.

"You won't regret it, I promise."

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Parlour Games, Friday, 5/17

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