fandomhigh | Building Healthy Relationships, Monday, Period 4

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Building Healthy Relationships, Monday, Period 4

Vanessa was feeling more confident this week, because she'd already gotten her 'this is going to be a disaster' freakout out of the way the day before, when she'd woken up to find all of her clothes gone and become afraid she was going to have to teach this class in a bed sheet fashioned into a toga. The return of her clothes had left her much more calm about things.

"Communication," she said to her class. "You can use a lot of really cliche words like 'backbone' and key' in this sentence: 'Communication is the 'blank' to any healthy relationship.' Because here's the thing: they're all true. You don't really know someone if all you ever do is make small talk or have sex with them. You have to actually talk to them. And if you feel like you can't talk to them, like either they're closed off or you don't want to share information with them, then that's a red flag and you need to consider what that means. And when you encounter conflict in your relationship--which you definitely will--you have to talk about it. The silent treatment doesn't get anyone anywhere, and neither does letting one person assume they know what's going on while you go behind their back and do what you were going to do anyway." Wade.

"So whether you're talking about just talking about the things that really matter to you or a fight over who ate the last of the cheese, you need to be up front and honest, and especially when it comes to fights, it's good to remember not to go on the offensive blaming the other person. People who specialize in this kind of thing, like the last three therapists I only went to one appointment each with--" Ha. Joking. Or was she? "--say it's good to use 'I' language. Like, I don't know, 'When you eat the last of the cheese and don't replace it it makes me feel angry. And hungry.'" Or 'I don't want you to die of cancer and leave me all alone.'

"And you need to listen to what people are telling you even in what may seem like a little fight over cheese. Say that wasn't communal cheese. Say it was your cheese that you were saving for some special...I don't know, cheese reason. You even wrote your name on it. And your roommate ate it, and now how is she reacting? Maybe she's really sorry and she'll pay you back, but maybe she's going, 'God, get over it, it's just some stupid cheese.' It is just some cheese. But someone that will steal your food and won't apologize for it will steal from you again.

"So, I want you to pair up," Vanessa decided on the fly, "and, because food is a basic need and something where people often have different backgrounds, I want each pair to pretend you're roommates discussing how to split groceries and cooking. Forget the cafeteria and all that for now, just pretend it's a real issue. A lot of things about food say things about more than just that, so try to listen to what your partner is saying, and think about what those things mean to understand your partner's position and compromise with them. Someone who wants to cook and eat all your meals together might value meals as social time, while someone who wants to keep groceries separate and eat alone might not be antisocial so much as they value their independence. And so on and so forth. Make sense? I hope so, because it's what we're doing. Last pair to have a shouting match wins. Get to it."

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Communicating.

Roscoe Kaan

Mabel Pines

Ada Miller

Isabela

Ringo Noyamano

Merrill

Hyacinthe

Listen to Vanessa!

And talk about food!

Mabel was here, and was totally willing to talk about cheese!

She wasn't sure what her partner would think, but personally, she valued those casual evenings sitting in front of a television stuffing microwaved burritos into one's face every bit as much as a nice dinner at the dining room table, so she was likely to be pretty easygoing, here.

For a few moments, Ringo was worried that she was going to have trouble even starting this activity. How did she pick a partner when everyone seemed so interesting to talk to?

But it had been a while since she'd caught up with Mabel, so this seemed like a great excuse!

"Partners?" she ventured with a grin.

"Partners," Mabel enthused, holding out one hand for a fistbump. "Figuring out food stuff should be easy."

Ringo giggled as she bumped Mabel's knuckles with her own. "But what if I'm super-duper picky?"

She wasn't.

"Then it all works out," Mabel laughed, waving a dismissive hand. "Because I'm super-duper not! Just so long as my food isn't still alive when it's served to me, I'm a happy camper!"

There had been an incident once, with a lobster.

"But if you don't want to eat all the live food, who will?" Because it wouldn't be Ringo. That sounded pretty gross!

"Somebody braver than me," Mabel replied, chipperly. "I'll just take it and set it free."

Or put it in her Grunkle's fish tank and keep it as a pet.

"I can live with that." Ringo nodded thoughtfully. "Though who's going to cook? I can, um, make eggs? And fried rice?" And, like, three or four other things? Maybe?

"And I can call out for pizza delivery!"

Like a true chef.

Mabel knew where here strengths were. Letting her loose in the kitchen was just asking for a menagerie of plastic animals in your next plate of spaghetti.

"Oh, pizza!"

But, wait, an important question arose.

"What toppings do we both like?"

Oh no. This was the tricky bit to navigate, wasn't it?

"Extra cheese?"

It seemed like a safe start.

Ringo laughed and nodded. "Extra cheese definitely sounds good."

"What about shrimp?"

"On a pizza?" Mabel looked slightly confused. "I guess I could try it. And pineapple?"

"Pineapple?" Ringo pursed her lips. "I suppose that could work. But would that be too sweet with some vegetables? Like, um, broccoli?"

~~Japanese pizzas are interesting!~~

"I... I don't know," Mabel admitted. "I've never had it with broccoli before. But it does go really well with ham."

She paused for a moment, and then offered, "Maybe we just go half-and-half with the pizzas?"

Ringo thought about that, then grinned. "You know, that might not be a bad idea. And we can still share, so we can both try the others' toppings."

"That's right! Without trying to guess about what might go best with what."

Because really, a pizza with shrimp!

"And without inflicting our experiments on each other."

Though sometimes that was fun, too.

"At least, not unintentionally."

See? Sometimes you just needed to experiment!

Ringo grinned. "Good point. Because sometimes experimenting is the best part."

Someone was going to have to do some fast talking if they expected Ada to chip in on grocery money for food she couldn't eat, or expected her to prepare meat.

Cheese, on the other hand, she'd go in on. Because it was cheese.

Oooh! An chance to talk to the pretty girl from class (okay, one of the pretty girls, but one who'd definitely noticed him which was an excellent start). Don't mind if Hyacinthe did.

"With anyone else, I would plead my case by explaining I am familiar only with the currency of Terre D'Ange and that I misdoubt any shop here takes ducats and centimes," he said, turning a charming, flirty smile on Ada. "But you strike me as the type for whom that would be invitation for further mischief."

"Is this where I pretend to be insulted that you'd think I'd do somethin' like that, or point out that I ain't never been caught?" Ada asked, pretending to think about it. "I can never remember."

ADA NO.

ADA YES!

"I'll be more impressed if you tell me you've never been caught," Hyacinthe told her. "If you try to tell me that you're not that kind of girl...well, where's the fun in that?"

"How about we go with there ain't nothin' no one can prove, an' leave it at that," Ada said smoothly. "--but if you think you'd get out of payin' for food just 'cause your money's different, you got another thing coming. I sure as hell ain't feeding you for free just 'cause you're pretty. We can go to the bank an' get your centimes changed t' local dollars."

"Hearing that you think I'm pretty is worth a few centimes towards the grocer's bill," Hyacinthe said smoothly. He was used to paying for food; the money his mother made by laundering clothing went mostly towards rent, it was his contributions to the household coffers that paid for food and much of their clothing. But arguing over it was half the fun, was it not? "Though I have not many to spare. I am the bastard son of a washerwoman, though I hope you'll not think less of me for it."

He doubted it. She didn't carry herself that way. But he was giving her the big, sad-eyed urchin routine anyway, and waiting for her to laugh at it.

"An' I'm a carnival worker's daughter, what's your point?" Ada asked cheerfully, yes, laughing at his urchin routine. "I ain't got no inclination t' judge anyone on what side of th' blankets they were born on."

Edited 2016-05-17 01:47 (UTC)

"But I send almost all of my hard-earned money home to my mother, to keep her fed and healthy!" Hyacinthe said, keeping to the wide-eyed routine even though he was actually speaking truthfully for once. "Surely you must have pity on a hard-working lad like myself who just wants to care for his mother, so cruelly used by people."

Trust a Tsingano to speak truth carefully couched as lies.

"If'n your mama wouldn't box your ears for tryin' to take advantage of a girl's heart, then no, no pity," Ada replied cheerfully. "I can cook cheap an' easy, if'n money's an issue, but if you wanna eat, you gotta put in half."

"If you wanna eat meat, you gotta buy it yourself. I can't eat the stuff."

Hyacinthe laughed. "My mother would box my ears for failing," he admitted. "There's no shame in taking advantage of the gadje. Though if I did not know better, I would swear you were from the next kumpania over and not a gadje at all."

There were enough Rom sprinkled in with the various families, Millers included, that Ada made a face at the label. "Watch who you're calling a Townie," she warned. "Not everyone around here is domesticated."

"B'sides, Uncle mighta said I had to go to school here, but I'll be back on the road next summer."

"I meant no offense," Hyacinthe said. After all, if someone recognized the term for what it was, then it likely didn't apply to them. "...Townie?" he repeated a moment later. "That is a word I am not familiar with. And you, Oh Star of the Evening, I would never insult by insinuating you were domesticated, even if you did not walk the Lungo Drom." He frowned a little, intrigued by the way she'd mentioned being on the road. "But it sounds as if you do. Are you Tsinagani?"

"Townie. Someone who lives in their little houses that don't move and don't know what starlight looks like because of street lamps, an' don't dream of anything bigger than the world outside their yard or their job," she said, gesturing to the walls around them.

"I dunno 'Tsinagani' or any 'Lungo Drom,' I thought gadje was a Rom word. 'M a carnie; a barker an' scout, mostly, though I can do other acts in a pinch. We take th' show all over the south half of the country for most of th' year."

"I don't know what Rom is," Hyacinthe said, "but I am Tsingano." Well, half, but who was counting? "They are my mother's people."

Honestly, that was enough to announce his Didikani heritage to anyone who was listening.

"And that is close enough to what gadje means. They're house-dwellers, unlike the Tsingani, who travel the Lungo Drom, the long road. We don't settle." Big words for the boy who had never left the city of Elua or met the members of his mother's kumpania.

"Three months a year we settle into the ranch, because winter is a terrible time to be on the road," Ada said. "Otherwise? We roll out in the spring, and don't come back for nine months."

Who is very relieved to be here and fully dressed.

La.

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Building Healthy Relationships, Monday, Period 4

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During the Lecture

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OOC