Library, Monday

[intotheout]

Tip hadn't been able to think of anyone off the top of her head to request in her "Badass Women You Should Know" class, and it kind of bothered her. So she was spending her library shift this week doing research, trying to find the most obscure awesome women she could.

There were Mongol queens and Chinese pirate women and South American rebels. And that wasn't even getting to the entire army of female warriors in West Africa.

This was turning out to maybe be one of Tip's favorite library shifts ever.

[open]

Comments

[bookbeltof_love]

Ah, the library!!!!!!!!!!! Nina had spent many, many hours with Miss Emilia in the library at Greenhill and so, as she came through the doors she heaved a happy sigh of joy.

"Um, like, hello?????" she said, zeroing in on the clerk, and smiling brightly. "Do you think you could help me?????"

[intotheout]

Wow. That was . . . a lot.

"That's what I'm here for," Tip assured the other girl. "What do you need?"

[bookbeltof_love]

And it got worse when she was truly excited. Nina's abuse of punctuation was... a thing.

"Great!!!!!!!!! I'm Nina!!!!" she chirped. "And I'm super, super new and I was wondering if you had anything that--" she waved one hand around expressively "--like, got this world?????? Do you know what I mean??????"

[intotheout]

Tip made a great effort not to wince visibly. The girl was like the living embodiment of overexcited tweens on the internet. Tip hadn't even been able to deal with that when she was a tween.

"I do, actually." Which kind of surprised her. "I -- don't think we have a Fandom 101 guide in writing or anything, which is actually really dumb. Someone should get on that." She shook her head. "You're going to have to make due with oral traditions on that front, sorry. But I've been here for a couple years, so I can maybe answer some of your questions."

[bookbeltof_love]

"Oh my gosh!!!!!! That's so helpful, thank you!!!!!" Nina dug out a list. It... it was a long list. "I have so many questions!!!!!! Would it, like, be easier for you to look at them????? Or for me to read them off????"

She offered the list to the other girl.

It had questions such as 'how do the lights go on and off?' and 'what sorcery is making the cold boxes work?' and 'what is that giant black not-mirror in every common room?' and just went on and on and on.

Nina was maybe not even a little from this time period. She was great at faking it, but she knew nothing.

[intotheout]

Tip looked at the list and had to laugh a little. "Oh yeah, I can totally help with this kind of thing." She set the list down and looked back up at the girl. "So, if you want to know all the nitty-gritty details of that sorcery, I can hook you up with a book on refrigerator repair. But for most people, it's enough to just know 'it works on electricity' and not worry too much about how or why so long as it keeps making things cold. As for the lights: do you mean how you make them go on and off, or what happens behind the scenes when you use the light switch, like with the 'cold boxes'?"

[bookbeltof_love]

"I mean, I totally figured out how to flip the lights on and off, and the bathing facilities weren't too complicated," Nina said, shaking out her curls. She didn't know what things worked off of, but figuring out how some of the basics worked hadn't been that hard. "But what is this electricity thing??????????"

[intotheout]

"The flow of negatively charged particles called electrons from one atomic structure to another," Tip said with a little smirk. "Which is why most people just leave it as 'it's electricity' and don't worry too much about the actual physics of it. Are you familiar with lightning?"

Hey, some planets rained diamonds. Sudden, rapid expulsions of static electricity from the atmosphere was definitely not a given for all environments.

[bookbeltof_love]

Nina blinked at that smirk, rather taken aback. She was just here for information, not to be mocked for not knowing things!!!!!!!!!

"Yeeeees," she said, still deciding how insulted she wanted to be.

She was pretty sure she'd been perfectly mannerly????

[intotheout]

Sure she had. Intense, but mannerly. But Tip was built at least partially out of snark, even when she was helping people out with cross-dimensional culture shifts.

Also, she was usually trying to explain stuff like this to people whose science and technology were way more advanced than her Earth's, not less.

She nodded. "Cool. Lightning's an example of electricity. So stuff like the lights and the 'cold box' and that black mirror you mention all work essentially using captured lightning. We don't tend to call that magic or sorcery, but I think the basic idea of taking a natural force and redirecting it to something useful might be a similar kind of concept."

[bookbeltof_love]

Nina contemplated the other girl for a moment longer.

"I think I see?????" she said, deciding to not take offense for now. "But it's not really lightning they're using, right?????"

[intotheout]

That was a little bit like asking if what the faucets put out wasn't really a river -- it was all just water in the end. Still. . . .

"No, not really lightning," Tip said. "Just made of the same stuff."

[bookbeltof_love]

"Um, like, you know what??????" Nina said, after considering how terribly unhelpful that answer was for explaining what she'd been trying to get at. Maybe this clerk was new and didn't know any better, though they'd said they'd been on the island a few years... "Can I maybe get the books after all???? Even if they're all, like, way over my head??????"

[intotheout]

Or, you know, it was all just a fact of Tip's life that she didn't have to think about too often or explain to people.

She was suddenly reminded of J.Lo trying to explain telecloning to her.

"Of course. There's a whole section on electrical engineering, and another one on the history of harnessing it. I can show them to you, and you can flip through as long as you like to find the books that'll help you the most."

[bookbeltof_love]

Yes, but Nina didn’t know any of that!!!!

Nina smiled brightly, wanting to encourage the clerk, who’d at least been friendly, even though she hadn’t introduced herself, come to think of it, when Nina had. “Thanks so much!!!!!!!” she gushed. “That’d be great!!!!!!!!!!!”

[intotheout]

Well, it was a little hard to navigate through all that punctuation.

"No problem." Tip jotted down the call numbers they'd need and started for the stacks. "Right this way."