fandomhigh | Summer Shenanigans, Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Summer Shenanigans, Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Did the world need a gremlin running around the park with a lit torch? Probably not, but he'd showed up with a lit torch and Anakin had chosen the path of not arguing about it. "Welcome to Fandom Olympics!" he announced instead through his--as always--completely unnecessary bullhorn. "The events you are participating in were chosen at random last night by five porgs spinning a wheel on which all Olympic events were listed. I am calling it the most modern pentathalon!"

If the pause was for applause, he'd be waiting a bit.

"Listen for your names! No powers!"

TEAM TEAL
Vi
Eleanor
Arthur
Rey

TEAM WHITE
Kamala
Arden
Stewart
Gray

TEAM PINK
Steve M
Mariner
Thor
Yukuri

TEAM BLUE
Lydia
Jon
Lana
Steve R

TEAM GREEN
Navaan
Miguel
Dean
Beaker

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Everyone participates! Tell us how that went.

Dean studied the pommel horse for a few moments and shrugged. He ran and jumped up on the horse like it was an actual horse and then bounced up and down on it like it was galloping.

"Hyah! Yah! Giddy-up you old nag! Let's go!"

It was a solid minute of that before he hopped off the horse and strutted off like a cowboy.

No one could probably see exactly how it had happened, but Beaker's pommelhorsing (pommeling? horsing?) had launched him into a tree.

"MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeee--"

"I'd say he nailed that dismount."

Okay, Kamala had been practicing for a while now with her powers about spinning around and such for some fighting moves that she tried to apply to the pommel house.

Which she did well for about five seconds before falling off and landing on her tailbone.

"Yeah, that could of gone better," she groaned as she got off the mat.

Rey didn't know how to do this! But she watched everyone before her very carefully, so that when it was her turn she didn't do any of that.

She knew you used your hands on it? So she was able to pull herself up and kind of walk on her hands across the horse. What else were you supposed to do on this thing?

It turned out that this Ken's job was not horse and he'd definitely pulled something trying not to nut himself on the handles.

"Jesus, it looked easier on television."

Eleanor had been glad for a chance to watch a few people try this before she made the attempt. Not that it helped her too terribly much; she didn't have a lot of arm strength and she was agile, sure, but it was all very unfamiliar and unnatural, so she tried to do a couple of swings around on the pommel horse, maybe did one and a half, before deciding she was just probably going to hurt herself and hopped off.

But she did strike a pose at the end? Uncertain and unsure, but at least enough to signal that, yeah, no, she was definitely done.

Edited 2024-07-31 16:32 (UTC)

Kamala did a standing ovation for Eleanor.

What? That pose at the end was great!

Oh, great. And now Eleanor not only had to live with a lackluster performance, but now she was reminded to be embarrassed and awkward about it, too! But also weirdly pleased by this standing ovation, so despite the blushing and wanting to maybe due a little, she pushed through it give Kamala a smile and a bit as well in acknowledgement.

Oh look. Another thing she had no idea what to do with. And, she loved you bestie, but watching Kamala didn't give her anything really to go off of.

On her turn, she just pulled herself up onto the...horse?...and used it like a balance beam that sometimes involved jumping over the little--

Oh. They were handles. Huh. That probably should have factored into her routine some. Whoops.

Okay, so she was gonna finish off by doing some yoga poses on it. That would maybe...count?

Edited 2024-07-31 16:32 (UTC)

Stewart was eying the pommel horse with a lifted chin and squinted eyes, as if catching sight of an old enemy from across the room. This stare-down seemed to stretch for a bit longer before he let out a breath, rolled his neck and his shoulders, stretched his arms in front of him a little and...

Did honestly surprisingly well. Not great, by any margin, but it seemed as if this was not his first pommel horse before, taking him back, slightly, to some of his gym days and also, really, what was a pommel horse but some sort of elevated breakdancing anyway, if you approached it a certain way?

He absolutely did not stick the landing, though, stumbling a little over his own feet with an shrill little "ow!" and then straightening himself up with a stagger, a smoothing of his jacket, and pretending like nothing happened.

Arden looked honestly surprised at Stewart's whole...everything with this and applauded after he was done.

It honestly wasn't even because he was on her team, but hey! Competence, woo!

Re: Pommel Horse

x_wondrous_x - 2024-07-31 21:43 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Pommel Horse

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Re: Pommel Horse

afraid_of_marshmallows - 2024-08-01 01:43 (UTC) - Expand

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x_wondrous_x - 2024-08-01 01:54 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Pommel Horse

afraid_of_marshmallows - 2024-08-01 02:06 (UTC) - Expand

"Hup!" said Yukari, after she rushed forward toward the pommel horse, put her hands on the handles enough to lift herself up over them with her legs spread and she landed on the other side with her arms up and beaming proudly like she'd actually done something impressive than literally just hopping over the thing.

Everyone else trying to do anything more than that was clearly just overthinking it!

Lana pulled out her phone and looked up how to do this. And raised an eyebrow at it. "Huh. I would not have expected that."

Right. So, she eyed the thing, then ran up and launched herself at it. Jumping up and grabbing the handles she could do! Then...Okay, right, some of them had done handstands? She could do that. It was harder without using the Force, but she did shakily manage it. And then...no, you know what? That was enough. She rolled down off of it.

Jon eyed the thing.

He walked around it and bowed sarcastically on the other side before walking off.

Steve had the biceps, the balance, and the abs for this event and after watching everyone else (and surreptitiously pulling up a few routines on Youtube), he did a fairly decent job on his first attempt at the pommel horse.

He didn't end up in a tree, at least?

Navaan had no idea what was happening, but Navaan was also shockingly bendy and acrobatic (well, not a shock if you'd ever slept with her), and once she realized that this was something that you did with your hands, she was up on that sucker in seconds, doing twists and even flips on it, just with her hands alone.

Did it count as using powers if you couldn't turn them off?

Look, Miguel did these kinds of things off the sides of skyscrapers all the time.

He jumped up, did some rolls and stands on it, and jumped off, grinning.

Arthur gave it a try. John managed to grab one handle, but Arthur missed the other since he couldn't see it, and they fell off.

"Oof."

This is unfair.

Lydia, after a frowningly intense inspection of the pommel horse and a quick google that told her she would absolutely not be doing that (although she might be looking up some more videos of men's gymnastics later, for educational purposes), used the pommels to boost herself up so that she was sitting sidesaddle on the horse between said handles, and gave a little 'ta-da' gesture with her hands and a big smile like she'd actually done something here.

Gray...actually knew how to do this. His brothers had cycled through a lot of different workout routines and equipment over the years, and at one point, for reasons he had entirely forgotten now, there had been a pommel horse.

So he did about half of a surprisingly decent routine and then fell asleep draped across the horse.

Arden was gonna come try and help get him off the horse. This would probably end very well!

Thor had never done this before, but he had seen it done, and he possessed all of the characteristics necessary to do it well. Which was to say that he managed to put together a fairly decent first attempt at a pommel horse routine, and at least he wasn't the only person here for whom allowances must be made for height.

It didn't seem that different to how Vi had moved through the levels of the Lanes, you just kind of did a bunch of stuff instead of just hoisting yourself through the space...

Her performance was perfectly respectable.

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