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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Lydia? Miss a source of gossip? Never. She simply had overslept and missed today's, but she would be catching up on the podcast after all this silliness.

...and then she would know Arden had lied to her, and about Mr. Kestis to boot, so...that.

For now, though, she was happily oblivious and telling Arden, "The effect was like nothing I have ever seen before. It was like the whole world was the sky! And we were there at sunset, so it was just splendid. It made me want to take up painting again, although I haven't done it in years. I took some photographs with my phone, but they're so small."

Hey now. She'd been misleading at most. No outright lies were spoken, Arden was very careful about that.

"I didn't know you painted!" Arden said. "And if you bring your phone to the Photo Hut, they can blow them up for you so you have a much bigger print not on your phone."

"Can they? I didn't know that," Lydia said. "I will have to look into that.

I used to paint," Lydia corrected her as she continued to struggle with these dashed trousers. "I haven't done so since...oh, the summer I turned sixteen." For reasons, which she would not be explaining and instead chattering on to distract from. "I also used to draw. My parents engaged masters--you would call them tutors, I think--for a while, to try to give me and my sisters some accomplishments. I didn't take at all to music or languages, so I spent most of my time with the art master. But then Lizzy went through her Wollstonecraftian phase and decided those sorts of things were silly and she should be learning algebra instead." And, Lydia did not explain, since Elizabeth was their father's favorite and he could then redirect the money he'd been spending on his daughters' education to buying more books, he'd been willing to be persuaded to discontinue their lessons. "Do you want to know the funny part? Lizzy hated algebra."

Arden had no idea what a 'Wollstonecraftian phase' was and she was only hazy on algebra. "That's the math that solves for X a lot, right?" she asked, a little shamefaced at not knowing. "I don't know anything about music or languages, either. I can sing--" As Lydia might have remembered from karaoke, "--but I can't, like, read the notes or anything."

Edited 2024-08-01 00:50 (UTC)

"I think so," Lydia said. "I never did it myself. Heavens, can you imagine? Georgiana said that what she did was something called 'calculus,' and you would not believe how few actual numbers there were...oh, yes, you have a lovely voice!" Lydia exclaimed. "Mine is not nearly so fine. I can read music, and play a little, but between Mary and Lizzy practice time with the pianoforte was quite dear in our house."

"Oh I remember looking at some of that in the workbook I had for the test," Arden said. "It's more like trying to read than count. I thought it might be interesting to learn sometime, but I didn't have time, so I mostly stuck with geometry and hoped that that'd be enough."

She sighed and shrugged. "So what does it mean to be accomplished? Are you supposed to win awards or something?"

"It's more about...having the right skills to demonstrate that one is a proper lady," Lydia tried to explain. "So you can attract a good husband." Because Lydia was from 1810. "It probably sounds very silly to you."

Honestly, Lydia had long thought there was something off about the whole business. A lady's accomplishments were expected to include all sorts of things that could be checked at social events, like singing and dancing and speaking French, but there was no real way for a gentleman to politely discover whether or not a potential bride, say, knew enough math to keep the housekeeper from stealing.

Yeah, Arden's face certainly, uh, had an expression about that. "So it would be one thing if you were learning for yourself or even just because it was expected for everyone so that everyone had a base level of education..." She trailed off with a small shake of her head. "So what did men have to learn to make them attractive to women?"

Lydia laughed merrily at that question and then answered it. "Oh, a man just has to have enough money--and ideally an estate--to support a wife comfortably."

That was it. Just ask Charlotte Lucas.

Arden just shook her head. "Dear goddess have men needed to be held accountable for just...so long. So, so long. So you had to take lessons to prove to some guy that you can speak four lessons and play the piano and do whatever else and he's just gotta, like, flash you what's in his wallet? That's bullshit. Y'all deserve way better."

"Perhaps," Lydia sighed, "but it's not as if I can do anything about it. I couldn't even--" marry well, she almost said, but then she stopped herself and said, "I don't expect any of my rather paltry accomplishments shall do me any good today."

Perhaps if they were waltzing instead of breakdancing.

"If it helps, I don't expect any of mine will, either," Arden agreed, then held her fist out for a bump. "Paltry accomplishment girls, woo."

Lydia looked in polite confusion at Arden's fist. "I must admit I have no idea what I'm supposed to do here."

"Make a fist and hold it out like I am," Arden said. "It's a fist bump. Like...a thing you do when you agree with someone. Sometimes as a greeting. I guess it's like, a way of signifying kinship, maybe?"

She had never had to sit down and explain this.

Lydia made a fist of her own and held it out awkwardly. "I know a handshake is meant to demonstrate that both gentlemen are not armed," she offered. "Or...people, I suppose, in this time." Still weird!

Arden gently reached out and tapped her fist against Lydia's. "A fistbump," she said. "Maybe something like a guy would clap somebody on the back? Is that something people did back in your time?" Maybe Lydia would write this in her guide. It could go into the etiquette section. Oh! Which reminded her... "It's consider bad form to leave someone unbumped if they put their hand out like this. It's like a snub, I guess? Same if you leave someone hanging for a high five."

Already anticipating Lydia's confusion and held up her hand for a high five. "You hit my palm with yours. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to make a noise."

Things neither of them planned on discussing today.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Summer Shenanigans, Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Re: Voluntolds, Come on Dooooown!

Re: Voluntolds, Come on Dooooown!

Re: Voluntolds, Come on Dooooown!

Re: Voluntolds, Come on Dooooown!

Re: Voluntolds, Come on Dooooown!

Re: Voluntolds, Come on Dooooown!

Re: Voluntolds, Come on Dooooown!

Re: Voluntolds, Come on Dooooown!

Re: Voluntolds, Come on Dooooown!

Re: Voluntolds, Come on Dooooown!

Re: Voluntolds, Come on Dooooown!

Re: Voluntolds, Come on Dooooown!

Re: Voluntolds, Come on Dooooown!

Re: Voluntolds, Come on Dooooown!

Re: Voluntolds, Come on Dooooown!

Re: Voluntolds, Come on Dooooown!