Second Floor Common Room, Friday Morning

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

Sure, Anakin had to go to class later. But he needed food, first, and a very large bowl of cereal in the common room appeared to be the solution to that this morning. He wasn't in the mood for quiet, so he turned the TV on and found a soccer game on. Earth sports were weird, but with weird similarities to the ones he knew from home, and apparently there were a lot of them on TV lately. He didn't mind; he wasn't particularly into them, but he didn't mind either. (He had his doubts about the red-and-white striped jerseys one of the teams was wearing, though.)

He was perfectly prepared to just have the game on as background noise while he ate until he caught sight of one of the players, standing in front of a giant net wearing padded gloves, as a graphic reading "Hope Solo" flashed up on the screen.

"Um."

She totally looked like she could be related to him, and needless to say Anakin would be paying attention for the rest of the match.

[OOC: Making Star Wars references to soccer games in game is pretty much a tradition for me. Shut up. And open.]

Comments

[notconflicted]

Sia had been headed up to her room after class, but when she heard sounds from the common room she decided to stop in. "Something interesting?"

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

Anakin, his mouth hanging open slightly (not very impressive looking), gestured vaguely at the screen with his spoon.

"I have no idea," he admitted. This was extremely confusing, okay?

[notconflicted]

All right... "What is this?"

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

"Some Earth sport." Anakin frowned at the TV, where the game was underway and there really wasn't much sight of the player who shared his last name. "If I have some long-lost relative who's an athlete on this planet, nobody told me."

The commentators, at that point, were kind enough to discuss the US team's defense for a moment and mention Hope Solo's name again.

He flailed one arm at the screen. "See?"

[notconflicted]

"If you have a long-lost relative who's an athlete on this planet, you should not be surprised at this point," pointed out the relative. She frowned at the name, finally saying, "It's not one I recognize."

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

Anakin blinked, then laughed. "Good point." Proof in front of you right there, young Jedi. "There could've been one, somewhere, that you wouldn't know about though, couldn't there?"

Hopefully not related to him via Thrackan. Ew.

[notconflicted]

"It's possible," Sia conceded. "I have fair knowledge of the family tree, but I'm sure that information focused more on some areas rather than others."

All the Imperial stuff > whatever was up with Han's side of the family.

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

"It's probably not worth trying to figure out," Anakin decided. Except he was really curious now, and would probably end up spending a lot of time researching it. Just not at the expense of his cereal, so later.

"How are you?" You know. After the trauma of last week.

[notconflicted]

"Breathing. That says more than it used to," she replied, finding a seat. "Yourself?"

[faithandscience.livejournal.com]

William wasn't too into sports (well, beyond boxing and the occasional bout of pond hockey), but as soon as he'd heard mention of the Olympics, of course he'd done his research on the topic.

So when he spotted his roommate apparently engrossed in some sort of event, he had to come take a closer look.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Football! I have been wanting to see how this is played..." that it was women involved in what was clearly a rough-and-tumble sport did briefly give him pause, but he reminded himself that circumstances were very different in this time, and such activities were socially acceptable.

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

Anakin, conversely, was a little surprised the teams weren't mixed-gender. Theirs was a fascinatingly juxtaposed living arrangement.

"It seems pretty straightforward so far," he replied, glancing over at his datapad (because yes, he'd started looking up the rules). "I'm not completely sure I get how the offside rule works, though."

Did anyone? Really?

Since there weren't many glimpses of Hope Solo on the screen (maybe she was reading a book back there) he glanced curiously at William. "You know this sport?"

[faithandscience.livejournal.com]

Well, William thought he had a fairly decent grasp of the offisde rule. Though he'd yet to actually see it in action, so he might change his mind once witnessing how entirely subjective calling it could be.

"Not terribly well," William admitted. "It's only recently been introduced to the area I'm from," although he supposed it might have grown in popularity somewhat during the two years he'd been at Fandom.

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

"That's more than I've got," Anakin told him. "But I get the impression it's really, really popular in that part of this planet."

He took another look at his datapad. "Where everyone else calls it football, apparently."

[faithandscience.livejournal.com]

"Ah, yes," William nodded. "It's still football where- or rather, when, I should say- I'm from, but I think the term fell out of popular usage due to the existence of another sport a bit closer to rugby that ended up adopting the name 'football'."

William, you are a giant nerd.

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

"I'm not surprised you know that," Anakin said, and flicked a stray cornflake at him (with a tiny bit of a Force boost, cornflakes not being terribly well built for flight). "I also don't know why it's so hard to score when the net's that big."

He, naturally, thought he could do it easily. He'd never tried.

[faithandscience.livejournal.com]

"Naturally, you'd do better," William teased. No, he wasn't a mind-reader. He just... had figured a few things out about his roommate.

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

Anakin made that pretty easy. "Maybe I'll try," he decided brashly. See if he didn't Force-cheat, if he ever did try. "Though I guess if you can't use your hands . . ."

[ultron_junior]

Victor was on his way to his room, but he had to stop and pause when he saw what Anakin was watching. "Awesome, soccer," he decided, flopping into a chair. "Is Mexico playing today?"

He probably should have known that. He figured being crazy and evil for a week was a decent reason for having lost track of the games.

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

"Not right now. They play . . ." Anakin tapped a quick inquiry into his datapad. "Tomorrow morning. Right now it's United States and New Zealand. Wow, you're the first person today who's actually known about this game," he added, sounding impressed. Statistically speaking, it had been looking unlikely.."

[ultron_junior]

Victor rubbed the back of his neck, looking vaguely embarrassed. "Guess that makes sense with how many people aren't from around here," he said. "Soccer's just the sport everybody plays at home, you know?"

Though Victor's mom had been too overprotective for him to do more than quick pick-up games. Silly 'not wanting your child to find out he's an android' woman...

"Do you follow it?"

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

The complete opposite of Han and Leia "let our toddlers disable their droid babysitter and run off into the dangerous wilds of the Coruscanti undercity" Solo, then!

"I've never seen it before," he replied. "It doesn't exist in my home galaxy, but there's a few sports kind of like it."

They all had really silly names, too, even if Anakin didn't think so.

"Mostly, I noticed because one of the goalkeepers has the last name as me."

[ultron_junior]

"Yeah? What name?" Victor asked absently, as he tried to follow the action on the screen. "Nobody cool's last name is Mancha. Wait, is she from your same galaxy or is it a weird coincidence?"

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

"Solo," Anakin replied, and made a slight frustrated noise when a shot went wide. "There aren't that many of us."

You'd think with an entire galaxy of beings, surnames would be spread around a little more.

"She looks like she could be, too," he added. How was he supposed to know she was a natural blonde?

[ultron_junior]

"Sure," Victor agreed easily. He wasn't sure he saw the resemblance, but who was he to argue? "Maybe her family, like, crash-landed and got stuck here when she was little. Weirder things have happened."

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

"Dad is Corellian," Anakin mused. "I wouldn't be surprised if some relative way back really did end up here somehow."

He'd have to give that some more thought.

"Do you play this game at all?"