Third Floor Common Room, Thursday Evening

[spin_kick_snap]

So, Kathy's grand plan to go trick-or-treating in the dorms to meet people had kind of been a bust, but an important discovery had been made nevertheless: Theo had never seen Mister What.

Not a single episode. Hadn't even heard of the show. On the eve of the fiftieth anniversary, even!

The very idea was shocking, but Kathy was there to make it right. She couldn't let her favorite wallflower buddy continue to wallow in cultural ignorance forever! So, she'd hooked up her laptop to the TV in the third floor common room, where she had every episode from the new run (and a bunch of the old) torrented TOTALLY LEGALLY OBTAINED on her external hard drive.

The amount of food she'd gotten from the Chinese place in town was ridiculous, but the delivery guy hadn't seemed too fussed about it and the price was about what she'd figured, so she just shrugged and hauled it up, spreading it on the counter. Hopefully the smell of General Tso's Chicken and the distinctive noise of Mister What's time and space machine would lure other people to coming around, too.

[For one, but totally open! Food and episodes completely moddable]

Comments

[theoplustwo.livejournal.com]

So, Theo was apparently going to get an education in science fiction tonight. He didn't mind that too much since it sounded like something he'd actually enjoy.

Ange and Dev couldn't even argue about this since they both agreed it sounded like a good time. He found his way into the common room a little bit after Kathy had arrived.

"Something smells good," he said, rubbing his stomach.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Please help yourself to lots of it," Kathy said, her own plate almost overflowing. "I have no idea how much I ordered, but I know I can't eat it all."

Seriously, Theo. Help yourself.

"I grabbed Chinese because it heats up really well. If we do end up watching the whole series, I wanted something that made for good leftovers to pick at and that we won't get sick of halfway through."

Like, pizza. Pizza always tasted like pizza, even with a bunch of different toppings.

"Dig in!"

[theoplustwo.livejournal.com]

"I'm kinda glad I missed lunch," Theo joked, coming over and taking a look at the spread. "I used to live off Hot Pockets back home. If you don't know what they are, consider yourself lucky."

"Hey, Hot Pockets are good!" Dev grumbled. "Easy and cheesy!"

Theo would have groaned but he didn't. Instead, he went for a plate to get some Chinese together.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I do, but never met my mom catch me saying that," Kathy laughed, picking up a spring roll. "I'm pretty sure she thinks Hot Pockets are the driving force behind cancer, heart disease, and gingivitis. She acts like they are, anyway."

Her mother was a woman of very strong opinions on a variety of subjects. Kathy usually ended up disagreeing with most of them.

"But tonight, we have meat and veggies and all the good stuff. Can't have you crashing halfway through the Tenth Mister's run."

[theoplustwo.livejournal.com]

"Hey, I won't crash!" Theo told her confidently. "I've pulled all nighters before."

It typically wasn't for a television show but he was totally open for experiences.

"I slept late today and I am an expert at watching television watching. Seriously, they gave me a medal back home."

Not really.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Well, I brought lots of soda, too, just in case," Kathy said with a grin, pulling out a can for herself and offering him one. "I've never medaled, but I'm pretty sure I've gotten an honorable mention a time or two."

[theoplustwo.livejournal.com]

"You planned this really quickly," said Theo, taking the drink and toasting her with it. "You work fast."

[genesishero]

"Something smells amazing," Evan agreed from where he'd peeked in through the doorway. "I don't even know what half of those smells are."

Ma Sabahnur hadn't been big on making Chinese food in Evan's virtual reality childhood.

[theoplustwo.livejournal.com]

"Only one way to figure out what the smells are," Theo remarked with a small smile. "I'm gonna guess it's Chinese and Chinese food is really good. You start eating it and you don't stop."

[genesishero]

"That sounds kind of dangerous," Evan admitted with a laugh and a shake of his head. "I mean, I can eat a lot even if what's in front of me is pretty filling. I've got a crazy metabolism."

He could blow up a city block by having a temper tantrum. That kind of power kind of required fuel.

"What's your favorite?"

[theoplustwo.livejournal.com]

"Is it cheating to say all of it?" Theo asked, snickering. He scratched his cheek. "The egg rolls, probably. Because I ate a lot of them back home. Shrimp, chicken, beef, pork, all kinds. They're really good."

[genesishero]

"Those would be... those ones?" Evan pointed at the box of egg rolls, looking a little confused as he did so. "There's egg inside the outside fried pastry bit, then?"

Seriously, he needed to order Chinese delivery more often, poor kid.

[theoplustwo.livejournal.com]

"I think that's how it works," Theo said before snickering. "To be honest, I don't really know a huge amount about how they're cooked. I just know they're really good and if you're not careful, you can eat like ten."

In his head, Ange just facepalmed.

[genesishero]

Evan really had been invested in his books today, but there were weird sounds coming from the common room, and he'd sat in his room and quietly studied straight through lunch, so the smells that were joining the noises were enough to have him peek into the room curiously.

"Um... What is that?"

Sorry, Kathy. There was a face stretched out like a trampoline begging for moisture on the television, and it was enough to make the stretchy mutant kid stop and stare, momentarily forgetting about food.

[spin_kick_snap]

Yet another person ignorant in the ways of Mister What. There was something wrong with this entire school.

"Ugh, it's the last human in the universe and she's terrible," Kathy said, not even looking away from the TV to answer. "She's pretty much my least favorite character from this season and she's only in an episode."

Until next season anyway! But by then, Kathy had other characters she disliked more.

"We're watching pretty much the best scifi show of all time," she said, gesturing Evan in. "Come in and watch with us! On the condition that you have to help yourself to some Chinese food, first."

Kathy was going to get rid of it all come hell or high water.

[genesishero]

"Oh! Um, okay, if you're sure..." Evan kind of sidled into the room, wandering over to investigate the food that was set out on the counter. "I haven't eaten anything all day, but I'll try not to eat it all on you guys."

Tiny mutant. Big appetite.

"So... what is the best scifi show of all time, then? I don't really watch television. Too many books to read."

[spin_kick_snap]

"If I still have a bunch of it left after tonight, consider it yours for the taking," Kathy offered. "There's no way I can eat everything and my mom will walk from LA to yell at me if she finds out I let it rot in the fridge."

Or worse, threw away perfectly good food!

"And the best scifi show is absolutely Mister What," she added. "Believe me, I am walking proof that you can balance both plenty of reading and TV watching. It's an important life skill!"

[genesishero]

"Watching TV is a life skill?"

But... but he'd never learned it! Was he doomed forever, now?

"I mean, we kind of had a TV while I was, um, growing up. But it was mostly turned to the news. We didn't have cable or anything."

Possibly because Fantomex wanted to control what kind of rot Evan was filling his head with as he grew up. Or possibly because he didn't want to program it into the VR world that Evan had grown up in.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Well, balancing TV watching with other things is," Kathy decided. "Or balancing the internet with pretty much everything else in existence."

You heard it here first, Evan.

"I was lucky; my dad's a pretty big nerd, too. So I grew up on shows like this, Galaxy Quest, Wendy the Werewolf Stalker... anything with monsters of the week and cheesy special effects were fair game in our house growing up."

Except for Japanese monster movies. Her dad had a thing, where 'thing' was actually 'giant prejudice based in an inability to let go of the past.'

[genesishero]

Evan had actually been really getting into the whole Mister What thing (the killer pepper-pots were intriguing and a little heartbreaking, from what he could tell) when Kathy did her acrobatic stunt. And really, he could overlook something like that. Usually he would. But then she started getting upset about it.

"Um.... Kathy? Are you okay?" A beat. Obviously she wasn't okay. "I mean, do you need anything?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"An explanation that doesn't break the law of physics?"

Well he had asked.

[genesishero]

Evan decided that maybe now was a bad time to point out that he kind of broke the laws of physics mostly by existing, along with most known rules of biology and in spite of pretty much most limitations on modern human technologies.

"... Puberty is one hell of an adjustment?"

Not helping, Ev.

[spin_kick_snap]

"'Hair in weird places!' kind of hell, not 'leap across a room' hell!" Kathy shrilled. "We never covered this in any of my health classes and, believe me, we went into more detail about the human body than most red states would be comfortable with!"

[genesishero]

That... was a lot of detail. Evan blinked, blushed faintly, and then gave his shoulders a little shrug.

"Sometimes there are things even school lessons leave out? Everyone's experience is different, I mean."

For example, puberty for Evan had involved Stretch Armstrong powers and eye lasers.

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'm pretty sure that 'Oh, and sometimes your changing body will fling you around the room like a rubber ball' isn't something they leave out of lesson plans!" Kathy snapped. "If it were a normal thing to happen, there would be lifetime movies about your first time bouncing and there would be a hundred different commercials advertising bright pink kneepads to help you keep upright or something!"