fandomhighdorms | Third floor common room [Wednesday afternoon]

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Third floor common room [Wednesday afternoon]

The modern world continued to baffle Celia.

She had a day free from classes, and thought to spend it leisurely. She'd tied her hair back with a ribbon rather than piled it atop her head formally, she'd dressed in a simple frock sans bustle, and she had even padded down to the common room in stocking feet. For Celia, this was the equivalent of wearing one's pajamas all day.

And when she arrived, she had found herself a bowl to pour cereal into, and even turned on the television correctly. (All of which she had done magically, out of pure laziness.) But she hadn't, somehow, been prepared for one of the great staples of weekday laziness: daytime television.

Just when she thought she understood what might appear on the screen at any time -- she'd seen a program featuring the antics of four elderly women the other day that she'd greatly enjoyed, and hoped to come across again -- she was confronted with something like this.

"I cheated on my cousin with a stripper?" she read aloud, utterly confused.

She wanted to turn it off as soon as the content became clear -- and very loud and somewhat violent. But Celia found herself transfixed. She knew how to change the channels now, yes, but...how could she? She had never seen such a spectacle before.

Welcome to daytime talkshows, Celia. Will modern wonders never cease?

[open CR! link goes to the Jerry Springer website, which I probably shouldn't have visited at work. Oops.]

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"What are you up to, roomie?" Alana asked cheerfully as she padded into the common room. She was vaguely thinking about fixing herself a snack, but a higher priority was company.

"Being horrified by this world," Celia said, shaking her head even as she turned to smile at her roommate. "I think I've stumbled upon the lowest form of modern entertainment."

And yet she couldn't look away.

"That's the scuzziest thing I've seen on Earth," Alana concurred, after a moment of watching in horrified silence. "Not as bad as Sextillion soap operas back home, but still. That's up there."

"What's a Sextillion?" Celia asked, already wincing. "We don't have anything like this at home, I don't think."

At least, not that she'd seen. Music halls could be fairly bawdy places, but not this bad.

"It's a planet where guys go to do sex stuff," Alana said, cheeks going slightly pink. "Kind of a gross place, so their TV shows are gross to match it. Honestly, I think you're kind of the lucky one."

"Like a -- brothel?" Celia was horrified. "Um. Oh, no, we have that sort of thing at home. Not that I'm supposed to know they exist. My father would have a fit if he heard me refer to such things. Young ladies like myself aren't intended to have any knowledge of anything like that, of course." She rolled her eyes. "I think it's a common denominator across all cultures, honestly. Some are just more fussy about hiding it."

"Like a whole planet of brothels," Alana nodded. "And it probably wouldn't be my dad's favorite thing to hear me talking about, either. But I figure he doesn't get a vote when he's never around."

"No?" Celia offered a sympathetic smile. "I should adopt that policy when it comes to my own father. He doesn't get to decide things for me unless he puts in the time."

It was a nice idea, but Celia suspected it would end in something painful and a decree that she needed to spend more time practicing and less time thinking up stupid ideas.

"It doesn't matter here, at least," she added. "I've never been allowed to do essentially whatever I like, before."

"So you might really go crazy here," Alana suggested. "But yeah, that's pretty much what I figure. If he wants some perfect doll of a daughter, he can start by having a conversation with me once in a while."

Like that would happen.

She smiled wryly. "Sorry. Dads are hard."

"Don't worry, I know better than most," Celia sighed, lazily flicking a fingertip at her empty cereal bowl to float it back to the kitchen. "Raised by a single father who preferred to use me as an adorable accessory until I got too old to play with dolls. Dads are hard, indeed. Is yours busy with anything terribly important, at least?"

"He thinks so," Alana sighed, and might have said more if she hadn't noticed the floating crockery. "Um. You just floated your bowl, right? I'm not randomly seeing things?"

She was surprised and curious, but not shocked. She'd seen magic before.

Celia smiled, coloring slightly. "Your vision is fine. I, um, do magic. Sorry I didn't mention it before. I'm only just becoming...open with it. I wasn't sure whether to trust people here. No offense."

"None taken," Alana said, waving it off. "I'm jealous, is all. I get that some people have good reasons to keep it quiet."

"It's just not something that's known, where I'm from. Most people assume magic is just pretend," Celia said, twirling her finger and drawing a little purple tendril of mist in the air. "I should've mentioned it when you showed me your wings, honestly. I don't think I've met a single person here who doesn't have some sort of capability or differentiation."

"At home, there are some species that can do magic and some that can't," Alana explained, watching the mist sparkle. "People from Landfall mainly can't. But -- yeah,you're right. If there are any totally boring people here they keep it quiet."

"People can do magic where you're from?" Celia repeated, raising her eyebrows. "And they call it that? I haven't met anyone else who does -- plenty of people who can do what I can, but they credit science, or their genes."

"Not a lot of people," Alana clarified. "And it's less about floating things and more about spells, I think. But yeah, it happens and we call it that."

Isabelle strode in after class, her dress billowing a bit behind her with the movement. But as determined as she seemed to be in making her way to the fridge, she could still spare a glance and a raised eyebrow towards the TV.

"Oh, what now?"

Mundie entertainment continued to be weird.

"Your guess is as fair as mine," Celia said, turning to glance at the new girl. "Apparently someone has been unfaithful to their cousin, due to seeking the entertainment of a streetwalker. Something like that. Very highbrow stuff, this."

"Mm hmm." Isabelle yanked the fridge door open, peering in. "Has there been a lot of yelling? In my experience there's always a bunch of yelling in shows like that."

"There has!" Celia said, pleased that someone at least seemed to have some passing familiarity with what to expect with this sort of program. "One gentleman even threw a chair." She paused, and added, "'Gentleman' may not be the best descriptor in this case."

"There have already been hookers involved," Isabelle noted, as she reached for her apple juice. "No, I don't think anything to do with gentlemen enters into it anymore."

"Why is anyone facilitating this?" Celia wondered. "Are people in this time truly so fascinated by other people's problems?"

Celia had only previously been exposed to the lighter, more Tim Gunn-esque side of reality TV.

Isabelle shrugged, and got herself a glass. "Well, I guess people who don't have anything important to do have to fill their time with something."

She could only go so long without sounding a little dismissive towards mundanes. But, oh well. Something else had already caught her interest.

"So you're time-displaced?"

"Only by a century and a quarter," Celia said lightly. "From what I can tell, I have it easy. Are you from this time, then?"

She seemed to at least understand things well enough, if she wasn't.

Isabelle offered up another shrug.

"More or less. But I'm not overly familiar with all ––" She waved a hand vaguely at the TV. "–– that."

"Good for you," Celia said, giggling in spite of herself. "I shouldn't become familiar with it. I don't think it's...very good for the mind, probably."

Good job, Celia. You just became everyone's mom.

"I don't think anyone watches that for their mind."

Quite the opposite. But Isabelle sounded amused.

Edited 2014-01-15 22:15 (UTC)

"Oh, I don't know," Celia mused. "Under the right circumstances I imagine it might be quite educational."

Such as if you were from 1884 and had no exposure to such thing.

"I'm Celia, by the way."

Isabelle nodded. "Isabelle." A pause, and she tacked on, "Lightwood." Even if that meant nothing to people who weren't from back home, or hadn't met her brother here. "Hi."

Celia just nodded. "Pretty name," she commented. "Have you gone to school here very long, Isabelle?"

Celia had not. If that was somehow not abundantly obvious.

"Since last fall." The juice went back into the fridge, and Isabelle picked up her glass. "But my brother was already here, and a friend of ours before him. So I missed out on most of the usual new kid culture shock."

Except for the one she was living with every day by being in the middle of so many mundies.

"I envy you," Celia sighed. "I don't think I've met your brother. How lovely to have someone warn you -- well, I suppose I have had warnings, but I'd think a real sibling would be more trustworthy than a pretend one assigned by the school."

Not that she didn't appreciate it, Sparkle.

"The pretend ones can be trustworthy and informative enough." Hey, Isabelle was one! "If you're willing to take their help."

Chuck.

"But yeah, it's not the same as a couple of years of information coming to you beforehand."

"Mine mostly advised me as to where to buy contraceptives," Celia said primly. "Though he and others have advised me about the things that might befall a person here -- turning into the opposite gender or small children or animals, and so on."

"And you believed him?"

It was an important thing to check.

"I haven't been given a reason not to," Celia replied, shrugging. "And it's not that much stranger than what I'm used to, honestly."

"Then you're already miles ahead of my assigned sibling," Isabelle shared as she folopped onto a chair, rolling her eyes. "His world has lizard demons, and he still refuses to believe anything until he sees it."

"Lizard demons?" Celia asked, staring. "Oh, my. That's a few steps beyond...my experience. Lizard demons?"

Isabelle rolled her eyes again. Sorry, it was a thing.

"Yes. Lizard demons. Big ones."

Actually not, but she'd categorized kaiju in terms she actually understood.

"And see, I'm willing to believe in lizard demons," Celia pointed out. "Despite their lack of existence in my world. I don't know why anyone would be so stub --"

She paused, slanting a look at Isabelle.

"This sibling of yours -- he doesn't happen to have a really adorable bulldog, does he?"

Because yes, now she was remembering that first day quite clearly.

Isabelle's dryly amused smirk probably confirmed that before her words did.

"Adorable and more well behaved than he is? As a matter of fact, he does."

"I met a boy my first day here with the sweetest dog," Celia mused. "The boy himself, though, refused to believe that I didn't know about some...robots, and said I had my head in the sand, and refused to believe anything other than what he already knew. Sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it? You poor thing, having to bear him welcome and warnings."

Isabelle waved a hand. "It's fine," she said, lazily. She was used to cocky idiots, to be honest. "We fought."

Literally. Physically.

"It didn't do much to his attitude, though."

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Third floor common room [Wednesday afternoon]

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