The Gym: Wednesday Afternoon

[buzzkillcaptain.livejournal.com]

Dipper decided today to do something healthy. Like work out with the weight machine to try to perform a bench press.

It wasn't working well. He could barely push the bar up.

If one listen closely, they could hear him mutter "Stupid. Noodle. Arms."

Hopefully no one else would be around to witness his humiliation.

Comments

[dwarvenswagger]

"...a dragon." What you described there was a dragon, Dipper.

[buzzkillcaptain.livejournal.com]

No. It's a dinosaur. They don't breathe fire, Thorin.

Unless it's a Dino-bot but we're not dealing with cartoons here.

Okay, Dipper is a cartoon but that's another debate.

"Well, these don't breathe any fire or stuff like that," Dipper explained even though the narrative had already done that. "They were pretty much animalistic creatures without any intelligence. And are you saying you have dragons? Really?"

[dwarvenswagger]

Thorin was a cartoon once, but that was possibly animated while on acid. So.

"Ah. No, dragons have a cruelty to their intelligence from what I have been told."

[buzzkillcaptain.livejournal.com]

"That is so cool!" Dipper exclaimed excitingly before realizing his reaction wasn't really appropriate. "Um. That is if you haven't had to deal with one, I guess."

[dwarvenswagger]

"Indeed," Thorin replied dryly. "They say the largest of their ilk had a wingspan that rivaled a mountain."

Because Tolkien had no concept of scale.

[kenselvren]

Jalian shrugged. "The persons in this timeline are mostly fragile," she agreed. "They live longer than many ken Selvren, but their lives are easier. Your timeline...your world," she corrected herself, "is harsher?"

Old age wasn't a terribly common cause of death for ken Selvren women (nobody paid attention to the men).

[spin_kick_snap]

"Because what I can do--isn't natural." Thinking of Raven made her amend that to, "Isn't normal, I mean. I don't know of anyone else that can do what I can. It makes the competition unfair in my favor--like if I were competing against children, instead."

Which seemed a little mean to say, but Kathy figured it would get her point across better than any other metaphor.

"They can't do what I can do. It's physically impossible for them. So, competing against them just isn't right. I have an advantage that no one else does and that has no place in a friendly competition."

[spin_kick_snap]

"It's hard to say," Kathy said with a nod, thinking back to the few details of the weekend she could remember. "There's no good way to tell one from the other until you get there. Why? What's so bad about them?"

[spin_kick_snap]

And Kathy just blinked innocently back, as if she just couldn't wait to hear him expound. This was his thought experiment, after all.

[dwarvenswagger]

"It can be," Thorin replied. "Many would not have the skills to survive from what I can tell of this land."

[dwarvenswagger]

If she believed she could out stubborn a dwarf, more power to her! Though now Thorin was forced to reexamine her in case she was possibly not intelligent enough to see the flaws of her odd argument.

It was sad sometimes, the differences in the free folk.

[kenselvren]

Jalian turned that over in her head, then nodded. "So now you perfect yourself as you like, but not for competition."

[kenselvren]

Jalian laughed and rolled her eyes. "No. Most of them cannot hunt, even, or defend themselves." She thought for a moment. "They have many more kinds of food, though. And freeways and cars. Those are good."

[dwarvenswagger]

"They break easily, the cars."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Exactly!" Kathy said. "It's kinda sad that I can't compete anymore, but that doesn't mean I can't still do what I love, you know? And, again, I don't have to worry about what other people like when I make up my own routines. So that's always fun."

[kenselvren]

"Sometimes." Jalian shrugged. "But there are always more. There are a lot of cars."

[kenselvren]

"Your own rules are best," Jalian agreed, grinning.

[spin_kick_snap]

"My music, too," Kathy said. "Far better than what I used to have to perform to."

[kenselvren]

"What was that?" Jalian asked, curious.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Mostly instrumental versions of soft rock," Kathy said, making a face. "Slowed down to rob it of anything interesting. It's just familiar enough to snag the judges' attention, but without committing to anything that they might object to."