Fandom High Dormitories

Celia had grown tired of the strange coldness of the room she shared with Eleanor -- it came and went, in patches and bursts, and something about the room made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. As much as she loved the architecture and design of the house, and as much as it was almost a relic of home...perhaps it had been left too long on its own.

Still, there wasn't much she could do about it, so Saturday night found Celia wandering out to the parlor and tucking herself onto a couch to watch the television. She flipped through channels, since that was really all she knew to do, yet, until she stumbled across some sort of bizarre medical show, in which people conducted interviews about something called a botched plastic surgery.

Celia paused as a woman described how her nose had turned out completely wrong, and how new doctors would be correcting the prior doctor's mistake. Celia only had long enough to realize that they were going to show the surgery before the channel abruptly changed to some sort of advertisement.

Without her doing so.

The advertisement was not nearly as interesting as the surgery -- there was a man telling her, in a very extended sort of way, why she ought to own something called a Ninja Blender. But she'd leave it, for just now. She wasn't messing with the remote again, for the moment. Either the television was acting on its own (bad) or there was something else at work (also bad.)

[open, omg! hat tip to nobloodymessiah for Botched, which sounds like a horrifying/awesome show.]

It was the Friday afternoon before Easter, and Celia had a rather nice weekend to look forward to, and after class earlier she was feeling a bit creative on top of being in a fairly bright mood in the first place.

So, it had occurred to her that, here in Fandom, she could actually celebrate holidays the ways she'd heard of other people doing. She wasn't trapped trailing after her father, she wasn't forced to pretend Christmas or Independence Day or Easter didn't exist, and it would just be another Sunday.

It had taken her a bit of doing, but she'd found the supplies she'd needed, and set up a little station in the common room -- she had eggs (whether they were hardboiled or not was questionable, since she certainly didn't know how to do that), she had assorted dyes she'd gotten in town, and she had a rather extensive collection of brushes, sponges, and egg-dippers.

She'd been surprised by how easy it apparently was to dye eggs nowadays -- she'd only ever seen the supplies for very finely-decorated ones advertised in magazines or shop windows, and been positively green with envy at the idea of being able to make one of her own. Modern egg-dyeing seemed standard -- and, honestly, a little cheap, though she supposed that was so children could participate easily.

All the same, Celia was seated at a table, wearing an already-splotchy apron that she'd conjured (though that was the only magical concession she'd made -- she was determined to at least try to do most of this manually before she resorted to magic) over her otherwise drab, gray dress. She had her tongue between her teeth as she painstakingly painted on little flowers on an egg she'd dyed pink already, and was trying not to get frustrated just yet.

[omg open common room, come dye easter eggs!!!! supplies are all moddable, natch.]

Celia had an armful of books from the library and a strange desire to be around other people, still. (Usually the two didn't coincide much for her.) She took her stack out to the common room, flopping lazily on the couch in a flurry of skirts.

She was just about to turn on the television when she heard a soft, deadpan voice say, ""Have you been telling people the butterfly thing? I keep getting calls about threesomes."

Celia started, actually dropping the book she was about to dive into. "...hello?" she said said hesitantly, looking around the room for the voice's owner.

Once she'd actually gotten up and looked behind the television and all the furniture, Celia felt a bit better. She fluttered her hands at the discarded books, bringing them back into a neat pile, and settled back down.

Now, she did turn on the television for company -- she wouldn't actually admit it was because she was a bit uneasy (not to mention confused -- what was a threesome?), but...yes, she wanted another voice in the room that she could actually see the source of.

[open common room is open!]

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.]

Celia normally rose early -- it was partly a defense mechanism, so she could get everything she needed for the day under way before her father rose from his hangover. But after all of yesterday's commotion and surprises, she found herself still abed when it was nearly noon, on Saturday morning.

She quickly found a warm winter dress in her trunk and pulled her hair up in a passable bundle of curls, then ventured out to the common room. Supposedly this was where food could be found -- after the picnic yesterday, she'd not had much interest in seeking out still more food, but today was a different story.

The first and easiest-to-access item she encountered was a blue box bearing a tiger and the words 'Frosted Flakes,' sitting out on a countertop. Celia frowned at it, then peeked around before opening the box. She didn't want to go into someone else's food, but she'd also been given the impression that this was where community items were kept, so....

Hm. Flakes. And they did indeed look frosted. Celia gingerly plucked one of the little morsels out of the box and tried it, then decided she liked it enough to keep eating from the box as she perused the kitchen. Yes, it was much less dignified than how she'd behave with company about, but that was neither here nor there since she was alone for the moment. She was strongly considering levitating things down from top shelves, too -- her father would have told her that if she didn't use her magic, it would lose power, of course, but Celia was still a little cautious about possible witnesses and what it meant that she was here.

She had more pressing concerns at the moment, though. "What in the devil's name is a Froot Loop?"

[totally open, whooooooo! save me from housework. EDIT: shhh it never said Saturday. wishful thinking.]