I'm aliiiiiiive!

[lunasariel]

Well, I'm back. I actually got home almost exactly a week ago, but I've spent the intervening time decompressing after finals. The last one, the one where our only instruction was "bring breakfast," turned out to be unexpectedly horrific. I mean, she strongly hinted that we would just sit around, talk about the idea of romanticism, and eat a potluck breakfast, but no, I come in, sit down, and then all of a sudden I'm being asked to write about how Eric Hobsbawm's three functions of invented tradition apply to Manx, Cornish, and Breton traditions of my choice, and then write a three-page paper on whether or not "Celtic" is a distinct cultural and/or ethnic group both in the 19th century and today, citing examples from at least two works we'd read that semester. I hadn't studied at all. So, yeah, bit of a heart attack there. But at least it's over now.

I had to wait until Friday night to move out, and as absolutely everyone had to clear out by 10:00 AM on Saturday, it was quite a zoo. One elevator, roughly 200 people trying to move out; you can imagine what it was like. We got out of there eventually, though, and had one last burrito from Yummy Burrito Place before leaving. I had a chance to catch up with my mom on the drive back up (okay, we spent most of it talking about The Avengers, but there was some family news exchanged). It turns out that my return was kind of the first "summer" event of the year, since P's finals are next week, and A has school well into June. It's her last year of middle school, so she and Mom have been getting all nostalgic for the past week or so. I'm kind of half-interested and half-terrified to see what she's going to be like in high school. She's mellowed considerably, to the point where I'm no longer worried about her actually getting expelled, but she's still an extremely volatile, emotional Lannister/Targaryen hybrid, so still I'm foreseeing kind of a rough entry for her. P is planning to bike all the way to Yellowstone this summer, which I'm also kind of worried about. I mean, he's nothing if not a "big plans" type of guy, but he also has a history of biting off more than he can chew. He and I have been watching Game of Thrones together (I've forbidden him from seeing s2 until he gets caught up on s1, of which he still needs to see the last episode), which has been fun, since he's actually read enough of the books by now to be able to make a decent comparison. He and I disagree on HBO!Cersei (he thinks the closer look makes her too human, I think it makes her more interesting), but agree that Syrio Forel is awesome. So I'm looking forward to seeing what he thinks of s2.



Things I Love About Being Home:

• Getting to see my pets again. I turns out that Cassie, my *extremely* elderly, diabetic, toothless cat, has taken her usual "punish The Servant for extended absence by developing new and interesting medical problem" to a new extent: last week something went wrong with her diabetes, and she spent most of the week in the animal hospital. Her blood sugar is supposed to be somewhere between 130 and 150, and, this time last week, it was around 700. And then it dropped to 50. We all know that several of our pets are getting elderly, so when I  went away to Berkeley, I arranged with my mom for her not to tell me if one of them got seriously ill or died, especially when I couldn't come back up, such as finals week. She upheld this, and didn't tell me until the drive back up, for which I'm grateful. I mean, I couldn't do anything except worry, and I might have actually spontaneously combusted if I knew about it while I was also worrying about finals. Now that I'm back, though, I've been doting on Her Majesty even more than usual. She's lost some weight, which she didn't have to lose in the first place, so getting her to eat (which she doesn't seem as interested in as she otherwise would be) and making sure she gets her insulin (now twice the dose it was the last time I was up, during spring break) are pretty high priorities right now. Of course, she loves that she gets to boss me around, and that she's now on an all-wet food diet. She went back to the vet on Wednesday, where it looks like she's at least not getting any worse. Her appetite still isn't what I could wish it to be, and her insulin dosage is still high, but she's still alive and kicking (literally, when she wants me to feed her at ass o'clock in the morning). For now, I'm supposed to weigh her daily and make sure that her weight doesn't drop any more. If it holds steady, it's probably pancreatitis, which is something that a lot of elderly cats apparently get and just has to be waited out, but if it keeps dropping, then it might be something more sinister, and we'll have to bring her back in for more tests.
• Reconnecting with friends. I got in at about 12:30 AM Saturday morning, and spent most of Saturday with C&H. We went to see The Avengers again (their first time, my second), got Chinese food, and just generally got caught up on each other's lives, both IRL and fandom-related. H is both a huge Mass Effect fan and an amateur bartender, so I found her some ME-themed cocktail recipes, which she deemed theoretically tasty, and some of which I hope she'll make in the near future. H's birthday is also coming up in less than a week, and I'm waffling over what to get her. I'm thinking of just trawling thinkgeek.org for something she'd like, but she's still thinking about whether she wants something specific.
• Talking D&D, possibly a subset of my previous point. It looks like H's campaign is still garnering a lot of interest, and I have to admit to being both deeply impressed and not a little afraid when I realized that we weren't even halfway done with the prologue yet. She's asked me and her sister AD to help with the story aspect, which means that I'm on the highest possible level of spoiler-alert-ness. AD is going to be re-drawing the final draft of the map, and I've been commissioned to write some prophecies/riddles in an appropriately archaic style, for which I'll be doing my best to channel my inner Tolkien.

Things I Miss About Berkeley:

• The food. Aside from stuff they just plain don't have up here, like the crepe place or Blondie's, I'm finding myself missing the burrito place and (shock!) the dining commons more than I thought I would. There's a burrito place, Ochoa's, up here that I've always liked, but after eating one of their burritos yesterday, I discovered that A) it's not as tasty as I remember it being, and B) I got this weird not-quite-food-poisoning thing where I developed a really severe abdominal ache, like a muscle cramp, but no nausea/dizziness/other normal food poisoning symptoms. Also, nobody in my family is a big cook, so when it comes to food around here, either I make it myself or get takeout. So I've been experimenting quite a bit, with mixed results. My first effort was the bangers 'n' mash with lightly cooked onions that I mentioned getting while out with hamsterwoman a while ago, which came out good, if not as expected. I hate mashing potatoes, so eventually I just decided to just cut them up small and boil them and throw the onions in along with quite a bit of butter and salt, which worked out okay. I've been missing the dining commons' omletes as well, so tonight I'm going to give those a shot, and see how they go over.
• Berkeley/Bay Area friends. Even though I'm glad to see H and C again, I do miss M and the aforementioned hamsterwoman, movie nights with the former, dinner with the latter, and trading addictions fandoms and (face-to-face, anyway) geeking out with both. Thanks to the Wonders of Modern Technology, though, I can at least keep in virtual touch with both. I haven't kept up communications with The Roomie (who's heading off to her summer abroad next month anyway), but I still remember her fondly.
• My room/view. I love the collection of pretty and/or interesting odds and ends I've built up here, not to mention having access to all of my books at once, but I'm finding that my Berkeley room was so much more conducive to, um, work. I find myself either dicking around on the computer (WoW has its teeth in me again, I'm half-sorry to say) or running errands/doing housework, so the amount of time I spend reading/watching things has actually gone down. I've made some progress on The Once and Future King and Dragon, but I'll save my babblings on them for when I'm actually done with them. Most alarming of all, I've fallen even further behind on Game of Thrones, so no review, not even a catch-up review, this week. 'pologies.

I brought home all this lovely 18th/19th century stuff on Gothic romances so that Godzilla would have something to feed off of, but I keep getting distracted by other plotbunnies. I actually had a halfway decent one way too early this morning; an ASOIAF fix-it for the shadowbaby and ensuing problems. Due to a last-minute tactical conference, the tent was full of people, including the majority of the Rainbow Guard, when it attacked, and so was beaten off. But the Stranger was promised a life, so damned if he wasn't going to take one. During the ensuing battle, Loras is badly wounded and is set to die. When the Stranger comes to claim his life in place of Renly's, Renly is already there, and makes a quasi-literal deal with the devil. In return for the Stranger passing Loras by, Renly agrees to trade his own life back...in nearly fourscore years. He's not the Master of Laws for nothing, and the Stranger forgot to specify exactly when he would be coming to collect (assuming, of course, that it would take effect immediately; I'm guessing there aren't too many people conversant in contract law in Westeros, so the Stranger wouldn't have much call to be on the lookout for things like this), leaving a nice little loophole. This leaves him effectively immortal until his 100th name day, since, as per the clause Renly adds to the agreement, the Stranger can't collect until then. And one of the first things they agreed upon was that Loras gets to live, so the Stranger is off his back, too, at least for the time being. And since Renly hasn't technically broken or reneged upon his contract, he won't have to deal with a blighted reign or any of the other nasty side effects that usually accompany mortals who piss off gods. ...Wow, now that I type it out, it's rather full of plot holes and, er, fanfic logic. Oh, well, it sounded cool in my head at 3:30 this morning when I couldn't sleep.


While I've found myself falling behind on my reading and shows, I've at least had time to do a meme. Part of one, anyway. This one is 50 questions long, which I'm fairly certain won't fit in one post, so I'm posting the first half now, and the second half next time.

1. Jennifer Quantum (The Authority/Stormwatch)
2. Tyrion Lannister (A Song of Ice and Fire)
3. Molly Hayes (Runaways)
4. Nealan of Queenscove (Tortall universe)
5. Susan Ivanova (Babylon 5)
6. Thomas Raith (Dresden Files)
7. Jean Grey (X-Men)
8. Tommy Shepherd (Young Avengers)
9. Emily Roland (Temeraire)
10. Phil Coulson (The Avengers)
11. Aliera e’Kieron (Dragaera)
12. Peregrin “Pippin” Took (The Lord of the Rings)
13. Zoë Alleyne Washburne (Firefly)


1) 11 (Aliera) and 13 (Zoë) are fighting over fast food choices. Who wants to go where?
Panda Express or something else Chinese-influenced would probably be Zoë’s choice, since A) she would be more familiar with it, and B) it’s a little better than your average Burger Pit. As for Aliera, I could see her liking the idea of fast food, as waiting isn’t something she’s particularly good at, but she also likes to have the best of everything, so places like McDonalds or Taco Bell would hardly appeal to her. She might like somewhere a little fresher, like In-N-Out, though. And Aliera gets what she wants, as a rule, so that’s probably where they end up going.

2) Who wears the high heels in the relationship between 1 (Jenny) and 9 (Emily)?
Jenny, I think. In the literal sense, high heels would be drastically impractical on dragon-back, whereas Jenny has people like Angie to teach her that traditional femininity and the ability to kick unholy amounts of ass aren’t mutually exclusive. In the metaphorical sense, if we’re talking male and female stereotypes, Jenny is just much freer to both have emotions and act on them. As a member of the Aerial Corps, Emily’s whole life is pretty much planned out for her: she has to follow orders, even the ones she disagrees with (or, at least, she’s supposed to), and has to put her romance with Demane on hold for the sake of both of their careers. Even in the relatively liberal Corps, the 19^th century ideal of masculinity seems to be the default state. Jenny, on the other hand, is all about expressing emotion, to put it mildly.

3) 5 (Ivanova) and 8 (Tommy) get in a fight. What about?
Um, how about anything? Everything? These two would get along pretty well, but would express this by arguing at EVERY POSSIBLE OPPORTUNITY. They both seem to like a good fight, either verbal or physical, and would enjoy the chance to do so while not risking their friendship. As to specifics, though, probably something tactical or mechanical. Maybe Tommy blew something on Babylon 5 up for what he considers to be a very good reason, but Ivanova disagrees, and things go from there.

4) 12 (Pippin) wakes up to find 2 (Tyrion) cooking them breakfast. Why is this happening? What is 12's reaction?
“Breakfast, yay! :D” because he’s a Hobbit, and waking up to anybody cooking them breakfast is officially a great start to the day. And I can actually see Tyrion having picked up some pretty good cooking skills somewhere along the way, so him and Pippin being amusing at each other over breakfast would be kind of awesome and adorable, especially if this was at Tuckborough or the Great Smials, where there are a million members of Pippin’s enormous and non-dysfunctional family around, all of whom would welcome Tyrion (if only because he’s able and willing to cook), which would definitely be a new experience. He’s even roughly Hobbit-sized and has something of the Tookish taste for adventure, so I could see them kind of adopting him, and everyone lived happily ever after.
As to why he’s there in the first place, he’s probably still on the run from Westeros, and figured that the Shire is the best place for him to hide, the comparatively militant Tooks are the best bunch of Hobbits to protect him, and they’d be much more likely to accept him if their Thain knows he’s a good cook.

5) 4 (Neal), 6 (Thomas), 3 (Molly), and 7 (Jean) start a band. With guns to their heads if necessary. Who takes which instrument? Who ends up getting stalked by fans? Whose career is marred by allegations of drug use and grand theft auto?
Neal and Thomas would have a HUGE clash of egos over who gets to be lead guitar (Jean is the Florence Welch-esque singer and Molly is the slightly-too-enthusiastic drummer), but this would mostly result in a lot of really entertaining drama without any serious repercussions. Eventually Neal would take the lead, since Thomas is more used to a supporting role and would end up on keyboard or singing whenever they need someone to do a duet with Jean.
Thomas immediately accumulates a million fangirls pretty much from the moment the band starts sending out photos, and matters are not at all helped by the rumor that he also writes the occasional angsty ballad for the band. Neal is slightly miffed that Thomas was immediately branded “the sexy one,” and pours all of his energy into making himself the loud, funny one. Molly’s fans are mostly girls her own age who thinks she’s awesome, but there’s the occasional creepy older fan that Jean’s telepathy picks up on, and Thomas has to have a little chat with. Jean’s fanbase is pretty evenly divided between indie rock fans who like that she’s classically trained, social justice types who like that an open mutant is the lead singer of a popular band, and casual fans who like that she’s a redhead in a black leather catsuit. So, pretty much, business as usual.
As to the drug use/grand theft auto thing, actually, Thomas. He actually probably started the drug use rumors himself, since a little hint of danger would be good for his image, and could potentially be used to cover up any magical mishaps. The grand theft auto, on the other hand, was a misunderstanding that occurred when tried to cultivate a romantic “struggling musician” persona and accidentally showed up in one of the cars Lara bought for him, at which point someone assumed he stole it, and he had to get them to call the Raiths to prove that it is, in fact, his.

6) 10 (Coulson) has ascended to godhood. How screwed are we?
Not terribly. He would probably be an eminently sensible deity, if not one given to giving a lot of free rein. Hell, he already practically runs S.H.I.E.L.D. and wrangles half a dozen superheroes (including at least one actual god), so ascension to godhood probably wouldn’t be that big a step up for him.

7) What do 12 (Pippin) get 5 (Ivanova) for their birthday?
He’d either help her set up a mini self-sustaining garden so she can grow her own coffee, or give her some Rohanian weapons and/or armor, which, while probably not all that helpful in a laser fight, do look pretty badass.

8) Who is more macho, 13 (Zoë) or 8 (Tommy)?
Zoë, much to Tommy’s mortification. She’s a gun-toting veteran and space pirate, while he wears a green-and-white body stocking with goggles and a bright yellow arrow pointing directly at his crotch. Sorry, no contest.

9) 4 (Neal), 2 (Tyrion), and 6 (Thomas) run away and join the circus. What acts do they perform? What jobs do they do?
Neal would make an excellent ringmaster. He’s good at keeping up a near-endless stream of amusing patter, he’s got a great sense of humor, and he’s a good enough multi-tasker to be able to draw people’s attention to different rings and/or acts as necessary. Also, he would enjoy the hell out of a spangly top hat and tailcoat.
Tyrion’s first instinct would be towards being a clown and/or, er, dwarf, but if the others found out what he’d been through, I can’t see them letting him demean himself that far. A lion-tamer would have a nice ring of symmetry to it, though.
As for Thomas, I could see him in a glittery leotard with ostrich feathers on his head, doing tricks on a similarly-attired horse. XD Of course, his strength/speed/agility/endurance/etc. mean that he could do pretty much anything, so a trapeze artist or knife-thrower would also be feasible. I couldn’t see him as a strong man or anything, though.

10) Why did 10 (Coulson) kick 9 (Emily) under the table?
Eh, Emily was probably representing the Corps at some sort of state function, and was being her usual self (read: about to say something distinctly un-ladylike, probably about who was sleeping with and/or had threatened who, or maybe just something amusing but sharply critical of the Admiralty and/or Government) in a situation where tact was called for. Having planned for this, Jane asked Coulson to “babysit” for the evening and run interference/damage control as necessary.

11) 1 (Jenny) and 7 (Jean) are driving down a lonely country road late one evening when their headlights illuminate 11 (Aliera), supporting a barely-conscious 3 (Molly). Explain how 11 and 3 got into such a state, and how 1 and 7 react.
Molly’s unconsciousness is easy: canonically, she gets exhausted after using her powers for any length of time longer than, say, 30 seconds, so that’s probably what happened. This probably happened while fighting with or for Aliera (or possibly both), who contracted the Runaways to help her out in some fight or other, or maybe she just wanted to study the X-gene. So if Molly exhausted herself while running tests for Aliera, the latter might be beholden to her far enough to try to get her back home (and when I say “beholden to,” I mean that Morrolan/Vlad/Sethra made her), and tried to teleport her back to L.A. However, being unfamiliar with Earth geography, she miscalculated and ended up in the hills outside the city.
Jenny and Jean are both relatively unfazed by the sudden appearance of an Elf and a mutant, especially since Jean and Molly know each other in-canon, or at least have a lot of mutual friends. After having the situation explained to them, of course they offer a ride, and maybe stop for some hot chocolate/coffee/snacks along the way, since Molly is fine once she gets some sugar and/or caffeine and/or food in her. The ride back is longer than it seems, since Molly (once she fully woke up) and Jenny would be absolute BFFs and enjoy the hell out of actually having a friend their own age in the back seat, while Aliera and Jean would cheerfully talk genetics and telepathy/psionics in the front, although Aliera would be slightly confused as to why the mutants just don’t take over the world, and especially why Jean doesn’t give in to the Phoenix Force and use it to become virtually unstoppable.

12) 11 (Aliera) is throwing a tea party, and the whole list is invited! Describe the ensuing chaos.
Hmm… she would probably leave it to Lady Teldra and Coulson to arrange, since Aliera e’Kieron doesn’t do anything as mundane as plan parties. After considering the variety of cultures they have to accommodate, Teldra and Coulson just give up and invite everybody to Morrolan’s never-ending banquet.
Jenny and Molly, as mentioned above, would bond instantly and spend the whole time squeeing at one another. Molly would need the “no fighting” rule explained to her a couple of times, though, since there would definitely be quite a few cracks about Easterners, and it’s a well-known fact that Molly doesn’t respond well to racism, and a Dzurlord or whatever getting punched out by a twelve-year-old Easterner in a cute pink hat with pom-poms on it certainly wouldn’t go over well.
Tommy would secretly be a little miffed that Molly had abandoned him for Jenny, and would make up for it by getting loudly drunk with Neal and possibly Pippin, and talking about how all of their families are out to embarrass them as much as possible. Tommy might also need a few reminders of the “no fighting” rule, as he’s another one to not take an insult lying down. Neal and Pippin would be more likely to laugh off insults, though, especially because most of the other guests wouldn’t quite know what to make of Pippin.
Tyrion would revel in the chance to talk magic, history, and politics with Morrolan and Jean, but he’s used to taking a lot of flak for his appearance, that doesn’t mean he likes it, so eventually Pippin would notice and draw him into the getting-drunk-and-complaining-about-family group. This would leave Jean alone with Morrolan, whose expansionism she would see as more than a little Magneto-like. This would also eventually drive her off, this time to chat with Zoë, who would be spectacularly uncomfortable at a fancy event like this, at least until she figured out that women were allowed, nay, expected to be badasses in this world. She and Jean get talking about the idio(t)syncrasies of their various teams, which would lead to war stories, which Aliera would gleefully join in on.
This leaves Susan, Thomas, and Coulson to make sure things go at least semi-smoothly, which they do in their own special ways. Susan gets into some aggressive shoulder-checking matches with the boys once they get drunk enough to be belligerent, but never aggressive enough to be considered a fight; Thomas keeps an eye on the room and diffuses tension with a smile (exceptional probably even by Dragaeran standards) and a joke when and where necessary; and Coulson quietly circulates, discreetly dropping sedatives into people’s drinks here and there.

13) A matchmaking mechanic traps 10 (Coulson) and 12 (Pippin) in an elevator for an hour. How do the two pass the time? Do they fall in luuuurve?
They play cards, probably. I mean, Pippin probably has a snack with him, which would keep him occupied for a while, and then there would be the obligatory “what’s an elevator?”/“what’s a Hobbit?” conversations, but they would get bored eventually. And, no, I can’t really see them falling in love, since neither of them are romantics in the least.

14) Who would make better roommates: 7 (Jean) and 2 (Tyrion), or 4 (Neal) and 1 (Jenny)?
Jean and Tyrion, I think. Jean has lived communally for most of her life, and so knows about keeping her stuff neat, not leaving dirty plates around, doing her share of the chores, etc. While Tyrion might need some time to get used to the concept of not having servants, he would always keep the liquor cabinet well-stocked, and would be a fun guy to hang out with on weekends.
Neal and Jenny, on the other hand, would try their best, but c’mon. Neal is a teenage boy, and Jenny is a preteen girl who is regularly involved in and/or causes large-scale destruction of one kind or another.

15) The entire list goes to a karaoke bar. Who sings what? Who has to be coaxed and/or drunk before they finally get up onstage? Who blows everyone away with their surprisingly awesome pipes?
Jenny sings something from Once More, With Feeling or Dr. Horrible, since of course her parents raised her on Joss Whedon. She’d probably go for something fun that she can really belt out, like “Rest in Peace” or “Walk Through the Fire.”
Tyrion’s first choice would be a Westerosi drinking song, but once he figured out that the karaoke machine couldn’t play “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” or “The Dornishman’s Wife,” he probably settled for, say, classic Beatles or Rolling Stones.
Molly chooses something aggressively cheerful and pop-y, probably from, like, Hannah Montana or something.
Neal, the hopeless romantic, serenades his One True Love of the Day with a surprisingly good rendition of “My Heart Will Go On.”
Ivanova is initially so very no interested in singing, but once everyone else gets her sufficiently drunk, she sings old military and/or patriotic Russian songs.
Thomas sings “Sexy and I Know It.” Depending on how drunk he is, he may or may not also do the dance. ‘Nuff said.
Having been basically raised by Professor X, I can’t see Jean being a big pop music fan, so she would probably fall back on one of Dazzler’s songs, since she knows them all and they’re probably going to be on the karaoke machine.
Tommy has enormous amounts of fun rocking out to “Superheroes,” and probably gets at least half the bar to sing along.
The Aerial Corps probably has more than a few songs of their own, so those would be her first try. However, it’s pretty much assured that nobody else knows them, and they’re certainly not on the machine, so she might sing “Hearts of Oak” if she’s feeling particularly drunk affectionate towards Laurence, or maybe “Bad Reputation” if something a little more modern is called for. (OK, I’m slightly cheating on this one; I came up with something halfway between a Temeraire fanmix and a general jumble of songs that somehow tangentially relate to one fandom or another a while ago and have been adding bits and pieces to it since, which is where this one comes from).
Coulson would do a kind of scarily good rendition of the Men in Black rap if sober, and “Star-Spangled Man” if not.
Aliera runs into the same problem as Tyrion: she wants to sing something rousing and bloodthirsty, but not only is it not on the machine, it doesn’t exist in this reality. She contents herself with old-school Metallica and/or AC/DC.
Pippin technically has the same problem, but he wants to sing “The Green Dragon,” so dammit, he’s going to sing “The Green Dragon”!
As for Zoë, I can see her having a surprisingly good singing voice, but not knowing many songs that don’t hold bad, Independent-related memories for her. Wash probably goads her into singing Weird Al or something.

16) Who would be the best to have on your side in a zombie apocalypse: 3 (Molly), 5 (Ivanova), or 6 (Thomas)?
All three are good choices, but overall, I’m going to have to go with Thomas. Molly would be an asset physically, but she would probably be having some pretty severe emotional issues about the whole thing, and would end up being, overall, a liability. Ivanova would be more likely to keep a cool head, but, if EarthForce didn't somehow cause the zombie apocalypse in the first place, she would be too busy trying to organize an effective defense to pay much attention to me. Thomas, though, would not only keep his cool, but, since he knows people who know quite a lot about the dead and the raising thereof, has a good chance of actually being able to do something useful. Also, I’m not sure how the zombie virus/spell would interact with his White Court-brand vampirism, so I shouldn’t have to worry about him turning.

17) Which would make a better gate team? 8 (Tommy), 13 (Zoë), 9 (Emily), and 3 (Molly) or 5 (Ivanova), 2 (Tyrion), 11 (Aliera), and 7 (Jean)? Who would lead the team in each case? One gate team (you decide which) gets captured by natives on [some planet?], and the other is dispatched to rescue them. Are they successful? What state do they find the first team in when they arrive?
Disclaimer: all I know of the various incarnations of Stargate comes from TVTropes and my brother, a surprisingly huge Stargate fan.
The teams are pretty evenly matched, but I’d have to go with the second one. Aliera generally isn’t all that interested in teamwork when she can go off by herself, but she would soon see the advantages of working with others when in a hostile/unfamiliar environment. Tyrion would make a great Smart Guy, of course, and he’s a quick enough study that he’d soon be able to technobabble with the best of them. Ivanova is one of nature’s XOs (to modify a Terry Pratchett phrase), and would be totally okay with making TOTALLY IN CHARGE!!!!!11! Aliera’s ideas, you know, feasible. And a telepath is always useful, so Jean could at least circumvent the language problem when meeting new alien races for the first time.
I can see the first team getting captured easier than the second team, since Jean’s telepathy would give them fair warning of any attack and Aliera certainly wouldn’t just sit around and wait to be rescued. So yes, the second team is successful in rescuing them, due to a combination of Ivanova’s careful planning, Tyrion’s sabotage/savvy, Aliera’s willingness to go toe-to-toe to an entire army and swing away until either she’s dead or they are, and Jean’s ability to locate people and coordinate a breakout. The second team probably isn’t in the best of shape, since Tommy has kind of a mouth on him, and he and Emily would start to get on each other’s nerves pretty much immediately.

18) If 6 (Thomas)/10 (Coulson) and 1 (Jenny)/12 (Pippin) were running against each other for President, who would win? Would the winning party do a passable job of running the country, or would they be overtaken by maniacal delusions of grandeur?
Thomas/Coulson would win, of course. Thomas literally has more charisma and personal magnetism than he knows what to do with, and Coulson would make an absolutely perfect VP: he’s consummately good at running things behind the scenes, but doesn’t have enough ambition to be troublesome. And yes, they would do a great job of running the country. Or, rather, Coulson would do a great job of running the country, and Thomas would do a great job of doing what Coulson tells him to.

19) 4 (Neal) is turned into a vampire by 9 (Emily), how does 13 (Zoë) react?
If we’re operating under the theory that the Firefly-verse is the Buffy the Vampire Slayer-verse several millennia in the future and River is a Slayer gone wrong, that would take care of the problem pretty much immediately. But if Firefly and BtVS are completely different ‘verses, Zoë would probably withdraw once she figures out that what she wasn’t fighting isn’t human, and do some research to find out what the hell vampires are, and how to defeat them. She’d eventually come across the bit about killing a vampire’s sire, and would make the reasonable decision to go for Emily instead. She’d be saddened at having to kill both of them, since I think she would quite like Emily, and would have some amusing snark with Neal, but would take them out anyway.

20) 8 (Tommy), 10 (Coulson), and 1 (Jenny) are all going to a masquerade ball. What costumes do they choose and who figures out what the others are going as first?
For some reason, I can see Tommy going as a Prohibition-era gangster, complete with a fake tommy gun (heh) that, rumor has it, isn’t fake. He would enjoy the hell out of the sharp suit, fedora, and referring to Kate as his moll. This enjoyment would decrease (albeit only slightly) when Kate gets sick of the "moll" thing after about two seconds and threatens to shove his fake gun where the sun don't shine, but still.
Coulson goes as Captain America, of course (much to Tommy’s amusement), and is the first to figure out everyone else is going as, since he knows everything.
As for Jenny…huh. My first instinct is to say something geeky, like Xena or something, but her parents would be definitely not okay with their twelve-year-old (I think? I forget what year Wildstorm/DC continuity is in right now) wearing a leather bra and miniskirt and not much else. She’s shown signs of wanting to get more in touch with her Chinese heritage, though, so I could also see her going as Mulan.

21) 7 (Jean) was nude-bathing (part of a ritual?) by the seaside. The tide came in and 9 (Emily) was walking past just as 7 noticed. What happens then?
Emily, genuinely curious, would save Jean’s clothes from getting swept away and ask why anybody would want to bathe in the bloody cold Atlantic Ocean in the first place. Jean would explain about the Phoenix Force; maybe bathing in cold saltwater stops it from taking over or something. Anyway, I actually see a minimum of uncomfortableness on both sides, since Jean has been seen by much worse people in much worse situations, while Emily has always seemed fairly matter-of-fact about the whole nudity thing. Laurence, though, is another question entirely…;)

22) There's an explosive device, making a dubious ticking noise. 2 (Tyrion) hears the noise and alerts 6 (Thomas) and 11 (Aliera). How is it dealt with, and which out of 12 (Pippin), 8 (Tommy), and 5 (Ivanova) are the ones responsible?
Tyrion wouldn’t be so much worried about an explosion, since Westerosi explosives generally don’t tick, and would call in Thomas and Aliera just to see what the hell it is. Thomas recognizes it, though, and gets Harry or Aliera to teleport it somewhere it can explode safely (the Nevernever in Harry’s case, an enemy camp or something in Aliera’s).
As to who’s responsible, probably Ivanova. Pippin would turn to Gandalf rather than explosives if he wanted something blown up,  and Tommy doesn’t need explosives since one of his powers is the ability to make stuff blow up on its own. While explosives have probably advanced a bit between now and the 23^rd (I think?) century, planting a bomb somewhere could be Ivanova’s style, if she thought there was a good reason for it, it wouldn’t harm civilians, and no more direct options were available.

23) 13 (Zoë) and 4 (Neal) are hired to cook a gourmet dinner for 3 (Molly), who wants to impress 8 (Tommy). What do they cook and how? What is 8's reaction?
First: d’awww at Molly wanting to impress Tommy. I guess he mentioned his speedster’s metabolism, and she took it into her head to feed him up. But she’s not allowed to use the stove unsupervised and otherwise can’t manage anything more complicated than Pop-Tarts, so she dragooned the nearest two people into making something for her.
And I gotta say, you could find worse cooks than these two, but not many. Zoë is used to either field rations or the various protein slops that form the core of the diet on Serenity, and Neal has always had servants for this kind of thing. They’d both give it their best shot, though, and locate some fancy, complicated recipe and set to with a will. So they’d end up with an “A for effort, F for execution” type of deal.

24) 2 (Tyrion) and 1 (Jenny) are seated next to each other on an airplane (or equivalent mode of transport). Do they strike up a conversation? About what? At the end of the flight, are they glad to escape from each other, trading phone numbers and promising to keep in touch, or something in-between?
Yeah, I think they would start a conversation. While Jenny can actually fly on her own, I don’t think she’s ever been on a plane before, aside from the Carrier’s escape pods, so I could see her being more than a little nervous stuck in a big metal container, surrounded by a bunch of people she doesn’t know, entirely dependent on god knows who to get them to their destination without exploding and/or falling out of the sky. Tyrion would pick up on this, of course, and try to get her to laugh, even though he would probably be antsy himself, because that’s the kind of guy he is. I could see him and Jenny really getting along, though, since Jenny has a soft spot for outcasts and is violently anti-bigotry of all kinds, and Tyrion is basically everybody’s favorite cool uncle.
They make the time pass fairly quickly, telling each other funny stories and exchange, er, contact information, since I don't think either of them have phones, afterward, and promise to visit each other. Tyrion very much enjoys the Carrier, where little things like being short and having a hunchback and heterochromia are hardly anything to get excited about, not when there are other people with hair made of cables and skin made of metal, people who glow in the dark, or just people with wings and giant talon feet. Jenny isn’t allowed to go to Westeros anymore after lecturing Cersei on non-traditional parenting and telling Tywin Lannister where he can stick his patriarchal ableism.

25) 11 (Aliera) and 7 (Jean) are writing a book together. What genre/form is it, and will they be able to finish the project without killing each other?
Aliera’s first choice would be her narrating all the fights she’s been in, which, granted, would make an interesting story (given a good editor, of course), but Jean would quickly get bored and tactfully suggest they collaborate on the soon-to-be authoritative text on genetics. Aliera finds this acceptable, although they do spend some time quibbling over the definitions of “human” and “mutant.” And yes, once Aliera switches from “let me tell you about all the people I’ve killed!” mode to research mode and stops giving Jean a headache, they should get along just fine.

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

Sorry to hear about your kitty's health issues -- hope she continues to improve and that it proves to be nothing more serius.

Eeep about the unexpected final! When will you know your grades? I forget how long that takes at Berkeley...

Renly lawyering up a deal with the Stranger is maybe not the most plausible premise in the world, but it would be an interesting fic to read! I do wonder how the War of the Five Kings would've gone if he had remained a major player, with Tyrell backing and people's love.

Zoe and Aliera's fast food choices made me smile (of course Zoe would opt for Panda Express!)

Breakfast, yay! :D” because he’s a Hobbit, and waking up to anybody cooking them breakfast is officially a great start to the day

Haha, Pippin was the perfect character for that question!

Rockstar!Thomas is also perfect, complete with dedicated fangirls and mistaken allegations of stolen luxury cars, and Thomas the glittery circus trick-rider is also pretty hilarious. I was also vastly amused by Tyrion the lion-tamer (he does have canonical tumbling skills, though, so he could be an acrobat, too).

Aliera and Jean would cheerfully talk genetics and telepathy/psionics in the front, although Aliera would be slightly confused as to why the mutants just don’t take over the world, and especially why Jean doesn’t give in to the Phoenix Force and use it to become virtually unstoppable

Yes and definitely! And I liked your answer for the book they ended up coathoring, too.

Ivanova is initially so very no interested in singing, but once everyone else gets her sufficiently drunk, she sings old military and/or patriotic Russian songs.

That would be my guess, too. And BWAHAHA at Thomas singing (and dancing, yes!) to "Sexy and I Know It" (also acceptable: "I'm Too Sexy for my Shirt"), and Couslon singing "Star-Spangled Man" at karaoke is just plain new headcanon.

The Presiden Raith/VP Coulson ticket is amazing! Coulson would make a great behind-the-scenes operator while Thomas would distract the public from who is really in charge by looking pretty and dramatic and having the occasional minor personal scandal.

[lunasariel.livejournal.com]

When will you know your grades?
I've already gotten three out of the four back, and, typically, the class with the unexpected final is the only one to not have released grades yet. >:|

Renly lawyering up a deal with the Stranger is maybe not the most plausible premise in the world
Heh, very true. It's one of those ideas that sound fandom-breakingly brilliant at 3:30 AM when one is half awake, but kind of cracktastic(ally stupid) when given any serious consideration.

Rockstar!Thomas is also perfect, complete with dedicated fangirls and mistaken allegations of stolen luxury cars, and Thomas the glittery circus trick-rider is also pretty hilarious.
Yup, Thomas in all his incarnations was pretty much my favorite part of this meme. He's turning out to be another one of those never-not-awesome meme contestants, to write as well as to read.

(also acceptable: "I'm Too Sexy for my Shirt")
Oooh, I'd forgotten about that one! LOL, the image of him singing and/or dancing to either of these is awesome and hilarious and perfect.

Coulson would make a great behind-the-scenes operator while Thomas would distract the public from who is really in charge by looking pretty and dramatic and having the occasional minor personal scandal.
IKR? The Raiths and SHIELD would have no trouble financing their campaign, and Thomas would be completely okay with being charming and personable while Coulson pulls the strings.