ic contact;

[originallutece]

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[enarms]

Oh good, I'm so glad to hear it.

[ uhm, absolutely? ]

Please do.

[originallutece]

I was sixteen, home from break at university. My mother enjoyed utilizing those times to their maximum efficiency and stuffing the days full of prospective suitors, to make up for all the balls and poetry recitations and so on that I was missing while I was at Girton. It was part of our deal for letting me go off to university at all.

Well. The man she had me meet that day was . . . pleasant, I suppose. Bland. Irritatingly full of himself, not because he was clever in some way, but because he was born into a family that had a long lineage and a lot of money. Unimpressive, in other words, and I was impatient enough as it was, because I had an experiment I was eager to get back to.

He began with all the usual pleasantries, of course. "You look charming, your skin is radiant," on and on and on. You could have slotted him out with any other idiot of our class and generation, and so I stopped him before he could wast any more time.

I told that if he was so dedicated to being so stereotypical and dull, we could simply cut this short and save us both an afternoon, as I already knew what he was going to say, so there was no point in actually going through the motions. And when he sputtered and said he wasn't, that he was unique and interesting and so on, I correctly predicted that he was going to next say some insipid compliment about my hair and my name-- "Rosalind, just as pretty as a rose", as if I hadn't heard that since I turned thirteen.

Needless to say, he didn't return after that day. Which suited me just fine.

[enarms]

[ he's laUGHing. ]

Incredible take down.

[ but he's also aware of that sixteen, of the man, of the time she inhabited. and of that home from university. of course she was. of course Rosalind Lutece was a child genius, stomping all over societal bounds. ]

God knows what you'd have been like if you were born in my time.

[ probably the same but a billionaire by 12. ]

[originallutece]

God knows what you'd be like if you'd been born in mine.

Interesting to think about, isn't it? I don't remember any Watsons around, but to be fair, I never memorized Burke's Peerage.

[enarms]

I'd have been a nightmare.

[ he's self-aware enough to know that much. ]

I doubt you'd have found it in there anyway. Common, as names go.

[originallutece]

A nightmare is a bit strong. What prompts you to say that?

[enarms]

Remember my alleged parade of women and your loathed army boys?

1/2

[originallutece]

"Alleged".

[originallutece]

A nightmare if you'd tried to court me, perhaps, but it may surprise you to find men went through women just as quickly in 1887.

Besides: I might have liked you if you'd been rude. It'd be different, anyway.

[enarms]

No, I don't think it would surprise me.

I wouldn't have been rude.

[ just as dull and boring, sorry pal. he's not an imaginative flirt, just a practiced one. ]