Story: "Up the Water Spout" Part 10
Sep. 19th, 2014 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis story belongs to the series Love Is For Children which includes "Love Is for Children," "Hairpins," "Blended," "Am I Not," "Eggshells," "Dolls and Guys,""Saudades," "Querencia," "Turnabout Is Fair Play," "Touching Moments," "Splash," "Coming Around," "Birthday Girl," "No Winter Lasts Forever," "Hide and Seek," "Kernel Error," "Happy Hour," "Green Eggs and Hulk,""kintsukuroi," and "Little and Broken, but Still Good."
Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Natasha Romanova, Phil Coulson, Clint Barton, Betty Ross, Bucky Barnes.
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: Mention of human trafficking and nonconsensual drug use. Slightly offstage sexual violence. Dubcon/Noncon.
Summary: Sometimes the Black Widow needs to hunt, and sometimes she needs help settling her personality afterwards. Uncle Phil arranges an extra ageplay session.
Notes: Hurt/comfort. Family. Fluff and angst. BAMF!Black Widow. Black Widow is creepy. Spiders. Coping skills. Asking for help and getting it. Hope. Nonsexual ageplay. Caregiving. Competence. Girl stuff. Toys and games. Gentleness. Trust. #coulsonlives
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20.
"Up the Water Spout" Part 10
Betty went over to the weightlifting rack and boosted one of the 25-pound discs coated in rubber. "Here," she said. "This can be your potsy. It'll give you a little more challenge. Aim for Square 2."
"What do I do with the old one?" Natka asked.
"Balance it on your head while you hop, and don't drop it," Betty said with a smirk.
"... okay," Natka said, a little dubiously. She chucked the heavier potsy into Square 2, barely getting it inside the lines. Then she put the rock on her head and hopped through the squares. She made it to Square 9 before the rock tumbled off.
Betty laughed and waved Natka back to the starting line before venturing into her own second turn.
Phil was already imagining other variants to make this game more challenging for physically fit adults. Steve loved agility training. He could probably be enticed to try hopscotch while balancing an egg on a spoon.
They played a few more rounds. Then they switched to a version where everyone had to throw their potsy on a different square, and you couldn't step on any square that had one in it. The longer jumps complicated the game, especially for Natka who still had her rock balanced atop her head.
"Want to try a different pattern?" Phil asked then.
"I guess," Natka said.
"Can we play swamp hopscotch?" Betty asked.
"Sure," Phil said. "Go ahead and lay out the board."
Swamp hopscotch involved drawing a large rectangle, its border marked by fourteen squares. Betty sketched it out quickly and then left Natka to finish the details while she filled the center with cattails, lily pads, and an enormous alligator rendered in various colors of chalk. Natka just concentrated on making large, clear numbers.
"What are the rules?" Natka asked.
"No potsies this time. First you hop forward from Square 1 to Square 14. Then you hop backward to Square 1 again," Betty said. "You can't land on a line or anywhere inside the Swamp."
It was simple enough to hop forward. Nobody made it more than a few squares backward before landing on a line. It was too hard to aim and balance a the same time. They kept trying, though, and gradually they got better at it. Natka improved faster than the others, her enhanced dexterity giving her an edge.
Then Betty laid out another grid, similar to the first but with the numbers counting by twos. "I used to do stuff like this in grade school," she said. "I'd practice math with it, and later, foreign languages." She hopped along the squares, counting aloud in Spanish. "Some people write vocabulary words on the grid too."
Natka went through counting in Russian, then Japanese on the way back.
"Show off," Betty said, but she was smiling.
Taking up the chalk, Natka laid out a new design in orange. Inside the squares she used blue to write the elegant squiggles of Hindi. Phil wasn't fully fluent in that language, but he recognized "knife" and "milk." In the top box, to his surprise, Natka drew the symbol for "OM."
"Did you learn that last one from Bruce, or on your own?" Betty asked.
"Bruce," said Natka. Then she flipped neatly onto her hands and made her way through the grid.
"You win," Betty said. "I am not even going to try to duplicate that!"
* * *
Notes:
Handicapping in sports uses weight to even up the odds between players of differing ability levels. This is a crucial technique for training a team like the Avengers who have wildly varied powers. Weight throws are also used as a sport unto themselves when tossed for distance, height, or accuracy. Some sports have accuracy exercises, handy if you day job sometimes involves playing keepaway with the bad guys. You can actually get weighted throws as arborculture or sport equipment, or just use what you have as Betty did here.
Balance games can involve simply balancing things on your head or moving with things balanced. The egg-and-spoon race is a handheld version.
Vocabulary hopscotch can be played in any language for spelling, reading, or other practice.
Handwalking is a fun circus skill that many people can learn to do. Any agility gameboard can be used as a challenge for alternative modes of travel such as this.
[To be continued in Part 11 ...]
Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Natasha Romanova, Phil Coulson, Clint Barton, Betty Ross, Bucky Barnes.
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: Mention of human trafficking and nonconsensual drug use. Slightly offstage sexual violence. Dubcon/Noncon.
Summary: Sometimes the Black Widow needs to hunt, and sometimes she needs help settling her personality afterwards. Uncle Phil arranges an extra ageplay session.
Notes: Hurt/comfort. Family. Fluff and angst. BAMF!Black Widow. Black Widow is creepy. Spiders. Coping skills. Asking for help and getting it. Hope. Nonsexual ageplay. Caregiving. Competence. Girl stuff. Toys and games. Gentleness. Trust. #coulsonlives
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20.
"Up the Water Spout" Part 10
Betty went over to the weightlifting rack and boosted one of the 25-pound discs coated in rubber. "Here," she said. "This can be your potsy. It'll give you a little more challenge. Aim for Square 2."
"What do I do with the old one?" Natka asked.
"Balance it on your head while you hop, and don't drop it," Betty said with a smirk.
"... okay," Natka said, a little dubiously. She chucked the heavier potsy into Square 2, barely getting it inside the lines. Then she put the rock on her head and hopped through the squares. She made it to Square 9 before the rock tumbled off.
Betty laughed and waved Natka back to the starting line before venturing into her own second turn.
Phil was already imagining other variants to make this game more challenging for physically fit adults. Steve loved agility training. He could probably be enticed to try hopscotch while balancing an egg on a spoon.
They played a few more rounds. Then they switched to a version where everyone had to throw their potsy on a different square, and you couldn't step on any square that had one in it. The longer jumps complicated the game, especially for Natka who still had her rock balanced atop her head.
"Want to try a different pattern?" Phil asked then.
"I guess," Natka said.
"Can we play swamp hopscotch?" Betty asked.
"Sure," Phil said. "Go ahead and lay out the board."
Swamp hopscotch involved drawing a large rectangle, its border marked by fourteen squares. Betty sketched it out quickly and then left Natka to finish the details while she filled the center with cattails, lily pads, and an enormous alligator rendered in various colors of chalk. Natka just concentrated on making large, clear numbers.
"What are the rules?" Natka asked.
"No potsies this time. First you hop forward from Square 1 to Square 14. Then you hop backward to Square 1 again," Betty said. "You can't land on a line or anywhere inside the Swamp."
It was simple enough to hop forward. Nobody made it more than a few squares backward before landing on a line. It was too hard to aim and balance a the same time. They kept trying, though, and gradually they got better at it. Natka improved faster than the others, her enhanced dexterity giving her an edge.
Then Betty laid out another grid, similar to the first but with the numbers counting by twos. "I used to do stuff like this in grade school," she said. "I'd practice math with it, and later, foreign languages." She hopped along the squares, counting aloud in Spanish. "Some people write vocabulary words on the grid too."
Natka went through counting in Russian, then Japanese on the way back.
"Show off," Betty said, but she was smiling.
Taking up the chalk, Natka laid out a new design in orange. Inside the squares she used blue to write the elegant squiggles of Hindi. Phil wasn't fully fluent in that language, but he recognized "knife" and "milk." In the top box, to his surprise, Natka drew the symbol for "OM."
"Did you learn that last one from Bruce, or on your own?" Betty asked.
"Bruce," said Natka. Then she flipped neatly onto her hands and made her way through the grid.
"You win," Betty said. "I am not even going to try to duplicate that!"
* * *
Notes:
Handicapping in sports uses weight to even up the odds between players of differing ability levels. This is a crucial technique for training a team like the Avengers who have wildly varied powers. Weight throws are also used as a sport unto themselves when tossed for distance, height, or accuracy. Some sports have accuracy exercises, handy if you day job sometimes involves playing keepaway with the bad guys. You can actually get weighted throws as arborculture or sport equipment, or just use what you have as Betty did here.
Balance games can involve simply balancing things on your head or moving with things balanced. The egg-and-spoon race is a handheld version.
Vocabulary hopscotch can be played in any language for spelling, reading, or other practice.
Handwalking is a fun circus skill that many people can learn to do. Any agility gameboard can be used as a challenge for alternative modes of travel such as this.
[To be continued in Part 11 ...]
(no subject)
Date: 2014-09-19 08:40 am (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2014-09-19 08:44 am (UTC)Yay!
>> I've always liked hopscotch, even though I was never at all good at it. (Trivia fact about me: my enjoyment of a game or activity is only very tangentially related to my skill at it: as long as I can understand the game and don't have to do too much counting--a skill that frustrates me immensely--I can be terrible at a game and really enjoy it, or technically good at it but find it boring, frustrating, or otherwise unenjoyable...or, of course, vice versa.) <<
That's interesting. There are few activities I enjoy but am bad at.
>> Has Betty (or Phil) ever played Snail (what the Wikipedia page for Hopscotch calls Escargot)? I was always better at that than at "regular" hopscotch, because my feet have always been tiny, making it easier for me to safely navigate the inner squares (and thus making it more likely that I would end up with at least as many "safe" squares as my opponent). <<
That was in the list of resources, so yes, it's probably one of the variants they were playing. They experimented with a bunch of different things.
>> This fic is bringing back some great memories for me of playing "street games" and "playground games" with my friends. <<
I'm happy to hear that. Things need to be remembered and passed on so we don't lose them.
hopscotch
Date: 2014-09-19 12:29 pm (UTC)I love the variations- the spiral I knew as both 'spiral' and 'escargot' -- Interestingly, it's from the same part of hte country, rather htan one name on the East Coast and another on the West.
Re: hopscotch
Date: 2014-09-20 05:55 am (UTC)Sooth. Natka picks up physical skills quickly.
>> I love the variations- the spiral I knew as both 'spiral' and 'escargot' -- Interestingly, it's from the same part of hte country, rather htan one name on the East Coast and another on the West. <<
Hee! Games may vary by name, by rules, or both. It's interesting to watch.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-09-19 03:13 pm (UTC)I could just see myself having to hop to remember words, though... ^^;
This story is interesting. Despite being a young girl, I never had any use for these games either, so it's fun to read about how they're played, and someone enjoying them when the assumption is not "EVERYONE knows how to play this already."
Thank you!
Date: 2014-09-19 08:11 pm (UTC)Yay!
>> I could just see myself having to hop to remember words, though... ^^; <<
State-dependent memory.
>> This story is interesting. Despite being a young girl, I never had any use for these games either, <<
I wasn't much into girl games myself, and certainly not as much as the actual girls seemed to be. I was no good at hula hooping, tolerable at jump rope, quite good at hopscotch although it didn't hold my interest very long. If someone had been scrawling foreign language vocabulary all over it, I would have been much more interested.
>> so it's fun to read about how they're played, and someone enjoying them when the assumption is not "EVERYONE knows how to play this already." <<
That's good to hear. I think the Avengers have learned a lot about not making assumptions of other people's knowledge base, because they've all had disadvantaged childhoods in some way or another and they have divergent specialties as adults too. Most of them enjoy teaching and learning, though, so that helps.
Re: Thank you!
Date: 2014-09-19 08:43 pm (UTC)... I have learned a thing today. :D
>>I wasn't much into girl games myself, and certainly not as much as the actual girls seemed to be.<<
That, in retrospect, may have been a factor for me also. *s*
I'm lousy at hula hoop and a disaster at jump rope, and hopscotch interested me only once I figured out that jumping one-footed, or backward, was actually challenging. I don't think I could replicate Natka's feat with the stone, but balance games are among my favorites as an adult.
I love the focus on teaching and learning in this series. (And, actually, in several of your others. Theme located!)
Re: Thank you!
Date: 2014-09-26 08:44 am (UTC)Glad I could help.
>> I'm lousy at hula hoop and a disaster at jump rope, and hopscotch interested me only once I figured out that jumping one-footed, or backward, was actually challenging. I don't think I could replicate Natka's feat with the stone, but balance games are among my favorites as an adult. <<
I enjoy balance games too. I probably couldn't balance a stone on my head while jumping. Walking, yes, I'm quite good at. But I once saw someone trot with a book on his head. Not a few paces, but a good 20 yards or so. Impressive feat.
>> I love the focus on teaching and learning in this series. (And, actually, in several of your others. Theme located!) <<
Yep, that is a favorite theme of mine and I do it often.