Katchoo and Francine's Dorm Room, St. Louis, Monday Morning

[thatsamilkshake]

Rule number one to Life After Fandom: Don't think you're safe; Fandom follows you.

Rule number two: Don't get blasé; Fandom laughs at your attempts to predict it, then spits pudding in your eye.

Rule number three: Don't ever answer the door when you're half asleep, even if you hear humming in the hallway followed by a loud "OOPS!" and something thudding loudly against the wood. (This is actually a fairly useful rule if you haven't left Fandom yet, too.)

Should you forget not only one, but all three of these rules (even after being harshly reminded of the first one yesterday morning) you might find yourself muttering "The heck?" in a rather low voice, badly-wrapped in a rather short robe, and facing Margie McCoy badly-wrapped in an even shorter one and leaving nothing to the imagination as she bends down to pick up the bar of Irish Spring that just thudded off your door.

	"Oh, sorry, Katina," said she, without looking up yet. "Guess I'm a little out of it this morning. Nothing a nice hot shower won't fiiiiii..."
	That would be where the looking up came in -- and where Francine learned Rule 3 the hard way.
	Or possibly Margie did.
	"Dropping the soap, Margie? Seriously? Could you get more unsubtle?"
	Soap: dropped again, and then there was scrambling. "I'm sorry, I... thought..." That she wasn't talking to a half-naked guy. With a tattoo or a brand or something on his chest. "I thought you were Katina. She's kind of--"
	"Taken." Rule four: try not to time your brief moments of self-empowerment for the moments when you should be having moments of realization that you're a half-naked guy with a tattoo or a brand or something on his chest. (You'd think this was a rather Francine-specific rule, but come on. Fandom.) "I guess I haven't been very obvious about that here--" Unlike some people... "-- and you're a sweet girl and I have nothing against you, but Katchoo is very, very taken. So if you could take your soap and take your shower and take a nice long break from falling all over my girlfriend, that'd be really cool."
	When you break Rule Four, it gets you stared at a lot. "Do we know... I mean, sorry, have we... Sorry! I was just... Um."
	Stared at enough that eventually, even if you're Francine, you start to have some inkling that... You might want to never be break Rule Two again, ever. Also, you might want to look down at yourself. Oh...holy... And then clasp your robe really tight around you. While Margie McCoy does the same, still babbling her apologies.
	"Sorry, sorry, I, um. Didn't mean to bother you. If you see Francine--"
	Rule Five: don't get so flustered that you blurt out "She's taken too!" then stare at your neighbor in horror as she stares at you in OMGWTFBBQ and quickly shut the door so you can bang your forehead against the other side.
	While your neighbor trails off with "--that I have those World Cultures notes she wanted to borrow..."
	(That one really is specific to Francine, so the rest of you can disregard it.)

Rule 6 is kind of a comfort, though: Whenever Fandom screws you over, you're never alone.

Which was why Francine was sending out text messages now:

[img attachment]

--CRAP! STILL! YOU TOO?--

[OOC: Open for texts, calls, and the Girl! ..ish.]