milliways_bar | (no subject)

Oh, right. 1883. Are there telephones yet?

Telegraphs, *Meg offers helpfully.*

Okay. Well, in the future, everyone will have telegraphs in their homes. Modern telegraphs. And people will be able to call you on them and try to sell you things that you don't want at all hours of the day. You will try to stop them. You will fail.

*Meg looks aghast.*

- that sounds like hell. Are you sure you didn't die already, like when you were a baby, and go there? And that's where you've been living all this time?

Sometimes I wonder.

But on the bright side, fewer people get venereal diseases.

Andrew said you all have classes to teach you how to prevent that kind of thing, *Meg offers.* Would have come in handy.

*Xander nods sympathetically.*

Yes. And our modern sex technology has surpassed "sheep bladder condom."

*Meg grins, a little wryly.*

In my time we all sort of learned by the sink or swim method.

Right. Sheep bladders float ... what sinks?

Birth control pills? *Meg offers.*

*Xander is confused.*

I thought those WORKED. *He gulps.*

Not in my time they didn't, *Meg says darkly.* Or they did, but the way they did it was make you deathly ill and then you died anyways.

Such is the price of contraception.

Luckily, *Meg adds cheerfully,* most of us ballerinas don't eat much and exercise so much it works as a contraceptive anyways.

I guess so. But that's the kind of thing that leads to starvation. *Xander weighs these options.* Starvation. Syphillis. Starvation. Syphillis. Tough choices.

Oh, it doesn't stop syphilis, *Meg assures him.* Just pregnancy. But if you get pregnant you lose your job and starve anyways, so. Syphilis you just sort of hope people don't have it.

And MY world is the hellish one?

- look, we may have syphilis and all that, but at least we don't have people trying to sell us things while we're languishing around being syphilitic.

But what if they were to sell you a CURE for syphillis?

*Meg blinks.*

Syphilis has a cure?

*Xander nods.* Yep! It's called penicillin, and I don't know when it shows up. Definitely in your lifetime, though, no worries.

You sure about that? *Meg asks dubiously.* I mean, okay, I'm, like, seventeen now, right? Odds are I'll live to about forty, so -

Uh ... wow. In that case, maybe not. But it's coming soon! I swear! If I could just remember when ...

*Xander shrugs.* Oh well. I'm sure your days will be peppered with other scientific advances.

And most likely I won't find out about any of them, *Meg says cheerfully.* Bad part of society, and all.

You'd be surprised. If it's really cool, I'm sure you'll end up finding out about it.