party post } let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find (forward dated to 1/28))

[krmvgivv]

Who: The WIRTHDAY BOY, Dipper, Mabel, anyone friends with Wirt/anyone who happens to show up.
Where: fourth floor tea room
When: forward dated to 1/28
Rating: unlikely to get higher than PG-13
Summary: It's Wirt's 17th birthday! Dipper and Mabel are in charge of planning, and Wirt doesn't want anything too big or crazy. So you know. Time for an open mic party.
The Story:

Invitations spread quietly by word of mouth. "Surprise Party. Come to the fourth floor tea room. Bring something to perform. Don't tell Wirt!" Dipper and Mabel make sure to tell the people they know are Wirt's friends, but they also expect word to get around. Others can hear about it or just come in. Wirt doesn't want a big party, but they're guessing the particulars of this party will keep it small.

By the time people start to arrive, the tea room's been transformed. It looks like the most cliche hipster cafe you can imagine, like a preteen girl's imagination made flesh. There are mismatched chairs and low windows and exposed brick, and a stage that looks more like a wooden platform than anything else. There's a coffee bar with tea and hot chocolate and lots of cookies and snacks piled high, plus a cake. There aren't any baristas here. Just a sign that reads Cafe Music and Wirts.

Price of admission is agreeing to perform something, though the birthday boy is excused from this unless he wants to go. It's supposed to be fun for him, after all.

Comments

LOL IN THE RIGHT PLACE THIS TIME SORRY GUYS

[singloversing]

Oh! No, I-I didn't realize you were going back up. I thought-- n-nevermind. I shouldn't have assumed.

[Wirt just assumed that everyone was only allowed one turn, but maybe he was wrong about that part. He feels a little dumb for it now.]

It's really cool though? Like, I didn't know anyone was writing longer stories like that here.

[slapfight]

Thank you. This is actually one of my shorter fanfictions. The multichapter one is still a work in progress and I'm not going to present an unfinished piece for public view like this.

[singloversing]

[Wirt isn't sure he knows what she means by fanfictions - maybe he misheard her? When in doubt, he tends to assume he's in the wrong, so he doesn't ask either.]

I totally get that. I wouldn't want to read any of my poetry on stage if it wasn't finished either. It's not ready to be heard by anyone yet.

[slapfight]

[She squints.] Poetry is just song lyrics without the musical accompaniment, right?

[She is not experienced in this. But she has written part of a song.]

[singloversing]

I mean...kind of?

[He makes a wiggly "eh" hand motion.]

Most lyrics are poetry, but you can't just take all poems and put music on top of them and call them songs though? Poets make their own rhythm, and when you hear a really good poem it feels...complete. Like, it has good meter, so it doesn't need music to accompany it.

[slapfight]

[Yeah, she doesn't understand any of that.

But she wants to.]

Can you elaborate further?

[singloversing]

I can try to?

[It strikes him hard that he's never had to be the one to explain this before, and it makes him a little shy. But...she does seem to genuinely want to know.]

So, meter has to do with whether you stress a syllable or not when you say words in a sentence. In normal speech there isn't really an organized meter because you're just talking. But in lines of poetry, poets will like...deliberately pick words and arrange them in a way that matches the meter they're trying to go for. There's all different types but Iambic pentameter is the most famous and probably the easiest to explain? It basically means that you don't stress the first syllable and then you stress the second one, and that each line has five pairs of syllables. Um, this is from a famous poem in my world, and it's a pretty good example, I think?

[He takes a deep breath, and hopes he has all the words right. Otherwise he's going to feel super dumb.]

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date

[He has to mentally count it in his head as he goes to make sure, but he's satisfied when it adds up. He definitely wouldn't be able to recite the entire thing from memory, but a few lines is good.]

Can you hear it? How it kind of goes up and down on certain sounds? [He makes a little wavy up/down motion with his hand as he says it.] With songs you would get that from singing a different note or playing an instrument with it, but when something has meter there's still a rhythm to it whether you sing it or not.

[slapfight]

[She only has to hear it once, so when he asks her if she can hear it, rather than give a yes or no answer, she repeats it back perfectly in the precise rhythm he indicated. She's never gonna win awards for poetry reading, but technically her recitation is perfect.]

Hhuh. [Yep. She's amazed.] I'm not sure what it means exactly, but it's... nice. [She mumbles it under her breath again, like she's trying to parse out exactly what it means.]

[singloversing]

[He's actually really impressed she recited it back perfectly. It took him forever to memorize even that much (though he does enjoy the very Victorian feeling of memorizing verses, despite being too scared to try it in company most of the time).]

That's how poetry's supposed to feel. It sounds nice and you mull over it for meaning. It doesn't have to all sink in at once. It's...atmospheric, I guess?

[slapfight]

Interesting.... [She swipes through her tablet and begins to type furiously onto an open document. Congrats, Wirt. You've given her a new hobby to bastardize.] I'll need to look into this deeper later...