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Arrival in Milliways

Uh.

...This isn't her advanced quantitative research methods classroom.

It's bigger, for one. Fewer desks for sure. And there is a distinct lack of other students.

Not that the place is empty. Far from it. It's pretty bustling, for a room that has replaced a small classroom in one of the oldest buildings on campus.

But the patrons do not really resemble her classmates. And Lizzie wouldn't exactly call all of the customers human. And then there's the view... (Lizzie's not even facing the Observation Window. All she sees are stars. That's more than enough.)

Lizzie swallows hard and sinks into a conveniently located chair.

"Uh."

OOM: Planning the first video

"I'm Lizzie Bennet and I really like reading!"

"I'm Lizzie Bennet and I have three sisters and am in grad school and...uh."

"I'm Lizzie Bennet and I'm the most boring human being alive!"

No. No. No.

Lizzie sighs and shuts the lid of her laptop with an emphatic click.

Figuring out what to talk about in her videos is proving harder than she thought it would.

Be yourself! Charlotte had said. You're funny and smart. It doesn't matter what you say. No one's really going to watch these except Professor Gardiner and our classmates.

Still, Lizzie doesn't want to look like a total moron on the Internet. It's her name in the title and she doesn't want the Google searches to turn up anything too embarrassing. She would like a job one day, after all.

She stands up and stretches. "What I need," she announces to her empty room. "Is a snack. And caffeine. I'm sure I'll come up with something brilliant after that."

In the kitchen, she brews a cup of Irish breakfast tea (Jane's - Lizzie prefers English breakfast or coffee, but Jane finds both a bit too strong and likes the mellower Irish or Earl Grey) and cuts a wedge of cheddar into bite-sized chunks. She adds a few grapes and crackers to her plate and is ready to head into the dining room to make a few more notes on the video when she hears her mother's voice in the den.

Not wanting to catch her mother's eye, Lizzie decides to munch right where she is. It's not eavesdropping if you didn't plan on it, right?

"Really, Tom, can you believe Netherfield sold for that much? I didn't realize real estate values had rebounded that much."

"Mmmm." Her father is noncommittal. Unsurprisingly.

"It's a good sign, considering, wouldn't you say?"

"Good signs aren't everything, dear."

"No, but..." Mrs. Bennet lets out a long sigh and turns the subject to what really interests her. "And I hear it was bought up by a young man from a wealthy family. Emily Lu says he's studying to be a doctor. With an undergraduate degree from Harvard."

Lizzie freezes. An idea has struck. A completely insane idea that might also be completely brilliant. Maybe. She is afraid to leave, because she doesn't want to miss any part of this conversation. She needs to hear all of it to have enough material for before she can really assess the idea fully. Of course that's all. She's not even a little curious about this academically talented and rich young man.

"Well, if Emily Lu says it's true, it must be so."

Mrs. Bennet, clearly exasperated, says, "I just think it might be nice for our girls to meet him. They might hit it off. Wouldn't that be nice?"

"I can't really say, as I haven't even met the man."

Lizzie muffles a snicker at this.

Mrs. Bennet sighs again. "Well, I would love it if you would introduce yourself. I'd like to bake him a pie to welcome him to the neighborhood."

Mr. Bennet offers another noncommittal murmur, and Lizzie can tell the conversation is at an end. She sneaks out of the kitchen, trying to keep as quiet as possible so as not to have her mother descend upon her with the Exciting! News! About Netherfield!

Rifling through her closet, she pulls out of its deepest recesses a certain T-shirt made up by her darling mother.

Yes. This is the perfect intro to her video diary.

The she texts a quick note to Charlotte: I have a plan for the videos. Let's film tomorrow?

Charlotte replies five minutes later. Sure. I'll put it on my list. Should I be scared or relieved?

Lizzie smiles broadly. This might actually be fun.

You'll find out tomorrow!

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My name is Lizzie Bennet and...

Lizzie Bennet frowns at her French fries. "These are cold. Do you think I should take them back? I should definitely bring them back. What if the guys at the counter don't even know they're serving cold fries? They should know. Nobody else should have to suffer with sad, cold fries." She makes an overly dramatic sad face and holds up one limp fry. "Yuck."

Her best friend Charlotte Lu rolls her eyes, well accustomed to Lizzie's rambles. "You're avoiding my question, Lizzie. And you don't even like French fries."

"I don't not like them," Lizzie protests. "They're a fine potato product and hamburger-adjacent foodstuff."

"Forget the fries. Seriously, what are you going to do for an independent study for Dr. Gardiner's class?"

Lizzie stops toying with her food and tips her cafeteria chair backwards. "Uh, I don't know, something awesome, like shadowing the Amish and see how they incorporate modern technology into their strict rules of community?"

Charlotte winces. "Really? That's your great plan?"

"No," Lizzie says. "Not really. I actually have no idea. Why? What are you doing?"

"Weeeeelllll," Charlotte says, looking smug. "I might have an idea that's substantially better than the Amish."

Lizzie purses her lips and makes an impatient do go on motion with her hands. After all, anything is better than the Amish. Charlotte is well aware of this fact.

Charlotte, who of course knows that Lizzie had no actual interest in anything involving the Amish, only looks more smug. "I thought we could do a video blog. Me filming, you talking about your life, both of us sharing the editing duties as needed..."

She trails off as Lizzie stares at her."What? It's a good idea."

Lizzie laughs. "It's a great idea, Charlotte. You're definitely the brains of this operation. Although...who wants to watch me talk about my boring life?"

Charlotte shrugs. "Since it's for a class project, audience reach isn't really important. I think if we focus on community building and social media - on a small scale, of course - that's all we need to do."

Lizzie nods, thinking fast and whipping out a notebook to start jotting down ideas. "And we'd use audience theory, right? And maybe uses and gratifications?"

"That's sort of what I was thinking, yeah," Charlotte says. "We can hammer out the specific theories later, but those are good starting points. I was thinking we could maybe explore hypermedia seduction, but that might be a bit more in-depth than we really want to go with this."

"Yeah, we'd have to figure out how to manipulate the narrative to make that work, and I don't know that I want to think about my life that way. It would be simpler if they were just video diaries of what actually happens..." Lizzie trails off, her pen racing across the paper. "I like it, though. As long as we're a team in the community management aspects, I think it will work really well."

"Of course I'll work on the community stuff," Charlotte says, grinning at Lizzie. "We're a team, just like always."

Lizzie looks up from her notebook and grins back. "Absolutely."