[WORLD ONE] SPEED DATING EXTRAVAGANZA

[spellbindmods]

Who: Participating coven members
Where: The Palai marketplace
When: Day 49
Open/Closed: OTA

[ Any and all who are in the marketplace will find that there is suddenly a mysterious barrier around the marketplace (that may be eerily familiar to some) -- specifically one large portion of the marketplace with a large number of tables and chairs, perhaps purposefully set out for nefarious reasons.

A few Palai are ushering coven members to chairs, and everything seems about normal. As normal as the Palai can be when they're putting on a show anyway. It's not until a sizable portion of the coven members are seated (and also supplied with breadsticks and small shrimp), that things get a bit more bizarre.

Thanks to the power of the Eltos, a small band of energy keeps coven members stuck to the chair (magic can interfere, of course), but that's not the end of it. On each table, next to those delicious smelling breadsticks and shrimp, is a bowl of scraps of papers. Every five minutes, a strip of paper will pop out from the bowl.

If you ask the Palai, they'll be inclined to explain speed dating to you. Asking questions, getting to know a person, then being shimmied off to the next potential mate -- this is made possible by Elto magic yet again, through flying chairs that transport their holder to a new table at standard intervals.

The Palai are extremely invested in this exercise? Will you let them down? ]

[ OOC: In the spirit of speed dating, each character will have a top level. All who want to respond to this top level can with questions from this post, but the threads have to end at 10 comments from each character. After this last tag, the characters can be assumed to have been whisked to a different potential match. You're free to have characters make up their own questions, interact with Palai serving food, etc. ]

Comments

[potentite]

You're a saint among men, Mikleo. [He's so relieved.] Umm, hmm, actually, I think I would pick... fish, maybe? You can cook'em a lot of ways!

[mech_and_mutt]

Guess you gotta grow up with it. Ain't seen a real ocean before I came down here, just... lotsa clouds.

[Still, at least it made 'fishing' a lot more interesting.]

Back at 'our' island, sure, but not so much down here. These little lizards have just been...

...well, look at what's goin' on in here.

[rootandbranch]

I'm Geir. Are you scared of me?

[the question isn't malicious, but definitely a little amused. puts his chin on the ground so he can look Mikleo full in the face with one big red eye across the table.]

[p_mortem]

It doesn't have to be. It can be just talking and eating.

[ Like this! Actually, this is pretty much how many of his relationships start out anyways. ]

...It takes around seven times?

[sealeted]

Oh, that's easy. Trying new things and living a long, long life.

[She rubs her chin, and reads the next slip herself.]

If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?

[fivefingerdeathpunch]

[Jotaro Does Not Want To Be Here, but a whole pack of Palai--he saw like five, there could've been more--ganged up on him and wrestled him into a chair. A chair that's probably magically reinforced, given his failure to break it thus far, so now he's just sitting here with his arms crossed and his hat pulled down over his face, absolutely not sulking.]

Whatever, let's get this over with.

[splinten]

Oh. Right.

[He grabs a paper. He looks at it. He asks if he can have another one. He cannot yet.

He decides to make something up.]

What colour would you pick for a chat client font?

[Wait. Geir probably doesn't know about chat clients. Shit. He panicked.]

[splinten]

The combat idea sounds better.

[Honestly? Combat is entertaining and he sees the logic for it in courtship. But then there's the question and the tail and he goes sort of blank-faced with 'oh god no']

It'd be fucked up to judge a person based on physical appearance unless there's a direct and consistent relationship between the physical trait and some personal quality.

[fast monotone]

[rootandbranch]

I just told Hakuno that I liked green best, so maybe that. I'm not totally sure, though. First, what's a chat client?

[he was right, but he got an answer anyway. and Geir got another impersonal question! it all works out.]

[splinten]

It comes from a dating app called tinder. The application sends you a picture of someone on your phone. You swipe right if you'd want to be with them and swipe left if you wouldn't. If you both swipe right, you start a conversation and potentially go on a date.

[More history! It's exciting.]

[p_mortem]

[ What's on his mind is, well, the bread stick he has in his hands. He tries to keep his mind relatively empty and unconcerned unless he has to be, so... okay, bread.

He raises the stick up, as if in toast. ]

The bread's good. I can't remember the last time I had a fresh loaf... I usually get the packaged buns at the store.

[splinten]

[What.]

Dating takes about seven times of talking and eating. [There is no lift at the end but he's very much confused.]

[sealeted]

Oh, neat. Kind of shallow at first glance, but it's as good a way to reach out as any, especially for people who don't... get out much.

[Like being stuck on a magical moon, just as a totally random example.]

[rootandbranch]

That's really nice. I like that answer. You've got your head on straight, Hakuno.

[he laughs at the question -- the food related ones are a theme today, apparently.]

Oh no! I guess if I had to pick one thing... sheep! ♪ I like fish too, but I've eaten a lot more fish in my life. I want to try way more foods than that, though!

[he looks at the Palai for his next question, and gets it -- his grin stretches wider.]

Uh-oh... what's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done?

[splinten]

[Hey. HEY! Chat client text choice isn't impersonal! It's the most important choice of your life, second only to what symbol you will wear on every shirt you own!]

It's a means of communicating to anyone with an electronic device that can run it. You put in your words in your device, and the client will instantaneously deliver it to the other person. It lets you have a conversation at a distance through text, voice, or video—image and sound combined.

The signets we got work similarly, but they use telepathy.

[actus]

[ oh god hi boar friend. at least he isn't taking this too seriously. maybe. ]

How do you feel about ham?

[ AKIRA.... ]

[rootandbranch]

[what a chat client IS is fairly impersonal! in contrast, it's clear that which text typing quirks you use are windows to your deepest soul.

the answer seems to make something click for Geir, though.]

Is that how it works? ...and why words keep coming up in front of my eyes? I can't read, so it's been really annoying.

[sealeted]

..........................

[Hakuno... takes a breadstick, and nibbles it, slowly and methodically, for as long as she can. After she finishes, she gives a defeated sigh, looks down, and mumbles.]

...had to remove only my panties and keep running around a dungeon. ...next question: are you a morning person or a night person?

[splinten]

[Or being trapped in the middle of the ocean!]

Yeah, it was apparently functional enough to be one of the primary dating applications in the 2010s.

[splinten]

[Oh.]

Yeah, that's why. The not-being-able-to-read thing really must be a pain in the ass. [which raises the question] What language do you speak?

[sluggard]

[Well, okay, this is the weirdest thing he's had thrown at him yet. Yeah, this is it.

He hasn't exactly made any effort to get away, so he's really got not idea just how stuck he is, but. Eh.

Whatever.]

...You think we can just eat the food instead? I ain't really looking for someone.

[sealeted]

[Screw the ocean, honestly.]

Huh. Well, my world was in the 2030s when I left it, but I don't know if we had that particular fad.

[decipheringeye]

[ The first thing Kosuzu did upon being sucked into a chair was flag down a passing Palai and try to figure out what the heck "speed dating" is. The first part of the explanation sounded like a kind of fun game, but then the words "Potential Mate" showed up, and she realized she was absolutely out of her depth.

Oh no, here comes another person. ]

Hi, sorry! It's nice to meet you, and I don't mind answering questions, but all this "potential mate" stuff is a bit much, so...

[splinten]

It's likely a difference in history. I'm beginning to suspect that there are major divergences in world histories generally set around the twentieth or twenty-first centuries. In my universe's case, it was a slow alien takeover that warped and ultimately destroyed humanity.

[And that doesn't seem to match up with many others! Thankfully.]

[p_mortem]

Yeah.

[ More or less. Usually more, if he gets stuck on the small talk, but sharing a meal together makes up for the stall of development. ]

I think we're on number two.