[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

[splinten]

I'm not in the market.

[It's sort of rushed out, if still in a monotone. This is a terrible experience and he is flustered, awkward, and unsure how not to critical fail all of his Social Interaction rolls.]

It's pretty fucked up that the exchange of goods and services is a primary metaphor used to describe a relationship that is purportedly pure and beyond all other social bonds.

[He's disserting out of extreme flusteredness, yes.]

[sealeted]

Well, historically, the higher classes all over the world—mine, at least—made it an exchange of 'goods' for 'services'. Brides and grooms, for ties or dowry, bride prices and accords. And, while that's not the case uniformly for any culture, the rulers and politics are what stand out most enduringly in history books. So it leaks into everyday phrases.

[He's disserting to a major History Nerd, so...

Go Dirk?]

So, I take it you just came to see what all the fuss was about, then?

[splinten]

The history is definitely behind it. Its prevalence in contemporary language, on the other hand, indicates that it still continues to function as a metaphor that makes sense. Marriage as an economic arrangement is pervasive in at least contemporary Western society. Consider it in terms of bank accounts, retirement funding, et cetera. There's also the role marriage plays in the continuation of capital, which is to say the exchange of different kinds of labour that enables the reproduction of the working class. It's a particularly revelatory turn of phrase.

[Disserting is safe and everything else Isn't.]

Yeah, and then that barrier popped up. It looks like what they have on the floating island up there.

[sealeted]

It's always interesting, to untangle where weird little turns of phrase like that came from.

[don't worry Dirk, this is a Safe Zone. An inescapable safe zone, but. Shh.]

Yeah, it's... It certainly raises some questions, for sure.

[p_mortem]

[ Speed dating is mostly window shopping anyways, and Minato's here for the bread sticks. Amazingly, he can and will eat quite a bit when he has no need to fuel himself for battle.

In between mouthfuls of bread: ]

Is that how dating works?

[ Minato's experiences with relationships are all pretty one-sided, what is exchange... ]

If I ask for a date, what would you want in exchange?

[splinten]

For you to never again ask me on a date.

[SOCIAL LINK BLOCKED!

Except that he's vaguely approving of the breadsticks. And actually pushes more shrimp Minato's way...]

[p_mortem]

[ :(

Minato hollows out one of the breadsticks and stuffs it with shrimp. ]

Would you accept the first one, though?

[mech_and_mutt]

...I got about half of that, but I don't think too many of us are excited to be here, either.

[Especially when a lot of the people he's seated with inevitably end up giving him looks.]

At least they're only seatin' two of us here. Ain't their version of romance some weird three-part thing?

[splinten]

You're right. We're also lucky their idea of romance is relatively tame and familiar.

[There's a flat tone there like he has dealt with Too Much alien romance nonsense. Because he already has. And while he finds it fascinating, he doesn't want to be in it.]

[mech_and_mutt]

[Maybe it's the mutual impatience with this weird new form of 'romance' but Red's not entirely oblivious to Dirk's stance on the matter.]

Tame and familiar? We're playin' strapped-in musical chairs! What would it take to have you call it 'weird'?

[actus]

[ wow he's never seen dirk like this. huh. he's just going to continue eating. ]

Ah. That's a fair point.

[ oh good. but wait -- ]

Pure, huh?

[splinten]

Purportedly. Imagine air quotes around it.

[Romance is also an institution that demands sustained interrogation!

Except, for all the ironic coolkid schtick, Dirk knows that there is another way that love can be pure. Not in the Puritanical sense, but in the sustained, fierce, overwhelming power of it, the intensity of feeling that doesn't abate no matter what else gets tangled up in the equation.

He would rather eat a shrimp.]

[actus]

[ purportedly. ah. okay. he can deal with that. ]

We should probably just "answer" a few of these so we don't upset them.

[ not that he particularly minds upsetting their smitten hosts, but. a mild shrug and he's reaching for a slip of paper regardless, slowly unfolding it to read its content. oh. ]

... How many partners have you had. [ he reads it more as a declaration than a question. ]

[deem]

[9S, being an android who only knows bits and pieces about the Old World, some of which may be quite far off the mark, is assuredly curious. Then again, when isn't he curious? Pretty much never, that's when]

Are you saying it's some sort of trade-based system?

[Impressionable android minds want to know...]

[splinten]

[This may be a mistake.]

In some senses. How familiar are you with romantic relationships?

[deem]

Er-

[He slumps in his chair, clears his throat, and wonders briefly if he's truly obliged to answer this question]

YoRHa aren't really supposed to engage in things like that, so I guess I know about it in a theoretical sense, but...

[potentite]

[Oh. It's Dirk. Fuck. This feels like it would be a really awkward and disastrous way to actually ask about their possible future so that is definitely off the table. And while he managed to shove an entire breadstick in his mouth in one go to silence himself, that breadstick is being consumed rapidly and can't save him forever. Fuck. Fuck!

Okay. He can do this. He tries looking through some of the slips of paper, fumbling with them, frowning, before he drops them back in the bowl. They aren't anything he doesn't know about Dirk. They're all little superficial things, which are fine with strangers, but not his best friend. So.

Oh fuck it.]

What's the biggest thing I've misunderstood about you?

[Nailed it.

Wait no that's a terrifying question. Why did he ask that? Why did he put Dirk on the spot like that? Oh jesus christmas.]

Um! Fuck! I meant— Tell me the difference between Hume and Kant again?

[There. Better. Safer.

It means he actually listens to Dirk's rambles though so whoops.]

[splinten]

[Dirk tries to hit abscond.

can't abscond bro

Ah. Ah. Ah. Jake is eating baguette. Ah. Should he eat a baguette? Dirk tries to eat a baguette. Wait, he's just copying Jake. Fuck. What was that question? WHAT.


Dirk is now choking on a baguette.]

[potentite]

[Jake jumps out of his seat to hit Dirk on the back. Please don't die because of him that's not something he can take, especially like this.]

[drizzle]

...but this is taking place in the market?

[The first words that will come out of her upon overhearing the voice of her next table partner. It sounded familiar too. Her attention will turn to a boy in which she'll ask after his speech was made.]

Are we talking about love as the relationship that is pure and beyond all other social bonds? [A beat.] ...I always imagine you'd be difficult, but you don't have to try so hard. We don't need to do anything....

[splinten]

[...Hey.]

Not sure what you mean about 'always imagining' I'd be difficult.

[drizzle]

What? You haven’t noticed?

[Should she give him a list of reasons or…? Yeah, maybe she should to help him understand her reasoning.]

Aren’t you the one who scolded me on finding blue people hot, then pointing out the people I found good looking to be average -- which by the way, I resent you for referring to them as that -- and then correcting me on the whole reporting to into a tongue twister? If that isn’t the exact definition of being difficult, then I don’t want to imagine what could be

[imsorey]

That's fine. I don't think they'll mind too much if you, uh, don't find someone you're perfectly compatible with because of other circumstances.

[Sorey's a little flustered by the situation, but not nearly enough to just wait awkwardly until the time passes. this is still a good chance to make friends and get to know friends better, and there's no reason to pass that up]

...Want to tell me about the person you like? I'm assuming that's why you're not in the market.

[splinten]

[Everything was fine until that last comment when Dirk was fucking MURDERED ON THE SPOT]

That's—uh, I—we aren't—hasn't anyone ever told you that when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me?

[THAT WAS A BAD SAVE AND DIRK FEELS BAD]

[imsorey]

I've never heard that one before, no. But I also won't know anything unless you say something.

—Not that you have to say anything, but I can't stop making assumptions unless you do. I thought it was a good conversation-starter. We could sit in awkward silence and eat shrimp and breadsticks instead if that's what you'd prefer.