[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

[rebells]

Just because I don't want to get involved in your--ridiculousness doesn't mean I think it's romantic.

[He's still a really bright shade of red, though. Why are we talking about this. He takes a breadstick.]

[splinten]

[Because Jay's lot in life is to meet people who like to give him a hard time.]

Come on, dude. A blanket hate-on for ridiculousness isn't a good look on you or anyone.

[rebells]

[He doesn't actually have anything to say to that--he knows he's being stupid about the high-five, he just can't help it--and he really doesn't want to explain himself, so he chews obstinately on this breadstick instead. A wonderful conversationalist, this one.]

[splinten]

[Dirk IS willing to just chill and eat breadsticks for ten minutes. Assuming they don't run out of breadsticks. He thinks Jay is being a dumb but Jay, you do you.]

[rebells]

[There is a long moment of chewing and staring, but finally--ugh, okay, fine.]

. . . how are you?

[splinten]

Completely and utterly unwooed. Like, brutally unwanted here.

[Deadpan of course, but he follows it with,]

It freaked me out to start but it's been okay so far, exempting the flirtatious lizard lady and the lack of food variety. How are you doing, with 'irritated' and 'done with this shit' not allowed as answers.

[rebells]

Don't make stupid jokes.

[God, he's so red. He scrubs his face.]

. . . I'm fine. Everything's fine.

[splinten]

[He actually pauses.]

You okay, dude?

[LIKE. IS JAY GENUINELY UPSET. HE'LL BACK OFF. HE WOULDN'T WANT TO GENUINELY UPSET JAY]

[rebells]

[It's the sort of thing that may be hard to tell if you don't know him well, but he seems more thoroughly embarrassed than upset, although he has been looking--perhaps excessively uncomfortable this entire time.

At any rate, his hands are still over his face.]

I just said I'm fine. [A beat.] As fine as I can possibly be with this--ridiculousness going on.

[splinten]

[Good then Dirk can continue to be a piece of shit.]

What you're telling me here is that you haven't found that special someone or someones for this mating season.

[rebells]

[A supremely undignified squeak.]

No!

[splinten]

[faux-solemn]

Don't worry, dude. Love is an axe murderer that comes to every door.

[rebells]

[Spoken like a true Homestuck.]

I'm not interested in any of that.

[splinten]

See, that's the issue here. You're operating on the mistaken assumption that you have a choice. Unfortunately for you, me, and every poor sucker who has ever been capable of red inclinations, you will be up to your nose in it before you realized the flood of water started seeping in. Maybe there was a time when you could have escaped it, but now the pressure on the other side is too damn high and your best efforts to open the door are just a waste of sweet oxygen while the water level keeps rising. It doesn't make a difference if you keep fighting it or give up, because no matter what you do you are fucking drowned.

[rebells]

[Oh my god.

What does one even say to that?]

[rebells]

[ . . . ]

Has anyone ever told you you have a terrible sense of humor?

[splinten]

That depends on if they think I'm joking.

[Yes. But that's okay, because Dirk is being yoinked away to talk to someone new.]