[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

[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

[splinten]

I said that they would 'generally be considered attractive.' Forgive me for not actually being into women to give them more than that. Anyway, 'always' seems like a fairly exaggerated determiner of time relative to how long we've even known about each other.

[There isn't a smile, but—]

Which I guess is just proving your point.

[YEAH HE KNOWS HE'S A PAIN IN THE ASS he's the family wet blanket and his friends let him know it]

[drizzle]

[There may not be a smile on his face, but there was a light chuckle coming out of her.]

Glad to see you agree with my first impression of you wasn’t too off the mark. Don’t worry! There’s a saying that goes: admitting it is the first step in growing out any habits you wanna change.

[Not that she wants him to change since she finds him to be a good guy underneath the difficult layers.]

But, hey, I’ll let you know about another impression you left on me. You’re intelligent too. [And reliable, but let’s not embarrass him too much.] Maybe a little blind too, but I blame the shades for that one.

[Sorry, Dirk, Nike is still feeling some resentment over the whole not being allowed to find blue people aesthetically good looking.]

[splinten]

Thank God I had you here to help guide me along the path of being easy.

[No. It's never happening. He's a piece of shit.

His eyebrows flicker up behind the shades. It isn't that Dirk doesn't know he's intelligent. He also knows he's an idiot, but he's cognizant that he also operates with a reasonably decent level of ability to think based on his various hobbies. What he isn't sure of is... this? What this means? What kind of conversation this is? His friends would compliment his intelligence but it was easy to continue a conversation and work on other elements because they were his friends and he knew them. What is this, as a conversation? What is it supposed to do? What does it mean?

Dirk is people stupid.]

Shades aren't the reason I don't have a weird xenokink. But you do you, bro.

[INSULTING BLUE PEOPLE IS HIS SAFE ZONE. He knows how to do that.]

[drizzle]

[Even though she could detect the sarcasm dripping off every word, Nike will simply ignore it all for the sake of peace.]

You are very welcome. Clearly you need all the help you can get.

[All said with as much honesty as she can muster because this boy clearly needs help. A lot of it. It was just unfortunate she couldn't read his mind to find the source of the issue other than he was an intelligent jerk with the heart of gold underneath it all.

It’s just unfortunate she was easy to rile up.]

No, I do not, and you clearly are blind! You just refer to me as a “bro”. Do I look like a boy to you? I know I’m plain to look at, but not enough to be confused for a guy!

[The thought of Dirk confusing her for a boy is very concerning considering she has long hair, was wearing a one piece pink dress, and her chest is far from being flat. With all that evidence stacking against him, there was no way she was a boy and proves his shades were blinding him. Case closed.]

[splinten]

It's a turn of phrase. [He literally would have said 'man' here but decided that was a bit much.] 'Bro, dude, man.' They're gender neutral in the linguistic register developed out of late twentieth century street and rap culture, which was inevitably popularized through an unsettling mix of the genuinely revolutionary linguistic structures of marginalized groups gone main stream and, for some fucked up reason, California surfer dudes. Point Break is basically a blight on the world, but it elaborates on the point that such terms aren't meant literally but signify the attitude of the speaker and his or her particular attitude or relationship with the interlocutor, regardless of gender identity. It's simply the language of a cool dude having a chill time.

[Sometimes, Dirk talks in vernacular. Sometimes he talks like an academic text. Often he does both.]

If you genuinely hate it as a form of address, I'll step off the linguistic shenanigans and substitute for other vocatives.

sorry for late reply, computer broke :( 1/????

[drizzle]

[.....WHAT!?]

2/???? also good job in kinda breaking her brain

[drizzle]

[No, seriously, just what is all this nonsense?]

3/???

[drizzle]

[What do you mean by rap culture? Main steam? California surfer dudes? Just what is all this!?]

4/7

[drizzle]

[Her brain was hurting by just this long ramble of information she didn't really get. What is this guy even saying to her????]

5/7

[drizzle]

[DEEP BREATH. EXHALE. DEEP BREATH. EXHALE. DEEEEEEP BREATH.]

oops i mean 6/6, not 7.

[drizzle]

Okay. I'm okay. Relax. I'm sure he didn't mean to throw so much jargon at you.

[There will be some glaring from her side. So much judgement glares!]

Do whatever you like. Just warn me of these linguist-whatever-you-call-it-that-sounds-like-made-up-words.....b-bro.

[WHY DID IT FEEL SO UNNATURAL TO SAY BACK!?]

scream

[splinten]

[Dirk treats it as if it is perfectly naturally, and not as if he is deeply amused by her effort to pick it up.]

Sure. The basic ones are 'bro,' 'man,' and 'dude.' They're occasionally combined with other words or even each other.

surprise?? xD;

[drizzle]

Bro? Man? Dude?

[Somehow, she recognizes one out of the three of those linguistics.]

I think I've used "man" before, but mainly as a way to complain. Like "oh man" or just "man".

[Which her royal tutors pull her ears over whenever she says it because a queen should never speak like a commoner. But there's no one to stop her, so.]

Dude sounds weird though. It makes it sound like I am referring to you as poop or something.

[splinten]

[He is DEEPLY amused by her assessment of dude, and there's a flicker of it at the corner of his eyes. Which are hidden by shades. Dammit, Dirk.]

Hey, if that's how it sounds to you. I'm not one to undermine linguistic shifts courtesy of an idiolect. You can call me a dude when you think I'm being a piece of shit.

[drizzle]

[There will be another pause after listening to him say everything that he just said. What is his deal in trying to sound so much smarter than her? Why does it feel like he is calling her an idiot? All she can say is.]

....dude.....?

[Which actually means "you got a deal, bro".]

[splinten]

[Ha. Ha ha. Holy shit.

Dirk doesn't laugh, exactly, but he sure as fuck smiles.]

You've got it.

[SHE IS. HILARIOUS]