[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

[actus]

[ he's going to break a breadstick in half and casually start nibbling on one of the halves. ]

Five? [ he can't really remember, it's been a blur of an hour or so. ] No idea how many rounds there are.

[ which sucks. being clever and witty is getting tiring and all he wants to do is relax and zone-out. ] What about you?

[enflame]

( Emil's still preoccupied with whether the shrimp is better without breading or not, but he eventually decides they can't be torn apart. )

A few. It hasn't been as horrible as I thought it would be, but it's still a really weird way to spend an evening. ( But at least there's food, so. ) I don't really have an interest in dating near-perfect strangers.

[actus]

It's definitely weird.

[ the speed-dating thing. it's a good way to get to know the other coven members, but he's fairly certain organic meetings would have produced better results. ]

Have you gotten to know anyone here yet? [ when he wasn't trying to wake up his friend, anyway. akira is pointedly ignoring the bowl of questions. from what he's seen, it's just far too weird. ]

[enflame]

( It would be best to dodge any forced questions about being called daddy, yeah. )

A couple, I guess...? Not anyone I'd say I was close to, or anything. ( It's sort of strange, feeling awkward, but a lot of Shit has happened in the past month and interacting a lot just feels like a struggle sometimes. ) What about yourself?

[actus]

[ if he had to answer that question he'd actually combust. there are some things he just doesn't want to learn about other people. or answer on his own. ]

Yeah. [ it's an easy question, but then again, he's kind of a social butterfly. ] ... I got in the habit of getting to know people back home. I spent most of my free-time helping people out with their problems. I guess it kinda bled over here.

[ he didn't really "help" per say, but rather was a good outlet for people to vent or bounce ideas off. ]

[enflame]

( Glad we're at an understanding here Akira...........

The concepts of being sociable and being charitable while being sociable are kind of foreign to sheltered Emil, but he's awakened to ~the potential of friendship~ in the last few months. Still, focusing all of your free time on other people? That's a lot man. )

That's...actually really good of you. But you do have other interests and the like, right? I don't know, things outside of helping everyone else?

[actus]

[ there's a laugh. ]

I mostly listen. I'm not exactly trained as a therapist. [ a roll of his shoulders and he cracks a tiny smile, his hand sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. this is weird, to talk about his interests like this. ]

I like video games? And books. I'm not that great at sports. I tend to trip a lot.

[ which is something he tries to avoid during heists... ]

[enflame]

Oh! I know about books. Not sure why anyone would like those outside of their value. Sports, as well -- I know about them, anyway.

( Emil pauses as he's about to break a breadstick in half and gives Akira A Look. )

What is a video game, though?

[actus]

[ he looks physically pained at that. he bites back the urge to dramatically press his hand to his chest. ]

It's a virtual reality. Kind of like a book come to life. ... Sort of.

[ he shrugs. ]

I'd show you, but I doubt we're going to find any around here.

[enflame]

Oh... ( That's sort of a let down. ) That sounds like it has the potential to not be TOO boring. The worst part of books is having to read them.

It's a sort of technology, then? I know a bit about that, anyway.

[actus]

Yup.

[ a thought!! ]

If you can recharge that tablet of yours, they might have games on them. I didn't see what was really installed on it that first time.

[ he's not even going to touch the book comment. it's not worth it right now. ]

[enflame]

Oh, yeah...it's recharged. Something like that can have a book game on there? I don't really know where I'd find a video game if I wanted one.

( He doesn't have it with him at the moment, but he'll look through it when he gets "home." )

So are they like watching a play or something? A...movie? ( Please tell him he used that noun correctly. )

[actus]

Sort of. They're interactive, though. So you get to influence what happens.

[ despite the gaps in his knowledge, emil seems like he's easily following this conversation. that's good. akira still is going to make a mental note to try and teach emil all the wonders of technology some time. ]

Let me know which ones you find and I can probably tell you about them.

[enflame]

( Hmmm...that's definitely an upgrade where books are concerned. Emil has some strong opinions about -- everything, so having some sort of influence on a story is right up his ego ally. )

I will! I think I'm pretty good at normal games, like cards and such, so I'm sure I won't need much guidance.

( He will need guidance. )

[actus]

I'm sure you'll be a natural.

[ so much guidance. ]

What kind of card games do you know?

[enflame]

Chicago, Casino -- the typical Poker-type things. Whist. I was something of an expert back home.

( More like his mom and dad just let him win because he's insufferable....... )

You're from...Japan. ( That's said trepidatiously because he's not 100% sure he remembers that correctly, oops. ) What sorts of games do they play there?

[actus]

I don't play many, but we have similar ones.

[ card games are, more or less, universal. at least the popular ones at casinos. he's always been a bigger fan of board games or video games, but card games are fun from time to time. ]

I know groups of people my age like to play Kings. [ which is a terrible, terrible thing itself. ]

[enflame]

( Well today is a day of finding out he doesn't know anything. )

I'm not sure what that--

( He likely won't find out today since oops, there goes his chair doing that flying off thing that's been happening -- see ya space cowboy. Akira can educate Emil on teenage anime debauchery at a later date. )