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(no subject)

Who: Everyone!
What: December's welcome log.
When: Dec 1st-7th
Where: The Merchant Dome/The Pools
Warnings:
Notes: This is your December welcome log. Come in, go nuts.

It’s the most wonderful (welcome) time of the year.

The Council knows that being a newb and not knowing anyone (especially when one might be living in close quarters to them in the very near future) can be a real pain in the ass. So, every month they throw a welcome party, the theme and location tend to vary. The theme for December is Holiday Cheer and this month’s party takes place in the Merchant dome. But it’s not the everyday appearance of the merchant dome. No, for the next five days the Merchant dome’s appearance has been altered to look like a sort of Bavarian Christmas Market. There are small clusters of tables every so often, so people can just sit and chat and eat and drunk.

Some enterprising person has even managed to make it snow through some unknown means. It’s not cold, but the snow is soft and steady and slowly building up.

The entire dome, all of the streets and all of the merchant stalls are practically glowing with white fairy lights that are strung everywhere. Vendors in their stalls gleefully cry out to paterons passing by, offering them free food or drinks. The food consists of the sort of things that one might expect to find in a place like this: sausages on buns and on sticks, pretzels, pizza, loads of cookies of every variety that one could think of, including elaborately decorated gingerbread, chocolates, fruits, french fries. Think winter fair food, and be as absurd and as complicated and extra as you want. It is a fair, after all. Go nuts. Drinks are also along the same line: hot cider, mulled wine, hot buttered rum, hot chocolate both with booze and without, as well as all the normal things: water, coffee, tea, milk, soda, and a variety of fruit juices that you’ve both heard of and not.

But food isn’t the only free thing that people are giving away! They’re also offering characters hats and gloves and scarves, small toys, books, delicate ornaments, perfumes, wine… it’s a giant welcome party after all, and these people are cheerful and happy. Even offering to pay just gets met with laughter and being told not to worry about it.

There are even some carnival rides set up! A medium sized ferris wheel, a carousel, a giant slide and ice skating ring are all along the outside of the stalls.

At the far end of the dome, the snow has fallen deeper and held to several inches. Wouldn’t you know it just happens to be perfect snowball snow! So, there of course needs to be a snowball fight! What did you think those free mittens and gloves and scarves are for after all? The snowball fight can be organized into teams, or one on one depending on the player’s choice. This is a friendly fight, of course, so no rocks or slush balls or anything. Well, probably not. No one in the Sphere is your mother.

However, the meeting isn’t just about socializing! the opposite end from the snowball fight, there are smaller tables set up with people sitting behind them. In front of the tables are homemade brightly colored signs that advertise things like jobs and clubs. The people and interests here in The Sphere are hugely varied and people are just so earnest to tell newcomers about them. They’re earnest to the point where they may just actually reach out and grab a person in order to force them to stop and to listen to whatever spiel they happen to be working on. Booths that are in attendance for jobs include: Agriculture: “help grow the food that feeds us all! Farming is life!”, The library: “No skill needed! We’ll teach you what you need to know!” The school system: “Teachers wanted! Education is the right of everyone!” Maintenance: “Help keep the domes clean!” As well as various restaurant booths looking for help for both servers and chefs.

For the hobbies involved they are even more varied. Book club: “we live in a multiverse, let’s read the books from it! With wine!” Garden club: “we want to grow stuff on our terms!” Sprinkled among are various skill learning clubs, among them: woodworking club, smithing, robotics, technology, first aid. It seems that despite the fact that no one is required to work in the City, people are still offering skills as needed.

If discrete enough inquiries are made, a passcode to the Black Market hidden behind some of the stalls is offered. The entrance is hidden enough that someone needs to be looking for it, and there is a rather large bouncer guarding the door and asking for the proper passcode. The passcode of the day happens to be gumdrops.

Inside the black market is large, but much more dimly lit than the regular market dome that the welcome party was held inside of. There are various pockets of people clustered under bright neon lights. The lights, someone confides to you, are code for what they’re offering. And nearly everything is on offer if a person has the ability to make a trade. Things from home, character skills and even favors tend to be the currency here, but watch out: the hawkers within are shrewd and sharp. If they make a deal with someone, it’s nearly always going to favor them. Eventually.

There’s also a large and loud party happening inside. Think of a rave with a large amount of people who happened to be a bit out of their minds. Drugs aren’t given freely here, they’re too valuable, but should someone want to figure out what they’re rolling on, eventually someone will ask or offer. The drug that they are currently using is called ‘self’ and it’s something that affects your character in an intensely personal way. For some, it’s an experience like your favorite cocktail mixed with a vicodin, and for others it’s just like being drunk. For still more people, it’s like ecstasy without the side effects.

The drug has no physically addicting properties.

But seriously though who cares about Christmas?

While the welcome party rages on in the merchant dome, people have made a smaller party in one of the recreation domes. Around the pools, as a matter of fact. There’s almost like a small barbecue clustered around the largest of the three pools, and the light is constant and sunny here. The large pool is olympic sized, and is a sparkling blue. It’s fresh water, and probably clean enough to drink. I still wouldn’t drink it. The second pool is slightly smaller and more kidney shaped with a gradual sand mound at one end of it. This pool is salt water and looks a bit more like a beach than a pool. The third pool is a kiddie pool, complete with a splash pad, that’s running. Buckets drop, it’s got one of those mushroom things, and sprinkler jets. There aren’t any kids though, so people are welcome to go nuts.

Bathing suits and towels are provided in the changing rooms. There’s frozen and fruity drinks flowing freely, along with finger food and snacks. Loud music is playing from a local band that’s just generally of a pop sort. There’s people dancing rather in a rather haphazard fashion, but the dance floor is there and present!

Wildcard
Go nuts, choose your own adventure!

Inspiration images

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He doesn't pretend to know anything about her, of course, but he watches her as she pulls out her sunglasses, patient and smiling just slightly, raising his shoulders in a slight shrug at her question.

"Because you're a kid, and you look like you could use a friend, maybe. Have you read many books?"

This, she's got. She nods her head vigorously. "Sí, sí. I read the Extraño X-Men, and X-Force, and X-Factor, and Excalibur, and Mutantes Nuevos, the Alpha Flight, and The Wolverine." By the end of this recount, she's beaming at the memories. She still has some of the comic books in her backpack, though she won't tell anyone that; they might steal them.

Edited (for the purposes of this comment we're pretending marvel is a lot more equanimous about their use of adjectives.) 2018-12-02 23:54 (UTC)

You know what was worth it? Asking her about the books she's read. That smile makes just about everything involved the rest of this evening worth it, and he smiles right back at her.

"So you like comic books." He nods. "Superhero comic books, I mean. I know it's important to get that right." And the X-Men...he thinks at least. There were a lot of X-Men titles there, anyway. "There was an X-Men TV show when I was younger, but I never got to read the comics. They were pretty cool, though."

"I never saw this. I wanted to." She'd heard about it. About how the X-Men were heroes to the rest of the world, or they had been, once. About how things had been different. She hadn't seen much of that, when she was on the run, and now...

"Who is your favorite?"

"Man, it's been a while." He looks thoughtful for a moment, thinking. "I remember liking Beast. His sense of humor was funny. Uh, but I liked Cyclops, too. He was a good leader, and he had a pretty cool motorcycle. Plus who wouldn't want to shoot lasers out of their eyes?"

She considers that carefully. Beast is good. Cyclops is good, even if he was wrong sometimes. She smiles, because she can recognize that he's joking. "He could not control it." She puts the back of her hand against one eye, miming something shooting out of it. "Control is good."

He nods at that. "Yeah, I know. That's why he always wore the visor. It was made out of some kind of crystal that kept it under control, right? And sometimes he wore some really cool pink shades."

And he motions to her face. "Like yours," except he watches her for a moment before shaking his head. "Nah, you're are cooler. I wish I looked that good in sunglasses."

"Ruby-quartz," she says without hesitation. And then she considers her sunglasses. She's pretty sure he's humoring her, but she doesn't really care. The fact that he cares enough to lie and compliment her is a nice feeling. It reminds her of when Gabriela tried to comb out her hair and said it was still beautiful even though it was full of tangles and blood and mud.

"Gracias," she murmurs. "What are your books?"

"Right, that's it." It seemed vaguely familiar, even though it had been at least 15 years since he's seen that show. Considering her dedication to the X-Men, he's going to trust she's right about that one.

He smiles at her thanks, and nods. "De nada." See, he knows a little Spanish, even if he does have a terrible Caucasian accent. "You mean what books do I like? Well...I never really got into comics, and if I'm honest, I don't really read that much. When I do, it's usually either...a mystery or non-fiction. that's...books about things that are real. I like doing more hands-on stuff, getting my hands dirty." He motions back toward the direction he'd come from. "There's a blacksmithing club I'm thinking of joining. Do you know what that is?"

Behind her glasses, she rolls her eyes. Voice thick with childlike condescension, she says, "I know dirty hands."

She holds up hers, which could definitely use some soap.

He shifts his gaze to those hands of hers and nods. "I see that, but I meant blacksmithing. Do you know what that is?"

It sounds familiar, but... she shakes her head, no, and then looks up expectantly.

"It's shaping metal into different things, like...horseshoes, plates, armor, weapons." And he smiles. "I've never had a chance to learn, and I always thought it would be cool. Is there anything you want to learn how to do but you never thought you'd get the chance?"

Like the comic books, this answer is just as automatic. It's also a lot safer than talking about shaping and moving metal. She knows just enough about it to suspect her feeling of discomfort is unfounded, and yet it remains.

Better to talk about- "I want to ride horses."

He smiles. "Horses, huh?" He nods. He knows a little bit about horses. "What do you like about the idea of riding? What's it make you think of?"

She's never considered that, and the question sits oddly within her. This Aaron person is very good at turning her thoughts on their head. She can't decide if it's good or not. Might be worth investigating.

It's a long moment before she replies, and it's tentative, wondering if there's a right answer. "Horses are... smart. Big. They live in... big places."

Aaron does his best to listen to what she isn't saying as he does what she is and after a moment, he nods.

"They live in big open places, and they can run pretty fast." And the last he says sadly because he sees where she's coming from. "They're free." At least from her perspective.

She nods her head slowly. "Libre. They go places." Which means, of course, you have places to go. "They know when people are bad." She pokes her own nose. It's a similarity between them, she thinks.

He smiles at that, nodding. "They do, and generally, they know when to run"

He watches her for a moment before looking off in the direction the man ran off in, then back to her. "What about you? Do you know when people are bad?"

Laura nods, a definitive answer. To her, there's no ambiguity. "You are not bad." She doesn't know if he's good-- she knows people exist in between, though to her, that's really just a matter of usefulness. You're good if you help her. You're bad if you hurt her. And everyone else is just irrelevant.

But 'not bad' is a good start.

That gets a smile from him, and a gentle nod. "I'm not, and I'll take that as a compliment."

But he had promised her to be a guide, so he motioned off toward the fair. "So. Where do you want to start?"

Laura looks up at Aaron with a decisive expression, even behind the glasses. "Comida." She can smell it everywhere.

He laughs, understanding that one well enough. If you ever visit a Spanish speaking country, you need to know how to ask where the food is.

"You like food, huh? Me too. What's your favorite?"

She shrugs. "Todo." She's yet to come across food she doesn't like.

"Everything?" He asks with a chuckle, both confirming his translation and making sure he understood her meaning properly. "Well, that's easy. Why don't we start with mine, then, because I love funnel cake?"

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