voidtreckerexpress | (closed) how many times must i tell you? i only take tea with friends!

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(closed) how many times must i tell you? i only take tea with friends!

Who: Alice and friends (Allen, A-Qing, Aziraphale, Crowley, Devero, Little one, Natsuno)
When: Jelly 19
Where: Upper level of the dining carriage
What: Tea party time!
Warnings: Nothing so far, will edit!

After making sure to invite everyone ahead in time, Alice sets everything out she bought for the tea party on the upper level of the dining carriage, making sure it's at a time between means when it's not as busy in there.

And it seems like she got quite a lot. There's a box with all sorts of tea in the middle of the table, with a few teapots next to it, filled up with water and ready for whichever flavour of tea anyone decides to pick. But there's not just tea - the rest of the table is filled with all sorts of snacks one could imagine for afternoon tea. Some bread, butter and simple sandwich fillings, but also small cakes, miniature pastries, fruits and other sundries.

By the time everyone starts to arrive, Alice is already sitting there, waiting.

(ooc: this is a mingle sort of thing, so feel free to make your own toplevels and/or tag around! c: it's not just one big thread!)

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"It do all be being good."

Don't mind her, she's trying everything. Her manners leave a lot to be desired but she is actually trying her best. Tea parties are very new, though this isn't her first thanks to Mami.

Still it's a new concept and a bit strange. She hadn't thought Alice would be someone who would make one. Alice is full of surprises.

Thankfully Alice sure doesn't mind manners. Partially since she's lost most of hers over the years, but even if she hadn't, she was never too particularly fussy about it when she was younger either.

So she instead just smiles at watching the girl try some of everything.

"Really? I'm glad." Alice is even openly smiling over here. Imagine that. It's just fun - being surrounded by friends, having tea together. And she worries a bit less when someone else is clearly enjoying themselves. "Is this your first tea party?"

She shook her head. "I did be having tea with Mami, do you be knowing her? She do be liking tea and cakes a lot."

She reached out for another piece of fruit. "But this do be being the first with lots of people."

"Hmm.. I don't know her," she says, shaking her head. A little less dismissive about it than she'd usually be, since being around people she likes is putting her into a much better mood than usually.

It's a bit of a surprise to hear there's another fan of tea parties on the train though. Most people seemed so horribly modern.

"But I'm glad you got to enjoy some tea parties before. They're quite fun, you know." She smiles at the girl, and then hushes her voice slightly, like she's sharing some great secret. "As long as you aren't having them with stiff people."

"She do be being strong." She's not sure Alice would like her, Mami is a little too light blinded. Compared to Alice anyways.

"Stiff people would no even be liking tea parties, so we do no be needing to be worrying about them going to one."

They wouldn't know how to have fun and probably wouldn't even like cake.

Alice lets out a sigh.

"Oh, they do have tea parties back home. Though there isn't much of a party about it, if you'd ask me." It's been a long time ago, since before the asylum, but Alice does remember her time still being part of the upper ridges of society, rather than the lower ones. And maybe being very young at that time influenced her view, but she sure remembers a whole lot of boring people.

She slightly waves a hand. "They're just attending because they have to. To save face. It's just about seeing and being seen, rather than actually having fun. Those people must live utterly dreadful lives."

"Oh, I did be seeing parties like that. Nobles do be having them all the time. They do no be looking fun at all."

Boring for the most part. "It do be being important for them to be being there because if they do be talking to the right person at the right time..."

She bit into a strawberry. "And they do be talking about very boring things, unless you can be listening just right."

"Exactly."

She's rather glad the girl already knows. It's much easier to get the full idea about just how boring those are by seeing them rather than by hearing about them, after all. Sure, it's a bit of a surprise that she knows, but Alice is just figuring the other girl must have snuck in during some for some reason. It seems like the kind of thing she'd do.

"Those were the kind of tea parties I often was at when I was much younger, so I really didn't like them. Especially since the adults mostly just tended to ignore you, just because you were younger. So all you can do is sit there and listen to their incredibly boring conversations."

"You did be going to them? That do be sounding boring."

She can't imagine Alice as a boring noble child, sat there listening to boring adult conversations. "But at least you could be eating cake."

It had to be the only good thing about tea parties full of stuffy people.

Alice makes a small head gesture accompanied by a half-eyeroll. The kind of facial expression that says 'you tell me'. They were pretty boring alright, and stuffing her face with cake was just about the only way Alice got through them. That, and just straight up daydreaming.

"My father was a dean at the Oxford University, so he knew some pretty fancy people."

Even if one of said fancy people turned out to be a murderer and an abuser. Ugh.

"Though I haven't had a tea party like that anymore ever since he died when I was much younger."

"What do a dean at the Oxford University be being?" That's three words all in a row that she doesn't understand.

She realises belatedly the rest of what Alice had said. "He did be dying?" She... She was probably sad about that right?

She hums in confirmation at the latter question.

It is something she's sad about. It's something that broke her up, traumatized her, changed her forever. But pouring that all out to this girl of all people.. Well, Alice doesn't think she'd understand. Not even out of a lack of sympathy necessarily - though maybe a bit of that too - but also since she might plainly not be able to understand it at all.

So instead she focuses on the question that's easier to discuss after taking a sip of tea.

"A university is a school for people my age where you can study really advanced things." No, she won't bore the girl with details. "And a dean is someone who has a pretty high function at a university. Oxford is just the name of the city it's located at. It's where I grew up before I.. moved to London."

Moved isn't really the right word for being shipped off to a hospital and then an asylum, huh. But whatever. Close enough.

She knows school, she had attended the attempt Tony had made to make a school on the train. She knows all children in Peter's world goes there and he had... mixed feelings about it. But an advanced school for adults? That was a little more like the temple, a place where learning lasted a lifetime.

"Do Oxford be being far away from London?"

Gauig was the only city in Gauig, the rest being desert and the occasional small settlement. But she knows other countries are more inhabitable, with more than one city. She has no idea how it would be in Alice's world.

"You would spend a good chunk of your day getting from Oxford to London by cart."

Is that enough of an explanation? Honestly, Alice isn't too sure about the level of technology in the girl's world. But even so - it's not like she can explain it in any other way, since she can't imagine how much shorter it'd be with more modern methods of transporation.. She didn't even have the time to look into how long a train ride there would have taken with how recently she left the asylum.

"It's only one of many cities though. But only a few have a university."

So a decent distance away but not too far, not needing an overnight stay. She nodded, able to see that much difference.

But there were more of these universities? More than just the one?

"Do a lot of people be going to them? The universities I do be meaning."

"Oh, quite a lot."

Relatively speaking, anyway. Not that Alice has even been near a university in a very long time now, but from what she remembers while visiting her father's work when she was little..

She exhales slowly.

"Although there could be a lot more people attending if they made it more inclusive. Only men can go there." Technically some started accepting women only barely around her own time, but it's not like Alice has had much opportunity to keep up with the recent news, considering her asylum stay and all.. "And only rich men on top of it. It means that the people I've seen out on the streets in London often barely stood a chance to ever be able to go to one."

Time to teach this girl about the socio-economic problems of society.

Only men. That added to what Alice had told her and Qing only the say before.

She's not surprised that only rich people could go to this grown up school, that people who had money could do things that others couldn't was no surprise. Considering Alice's world had nobles who threw stupid tea parties when she was sure there were people in Alice's world who had to steal bread to survive.

But that only men could go. "Why can only men be going? Do it be being because because men in your world do be being deceitful and suspicious?"

What did they learn at these universities?

Alice's eyes widen as she realises the girl is echoing her own words from the day before back at her.

"Yes!" It may be why her tone is growing more enthusiastic than it usually is. Look at her. She's raising a little feminist. What could Alice be prouder of than that? "Yes, that's exactly why!"

.. or, well, maybe not exactly. But as far as Alice is concerned, it's part of it.

"It's since they think they are the only ones who deserve to go there. They think that women and girls are too dumb for it, and that they should only spend their time taking care of the house." Do you hear how ridiculous that sounds!!

"Why would they be thinking that. Girls do no be being any dumber than men. Well. Some girls do be being dumb but so do be being some boys..."

She was certainly smarter than Taiwin, who though older had not had the education from Priestess Elena and Kant that she had. But Kant is a man and he is one of the smartest people she knows. Except Priestess Elena but she is a priestess and so obviously smarter than everyone else.

It sounded very ridiculous. What a weird world Alice came from.

At least the girl does have a good head on her shoulders when it comes to these sorts of thing, huh. Or maybe it's just that the world this girl comes from - as odd as it is, with the way she sometimes speaks of it - is just a world where that kind of gender imbalance doesn't exist.

Imagine that. Alice only wishes she could live in that sort of world. This place may be the closest she'll ever get to it.

"Of course girls aren't dumber than men in the slightest. But they are so full of themselves that they think that lie is the truth. They'll do anything to keep their positions of power, even if it's just by pushing everyone who's not like them away from any form of education of power."

"That do be being really stupid. Why do the girls no just be pushing them back"

She tilted her head, "Or do there be being less women in your world?"

Perhaps that was the case. There were less of them and that's why the men could have all the education and power.

She shakes her head.

"No, it's.. more complicated than that."

But Alice isn't quite sure how to convey that to a child this girl's age. Let alone one from an entirely different world where things ended up in a very different way.

"Not everyone is like me where I'm from." She shakes her head. "If anything, I am the exception. Most people can't fight the way I can. Let alone most women, because they have been surpressed by men for all their life."

More complicated? That sounded true. Everything was complicated. Her own world was complicated enough without adding all these other worlds and their strange ideas into the mix.

So women couldn't fight. Because they couldn't learn? She wrinkled her nose. "Someone should be teaching them."

Because there was no other way she could think of, except to fight, so that they could go to these universities and learn the same as men.

But the men were probably very well trained, they probably trained in these universities...

Alice briefly imagines it. A world where all women know how to fight, where they just beat off the men who harass them.

.. you know, that isn't really a bad world at all to her.

"Perhaps," so she actually seems pretty pleased with what the girl is saying when she replies, a small smile on her face that fades almost instantly as she continues. "But you have probably found as well that it often takes more than one person to change the world."

Often. In Wonderland it took just her, sure, but Alice knows that there's no way she would be able to change London on her own, let alone England or the entire world.

"Yes." She sighed. She can't imagine the sort of person who could change the world, just like that. Her world has stories of heroes sure, but they had armies and the blessing of gods behind them.

"You do be needing an army."

An army of women to beat up all the stupid men. "Maybe we could be telling the train to be going there."

She'd like to see any stupid men stand up to the likes of priestess Lightning, to Wen Qing, to all those fighting women on the purple team.

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