3 Kazoo - Adult Ballroom Social and Epic Kids' Game Night

[nutkrusher]

Who: Everyone
Where: Wardrobe, Gym Car, Music Car, Games Car
When: 3 Kazoo, Evening
What: The much-awaited-and-discussed Adult Ballroom Social (and children's side event)
Warnings: None

You've seen the flyers. You've heard the announcements. You've ordered additional party reinforcements if you wanted them. Some of you have even helped her to prepare. And now it's finally here - the Adult Ballroom Social that she's been planning these many, many week-and-a-half.

But you wouldn't know it only took that long to throw it together. She's gone all out for this one. Including the wardrobe that's been opened up, there are four cars that have been set aside for tonight. The main ballroom floor is in the non-training gym, which has been cleared and decorated for the occasion. The music is being piped in from the music car, where it's still playing for those who would prefer a more intimate and private setting. Meanwhile, the game room has been set out for the kids who would otherwise be left out of this adult and near-adult event.

Comments

[helborn]

It's fine, Casper's equally excited and oblivious. "Yeah, that's the disadvantage of this place being mostly stable material. But if you want testing for physical strength limits I can probably help out. I've learned how to pull my punches a bit. And I can probably help with temperature testing, too! At least for cold."

[sciencegirl]

"Oh neat! A cold focus. I know a twelve-year-old Princess whose impressively powerful. I bet she'll be amazingly destructive when she's an adult! Her power management is acute even now."

Wait, need to stuff mouth with a few more things. Hold on. Time to refuel.

[helborn]

"Yeah, my two main focuses are ice and ghosts. But I don't think the ghosts thing will be helpful here." He takes a minute to eat a little bit, too. ... Man he has to learn the recipes for these.

[sciencegirl]

"Oh, neat! Ghosts. Most of the time when people suspected ghosts on my world it turned out to either be an ancient tech signal or it was shadow puppets from a sorcerer. I've not had a chance to run readings on actual ghosts and I doubt I'll have the chance here."

She doesn't know about Betelgeuse yet.

[helborn]

"I don't think most of them would like it, in my experience. But who knows! Different worlds can have different kinds of ghosts. I just worked in a place where I interacted with a lot of ghosts. I got good at slipping messages from dead relatives into places where the families would find them but not me."

Because who would believe that a fifteen year old was passing on messages from someone's grandpa or whatever?

[sciencegirl]

"See! That's why they should have readings taken. Maybe we could develop ways for them to comfortably communicate with the living without, you know... Must have been really useful for your line of work."

It's not that she doesn't care, even if her casualness about death might indicate that. It's that she has a very solution-oriented mind. Rather than being daunted by feelings of mortality she's in a state of perpetual motion.

[helborn]

"It was, though it took me a little bit to learn that not everyone saw them. I mean, a really creepy ghost was my only friend for a long time."

And honestly even the ghost of a serial killer was a better friend than some of the people he'd traveled with.

[sciencegirl]

"That's okay! Most of my friends growing up were robots. They were just easier to understand than biological people. They don't try to hide what's wrong with them and whatever emotions they have, they're frank with them. I appreciate that."

She has a lot of trouble reading passive aggressiveness or sarcasm, so robots were the best.

[helborn]

"Unfortunately ghosts are still people. I'm not the best at knowing like... when to shut up? Robots would have been cool... a lot of the ones in my world are really basic, though."

[sciencegirl]

"Robots can be people, too! I'm decent at building them but with all the new technology I've been exposed to? They can only get better. This place is amazing! I need to seek out a few other people adept at both magic and technology. Maybe they can help me build more magically resistant tech. We need things that can last with beings as powerful as the ones that are aboard this train and magical surges are the worst for fine circuitry."

She may have not asked to come here, but this place is pretty good! She wants to make the most of it.

[helborn]

"Oh... sorry, I didn't mean to be insulting. I mean ghosts are still... they act like most flesh and blood people, only usually with magnified emotions... I only know people-robots from the last place I was at, not at home."

[sciencegirl]

"It's okay! I'm difficult to insult. Just be careful with some of the train robots. They're sensitive about that kind of thing, rightfully so since it's affected their right to exist before."

Ironically it seems easier for Jack to be a person in other's eyes because he's so abrasive and more difficult for Guri. She's not met Murderbot yet.

[helborn]

"Train... robots?" Jack doesn't count, right? He's pretty sure that's a hologram or something.

[sciencegirl]

"Yeah, there's an android named Guri and there's Jack, who everyone knows." As he makes himself very, very known.

"They're artificial intelligences but they still consider themselves people, no matter what type of people you consider them to be. They're completely dissimilar individuals, too, if you need any sort of example that there's no personality standard for algorithmic learning. Jack's is based on another individual who I think he's trying very hard to live up to, and Guri's developed her own by necessity."

[helborn]

"Jack and I have... met, yes." Just the flattest tone. "I haven't met Guri yet, though. I knew some living robots back in Liminal Space - Dakki was one of them. I never really asked about her construction or background? It seemed rude."

[sciencegirl]

"Maybe you should talk to one sometime. Even if you don't like Jack, it might be worth your time to let some artificial intelligence be heard and their individual past be valued. Especially if someone's been built to be used."

Never hurts to ask someone where they came from.

[helborn]

"No, I mean... we were friends. I just didn't want to push her on her past if she didn't want to bring it up. It's just... it seemed like if she wanted to tell me, she'd tell me." He's not like robo-racist or something, come on.

"I get the 'being built to be used' thing, sort of. Not in the same way." his dad probably only ever thought of Casper as a burden and an experiment and he knows it.

[sciencegirl]

There are some people who are. Not so much 'racists' but trauma victims who have such negative experiences they have difficulty slowing down to relate. The reminder of their pasts too much.

Food is briefly ignored as she tilts her pigtailed head.

"That doesn't sound good, especially considering most of what you mentioned involved a funeral home." 'Cause those are two things that have the worst implications.

[helborn]

"I - oh no, not like that. Like... I was born to be either an experiment for my dad or a pawn in the titan war and larger power plays among the gods for my mom. Metaphorically built. ... Scared into doing what people said."

[sciencegirl]

"I'm not sure what the titan war is, but between that and what you're saying about your father it sounds like your mother must have led a very stressful life. What did you decide to do for yourself? When the time came for you to make your own choices?"

[helborn]

"Stressful? Maybe, but she's the one who made some poor decisions in how to interact with me. I didn't really know what to do for myself and I got killed when I tried to finally make a move. I had to make a deal with my mother to come back to life... but when I got taken to a place like this I finally had people around me who weren't awful and helped me get enough confidence to face things that I never could have before."

[sciencegirl]

Entrapta is a fixit girl. When someone (like Hordak) told her about a problem, opened up his heart, she searched for solutions immediately to empower him again. It's the best emotional capacity she has for dealing with problems. She doesn't know how to help gods. She's good with using magitech, she can find solutions to a lot of things. But her first inclination is to physically help and she has no idea how.

At least he's had friends that have helped him before. Right. He's got... god stuff, right? He doesn't need her help.

"Most people aren't awful. Some definitely are, but most aren't. They just have their flaws. I'm glad you finally got to meet some of those."

[helborn]

"Yeah. I've learned that now. And when things do go bad, I have better defenses." He smiles at her. "Like if someone tells me I'm stupid, I've got enough people who have shown me that I'm not. Stuff like that."

[sciencegirl]

"Did any of them come with you? I know some people have been lucky enough to have their friends here."

And apparently she missed Glimmer being around. Despite making lots of new friends, even ones with more similarities, she misses what's familiar.

[helborn]

"Yeah! One of them did. Her name's Q'uila. She's got purple hair kind of like yours but a lot shorter, and cat ears and a tail." This is totally normal. "Her species is called a miqo'te."