At least there's no elevator music...

[thespaceopera]

[At least two weeks have passed since the Drift Fleet passengers woke up on this strange wing of the Marsiva... Some new passengers have even joined the group instead of being Shuffled off to a fleet ship! The large monitor in the central room remains quiet for now, so how is everyone holding up?

Have you been relaxing? Enjoying the Earth media? If you can even remember them, how have Calibrations been treating you? Has anyone started getting a little stir-crazy?

Don't worry... This ship has no shortage of mysteries, and you'll be seeing a few more soon.]


ooc: here's another mingle for the current game event! players can start or continue threads here from any point during the event. the additional setting information is still being postponed due to sickly mods, but y'all are welcome to post additional topcomments for reactions and investigation once it's up!

Comments

[delincuente]

[A. Common Room - Action]

[Alex is lounging on one of the sofas, upside down with her feet propped on the back. She's got a pair of headphones on, with the volume turned up loud enough to hear the horrendous music coming out of them. Occasionally, she'll hum along or bounce her feet, probably irritating those around her.

Someone's clearly in a good mood, despite how bad the past couple of weeks have been.]

[B. Kitchen - Voice/Action]

[Or, you can find your friendly neighborhood witch in the kitchen, doing something a bit uncharacteristic of her. She's attempting to bake cookies, with the limited ingredients available, but seems to have stopped at the dough phase, and is now just sitting on the counter with the bowl and a spoon.]

So where do you think these eggs come from? Like, is there some space-farm out there, with space-chickens?

[She licks a little dollop of dough off the end of the spoon.]

... And is space-salmonella a thing?

[Clearly she's asking all the important questions.]

b!

[kotatsu]

[ look, she's just minding her own business and trying to take a picture of the kitchen with her communicator when this lady starts asking her about space-chickens and space-salmonella.

she's seven years old what is this. ]

Space... salmonella?

[delincuente]

[Oh god it's a child. Alex doesn't know how to deal with these things. Slowly, she puts the spoon down on the counter.]

Um, it's this thing that happens sometimes when you eat raw eggs?

[kotatsu]

[ oh... ]

Do you eat raw eggs?

[delincuente]

I mean I eat them sunny side up, and that's mostly raw. But they're raw when you put them in cookie dough. That's why people are always telling you it'll make you sick.

[kotatsu]

Oh! I eat them sunny side up too! I've never had just cookie dough before... maybe that's why Dad always says it's bad to eat it before they're in the oven.

[delincuente]

[Pondering for just a second, Alex reaches down to the open drawer and pulls out another spoon.]

You wanna try some?

[kotatsu]

... If I get sick, will you take responsibility?

[ she's mostly kidding, despite the straight face, but she'll go and take the spoon once alex offers it to her. ]

[delincuente]

Yeah, you can throw me in bad adult jail or something.

[Oh shit oh shit what even.]

b

[experiencepoints]

[Well, Nightingale was making an actual proper breakfast, but now she's stopping when she has to consider this.]

Considering how powerful the Atroma seem to be, can't they just make eggs out of nothing?

[delincuente]

Yeah, that's what I was guessing. Which means - probably no space-bacteria, right?

[She slides off the counter, giving the spoon another (rather jokingly-suggestive) lick.]

[experiencepoints]

[Not commenting on that licking, at all. Don't do it, Nightingale.]

Unless they made the bacteria, too. Think someone getting sick is good for ratings?

[delincuente]

I don't know, it hasn't happened yet.

[That's for the best.]

Like, all my rating's have come from generally being an annoying shit with bad music tastes. You never know what pays.

[experiencepoints]

Yeah, I still have no idea how I'm getting any ratings. Or if I am at all. Is there a baseline you get no matter how badly you're doing?

Either way, I wouldn't risk the sickness. I'm not nearly good enough at healing magic for that sort of thing.

[delincuente]

Dude, you have healing magic? I'm pretty sure that's way fancier than anything I can do.

[experiencepoints]

Huh? Oh... Sort of. I have one spell, basic HP resto-

[Wait, no, that's one of those things that makes people call her world a game.]

Basic healing of wounds, and not very powerful. I'm way more suited to offensive magic.

[delincuente]

Wait, so, are you a witch? Wizard?

a!

[stefanged]

[So guess who's lounging beside her, trying so very very hard to ignore that horrendous music as he skims through a copy of The Essential Rumi? It takes him a few minutes more than usual to sigh as he leans over, reaching for the volume and turning it down ever-so-slightly.]

You'll get deaf if you keep listening to it like that.

[Still, his sass's less biting than usual as he flops back onto the armrest of the couch and picks up that book again - and maybe, right before he picks it back up, there's a hint of a smile too.]

[delincuente]

[She pulls off one headphone, then looks over at him and smiles, bringing a foot down to kick him lovingly in the leg.]

Did you say something?

[stefanged]

[He scrunches up his whole face at her, not even flinching at that leg kick.]

Aw. Deaf already?

[delincuente]

Yep. Completely.

[She pulls off her other headphone, bringing the set to rest around her neck.]

In fact, I didn't even hear that question.

[stefanged]

There wasn't a question to begin with.

[He laughs, setting his book down long enough to look at her.]

I was merely pointing out just how loud Ms. Swift is.

[delincuente]

Hey, she's gotta be loud if she's gonna go up against C.C. Lemonhead and his good friend Jay Ski.

[She would know the actual names of the people who sing Space Jam. But because she's probably already listened to this shit fifteen times, and because she knows how Stefan feels about Queen Swift, she hits the pause button for the time being.]

What are you reading?

[stefanged]

[He wishes he were surprised to learn that she knew, he really does. But when she mentions his book, he glances back at the title.]

Rumi. He was this 15th century Iranian poet. Here, uh... this was one of my favorites.

[Picking up the book again, he skims the chapter until he finds the poem he was reading (and since his copy is in Arabic, the translator's gonna do its magic as he reads out loud):]

When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.

Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.

The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.

[delincuente]

[Her smile grows, slowly and warmly, throughout the lines, and by the end she's struggling to keep her cheeks from going bright red. She never thought that she'd be one to turn all warm and goofy over a guy reading poetry, but Stef is slowly changing a lot of Alex's perceptions about herself.]

Oh my god, you sap.

[I love it, she means. But he knows that.]