new player welcome post

[yhlee]

[Hello, new players! This post is for new and old players to get acquainted with each other in-character (IC) and out-of-character (OOC). I will be updating the character roster shortly for easy reference. Characters from the first arc who are still wrapping things up in Move 24, feel free to continue; I'll get to y'all shortly.

In the meantime, feel free to introduce yourself in OOC threads, including any information you want other players to have about you (including pronouns if relevant, or what time zones you're usually on, that kind of thing.]

[IC]
Ashari has just recruited a number of newcomers to the team in the hopes of shoring up its weaknesses and is, in classic Andan fashion, throwing a party on the Cantata (the moth ship formerly known as the Wasp and/or Bumblebee) so that folks can meet-and-greet. There are canapés, and Ashari promised Sulen that there are no recreational substances other than the alcohol if anyone wants it; Ashari is currently in the galley mixing drinks for anyone who asks. The public spaces of the interior have been decorated with somewhat lopsided and overly colorful artificial flowers (the matter printer was feeling cranky) as well as plush moths. There are in addition six friendly levitating baby moths, all wriggly tentacles and eyes, who will gravitate toward anyone who sings to them, and who like to be petted.

For the purposes of this post, "public areas" include the galley, the common room, and the storage hold, which has been temporarily pressed into service as a place where people can hang out. People are also welcome to hold private conversations elsewhere. For the moment, however, the cockpit, engine room, commander's office, and communications room/gunnery are off-limits.

[See this wiki entry on the Cantata-Wasp for more details on its layout.]

Comments

Re: questionable life choices

[yhlee]

Ashari grins amiably at Sasha and says, "Do you want the regular stuff, or the special?"

Re: questionable life choices

[zuhrovet]

"I would like the special, and I would like to know how it is special, please."

Sasha looks out into the common room. She's early, but there must be someone to toast with.

Re: questionable life choices

[bariolage]

If she is comfortable toasting with a total stranger, there is an Ione lurking about! Wallflowering being more accurate than lurking, though her focus is not on the humans as much as it is on the mothlings with an expression that is best described as 'delighted awe.'

Re: questionable life choices

[zuhrovet]

"Hey," Sasha says. "Those are Eikosany and Decany, dancing there. What are you drinking?"

[Did Sasha get a chance to do some due diligence on the newcomers' backgrounds, or did Ashari keep that information to themself?]

Re: questionable life choices

[mafyyil]

Meanwhile, Mafyyil sits in a corner trying to stay unnoticed, which is admittedly difficult in the brightly yellow and pink striped sleeveless dress an uncooperative matter printer had insisted on. (She suspects this is not fashionable even among barbarians. Unfortunately she arrived without luggage and the only Hafn garment the matter printer seemed to know was a robe reserved for the contact with the irredeemably unclean. It wouldn't do to offend her new allies on the very first day!) It's been only a few weeks since she woke up for her holy mission, she has not been briefed properly and she's unsure how to make contact. Also, she's not entirely sure whether what she's watching is a party or some kind of religious ceremony.

Re: questionable life choices

[bariolage]

It's possible Ione knows people who would find Mafyyil's dress the most beautiful thing they had ever seen; while it would look awful with Ione's hair she has definitely not given it a derisive glance! Just a curious one. She might have spy training but it's much easier to be around people who know she's been planted there from somewhere completely different.

"Those are ..." Thoughtful headtilt. "Something to do with pitch, those names?" She should know better than to throw out guesses, but her guard is down enough it might as well not exist for the immediate time being. "They're very cute, I hope I'm not offending anyone by saying that. It would be so awkward to call someone cute when they're actually the ship's captain and three hundred years old. Um, something carbonated."

Re: questionable life choices

[yhlee]

Ashari smiles and obligingly pours Ione a very fizzy, very blue drink. It will taste of roses and bitters. Ashari gestures toward Sasha. "She's one of the resident experts on the tentacly things, ask her if you're curious."

Re: questionable life choices

[bariolage]

"Thank you," Ione sounds a little chirpy without being annoyingly such, and then takes a thoughtful sip. "Oh, I like this. And yes, I will, they're very ... interesting."

That is a curious 'interesting' rather than a wary 'interesting.' As of yet, Ione has not met an alien creature she hasn't liked. Yet.

Re: questionable life choices

[zuhrovet]

"All the moths you can see are juveniles. We've been calling them mothlings. They all like to sing, and these ones are into unusual musical scales. You're from late enough--you might have heard of the hexany? But of course the mothlings like the higher-dimensional variants."

Sasha clinks her glass to Ione's. "Anyway... to the success of our enterprise?" And the confusion of our enemies.

Sasha sips her drink. It has the brightness of the first green shoots after a long snowy season. The second sip is more like caramelized pepper. The third is bright again.

Re: questionable life choices

[bariolage]

Ione is very pleased with her fizzy blue drink, for all that she's not sure if it is actually made primarily of flowers. The idea that it might be is enough.

"Cheers," she agrees, with a smile and a turn of her head that reveals the caduceus earrings she's been wearing. Those are the only sign of any affiliation with medicine, and she's not even sure if it means anything to the hexarchate, but it's been a useful signal in the past. "They like to sing? I'd love to hear them sing. I'm sorry I didn't bring my instrument to be able to harmonize for them. The word sounds familiar so 'heard of' is probably about right."

Re: questionable life choices

[zuhrovet]

Oh, saint of vines, Sasha is not accustomed to strange women showing her their jewelry. Even oddly speckled ones who probably come from a place as weird as Alaric's home.

"What instrument do you play?" she asks, feeling like she's in the universe's most surreal high-language tutorial. "And what kind of snake is that?"

Re: questionable life choices

[bariolage]

[This reply made me giggle. Sorry, Sasha! XD]

The comparative weirdness would make for an interesting study, really. Ione just has to be trouble and technically have multiple worlds of origin.

"The violin. Snake? Oh," right, the earrings, she reaches up and touches one fingertip to an earring. Normally her hair, which is wavy and shoulder-length, is covering them. "It's a caduceus. In a lot of worlds it's a symbol of medicine. Where I was before here, I had to wear them to indicate I was a medic and then I didn't change them ever."

Re: questionable life choices

[zuhrovet]

Sasha tilts her glass back and forth, watching the colors change. She's thinking about what it would feel like to have an earring ripped out of one's ear. This is a distraction from wondering if Ashari noticed Sasha noticing Ione not-quite-touching her hair.

Eight hells, even Sasha should not be this bad at parties. She needs about two more drinks. Then she will feel pleasantly floaty, and can retreat to Environmental to sing drinking songs with Cantata.

"Do you want to try to print a violin?" she asks Ione. "I can't make any promises as to sound quality, but I'm sure we can turn up a pattern."

Re: questionable life choices

[bariolage]

Ione is terribly scandalous and touches her hair in front of people fairly often, though she is not doing so now because she's touching the drink and watching it bubble when she isn't looking at Sasha. She's good at parties generally, when she has that sort of mask on, but at the moment: these are colleagues, right? She doesn't need to try painfully hard to impress them, and she isn't extracting information, or distracting people so someone else can extract information.

She should probably learn what physical mannerisms unnerve people though.

And maybe take out the earrings.

"I wouldn't presume to waste resources, but if you think one might be needed. Or particularly enjoyed by the ... mothlings," Ione carefully tries out the vocabulary. "I'm trying to imagine mission critical violin playing."

Admiring a Mothling

[hoardingpearls]

"Aren't you cute," Reshad coos to a mothling, ignoring the fact that tentacles aren't in the usual definition of the word. She glances about - several people are in attendance already, and she picks a small group close to two more of the hovering creatures.

Despite the casual atmosphere, she's wearing bright, upswept eye makeup. As one of her new associates touches her hair and shows a bright, twisting earring, she looks closer. "Those are beautiful," she offers, and asks Ashari for a drink of her own - sweet, for preference.

Re: Admiring a Mothling

[bariolage]

She is not alone with this assessment: this is where Ione came in, too.

"They are, aren't they? Cute, I mean. The mothlings. Not my earrings," she clarifies in a way that sounds a little more socially awkward than intended. "Which, thank you for saying so; I should likely take them out before too long."

Re: Admiring a Mothling

[hoardingpearls]

"It's amazing, to think that something so small can become...well." She looks around at the walls, still adjusting to the idea that moths are anything but a clever, biotechnical vehicle.

And what does that imply in other areas? She sips her drink, a shimmering concoction in orange and sunset gold, and smiles.

"Do you expect trouble so soon?" Curiosity, but with a professional edge: if it's already time to prepare for trouble, Reshad is running behind.

Re: Admiring a Mothling

[zuhrovet]

Three-faced saint, it's conservation of pretty people. Sasha should have realized that with Strashik sick there would be an opening. Or looked at the fucking profile picture. But this is one of the Shuos, or former Shuos, and two distinct and obvious potential connections to whoever sent Mishka was two too many, so Sasha hadn't exactly been focused on Reshad's face.

Sasha finishes her drink quickly, because an empty glass is always a good excuse for being somewhere else, and says, "I am not aware of an immediate threat, but we expect many people will find the mothlings interesting."

Re: Admiring a Mothling

[hoardingpearls]

"That's certain. Alas, not for their charms alone." Discomfort? It's not so uncommon as to excite notice, but if Reshad wants to work together with the rebels and not just push toward the same goals, she's going to need to get to the bottom of it.

Still, that doesn't need to be this second. For now, friendliness may suffice. Thus, she wiggles her fingers at one of the mothlings and smiles again, as if at a very small child.

"I hope I haven't interrupted you two?" She shifts her weight backward, an alert, polite expression on her face.

Re: Admiring a Mothling

[zuhrovet]

Well, there's a tidy conversational box to keep Sasha from immediate flight. She supposes that's part of a pretty person's job. "We were just talking about the matter printer, and whether we should try to print a violin. Its chemistry module is unreliable, but I don't think that will matter for an instrument."

Sasha dressed up for this party, in the sense that she dug out a jacket of approximately the same shade of black as her headscarf. (It's too big for her, but so is everything.) This has the advantage that she can now shove her hand in a pocket awkwardly.

expanding the party

[zuhrovet]

[We should probably jump down to Mafyyil's interruption here.

ETA: That got more elaborate than I expected! It would also be reasonable to assume that Sasha followed Ashari's bidding and the conversations simply separated.]

Re: questionable life choices

[yhlee]

[Sasha got a chance to vet the newcomers' backgrounds since Ashari thought it would be useful to get a paranoid security-minded person's second look, so she will know basic information. Use your discretion.]

Re: questionable life choices

[yhlee]

Ashari pours her something that sheens gold and silver and back again. "I'm told that some portion of this stuff's manufacture happens in gate-space," they inform her. "Whether it will do anything special to the experience of drinking--well, I'm hoping you'll tell me. Testing on my part hasn't revealed anything out of the ordinary."