lake party invite + mingle (open)

[channellings]

Who: any and everyone!
Where: the lake and nearby!
When: right now! (july 7th, afternoon)
What: motha 👏 fuckin 👏 lake 👏 party
Warnings: Language (!!!) for now, will be added as needed!



[no, this is not a joke and yes, it's an actual invite to a party over the network from the username: cock.licking.idiot (and no, that's not a joke, either).

those who decide that they'd rather not be square will arrive at some unspecified patch of lake shore (thanks, klaus) at a similarly unspecified time (good work, asshat) to discover that something resembling a slapdash but heartfelt lake party along the northern waterfront. a couple of tables have been dragged out of nearby cabins and now hold a probably inadvisable quantity of foods, at least half of which don't belong at a party by any means. is this what rationing looks like? this is definitely what rationing looks like. there's also an alcohol table, filled pretty sparsely early on in the party but gathering bottles and cans throughout the day. (word of mod says feel free to wing it on what kind of alcohol we have!).

a number of chairs sit in a wobbly line in the stone-filled waterfront sand, most of them not meant for beachgoing but nearly all of them able to recline. about fifty feet down the beach seems to be the splash zone, where all water horseplay exists well out of range of splashing those sitting in beachside chairs. some people dive or cannonball off the mostly-sturdy pier, while others seem to be batting around a-... is that a beach ball they have? no, it seems to be a balloon that says "get well soon". how fitting. please, someone bring them a fucking beach ball.

(this is a mingle! go ahead and make top-levels or tag into other people's.)]

Comments

[hierophante]

[A process unfolds: absorption, narrowed eyes; rumination, a furrowed brow; acceptance. Though the set of her brows remains suspended somewhere between troubled and thoughtful, OA nods, more to herself than to North. It isn't a prolonged undertaking. However new the concept might be, every universe is vast and strange; the traveller either adapts or she drowns.

Besides, given what she claims to be, the OA has little room for dubiousness.

So she approaches, fingers twining together distractedly as she surveys the offerings. At length, she picks up a tin of beets, turning it over in her hands to peer half-uncomprehending at the label.]

Can I ask -- you said the last place you were in made you eat. You've been somewhere like this before?

[brickbat]

Somewhere humans dragged me I didn't want to be?

[ She tilts her head, expression dangerous. To the nebulous concept of humanness somewhere far off, where the Technicians should probably be trembling in their techy boots. The angry "yes, and fuck the horse they rode in on," is implied. ]

It wasn't anything like this, though. [ She snorts through her nose and with the whole back of her throat, apparently dismissive of what new possibilities might be on offer. ] As if it's anything but going from one cage to another, like I've done my whole life.

[ She withdraws into herself a moment; androids don't really get lost in thought so she's clearly still present, just also somewhere else. Living in those few moments they'd all been free. North is a realist; she knows within a day the true and frustrating work would have begun, that for a long time freedom would only be what scraps humans were willing were willing to toss them, but that night couldn't be touched in its purity of purpose, and she resents being taken from it only to land yet another place that isn't where she should be. ]

If you're going to take those you should go ahead and get on with it. Beets might be a hot commodity with humans, I wouldn't know.

[hierophante]

[Beets. Right. The tin rests cradled in OA's hands, half-forgotten until her attention is dragged back to it. A practical thing, a little touch of home, redefined as a means of highlighting the alienness of her interlocutor. It's difficult to know what of it is intentional, what of it is the rigorous defending of space that may rarely be ceded.]

Yeah. The shape changes, the parameters of the experiment change, but the glass is still there.

[The words are half-distracted, punctuated by a pause and a frown before she glances up. Cede space.]

It's-- different.

[It's always different. OA can't know what that means to North, going from one cage to another. All she can know is what it means for her, which is enough that the words are resonant. They pluck at threads of memory that span worlds: the mine, the clinic, and now this.

Her gaze drops back to the label, smooth and dry under her fingertips. Illegible to her touch. Water. Not vinegar, good. She can work with this. Satisfied, she slips her ratty, pilfered bag from her shoulder and secrets the can away inside.]

Sorry, I-- reading like this is... slow. I'm still learning.

[A pause, a moment of consideration -- the rest should be left for the others, surely. For North, though, there remains this:]

Thank you, though. It's good of you, making sure this goes to use.

[Her expression shifts, a soft smile becomes hurt becomes entreaty.]

Why are you?

[brickbat]

[ Everything in what she shares holds something to catch North's interest, especially the idea that so many people here know what cages are like. She will always refuse to relate to humans on the same level she'd do so with one of her own people, but that isn't a sentiment she's encountered before, at least not in such number. Of course, this everything is something she almost hurls right into hell in favor of focusing on why are you, initially parsing it as why does she exist and preparing immediately to bristle right into a porcupine before catching herself and--oh. Yes. Fine, she's being asked what she's chosen to perform like...what, an act of kindness? Shit. That's just ...so much more complicated than she wants to even try to articulate.

Still. She shrugs, eyelashes flashing down over her eyes in a cloud of ravens taking flight. ]

I told you. There's no point in wasting resources.

[ You're not going to trick her into saying she cares about what happens to any of you, OA!!!!!!! ]

[hierophante]

That's true.

[It isn't care she's aiming for, exactly. Something... something more troubled. Something which, under the circumstances, is either an impressive act of mimicry on the part of a machine, or... personhood. OA leans on the latter. She's spoken to trees, conversed with sea creatures; sapience belongs to a broader collection of things than most people are inclined to believe.

The implications are, therefore, ugly. Human beings can be cruel enough to one another. A cloud crosses her expression and passes; in its wake, she simply shakes her head helplessly.]

It's just... the easiest thing in the world to be indifferent to the people who have hurt you when they're hurting too.

[No, that's not quite is. OA squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head again.]

No, to behave indifferently. Or... it feels safer. If someone repays indifference with cruelty, that's... expected, we can understand it. If someone repays kindness with cruelty, that's harder to take.

Maybe that's projecting.

[That's why she'd asked.]

But if it isn't... you don't seem to like us much, and we probably deserve it. You're helping anyway. That's hard. It... deserves acknowledgement, that's all.