LATE SUMMER FAIR (NSFW DESSERTS)

[spoofer]

Characters: Ensemble cast, any/all characters of Xistentia!
Summary: The slow transition from summer leads to a fair, complete with whacky treats and activities from other holidays and festivals from around the Multiverse.
Date(s): August 26-September 2
Warnings/Notes: None, please mark your subject headers with content.

Late Summer Fair

I play my part and you play your game

Welcome to Xistentia's first fair, F.A.T.E.S.' excuse to mingle. The setup appears overnight on the edge of town, a nonsensical mash of themes and places from the multiverse. Haunted house and circus tent, facepainting, ferris wheel and carousel, game stands that seem to self-operate, dozens of empty shopfronts, self-regenerating popcorn stands. Pretty soon, however, the people start to come, bringing their own goods and wares. The population of Xistentia is 333, which is more than enough people to fill a fair.

As far as fair food goes, there are penis-shaped waffles^[NSFW] in various flavors, two-sticked popsicles for sharing with a partner, turkey legs, fried dough, cookies as big as your head, fried fish, fried lizards, glutinous fruits, and lembas.

And let's not forget, there is an abundance of alcohol everywhere. Beer, wine, you name it.

But of course, let's not forget the games. Many of them are low-key and prizes vary from the ability to change your daemon's color to any other natural hue, to free food, horrible writing pens, and stuffed animals. Games vary from whack-a-mole to bobbing for apples. Everything is free to eat, drink, and play, barring some excuses for barter with some of your friendly neighborhood natives.

Some games, however, are less casual if not necessarily more costly. The contests of finesse and strength come with special prizes from F.A.T.E.S. and...

THE WINNERS ARE

Note that the "prizes" do not stack. Runner-up winners will not get multiple of the same type of prize, and those who experience a critical failure won't suffer particularly severe consequences. If your character receives a dream or a "unique item," you will receive a reply to your comment on the mod announcement with more information.

Contests of Finesse

DARTS
First Place	Vanyel Greyjoy	The ability to "say just the right thing" once this week
Still Good	Era, Alec, Nico, Vex, Rosie, Aymeric, Jace, Amanda, Zeke, Kavinsky, Janus	Emotional intuition boost
Yikes	Magnus, Barclay	Daemons totally lose filter and start saying the most awkward shit
RING TOSS
First Place	Jace Wayland and Magnus Lightwood-Bane	The ability to "say just the right thing" once this week
Still Good	Era, Alec, Nico, Vex, Rosie, Vanyel, Rafaello, Amanda, Zeke, Barclay, and Janus	Emotional intuition boost
Yikes	Aymeric and Kavinsky	Daemons totally lose filter and start saying the most awkward shit
ARCHERY
First Place	Alec Lightwood-Bane	The ability to "say just the right thing" once this week
Still Good	Nico, Vex, Aymeric, Zeke, Magnus, Kavinsky, and Janus	Unique items
Yikes	Rosie and Barclay	Uncooperative powers (very minor, non-dangerous incidents) and accurate memory of silly dreams
SPARRING
First Place	Kavinsky	The ability to "say just the right thing" once this week
Still Good	Era, Nico, Vex, Rosie, Aymeric, Rafaello, Zeke, Barclay and Janus	Emotional intuition boost
Yikes	Alec, Vanyel, Jace, and Magnus	Daemons totally lose filter and start saying the most awkward shit

Contests of Strength

ARM WRESTLING
First Place	Ezekiel	Precognitive dream later that night
Still Good	Era, Alec, Nico, Rosie, Aymeric, Vanyel, Rafaello, Magnus, Kavinsky and Janus	Unique items
Yikes	Vex and Jace	Uncooperative powers (very minor, non-dangerous incidents) and accurate memory of silly dreams
HIGH STRIKE
First Place	Era	Precognitive dream later that night
Still Good	Alec, Nico, Vex, Jace, Zeke, Magnus, Kavinsky and Janus	Unique items
Yikes	Rosie and Aymeric	Uncooperative powers (very minor, non-dangerous incidents) and accurate memory of silly dreams

See also detailed dice roll information for: darts, ring toss, arm wrestling, high strike, and archery.

Kissing Booth

And what would a fair be, without a kissing booth?

Just like the rest of the fair, the odd thing is that there is of course no payment required.

Instead, a large and lovely lantern hangs behind the booth. It seems to glow a little brighter every time a kiss is transacted. It's hard to know exactly what this means, but considering that emotional intimacy lights the streets of the city, one might guess that F.A.T.E.S. is saving up this particular energy for something special.

But until then, it's a good excuse to make out.

Comments

[servomotor]

T-shirt and jeans, no brand name, generational. Kind of blue collar, except you just used the word 'criteria,' [with the wrong sort of pluralization, but Tony doesn't point that out. He isn't actually trying to be a piece of shit. This is just how he is; this is how he starts conversations, no matter what world he's accidentally fallen into. One day, he'll sass the King of Asgard, probably. Maybe in the next Avengers movie.]

And. You're smiling.

[He smiles at her too. Then glances at his robot. He'd noticed her looking.] Seen one like it before? [he asks.] She isn't gonna pass the Turing Test anytime soon, but I figure that wasn't F.A.T.E.S.' priority.

[miss_brilliant]

[hey, even Little Miss Brilliant can't be right all the time. Also she's buzzed. She'll totally blame the alcohol if called out on a lack of perfection. Still, she laughs at that]

Well, I can't find any fault with any of that. I guess I've been a little too out of touch with anything outside of a lab for too long still to have an appreciation for what's normal.

[which is saying nothing of the fact she's still adjusting to the fact she's dressing for what the weather is really like and not keeping to easily removable layers now that her body actually knows how to regulate its own temperature.

Her gaze focuses on the robot again, and she shakes her head even as she's examining it. Not poking at it with the part of her mind that the prison world turned on, although that's definitely tempting, but taking it in] Not like this, no. Actually the most advanced robot I ever worked with before I came here was a roomba. I'm pretty sure any techology with anything approaching sentience would have added complications in my work back home no one needed.

[it's a good thing she has no idea how foreshadowy that thought is, or she'd need another drink]

Is she yours? I mean, did you make her?

[servomotor]

No. If I had, the articulation of these joints-- [Tony grabs Fridayd by the elbow and flips her hand around. The limb as a whole winds up jerking about awkwardly, without either the give and flaccidity of a living body nor the stony, rigid strength of, say, one of his Iron Man suits. It's just a funny scrapmetal jiggedy puppet jig that falls somewhere between the two.] Wouldn't be this. Janky.

[He lets go of the robot's arm. It stays in the air, hanging there awkwardly. Tony's looking back at Amanda already, but then he realizes that his daemon is doing-- that. There's a mild double-take, annoyance furrowing his brows. He reaches over to pull the robot's hand back down to its side. He smacks its wrist as if to congratulate a talking show pig named Wilbur.] That'll do.

Provided by F.A.T.E.S. Who I have to say, if we're all digital constructs uploaded into some reality simulation machine, she's done a Hell of a job. No insult. But this, [a jerk of his head at his daemon's chassis,] is not her finest work. Scrap parts and anxiety, maybe.

[miss_brilliant]

[Amanda has to bite back a bit of laugh, but there's a sort of fond smile on her face because this attitude? The 'if I'd done it, it would be perfect'? She gets that. She's been that, when she was more driven to prove herself, and she's seen it in Nick]

Well, she's learning. At least you missed out on when she was just starting to learn how to mix drinks. I would usually love to teach an artificial intelligence, but I'd rather haven given that part of it a pass. I'm still learning to do more on the hardware side of things myself, always was more of a software girl. Which is why I try not to think about that...reality simulation thing too much, otherwise between me and my roommate we'd probably be drinking this city dry.

[she's joking. Mostly. She doesn't think she has an addictive personality. But her compulsive chess playing might say otherwise]

Oh, ah, Dr. Amanda Perry, by the way. Nice to meet you.

[servomotor]

[Tony Stark looks actually interested in this conversation. Still drunk, but drunk and simultaneously: actually interested. It's not the best combination of dispositions and factors ever, but probably better than being intoxicated and paranoid and miserable.] I had a subroutine dedicated to mixing drinks in both Friday and JARVIS back home, [he tells her.] Including analysis of phosphate content in limes and a facial recognition piece for feedback and future enhancement.

[He sighs a long, beery breath.] Life was so simple before, [he says. There's an edge of sarcasm to it. Self-deprecation. Life is not now, and never has been simple, even when he tricked himself into believing so. But it's a good joke, to pretend that his martinis weren't poured at the expense of dead children in the Middle East, soldiers of the USA killed by weapons designed on home soil.] Tony Stark.

[He points at his android companion.] Fridayd. Friday 2.0. I like both. Hard and soft.

[miss_brilliant]

[Amanda will happily take drunk and interested over sober and condescending, which she had too often back home. And her own eyes light up with interest, the little bit of the buzz fading into the background] Wow. That's neat. I don't know if that's something I would have thought to do, but then again I usually actually don't drink that much.

[but that was more for medical reasons, she's realizing, because without the limitations she had before she's not really worrying about it when she's in a good mood. Bad moods are still mostly hours of solo chess and figuring out what she's able to do with her powers, which is probably a better coping mechanism. She thinks.

His comment about before isn't possible to miss, though, even with technology to fawn over, and she nods] Yeah. Never thought I'd rather be worrying about getting FTL drives or life support systems working, but…[she lets that hang, leaving 'But I could fix those' go unsaid. And it's not intentional bragging like it might have been before, just a fact.

She does manage a little smirk at that last comment] When I get home, I might kick my roommate and blame him for the fact my first thought wasn't tech there for a second. [but she's out of the dark cloud that had passed over things] Any special focus to your work, or just all over the place?

[servomotor]

I designed weapons, [Tony Stark answers clearly.] Design, I suppose, you could say. Haven't created anything new since coming here. Might try a potato gun. If we have potatoes. It'd be a throwback to... [He takes a breath, and claps his android companion on the shoulder. Said robot remains completely unresponsive.] FTL-- I'm assuming you mean, Faster-Than-Light travel, and life support. Those sound useful.

FTL remains sci-fi on my iteration of planet Earth. Although I will say, some of our Midgardian neighbors have probably figured out and aren't sharing. [He grins. Shows teeth.] Something to collaborate on in the future. As for your roommate, he sounds like the kind of influence you need in your life for a balanced outlook. Organic and inorganic. We need both. Or so I'm told. You may come to find out, 'balance' is not my middle name.

What do you do here without the FTL and life support to keep you busy?

[miss_brilliant]

[People who don't know the exact nature of her work might expect from looking at her--frail and feminine as she is--to flinch from someone who designs weapons. But her own work has been used in ways she didn't always approve of, and she knows she might well be involved in more hands on work of that kind now. So she doesn't show any real reaction to that, althoug she does chuckle a bit at the potato gun]

Yep. We've had access to them for awhile now in my world, and other things that I wouldn't have believed were anything but plot devices in some of my favorite books until a few years ago. You think FTL drives are impressive, you should see our stable wormhole generators [she should really show someone the stargates sometime with the memory share thing, she thinks. Someone like Tony would probably appreciate it on some level.

She snorts a bit at the idea of Kavinsky bringing 'balance' to her life but...maybe he has, in a twisted way] Yeah. He's definitely broadened my outlook on a lot of things.

Mostly, I've been helping people who aren't so tech savvy. Teaching them how to use things. And just recently I've been helping some of them modify their daemons.

[he sounds like the sort who wouldn't be too freaked out by the technopath business, but she's still new to it and feels like testing the waters slowly is the best path]

[servomotor]

Modify their daemons, [Tony repeats, thoughtfully. He doesn't make the leap to technopathy right away. He thinks of his own robotic companion as hardware and software, and he certainly has plans to amend both in due time. It's just that, right now, he's rather obsessed with getting his ship off the ground again, that he might go back and retrieve companions, loved ones, etc., from the smoking remains of his world. If there's even smoke that remains.] Sounds entertaining.

I'm assuming you aren't just talking about, [he snaps his fingers thoughtfully/drunkenly,] switching in a young Australian man's voice for Siri. Or removing salutations. Shipboard AIs can get old with that sort of thing, I can see why having your phone chirp at you first thing in the morning... I mean. [He's always rambly, but it's worse when he's drunk and self-absorbed with his own angst anyways. It takes him an instant, but then he reroutes.] I mean.

Do tell what you have in mind. [He raises his eyebrows and takes another drink.] And then let's talk about these wormhole generators.

[miss_brilliant]

[not that long ago, Amanda might have assumed Tony was being condescending without getting to know him better. But now, she actually chuckles] It is kind of, yeah. At least it passes the time in a useful way.

[she shakes her head] Not precisely, although now that you mention it, it probably wouldn't take much to modify the voices.

[she grins at his rambling, mostly because it's not that far from how she could get when talking about a project] Well for starters, some people's daemons have shown a tendency to broadcast audio and video without their owner's input. So far [she gives a pointed look at the parrot on her shoulder] I haven't had that issue with Graced, but I have worked out how to hopefully keep that from ever being a problem in the future. I've also been playing around with doing pretty much the exact opposite, using one person's to access another's without permissions. That's still a bit of a work in progress.

[she's not quite as cocky as her prison world alter ego about her powers, after all. Mostly because she knows those months of memory aren't real and isn't sure how trustworthy their information on what she can do is.

She may look just a bit smug thinking about the Gates, though]

How long have you got? Because I can give you the cliffnotes, or I could probably go on for the rest of the night at least. I'm not the expert, but I'd like to think I'm up there with them.

[normally, she'd wish Dr. Jackson was there to really explain things. Is it the new powers or the alcohol or maybe just that time in Eudio that's given her that confidence boost? Whatever it is, she's not unhappy about it]

[servomotor]

[Passing the time in a useful way sounds like good aspiration goals to Tony Stark, who is currently Pretty Drunk, nodding along to the woman and her ideas. He likes them, even though he isn't doing a lot of course correction on his thoughts to make them anything approaching productive. At some point, he'll know how to turn their work into a weapon. It's how he rolls.]

Cliffnotes, [he requests.] I'm going to get back to you about the details at some point, proximal future. Your attitude toward invading the purported privacy of daemons is enthralling. I'm also interested in collateral information, considering.

There aren't exactly USB slots, chasses, or wires for most people's daemons. Mine being a rare exception. [He thwacks Fridayd companionably on the shoulder, and she looks at him. Then away again.] So how are you pulling this off? Hijacked one of the labs in the Citadel? Machining your own parts in-house? All in what, a couple of months? That's some pretty advanced software work when the hardware is barely here.

[miss_brilliant]

The short of it is, we found something called a Stargate buried in Egypt back in 1908, left behind by an alien race who...[she cuts herself off with a wave of her hand] There's a reason we actually have a whole series of videos you have to watch when you join SGC. Anyway, it took us ninty years to figure out that the writing on it was an address. You know the address of another Gate, and you have the power, you can open up a wormhole here to there that will hold for a maximum thirty eight minutes. I have a few more drinks, there's a very good chance I'd start writing out Gate addresses the way some people doodle.

[And with the part she's actually very comforable with out of the way, unconciously, Amanda draws a long breath. It's not like there's a lot of prejudice here, but she guesses there's still some hold over from the prison world in her mind, memories of that other self who had actually been a criminal and not just because she refused to register]

No, actually, although I had been picking away at some ideas in that direction too. I ah...a little while ago, some of us went on a mission to rescue some other people, and as a way to avoid being detected, we sort of...had our personalities replaced for a little while? I'm not going to even pretend I understand how that worked.

Anyway, ah...something happened there, technically before we arrived, that caused some people to develop powers, and as part of fitting in, some of us got them too and kept them when we came back. I got the ability to manipulate anything with electrical components with my mind. I can do something as simple as turning on a tv across a room and as complex as....manipulating a daemons protcols.

[a little shrug, trying to...she doesn't know, it's still weird and amazing and kind of terrifying the same way walking was a year ago]

[servomotor]

With a little luck, I'm gonna be sober enough to remember this, [Tony remarks. He's definitely sober enough to remember this, though more by virtue of having an incredible intellect than because he was, you know, pacing himself with regard to his liquor ingestion or the like. fuck pacing himself. stargates and their thirty-eight-minute rule is exactly the kind of shit you want to be drinking for.]

Setting aside-- this 'Stargate' phenomenon. You're a technopath. That's I believe the appropriate lexicon for what you're describing. Having finished his drink, [he tosses it at the nearest trash can. It falls rather short, toppling gracelessly onto the grass. He and Fridayd both stare at it for a brief moment, blankly, before the android daemon steps forward, moving stiffly to pick it up and put it away. it's probably no less than pepper used to help him with, back in the day.] I think you should come check out my jet some time.

See what you think of it. You ever flown before? It'll be fine. It's easy. It'll be fun. [If it sounds kind of like he's asking if she's ever piloted before, that's

accurate. It's how rich white guys talk about stuff like planes, okay.]

[miss_brilliant]

[Amanda snorts a little at that] Well, if you don't, that will just give me even more excuse to give you the full lecture complete with technical diagrams. I even have some of the materials on my computer here, and considering I'm no longer techincally part of the program while I'm here, I think I can let some of that classified information get a little less classified.

[hey, she's still going to squee about 'I know an alien language and I was on one of their ships' as much as she can okay.

Some of the tension visibly leaves her at him not freaking out, let alone the fact he has the language for it] Yeah, that was the term the uh--personality I had then used, anyway, still getting used to really using it myself.

[her characteristic social awkwardness all but melts away at the mention of his plane, and she actually nearly beams. She thinks it's possible Kavinksy is actually maybe the only person to have seen her like this, when she'd first done the dream thief thing and after the races. And she actually picks up the meaning, mostly because she's been around military types for so long]

I'd be delighted to. I haven't had the pleasure of actually piloting myself yet, never had the opportunity to learn, but I did name first car after Amelia Earhart's first plane, so. I've definitely had more than a casual interest.

[given that she's talking to another tech type, it doesn't feel nearly so pathetic to admit she named a car after Amelia Earhart's plane]

steering toward fade if that's ok <3

[servomotor]

I'm starting a shop. Downtown. It's where we'll be, me and my machine, [Tony tells her, nodding at Fridayd. At this point, she actually has enough nuance to understand the gesture. In a moment, the address is pinging into Amanda's daemon.] Amelia Earhart had a lot more airspace to work with than we do, but we're going to make do. Build something.

[He raises his cup of beer to that. Then he goes and drinks it before it might actually occur to Amanda to try and make a toast.] Less casual interest, more formal action. Maybe after you get your make-outs on, [he adds, glancing at the kissing booth, which he has yet to go terrorize with his criticisms in person. But he will, never you worry!]

It was a pleasure, Ms. Or Dr. Perry. Whichever. Title of preference and without visible discrimination. [He gestures vaguely.]

[miss_brilliant]

[Amanda nods, knowing without saying anything that Graced has recieved the information--one of the many perks of being able to connect with your daemon without words] Some of the most incredible innovations in technology have come out of having to make the most of incredible restrictions.

[she knows she flushes at the refeference to the kissing booth; really she shouldn't, the personality that left her with these powers wouldn't have, but...well, that wasn't her, and she's still not sure what to make of that woman who had parts of her but was also much more aggressive, what to take from her] Yeah, definitely.

Indeed it has, Mr. Stark. And I'll take either, as long as the one I worked my ass off for at least gets the acknowledgment I knew what I was talking about before I could mess with my roommate's tv without laying a finger on it.

[she doesn't toast exactly, but waves her own clearly empty cup to signal she's planning on changing that as they part ways]