riverviewlogs | It's a party, ya'll

Entry tags:

It's a party, ya'll

who: Everyone's invited!
what: That potluck he mentioned
when: Saturday afternoon
where: The park
warnings: None so far!

[True to form, Remy pulled out all the stops for this particular potluck. He has it on good authority that Rogue's bringing cornbread, but he's got what seems to be a wireless two-burner setup that he's brought along to the park, one of which is dominated by a very large pot of fragrant and spicy gumbo, and the other by a very large pot of cooked white rice, on warm. There's a small table with plastic-seeming (but totally biodegradable) bowls and utensils, two large coolers (because people might be bringing drinks), two big folding tables (for all the things that might be brought) and a big expanse of the park to cop a squat in and have some good grub, place some outdoors-y things, and have some fun! The park as a grill too, if someone wants to fire it up!]

(OOC: Feel free to post your own starters and have a ball! This is meant to be fun, after all. If you want Remy specifically, let me know! He'll be wandering around.)

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Which any good event needs, right?

[Not that she can't do an event without booze but there's no harm in having the option available, right?]

Longer than I've been here, at least. Only been here a couple of months myself so there's a fair bit I'm still getting used to but it could be worse.

[There's still stuff she doesn't like but she's working on those.]

Definitely. Though being as it's here there's normally going to be some sort of weird effect that something will have on us and we'll all end up high or as kids or something else entirely random.

[Alex is smiling, and there's a light shrug with it because she's genre savvy and she's been here long enough to know that was just what tended to happen at celebrations in the quarantine.

But she nods, because she gets it.]

Definitely can be worse. And I mean, if you want you do get to return home eventually!

You mean like the flowers.

[She still hasn't forgiven the place for that one. Even if she did manage to avoid spilling anything she'd have good reason to regret, now.]

Then that's all the more reason to make the bars bring-your-own. Even if you don't want to risk anything else, you know you haven't tampered your own.

[Not that she's suggesting anyone here would do something like that. This isn't city-hosted so that probably means they're safer.]

There's that, too. Though even that seems a little more unpredictable than I expected.

Yeeeaaah, [Alex draws the word out with a shake of her head.] Like the flowers. I mean, it wasn't bad competitively but I'd rather not be my precocious eight year old self who can't even see over the counters of stores. It's bad for my image.

[A grin followed that, and she nodded. Of course, it could come tampered with from the source, but Alex wasn't going to mention that. Everything they had seemed to largely come from the natives anyway, so it was probably a moot point. At least at parties they could predict something would be up anyway.]

Yeah, I agree with that. I thought they would have been able to put me right back to where I was instantly but they're still working on it. I check in with them about once a week and nada.

[But now she would be staying until whenever they found Strand's way home too. She wasn't going to leave him here alone.]

Losing years will do that, I guess. At least I managed to avoid that trainwreck - not sure this place is ready for younger me.

[She's not ready to be younger her again, though she's not going to get too far into why. Either way it sounds like they'd both had their separate run-ins with what was supposedly an innocent part of the festivities.

Her lips quirk into a slight smile at the rest - she has to admit, she hasn't thought to try that but then that's probably a good thing.]

Not sure I could handle that more than once or twice before I started getting fed up of the same answer. I figure if they work out getting me back to my place and time, I'll know about it one way or another.

[Even if she never remembers being here, she won't be here. That'd be enough.]

You must have been quite a handful then. [The words come with a smile and no judgment, instead, it's just a light sort of teasing there. Mostly because she remembers how annoying she herself was when she was a kid, and how people had needed to deal with that.

Honestly, she just was glad that she'd not gone full on bratty mode; Alex had just missed it by the grace of some good people honestly.]

You've got more patience than I do. I tend to be really persistent. It's important in my line of work but it makes people think I'm pushy. I mean, I'm pretty sure one of the techs just automatically goes on break when she hears me coming.

[It's a bad joke at herself, and she raises one of the cups of whiskey in a toast.]

To being patient, I think!

That's one way of putting it.

[There's a wryness to her smile that suggests it's a lot kinder than the way she would have worded it. No reason to get offended over something that's entirely true and she can tell Alex doesn't mean anything by it.

Though of course, that leaves her open to a little light teasing in response - but only a little.]

I'm sure it's nothing personal. Some people just don't know how to handle direct questioning. Honestly if anything I'd say you've got more patience than I have, if at least some of them are still indulging you.

[Really, a lot of the reason Shalimar hasn't asked is because she doesn't have the patience to handle being talked in circles with no end. It's more acknowledgement of her limits than anything.

Still, she'll lift her own glass, still that wry teasing tone in her voice as she responds.]

To patience, or whatever we do to keep hold of it.

It's actually downright frustrating! [The words are a quick chirp and a little laugh before she takes a sip of her drink with a shrug. When the whiskey is down and warming her stomach, Alex begins again.]

I'm a reporter, so I normally do really well at that sort of thing. But no amount of coffee or pastries has any effect on them, and they just... Well, it's not that they don't care but it's not that high of a priority. I think they'd rather have us here than not honestly.

[This would have upset Alex more before now, but right now she's less inclined to dig into some conspiracy theory because she's gotten some sleep and her partner is here.]

But I will definitely drink to that!

It seems that way, if they're in no rush to figure out how to get us all back to where we were.

[Rather than just the some of them they're managing at the moment. Not that she's bitter.]

That would explain your patience with them, though. I imagine you need a certain amount of diplomacy that I've never been able to manage. Even if these guys aren't quite as open to that kind of bribery. Or maybe they're just not sugar and caffeine kinds of guys.

[She's teasing, because she actually likes that Alex seems to have a little more integrity than some of the media folks she's known.]

Maybe they need something a little stronger to open up.

[That makes Alex laugh again, and she just shrugs for a moment. She's amused that someone she doesn't know called her diplomatic honestly. She takes a sip of her drink again, but a smaller one than she had prior. After all, she doesn't want to get wasted, she just wants to be a little lighter than normal. Social things like this aren't normally a problem, but it's a little different when you've dragged someone along.

Her eyes sparkle a bit and she raises her cup.]

So you're suggesting that I find more of this excellent whiskey and see if that works, then?

I'm saying it wouldn't hurt to try. At least if they turn it down, you've got something to console yourself with.

[She's joking. She thinks. She's not really sure how any of this works but anything that sees quality product not going to waste can only be a good thing, right?]

Maybe not right now, though. No sense dragging work into what's supposed to be a relaxing time if it can be avoided, right?

[Which she isn't always successful at, given her job both here and back home. But that isn't to say she isn't planning to give it a damn good try.]

True. And honestly, I'm not as worried about it right now.

[When she said it, her eyes moved towards the taller man that she'd dragged along with her and then back to the woman she was talking too. If Alex had known more about what was going on at home, she'd be more concerned but with Strand here, she had much less of a sense of apocalyptic urgency.

But she just shrugged and gave a sheepish smile.]

I'm sure I'll find myself digging into it again soon enough, though. What do you do for work?

[Shalimar catches the turn of Alex's gaze and it doesn't take much for her to figure out the meaning. Same reason she hadn't been so fussed about finding a way out until very recently.

Still, she's not beaten yet. There's plenty still for her to lose herself to if she has to be in this place alone.]

I'm on the Perimeter Guard. Search and Rescue division. It's a little more rigid than I'm used to but it's what they gave me and honestly I'm not sure I'm cut out for anything else so it'll do.

[Plus it lets her get out of the city now and again, which keeps her roaming urges in check. Usually.]

Oh that's cool! I know a bunch of people who do that. Sort of ex-military types or people have the skills for it.

[In other words, people who are not Alex who would probably die if she ended going out and trying to do it or something like it, other than in an emergency. She'd be glad to help out if there was something going on, but yeah, Alex in the field was probably bad news. So, she was impressed by Shalimar and people like her honestly.]

What did you do back home?

Well they do seem pretty keen to get anyone in who knows how to fight.

[Which there seems to be a surprising number of, that Shalimar has meant, so it doesn't surprise her so much that Alex knows people from the Guard already.

It's not something everyone's able to do. Conversely, Shalimar's not sure what she'd do if it wasn't an option.]

Well. Exactly what I'd call what I did depends on perspective. I was part of a group that helps to protect New Mutants...or to protect people from them, occasionally. Fighting's the main thing I know how to do so I guess that's why they wanted me.

New Mutants?

[Even though the words are spoken, Alex has worked in radio long enough to know when some things are capitalized and those ones definitely were. She latches onto them quickly, because that something that she's not heard yet here, and anything new that she hears is important, just because there are so many different worlds out there.

But the one she uses isn't one of judgment or censorship. Instead it's just play old fashioned curiosity, because it's one of Alex's signatures. (Among other things.)]

Were there old ones?

I'm not sure. I mean, I assume something pushed the scientists into the experiments in the first place but I don't know much about that.

[She's not really bothered about any previous generations, if she's honest, though she's aware that in other worlds things are very different.

But she was never one to think too hard on these things. That's always been someone else's niche.]

I guess there's no distinction really beyond that's what we were called. Well, that and Children of Genomex but they're definitely no parents of mine.

[Not beyond their involvement in her creation, at least. Adam's an exception but Adam wouldn't expect her to use that term anyway.]

[Okay, Alex is frowning now, because if there's one thing she hates other than demons, it's corporations doing shady things to people without their consent. (Just another thing to blame Thomas Warren for, honestly.) But she is suddenly angry on her behalf.]

They experimented on you without your permission?

[Yeah. Alex would definitely start working to take down a bitch if she lived there rather than back home.]

They had our parents' permission. That was all they needed.

[Which she figures says as much for her parents than the people behind the experiments but no need to get too far into that one.

She shakes her head a little, then, silent decision made as she looks to change the subject.]

But that's way too depressing a subject for such a lovely afternoon. Much better to focus on how much brighter it's gotten weather-wise. Definitely seen enough of rain and floodwater for a while.

[That makes Alex frown all the harder, because between that and things at home, Alex has just lost faith in believing that most people make good parents. Sure, a lot of them do, like hers, but there's been enough hearing about bad parents to make her just want to shake a lot of people and ask what the hell they're doing to their children.

But she also can recognize when someone doesn't want to talk about something, so even when her journalist instincts kick in and want her to press, she doesn't. Instead she just smiles and takes a sip of her drink.]

Hopefully this'll mean no more creepy water monsters. The ones we had were more than enough. But I'm looking forward to see what summer is like here. I'm from Seattle, so I'm pretty used to a whole lot of rain and fog.

Hopefully. Though I wouldn't rule out creepy monsters of other kinds. There's a lot outside those walls that are pretty different to what I'm used to.

[And as part of the Guard she gets to play with them in the name of protecting the city. Which she is okay with, when that's where the majority of her skills lie.]

But if the rest of summer's anything like today, we should be in for a good one. At least as far as the weather goes. Makes me wonder what festivals they've got lined up for it, too.

[After all, she wouldn't have figured spring to be a season for remembering the dead and yet here they are. Who knows what they might think is appropriate for summer months here.]

Yeah, I definitely haven't been outside the city actually. I mean, I'm good with a lot of things, but I'm not really a fighter. The closest thing I got was the self defense lessons my dad taught me when we realized I wasn't going to get any taller, and that I was eventually going to go off to college. Well, I always knew I was going to college, I think he just hoped I wouldn't.

[Because her Dad had been a cop in Vancouver before they moved to the suburbs, and well, he didn't want her to live there. Fooled him, now she's in America.

At the mention of the festivals, River just grinned for a minute.]

Well, considering everything else, maybe we should start having a holiday bingo game, right?

Well. That's a start but probably not enough for venturing too far beyond the walls. Not without back-up, at least.

[Which is really more a means of suggesting to Alex how she might get out there rather than prohibitive from Shalimar. Heck, she's about the last person to dissuade someone from bad ideas if there's a way to make them slightly better ideas - maybe still not wise, but better's a start, right?

She can't help but grin at the rest.]

Bingo game, drinking game or both? Though I guess we'd need to speak to people who have been here longer to figure out what makes the list either way.

Yeah, I mean, trust me I do a lot of stupid things, but going out there and getting eaten really isn't all that high on my list of priorities right now. So, I definitely would want a fair amount of backup and good hiking trails or whatever.

[If nothing else, she's sure Richard would murder her for being stupid enough to do that among everything else.]

Drinking bingo, obviously. We can put up a network post and be like "okay guys so what do we think will be the next holiday and when." And then we can go all Superbowl on them and give prices to the winner!

Well if you do decide you want to head out, let me know. Can't say I ever mind an excuse to get away from the city for a while.

[For as territorial as her feline DNA can make her, it also leaves her with strong wandering urges on occasion, and getting out beyond the walls tends to help with that.

There's a reason she signed on for Search and Rescue, and it's not entirely for concern over others.]

Well if we did it that way, people who've been here longer would have an advantage. What we really need is for them to tell us what we should be looking out for so we can get the drinking cards ready.

[Given the timescales quoted to them, she figures it's not a push to assume some people have been here long enough to see the full twelve-month line-up.]

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