introductory mingle: CARNIVALE

[riverviewmod]

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: overflow post for the Carnivale celebration
when: July 1st - July 9th
where: Anywhere around the city.
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

This is not the Carnivale post. This is just a tribute.

Optional overflow post, since the Carnivale log has hit Captcha. If you don't mind Captcha, feel free to continue using the previous one, or put up a top-level on this one with links to your previous threads and continue here, free of being put to the robot test with every tag.

Comments

[lionunchained]

[He could be very serious. In fact he wouldn't really admit that he could be anything else, but he did find the antics of the younger paladins amusing. The food goo fight as a way to get back at Allura for all of "bonding" exercises she had made them do for example, complete with big dopey grin at how much fun it had been to do something so silly]

Unfortunately yes, he frequently is. Not all the time.

[Keith's temper maybe him appear grumpier than he was. If she had met him soon after arriving, he wouldn't have been in the best mood and could have been rather threatening because that's unfortunately what Keith did. At least since they were both here, Keith would feel more at ease]

Hmm... that would be the most ideal. I don't know much about how this place works and what the odds are of getting it. I would like to see it though if it does show up.

[bunnyhopped]

[ She gave a quiet "huh," in contemplation at trying to imagine someone being so grumpy so much of the time, and wondered what he was like on a team. There were a few grumps on her own squadron at home, sure, so maybe it was a similar kind of deal.

But then he mentioned wanting to see her mech and— she recognized a chance to show off and there was no way she wasn't going to take it. She pulls her phone out with a bit of excitement gleaming in her eyes. ]

If your mech's a black lion, then mine's a pink bunny. I have pics on my phone. Wanna see?

[lionunchained]

[Well, he was grump some times, but he was also an excellent pilot and when he actually let himself not be serious, Keith could be a lot of fun. He had shown that plenty of times, but he was also quick to get annoyed if things irritated him.

He raised an eyebrow as she pulled out her phone. But that's when he realized she wanted to show him pictures of the mech]

Of course I want to see your pink bunny mech.

[Never a phrase he would have thought he'd say]

[bunnyhopped]

[ She was more than happy to show off her MEKA unit, and so she smiled at him again when he agreed to look at a picture or ten. Being a military pilot might not have been a life Hana really chose for herself, having been drafted, but she'd since become proud of what she'd become, and what it meant for the safety of her country. But, also, her mech was state-of-the-art technology. How could she not be proud about it?

It took her only a moment or two of scrolling through her phone before she found a picture to show Shiro. She held the phone up at him to let him look at it. It wasn't exactly shaped like a bunny, but that was always how she'd thought of it and it suited her piloting style quite well. Quick, mobile, powerful. There wasa pink bunny, though, on Hana's flight suit. ]

Ta-dah! That's a state-of-the-art piloted MEKA unit! MEKA, by the way, stands for "Mobile Exo-force of the Korean Army." And there's me next to it!

[lionunchained]

[As she began to look for a picture on her phone, he waited patiently, curious as to what this looked like. The lions were fairly similar to the anatomy to large cats, at least that he knew about from having seen them from a distance. How close would this look to an actual rabbit?

It made him wish that he had had a way to take pictures of the lions. He had never thought that he would need it. He had been around the lions; people knew about them, knew what they looked like, could see them when it was out of the Castle of Lions. He had never considered there was a moment where he would want to see Black and not be able to. There were no pictures of Black.

He leaned closer as she turned the phone to him. He studied the suit. Well it was vaguely like bunny. He could see the basic look to it. And then the bunny on her suit]

Ah ha. Very nice. That's a standard model?

[He could guess that was her next to it]

[bunnyhopped]

[ She looked thoughtful at his question. Technically speaking, the standard model of a MEKA unit was an unmanned drone. Pilots came into the equation because the colossal omnic attacking Korea and its neighbors grew smart enough to disrupt the drone control networks... but while Hana was proud that she could represent and defend her country by becoming a pilot, she wasn't sure how much a stranger from a different reality would really appreciate that story. In the end, she settled for an easier answer. ]

Kinda. They're definitely not all pink, just mine. [ She chuckled. ] But they all basically look like that, though sometimes we add our own stuff to it. Make it more personal, you know?

[lionunchained]

Well, I didn't expect them all to be pink. A whole army of them might be a little obvious.

[Pink was not exactly a subtle color. One ship might be missed, but a large group would be easy to spot and would attract attention]

It's good though you can make them personal. It is your mech after all. We haven't really be able to do that with our lions though Pidge took some of the tech she found in our ship and reserve engineered it to give it to her lion so Green has the ability to go invisible. That's the most that's been done.

[bunnyhopped]

[ There was definitely nothing subtle about D.Va, whether it was her piloting style or her entire personality.

She let her hand with her phone drop back down so she could pick up another piece of food, something from the sweet plate, and there was a little smile on her face ash she looked back on the time she'd spent so far as a pilot. It hadn't been that long, really, but it's been such an important part of her life. ]

Some of us still get sponsorship gigs from when we were pros. [ Gamers, she meant. The military needed people who had the necessary reflexes to pilot against an ever-evolving machine. ] So that's part of how we can customize. How do you even customize a space lion mech, though? Sounds fun!

[lionunchained]

[Nope, Shiro would not use subtle describe her even as little as he knew about her.

Shiro picked up another piece of food as well when she put her phone down to get one, this one was from the savory plate. There were a lot of good things that they had here. He was going to have to buy the next round since she was sharing with him while they sat here and talked.

His brow quirked as she said "sponsorship" and "pro". That was not exactly what he had been expecting. He would get to that]

You can't really do much especially since they are sentient. Like I said, Pidge managed to give her lion invisibility. So far that's it.

So what are these sponsorships? And pro what?

[bunnyhopped]

[ Hana couldn't even imagine what it would be like to pilot something that had its own thoughts and feelings, although if she had to imagine it, she and her bunny mech would probably get along perfectly. Hana took a lot of time to make sure she was completely in tune with how Hana liked to pilot, after all. Plus the sponsorships helped...

She reached up with her free hand and brushed her hair back, tucking it behind her ear. It was weird trying to explain it all to someone who didn't know— how could he, since he wasn't even from the same reality or whatever— because she was used to everyone just knowing. About D.Va, about why she and other pros were drafted into the military. ]

Sponsorships... like in sports. I was a pro-gamer, you know! #1 ranked, too. Before I became a pilot. A lot of my sponsorships carried over since I ended up being so good at it, they thought they could help out. [ and advertise themselves in the process. But that wasn't something she wanted to get into. ]

[lionunchained]

[It was an easy thing for Shiro to spot, given he knew the feeling well. When Hana tucked her hair behind her ear and spoke, he knew exactly what it was. She was uncomfortable with that topic. He hadn't realized it would be a problem but her body language told him that it was.

So he didn't press it. It was better to pick a new topic and take the focus off that]

Huh... Back home, before all of this happened, I was an expedition pilot with the Galaxy Garrison. Basically gathering information from our solar system. They definitely didn't have anything like your MEKA.

[Pulling the attention off of her and back onto himself so she didn't feel uncomfortable. They could go a completely different direction with the conversation now]

[bunnyhopped]

[ It wasn't so much an uncomfortable topic as it was that she just— wasn't sure how to go about it with someone from a different reality. She'd have to explain everything about the Omnic Crisis and MEKA's history and Overwatch and she just wasn't feeling up to it, sitting in an alleyway with someone she'd just met. But there was something that felt— welcoming? About Shiro, like she could confide in him despite the fact that they'd just met, so maybe she could try talking about it again another time.

In any case, she was a little relieved when he shifted the topic away. Another time, she was sure, she would totally want to brag and boast about her days as a pro and how she became a pilot from there. She did her part then to listen to him intently. ]

So you went on space expeditions, right? Was that a big deal where you're from? We haven't really made it past the moon, where I'm from, though I think Keith said something about Pluto...

[lionunchained]

[There were likely going to be a number of things for both of them that it was just difficult to have to explain. To much information to provide as background for the other person to understand. Given they weren't from the same worlds, that was bound to happen.

But of course in his effort to pull it off a difficult subject for her, it had brought it closer to his difficult topics. And this came out when she mentioned Keith bringing up Pluto. Yes, that was where everything had changed for him. He took a breath before continuing and nodded]

Yeah, it was. The Galaxy Garrison was not only a facility for pilots trained in space exploration and travel but they also trained cadets for the same careers. What they do with those skills is of course up to them.

Myself, Commander Holt, and his son Matt were assigned to a exploration mission of Pluto's moon Kerberos. It was supposed to be a simple mission but...

[He looked down at his hand hidden partially by the jacket]

That's where things stopped being simple.

[bunnyhopped]

[ She had taken to chewing thoughtfully on her food while she listened to him, but she got the distinct feeling as he drew in a breath before responding that it wasn't an easy topic for him, either. Yet there he was, talking about it. Hana was genuinely curious, of course. She knew that there was a colony on the moon where she was from but nothing as forward as sending people out to the edge of the solar system, and they definitely didn't have anything what the Galaxy Garrison sounded like. She had to wonder what else might be different about their worlds.

But she also wondered what he was saying had to do with his hand; her gaze followed his down his arm and eventually to his hand. It— didn't seem like it would be a fun story. She held her hand up at him, as though to signal him to stop there. ]

You don't have to tell me, you know. I was just curious. Plus we're eating really good food!

[ She gave a small smile. ] But if you do wanna tell me, maybe we can hang out again sometime.

[lionunchained]

[Shiro wasn't sure if he had been about to tell her but the raised hand stopped him before he did. She was right, completely right. He didn't have to tell her and this probably wasn't the best time to tell her considering how long had they known each other. Not very long. It wasn't something that he really wanted to burden someone with so soon.

He gave her a faint smile in response]

You're right. We don't have to talk about that now. Let's just enjoy the food.

[Perhaps later, they would both be able to share the problems that they had. For now, it was better that they not]