ways_back_room | Wednesday DE: speed not-dating

Entry tags:

daily entertainment

Wednesday DE: speed not-dating

Hello Milliways, welcome to another Hump-DAAAAY.

I had a DE I've been working on, but I still haven't quite made it make sense yet, so we're gonna table that and run with something else today.

Today, let's do one we haven't in awhile: Speed Dating Milliways-Style.

I'm pretty sure this one has gone up with some variations, but today here's how it's gonna go:

Imagine a setting like your classic 'Speed-Dating' scenario. A room full of random people just waiting for the next person to sit down and have a quick convo, basically to see what (if anything) happens. And although I've used the word 'dating' the aim is for people to meet people and it's open to everyone, not just lonely singles.

To Play:
1. Post in with your pup(s) that you'd like to play.

2. Others tag your pup. The point is random pairings, but if they want to stop and have a quick chit-chat with a friend that's cool, too!

3. We'll work on the five question exchange. Pup B (the tagger) will introduce themselves to Pup A (the poster). Pup A will also offer an introduction and then ask Pup B a question. Pup B will answer and ask their own question. Continue the back and forth until each pup gets in 5 questions and answers and then move on.

4. This is the backroom, so it won't be bar-canon, but it could include All-Skate pups if you so choose.

5. If sparks fly of the romantic or platonic variety feel free to keep going, but if it turns gratuitous in the sexy or violent way (because this is Milliways and sometimes 5 questions can turn into either 'let's get a room' or 'I'm gonna stab your face!') please take it to a journal and leave warnings on any links.

6. Need help coming up with questions? Here's a list of ice breaker questions to pull from.

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Barry is seated at a table with a cup of coffee across from an empty chair. He looks very excited with a friendly smile.

Wei Wuxian sprawls in the seat opposite - Bar has given him a jar of Emperor's Smile, so he's willing to put up with her shenanigans.

That, and he really just enjoys shenanigans. Always has, always will.

"So, I am Wei Ying, courtesy name Wuxian, formerly of Yunmeng. Hello!"

Barry's a little surprised by his sudden company, but recovers quickly and returns the smile and greeting.

"Hi, I'm Barry Allen, from Central City."

In general Barry doesn't have many complaints to lodge about the bar's shenanigans. Weird is just a part of life here and at home.

"What's in the jar?" he asks.

Bill Pardy looks like he feels a little out of place. He’s at a table with a cup of coffee, trying not to look nervous and mostly succeeding.

Okay, Claire did not get this particular memo.

Email. Text. Whatever.

But she did get the mug of peppermint tea she was hoping for, with the apparent bonus potential for conversation exclusive of literal blood, sweat and/or sutures.

And the guy in the plaid -- well, truth be told, he looks a lot like Claire currently feels.

So she offers a smile, and quirks an eyebrow as she gestures to the chair across from him.

"Maybe I'm a walking cliché here, but is this seat taken?"

Bill is just starting to wonder if maybe this wasn't his best idea when he gets company.

Straightening up in his seat, he shakes his head and returns the smile.

"Not at all," he replies with an easy drawl and his own gesture at the empty chair.

"In that case," she says, with a full-fledged grin, "hi."

Cradling her steaming cup between her palms as she slides into the proffered seat, her expression becomes almost conspiratorial.

"These things are only awkward if we make them awkward, right?"

"That's a take I can get behind," Bill replies with a smile, any awkwardness indeed fading rapidly with her cheerful attitude and grin.

"I'm Bill Pardy," he introduces himself, offering his hand and a bit of a wry turn to his smile. "Not t'be a cliche myself but, you come t'Milliways often?"

"Bill Pardy," she echoes, setting down her mug to give his hand a firm shake, "I'm Claire Temple."

To Bill's question, her responsive hum lands at the corner of agreement and dissent.

"I'm in and out," she says. "The door's kind of unpredictable. But when I'm here, I'll usually pick up a shift in the infirmary. How about you?"

"Nice to meet you," Bill says brightly before perking up when hears about her shifts.

"That a fact?" he asks. "You a doctor or uh, one of them healers?"

There might be a term for it, or maybe it's that, Bill's a little hard pressed to remember.

"S'been awhile since I've been a real regular," he says, then jokes, "Otherwise we probably would've met already."

He did have a penchant for being in and out of the infirmary.

"Nurse," she answers with a slight shake of her head, breathing a chuckle.

Reaching for her tea, Claire pauses.

"Hold up, Pardy animal." Her expression is as wry as it is bemused. "That sounds like you tend to come in bleeding."

"Nurse," Bill repeats in acknowledgement.

Her next gets him to laugh.

"Pardy animal?" Bill shakes his head, amused. "No, it's more I got a knack for findin' trouble. If it ain't from the job it's from somethin' else I've landed in. Lousy luck, really."

"Oh," she says, "so this — "

She gestures toward Bill with her free hand, as if to indicate his general state of affairs.

"Is what the reverse Midas touch looks like, hmm? And it's part of the job description."

A thoughtful beat.

"Professional lightning rod?"

"I reckon that's one way to describe it, sure ain't turnin' nothin' into gold," Bill replies with a chuckle.

"I'm a sheriff in Wheelsy, South Carolina. Small town, so I deal with everything; drunks, speeders, quarrelin' neighbors, livestock an' wildlife. Feels like I've been on the wrong end of everything at one time or another."

Taking a drink of his coffee, Bill gives a nod towards her and asks, "Where do you do you're nursin'?"

Claire hums in commiseration.

"Little north of you," she says, and lifts her own mug, but doesn't take a sip of tea just yet. "I'm in New York, work the ER at Metro General in the city. I guess you could say it comes with its own special brand of 'everything' — but probably less livestock?"

"Oh, I'll bet," Bill says, impressed by where she's from and where she works.

"Don't hardly seem like there's much chance for a dull moment in a place like that, even without any livestock."

"I miss dull," Claire deadpans, and despite her flippancy, there's an unmistakable honesty warming the words.

She cocks her head slightly, considering Bill.

"You think I should move to the country?"

"Hey there cutie." Look, Bar only said he should go socialize. She did not say he couldn't flirt. Which is good, 'cause that would never work.

Klaus slumps into his chair, kicking his (bare) feet up and sipping his Cosmo.

"You can call me Klaus."

Bill is caught a little off guard, but he recovers. Touched by a bit of embarrassment, he replies, "Uh, hi. I'm Bill Pardy."

He almost asks the guy where his shoes are, but then decides to leave that alone and instead asks, "Where abouts you from?"

Clark is sitting at a table in a denim jacket over a blue flannel shirt, wearing a baseball cap with a Crow on it.

Okay, Max. You can do this. Everyone is awkward in these situations. Maybe they're not used to being awkward, too, so you practically have the home-court advantage. You can do this. Nevermind that you've accidentally made eye-contact with a complete stranger.

"Uh, hi there," the young woman says, giving a little wave with the hand not holding her mug of coffee. Her faded pink shirt says "jane" upon it in white, along with the silhouette of a deer, but her red sneakers are decorated with piratical skulls and crossbones.

"I'm Max. Mind if I join you?"

"Hello," Clark greets her. While it can't be said Clark Kent is never awkward, he's pretty comfortable right now. Open and friendly.

"Don't mind at all, have a seat." He gestures at an empty chair, before introducing himself.

"My name's Clark. Where are you in from?"

"Nice to meet you, Clark," Max says. The shake in her voice is normal, really it is. This is just... good practice, for the socially anxious.

"I come in from Arcadia Bay, Oregon. It's... okay if you've not heard of it; it's tiny," she chuckles. "What about you? And, uh... what do you do?"

For his part Clark remains easy and relaxed, projecting calm in the hope that it helps. He's quite used to talking to strangers as both a reporter and a superhero, and he has a son who struggles with social anxiety. Clark knows patience and kindness go a long way for all of those things.

"Oh, I know tiny," he says with a chuckle of his own. "I'm from Smallville, Kansas. No one has heard of it, either."

Even as he jokes there is a fondness there in his voice and expression. Clark quite loves his tiny hometown.

"Right now I'm a farmer, trying to be a full-time dad." When emergencies and world-ending threats aren't pulling him away from home.

"And I'm also a part-time football coach for my boys." Raising his hand, Clark tugs on the brim of his cap.

"Did you grow up in Arcadia Bay, or is the small town life new to you?" he asks.

Her smile relaxes a little - yeah, small town life is similar wherever it might be, on the coast or in the middle of the continent. "Full-time dad, part-time coach, and from what I hear farming is also a full-time job - you must stay busy."

Okay, Max. Bordering on rude. Change the subject, even if his wording makes you curious.

"Ah, I, um, grew up in Arcadia Bay - it's right on the coast - but my family moved to Seattle when I was thirteen. I've just recently come back. I'm a student at Blackwell Academy there, in their photography program."

There is definite pride in her tone; Blackwell's photography program is one of the best in the nation. Nothing else would bring a famous photographer like Mark Jefferson to a tiny backwoods town like Arcadia Bay.

"Um, if I can ask," the urge to be nosy and the urge not to be considered nosy are constantly at war, "you say that right now you're a farmer. Were you not... um... is it a recent career change?"

"It can get a little hectic," Clark allows, "especially with two teenage boys."

Not wanting to make it sound like he's doing it all solo, Clark gives credit where it's due.

"Fortunately I have a great partner. My wife Lois keeps all of us in line."

Clark listens as Max speaks, nodding when she brings up Seattle and putting on a smile when she mentions her school and the program she's in.

"Photography, that's great. What sort of photography do you do?" he asks. "One of my closest friends is a photographer. We used to work together for the newspaper, the Daily Planet."

Which sort of leads to his answer to her question, and by the way his smile continues to hold he lets her know he doesn't mind it at all.

"I moved to the big city a long time ago. Living in Metropolis, I was a newspaper reporter. It's only in the past year that I've come back to the farm to take it over."

"Wowsers, that's a big change," she says, with sympathy. "It's weird, sometimes, to have lived in a big city and then come back to a small hometown. Not a bad-weird, but still a strange feeling, to come back and find nothing's changed, like the whole place is caught out of time."

She chuckles a little, catching herself rambling, and sips her black coffee.

"I'm... still figuring out what sort of photography I want to do. There's all sorts of amazing work being done in the field, with news photography and war correspondents and fashion photography, and such, but I don't know if that's for me. I lean towards the... artistic side of photography, rather than the informational side, if that makes sense."

"I'd like to, you know, just skip to the part with my work in a gallery somewhere," she grins, wry, "without all the intervening stuff about having to get my work out there for people to see. Did you enjoy working for the newspaper?"

Clark huffs a laugh that has the sound of a 'you can say that again' while he nods his head. "Yeah, yeah, it's been an adjustment. Especially for Lois and the boys."

And Clark himself, if he's being honest, but he at least has some experience with the whole small town life thing.

His expression sobers a little as he considers her words, and his smile turns a little wistful.

"You're right though, a lot of it feels exactly the same. Few things have changed though, not all of them for the best."

Listening to her talk about photography, it seems pretty clear that it's something she's passionate about, even if she's still figuring out which path she wants to take with it.

"That makes sense," he confirms, "but, well now, galleries are great and all, but a lot of the art is in the making. If you skip to the part where it's all frames on a wall, you miss the experience of it all," he points out.

To her question he nods, his expression is a little wistful, but there's no real regret or remorse in it.

"I did. Partly because I enjoyed putting stories out there and informing people. Getting a scoop is a special kind of thrill. But, mostly because it's where I met my wife." Clark is unabashedly sappy when it comes to talking about Lois.

"Blackwell Academy, is that a good photography school?"

Jon looks like he's trying to be a Very English Professor, very proper in his suit pants and vest... he also looks vaguely uncomfortable in it, like this is 1000% a persona he's putting on that he's pretty sure isn't working.

It so isn't working. He tries so hard though.

"I've been told," Jon sighs as he slides into his seat with a mug of tea cupped in his hands, "That I need to get out more, so..." He shrugs, as if the rest were self-explanatory. Maybe it is. "My name is Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Archives."

Clark is very amused, but he's also very nice about it so he doesn't poke any fun. Instead he offers a smile and a nod of greeting.

"Jonathan. That's my son's name. I'm Clark Kent, farmer of corn and assistant football coach to the local home team, who could also maybe get out a little more as well."

Or rather, get out a little more without the cape and all.

He tips his Crows cap to Jon and asks the obvious question which is, "What are the Magnus Archives?"

Max is participating! She might be seated at one of the further tables, practically hiding behind her cup of black coffee, but she is definitely participating!

Cecil Palmer sits down across from Max, which is an experience all in itself. He has his favorite fuzzy pink pants on today, along with a very nice beaded tunic, because of course he knows fashion, he practically has to. He also has a cup of coffee from beans he hand-crushed himself. That'd explain the screaming earlier, yup.

"Hi! I'm Cecil, very nice to meet you!"

"Oh, um, hi there, Cecil!" The girl replies, giving him a smile. Ignore the shake in her voice, it's normal. As normal as fuzzy pants, even if she is far less fashionable. "It's good to meet you, too. I'm Max."

Oh right. Right right. Questions!

"Have you been coming to Milliways long?"

Edited 2022-01-27 05:01 (UTC)

"Oh, but what is long? What is time? To one of the waitrats, I may have been coming here for generations, but to the stars outside I have only managed to just arrive." Cecil rambles, gesturing carefully with his coffee mug, his voice radio-rich before switching to a more jovial tone. "But really just a few months, my time."

"Are you in school? You look to be the same age as some of my interns."

Peter is the kind of asking questions... he'll probably answer too, but if he stops at 5, you're doing great

Harry - come say hi. =)

(if you wanna brave ebil!Harry - he's around too. or any of my other puppets)

A young woman in a jeans jacket and a ridiculous amount of silver jewelry - multiple necklaces, several bangles on each arm, a ring or two - perches in the opposite chair. She has frizzy blonde hair pulled back into a rough ponytail, and a mischievous grin. She salutes Peter with her bottle of vodka, cheerfully.

"Hello! I'm Yekatrina, but you can call me Katya." She announces with a pronounced Muscovite accent. She hasn't seen Olya for over a decade. If the older Other wants to complain about her making friends, she can come tell her herself.

He waves a hand. "Hi, Katya. I'm Peter."

It does feel a little weird.

It's not that Lucifer isn't used to the whole "sit and look sexy, while people approach"-deal (okay, the note didn't say sexy exactly, but it's not like he can help it), but normally it's because people need a favor.

But he's game for random conversations.

So there's a very well-dressed man with not a hair or stubble out of place seated at a table.

He's got a friendly smile and a drink at hand.

Gaster sits at the table, feeling more than a bit awkward.

He's never actually dated before, but...maybe he could give it a try?

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Wednesday DE: speed not-dating

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