SHEETCAKE PARTY #1

[goneawaymod]

SHEET CAKE MEETUP

“Who the fuck is Linda?”

The question pops up every few minutes, a little tack of punctuation above the offensively-inoffensive music being piped in*. The room the hires have been ushered into is clearly just a conference room, with a layout that requires either sitting at awkwardly-spaced intervals around a giant table or milling and scooting around the smaller folding table, where the “big surprise” the corporate officers promised them is on display: a sheet cake.

A sheet cake that that still bears HAPPY BIRTH DAY LINDA in blue icing across the top, although someone has, at least, gone to the effort of writing welcome, to the team new hires in Sharpie on a purple flashcard and used a Popsicle stick and tape to plant it like a dismal flag right in the middle of Linda’s “DAY”. Dedication aside, the cake itself looks pretty suspect too, not as if it were poisoned but more like if it were salvaged. The cake part looks dry, and the frosting seems strangely...sweaty. No one’s eating yet, and yet there’s already a piece missing.

However, there’s no lack of enthusiasm around the room. A projector hooked up to a laptop casts an off-center, warped rectangle of WELCOME TO, THE BEST TEAM. NEW HIRES!! onto a wall. The many paper plates have a festive print, although they all seem to be Christmas themed. The table cloth looks as if it came from both 4th of July and potentially a war, given the scuffs and tears. The shot-glass sized paper cups are inadequate to hold a satisfying amount of sparkling cider, but at least they don’t leak. There are many more plastic knives than forks, which could prompt some hires to give in to their animal instincts and just use their hands, or perhaps start a barter economy for the better utensils.

“I’m so jealous,” a corporate employee keeps saying as she ushers hires into the room. “We haven’t had a good party in this office since Kelly’s baby shower, and that little girl practically has teeth now!”

(An eagle-eyed hire may suspect that the box of donuts next to the sheet cake might have come from said baby shower, on account of the fact that the few stale hunks of donut remaining have Pepto-Bismol pink strawberry icing and that there’s still the paper envelope for a gift card with ITS A GIRL written on it.)

Most of corporate slips out after the hires get set up - this is clearly an event for the hires to do some “team building” and work on “rapport” in addition to filling their bellies with cake that tastes remarkably like sand. There’s a karaoke machine in the corner, but hires are instructed not to touch it because, as an employee points out, last year’s Christmas party demonstrated that karaoke is the worst thing in the entire world for morale (“in any world! even before this one got eaten away by the bombs!”).

There’s an additional big glass jar filled with scraps of paper, which the hires are informed are filled with prompts for ice breakers and activities in case the party needs a pick-me-up. Any hire who investigates will find that most of the ice breaker activities start with three benign questions (“what’s your name?” “where are you from?” “what’s your favorite animal?”) and somehow, always a fourth question that feels a little invasive (“what are your feelings on unions?” “under what circumstances would you kill an innocent person?” “do you use the same passwords for all your accounts?”).

“Please enjoy yourselves and all the desserts Jorgmund has generously supplied you with,” one of the employees says on her way out, “and don’t worry about making a mess, janitorial gets paid too much to sit around as is.”

*All music that can be summarized as ’grocerycore’.

Comments

[credit_not_blame]

"Yep!" Stacia says, giving the alarmed blonde a friendly, non-threatening smile. Though she does glance down briefly at the cup when it makes a crunchy, ice-cube noise. "It's a party game where I'm from. It's a way to help br--" No. "--help people get to know each other. Both people tell two truths and a lie, they both guess which one is the lie, and then they have enough information about the other to have a conversation that isn't mind-numbingly boring."

The explanation is fairly matter-of-fact; Stacia is used to explaining things to people. Normally those people are wolves, but apparently it has well-prepared her for meeting people from other realities. Fun bonus!

[ahtohollaback]

"Oh. I see," Elsa says; one of her hands comes up and across her body, holding her opposite upper arm over the scratchy jumpsuit fabric. She'd played a game sort of like this, with slips of paper and guessing, the night she was taken here. It makes her miss her family very much.

Pull it together. Even if Anna isn't here, she has to go on.

"Okay," she says. "Well, your nametag says Stacia, so that's probably true. You seem pretty friendly. Maybe you like dances. So, I'm guessing...the third one?" Elsa gives a self-deprecating smile that's halfway to a wince. Oh god she has no idea what she is doing. She is so, so bad at these games.

[credit_not_blame]

Blondie's clearly feeling nervous and awkward. Stacia keeps the friendly smile in place, trying to put her more at ease.

"I do like dances, but I've never been to a Homecoming," she says. "Your turn, if you'd like. Or I can go into the details of the hair dye-on-my-nails trick, I'm flexible."

[ahtohollaback]

Oops. She got it wrong -- but that's okay, it's just a game, it isn't anything bad.

Elsa's options are to come up with two true things and one lie about herself for a game she's never played before, or to deflect the subject onto someone else.

"How did you do your nails with hair dye?" she asks, taking refuge in a subject she can relate to: creative repurposing of materials you have on hand to get the aesthetic you're going for.

[credit_not_blame]

Stacia holds up her hands to show Blondie her nails. The color is chipping off, but eight of them are pink and the remaining two (her ring fingers) are silver.

"I got the spray-on hair color and used that," she says. "Then I painted a topcoat on, and washed the rest off it off my skin. Takes a lot less time and--"

She falters, lowering her hands a little.

"...If those words in that order even make sense to you. Sorry, I should have checked first, there's a wide variety knowledges here."

[ahtohollaback]

Elsa lets out a quiet laugh, unable to help it -- no, she didn't understand a couple of the concepts, but she's not upset. Her surprise and confusion must have shown on her face, and it's a little embarrassing that Stacia noticed, but the excitement-and-apology remind her a little of her sister.

"It's okay," she says, drawing her shoulders up in a light shrug. "I asked." No harm, no foul; Stacia was saving Elsa from having to come up with truths and lies for the party game. "I can change the color of my makeup with ice crystals," Elsa offers, hoping this is relatable enough to talk about.

[credit_not_blame]

Stacia brightens.

"Really? That's cool!"

Then she groans and covers her face with her hand. "Oh no, I'm sorry, I was trying so hard not to make references to ice and cold and all that. You probably get those a lot."

[ahtohollaback]

This time, Elsa's laugh is a little brighter. Pardon the pun, but she's warming up.

"It's okay," she says, smiling. "It doesn't happen as often as you'd think." Then, after a moment, she adds with a wry shrug, "Probably because I'm the queen." She'd probably get all kinds of jokes and comments and nudges if she had more people comfortable enough around her to do it. More friends.

[credit_not_blame]

"No kidding?" Stacia asks, cocking her head to the side. "Do you want me to break out my fancy manners, or keep it casual?"

She's got the fancy manners. She even technically had a fancy debut party, as Ace's 'cousin'. Hard to say if what she thinks of as fancy manners and what blondie thinks of as 'manners' line up, though.

[ahtohollaback]

Warmly, Elsa tells her, "Casual's just fine." After all, she's been pulled away from her kingdom. What's the queen of Arendelle without Arendelle? There's no ceremony here, no reason to ask anyone else to put on airs. "We don't keep a very formal palace. My sister, Anna, is very--" how does she put this? "--personable."

The way it's said, with deep affection and even admiration that comes through despite the awkwardness, places the comment squarely in "compliment" territory.

[credit_not_blame]

Good thing she doesn't want to stand on ceremony, considering she's gone from 'queen' to 'new hire'. Shows flexibility, and a certain resilience.

Stacia grins. "Anna's your younger sister, I'd assume? Since you're the queen?"

Surely everyone likes talking about their adorable younger siblings.