Piper 90: Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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goneawayworld2020-04-17 08:20 pm
goneawaymod) wrote in goneawayworld2020-04-17 08:20 pm
Entry tags:
- #rig logs,
- +intro log,
- +sheetcake party,
- adora,
- alloran semitur-corass,
- brainiac 5,
- bunnymund,
- catra,
- dave strider,
- gadget hackwrench,
- guts,
- jack spicer,
- nora valkyrie,
- robbie baldwin,
- ronald mcdonald,
- ronan lynch,
- sam winchester,
- saturday,
- setsuna higashi,
- stacia novik,
- ✘ cayde-6,
- ✘ ciaphas cain,
- ✘ doreen green,
- ✘ elsa,
- ✘ emily grey,
- ✘ kevin ingstrom,
- ✘ peter parker,
- ✘ phosphophyllite,
- ✘ remus lupin,
- ✘ ryotaro dojima,
- ✘ saint-14,
- ✘ sirius black,
- ✘ steven universe
SHEETCAKE PARTY #1
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’.
no subject
"And besides," she says, with emphasis. "There's people you should meet, you know, some really neat characters. Jorgmundr worked so hard on this party, we should enjoy it!"
Now is not the time is what her unsmiling eyes are saying. Fight back or go along, Jorgmundr wins either way, so pick the path that leaves you ready to fight when the odds are less stupid. And there isn't a room full of potential hostages.
no subject
When the jorgbot tells him to try an icebreaker, his first instinct is to tell them to fuck off (mostly on principle). Now that Saturday mentions it - weird context and all - it's a little more apparent that he made basically no effort to even try to play. He maybe got one sentence into the game before rudely ditching the conversation.
Really, he was hedging his bets on how many Jorgmund clowns he could take down before they manage to shock him enough for his limbs to stop moving. He's guessing on like 3 or 4 at the minimum - starting with this one here. But maybe he should save that... for later. He's not going to stop Saturday from guiding him away from the door, even if he looks displeased.
no subject
"Sorry - I just have this feeling they're really hoping someone will lose it so they can make a nice, public example. So on principle I don't want them to have that." She nods at the sad cake and pathetic drinks. "This is too much to be coincidence. Maybe they're just that callous, but corps don't get to be corps by being stupid."
The thing about being a cyberpunk dystopia, even one with magic, is that even if you've never set foot in an office, you know what corps are capable of. She talks about them - well, maybe a little like a medieval peasant would talk about nobility. Something dangerous, incomprehensible to the point of eldritch, and where the only surety is that if they notice you, you're in for a wild and unpleasant ride.
no subject
Is he fearful of punishment? Nah. Not really. Was he being goaded, or was he looking for that exact kind of altercation? The cavalier way with which he considers her suggestion suggests the latter. Maybe he's just putting a lot of confidence in his own pain tolerance to give his captors a hard time. Maybe he just wanted to get back to his damn room.
"You don't have to worry about me. I have my own way of dealing with things."
He's mouthed off at every demon and god he came across that thought they were invincible - why would he stop here? It just seems like a major downgrade.
no subject
She pats his forearm reassuringly before removing her hands.
"But if you want to pick a fight, I'll help you patch yourself up after."
no subject
Well, he has a muted appreciation of the sentiment, at least. Now that the situation was diffused, he is calm again.
"Don't think its on purpose, though. Not enough guards hanging around for that. Just a handful of worker types."
This setting may be strange for him, but their captors were still human, and humans he could observe well enough. He leans back against the wall, eyes closed. If he was going to be here, he can at least find a peaceful perch to keep for himself. One where he won't be bothered by people.
"They're probably still figuring out what to do with everyone."
no subject
She swears to god she can feel the nanochain sometimes, wrapped around her gut and spine like a parasite. It makes her want to throw herself against something until she hears it break, except she also knows that her bones will go first. She shakes off the spike of fury with a twitch of her shoulders.
"How d'you figure? Seems they've got us sewn up pretty neat, for the moment."
no subject
"Don't you think this all feels more sloppy than carefully planned?"
The way they were ushered in and awkwardly put together. How very few of them actually had anything that really fit or matched them. Their bedding arrangements, too. The most universal, thorough part of this were the shocks and the confiscation of their gear. As for whether or not they would need the guards...
He supposes he will find that out one day.
no subject
She sighs and runs a hand through her hair.
"That's the thing about corps. It doesn't need to be carefully planned. As long as costs stay down and quarterly goals get met, who cares what happens to the workers? Bet you right now that we're legally classified as equipment or something, because we came out of the Stuff so we're not real people."
no subject
He says this so matter-of-factly one would think he wasn't taken prisoner and hooked up to a one-way ticket to pain town.
"Do what you want."
That is his plan, apparently. He has his reasons for taking the more measured approach (At least, 'measured' by Guts standards) - but none of them have to do with the fact that being zapped was an unpleasant experience. Maybe everyone around him is just too much of a stranger for him to care much about how they saw him.
no subject
She takes a little step back then, the better to crane her neck up and glare mildly. Why is everyone always so fraggin' tall, god. "All I'm saying is, don't underestimate Jorgmundr. Corps run my world. They're not something you can just refuse, even when they don't already have hooks in you."
no subject
"I understand."
He looks measured and collected, not at all bothered by her anger.
"I guess... a part of me just likes givin' people a hard time."
no subject
God, this is Thera all over again, right down to the queasy feeling.
"If I thought it would get anything done other than killing us, I'd be rushing them with you. But it won't. And there's still a chance of other options showing up." She smiles in a completely humourless fashion. "Ask me about it again in a couple weeks."
THANK u for your patience
He may find it curious, but that was the extent of it. There's no negative sentiment attached to the observation. Guess it's only natural if they're both prisoners stuck in the same situation. It felt familiar, all too familiar.
But no matter how odd this all was, she's right in that he'd very much like to rush some smug-looking guards and give them really a bad day. Unfortunately, he is being forced to be more strategic about it.
"I'll hold you to it. Don't think I'll forget to ask."
Re: THANK u for your patience
Also, Guts is nice. She suspects he would be either baffled or offended if she said so, but he is. He reminds her of some people back home, killers to the core, but only because it's their job. When you live in a world without law, sometimes killing is the best way to solve a problem. So you do it. Doesn't mean you're a monster.
She laughs a little at his next line. "Assuming I don't come and ask you, first."