sheets all on the floor just like an ocean ...

[headandhand]

WHO: All y’all!
WHAT: Your regularly scheduled NAPs event for the month
WHERE: Fort Pillowtown
WHEN: Oct. 7-10
WARNINGS: Please use these if applicable!


Look at all of these bright, shining new faces! There’s even a few less bright, less shining faces - maybe even a few folks without faces - but hey, this city welcomes all types. Chances are, if you’ve just arrived, you're seeing some pretty crazy things, unless you're used to an eye-blinding amount of neon, robots, weird-ass technology, magic, and an omnipresent police force...and hey, if you are, congrats, you're gonna settle in juuuuust fine. But for the rest of you, the Head knows this has gotta be pretty overwhelming, right?

Well, since your quaint individual processing units are probably having a hard time, why not link up with another one? By which the Head means...

Hello, new citizens of Dualis,
and welcome to your monthly Network Adjacency Protocol~!

NAPs are a monthly community networking event similar to the Earth concept of speed dating! Two citizens (new arrivals and old hands alike) are placed at a table together with a handy cue card of queries to help break the proverbial ice. Ask queries and receive results, or ignore the card and yeet yourself straight into a brand new friendship! But don't be too shy, you've only got ten minutes together, and if you just sit in silence for the whole ten, the Network Admins are likely to come supervise and try to repair the uplink through a mild shock to the ol' central nervous system. You might find yourself saying all sorts of unintended facts about yourself if that happens...probably better to just make friends, right? Who doesn’t like friends?!

This month’s event is held at a new, super-comfy all-ages establishment called Fort Pillowtown. As the name suggests, it’s a large indoor space filled wall to wall with permanent pillowforts. There are a variety of sizes, shapes, and colors, with each individual fort constructed of gauzy hanging sheets, strings of soft lights, warm blankets, plush toys, a mini television with on-screen menu for choosing movies to watch and video games to play, and yes, lots and lots of pillows. Snacks and drinks of all sorts are available for purchase, as are whimsical onesies and comfy slippers to wear. Board and card game sets are also available to borrow or buy. Sounds like a dream, right?

So pull up a pillow pile, get to know your new neighbors, and enjoy a well-earned and comfy chill-out session. And hey, if you end up napping at NAPs, rest assured that it’s absolutely allowed.

Comments

[notalive]

These kitchens do not have very good organisational or hygiene standards, to be perfectly honest.

“If you put the pot next to you it’s all going to take longer to cook,” he mutters, almost a grumble, but there’s not very much he can do about it but send over one of his little avatars to knock rats around while the other furiously chops tomatoes.

“Just hit them. This button.” He drops one of his controllers so it’s hanging off his wrist on its little strap just long enough to tap one of the buttons on Hank’s controller before flicking his own back up into his hand.

“I’m glad I did what I did. I didn’t know why I was doing it at the time, but it seemed important enough to make time for.” Even looking back, he can’t quite explain it. The official reason was to make the humans sympathetic, to make Connor sympathetic...but it didn’t work that way, and he did it anyway.

“This layout is…” He’s chopping and smacking rats, he can’t think of a decent word. “...stupid.”

Perfect.

[sociallychallenged]

He looks at his controller. But, unfortunately, Hank is not the most coordinated of souls, and the rat is very very fast for a tubby kitty such as him. So his efforts are quickly squashed. Connor can nimbly handle two little strange people at once. Hank can barely manage one.

"It works if you switch it out the full pot for the empty pot. Remember, I've not played games since I was ten. Take it easy on me."

He is a little bit of a doofus, doing his best. He's even sticking the tip of his tongue out between those notched teeth and wrinkling his nose in concentration sometimes.

"I don't think they're meant to be smart, though." They're meant to be smart. And Hank's fingers are just not smart at this particular task. He's not rage-quitting, though. He's sticking with it.

[notalive]

"Remember, I've never played video games before at all," he retorts, though he softens it by flashing Hank a brief grin before going back to beating rats - or trying to - and chopping a lot of vegetables.

"I know, they're meant to challenge our... What was it, our cooperative skills? What was that talking onion saying again?" Connor, having no respect for royal titles.

"What was that?" That being a buzzer-like sound that even Connor recognises as 'you done fucked up'. They've taken too long on a soup, probably because two rats are making off with a chopped onion and a full tomato between them, Connor's cat is futilely chasing the onion and his little bearded man is concentrating on chopping another tomato for a soup that's about to boil over.

[sociallychallenged]

"Your face is a video game," Hank says like that's an argument for Connor saying that he's never played video games. But that brief grin gets a little kiss, which is a second of advantage for the fake rats, but whatever, the fake rats are there and he'd rather deal with that sweet smile than those little bastards.

"Our cooperative skills are fine, my controller skills are just shit."

He huffs out an unhappy breath and lets his hands settle in Connor's lap, just watching the screen.

"Alright. New tomato. New mushroom. Got those. Chop chop chop. Now into the fucking pot."

Hank's thumbs stop moving, but his little man continues to move. It runs over, picks up a tomato, runs back. His performance, while not perfect, seems to improve. Except that his hands are barely twitching with his thoughts.

[notalive]

Connor makes a face that can best be described as totally flummoxed at that. It's one of those moments where he knows the comment isn't literal because obviously it isn't literal, but what it does mean, and how to respond to it? Not a clue. Hank helps him a moment later by kissing him, and even though that brings his attention totally away from the rats stealing his onions (a thing he has never before had to worry about), he lets it linger, pleased.

...And then he turns back to find he's let the soup catch fire.

"No more distractions," he says at the screen, leaning back into Hank and settling himself in for the long haul. "What's that flashing thing?...Right, the fire extinguisher. Keep working on your side, I'll...fix this, then try to catch up with the onions."

He has the kind of tone of voice he might use directing a crime scene. Cordon off the area! Make sure the rubberneckers can't see the body, get some tarp up over here! Plate this soup before we lose the order! Where are CSI?

[sociallychallenged]

"Connor... Connor." Hank reaches to his controller and presses pause.

"This isn't real life. We can restart the level." Gently. "And now you know the exact time before things burn or what it takes to catch the rats, right? Let's take it from the top. It's not often you get to have clean do-overs and learn from your mistakes."

If fake life can be less complicated, he wants to take advantage of it.

[notalive]

Connor blinks and twists his head to stare at Hank.

"It's..." He lets out a long breath and nods slowly. "You're telling me not to take this so seriously."

Which is probably good advice - the annoyance at not being perfect at this immediately hangs inside him like it's weighted down.

"OK," he concedes, turning back and leaning his head on Hank's. "I'll try."

And he disconnects one of his controllers, leaving him with just his little raccoon.

[sociallychallenged]

"Sitting here in a fuckin' onesie commanding gradeschool characters like it's the Waterloo. Fuckin' yeah, you can't take it seriously."

Hank's actively chuckling by his ear though, because it's so fucking ridiculous. In fact he ends up snorting and burying his face against Connor's neck to suppress the sound. It's a miracle he can go after the tomatoes while he's doing that.

[notalive]

At that, Connor finally cracks a grin, albeit sort of unwillingly, and deliberately shifts his shoulder under Hank as if poking at his face with it.

"Well, Lieutenant, one of us has to keep the situation under control," he says, though this time he's clearly trying not to grin. "We've got a tomato and an onion. You got the tomatoes?"