[videro/action] Rainy day blue(berry muffin)s

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

-video-

[The area with the ovens may be practically flooded out, but Jessica has a wagonful of magic dirt and she's not afraid to use it. There is now a small kitchen in one of the arena's interior halls, with the implements of baking scattered about and one very busy young woman very angrily using them.

[She notices the mirror's on her and glares at it, vigorously stirring some batter.]

Okay, I get it: build, but don't bother trying to make things better or useful. Because you assholes are so much more powerful than we puny mortals could possibly aspire to be, ever. Just accept that we're your damn pets now. Fine, whatever.

-action; arena-

[Later, as the smells of baked goods permeate the halls, Jessica is stalking the area with a wagon full of pancakes. And muffins. And cookies. And cupcakes. And also a bulbasaur in the back, happily enjoying a few set aside for her. Sooner or later, she will find you. You will receive delicious baked goods. You have no choice in the matter. The power of Angry Jessica compels you!]

Comments

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

Hah, yeah, there is that. Not that they'll let us starve, here.

Yeah, this is Bulbasaur. The bulbasaur. Apparently, where she comes from, you name animals after their species. [She pats its head.] She kind of, um, claimed me a while back. Not that I mind. Not a dog, but just as good.

[hopelessdreamer]

Ah. So she's...domesticated. [she relaxes a bit.] At least you've got someone looking after you, huh? [this girl didn't look of age yet.]

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how it works... or that "domesticated" is the appropriate term; they seem pretty smart. Like, near kid-level, at least.

Yeah, I guess I'm all right on my own here, but it's a lot more comfortable with company.

[hopelessdreamer]

Well, as long as they don't attack people, I'm good. And I hope you don't mind my company--looks like I'm stuck here, for a while.

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

They first showed up to drag people to a dance, but since then she's pretty docile. Well, if you're not Meta. I don't know what her problem is there.

[Bulbasaur contributes an annoyed grumble to the subject.]

And no, you're cool. I'm not really exciting, but... you're welcome to the food. [A flash of almost-smile at that.]

[hopelessdreamer]

Meta? Another friend of yours?

[her smile in return is a little bigger.]

Don't be too hard on yourself. Being able to cook is exciting enough.

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we hung out at the fortress a while back. Bulbasaur was not a very good host.

I guess it's exciting if you're hungry... all I really do is baking, though. If you want an actual meal, you'll have to talk to someone else.

Anyway, I wouldn't say boring's a bad thing. I just... would make a crappy reality TV contestant, for example. ...except you probably don't know what that is.

[hopelessdreamer]

Animals can be tricky like that, I guess. And baking is good--I can cook, but I've never been too good at baking.

[she laughs a bit.] Tee-vee? Yeah, you've got me...boring usually means safe, anyway.

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

I'm the other way around; Dad taught me to bake, but everything else I need a microwave for.

Uh, let's see... TV is sort of like the Vine, only it's just one-way, so you watch stuff, instead of interacting with it. And most of it's pre-made. It's usually... uh, plays, and stuff. Reality TV is watching real people in weird situations. Sort of like this, I guess.

[hopelessdreamer]

Microw...? Ah, maybe I should stop pestering you. [a laugh.]

So a mirror that shows you moving pictures? Like plays? [she tries to imagine this.] That sounds pretty amazing, actually! How does it work? It's not a plant like the Vine thing, is it?

[nerd mode: activated.]

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

Nah, it's fine. Long as I'm allowed to pester you back. [A flash of smile.] It's... a really fast oven, basically. Uses a special kind of wave to cook things from the inside out. And, since it's so fast and easy, you can get premade food for it, so where I come from you don't have to know how to cook anything to eat decent food.

Not a plant, no. It's a... box, basically. There's a screen on the front, where the image is projected with... well, it used to be a cathode ray tube, but it's mostly LCD now. Liquid Crystal Display. I guess basically it's just colored light in certain patterns.

[hopelessdreamer]

I am open for pestering. [but then she focuses, because TECHNOLOGYYY technology]

Your world has some incredible stuff, you know that? Crystal? What powers it and projects the light? How is the pattern information stored?

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

There's some more amazing stuff on other worlds, really. But yeah, if you think about it, it's kind of mind-blowing what we can do.

It's powered by electricity, and... I'm not really up on the LCD stuff, but I think that's electricity, too, that makes the display light up. There's filters for the different colors.

Storage... well, it's a lot of different things. Sometimes it's a live broadcast, but usually it's on magnetic tapes or digital media. Uh, which're electric, too. Electricity is sort of a huge thing where I come from.

[hopelessdreamer]

Electricity--so wind fonons. Oh, wait, you don't have those...I wonder how that works? [she folds her arms, tapping her foot thoughtfully.] I mean, there are fon disc readers, but those can really only display text at most. No pictures. Well, you can encode diagrams, but you have two or three colors to work with at most.

[you have no idea how happy she is that there's someone that isn't a morbidly snarky military officer who can follow her, by the way.]

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

Motion of electrons. Ions in some cases, but usually it's plain old electrons.

Sounds like you guys are about where we were about 30 years ago, at least with computers... Maybe turn of last century with TV, though. That's kind of interesting, actually... It's a pretty big difference in development.

[hopelessdreamer]

Electrons, yeah, but without fonons to bind them together... [it's a bit difficult for her to grasp, but she shrugs.] Well, we did establish that the physics are different.

Well, during the Dawn Age--that was over 2000 years ago--they had some amazing things. [she's not sure how much she should tell, or how much it matters, now that she's in a completely different world, but she decides to err on he side of caution and be vague.] But there were so many wars, most of that technology was lost. You could say we kind of had to start over again from scratch.

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

So, like, they actually bombed everyone back to the Stone Age?

[hopelessdreamer]

[she doesn't know what the Stone Age is, but she can make a good guess.]

More or less. Things got purposely covered up, too.

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

What? Seriously? What's the logic behind that?

[hopelessdreamer]

[to give a history lesson or to not give a history lesson...she gestures Jessica over to a nearby stone bench to sit. She's used to explaining things, at least.]

There's an organization that oversees the world and remains as a neutral party between the different nations...but having all that power, they could purposefully control what people did and didn't know. A lot of our machines and artes use fonons, but the thing that makes them so abundant is a network of massive fon machines all over the planet, generating an artificial flow through the core. Ordinary people don't even know those machines exist, let alone how they work or why they're there in the first place.

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

[Hell yes let's have a lesson. Even if it's history and not one of the more interesting subjects. Jessica is kind of desperate here.]

So you guys actually have a one-world government thing, huh? Complete with illuminati?

Seems pretty stifling for progress.

[hopelessdreamer]

[she shakes her head.]

Both nations have their own rulers, but they tend to defer to the Order because of the Score. Or did. Things got a little chaotic recently.

[she stops for a moment, realizing Jessica probably has no idea what she's talking about.]

The Score...it's a prediction of the future. The future of the planet and all the people living on it. If people followed it, they thought they were guaranteed peaceful, prosperous lives. The Order of Lorelei controlled Score readings and kept the parts that would cause public unrest secret.

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

So how do you know all this?

[hopelessdreamer]

[she laughs wryly, sitting back.]

It's...a really long story. But the basic idea is...someone tried to tear the whole system down, and I sort of got caught up in it.

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

[She nods approvingly] How'd that turn out? I mean... that's a lot to go up against.