Bakers, start your baking!

[indigo_league]

Who: Everybody!
Where: Riegfried and Soy's mansion
When: January 15th; day time for the cooking part, evening for the mingle part.
Summary: Come one, come all to the newest contest hosted by Riegfried and Soy. Today's theme: cooking!








[Daytime - The kitchens]

Throughout the day, the kitchens will be open to all contestants, though any casual onlookers --human, pokemon, or otherwise-- will be shooed out to prevent any cheating.

Each contestant will be directed to a gleaming counter, where they will be able to find everything from your basic whisk and spatula to gleaming kitchen machinery fancy enough to make any cook feel faint with envy. Each counter comes complete with a small fridge (should you need to chill any of your ingredients), an oven, a stove, a microwave -- really, anything you can imagine and it is there. Riegfried and Soy clearly didn't want anyone to run into the issue of not having the right equipment for the job.

At the back of the room are the fridges: tall, imposing fridges made of gleaming metal stocked full of every sort of ingredient you could possibly think of. And next to the fridges, contestants can find rows and rows of shelves, each nearly bowing under the weight of the products placed on them -- from fresh fruit, to spices, to rice and noodles. If you need it, you can find it.

Riegfried and Soy will be flitting around the room like a pair of extravagant Butterfrees, happy to engage contestants in small interviews. Everything for the camera, baby! Because those are also there; they are clearly trying to stay out of everybody's way, but small, Rotom-powered cameras flit around the room for close-ups, while cameramen and women with heavy-duty equipment get the distance shots. Hopefully, you haven't got an issue with stage fright.



[Evening - The show]

And when all is said and done, and the last dishes have been cooked, it's time for the actual show. There is some time between the actual cooking and this part of the evening, during which contestants have a chance to change their clothing and freshen up, but before too long, the mansion's doors open to the guests, who are herded by the cheerful hosts to an enormous hall.

The hall itself is set up with all manner of comforts. There are some small tables and chairs for anyone who wants to sit down for a while. Long tables line the sides of the room, absolutely laden with all manner of refreshments. There is even a special table set aside where the dishes the contestants made (at least the ones that made it to this part of the evening) are displayed and ready for tasting.

The schedule for the night is rather straightforward.

After some meet-and-greet and time for every last guest to arrive, the day's events (cut and edited by a very exhausted camera crew) will be projected onto a huge screen for all to enjoy. The votes will be tallied afterward and awards and prizes will be handed out. The rest of the evening will give the winners a chance to celebrate, the losers a chance to commiserate, and everybody else to clear the buffet of everything edible.

Comments

[un_oiseau_rebelle]

"The technology is a lot if you're not used to it, but... yes, it's all a bit much even without that." He hadn't much liked them even before he'd been Taken.

Shinobu returns the handshake. "Tsukuyomi Shinobu - or rather, Shinobu Tsukuyomi - I forget sometimes that most people here seem to use first name-last name order here. And that would be very much appreciated, thank you." He just hope Dimitri will get something for himself too.

[nastyboy]

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Shinobu." And the change in order when it comes to introducing one's self... That's interesting, he can't deny that. It isn't something that's come up yet.

So of course when he comes back with a small plate filled with different foods - definitely one of Ashe's buns, along with some of the other actual edible foods, and some curry in a bowl - he can't help have it on his mind as he passes it along. "I know you just stepped out from all of that attention... but I hope you won't mind if I speak to you a little more."

it helps if I press "post comment," doesn't it?

[un_oiseau_rebelle]

"Likewise."

While Dimitri is gone, he just sits quietly on a nearby stair, letting himself just breathe without (much) worry about someone pointing a camera in his face while he's out here. Angel Snow sits quietly beside him, clearly concerned but pushing for the moment, which Shinobu also appreciates.

Upon Dimitri's return, he takes the proffered food with a nod and a quiet thank you. "Of course not - go ahead."

lmao an easy mistake to make

[nastyboy]

"I have never seen a custom where one's family names comes before their individual one." Giving a respectable distance between them, Dimitri sits down as well while Hob curls around his feet. It's been a busy day for her, really.

"Of course, I have only been here in Johto for a couple of months. I take it that's common, in your homeland?"

[un_oiseau_rebelle]

"I'm not sure how widespread the practice would be on other worlds. On various forms of Earth, one of which I'm from, it's common in some countries but not others. The country I was living in when I was brought here actually does it the way you're used to, which was an adjustment for me."

[nastyboy]

"It's interesting," Dimitri says, and chuckles a little bit down at his own food. "Honestly, I'm surprised that it's not more common in other places... It seems as though the kind of thing that could have happened in my own homeland."

Patiently, he allows Hob to crawl up onto his lap, and adjusts his food accordingly. "I hope it wasn't too great a change, coming here for you. I know it has been for my friends and I."

[un_oiseau_rebelle]

"Our writing systems also differ from place to place. In my own home country, we have one logographic script type and two syllabic scripts, though one of the latter is used more for grammatical inflections and foreign loanwords."

He's quiet for a moment at Dimitri's next statement, taking a moment to offer Angel Snow some food. "To be honest, this isn't the first time I've been forcibly uprooted and had to adjust to an entirely different type of existence. I'm not sure what it says about me that I've almost learned to take it in stride."

[nastyboy]

Logographic.... and syllabic script. Dimitri blinks, carefully trying to work out what those words mean exactly. Linguistics was never his particular specialty... Syllabic is fairly easy, but logographic? that's a little harder.

He'll ask Claude about it later. For now, he frowns a little. "It's almost a shame, to hear that. Although it's good that at least this hasn't affected you too much. This place is a lot to deal with as it is, even used to change as one may be."

[un_oiseau_rebelle]

Fortunately, Shinobu notices his confusion. "Kanji, the logographic script, consists of symbols for complete words, which can be further combined to create more words. Hiragana, one of the syllabic scripts, is used primarily for grammatical and function words, suffixes to modify kanji roots, and native words that either have no kanji equivalent or a very obscure or obsolete one that is no longer common knowledge. Katakana, the other syllabic script, is the one I mentioned that's mostly used for foreign loanwords."

And then he falls silent again, a longer silence this time, before he admits, "I often catch myself wondering when it's going to get worse."

[nastyboy]

Dimitri is nothing if not an attentive listener, and he leans forward, taking all of this in. It's all truly fascinating, like no language he's ever heard before - although he has to admit that his knowledge is lacking in that respect. He will have to ask Claude about it, he supposes. "Thank you," he says when it's all finished, smiling. He is by no means an academic... but learning things like this is always interesting.

What is less nice is... the sentence that comes after, and Dimitri dwells on that for a moment. "I understand a similar feeling," he finally says, quiet. "I cannot say it is exactly the same, but... Terrible event after terrible event, with the world yanked out from underneath one's feet." He shakes his head. "Although I may be overstepping my bounds and understanding. I apologize, if that's the case."

[un_oiseau_rebelle]

Shinobu returns the smile easily enough, although his is still a bit shaky. "It's no trouble," he says.

He falls quiet yet again, absorbing Dimitri's words, then nods. "If it keeps happening, then you start to expect it. And the longer it doesn't, sometimes, the worse you suspect it will be when it does, because you can't conceive of it not happening at some point. That's how it gets for me, anyway."

[nastyboy]

A lot of this... really is sounding familiar to Dimitri. It's something that's been familiar to him for a very long time, as a matter of fact, and his gaze gets a bit distant even as his hands move automatically for eating.

"And so long as it keeps happening, at least you know how to deal with that," he agrees, thinking about - a long string of things, really. "Even if it's difficult, or miserable, at least it is familiar, after a point. What is one supposed to do when it stops happening, and it's been so long since you've been at that point...?"