text ↪ un: dostoevsky

[dissemblance]

Can we all take a moment to admire the fact that 2801 technology still supports emoji functionality? 🤩 👍 🕷 💁 🩰 💫 🍆 🧊 💅 👁‍🗨 🎯 🤡 🔋 🐈 💲 🧙‍♀️ 🐦💋 🐜 👽 🕶 ⚡ 🕵🏻‍♀️ 💦 💦 💦

It seems like they're pretty set on calling us 'Hatchlings', so... hello, fellow Hatchlings, I'd like to play a game.

Two truths and a lie. I'll start.

  ① Starbucks makes the best lattes.
  ② I've never watched All Dogs Go To Heaven all the way through.
  ③ My birthdate is May 21st. What year? Every year. 😉😉😉 But my party in 2018 was 🔥🔥🔥.

Comments

@nina

[neversmall]

...oh, it makes pictures?

[ Please excuse, Nina just found her new favorite thing about this place: ]

😍👋👌🎃🎉🎐🪔📘✨🎗🎪🎯🎖🔮🥇🩸🗡🏹🛡📞🥨🥨🥨🥨🍩🍩🍩🍪🍪🍪🍧🍧🍭🍭☕🥂🍻💦

...how can there be all those pictures of food and not a single picture of waffles?

[ A TRAVESTY of the HIGHEST ORDER.

...right, yes, the game. ]

It isn't really very fair for me to guess yours after so many other people have so:

1. My favorite color is red.
2. My favorite drink is coffee.
3. My favorite game is checkers.

@astarkov

[sunmon]

There's no way someone who likes sweets so much drinks coffee and enjoys it.

[neversmall]

The trick is to get really dark, strong coffee and drink it through a sugar cube. 😋😁🍮

[sunmon]

Does that count as coffee?

[neversmall]

It counts as delicious. 😉

[sunmon]

I'm wrong, then?

Well, I certainly hope you like red. You spend an awful lot of time in it.

[neversmall]

I do like red.

...but I find it is no longer quite my favorite color. 😅

...that's a strange one. "😅" ...😅... no, I don't think that quite fit there. Maybe 😄? Hmm. 😀😁😂🤣😃😄😆... no.

Anyway, well done! Your turn.

[sunmon]

[ ok, ok, she'll look through the emoji library. ]

🧖🏻‍♀️
Some of these are strange. What is that a woman disappearing into fog?

Ok. Let's see.
1. I am a passable artist.
2. I can play the zither.
3. I've never learned to dance.

[neversmall]

I've no idea what half these things are: 🚗🚑🚍🛩✈ Strange carriages? With no horses? Odd birds?

I'd expect a mapmaker to be a passable artist, so it's a hard choice between the zither or dancing. I am going to go with number three, because it would simply be too sad if you'd never learned to dance.

[sunmon]

Unfortunately not.
I mean, I can make a passing attempt as well as anyone who hears music.
But I think the Ravkan court would be happiest if I kept my feet quite still.

@s.wilson

[unclesam]

some people have mastered the art of messaging nothing but pictures, and having entire conversations that way. plenty of ways to deliver meaning without words.

[ read: this is endearing and he intends to enable, hard. ]

[neversmall]

[ This is DELIGHTFUL news. ]

Have they? 👀👀👀 Amazing!

[unclesam]

you should try.
I bet you'd be amazing with some practice.

📝👍

[neversmall]

[ What's this? Unexpected, unmerited encouragement? That is very much NOT a Ravka thing.

Or the sort of kindness Nina's experienced from near strangers.

"Kindness."

But. She's not sensed any lack of sincerity in Sam, it doesn't feel like mockery.

It's still weird. But okay. ]

I hope you realize you've just volunteered to be a person I practice on. 😈😇😁

[unclesam]

oh I'm counting on it.
👨🏿🤜🏿✨🤛👩
that's us fistbumping 'cause we're awesome like that.

[ Oh yeah he's so here for this. There are few things as delightful as someone discovering a new joy and embracing it with all the energy they got, and Sam's ecstatic to support it.

If Natasha is able to help him get Redwing securely hooked into the network, he's 100% going to have him send Nina random emojis throughout the day. ]

[neversmall]

[ ...fistbumping?

That's a thing?

...

...

Nina loves it.

It's gonna take her a minute, tho: ]

👩🤜🎇✨🎆🤛🏾👨🏾‍🦲

[ She may have just legitimately said out loud: This is amazing! ]

[unclesam]

[ Note to self: He's gotta introduce her to the real thing, too. Good thing they work together. It's gonna be a neverending storm of high fives and fistbumps from here on out. ]

❕❕🙌🏾😁🎉🎊🍻🥳

[ Is it too early to declare one of the other hatchlings his new favorite? 'cause Nina is fast-tracking it. ]

[neversmall]

[ OK, the best thing about this is that Nina doesn't need an exact translation of any of those things to get the feeling behind it. This is fun!

It's nice to be able to have fun, people rarely indulge her silliness this long. ]

😁🤸‍♀️🤸🏾‍♂️💥🎉🎊🎇😁

[dissemblance]

I come to bequeath upon you the vaunted waffle emoji.

Behold: ✨ 🧇 ✨

I'm going with 3 as the lie. Who plays checkers these days?

[neversmall]

Waffles! 💞💖🧇💙💙😋 Thank you, kind stranger.

[ Please appreciate that she literally just went like this: 🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇 and then erased it out of some sense of consideration. ...nope, she's gonna, she's gotta: ]

🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇🧇!!!!!

[ Such joy! ]

Checkers can be a lot of fun. I am open to new suggestions, though.

[ The truth was that she hadn't had all that many options growing up, besides the games that weren't really fun and are not going to be spoken about. And there were card games that soldiers played, but no one ever managed to forget Nina was a Heartrender quite long enough for her to be able to fleece them. ]

[dissemblance]

Somebody needs to introduce you to Munchkin or cribbage or something, that's my takeaway here...

[neversmall]

I'm game.

[ Hush, she's hilarious. ]

[dissemblance]

Crib would be easier, it's just math.

I could show you?

[neversmall]

If you like! 😁 Like I said, I'd be happy to learn a new game. I'm Nina, by the way. Nina Zenik.

[dissemblance]

Nice to make your acquaintance, Nina. Call me Dostoevsky, like the name says.

Meet me by the mess hall later. Can't miss me, I'm wearing yellow.

（ she absolutely doesn't intend to show up, much less wearing yellow. she always planned to burn this identity — this is just to gather information.

sorry nina :C ）