Logs:M(i/a)croaggressions

M(i/a)croaggressions
Dramatis Personae Ford, Quentin, Roscoe	2024-05-24 "You little scamp, I didn't know that you were into older women!"
Location <NYC> Ballroom - Le Bonne Entente - Astoria
This elegant ballroom has been transformed, tonight, into a glittering celestial wonderland. The "Out of this World" theme for the prom has translated into the tasteful work of a team of decorators endeavoring to make the grand space feel like a small reflection of the frosted night sky. Around the edges of the room the tables with their subtly embroidered tablecloths hold blown-glass centrepieces of star-shaped flowers in various colors flecked through with glimmering silver. Delicate lights hang suspended from the ceiling to look almost floating. There's no plastic cups and messy punch bowl, here -- formally-attired waitstaff circulate the room, trays laden with a variety of upscale hors d'oeuvres and nonalcoholic beverages in champagne flutes. The patio just adjoining the ballroom with its manicured flowers and photo-friendly lighting is a popular spot for selfies, though the official prom photographer has set up near the entrance of the ballroom with their own tasteful backdrop. By far the most breathtaking part of the decoration comes if you look up -- where there should be a ceiling, there is instead a breathtaking and strikingly realistic expanse of the night sky, glittering with far more stars than are ever really seen above the light-polluted city. Energy is flagging just a little, toward the end of the dance; the music is getting intermittently slow-dancey and the slow-dancing is getting intermittently sloppy. Roscoe has a date to this dance -- he bought a corsage and a boutonniere and everything -- but he's bowed out of this last stretch of romance and is standing wallflowerly to the side, leaning against the wall, feet crossed at the ankles, sipping a champagne flute of soda with a mint leaf in it, colorful specks of light flickering ethereal over his face, his dark suit. He's carefully neither close enough to nor far away from the Adult Chaperones to seem suspicious in either direction, and the maintenance of this neutrality is running on an instinctive, hypervigilant autopilot. This frees up the rest of Roscoe's mind for a churning, annoyed rumination as he stares at -- into? -- the dance, generally, very fixated on comparing his boring rented tux to Dallen's, with simultaneous self-consciousness about also being a short East Asian with bad hair and no spending money, and indecision over who is doing it better, << (it should be you, right?) (Dallen is def doing it gayer) (stupid competing with a twelve year old) (hhhrggghh) >> Though he's bobbing his head to the music, he doesn't know the song playing, and this irritation, too, is folded in with all the rest as incontrovertible proof that Prom Sucks and it sucks worst of all for Roscoe. Ford, with his own flute of soda, steps up to also observe the dancing, though he is much less contemplative, and he is having a great time. He is wearing a wool mohair Shelton tuxedo, a silk slim fit shirt, with a satin bowtie. His burnished leather brogue lace up shoes are well polished and elaborately detailed. It's all crisp and immaculate and somehow makes him look even taller than he actually is, no mean feat. "Hey, hey, little buddy, why you looking so glum, chum?" he says to Roscoe, head tilted out towards said dance floor, "Your feet can't be all danced out yet." Quentin has a date, too, but they're just exiting the dance floor, as flushed and happy as prom propaganda promises teenagers ought to be tonight. His date is disappearing, though, and as he slips over -- striking, though his color palette is traditional in black and ivory the longer Nehru-jacket inspired cut and embroidery of his tuxedo jacket is not -- he's plucking a pair of sparkling raspberry-apple ciders from a circulating waiter. He's sipping at his own, ambling casual towards Roscoe and Ford. "Ford could probably steal Sera for a dance if you want to," he can't see Sriyani and the Small/Tinyreds through the crowd, but he's tipping the spare drink he's claimed for Nahida unerringly toward them, "I don't know, experiment, tonight." "I am older than you," Roscoe retorts, as though this renders Ford's comment wholly inappropriate rather than much funnier; as the other boys close in on him he is drawing his posture up as tall as he can, which is not very tall. His eyes flick from Quentin to the crowd where Quentin just indicated, as though he's not already aware exactly where Sriyani and their dates are -- "And you have a date," he adds to Ford, over the mental alarm going off now, << teep teep teep! >> like a truck backing up, the oversize load of Somebody (this morphs rapidly into Everybody) Knowing bearing down on him. Roscoe has a Psionic Self-Defense examination next week but his defenses are not very disciplined -- though he is dutifully spinning up something else to think about, his annoyance at having to do so is a lot more pronounced than his Minecraft Thoughts. It does kind of drown out Sriyani Thoughts too, at least. "Don't say experimenting," he says. "That's a microaggression." Roscoe doesn't know against whom this is a microaggression -- if anything, he feels macroaggressed right now -- this just seems like a much more sensible counter than denial. Ford adjusts his bowtie and grins, "Just because I have a date doesn't mean I can't have a dance or two with the other girls." He looks over towards Quentin and then to Roscoe, and continues more conspiratorially, "A microaggression against who? Science teachers? Are you planning to ask Ms. Lawrence?" He looks around for the biology teacher who has unenthusiastically volunteered to chaperone, but he pats Roscoe on the shoulder even when he does not manage to spot her, "You little scamp, I didn't know that you were into older women! Your secret is safe with me!" It would be safer if he were not exclaiming. "Sriyani's seven months younger than Roscoe. They're only old to you." Quentin's tone conveys, here, the great distance of this age gap vs. Ford's callow youth (he himself may be younger still than Ford but what does this matter.) "Sriyani's here with multiple guys, though, I can't imagine they'll be fussed if you want to ask them out, too." He's looking, still, in the direction of the dancefloor, but he pivots quick to assure Roscoe: "And don't worry, I can hear you pining from across an entire building. But," he adds, benevolently, "I won't say experimenting if you commit. It's 2024, it's pretty hip now, although I think you missed the window on the gay thing being good college essay cachet." Roscoe's eyes dart rapidly away from Sriyani back to the other two when Ford pats his shoulder; he raises one arm defensively. "Shut up!" he says automatically, also exclaiming; as soon as he's said it he realizes this is a mistake, and << ({shut the fuck up} you are acting like you care act like you don't care!) >> rapidly overwhelms even his mental whinging about telepathy. When he tilts his head back against the wall he finds Sriyani in the crowd again -- "I'm not gay," he says, and presents as evidence, "Even if they're not a girl they're also not a boy." (He's pretty sure this is good enough even for these Debate Team members.) The movement when his eyes return to the others is very slight -- he's trying now to find a way to extract vows of secrecy without having anything to offer as payment and coming rapidly to the conclusion that with these two it would be cheaper to just talk to Sriyani. He peels himself away from the wall before it occurs to him -- "You think Sera will be mad?" Ford looks surprised by Roscoe's exclamation, and he nods a bit between Sriyani and Roscoe. << Makes sense, >> he decides after evaluating his extrasensory information, though now he is doing some mental calculus on how gay it is. "It's a little gay of center, though, don't you think?" he muses, and takes a drink from his soda, and looks towards as if seeking a second opinion on the matter. He continues, "I don't think Sera will be mad about that, though, it seems to me that she comes from a pretty gay family." The majority of his mental evidence of that is the frenchness, though. "Either way," he says, grinning to Roscoe and giving a reassuring nod, "In any case, I will ask her for a dance, and play interference for you."