ArchivedLogs:Serious Business

Serious Business
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Marinov, Shane
In Absentia	2017-01-02 "God knows the world can always use more art."
Location <NYC> Harbor Commons - Sunroom - Lower East Side
Bright and warm, this room is set up to enjoy a little bit of the outdoors even year-round. Tall glass panes make up most of its wall in between wood supports, providing a wide three-sided view of the garden and yard outside. As well as the inner doors leading back into the kitchens and dining room, an outer door leads out to the outdoor gardens, as well. Inside, the room is airy and green -- a plethora of potted herbs and plants hang from the ceiling, as well as ring the room in a series of narrow wooden raised-beds that provide growing space for a selection of herbs year-round. Outside of the herb beds that ring the room, this place is designed simply to come and relax; quiet and simple, with clean stone floors and neutral-toned wicker furniture adorned with comfortable cushioning. Some of the chairs ring stone-and-glass tables for eating or conversing; a few more solitary seats come in the form of rocking chairs or netted hammock-chairs hanging from the ceiling. Winter is continuing to be not-very-wintery; even outside the sunroom it's a mild afternoon, chill and grey but hardly /January/. The room itself is, given the cloudy day, not living up to its name, kind of dim, kind of gloomy. It /smells/ cozy and inviting, at least; there's a tray of warm bowls of delicate beef soup, heavily laden with slices of brisket and flank that Shane is just carrying to set down on one of the tabletops. He's dressed in a black-and-silver mandarin-collar button-down, today, a faint sheen to his black slacks. Marinov took a leisurely pace through the Commons, wanting to see a bit more of what the place looks like while they are allowed inside, but arrives in the Sunroom on time nonetheless. They are wearing a pea coat, currently unbuttoned, with a forest green vest with a bit of a shimmer to it and a bow tie. The teen sniffs at the air upon entering, ears perking up at the smell of the soup. "Hey Shane! Thanks for the invite. Smells good here." YOINK. One of those bowls is snagged right quick. Wandering in from the outdoor entrance, Dusk looks a good deal more casual than the other two -- faded old corduroys, worn sude workboots, no shirt. The enormous wings wrapped cloaklike around him currently are coloured in shifting shades of ice-blue like a glacier, with an odd sense of depth that shifts with their movement. Dusk sets his messenger bag down beside a hammock chair, settling down into it and lifting his scruffy bearded chin to the others. "Yo. This smells delicious. -- You must be Marinov? I'm Dusk." Shane's smile is bright and toothy when he looks up from his crouch by the table. "Just on time! It's a little hot, give it a minute." He gestures invitingly to the bowls of soup, taking one for himself as he hops up into a wicker chair. "You want anything to drink? -- Dusk helped me, like, a fuckton with setting shit up for the Olympics so I thought maybe he could help with bouncing ideas." "Hello Dusk, nice to meet you. Yeah, I'm Marinov. Taylor Marinov," says the teen, nodding and then looking to Shane, "Um, I think just water would be alright by me." They pick up a bowl of soup to take a closer sniff, eyes closed. When they look up again, their eyes are on Dusk. "Yeah? You helped with that? I thought it was such a cool event. I mean, I was too young to do anything but it was great to see." They take a seat on one of the wicker chairs, resting on the edge of it to give their tail some space. "I hope that my thing gets even half as much attention!" "Mostly just on the back end." Dusk shrugs, a small hitch of one wing. "Shane's only told me a little about what you had in mind but it sounds pretty fantastic. Maybe you can fill me in a bit more." He leans down, pulls a thermos out of his own bag. The smell when he opens it is sharp, coppery -- bloody. He offers Marinov a warm fangy smile before taking a swig. "Seeing some /positive/ attention on us freaks is kind of sorely needed." "Yeah no kidding. Not to mention just --" Shane's claws click lightly against the side of his bowl. "Publicity aside, I think one of the most amazing things about the Olympics just ended up being having that /space/, you know? There's so little of it for us. All these people who have so many doors shut in their face all the time. You're going to build a place for artists who -- don't have that shit. Like on a whole 'nother level fuck what anyone else thinks about it, y'know? /That's/ amazing all on its own." Marinov takes in a deep breath at the smell of blood, eyes drifting towards the thermos. They stay focused on it a few seconds, before their attention snaps away suddenly and they take a scoop of soup. They open their mouth quickly after to try and cool off the soup they already hastily scooped in without heed to the prior warning. Once it is swallowed, they cough once and then say, "Yeah, having positive attention and space is what I thought would be great. But that's exactly it... seems like there are a lot of artists in our community who aren't getting the exposure or the chance, yeah? I mean... mostly, I was thinking of visual arts and I guess stage stuff, the latter sort of like a fringe festival sort of thing? I mean, I've been researching, seems like... it'll be a lot of work, of course, but might be worth it. I think finding the space is gonna be the big upfront challenge, 'cause not a lot of places around the city would be willing to host that sorta thing, and we'd need at least a few small venues, or one big one." They scratch the back of their neck and add, "But... if you have ideas contrary to what I'm saying, that helps, yeah? I've never organized something like this. I just know... I want to." "Definitely a lot of work." A flush of red creeps into Dusk's cheeks at the attention given to his thermos, but he takes another gulp before capping it. Balancing his soup carefully on his knee, he leans down to get his laptop from his bag as well, opening it on the table in front of him and turning on its holographic display to pull up -- a very exciting blank spreadsheet that he starts labeling columns in. "But doable work. Venues, promotion, staffing, collecting participants, refreshments if you're going to have any -- security was one of our biggest concerns at the Evolympics, if you get advertising down right you're gonna have to brace for /mad/ hate but that's manageable too. Mmmn. Fundraising." "Nah," Shane waves away the mention of contrary ideas. "Your ideas sound on the ball. It's all the details that are like. A fucking pain, right? And I had the benefit of a team of help the first time around so if I can help by sharing any of what I learned about carrying it out --" He winces at the mention of fundraising. "... like start with /that/ early as fuck." His eyes abruptly widen -- he sets his bowl aside, hopping out of his seat and dashing off through the door to the kitchen. He's returned straightaway with a glass of water, handing it sheepishly to Marinov before taking his seat again. "... I forgot. Still getting the hang of this. Host. Thing. Uh. Oh! Oh there's this art collective. In Brooklyn. Chimaera. They got performance space and would absolutely help with hosting I'm sure -- and I bet some of the people there might have a lead on mutant-friendly galleries if you want to spread visual art shows around. I don't -- know a /ton/ about friendly gallery places but," he is only moderately successful in hiding a small frown behind his soup bowl, "my pa probably would." Despite spreadsheets not being very exciting, Marinov looks duly impressed by this kind of organization; spreadsheets are for serious business, and it makes this all the more real to them. They look on with a surprised expression when Shane dashes off, giving Dusk a questioning look, but then understanding sets in when the water is brought. "Thanks, Shane!" says Marinov, who continues after a momentary pause to drink. "Security is, yeah, gonna be important... Any gathering of mutants, unfortunately, is gonna attract shitty attention. What did you do for the Evolympics for your security? Fundraising, I want to avoid any sponsorhip from people who aren't /actually/ making a positive difference and just want to market to mutants." They take a sip at the soup this time and then continue, "Umm, Chimaera? I'll check it out. Anything folks are willing to help with is help I'm willing to take. They're mutant positive, I'm taking it?" They are too caught up in their own thoughts to notice Shane's frown, just repeating, "Your pa?" "We did -- a lot." Dusk's brows furrow thoughtfully, his fingers pausing over the holographic display. "In terms of /physical/ security we always had a /lot/ of people on-site -- folks from your school, mutants who'd done security other places like the Mendel Clinic, people from Shane's motorcycle club -- anyone tough and willing to go through orientation and volunteer. B and I also set up the camera network on-site at all the places with a similar algorithm that she used here and at your school to alert to zombie activity -- it sent out an alert to the team if it caught signs of violence. We /also/ had a lot of screening and cross-referencing of the massive fucking amount of hate-mail coming in to make sure nobody buying tickets was the same as the people sending the hate, but that's only going to work so far -- it's hella easy to have a million dummy accounts." Shrug. "But with enough of a physical presence on-site we kept things safe." His tongue pokes into the side of his cheek at the mention of Jax -- he just takes a sip of his soup, quiet. "No shitty sponsors, yeah, good call. We had offers from some creepsters like fucking /Themis/ house too but -- hell no." Shane shudders, a brief fluttering ripple passing through his gills. "Yeah, they're mutant postive. It's an artist co-op, a lot of mutants are part of it. My pa and B are and they haven't kicked them out even with the whole -- terrorism thing." He shakes his head, staring down into his soup. "But my pa went to art college and has had a few shows at galleries even after being -- infamous or whatever. Even in jail you can still email him. Well. You /can/ visit, but -- jail." Small shrug. "It's kind of a weird vibe." His cheeks puff out; he skewers a slice of brisket, downing it hungrily. "Evolve can help you with refreshments. I can get you a list of places that helped with in-kind donations -- food or like fucking, screen-printing tees or printing fliers and shit -- for the Evolympics if you want to reach out and see if anyone's likely to be helpful. Sometimes it takes," he says a little wryly, "a lot of sucking up." "Holy shit," mumbles Marinov at the mention of all the different security measures that were taken. "I guess some of that we can re-do, yeah, since some of that's stuff that's already sort of set up? For volunteers... I can probably advertise to the same folks, especially from my school." They make a face at the mention of Themis house and says, "Eh, yeah, that's exactly the thing I'd want to avoid. Want it to be positive, something where people can feel good about who they are, I guess. But yeah, I'm willing to do a lot of sucking up to get this off the ground, so long as I'm not sort of compromising what I'm setting out to do, you know?" They chuckle softly and then say, "But yea, any contacts or lists... that's going to help me out a lot, I think." They scoop up some of the bits of meat in the soup, "Sounds like Chimaera is gonna be a lot of help with the venues at least, and especially if they have lots of mutants who are part of it, might be lots of interest from them in the first place." Dusk nods readily. "Yeah, definitely. Groundwork's already done, code-wise." He slurps a mouthful of his soup, eyes closing happily. Briefly. When he cracks them open again, looking at Marinov: "So do /you/, uh, art? Are you gonna exhibit something at this shindig? What's the criteria going to be, anyway?" "I'll get you so many contacts you'll be drowning in 'em," Shane tells Marinov cheerfully. "Just let me know if you want a hand reaching out to anyone. You're gonna be sending so many emails. Making so many phone calls. I'll help you write thank-you notes after till our hands cramp." He folds his legs in under himself, tucking them into a pretzel. "Marinov /is/ their own art." Marinov can't help but to giggle at being called their own art, "I design and make clothes. I make most of my own clothes, actually. I mean, I also make dolls, but I don't like to show that to anyone... some people have problems with their dead, soulless eyes," says Marinov, tilting their head slightly in thought and eating a bit more soup. "But I'm pretty much prepared for not having the time to showcase anything 'cause I think I'm gonna be real fucking busy. And it'll be worth it. I'll send enough emails that my fingers'll be sore. For the criteria, I dunno... I don't want to censor content or whatever, but I guess it'll depend on interest how we'll deal with it. Probably first come first serve, but for visual art, each artist is gonna of course have a limited amount of space, and for stage stuff, a limited amount of time." "Oh hell yeah!" Dusk looks over Marinov's outfit with a new appreciation. "That's awesome. That /looks/ awesome. I sew a lot but most days I look like a total scrub," he admits with a laugh. "It's only come con season that I pull out the stops. Alright. What's your email? I'll share all the notes with everyone. Be easier to work on all the prep together from now on." "Creepy art is a fine and upstanding tradition among monsters." Shane chomps another piece of beef, nodding along with Marinov. "May not have the time. Be running around like a totally sleepless madm... person. 'least that's how Olympics-time was for me. But if you plan to make it a regular event like yearly or something, maybe once you get the swing of it the next ones won't be /so/ hectic. And then -- excellent fashion slot all for you." Quick-grin. "Well. A limited amount of excellent fashion slot, anyway." Marinov's ears redden a bit at being complimented on their outfit. They nod thanks and offer, "My email is tmarinov@xaviers.edu, just the standard school email. And I was thinking about that, yeah, if it's successful, then it could be a recurring thing and I'll definitely want to show off a little." They look between Dusk and Shane and add, "Thanks for helping with this. I'd... probably be clueless for where to start if it weren't for the help, yeah?" Entering the email together with Shane's, Dusk changes the sharing permissions on the spreadsheet and closes the file. Settling back in comfortably with his soup, he just nods at the help. "Definitely. I'm just psyched to see what you're going to do. It sounds rad. And I mean," he waves his spoon toward Marinov's clothes, "god knows the world can always use more art."