Fast Eddie's Bowling Alley and Arcade - Saturday all day

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan had been jogging past the arcade for months. It didn't seem to have regular hours but on Friday, he'd managed to track down the manager and propose a pizza party, since there were all these kids. The manager seemed thrilled to have the business.

So, Saturday morning, the doors would open and the games would go on. All the neon in the windows would get lit up and a speaker set outside playing various video game songs and noises to draw people in. A sign outside would read:

CHILDREN'S WELCOME PARTY
Open to all children.
Games are free to play, snacks and drinks provided!


There's a bowling alley with accompanying tables and booths, just about every arcade game you could name, and along one side Kaidan had set up a projector and a few game consoles with some beanbags to lounge on.

In the back, there's a pizza buffet with other snacks like vegetables, fruits, breadsticks. Buckets on the table hold granola or other breakfast bars and individually wrapped snacks. The soda fountain has been fully stocked. It's quieter back by the food with more seating to just chill and chat.

One group of tables has been set aside for quiet games. Legos, coloring books, board games are set out for the children to enjoy.

[Desc poss edited when Summer comes online.]

[OCD is up, post is OPEN!]

Comments

Summer's thread

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan had texted Summer that the plan was a go, and the ridiculous hour of the morning he planned to be there to help clean and set up as well as the time the place actually opened.

Eddie's also there, bouncing around like an excited jumping bean. Turning games on and filling their head with all the info and trivia they could ever want about the games.

Re: Summer's thread

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Ohmygod," Summer said to her phone when she got Kaidan's text and stared at the proposed time, which, in her opinion, was not a time that should exist for anyone hardly ever, much less on a Saturday, "why are you like this?"

Did he even plan on sleeping? What was he doing to take care of himself? Who was taking care of Kaidan while Kaidan ran around trying to take care of all the kids he was so convinced were starving and freezing to death and being traumatized by being eight? How the heck did a grown-ass adult man probably twice her age make her feel more like a harried parent than any of the kids she'd encountered so far?

But she shot off a "Sounds good!" response with plenty of thumbs-up and firework emojis, and she was definitely there in the morning. Not at the time he'd texted, because, no, Kaidan, no. But it wasn't too long after because the thought of him just going crazy in the significant amount of time between then and when the door opened was too much. She'd walk in and find....well, she couldn't even conceive of what she'd find, but it would probably be ridiculous.

So there she was, coming in way earlier than she'd ever want to be up on a Saturday, managing somehow to get through the door despite carefully juggling three boxes and a whole lot of bags around her arms carrying all sorts of decorations and additional snacks and drinks and some board games and coloring books for the kids who might want to play something a little more quiet , and whatever else she could think of that might be needed or helpful.

...which....was an awful lot of stuff for someone who was harping on someone else about overkill. Just saying.

Bowling alley

[spectre_alenko]

All the lanes are on, each with an accompanying table and booth seating. One of the lanes has been set up with proper Canadian bowling at Kaidan's request, the others are standard American.

It's mostly quiet here until people start playing, then the crash of pins and clack of the ball return will make it less noisy.

Re: Bowling alley

[in_sidon_we_trust]

Sidon had...no idea what he was doing. But there was something about the bowling lanes that had him fascinated, the big heavy balls, the loooooong lanes with their smooth lines and arrows and the pins at the end, even the gutters flanking the lanes were interesting to him, and after watching someone at some point probably give it a try, he wanted to try it, too.

So there was a tiny little Zora carrying a big heavy ball over to the lane and dropping it, making little grunts and gasps all the while (punctuated, as well, by a few sneezes here and there, because, yes, of course jumping into a cold lake when it was snowing would lead to a wee little Zora cold). And, with a big, powerful "Hrrrnnnggggh!" he gave the ball a push down the lane, practically slipping and falling on his face as he did it. It didn't seem to bother him, though. What did bother him was that the ball wasn't moving very fast at all, and so there he went, running forward, slipping a bit on the smooth lane, trying to push the ball down the lane and then run with it, so they could knock over the pins together, and someone might want to step in here to maybe explain that that was not how you played bowling.

Or don't.

He was clearly having a pretty good time with it, either way.

Arcade Games

[spectre_alenko]

All the games are on free-to-play so you just push a button and go. Feel free to mod your game, it's an interdimensional nexus and I'm sure Eddie's taken advantage of that more than once.

There are many plastic stepstools around for the littles that might need a step up.

Re: Arcade Games

[suitably_heroic]

"Pow! Pow pow pow!"

Little Jaq was having the time of his life shooting at asteroids. Even if this game was like, so outdated, it was the most fun one there.

Re: Arcade Games

[what_the_shock]

Wow, these things were ancient! Miguel kind of couldn't believe they still worked.

Which wasn't going to stop him from picking one and hefting the plastic gun to try and kill some zombies!

Video Games

[spectre_alenko]

There are several beanbags set up around a couple game consoles with multiple controllers on each. The systems have been loaded with a bunch of games, but there's a note that there's a 2 hour time limit per round. Mostly so other kids can have a chance to play. The games are through a projector so the graphics won't have the perfect clarity you'd get on a display, but they're still pretty darned good.

Re: Video Games

[hashtag_chocobro]

Okay. Okay, fine! Prompto was going to go to this thing, but he was only here for video games and pizza and he wasn't going to talk to anyone, he was just going to get comfortable on a beanbag (as comfortable as he could be, anyway, considering) and lock onto his games and only get up when the crowd around the food tables cleared out a little bit and that was it.

Which wasn't that hard, really, it was pretty easy for him to get wrapped up completely in his games and not pay attention to anything else around him except that.

Re: Video Games

[always_someone]

This seemed like as good a place as any for a kid who didn't want to be bothered to sit with a plate of pizza off to the side, to throw his attention into what was directly in front of him while pretending to be social or something.

Norman couldn't help but be aware that, of all the kids here, he was maybe one of the bigger kids, sure, but that mostly just meant that he was old enough to be disappointed that there weren't any really good, violent zombie horror games loaded into the system.

... So he settled for the one where zombies were raiding and he had to use plants to fend them off, because never let it be said that Norman Babcock didn't find a theme and stick with it.

At the food tables

[spectre_alenko]

There are.. there are a lot of snacks, and they are refilled as soon as they run out. A pizza buffet is laid out, complete with garlic bread. Trays of fresh veggies and fruits separate the pizza pans. Buckets of granola bars or breakfast bars or other protein-style bars are kept filled, and sometimes they fill with small wrapped hard candies. Occasionally trays of warm chocolate chip cookies will appear, but the appearance of those is random because none of the adults are dumb.

The soda fountain holds an array of fizzy soft drinks. Ice water is available in pitchers at every table.

There are plates, bowls, cups, napkins, and silverware available. Also a bucket of wet wipes.

There's seating and tables, and it's much quieter back here. The adults avoid this area and only circle through to make sure the food gets topped up or reassure the children that yes, the food is for taking and no, we don't care if you put the wrapped stuff in your pockets for later but please don't do that with the pizza because it's greasy.

Re: At the food tables

[chirpchirpchirp]

There was one particular little girl, blue-skinned and far too thin, lurking around the edges of the food tables. She had been wandering, and while she hadn't really seen or understood the sign, she had understood the smell of food from outside.

She was absolutely keeping down low and trying to make off with anything she could reach, and nobody could stop her. She hoped.

Re: At the food tables

[died8yearsago]

After a morning of very unsuccessful hunting, Rosa was more than a little pleased to see that there was something going on where she could warm up for a bit, get some food that she didn't have to depend on her dumb dog hunting for, and plan a strategy for just how she'd go about building her new home in the woods.

She didn't know if dogs were allowed in here or not, but she obviously didn't care, because Emily wasn't leaving her side for anything, it was just her and her dog against the world, and she was picking pepperoni off her pizza to feed to the dog after loading up a plate and finding a place to sit down. If someone did have an issue with dogs in here, then they could take it up with her, and she made sure to make it very clear to anyone who look at her that they didn't want to take it up with her unless they also wanted a whole heap of trouble.

...it wasn't nearly as an effective look as she thought it was.

Re: At the food tables

[1000yearstoolate]

People were eating food with their bare hands. People were eating with bare hands.

Seivarden, who obviously was wearing gloves, backed away from the food tables.

Re: At the food tables

[firstofitskind]

Liam had no idea what most of the other stuff in this place was. Well, 'games', he knew in a vague conceptual sort of sense? But he was a child-sized person with a set of inherited memories meant for an adult. Knowledge of this sort of thing hadn't been a priority for Ha'gel, clearly, when he'd created Liam.

Food, though... he knew what food was. And was determined to try a little bit of everything, to compare actual taste against memory.

Re: At the food tables

[sharp_man]

The man whose house Hannibal had woken up in had encouraged him to come here. Hannibal was dubious; should he trust him? And there were other children, and they weren't always kind, and adults were usually worse.

He was warily making his way toward the food and reaching up to grab a handful of vegetables, then sitting with his back against the wall to eat them.

Re: At the food tables

[what_the_shock]

Hey, pizza! Pizza was pretty good. Especially with lots of meat on it.

Miguel was absolutely grabbing a piece.

Re: At the food tables

[mages_suck]

Leto found his way to the party by virtue of the flood of other children going in that direction. He couldn't read the sign but he walked right on in like he was supposed to be there.

He found the food tables, and made himself a plate. A plate heaped with enough pizza and breadsticks that it seemed almost impossible he'd be able to eat it all. Anyone betting on that would lose money, because he was putting it away almost as fast as he could pile it up.

Those granola bars were being taken and squirreled away in the pouch at his waist and in the folds of his outer garment.

For the wallflowers

[spectre_alenko]

It's an arcade. Areas are brightly lit, some others are less brightly lit. If you want a place to lurk and watch, there are many.

The adults might notice you, but none of them are going to approach you and try to drag you out of your safe space. They mostly just want to make sure no bigger kids are picking on you.

Re: For the wallflowers

[built_fjord_tough]

This? This right here? This was where Fjord was parking himself. Just sitting in awkward, wary silence, half-buried under a cloak that was much too large for him, keeping his eyes on all the other people here.

So many humans. He felt even more self-conscious than usual, realizing just how different from the rest of them he was. Maybe if he sat here long enough, some of them would clear away from the food table so that he could try to pilfer something to eat without any trouble.

Talk to Kaidan

[spectre_alenko]

He's around, keeping an eye on things. Occasionally playing a game of proper bowling. Mostly just helping Eddie with the occasional glitched-up game and hanging out.

Re: Talk to Kaidan

[1000yearstoolate]

"Is this your party?" Seivarden asked the adult, who, she noted, wasn't wearing gloves either. "Just so you know, people are picking up the food with bare hands."

Horrifying.

Help

[spectre_alenko]

Find an adult and ask them for help. There are a few around, one of them - or possibly all of them - will show up to help you.

Re: Help

[myownface]

Here was Sparkle, Sparkle was here.

Sparkle wasn't going to miss this for anything.

"Oh my god I love them all."

This was all getting caught on his phone's camera, guys.

Quiet games

[spectre_alenko]

A table set up with legos, board games, coloring books, and other quiet types of entertainment for the kids.

Re: Quiet games

[uncertain_dume]

Caleb was going to be over here, with his roly-poly baby puppy with the rainbow spots, looking thoughtfully over the legos.

Well... they weren't his training supplies from the temple, but so long as the puppy formerly known as Stance was napping in his lap, he was going to sit here and try to meditate.

Lazily floating Lego pieces, anybody?

OOC

[spectre_alenko]

So the world doesn't end.

Pls note: I have this set to 'do not email' so I don't get overwhelmed. I'm checking threads every so often, promise I'm not ignoring anyone!