Devil's Nest | Thursday Evening

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie was a little weirdly nervous about her movie premiere tomorrow, and even more about the fact that Mr. Edgar had called a meeting in the early afternoon, beforehand. Maybe she'd get out of going? That would be kind of shockingly welcome.

In the meantime, her nerves and anticipation showed in her specials.


~*Specials*~
Classic Star
Red Hot Cinnamon Martini
Fast Car
Red, White and Blue Cocktail
Black Magic Champagne Cocktail
Dark 'n Stormy

Fun fact: two-thirds of the people being honored on the specials board had attacked Annie at one time or another.

Maybe she needed a new job, jeez.

[open, OCD free 'cause it isn't even 8 AM and I'm tired already.]

Comments

[pocketpretzels]

Oh look, here was someone else feeling some kind of anticipatory about tomorrow! For different reasons, of course. But still.

"Evening, Miss January," Watts greeted as he entered and found a spot at the bar.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Mr. Watts," Annie answered warmly, shooting a smile over at him. "How's it going?"

[pocketpretzels]

“I’ve no complaints,” Watts said. It was then that he noticed the specials board. “That’s an extensive list.”

[defenderofdesmoines]

"My team for my other job has a movie premiering tomorrow," Annie explained, ready to help with additional context if needed. (Though there was a movie theater in town? That seemed like a quick thing for a time traveler from the past to notice was a thing now.) "So these are all kind of representative of each active member right now, and the adversary we fought that's shown in the film."

A pause, and then -- almost shyly -- she added, "I'm the Star."

[pocketpretzels]

“Hm,” Watts said thoughtfully. He was, as it happened, familiar with the movie theatre! It had been the site of his first actual date with Steven after all.

“Well, in that case, I suppose I ought to try that one.”

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Good choice," Annie congratulated him proudly, grabbing ingredients and a shaker. "The others are a redheaded strongwoman, a guy who can run really fast," in theory, "my team captain who dresses in, like, full Americana, a ninja, and a woman with lightning powers."

So the drinks maybe made more sense with those hints?

"We're supposed to be The Seven," she added. "But we've been down to five for, like, a year."

Though that would be changing in about two weeks, too!

[pocketpretzels]

“Oh?” Watts raised an eyebrow. “What happened?”

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Um, one guy -- he has ocean-based powers -- was demoted for misconduct," Annie said, notably careful about how she chose her words, there. "And Ms. Lightning Powers was actually on the team for a minute but she turned out to be a...very bad person."

Again: Annie was not a history buff, but she was reasonably sure that Nazis hadn't been a prominent thing until well after Watts' time, right?

[pocketpretzels]

Correct, Annie! He was from a few years before the first world war, as it happened.

“Perhaps you need better screening methods for selecting your teammates,” he noted.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Oh, we super do. We're actually televising the contest to determine the two remaining members of the team, so that's a little better than usual?" Annie shared, placing the completed cocktail in front of him with a little flourish. "They have to, like, do feats of strength and stuff."

And she was pulling for Supersonic and Silver Kincaid, but not holding her breath on the latter considering Vought's insistence on toeing the line between looking woke but actually being racist as hell.

[pocketpretzels]

Watts took a curious sip of the cocktail, and then gave Annie an approving nod. “I like that,” he reported.

“A televised contest? How does that work?” Congrats for introducing him to the concept of reality TV, Annie!

[defenderofdesmoines]

Don't mind Annie straight up throwing up her arms in a silent cheer at his approval. She wasn't quite Summer about it, but bartending praise was always great.

"So," she explained, bringing her hands back down to rest on the bar, "basically the idea is that the pool of contestants competes at trials to demonstrate why they'd be an asset to the team -- showing off what they can do, interviewing and explaining their prior accomplishments, all kinds of stuff like that. The home audience just kind of gets to be in on the process. And it's a limited run -- each week, one contestant is sent home, until finally narrow it down to the finalists and declare a winner."

And Annie was the host, so she got to say the incredibly awesome line, 'Please hang up your cape and go,' on a weekly basis. She loved it, for real.

[pocketpretzels]

Yeah, if this was happening in his world someone would absolutely end up murdered during the show’s run. That’s just how things worked, there was always a murder.

“What an unusual way to conduct what is, essentially, a job interview.” Did he mean that as a compliment or criticism? Hard to tell, really.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"You think that's bad," Annie commented dryly, mixing herself up the Queen Maeve martini thing, "you should watch The Bachelor. There's all kinds of shows like mine."

And honestly, it deserved criticism, in Annie's opinion, but she also really liked that these heroes who weren't making the team were getting national exposure. She would have loved that when she had been working out of Des Moines and Fandom.

[pocketpretzels]

Well, now the notepad (and assorted detritus) was getting dragged out again so he could write that down.

“And people find this… appealing?”

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Yeah -- the term you want to look up is 'reality television,'" Annie offered, noting the notebook and remembering it from the White Claw experiment. "It's totally a mixed bag -- there's a lot of stuff where it's a competition to win a prize or something, instead of a particular job or boyfriend or whatever. People get invested at home. Sometimes you can phone in votes and stuff to influence the outcome."

[pocketpretzels]

“Fascinating,” Watts noted. “It seems I have more catching up to do than I thought when it comes to modern entertainment.”

[defenderofdesmoines]

"That," she offered, "is only about a twenty year-old form of entertainment. Though -- have you seen a game show? They were kind of born out of that."

Non-competition reality shows -- like Annie's own Citizen Starlight or the whole Kardashian empire -- were, of course, a very different beast, but she didn't need to muddy the waters.

[pocketpretzels]

"I'm afraid not," Watts admitted. "So far my experience with the medium has only been with films. I don't have one of the television devices myself as of yet." Which he supposed he could fix easily enough, really.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Do you have a phone?" Annie wondered. "Or a different, smaller device?"

Because like...YouTube was a thing she could tell him all about.

(And if he didn't have a phone yet -- like, start there, dude.)

[pocketpretzels]

“I do, as a matter of fact,” Watts said, fishing the smartphone of Some Unidentifiable Brand out of his jacket pocket.

“I’ve figured out how to get music to play on it, at least.” Because yes, Spotify was absolutely the first app he’d mastered. “And the camera.”

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Okay, that's pretty good," Annie told him encouragingly. Hey, Diego had been new to smartphones a couple years ago -- this wasn't her first rodeo. "There's an app you should get called YouTube -- Y-O-U-T-U-B-E." Look how helpful! "It's for sharing videos -- short films. Small selections of shows and movies, little films set to music, short news stories -- and there's a lot of people who create their own videos for whatever reason."

But, more importantly: it would allow him to look up what the hell she was talking about without investing in a whole television situation.

[pocketpretzels]

A minute or so of poking at the device later, and he’d successfully downloaded a YouTube.

“Let me guess; there are going to be an inordinate number of videos about cats.”

[defenderofdesmoines]

"...did someone already brief you on the internet?" Annie asked, suspicious. "I'm more of a dog person, but yeah, so many cat videos."

[pocketpretzels]

“There is a rather well-known inventor back home who came up with a device called the Pendrick Portal,” Watts shared, “which allowed for instantaneous text-and-picture-based communication across long distances. Its chief purpose seemed to be to distribute pictures and jokes about cats. Also pornography.”

And, shockingly, evidence of a murder.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Yeah, that's pretty much the internet," Annie agreed, having to laugh a little. "The porn, too. Though YouTube is, uh, pretty PG-13."

Hang on, make that more accessible. "Appropriate," she amended. "They're pretty strict about it."

[pocketpretzels]

Thank you for that amendment, Annie, as he’d just opened his mouth to ask the question.

“So I would not accidentally stumble upon something that would be awkward to view in a work-related space,” he mused.

Or listen to for that matter, considering he still hadn’t gotten himself some good headphones.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I mean, language is still going to be a concern," Annie noted. "We're pretty loose with profanity these days." Even Annie, who had given up swearing for Lent only a year ago and now sounded...you know, like she spent a lot of time around people who peppered their sentences with F-bombs. "But you should be safe from anything too untoward just popping up, yeah."