TWO TO THE ONE TO THE ONE TO THE THREE, I LIKE GOOD PUSSY AND I LIKE GOOD TREE

[Cicadan]

Paris thought the next song that came on after a brief iPod shuffling from the host was also pretty flexible in terms of moral fiber. The lyrical content distracted him for a moment, in a way like how stepping on dog leavings was distracting. Then Paris glanced around a bit. Girl-with-the-name was flipping through her Instagram, good old Chuck was picking up his glasses for some reason. Seeing all that reminded Paris that he was among probably-good company.

"Yeah, you definitely can! I agree with Chuck here, pretty much. These photos are phenomenal even if I don't really get the technical detail behind any of them." Paris's eyes glazed over as he tried to study one in particular. "Like how did you manage to make the lighting here so, you know. Lifelike."

Then Maxwell had shown up again. Paris nodded at him. "Dude, check it out, this girl's got some mad photos." Paris also looked right at Maxwell when he said 'this girl'. Gestured at Yaz with a more careful nod, discretely enough so that everyone involved could see.

She was probably still his type, definitely.

Paris let his gaze wander around some more. He saw Cilo in the distance, awkwardly lurking and looking mad or whatever it was she normally did with her free time. He waved her over with friendly intent. A definite case of 'the more the merrier' probably. While he was calling her he was also asking Yaz another question while not in anyway actually talking to or facing her.

"What do you think of Instagram filters? Does using them not count, like, too easy?"

[Deamon]

Great. More people and questions. Just what Yaz wanted.

It was too late now though, she had already said she was going to show them her photography so now you had to actually do that.

Yet another person had come over to join the little group that was making her the current center of attention. Like Paris, Maxwell was a popular, well-known kid, the sort that would attend a party like the one they were at. It did make it even more clear to Yaz just how out of place she actually was at the party. She was not one of the popular or well-known kids, hell she wasn't even a known kid. She just happened to be a kid that existed at the same school. The only person who was even near her level was Chuck but he was actually social which put him ahead of her.

"Um. Hi."

She looked up at Maxwell quickly. He wasn't bad looking. He looked like the typical attractive popular boy. Despite that his hair and style of dress made him look like he should have been the missing fourth member of Green Day. Not that Yaz vocalized any of those thoughts, she merely looked at him, analyzing his face while he was talking to Paris before her eyes darted back down to her phone.

On a more positive note at least they didn't hate her work. They may have just been being polite after all but in the scenario Yaz found herself in she would accept fake praise over constructive criticism just to avoid any more awkwardness. Not counting the awkwardness she was already providing of course.

Paris asked her something about the use of filters.

"I mean...not really, a lot of SLR's use filters over the actual lens to get a specific look so an Instagram filter works similar to that...kinda."

Yaz gave the reply while keeping her eyes planted firmly on the screen. The cup hovered near her mouth and as soon as she spoke she took a few quick sips and nervously gripped its lip between her teeth before looking up at Paris.

"So probably not cheating no."

[General Goose]

Oh.

Chuck had something for this. Something for this specific situation. A pre-prepared one-liner that he had thought up during one of his brief, abortive, largely unsuccessful forays into creative writing. A very punchy, piquant line that would have been a brilliant punchline in a lighthearted scene. Oh. Bugger. Dickcheese. He couldn't remember it was. To the others around him, he must looked like quite a sight: alternately scrunching his face up in deep thought and mild consternation, and then flicking his eyes up beyond his glasses, staring at the ceiling.

Finally, oblivious to whether the conversation had utterly stagnated, or had moved onto greener pastures, a proud Chuck finally blurted out "filters are for coffee!" Coffee filters were a thing, right? He wasn't sure what they were, but he knew they were a thing. And then he realised he didn't want to seem judgemental about artistic choices, so added a meek "but it's a free country".

[Wham Yubeesling]

((skipping to move conversation along))

It seemed that Maxwell’s quest to find good company had turned him over to mediocre company instead.
 
The conversation he had decided to join had three people within it. The people were, as follows: Paris, who was as mentioned earlier a very good friend of Maxwell’s; Yasmin, who was as mentioned earlier was both a small girl and an arty girl, and Chuck, who to be honest Maxwell only really knew about because of that hat he wore around everywhere. They weren’t exactly people Maxwell knew - barring Paris, of course - they weren’t exactly people who aligned themselves within Maxwell’s social stratosphere usually, but if anything, that was to Maxwell’s benefit, to anything. These people - barring Paris -  were new to him. Surely that would mean a new personality. New experiences that he would like to hear about.
 
The issue, however, was the topic they were talking about. Photography. Not exactly something Maxwell was particularly interested in, and not exactly something Maxwell knew or cared about the terminology for. Of course, he had to see the results, he had to see some of his former classmates in Britain try to use filters in their pictures on Instagram. He had to see the terrifying results. He had to question whether they still had any values that Maxwell held close to his heart. Dignity, for example. Charity. Being courteous enough to other people not to show them the terrifying result when you for whatever reason added the features of a dog to your face.
 
But that was to be disregarded. Obviously there were more professional photographers out there. Possibly like Yasmin, for example. He wouldn’t intrude upon their topic. He wouldn’t ruin their fun.
 
He would just wait until the conversation moved to something else. Something that he was more capable of talking about.
 
At the very least, he had succeeded in his quest to find better company.

[Cicadan]

Paris casually turned his body back around to face the others again.

At some point the girl had been looking up at him, because she was still doing so now. He was reminded that she was impressively short.

"Ah, I get it. So Instagram is like, SLR for the masses."

Paris was also reminded- populist musing aside- that this girl and Maxwell were probably still a pretty decent fit. At least until old Max broke the girls heart like he occasionally did to other girls. But it'd probably be pretty fun for both of them until then, Paris was sure of it. If it happened it happened. Paris hadn't come out to this party to play matchmaker.

He also hadn't come out here to look at some girl's photos technically.

"Huh." Chuck had brought up a good point, in a weird way. "Yeah, what about coffee filters though. Sepia, or whatever it's called. Do you think that styles any good?" Paris had learned a bit about photography from Natali that he now remembered. "You guys do that thing where you dip the photos into water or something, right? What's that all about?"

He glanced at Chuck and Max but neither of them seemed to be all that conversationally competent at the moment. He glanced at Cilo but she wasn't even there. Then he glanced back at Yaz and half-shrugged.

[Espi]

Ugh, fuck this guy. Why was she even bothering to start something with him, again? She'd forgotten how frustrating he was, shutting her out whenever she tried to talk to him. No wonder they broke up, really.

Too bad, though. He's still kind of hot, and when we-

No. Not even going there.

Clio was at least self-aware enough to recognize why she'd liked him the first place, in his defense. Various biologically-based forces aside, he shared an ambition to get out of Denton, which if nothing else meant she wouldn't be tied down if she stuck with him. He was cultured and refined, in that vaguely pompous way but still, and he was pretty well-off which didn't hurt. Hell, they even shared a martial arts practice and liked music.

Of course he was also a self-centered manipulative prick. That didn't help.

There was a part of her that wondered what kind of person she'd have to be to love him, like lifelong love where you get married and have a kid or something. She didn't. She probably never felt that way about him, but he was before she did the introspection thing where she decided to wait on relationship stuff. She probably thought she could temper him or something. Hah.

Clio was still a little peeved, but once Maxwell went off to talk to some other people, she took a deep breath and resisted the temptation to follow him and drag out the engagement. Instead, she went off to talk to someone else nearby, mostly because they were standing near the drinks and she could definitely use one right now.

((Clio Gabriella continued elsewhere))

[Deamon]

"Iwhat? Yeah they can well that's a different type of filter."

Yaz had no idea what Chuck was talking about but he had managed to completely throw her off what she had been talking about. Luckily Paris managed to rescue the conversation from whatever Chuck had meant. Yaz assumed he was talking about the filters that you could get on Snapchat. Just silly little things that warped your face or whatever which wasn't the kind of filter she had been talking about at all but she guessed she could see why he would make the mistake, the filters on Snapchat had become the most well-known filters. She didn't know why he objected to them though, he was the one wearing a video game character hat after all, which was just as ridiculous as making your face look like a dog or panda.

Maxwell for his part was just stood there, he wasn't saying anything. He was just stood there, thinking she supposed or he was just really drunk and didn't want anyone to know. Either option was likely considering how the party was going and it was at that point Yaz realised she didn't even have even the hint of a buzz. She raised her cup up and took two big gulps of her beer. It tasted like dry earth. As she was drinking she nodded at Paris.

"I don't like mind it or anything I prefer color or black and white though. The water thing is to develop film, there's other chemicals and shit involved but that's the reason for the dark rooms full of red light you see in moves and stuff like that."

And she was rambling on about something only she was really interested in again due to nerves. It was overcompensation from the stress of being at the party and she hated herself for doing it but she couldn't stop. Instead she just raised her cup to her mouth and took some more sips.

The music was still shit too.

[General Goose]

The quality of Chuck's banter was wasted here at this party. Chuck knew his banter game wasn't always on point, but come on. 'Filters are for coffee'? That's comedy gold! And only made all the funnier by the fact it was blurted out by a little guy in a Boo hat. Dammit. He knew he should have saved that line for a conversation about social filters.

The conversation moved on, flumbingly incorporating Chuck's contribution into the now maladroit flow. Not enough alcohol, clearly. Alcohol was a great social lubricant. He needed more of it. Chuck, for his size, was quite a good drinker.

And so he popped away for a second, and returned with two bottles of beer. He realised a bit too late that drinking two bottles at once, despite being smart (saved on alcohol retrieval trips), was seen as a bit desperate. And so he held one out. "Anyone fancy a bottle?" He did not wait for an answer before he began to chug on his own glass.

[Wham Yubeesling]

It seemed as if this conversation was not willing to make itself interesting for Maxwell.

But that was… okay, he supposed. He supposed that there was no way that he could possibly be entertained during every single waking moment of the day. He supposed that - as ideal as the world would be, in that case - not everyone existed just to provide him with entertainment. Coffee filters were something he had never heard of (and by the way the other three were talking about them, it seemed that those would be a thing that would far from interest him) and the thought of Chuck giving giving him beer - the idea that he would drink something that removed restraint from his actions - disgusted him.

So no, it seemed that there was nothing for him within this conversation. A shame. He would have imagined that Paris’ involvement alone would have made this interesting.

But again, that was okay. It wasn’t as if everything in this party would entertain him. It wasn’t as if he could be interested in what was happening all the time. It was a large house. It was a large party. Odds were he could still fulfill his quest to find better company.

So off he went, slowly stepping out of the conversation and looking to see who else was at this party.

((Maxwell Lombardi, memories concluded))

[Cicadan]

The small girl was a drinker, Paris was reminded that when she took a few more sips of her alcohol. He wouldn't have been indulging, had he been in her shoes. He supposed it was just one of those party things.

"Oh, okay. That's cool, so do they have one of those types of rooms down at the school?" Paris raised up a hand, rebuffing Chuck's offer casually. Paris watched Chuck for a second, looking right through him. Picking up two bottles at once seemed suggestive of something amiss, somehow. But Paris stopped thinking about that and glanced around. He swore there were somehow less people around then there'd been just a moment ago.

"This corner of the party's quiet... Well, I mean. Besides the music." Paris chuckled and nodded at the other two, at once. "Neither of you are dancers, then?"

It was a weird mental image, actually, imagining either of them busting out the moves. Pretty funny, actually. If he sniffed out Maxwell or Clio, wherever either of them had evaporated off to, he'd have to share the joke. Where had they gone, anyways? Paris swore they'd been near only a moment ago, last he'd been paying attention.

((Paris Ardennes continued in The Crow and the Pitcher))