Aveline de Grandpré (liberatrice) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-02-02 00:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, aveline de grandpre, peter parker (spider-man) |
Who: Aveline de Grandpré and Peter Parker
What: Getting off on the right foot
When: 1/30
Where: The coffeehouse in the Stark building, downtown LA
Rating/Warnings: PG, nerd talk.
Status: Complete
Aveline was killing some time before work downtown. She’d found a nice coffee shop on the ground floor of the Stark Industries building, and she was sitting at a table with her feet up on the heating vent that ran across the bottom of the wall. She was rereading the setting book for Ravenloft - it had been a very long time since she’d played any setting but Forgotten Realms, and she didn’t want to be the idiot holding the group back when she went to Penelope’s for their first night gaming.
“What edition are you going to do?” Peter pushed his glasses up on his nose and tried to not look as awkward as he felt. Even if he was that guy on the net who had a post full of ex-girlfriends, it baffled the hell out of him. It just meant he had three people who could talk about the size of his penis, and that was just terrifying.
Aveline blinked, looking up, at first nonplussed by the stranger asking her questions, but then she shook her head and smiled. “I think I remember you from the network. Peter, was it?” He was sort of cute in person. “It’s nice to see you again. I am Aveline.”
“Peter Parker.” He shook her hand, the contact making him feel a little less awkward. Or maybe more awkward. He was just awkward. “It’s nice to meet you.” Obviously. Good one, Parker. Be a dork.
“Likewise! I remember you mentioning that you played. And we are doing 3.0, apparently. Which is good; it was the last good edition in my opinion.” Aveline made a face. “The rules of 4.0 were too complex.”
“I prefer 2.0, but what really matters is the game and playing with friends. Doesn’t matter as much which rules you use. You can make a pretty bitching character no matter what.” Peter spoke quickly, and a little excitedly.
“That is true, of course.” Aveline grinned. “I have a little wizard that I have played ever since my first Forgotten Realms campaign. She is like a friend to me by now.”
“Always loved my rogues. I like being flexible and nimble and having the party rely on me for traps.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Except for that critical failure that one time. We always go with the rule of snake-eyes being really, really bad.”
“When I cannot play my wizard, I usually roll rogue.” Aveline nodded, smiling. “Please, sit, by the way. No need to stand on ceremony.” There was another chair at the table that wasn’t being used, after all. “But yes. I prefer the damage classes; I also got used to it because one of the friends I played with demanded he be the cleric every time.”
“Thanks.” Pete pulled out a chair and sat in it backwards so he could lean his arms on the back. This was a Stark property and casualness was generally accepted and even encouraged in some ways. “The cleric in my group was played by a chainsmoking, beer drinking wiccan with a thousand body piercings. One time she had a crit fail on temperance, and the DM had her wake up with more piercings than her player had and a tattoo in Orcish.”
Aveline laughed delightedly. “That’s merveilleux, that. Was she a cleric of any particularly strict god? Tyr, perhaps?” She reached up for her latte, taking a pull. “Oghma’s clerics multitask as wizards, but literally every time I offered, Hervé got all offended. He was a cleric of Torm and was always insistent that he could handle everything.”
"Tyr," he replied, grinning at the memory. "We spent weeks dealing with the fallout. It was a lot of fun and my little rogue made a tiiidy profit." Pause. "He moonlighted as a piercing artist."
“Oh, even better!” Aveline laughed again. “I just have lots of fun with it. I actually learnt a lot of English from D&D. We spoke Creole at home, and Spanish on the street - I’m from Miami - so one of the first things I learned how to say right in English was ‘bastard sword.’ My friend Antonio told me it was an insult in English, but didn’t clarify - so I called a few people bastard swords until I looked it up. It’s just got many fond memories for me, this game.”
He grinned, biting his lip at the image of her cursing out someone as a ‘bastard sword.’ It was kind of cute. “That must have been really embarrassing. I don’t know if I’d have let you live it down. Ever.”
“I didn’t live it down. They still tease me, right up until I left for school.” Aveline smiled. “UCLA is the best for what I want to do, so I came here for my masters.” Never mind what she was doing to get the money for that masters.
“What’s your masters for?” He was all about talking shop, and it didn’t matter to him what someone wanted to study as long as they tried their best.
“Urban planning. So many cities encounter crime problems and ghettos because of a lack of planning, a lack of zoning. I want to help that problem in the future.” Aveline tried not to get too carried away. “My parents came over from Haiti and didn’t even have a chance to get middle class; they wound up in Little Haiti and never left. It’s not terrible, but it’s a ghetto in that there’s no mix of people. It leads to more crime, more hostility, and generally a worse city experience.” Especially for immigrants.
Peter couldn’t exactly say that was anything in his experience but he believed her and that she had a passion for it. “So taking your experiences and working to build the world better. I think I like that.”
“It’s important to me, but I understand that a lot of people will have no idea what I mean when I speak about it.” Aveline smiled. “C’est la vie!”
“I don’t see why. I mean…” Peter waved a hand. “Nurture vs nature, right? If the environment leads to crappy things than change the environment.”
“You pick up on it much easier than most.” Aveline appreciated that. “What do you do, if I can ask?”
“Biophysics and biology, though I like to dabble in robotics,” he replied, adjusting his glasses.
Aveline blinked. “Wow. You must be very brilliant, Peter.” And she wasn’t even kissing up. She wasn’t certain what biophysics actually was, and she respected people more intelligent than herself.
“Uhm. I guess.” He smiled bashfully. “I’m dumb at some things and smart at others and really isn’t everyone?”
“Well, yes, but still. I’m not even sure what biophysics means. And someone who can figure out robotics - well. I like electronics, and gadgets, but I’m not good enough to get inside them and look around.” Aveline smiled, liking that he still knew how to be shy.
“I’m not as good as some! I just tinker.” He grinned at her. “But the kind of stuff you do I’m pretty stupid at.”
“Eh bien. I suppose it takes all kinds. Though at least you don’t look at me like I’m crazy for reading this.” Aveline held up her book and laughed. “I think there was a man who wanted to flirt with me earlier - he was edging over toward where you are sitting - but changed his mind when he saw what I was reading.” It didn’t bother her. It happened.
“He doesn’t know what he’s missing,” Peter replied, ducking his head a little. “Any woman that’s willing to read that stuff in public has to be cool.”
“Aw. You’re sweet.” Was that flirting, or just being nice? “I just gave up caring. Ladies in my family are tough.”
Pete grinned, feeling in his head like he was flailing around in the ocean of awkwardness, but it was less obvious to observers. “Nothing wrong with that.”
Aveline was looking up at the clock over his head, rummaging in her handbag. She was getting close to the time where she had to leave, but she didn’t want to go just yet. Eventually she located a scrap of paper, jotting her number down. She handed it to him. “I have to go to work, unfortunately, but I would like to meet for coffee or a drink sometime?” Just not at the Palomino, just over the line from Brea into Los Angeles proper. Please God.
He took the scrap of paper and looked at it, deciding that he wasn’t going to assume anything. He grinned at her. “We can talk dice. Or compare dice.” Oh god. “That sounded bad.”
Aveline actually laughed. “I have some very cute dice.” Take that as he might.