Scene #2117: Allowances for Newbies

Owner	Pose
Entrapta	The school bell rings, and the students are released from their classes. They flee, taking books and youthful exuberance with them, and leaving teachers and tutors to clean up afterward. Though at least one student didn't know to expect the bell at all, she figures it out from context. Enissa von Trapp, the new girl from Europe, sits in her seat a moment longer before getting up. Her valued books are protected in her new, ultra-useful Book Bag! And then, she leaves, a look on her face of mixed confusion and amazement. You can be two things! "Look for the signs, they'll tell you what to do..." she says, talking to herself. She clearly has few friends yet, though there's been a few people curious about her. Purple hair isn't too exotic, but her dark skin and obvious confusion have gotten some talking. "Do you need help?" someone asks, but the girl walks past, not having really registered the offer. She's looking around, her eyes on everything, and leaves the helpful person behind. Down the stairs, she walks outside. And out toward the front gates, she walks. "Don't panic, don't leave the grounds," she says to herself, repeating what she's been told. "What if I want to look around? There's so much to see." Then she looks left, then looks right. And walks out the front gate. You know, there are times when it's a good idea to listen to instructions. Outside the gate there are a lot of things, it's true! One of them is a street, and there are vehicles on that particular item. AND APPARENTLY THE GIRL DOESN'T KNOW ABOUT CROSSWALKS! The sound of horns blaze out.
Amy Faust	Amy had to leave the room in a hurry during lunchtime and so didn't really get to talk with the purplenette yet. Damn youma attacks... Class finally lets out. Amy asked if the new girl needed help, and she follows after, "Excuse me, miss" and "Uh, Trapp-san..." going ignored -- thinking about it later, Amy won't be able to fault her, seeing ''a whole new world'' after all. Until the girl with the floor-length twintails walks into traffic. "ENTRAPTA!" Amy screams, waving to get her attention and call her back, briefly considering whether she might have to transform and save her, but as the angry honking indicates, drivers ''have'' taken notice of the wayward teen. "What are you doing?!" Amy calls out in alarm, from the sidewalk. "Look both ways before--" ''Oh. Right. They probably don't have cars in Etheria. Has she... not been '''outside?''''' "Get out of the road!" Amy gestures for Entrapta to come back to the sidewalk so they can talk without starting a traffic jam.
Entrapta	With a car about two paces from her (stopped), Enissa looks ...well, she looks weird. She bends over, then measures it with what appears to be a measuring tape. Until someone lays into the horn again. "It's trying to talk!" she calls back to Amy, seeming enthusiastic. Then she mouths 'oh' and gets out of the way, enough for the upset driver to re-enter traffic and move off. Rubbing the top of her head, the purple girl in purple clothes stands there, a bit too close to the road but clearly unafraid of it. Then she strides toward Amy, and points at the road behind her! "Your animated carriages are fascinating! How do they work, do you know? Wait, I should ask what they are first. Or do I already know that?" Pause, tilting her head. "No, that's not in there. I get to learn that too yay!" She actually lifts both fists in a 'yay' motion, as if that's a win.
Amy Faust	Trying to talk? "No, that's an alarm sound! Don't you see the driver?! No, wait, just get out of the road and then we can talk! I'll explain whatever you want!" Amy motions for Entrapta to follow her to a bench to sit on. "What do you mean, 'do you already know it', did you gain some weird knowledge of this world when you came? I'm surprised they didn't give you a uniform yet..." Amy sits down on a bench, looks uncomfortable, swears in English, stands up, carefully sweeps her skirt under her, and sits down again. They're cars, or automobiles, they burn gasoline -- refined fossil fuels -- uhh, do you even know what those are? or use electricity to generate motion... ugh," Amy holds a hand to her forehead, "I don't ''know'' what you don't know so I'm not sure how much needs explaining." She wasn't sure how this conversation would go. She expected she'd need to explain a lot of things but didn't... really... think that all the way through, implication-wise. She's confident she ''can'' explain most prerequisite knowledge, but damn, she didn't think about, like, having to explain where fossil fuels come from to explain how a car works. "Um. First a rule: Do ''not'' touch my computers, phone, or other personal electronics without permission. ...Showing you a document or image on my phone is implicit permission to scroll and zoom, but not to go to other apps or tabs or scroll through chat." Amy takes a breath. "Now that that's out of the way, I can explain everything, but where do you want me to start?" Amy looks around. "And ''where'' do you want me to start, if you would prefer any other environment, or having a library computer to reference, or something." She thought of all that but didn't think to say 'Hi, I'm Amy, welcome to Earth'...
Entrapta	The purple haired girl listens without interrupting, eyes on Amy wide and friendly. She has this completely open and trusting demeanor, as if she's learning everything and everything Amy says is Important! Capital I! She even lets Amy have the time she needs, but doesn't exactly speak up when prompted to do so. In fact, there's a moment of silence after Amy's done, where it feels like Entrapta should answer but hasn't quite figured out that it's her turn. It gets creepy for a moment, and then the girl says, "Oh! Right, I talk now! Do you want me to answer all of that in order of event or in order of curiosity? No wait, I'll figure it out." She pauses, then says, "You already know my name! That makes things a lot easier to categorize because it suggests a level of knowledge that I can work with on a higher level! Woo!" Again with the fist pump. "I like knowledge." Completely ignoring the obvious safety issues she's just incurred, Miss Purple Pants says, "I have an outfit! They dropped it off. Should I wear it? It's not purple." You can hear her tone of voice drop into 'ugh' without actually saying it out loud. Teenagers have that talent on every planet, apparently. Then. "Fossil fuels suggest a lot of things, but if I assume the most likely then you're saying that there's a carbon-based system of exchange involved, with parameters forming energy output directing drive wheels...hm." She looks up and to one corner. "That's not awful, but depends on how it's implemented. Why would I touch your computers? You don't have any scrolls here, Rashmi said that you didn't." And finally, "I almost died. That was hilarious!"
Amy Faust	Amy umms, considering the question of what order Entrapta should answer in, but then she's already on to things. She smiles at the excitement at a level of knowledge, and nods in agreement at the sentiment of liking knowledge. "I do too!" On the subject of the outfit: "I believe you are allowed to substitute a different outfit as long as it looks school-uniform-ish ''enough'', but I am not sure how to quantify that. I'm sure we know ''someone'' who could get you purple clothes that fit, but if you don't wear some kind of uniform to class -- school uniform I mean -- you will eventually get in trouble, although I'm not sure what the punishment actually is, and you'll attract attention; I'm not sure how much of it will be negative." Beat. "They probably gave you a skirt, but you can wear slacks if you prefer. ...It might be easier to customize your uniform with purple accessories until you can get something more to your liking." Amy smiles as Entrapta gets some of the basics of how a car works just from what she said! "Yes!" As for her computers: "Umm," Amy glances away awkwardly, then back at her, "I was warned you'll take apart any machines you get your hands on; it would be too disruptive to my life to have my personal electronics tinkered with unless ''I'm'' doing the tinkering -- I have them just the way I like them. Mostly." Amy blinks. "To me, the word 'scroll' means a long sheet of paper or fabric with text or images on it which can be rolled up for storage. An ancient way of storing information, modern ones are decorative, like tapestries." Amy looks... ''concerned?'' at the news Entrapta died, but... "Should I ask about that? Oh, do you mean because you almost got hit by a car?" Amy shrugs. "Yes, we'll teach you how to cross the street eventually." Beat. "...Sometime ''soon.''" Amy amends, after thinking about that for a few seconds.
Entrapta	"Me too! Which is why I have no idea why you used scroll as a verb! Your languages are super interesting." Entrapta gets up, pacing already with suppressed excitement. Her eyes flicker to the street, then back to Amy, and she says, "Am I talking too fast? You seem to be getting confused. It's okay, I get the impression that'll happen a lot. It's probably my fault." She nods firmly, putting hands to hips. Then her brain catches up to the conversation, and she goes back to the start of what Amy said. "The outfit? Oh, I don't care about what I wear like that. I just want to have pockets! My outfits have a lot of pockets." She puts her hands in some, to show her point. "You can't keep tools on you without pockets!" And she's holding a screwdriver, and trying to take a panel off of a street lamp. Stop her!
Amy Faust	Amy blinks and listens. "''Man,'' I do kinda miss pockets." And then she blinks, and she stands, "Hey, wait! That's public infrastructure! Also, security cameras are probably watching you in this country! We can figure out a good way for you to examine some streetlamps later!" If she can get Entrapta to stop dismantling public infrastructure, she addresses the rest: "Scroll as a verb refers to... when viewing a document or image on an electronic screen, the screen can only show so much at once. 'scrolling' is... shifting the display of the document or image to show a different portion on the screen. And it's not your fault." Amy runs over and ''hugs'' her. "It's not your fault. Don't let people make you think that it's your ''fault'' for being different from others. Being different is not an immoral act."
Entrapta	Entrapta isn't -hard- to get to stop, but you do have to lay hands on her to manage it. She doesn't seem to register verbal communication when her head is in a project. So literally, Amy has to remove her from her project before Entrapta realizes that she's being spoken to. "Aw.." she says, as she's drawn away. Not hostile, just really wanted to do that. The hug interrupts her trying to get back to dissassembling Tokyo, and she pauses in her efforts. She doesn't seem to react quite exactly to the hug, her eyes scanning Amy. Then she lifts a hand and...pats her head? Amy's head, like she's not sure what physical contact works like. "Okay. What are you doing, though?" Dot. Dot. Dot.
Amy Faust	Head. Pat. Headpat. Amy also stops, relaxing and loosening the hug, and just stares in confusion for a moment. No one has headpatted her in 14,000 years. Or 7 months, depending on how you count it. Oh wait Hannah patted her head when she was turned into a doll. ''Damn'', her life is weird. Anyway, it's kind of nice? But an unusual gesture. Her hands drop to her sides. "...I am comforting-- I am attempting to comfort you and provide words of emotional support. My... internal mental model of human behavior suggests that if you feel the need to blame yourself unilaterally and pre-emptively for miscommunications-- for apparent miscommunications, you have probably been mistreated and dealt with inconsiderate and unkind people in the past who have conditioned you to take the blame for their lack of empathy and understanding. So I want to provide reassurance. That you don't need to presume fault."
Entrapta	Pause. "Did I do that?" Entrapta says? Asks? Herself? She pauses, closing one eye and tilting her head foward a bit, focusing her thoughts. "Am I talking too fast you seem to be getting confused it's okay i get the impression..." She mumbles what appears to be a text to speech rewind of what we'd just said, including what Amy said, catching up to the current moment. "provide reassurance that you don't need to presume fault." She -heard- everything! But she didn't....'hear' it. Nodding, she nods one more time, then says, "Okay I found it. I have to find a better way to do that, my head gets so full sometimes. I'm okay! I don't mind it when something is my fault, you have to make mistakes in science! I learn so much when I can see mistakes clearly! There's a whole bunch of stuff you'll never learn if you limit your understanding." Not commenting on the fact that she seems to have an eidetic memory and DOESN'T NOTICE unless directed to do so.
Amy Faust	Amy listens, briefly confused, and then gets it. Certainly, she can undertand auditory processing issues, although Entrapta's working memory for words spoken but not processed seems awfully long. To her, at least, 'I don't mind it when something is my fault' sounds sad, and she gives another quick hug and leads Entrapta back to the bench. "...It occurs to me, that perhaps we should prioritize what you think is most urgent to learn. I can tell you about ''everything'', but if we get down into the weeds of how fossil fuels contain energy because of decomposing flora and fauna from millions of years ago, which got their energy from eating eachother or from a giant fusion reactor in the sky, which is there because more hydrogen than I can imagine collapsed into a big firey ball, hydrogen and other elements present because other stars exploded zillions of years in the past going all the way back to the big bang which no one knows what caused it, we'll probably miss key things like how to cross the street safely."
Entrapta	Entrapta opens her mouth, then closes it again. She seems to bite her lip, then actually does so. Her breathing speeds up, then she forces it to slow. There's something going on. She raises a hand, one finger. 'one moment', it says. Then she lowers her head, into her lap. It's apparently a good thing that Amy had her sit down. Only with great effort does Entrapta raise her head, and take a normal, deep breath. And then she says: "You have stars." Shuddering a moment, the purple haired young lady shifts her shoulders, pauses a moment longer, then says, "Okay. I can focus on other things. For now. But I'm going to freak out about that in a moment." She turns toward Amy, eyes focused, and says, "Teach me the things I need to stay alive. And I'll try to put them above what else you just told me." Life ->- knowledge.
Amy Faust	Amy blinks at Entrapta at 'you have stars' and it takes her a few seconds to remember. Realization hits her face, eyes wide. "Oh ''shit'' that's right, you don't have stars! Yeah, you can see them tonight. Well, hopefully, if it's not too cloudy or something. Wait, if you don't have stars how do you know about them?" She blinks. "Right, right. Survival first." Amy considers. "Crossing the street. As you can see, roads are primarily for motorized conveyances. Not... necessarily in a roads-are-''meant''-only-for-cars way, but in practice, that cars are heavy, rigid objects travelling at high speed necessitates certain... Behaviors? what's the word. Practices." Amy gestures at the street in front of them. "Cars are driven by humans -- for now -- who are supposed to be obeying traffic laws. Those lines delineate lanes they are to stay within except when turning. They're certainly ''not'' supposed to drive on the sidewalk, although no physical law prevents it; driving off of roads risks damage to most cars, though, and they'll-- the driver will be found at fault for any accidents that occured because they didn't follow the rules. By the justice system." "Um. Anyway." She points at a traffic light. "For them, green means go. Red means stop. Yellow means 'the light is going to turn red soon.' Sometimes you can turn to the near side on red, if a sign doesn't say otherwise." She points at a stop sign. "A stop sign means stop, look around you, and make sure you're not at risk of colliding with anyone else on the road before going again." She holds a hand to her chest, "For ''pedestrians,''" She points at the nearby crosswalk, "Crosswalks like that -- with the stripes -- are designated places where people are ''expected'' to cross. You can cross elsewhere, but it's one less visual cue for drivers to be on alert for you. It might be illegal to cross elsewhere but I don't think it gets prosecuted much." Amy points at the box with a button on it, and the WALK / DON'T WALK signal. "I don't actually know if the button does anything. It ''should'' request that the light turn red when convenient for the local traffic pattern. That signal there indicates when it is safe to walk across -- or rather, when the drivers have a red light. There is nothing, physically, preventing them from ignoring the signal and running you down. So when crossing without a signal, always look both ways for traffic you need to avoid, and even when ''at'' a signal, be aware of your surroundings." "Obviously, the drivers of cars will usually ''try'' not to hit you -- but especially in this age of distractions... piloting a car is a certain amount of mental work, and even with mirrors you can't see around you perfectly all the time, so drivers' awareness of their surroundings will never be 100%. Thus the need for caution."
Entrapta	The systemic analysis is very helpful! Entrapta actually focuses once Amy starts into details, her brain locking onto how a system is built and making a mental diagram of how this one functions. She lets Amy talk, she's VERY good at letting people explain things when and if they actually use details. She actually stops hyperventilating as she gets into how tech interacts with the system. Or rather Amy does, but Entrapta is well into it as well. "So, there has to be a power source linked to the systems, since they aren't moving, and a complete wired formation beneath the road. You'd have to put it in before they're even built, since there seem to be no lines of construction that I can detect. Hmm." At least she's moved on from stars, for now. "We used to have stars, the records all say so. Before I was born, in the time of the First Ones." Or maybe she hasn't. Then, "This is a more complex system than ours. We have very few people on Etheria. My estimate was around 45,000 in total on the entire planet. But I have limited data to work from."
Amy Faust	After speaking, Amy retrieves a notebook and a trusty uniball roller grip pen from her bag, writing subjects as she thinks of them: Money Phone "That's right. The Japanese Power Grid is -- well, you can learn that from Wikipedia later. I think there's some kind of sensor -- electric-field-based or something? underneath the road that detects when cars are there, but the lights could also just be on a timer." Beat. "That electrical grid is also another reason to be careful about taking infrastructure apart. Some wires contain electrical current strong enough to kill you if it goes through you. Most should be insulated, but there are always contacts and things... ''Do not'' disassemble electrical outlets on walls until you understand how they work. ...And even then, how sure are you? Take precautions, when you know what those precautions are." Amy points up at the wires running between telephone poles. "Those are especially strong current. Do not touch them. Or, more technically, never touch one of those wires ''and'' anything else, including another wire, at the same time." To preempt the question of how birds and squirrels do it just fine. The conversation moves on. To stars. "What... ''happened'' to them? How long ago was the time of the First Ones... did you already only have red dwarfs, even then? But wouldn't that take trillions of--" And she remembers Kyubey's voice in her head, saying that such timescales are based on astronomers and astrophysicists making observations of the system ''while'' the Incubators are at work. "...''Forty-five thousand?!'' What ''happened''? Or were there always that few? I think... I don't think we've ever had less than like... ten thousand, and that's estimates of some terrible disaster that befell humanity in prehistory we don't even know what it wa--" She stops, again, as the memory of looking up from the moon as demons attacked the dome, looking up at the Earth, burning, in the sky, comes back to her. "...I actually don't... know as much about the past as I think I do. Or how the world works. Neither do human scientists, without the awareness of magic..."
Entrapta	The general calm in Entrapta's voice is from earlier, when she forced herself to be so. Eyes looking about, just to make sure it's still safe, Young Entrapta registers that something's going on with her new confidante, Amy. She's not immune to tone of voice, but she doesn't understand it. Electrical questions later. Okay. "Well, our records aren't very extensive," she says. "Nobody can actually read First Ones writing, so it's all stuff that's written by people long afterward. So we don't really know, but I've been requisitioning things from libraries. But after the Princess Alliance fell apart, we kind of lost touch with each other as cities." She's reporting on history, not worried about it. "I have no way to really tell, but I don't think we were always so few. I'm pretty certain that we came to Etheria from somewhere else. The thing is," she says, breathing and furrowing her brow, "I'm kind of working on my own to find out. There's only so much one person can do. But I've made a lot of really cool robots!" She smiles then, showing some of that enthusiasm again. Don't let armageddon get you down, says Entrapta.
Amy Faust	Amy's quiet for a moment, taking that in. "The people were lost, and the stars went out." "Wait... you came from somewhere else? So... it might not be that people died, and the stars went out, just that.... not everyone came to Etheria, and it was... wherever you ''came'' from, that had stars?"
Entrapta	Sitting up, hands between her knees, Entrapta nods. "Oh, yeah! It's entirely possible that we're just a bunch of people, growing from a smaller base of settlers. I haven't had time to really dig into how Etheria works, though. I'm only fifteen!" Tilting her head a bit, she smiles. "I don't let it bother me. Not knowing is just one more thing we can learn, and I always believed that we'd travel through space again." Pausing, she smirks. "Or use portals, which is what I did! I totally built one! It wasn't very good, and it closed, but I was really making headway! You can't let yourself get down by the past, it's just more to learn and work with!" How is it that she's the one who's cheerful here?
Amy Faust	Amy nods. It's easy to forget, sometimes, that aliens are just fifteen, too. She looks up at the sky and mutters, "I remember when humanity dreamed of all coming together, and traveling through space. I wonder if... we'll ever see the universe so many paid their lives for." She's quiet for a moment, and then looks down at her notebook. "Right. Anyway. Has money -- local money -- been explained to you yet, and do you have a phone? As in a smartphone. Something like this." She pulls her own out of her bag to show the sort of device she means. It's in a heavy-duty protective black case, which is... atypical, for most students.
Entrapta	"We will. People won't, but we will. Or at least I will. I'd like to see anyone stop me." That statement sounds like a declaration of will, and Entrapta does seem to mean it. Every word. But it's also a sign of loneliness, and how little trust she's had in her world. Then she leans her head over, craning it to look. "Rashmi told me about money, and I've been reading up on it a bit. It's not real, but it is, and it's always changing in value. But overwow hi there that's a really cool piece of technology can I touch it?" She reaches for the phone, which she was expressly forbidden to touch without permission. That minor detail having completely slipped her mind, which has got to be the least surprising thing to happen all day. :)
Amy Faust	''I'' will go to space and I'd like to see anyone stop me. Amy wonders if maybe, just maybe, Entrapta will manage it. Maybe one day they can at least go see the Moon again, with the Senshis' help. Amy reflexively pulls the phone back when it's reached for. "Ah. S-sorry. You have to understand, these days a smartphone contains... Every picture someone's taken with it, every conversation they've had sending text messages to other phones or people on the internet, an internet browser showing everything they've looked up... It is... kind of private. I know you just want to see the piece of technology, but this is a personal device and... looking through it would be an invasion of privacy. If you do not have your own, we'll get you your own post-haste." Amy considers this for a moment. Amy demonstrates its use, letting Entrapta see as she opens her messages app, goes to Setsuna, and types in: Hey would you be cool reimbursing me if I buy a phone for Entrapta? After a second or so, she adds: And maybe a computer. Personal electronics, whatever. It's for the education and integration into Earth society of someone who is very curious about local technology and might be an asset!
Entrapta	Oh if that isn't opening up a whole kettle right there. Entrapta's eyes widen, and she looks at Amy with shining delight. "We don't have that technology on Etheria!" she says, her voice rising. "Not YET!" She watches avidly, her fingers literally twitching. I'm not kidding, she has to push them down to keep from grabbing and touching. Then she has to use the other hand. I have my hair for this normally, darnit! And then. "Oooh..." Pause, and this pause sounds like something's about to GO DOWN. "The internet?" "Tell Me. Everything."
Amy Faust	<PHONE> A text from Setsuna Meiou: If you tell me where you're going to get them, I'll buy them for you to pick up, but only on one condition. <PHONE> You text Setsuna Meiou: What's that? I guess I can text you links to items. Pick up? You don't want them just shipped to the dorms? <PHONE> A text from Setsuna Meiou: I thought you wanted them TODAY. I can just have them delivered, then. <PHONE> You text Setsuna Meiou: Nah I haven't picked anything yet. I figured I'd ask first. And Amy ''will'' get to attempting to explain the internet, but: <PHONE> A text from Setsuna Meiou: And she has to give me my roomba back. "Did you steal Setsuna's-- I mean Nurse Meiou's Roomba?!"