afraid_of_marshmallows | Midnight Manor Boarding House's Living Room, Wednesday Night

Okay, sure. Arden didn't know much more than what TV said about throwing movie nights, but surely she had the gist. Many ~~moddable~~ pizzas and sodas had been ordered from Pizza Planet - look, Arden loved sweet tea, but even she knew soda was necessary for movie nights. A truly disturbing number of bags of popcorn had been popped and put into bowls and a quick stop at T&C had been made to grab a couple of different popcorn seasonings in case people wanted to experiment with popcorn flavors.

All that was left was to wait for people to show up. She'd texted both Kamala and Cal in full capslock mode about the glory of this movie, and then had ~~handwavily~~ tried to contact as many other residents as possible to tell them about the movie night - texts, email, sign on the door, whatever. Sure, nobody had to come, but she at least wanted to make sure everyone knew they were welcome. She'd also invited Steven and Watts (while double checking that, yes, it really was okay to move furniture around the living room and also eat in there) and had made sure to get a few bags of unbuttered popcorn just for them. Did she think the butter flavoring had any actual dairy in it? No. But she was gonna be careful all the same.

Now she was just pushing the furniture around to make sure that every possible seat had a good view of the incredibly large TV and was in reaching distance of a bowl of popcorn and places to put their cups of soda and plates of pizza down. Midnight Movie Night was about to begin, showcasing the absolute work of art and cultural tour de force that 2 Fast and 2 Family 4 Oceans, the fifteenth 2 Fast 2 Family sequel that was also a prequel to the Oceans Edge series.

This was gonna be great.

[Open to all Midnight Manor Boarding House residents!]

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Cal took the opportunity of having Arden's head in his lap to let BD-1 get down and get into her lap in return. "I guess it might be nice to watch stories about people getting together after a while. What's a found family?" he asked. "I thought this was just people fighting monsters with machines?"

Awww. BD was getting snuggled, too. All the kisses and snuggling, just for adorable droids.

"Found family is one of my favorite tropes," she said, voice falling quiet as she glanced towards the screen of the TV, expression soft and wistful. "Where you have a group of outcasts, loners, weirdos...and usually external forces end up putting them together. Usually they're strangers, sometimes they're even enemies, but over the course of the plot, they end up becoming family. They love each other and trust in each other and it doesn't matter that none of them are related by blood, because family is family. Theirs was just found, not made at home, you know? Other folks call it 'forged' family, because it was forged by circumstances, and also, like...you didn't just trip over it. You worked at it. Maybe even fought for it and bled for it..."

She shrugged and looked back up at him. "Whatever you call it, it's good having a trope out there that acknowledges that family can be more than just biology. That love isn't just romantic, familial bonds are just as important and valid."

Honestly, one of the best things about hanging out with Arden was listening to her explain things. It was fascinating to watch her as well as listen to her, and having her like this, relaxed across him while BD cuddled up with them both--it felt right in a way he hadn't expected to have to confront.

"That sounds like a really good plot idea. The people you learn to care about can be so much more important than blood, especially because you have to prove they can trust you," he said. "Like the people who have to work together in the machines, that's a bond they don't have with their 'real' family."

"Work together in the machines?" Arden asked, her amber eyes soft and warm as she continued to look up at him. "What machines?"

"Oh, I was talking about the movie, buuut the Scrapper Guild was like a family too, if you're not bored with me talking about home." It was hard to not want to just tear himself open when she looked at him like that.

"Cal," Arden said with a small smile and a shake of her head. "When have I ever been bored talking to you? I mean, you listen to me complain about my childhood all the time without ever looking like you'd rather be elsewhere, and you're worried about me getting bored listening to you talk about all the fascinating things you've done and learned?"

Midnight Manor Boarding House's Living Room, Wednesday Night

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