Survival Of The Fittest

Quinn smiled as Cedar took on the dare without much hesitation and no one groaned at her choice of obstacle, though Bets did make a point of turning her attention to her. Quinn noted the reaction, but let no sign of it slip onto her face.

Cedar’s singing was serviceable. Nothing stand out, but the girl could carry her way through the song, which Quinn assumed was also from an anime of some sort, though it was possible she was being unkind with Cedar’s reference points so narrow.

Once the other girl was done, Quinn gave a considerate bit of applause, though she didn’t raise from her seat.

“That was good. Do you sing much?” Quinn asked. It seemed a polite thing to ask, filling space while they all waited to see who Cedar would single out to go next.

Not much of a reaction from the crowd, save for Karin, and Cedar wouldn't be so egotistical as to presume the sudden departure had anything to do with her audience role to Cedar's mediocrity. Refreshingly sparse, all said. Cedar had always been a bit weary of the sort of group dynamics where praise was lavishly doled out for things that only deserved a little golf clap. Or like, in Cedar's pretty limited life experience anyways, she hated being complimented. Probably the more honest way to put it.

"Comes with being Filipina, too much karaoke." Cedar was quick to parry the compliment- it sounded like a learned response more than genuine awe. "I'm in choir too but that teaches different skills from solo singing." She had the breath support and the phrasing down right, her voice just... wasn't interesting. Technically acceptable, emotionally unsatisfying.

"Anyways, kinda jank order we're working with here but, who's up next to bat? T/D?" She glanced sidelong at Dawn. Again, rare to see her risking the plunge into partay type activities. Much as this particular instance was so far particularly mild, particularly spelled correctly. She wondered when she'd get involved.

It turned out that Cedar's singing was decent, as far as Dawn could judge. Nothing too praiseworthy, but nothing to scoff at. Just like Quinn, Dawn gave slight applause after Cedar's performance.

So far the game had been rather tame, which Dawn was alright with. Maybe the group was more of the well-behaved sort? In this case, she probably could be a little bit riskier in what she chose.

"Me, I guess." She answered Cedar's question. "And I pick dare as well."

Then she began moving her cup to her mouth, but realized just in time that it was already empty.

"Wait," she perked up, "Who's up? Like, asking you the question. Because I have an idea."

(She didn't, but she was bored)

(She'll come up with something. Eventually.)

"I think you can go ahead if you've got something good. If this game has any rules they're for breaking."

Cedar began to tinker with her phone as she spoke. Many a Twitter thread to idly heart through.

"Oh."

(Actually she was pretty sure nobody actually cared but Truth or Dare was one of those games that's either going to be completely bland or the most interesting day in a few months and B was pretty sure that it's going to be the first)

(Wait did she actually call herself B?)

(It'll be nice to call herself B sometimes. Maybe after this is all over. High school, she meant.)

"Show us your search history. No deleting!"

Quinn’s lips were drawn into a thin line when she heard Bets’ dare, considering its implications. It was probably harmless. Quinn herself had no true secrets hidden away in her own internet history.

She turned to Dawn and gave the girl a soft smile, an attempt to reassure her should she be concerned. Quinn quietly hoped the girl was as plain as she appeared to be, even in her strange, multicolored poncho.

"...!"

"Sure." Dawn's hesitation had hopefully been too short to be noticed.

While not necessarily horrible, this was one of the less desireable dares for her.

One lesson taught by her parents had been to always listen to all sides of a conflict before taking action. As a result, Dawn frequented a good number of sites that the more woke classmates of her would easily call... problematic. She often disagreed with what she saw, but it would still be awkward to explain.

Fumbling with her phone, she bought a few seconds after opening up her history. In these moments, she confirmed that the site starting with O was right at the bottom of the page, touched the screen with two fingers and enlargened the picture, making the line disappear. She wasn't deleting anything, so it should be fine, right?

"Here you go." Dawn said with a smile, presenting her smartphone to the others.

Cedar would have hesitated too. Her own search history was significantly worse. Or better, for those with refined tastes.

A sympathetic smile. Cedar was irregular herself, though she'd worked out a system for that particular mess long ago.

"Clean af." The reverence was unironic but probably sounded like it was. "You're too pure for this mortal earth."

((Bouncing Cedar out to post in some other thread))

''Wait,'' she said, overlooking the period one, ''Dunkin Doughnuts got cancelled?''

She was a little disappointed by the lack of incriminating stuff, but whatever. Like, she's not that sadistic.

''What did they do, anyways? Twitter's kind of a hellhole.''

She tweedled her thumbs. She would hate to have her search history exposed. Not because of pornhub or whatever, but because she had to google how to spell cinnamon for three times and it was better to be horny (socially acceptable to a certain self depreciative degree) than to be a fucking idiot. Not that she used pornhub.

"I suppose I am," Dawn said with an awkward laugh that was half-played, half-real.

Then the non-Quinn Betty posed an interesting question. "Oh, that's a funny story. I was at Dunkin's some time ago and..."

Dawn stopped herself, realizing that she had almost mentioned Amos. She had no idea how his date had went, but she had promised to not tell anyone, so she wouldn't. Instead, she made a hand gesture that could be interpreted as many things to make her pause seem like intended for dramatic purposes. Then she came up with a variation of the truth.

"Alex Avanesian was there on the counter. II made my order, we chatted a bit and then I got my food. But it were completely different donuts from the ones I had ordered. So I went back and it turned out that had happened a lot recently, with many people complaining. So I wondered if this was going on elsewhere as well and googled it, but apparently this is a problem limited to our Dunkins in the old mall."

She gave another laugh, not caring that her story had been far away from funny. But this was a party and they were here to enjoy themselves, so laughing over bad non-jokes should be free game.

The rest of the game went similarly smooth.

((Dawn Montogomery continued in Feels Like It's Been A Year))