It's a clean, intermediately-lit space, with most of the light coming from rainbow fairy lights festooning the walls and ceiling. There's a counter selling little plates of snack food and brightly colored cocktails from a menu posted on the wall under a spotlight. There's a little stage against one wall, where a band is setting up a drum kit, a sitar, and some kind of electronic keyboard thing. The band members are wearing jackets and skirts covered completely in plastic gems, with more plastic gems glued to their faces. Many of the clubgoers sitting around the little tables are only slightly less sparkly; there are a lot of elaborate but cheap-looking jewelry pieces and body glitter and unnatural hair colors. It's also . . . weirdly hard to tell the men from the women? Some of them have skirts (none shorter than mid-calf) and some of them have breasts (or loose outer layers that could be hiding breasts) and some of them have hair down to their waists (usually in braids, but one or two have it loose) and some of them have girly faces, but all these features seem distributed at random. There are little groups chatting, and couples holding hands, and individuals knitting or reading on their smartphones or working on a portrait of the bartender in charcoal on a sketchpad. (The bartender is not complying with the apparent dress code; he(?)'s in head-to-toe denim with at least six belt pouches.)

Weird place! Is he in a gay bar? Gay bars are a great place to pick up women because they assume you're gay and therefore their bitch shields aren't up. 

He approaches the nearest person who obviously has breasts and is hot enough for him to get it up. "Hey, you look like you're having the most fun here out of anyone," he says sarcastically, with his patented smirk on his face. 

The person in question has curly hair, glasses, and amateurishly-done swirls of glitter on her forehead. She's wearing a fitted t-shirt with a picture of unicorns in a forest on it. 

She looks up from her attempt to fold her paper napkin into a crane (it's going surprisingly well, which is to say, still pretty badly) and says, "I am having so much fun! I love about 90% of all songs Diamond Dreams have put out and I've never seen them live before!" Her friend pulls out a smartphone in a glittery green case and starts typing something.

Excellent! The cockblock is disarming herself. 

Shadow is about two feet away from the target. His body is at a slight glancing angle, to convey that she will have to prove herself before he will pay attention to her. He's looking her in the eyes. "Let me guess, you've been a fan since before they were big?"

These subtleties of posture may be lost on her, since she's looking at the air to his left.

"I got into them after their first album, yeah. Are you, like, new to the glitterpunk scene, or do you like the music but not the visual aesthetic, or other?"

She's asking him a question! She's super into him. 

He quickly calculates. Being new to the scene isn't very alpha-- it puts her in the position of power over him-- but saying that he likes the clothes will put him in a position to run his clothes routines. "It's the latest style, actually. Everyone in the glitterpunk scene will be into it in a few months."

"Plain black in glitterpunk? Three to one against more than 30% of people at the next Diamond Dream concert at this venue after 90 days from now wearing plain black with no jewelry or glitter, unwinds if you bribe anyone."

Green phone friend pipes up, still looking at her phone. "Using the threshold of 'does looking at the title make me want to listen to the song', I love 72% of Diamond Dream's discography. I'm slightly less hype than you so that tracks with your 90%."

"Rockin'. Plainshirt, bet or nah?"

Blink blink blink. That is a *really* weird way to give him shit!

He says, "wow, you are really feisty. Are you always like this?"

Blink blink right back. "I'm surprised that you're surprised, given how common casual bets are. I would say I am usually like this when I am awake and socializing. What's your favourite Diamond Dream song?"

This girl has a very flat affect when she's giving him shit. He can't tell if he's getting blown out. Well, faint heart never won fair lady. 

"I don't like it that much. I'm really into Britney Spears," he says, smirking. 

"Ooh, I haven't heard of Britney Spears. What's their sound like and what's a good first song?"

Wh. What. Seriously?

"I recommend Toxic," he says, "and it's great music for white girls to listen to while drunk." 

Confused headtilt! She makes a note of the music recommendation on her phone, then starts to ask "Why is it specifically--" but gets cut off by the band.

"Sound check, sound check, this is the sound check. Hold up three fingers if you parse it." If Shadow knows stuff about audio equipment he will notice that the microphone and amps are shockingly good relative to the apparent mediocre budget of the rest of the concert. Unicorn shirt, green phone, and everyone else fall silent and hold up three fingers.

Shadow was briefly a DJ because he heard it was a good way to pick up girls! He hopes their sound guy gets pussy tonight. 

He holds up three fingers so as not to be weird.

It's music time!! The band counts off and launches into a song. It's pretty decent for an indie band; the sitar player definitely isn't the best at the sitar but he's also the lead vocalist and he's great at that. It's a song about how awesome it is to walk through a city at night and see the lights reflected on the river, to be alone and powerful and free and surrounded by beautiful things. Everybody sings along on the last two choruses. After the song there's a break so people can talk some more.

What kind of dancing are people doing?

Lots of swaying to the music, some enthusiastic bouncing up and down/spinning around/arm gestures limited by everyone being careful not to get within a foot or so of anyone else. Unicorn shirt is swaying in her seat and making little conductor motions with her hands.

Then Shadow sways to the music as well!

When the music is done, he sits down next to his target. "I can only stay for a minute."

She's still rocking back and forth and grinning. "Hearing them live didn't help you get more into them?" she says cheerfully. "Alas."

"I have to meet a friend but she's not here yet." And now his target will get jealous, and know that he's popular among women. 

"Wow, punctuality fail. Unless you mean you just texted her. Anyway, what-all do you do when you're not trying new bands?"

"I live off the land."

"Woah, you're an autarkoid? Sorry I implied your outfit sucked, obviously if it's handmade it's super impressive. Are you with the traditional artists or the backup plan crew? Or Children of Gaia I suppose but I'd guess one of the others."

Shadow... does not know what any of those words mean. She's not supposed to believe him when he says that! She's supposed to give him shit about it!  

He quickly scraps the rest of the routine and falls back on his standard answer to girls' questions. "Guess!"

"Backup plan. They go in for decorations the least."

...okay, yeah, Shadow has no response to that. 

He looks a bit distracted for a few seconds, then says, "What art movement do you think best represented the humanity of man?"

"Vocab fail; do you mean, like, which books do I most agree with about human nature? Also if that was meant to imply something about which autarkoid group you're with I failed at that too." She seems completely unbothered by this.

Vocab fail! Fuck, this bitch has read him as a beta.

"No, which art movement do you think best reflects human nature?" he says, trying to make it sound like he thinks she's an idiot. 

"All the art movements are made by humans! And presumably most people making statements about human nature are reporting their own experiences and hyperpriors accurately. The art that most accurately reflects my hyperpriors and experiences . . . I think I'd say Piterry Chett's Cube Planet series? He really captures the way everyone is the protagonist of their own life story and a major character in some other people's life stories and a minor character in a lot more, and how most conflicts are about fundamentally well-meaning people pursuing their own visions of personal and universal flourishing. How about you, what would you say to that question?"

"Real Housewives."

"You know what really reflects human nature, is that we've got so many books you can't have a conversation about books anymore because no two people have read the same stuff. Which is to say:", she concludes apologetically, "I have no idea what the philosophical premises of Real Housewives are because I never read it."

... ... ... ... 

Okay well this girl is a bitch and he needed to drop in a qualifying routine anyway, so he pivots to that. 

"Well, that's too bad, because it's my favorite TV show. I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that I don't think it's going to work out between us... I think we're going to have to break up."

"Well, if I made a new friend at every event I'd have more friends than I know what to do with. I hope you find someone with better taste in shows!" Her tone is genuine encouragement, with mild regret at the failure to make friends but deliberately cheerful to avoid causing empathetic sadness.

Okay yeah Shadow knows when he's blown out. "Nice to meet you!" he says.

He goes to the bar to order a drink.

The band starts into their next song as he walks over; it's from the perspective of someone meeting someone else at a party and talking late into the night and being excited to meet again soon. At one point near the end of the song the characters hold hands. People dance again; the ones who came here as couples smile sappily at each other.

The bartender nods in acknowledgement and points at the box of laminated paper menus in case he prefers that to the big list over the bar. Either way, this bar has apple juice, apple cider, orange juice, grape juice, pomegranate juice, guava juice, pineapple juice, lemonade, coconut water, carbonated water, soda, sekanjabin, gatorade, a large selection of possible fruit/nut/chocolate/etc milkshake options (soy milk by default; cow's milk costs extra), and stupidly expensive eggnog. Also you can add your preferred quantity of capsaicin to any drink for an extra 50¢.

The food section lists all the milkshakes and eggnog again, plus variously toppinged french fries, onion rings, fried pickles, fried jalapenos, soy chicken nuggets, and tater tots.

..."Can I get a beer?"

The bartender looks puzzled. "I don't think we've got that."

"...anything with alcohol?"

"Not, like, for drinking. I have hand sanitizer."

Wh. What is this bar. How is he supposed to get laid under these conditions.

No wonder that girl was such a bitch.

He considers leaving but instead decides to try dancing and see if he can pick up a girl that way.

What kind of dancing is he doing this time?

He more-or-less mimics what everyone else is doing and adds some of the cooler moves he's learned by observing better dancers at clubs. 

A couple of people attempt to synchronize with him.

He positions himself in front of the hottest girl dancing with him, makes eye contact with a slight smile, grabs her hand (being careful to use a medium amount of pressure), and continues dancing. 

She startles like she stepped on a Lego and almost pulls her hand away, then puts on a determined expression and gets back into the rhythm, still holding hands.

She's darker-skinned than the previous girl, with obviously dyed firetruck-red braids down past her waist and an elaborate geometric pattern of glitter paint on her arms. She's wearing a sequined jacket and skirt combo with black boots that probably go up to her knees under the skirt.

O...... kay.

He is getting hella blown out tonight.

He's going to dance long enough that he's not obviously slinking away in shame, slink away in shame, order a milkshake, and sit down while attempting to look cool.

The milkshake is good, at least. The next time there's a break between songs a woman (late 20s, vaguely Asian, shoulder-length hair in a rhinestone-encrusted headband, jeans, baggy sweater knitted out of sparkly yarn) sits down two stools over and orders a 1500-Scoville eggnog. 

"Hey. You social tonight?"

Fuck YEAH. He has been APPROACHED by a GIRL. 

"I was thinking of heading out," he says coolly. "Places like this are so fake."

She looks at him with enormous grey eyes, and then back at her drink. "What places are realest, for you?"

"When I'm painting somewhere beautiful, like at the top of the mountain. What about you, what do you do?"

"Mountains are great but what I really love is rooftops. Being in the middle of everything but also above everything and unnoticed, surrounded by human achievement with the wind in my hair."

Climbing onto the tops of rooftops sounds like a risky thing to do, and women who like risky things are sluts. Shadow thinks he has a good chance here. 

"Say, can I get a female opinion on something?"

"Sure."