She looks around and gathers up the various beauty supplies her tailor picked out, looks at the beauty routine instructions, and starts setting things out in the appropriate order.

Okay, gathering everything for doing the beauty routine. How does a thomassian introduce herself to her neighbors? Is there a building-wide or floor-wide messaging system? Go knock on doors? Move the ice cream session to a common area?

Well, each building gets its own message-routing number? So if you send a message to your building's coordinates, in phone number form, you send a message to everyone living in that building. You're allowed to say that it's only meant for people on your floor and elevator landing, but they'll still technically be able to see it. Although the etiquette is deleting the message unread if you specify that it's only meant for people your floor+landing. Alternately, you're also free to knock on doors.

Okay, that's really cool. Thomassia continues to be saner than Earth in fascinating new ways. I'll send the building a message after I finish getting all done up to meet people. Would you recommend I floor-limit it? Also, how much do I explain about the "my home planet is a traumatic place and I have trauma from living there for the past thirty-one years" situation?

She slowly works through her beauty routine, everything from face wash to hair-styling to a bit of makeup and painting her nails. She picks out some really lacy lingerie, in black, and then starts looking through her closet to decide what outfit to wear.

I think you should floor-limit it, honestly. And I think that you should wait a moment with the home-planet thing. I suspect that they'd see it as a high-context RP thing they're not sure about how to deal with.

The beauty routine is careful and deliberate; all the products come in similar-sized thin pucks, designed to be stacked, and to use the top product before moving on to the next, whatever product remains on top being the next one to try. There's an anti-aging cream, some nutrient cream, an exfoliant, aloe... they do try to minimize the amount of products used, but they do end up with a fair few different products needed for a truly fantastic result. Because they're commodity chemicals, they are at least very, very cheap.

And once you're done, you can just put all the products you're using back, starting with the one topping the pile of products that you used before finishing your routine with the product at the bottom of your original pile.

The magic of thomassian design means that even Sable's laciest lingerie keeps her tuck at once supportive, flat and comfortable, with the alluring "lace-over-nude" colorscheme. And in terms of outfits, she has quite a few; a few different skirts, depending on her mood. And also that slinky red dress... but really, the options are near-endless.

Thomassia: kind of great.

And then she debates the outfits. Hmm. The swishy black pleated skirt, and the cream-colored poofy blouse, and maybe the piratical jacket overtop? She tries all that on and twirls.

Wow, she looks kind of pretty. 

Wow.

She snaps a picture of herself, curls styled lopsidedly to one side, bit of a daring grin on her face, skirt swooshed up just a little mid-twirl, and sends it to Sylvania. 

Okay. That sounds like a plan. How do I look?

You're a dime! Knock em' dead! ❤️

She sends a 💜 to Sylvania, then types up a text to the building.

[Floor 35 only please] Hi everyone, I'm Sable, the new girl in 3512, just moved in a couple days ago. Looking forward to meeting people. New to the area and don't have a lot of friends yet, so new friends are very welcome.

She looks over the message, waffles for a moment, then adds one more sentence.

(Coming off a bit of a bad time before I moved here, so hugs would be pretty great.)

Then she hums to herself. What if this is too much? Not enough? She screenshots the whole draft and sends the screenshot to Sylvania.

This look okay?

Yup, that's plenty! After sending that message, I recommend that you also walk around, knock on doors, and introduce yourself to people. Tell them you'd really enjoy doing some RP, and asking if there's any RP premises they want to try.

She sends the drafted message to the building, then sends a new one to Sylvania.

How do I tell which neighbors won't be bothered by knocking on their door?

They tell you "Fuck off?" After you've sent out a message like that, it's expected that they see it and reply with "please don't knock on my unit" or something similar, if they're not interested in seeing their new neighbor.

Okay. She takes a few deep breaths, watches for "don't knock" messages, psyches herself up a bit.

This is a place that cares about meeting people and being sweet to them. This is a good place. She's going to be okay. 

Here I go. Thanks for all the help. 💜

And then out she goes to knock on a random door that hasn't sent a "fuck off not now" (if she's received any of those.)

Sable has received zero "fuck off" messages or shouts so far (after knocking on her first door!) A man wearing a pretty pajamas opens the door and takes a look at Sable. She's able to make out a historical drama of some kind projected against and taking up nearly an entire wall in his apartment. "You look quite beautiful, miss! Were you looking forward to getting to meet some people and talk to them?"

She blushes a bit at the compliment and smiles at him. "Thank you! And yeah, looking forward to meeting people, chatting a bit, maybe doing some friendly or supportive RP if people are up for it sometime soon?"

"You'll find tons of takers for the RP! Although, on my end, I was really enjoying the drama I was watching, so you'll have to wait a bit for me to join. Here." He lifts up his phone, motioning for Sable to tap hers against his and share contact information through NFC. "They just need to tap for a moment, and I'll know how to contact you. Way less annoying than both of us putting each others' contact info into our phones."

She smiles, taps her phone to his, and nods. "Thanks! Enjoy your drama!"

"I absolutely will! And I think I might join you later, as well." He waves her goodbye and slowly closes the door behind him as he closes the door to his apartment.

Okay, she takes a breath. That went well.

Next door.

It reveals a woman wearing a simple, grey dress. She smiles as she gets a look at Sable. "I saw your message! I'm always happy to meet new people and make new friends. Can you tell me about yourself?"

Sable smiles back at her. "Okay! I'm Sable, I'm thirty-one, I like sailing and swimming, I'm planning to try dance class and sword-fighting soon, and I might try writing fiction eventually. I like helping people and seeing people smile. I'm also kind of fragile and emotional from a complicated bad time before I moved to Leakey Resort a few days ago."

"That sounds really cool and exciting! Do you want to try some RP? I really like doing standby support, and I think you might appreciate it, too."

She grins and blushes, a bit embarrassed but eager. "Yeah, I've never tried it before but I think it sounds great. I'd love to."