Party!, Purposefully Creepy Mansion, Thursday Evening

[newroutines]

It was once more Halloween, and the island had finally calmed the fuck down again.

Well, mostly. The Jack O'Lanterns outside in the yard lighting the way to the house occasionally laughed in a PG-rated creepy fashion, and bat cut-outs flew around the ceiling above the partygoers' heads, and the black cats printed on the sides of balloons flicked their tails back and forth and sometimes hissed at people when they went by.

And because it was tradition, there was a bloody goblin in the fridge, complete with a name tag identifying it as April. Only this time, whenever you opened the door to get something, it'd tell you whatever you were grabbing was actually poison...ously delicious!

(Shut up, it was made of plastic, its punning game wasn't the greatest.)

There were also once more lots of snacks, lots of drinks, and way too many kinds of jello shots. But fewer renditions of Monster Mash on the Spotify playlist for this party, this year! So far, anyway. Mike had a sign up againwith instructions on how to find the playlist and add songs to it, so that may not last all through the evening.

[ooc: OCD up, have at! OPEN TO ALL! If you're an adult, you got an invitation! Students are welcome to try and sneak in should they so wish, but may be politely removed from the premises.]

Comments

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[notallbluemonks]

Did Beau feel kind of obligated to say hi to Duke tonight, given her meta Dread Pirate Roberts costume situation here? Yeah, because she thought it was funny.

“What, no costume, man? I’m disappointed,” she said, not sounding disappointed at all really. She hadn’t had one last year either so it wasn’t like she had room to talk.

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[betterthanaplan]

"No costume," Duke confirmed. Because no one had pressed him into a hat yet. "You look, uh. Nice, though. Ninja-pirate?"

He'd seen the movie. It had been absolutely unavoidable when he'd been growing up. He would probably also call the movie character in question a 'ninja-pirate'.

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[notallbluemonks]

“That’s definitely the description I would use,” Beau said, nodding. “You know the movie? Cool. I didn’t want to have to explain it to everybody.”

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[betterthanaplan]

"I'm . . . passingly familiar." He had the sword fight scenes' choreography memorized. "So costumes are kind of a thing around here, huh?"

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[notallbluemonks]

The sword fight choreography was absolutely worth memorizing.

“Apparently, yeah.” Beau shrugged. “I didn’t know when I showed up last year, either.” Because she hadn’t even been here two days at that point but pfffft.

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[betterthanaplan]

"That's fair," Duke said. "They even have Halloween where you're from?"

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[notallbluemonks]

“Nah.” Beau looked down at the empty jello shot cup in her hand and snorted a laugh. “We have Harvest’s Close, and there’s a few religious holidays, but most of the gods are kinda totally illegal where I’m from, so … not a lot. And nothing like this.”

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[betterthanaplan]

"The . . . gods are illegal. Like, the worship of them? Or are they actually all piled up behind some great, metaphysical 'keep out' sign or something?"

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[notallbluemonks]

“Actually, yes,” Beau replied. “There's this Divine Gate thing -- they can't actually manifest on our plane, they barred themselves from doing that like hundreds of years ago. It's a whole long story. But no, the Dwendalian Empire only has six of the gods that they consider legal to worship."

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[betterthanaplan]

"Wow. That's . . . huh." Yeah, he didn't really know what to make of that. "What if your religion is more based on, like, a really spiritually pure person and not a full on deity?"

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[notallbluemonks]

“That’s a good fucking question.” And not one Beau had ever had occasion to think about before, given that the most exposure she’d ever had to religion was after she’d been dropped at the monastery. “Whatever the answer is, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have heard it, you know?”

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[betterthanaplan]

"Totally fair," Duke said. "And hey, it's not like I'm planning to go to your world and start proselytizing or anything. Maybe just tossing off a few fortune cookie phrases as most."

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[notallbluemonks]

"That's probably about all you could get away with before the Crownsguard started keeping an eye on you." The Empire was so much fun. "But now you have me all curious about how this religion works."

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[betterthanaplan]

"Buddhism? The basic idea is that we're all here to, like, seek the truth of the universe. And every life we live is part of the process of learning that truth. A Buddha is a person who's figured it all out, and doesn't have to keep being reborn again and again anymore. So, like, you can follow their advice to get closer to enlightenment, but they're not a god or anything."

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[notallbluemonks]

Beau had a detached but attentive look on her face at the beginning of that explanation, but by the time Duke was done explaining, the detachment had faded away and she just looked interested.

"It's all totally voluntary? That's ... huh. That's new."

She'd appreciate the truth-seeking aspect of it all more someday soon, too.

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[betterthanaplan]

"Sure. I mean, there are plenty of people who were raised to it, but yeah. Like, I figure I'm good to live a couple dozen or so more lifetimes, thanks. Even if I do end up coming back as, like, a fish."

Sometimes being a fish sounded nice, honestly.

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[notallbluemonks]

It sounded interesting, though Beau would rather come back as a bird. Some kind of cool raptor, if she had her way.

"Being a fish might give you an interesting perspective, maybe? Like just from getting a real up close and personal understanding of the food chain and some deep and philosophical interpretation of that."

She was pretty sure she'd seen something to that effect in a book she'd flipped through before reshelving it, back at the Cobalt Soul library. It had been in reference to shapeshifting spells and abilities, but close enough!

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[betterthanaplan]

"It totally could," Duke agreed. "Plus, you know, you could breathe under water."

He'd maybe always kind of wished he could do that.

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[notallbluemonks]

"Yeah, that'd be super useful," agreed Beau. "Not something I thought about that much when I was a kid, but now that I'm, like, surrounded by the ocean here, kinda seems more relevant, right?"

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[betterthanaplan]

"Having spent most of my life surrounded by ocean, I can assure you it is very relevant, yes."

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[notallbluemonks]

"Not much ocean in the Empire," Beau explained. "Just the frozen shit way up north, and we're surrounded by mountains otherwise."

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[betterthanaplan]

“What kind of empire doesn’t even have any ports?”

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[notallbluemonks]

Beau spread her hands and shrugged broadly. "Dude, I don't know. The Menagerie Coast has all that shit, I guess we have some arrangements going on there. Unless we end up slowly taking that over, too."

Because King Bertrand Dwendal was a jerk.

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[betterthanaplan]

"Well. It is an empire, after all. Taking things over is kind of what they do."

Re: Arrive/Mingle [Halloween 2019]

[betterthanaplan]

"It totally could," Duke agreed. "Plus, you know, you could breathe under water."

He'd maybe always kind of wished he could do that.