deercountry | (Open) This is Halloween

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(Open) This is Halloween

Who: Luca Paguro and Open
What: Catch all for the month
When: Throughout October
Where: The Black Parade, the Devil's Dive, the Disaster House, the beach

Content Warnings: A child drinking paint thinner (with no ill effects)

Black Parade (Open)
Luca knows by now, thanks to a certain network post, that if he wants to eat something without feeling that weird floaty feeling he'll have to eat poison. And he would, really he would, but who could possibly sit there eating whatever toxic thing they come across when there's so much delicious food here that he's never had before?

A lot of the food here seems to be seasonal, and Luca doesn't want to lose his chance to try them while they're still around. Besides, the loopy feeling wasn't that bad.

And that is why Luca is currently eating a candy apple, staggering around a bit because he definitely should not be eating said candy apple, while marveling at the puppetry and various festivities. At least it seems he's taking some precautions in this place. While he's made absolutely no effort to stay sober, Luca seems to have taken the local's advice to wear a costume to heart, as he's currently wearing a mask and costume. Or he might not have cared about the warnings of ghosts at all and just thought dressing up was fun. With how he's acting right now, it's really hard to tell how much Luca actually took in.

Devil's Dive (Open)
And once again it seems that Luca completely ignored the advice to not eat non-poisoned food. It's not really his fault, though. He'd never had nachos before, and ever since he came to this place, he'd discovered nachos were amazing. Is it his fault that nachos aren't poisonous?

That's how he justifies sitting there, getting progressively more impaired as he chows down on nachos.

"These are delicious! I don't know what the orange stuff is, but I love it!"

He might be seen in the same outfit he wore to the black parade, though he sometimes switches out the costume for the sailor suit he got when he first arrived, though he keeps the same mask on.

He continues to enjoy the nachos until eventually he leans back too far and ends up tumbling to the ground along with his chair.

"...ow. I'm all right."

And then staggers and stumbles as he both tries to get back up and tries to set his chair upright again. He's definitely fine, though. He'll insist on that fact if anyone asks.

Decorating the Disaster House (Open to anyone who has a reason to be outside the Disaster House)
Luca wants to do a good job, so he decides he's going to actually do what he's supposed to do. He won't eat or drink any real food or drink until he gets this done.

At first he just waits a few hours until the effects of his last meal wear off, then he gathers some supplies for a fairly easy Halloween decoration he wanted to try. A mirror, an old black and white picture, glue and some paint thinner.

He sets to work, disassembling the mirror and removing it from the frame, sitting down and working out where he wants to place the picture, and generally trying to carefully craft his 'haunted mirror' for the house. Then he notices he's starting to get thirsty. Again. And if he gets a drink of water, he'll just end up all weird again, and have to wait it out until his head's sorted out, and if he does that, it'll take forever before he can make anything.

He stares at the paint thinner. The guy on the Omni said vilebloods can only drink poison, right? He's a little nervous, picking up the bottle and staring at it for a moment. If he's wrong...this could be very, very bad, but...what reason would that guy have to lie? And he does need to figure out a way to eat and drink without going all loopy.

Unscrewing the lid, Luca brings it up to his face. Cod, that smells terrible. Well, here goes nothing.

Luca chugs the paint thinner.

It tastes...strangely tolerable, and as he downs it, he realizes he does feel refreshed. For the first time since the month began, he can drink without any ill effects. So he keeps drinking.

Fishing (Closed to Fern)]
Luca had been feeling lonely lately. Sure, he loves all the new friends he's making, but he misses his family, misses being in a world with others of his kind, but most of all, he misses Alberto. It had been so hard to leave him, but at the time he'd told himself that he'd write letters and call and that it would only be nine months. Now...he's totally cut off from Alberto, and he has no way of knowing if he, or anyone else from Luca's world, will ever wash up on shore.

Well, maybe this fishing trip with Fern will help distract him a bit from his thoughts. Even though fishing still reminds him of Alberto, and how good Alberto was at helping Massimo out with the nets. Still...it'll be nice having some help catching some fish. Fish that will apparently get him drunk all month when he actually eats it, but still...

He trudges over to the dock, not even noticing the rotting corpse of Alberto as he goes to find Fern, hoping Fern's fun personality will help distract him from his train of thought.

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Fern is glad that he's feeling better, and leans in a little to examine the knot when Luca is done. "Looks good! Next up are the worms."

He's going to go ahead and pull out a box he had brought along containing live, wriggling worms. He figures Luca isn't going to be wigged out by them, being a sea monster and all. "We usually used gummy worms back in Ooo, but there're only real ones here so we gotta work with that," he says, holding his hook up. Picking up a worm, he impales it on the hook.

"Yeah!" he said, excited. He'd never seen a movie before, so he's kind of looking forward to the whole experience.

Fern's right about Luca being fine with the worms. His family gathered sea cucumbers and the like to eat all the time, and worms weren't that different.

"What's a gummy worm?" Luca asks as he stabs the hook through the worm.

"Cool! Let me see...'Poltergeist.' Hmm. That sounds relatively ok, right? Can't be that scary, it's just ghosts!"

Ha ha ha!

Ha.

"You don't have to worry about a movie being too scary. I know I'm new to land, but I still get the idea of movies and that they're not real. Besides, we've been on that boat with the river of corpses, and I've seen my uncle before. I can't imagine anything that could be in the movie that would be too scary for me."

Then he realizes he should probably clarify that uncle comment.

"My...uncle's lived in the Deep for a long time. When we adapt to the Deep, our skin and flesh go translucent, so now even when he comes up, you can see all his organs."

"I mean, if it had been before Deerington, I'd have agreed with things not being real. Now I've been through things where a lot of scary stuff has been pretty real. But you know, you have a point! I mean, I used to think vampires were a little scary, but the ones on the movies are nothing compared to a vampire that actually feeds on you!"

Ha ha, being traumatized. Good times.

"Oh man, I don't think I could go and see all that! I'm all for biology, but seeing organs and stuff? That grosses me out."

Fern waggles his fingers in demonstrations. "It's kind of like a regular worm, but made outta sugar. Still squishy, though."

With their hooks baited, he turns a little. "Okay, then we just throw the hooks out there and wait for a fish!" He says, flicking his pole back and then forward, sending his hook far out into the water.

"Oh. Are there lots of vampires that want to feed on you here?"

If she's worried about vampires wanting to feed on her, maybe he should avoid mentioning the fact that he'd been wanting blood until this month, when he started needing poison. No...Luz would probably be okay with it. She was fine with it when he screwed up his words earlier and said blood instead of poison.

"Yeah, it was pretty gross. And it did not help that he kept talking about eating whale carcasses, but...I could handle it."

Edited 2021-11-05 22:29 (UTC)

"If it's made out of sugar, wouldn't it just dissolve in water?"

He's not surprised that fish might like gummy worms. He loves sugar, after all. He's just surprised they could hold up in water. He watches Fern, and tosses his own hook out, though he does it somewhat clumsily and it doesn't go nearly as far.

"This kind of fishing seems a lot less active than the other ways I've fished before. But...it seems like it would be nice if you just want to hang out and talk to someone. You probably don't catch as many as quickly as with a net or just catching them by hand, though."

"No, not here anyway. I mean that it happened to me once. When I was in Deerington, I got influenced by smoke and stuff, and then a vampire came and fooled me into thinking she was looking for her father and stuff, and then she bit me. It was pretty lucky Eda got to me in time. I was pretty drained."

Luz had wondered why Claudia hadn't shown up here, but would likely be even MORE shocked to find out she was in one of the movies that Jen had been showing for Halloween!

"Whale carcasses? Wow. That's...probably a whole lot of meat, now that I think about it."

"Nah. Dunno how it worked, but they never dissolved."

It was probably science, on PB's part. Making all her candy citizens tougher than normal so they wouldn't just wash away the first time it rained. He's never given it much thought before, but that seems like a reasonable enough explanation to him.

He watches Luca's attempt, nodding a little. It still isn't bad for his first try. "Yeah, it's supposed to be more for fun than food."

"Oh. That's...pretty bad. I know there's some people here that need blood with their particular blood effects, but hopefully no one's just taking it like that."

And he realizes he's probably fine if he does tell her about his vileblood blood drinking thing, since it's not like he's taking it from anyone. He had some in the arena (from a monster) and some from the fish he was catching.

"Yeah, it is, but...I think it's kind of gross. My uncle seems to really like it, and I've never actually eaten whale carcass, but...it just seems gross."

"She should have just asked, but she's a vampire so I guess she's not used to doing that. Anyway, she went back home, so I guess that'll probably be the last time I see her. That's not to say there won't be other vampires here probably though."

Luca, Luz is going to go get blood for you to have on the regular. You'll be OK.

"Maybe it is? I can't say. I've never had whale myself, and I've eaten a lot of sea food."

Oh.

Riz stares. He hasn't actually seen scales up close before - beyond the dead fish around the markets here, which he avoids looking at for too long. Seeing them materialize along the boy's foot looks like it could be something out of a fairy tale. He's quiet for a moment, his eyes widening.

And then spoken more softly, as in both awe and puzzlement,

"Do... the humans here, also fear sea monsters?"

"Yeah. I'm sure there are plenty of vampires here, but maybe they're all more polite since I haven't heard about anyone getting bitten. I mean, there's a whole blood type that drinks blood, so..."

Well, that's one way to try and slip it into conversation.

"Oh, that makes sense. And explains why I never did it this way. Back home we'd mostly farm fish, but if we wanted something not on the farm we'd just go out and find it ourselves, but fish was our main source of food...and then when I went to the human town, that was a fishing village, so of course they wanted to catch a lot."

After all, they wouldn't be able to sustain themselves catching fish one at a time.

He shakes his head.

"No. It was an issue back home, but no one seems to care here. It's kind of hard getting used to everyone being okay with it, but it's nice."

"You have a point, but obviously the vampires from lore and the ones that are here are probably going to be pretty different anyway. You still need blood yourself, right?"

Just to remind her of what to add to his food regimen. Luca drinks blood. Got it.

"Yeah, when I don't--" Need poison, as he has this month. That's what he was going to say before he realized what she'd said. "Wait, you know? How'd you figure it out?"

...okay, yeah, it's obvious. He slipped up earlier in the conversation and said he needed blood, then corrected it to poison. Which makes a lot more sense if blood is something he's gotten used to eating. She's also seen him lose control and devour a fish when it was bleeding. And now he's hinting at a blood type needing blood, and with them having nearly every blood type in the house and no one other than Luca hinting at needing blood, it's kind of obvious.

"And I don't really know if I need it. I might be fine without it. I've been wanting it, except this month when I apparently need poison instead, but maybe I'll be fine if I just ignore it."

"You drank blood in front of me, you mentioned it by mistake and then you brought it up again Luca. I've already accepted that you need blood, ok? You don't have to hide it!"

Luz was certainly not going to treat him any differently because of what his body was craving, any more than she would shame anyone that had warmblood. Those were the hang ups of the people in this world. Luz hadn't braved Deerington so she could come here and be selective about who was somehow more natural or better with their blood type.

"Luca, I wouldn't chance it. For all you know you DO need it and you could seriously make yourself sick by not getting it. Listen to your body. Drink the blood."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess there's all that."

He needs to get better at hiding stuff if he wants to keep things from Luz. Or...anybody, really.

"Okay, fine. I mean, I'm used to eating raw fish for the meat anyway, I guess it's not that much of a change."

Now it's just eating raw fish for the blood.

Really Luca? You'd like to THIS face?

"I can prepare both for you anyway. Cut up raw fish and drain it of its blood. It'll be an adjustment, but at least that way I know you're not going to be deficient. Unless, you know, you want to hunt the fish yourself. You might have a whole system I don't know about!"

"Oh, that would be really nice! I mean, I have been hunting the fish myself and that works fine, but back home my mom would always cut up fish and oysters and stuff and wrap them in seaweed. Oh, and sea cucumbers, too. Those are pretty good."

Edited 2021-11-11 03:02 (UTC)

"You know, I could do that...but how would you feel about them in a chowder? That way I can make some for the whole house, and give you a special batch with the cucumbers and oysters cut up?"

Fern nods along at that. Yep, nets would be needed for a whole fishing village instead of just fishing poles.

"What's it like farming fish?" He's curious, he's heard of farming crops and stuff like cows and pigs, but not fish.

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Page 8 of 11

(Open) This is Halloween

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Luz is going to LOVE November

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November will be the worst for all of them. Thanksgiving will be the new feared holiday.

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Turkey day is now replaced by death day. Happy tiding to you all!

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