deercountry | sanctuary holiday party

Entry tags:

sanctuary holiday party

Who: Anyone, open to all
What: Sanctuary's holiday party, low key since it's a hectic irl month. There will be a handwave thread for just that.
When: the last week of december
Where: sanctuary

Content Warnings: alcohol, others to be put in headers

Welcome to Sanctuary's attempt at a holiday party. It's open door, feel free to have heard about from word of mouth, a friend, just walking by and being curious.

It's also half planned by a man who doesn't know the first thing about any winter holidays, so that will probably be fine.

The kitchen is the drop off area for people who brought food. It's also open for people who want to prepare something themselves. The general instruction for anyone who asked what to bring was nostalgic food, something from their world, something from their preferred holiday this time of year. Because of that the selection is a bit wacky, but a lot of the staples are there.

Like cookies of various sorts, hot chocolate, a big bowl of some spiked drink that people are hopefully guarding from the wayward youth. Feel free to take a turn doing so or making it worse. Otherwise it's pretty much just a buffet of people moving in and out, taking a plate to wander.

Ugly sweaters are apparently a tradition so there's a pile of them in one of the rooms, brought by none other than Vi. Anyone is welcome to go and steal one, they're terrible. Imagine what Trench thrift stores would have in terms of ugly holiday sweaters and despair.

Music wafts through the rooms as well, again a weird combination of whatever holiday music seemed appropriate. The central room to the party has a tree, only it's made of metal and looks more on the menacing side than festive. Presents can be placed under there, ones that will be sent to Koz Orphanage for their own celebrations.

Speaking of there's a table for making decorations. Craft stuff, glitter and glue, origami and instructions on how to make stars and simple chains. It's clearly meant more for the Koz kids when they visit but no one's going to stop anyone from unleashing their muse over here. In fact it's encouraged to hang the decorations up when done wherever you'd like, including the increasingly cluttered, dangerous metal tree.

It's more than likely mistletoe ended up tacked up somewhere. Hey, at least it's not Trench bullshit magic mistletoe, it can be easily ignored.

Outside lights are strung up everywhere, the snow is fresh and it's a lot quieter in general. Not a bad place to wander, or to start hurling snow at people so it's immediately less quiet.

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Maul arrived late and would leave early. It was nothing personal and anyone who knew even a little bit about him would realize it was a surprise he decided to show up at all. The Vileblood effects had made him a bit unpredictable (moreso than usual), so here he was.

He left the food he'd brought in the kitchen, picked up a piping hot mug of something to drink, and promptly went outside where it was quieter. This was a good place to approach him if anyone wanted to talk to him while he was in a good mood, for the silent beauty of the outside world made him feel contemplative and a little less intense than he normally was.

Surprisingly, he also brought some packages for the orphanage, leaving them under the tree. He would refuse to tell what was inside them and only said it was a surprise. That in itself would be a good clue to open them up before handing them out to the kiddies, given Maul thought sharp knives were perfectly suitable gifts for little hands.

He also would sort carefully through the ugly sweaters to find one that fit his frame and was also to his liking. He didn't have a lot of clothing in general, so one would have thought he wasn't picky, but his apathy for clothes most of the time merely meant he was all the more discerning with the few items he did decide to acquire. Eventually, he settled on a sweater that was in his own color scheme. He'd ask the nearest person, "What do you think?" It was best to just give a diplomatic answer, no one wanted to be Force-Choked with all the festivities going on.

Thankfully for Mob he has next to no real strong opinion on things like clothes, so when the very red and black man asks that he takes a moment to regard the sweater seriously before saying, "I like the colors."

His own sweater is. a lot. So really he'd have no room to say anything anyway. He does like how it jingles gently when he moves though.

Maul continued to look at Mob for a moment after he gave his answer, looking extremely serious about the subject of the ugly Christmas sweater. Then again, Maul looking extremely serious about anything was par for the course when it came to the Zabrak's expressions. At least he didn't look like he wanted to murder the person closest to him by gutting them like a fish.

"Good," he said finally as his attention turned back to the sweater. "I shall take it then." With that, Maul put it on, careful of his horns as always when he put on clothes. It was a habit long ingrained in most Zabraks from childhood given no one wanted to end up with holes in all their tops.

Mob watches this, taking it just as seriously it seemed. When the sweater goes on he thinks something like 'oh, it matches.' The colors, just the whole thing. He knows nothing about fashion but that's the feeling he got, so he nods. "It suits you."

Another pause. "I'm not really sure why everyone wears weird sweaters though."

"Thank you," Maul said, preening a little as he adjusted the sweater so it fit him best. "Yours is interesting as well." Though he wasn't certain as to why the sweater needed so many cats on it but perhaps that was simply the style.

He shrugged at the mention of weird sweaters. "It is another strange Earth custom. I've long since given up trying to understand any of them," Maul said with a wise, seen-it-all air. Nothing human beings did surprised him any longer. "All I know is that any opportunity presented to end up with new clothing should be taken advantage of." Maul never went shopping for clothes on his own and the few times he had it was because friends pressured him to. A rare opportunity like this to acquire something new had to be taken advantage of.

"I like the cats," Mob informs, lifting his arm with a tinkle of bells to regard the faces. Though he's also pretty sure these aren't very Christmas-y cats. Ah well.

As Maul speaks Mob looks over, nodding along. Maul seems pretty wise, he thinks, like he's seen a lot of weird things. "Ah, Master Reigen used to say the same thing about getting free t-shirts at things." Just a nod there- hey, it seemed especially relevant in the Trench now, where he needs to slowly acquire an entirely new wardrobe. "He also says it's stupid not to take advantage when people want to give you free stuff, unless they're trying to sell you something."

Indeed, Mob was right on the money there. Maul had seen a lot of weird and unusual things. If it hadn't made him wise, as a number of people still would have described him as being an impulsive moron, then at least it had given him a unique perspective on life there in Trench. He adapted quickly to most situations thrown at them, provided they didn't affect him mentally.

"Your master is a very wise man. Most of the clothes I have acquired here are usually given to me or found at events like this." Really, he needed someone to drag him out for clothes shopping more than once every few years. "What was he teaching you?"

"Mine too," Mob admits, but that's more because people have been generous to a middle schooler rather than anything else. Which he is very grateful for, of course.

"He was teaching me how to handle my psychic powers," is his easy answer there. It's nice here that people don't typically scoff at that, given nearly every sleeper has blood magic. "Most people don't have powers where I'm from. They don't even believe it exists sometimes."

"You have psychic powers?" Immediately, that urge within Maul to always seek out people with powers he could manipulate rose up but he pushed it back down again. He'd given up trying to manipulate those who were young and looking for someone to help with their abilities. These days, his interest was much more altruistic.

"Have you found any teachers here?" He asked.

Mob nods, then considers a moment before he lifts a hand and makes snow lift all around them in a blue-purple glow. It's kind of pretty actually, ice crystals in the air reflecting that that light. The general sense he gives off when using it is being a bit of a power vacuum, like energy just gravitates into him if he isn't watching it.

He looks to Maul though. "I have been. I've been learning a bit with Sensei Larusso, about inner balance? And Master Obi-Wan said he'd try to help too." He lifts a finger and lets some of the snow spin idly. "The power he's connected to is really interesting, I never felt anything like it before."

Now that was an impressive display, though the usually impassive expression on Maul's face didn't change expression. "Interesting," was all that he said.

Maul decided not to comment on Daniel. As far as he was concerned, the man could go take a long walk off a short cliff. He wasn't sure how valuable anything the karate man could teach people was. His old foe, at least, he had more complimentary things to say about. "Obi-Wan is a wise man to learn from. His powers and mine stem from the same source. The Force." Maul reached out with the Dark Side and used it to show off his own powerset, using it in a more delicate manner to form the snow into three rough round balls, pretty much making a lumpy snowman with the material.

There's something about that simple acceptance and answer that has Mob's opinion of Maul go up a bit. He wasn't really expecting shock, given the Trench and the fact Maul's clearly seen weirder, but it's still kind of nice.

Ah there it is though, he's seen a little of this power before and it's pretty interesting. More that massive pool it seems to come from, the connection of it all. He regards the makeshift snowman, content to let the snow around them continue floating lazily and freely.

"He said it's tied to your emotions too," Mob answers. "It sounds kind of similar to psychic powers, just you're tied to something really, really big." And a beat, before he asks, "Is it hard to control?"

"Yes. The orders he and I belong to approach it from two different points of view but both use the same power source. The Jedi focus on detachment and control as a way to use the Force while the Sith use passion and heightened emotions." That was the most Maul could say about the Jedi Order without getting into biased territory.

He nodded at the question. "Some of it is. Think of it like a large piece of steel. You can use a lump of the metal as a weapon but it will only take you so far. To wield it properly, it needs to be melted down and refined into a sharp blade. That is the Force." Maul wasn't really good with explaining things but he hoped he'd gotten across the point that some of it was innate but most of what he'd learned had involved being taught to hone his powers into something far more intricate.

That actually does make sense to Mob in a way he hasn't heard someone use before. Usually people talk about skill rather than refining the energy itself. He nods slowly.

"So they control their emotions to shape their power and the Sith use their emotions instead?" he guesses after a beat. "Using your emotions for it like that sounds pretty dangerous. You don't get hurt?"

"Yes, at its heart, that is what the Jedi and Sith's tenants are. Light versus dark, order versus chaos, detachment versus passion." Mob seemed smart enough to pick up on the idea that good versus evil wasn't one of the things that the two sides of the Force really entailed, at least not in Maul's mind, so he didn't include his usual affirmation about that.

Maul paused for a long moment before he answered the boy. "There is always a chance of getting hurt when you have tremendous power. It is the price one pays for having it to begin with. That is why it is important to learn how to use it properly and wisely. The Sith believe our passions free us from any self-imposed chains put on our minds, allowing us to reach our full potential in the Force."

Mob does take note of that, mostly that it sounds like the two sides seem so split down the middle. Is this what it would be like in a world where psychic powers were more common? People thinking about what it really meant, drawing lines in the sand, forming groups and finding both understanding and conflict.

It sounds like a lot to deal with. It sounds really nice too. A little of both.

Admittedly the Sith side of things sets off alarm bells in his head. He's spent so, so long trying to control his emotions, it's everything he's always felt was dangerous. Yet here is a person who seemed to live that way, at a party, making snow float with him.

(He hasn't used his powers so freely like this in longer than he can remember. At least not for something so simple. It was a little scary. It was-

(34%) )

"But-" he starts, stops, needs a moment before he looks up again. "Emotions, passion, it's what makes us lose control, isn't it? It's dangerous. Maybe not to us always, but other people."

"You sound like a Jedi," Maul said. It wasn't an insult, mainly noting which way Mob seemed to think of how to control his own powers. He went on to explain what he thought.

"Repression, detachment, to me that sounds dangerous rather than using my emotions. To try and keep a lid on everything, obsessing over a control which is unnatural means risking bottling everything up until you explode outwards. It is far healthier to learn how to use your emotions to your advantage. To feel anger, fear, determination, these things are natural. What one needs to do is learn to wield them for a person instead of against them. That is what I try to do with my students here." Maul had found great satisfaction in teaching others here the tenants of the Sith that he still agreed with.

Yeah fair, that did sound a little like what Obi-Wan said. It should probably mean the Jedi thought process makes more sense to him, yet he watches Maul as he speaks, conflicted. He's not even sure why he's conflicted.

(Maybe because everything Maul just said sounds like him. Bottling it up, exploding. How many times did it happen now? More than he wants to count.)

"How... do you learn that?" He sounds a little hesitant, but pushes on. "How do you teach it?"

Maul was happy to explain the philosophy he saw to instill in his students. Most of it were the teachings of the Sith he'd learned growing up, though he had made adjustments as he'd realized things like deliberate cruelty to one's students was no way to get proper results. He was a firm teacher and pushed his students hard but he wasn't sadistic and never sought to break them down the way Sidious had with him.

"First, one must start off with meditation. You cannot built a strong house on shaky foundations. I teach how to let go of trying to control your emotions and keep it all beneath the surface. No, the goal is to bring all of what you are feeling to the front of your mind and simply let yourself be. Feel everything there and not be afraid of it. Only then can teaching how to control the powers themselves can occur."

He'd had great success with this method going all the way back to when he'd first met Eleven in Deerington and with some of his students that had extraordinary powers here in Trench like Sharon.

"But-"

Another pause, because it all sounds right. It's how people handle things, it's how other psychics did probably. It's how Maul does, and others like him. His students even.

'Let yourself be' was dangerous for someone like him though. "What if even that is too dangerous? What if who you are is dangerous to everyone?"

He glances over to Maul again, his powers slowly letting the snow lower, his aura fading. "I wonder sometimes if there are things that just shouldn't exist. Like powers."

"People are always a danger to others no matter who or what they are. Even if you don't have powers, it can still happen. It is just some are a bigger danger than others to people. That is why proper training is necessary." Maul believed that firmly. Even if he hadn't been taken by his master, he would have had to be trained by his mother on the use of his powers.

"I think everyone who has powers feels that way at some point or another," Maul said in a kind tone. He had a number of times, knowing that his master had only sought him out because of his Force-sensitivity. "But you cannot run away from who you are. All you can do is learn how to control your powers instead of letting them control you instead."

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sanctuary holiday party

Darth Maul - OTA!

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