deercountry | Birthday Party

Birthday Party

Who: Paul Atreides and all his CR
What: Throwing everyone’s favorite Duke a surprise birthday party
When: Forwarded dated to April 1st
Where: Bone House in Gaze

Content Warnings: Drinking, underage drinking, drugs (both fictional and not), drawings of space worms, skeletons, will add further warnings if necessary

When you arrive at the house in Gaze, (affectionately known as Bone House), a skeleton will open the door and offer to take your coat if you have one. No need to take your shoes off or anything!

The large house has been decorated with black streamers and confetti. In the entryway and hung on the railing to the second floor that overlooks the entrance to the great room are large banners that say “HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAUL” (though one looks like it used to say “Jaune” but was just painted over? Whatever).

In the Living Room, there is a large board and various colored markers for people to write messages to the birthday boy. There is also a table full of bottled water and various couches, chairs, and beanbags to collapse into if the party gets to be too much and one needs a quiet place to rest or a place to chill if you’ve imbibed too much… well, whatever you had.

It is also where all the food and drinks are.

There’s an extremely large charcuterie board with the usual meats, cheeses, and olives as well as an extremely eccentric collection of snacks ranging from individual sized Cheez-it bags, to humungous bags of Doritos and salty chips, as well as nearly every kind of Oreo one can imagine.

There are also various cakes, all angel food. Some are misshapen, some have an attempt at being frosted with whipped cream and fruit, one even says “Happy Birthday Ka-” before that was hastily covered with a bunch of strawberries jammed really close together.

At the island, a skeleton is playing bartender. Surprisingly, it can seem to take and understand individual orders, but there’s always a constant flow of tequila shots being made and sent out to the great hall to be served by another skeleton.

And, no, of course it’s not going to check your age to see if you’re legal. It’s a skeleton. Why would it care?

The Great Hall is the center of activity and where everyone is encouraged to mingle and have fun. There is a skeleton on the grand piano in the corner gleefully playing piano covers of the hits from the Shrek Soundtrack with the occasional cover of “DaRude’s Sandstorm” when it has another one to help out.

In another corner, on huge piece of paper that spans nearly 6ft wide and 8ft tall is drawing of an Arrakis sandworm and it’s giant maw. The game is Pin the Tooth on the Sandworm and it’s… very easy… because the worm maw is most of the board. Even if the skeleton spins you as you’re blindfolded, it’s pretty hard to lose. If you manage to do it, which is likely, the skeleton running the game will award you a tequila shot! If you lose, the skeletons will award you a tequila shot (but it’s rail).

(It’s a drinking game, isn’t the point to drink?)

There’s also a table that has many candelabras on it, numbering up to seventeen. They’re still lit and burning even though there is a sign that says “make a wish!” even though it almost looks like a shrine for the dead.

…It’s maybe clear that the concept of “birthday candles” was greatly misunderstood.

There is also a skeleton dealing out small doses of “Spice”, a psychoactive drug straight outta the Duneverse. However, you must check in with this Skeleton to get a dose. There will be no “permanently melting your brain with ancestral memories” at this party!

Teacher’s/God’s/Jod’s/The Emperor Undying’s study, adjacent to the main hall, is closed and locked. Though, the lock is fairly easy to break if someone really wanted to get in. There’s not even skeletons guarding.

That said, many things are warded with eerie runes of blood and bone.

So, fuck around and find out.

The upstairs is generally off limits. Party goers can climb up the stairs, and it’s encouraged if they want to look over the Great Room from above, but all of the bedrooms are carefully guarded by more skeletons who will SCREAM VERY LOUDLY if you try to enter and will become hostile if done by force.

Of course, this won’t happen if you are with someone who lives in the house.

Enjoy the party! Mingle away!

((ooc: if you have any questions or anything, please hit me up at

worldtype)) or via PM.))

Birthday Board | At the Party | The Morning After | IC Party Games | Spice Dealer

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She says you're right. I say she's an incompetent scribe.

[Paul has never seen that particular icon before, and his laugh is bright and warm as candle flame.]

Can I take that one? That is funny. 😄 Do you know any more?

In fairness to Sophia it's a lot of real estate to cover on a keyboard or a sheet of paper.

[At first he thinks that Paul is talking about the pun, of which he is proud. A line for punch at a refreshment table, tying back to the punchline of a joke, both things he has or could miss. It turns out that Paul has a fascination with emojis, and L wonders if that came from Shoyo. That's how he got into them too, after all.]

I know a few. This one's puzzling to me, though; it appears to be a reference to Cyrano de Bergerac but I'm never in a mood to express that I "dream of being loved by even an ugly woman." I'm not sure who would want to say that in a text message. 🤥

Edited 2022-04-02 21:58 (UTC)

I assume the nose is the impediment to his love life? Symbolically, that could represent something I'm told women enj

[That's not the kind of joke you make to a teacher, a decision Paul makes just short of disaster.]

You could use it in a few insults, or as an allusion to the story in other aspects depending on context. What's the worst one you could send to someone? 🗡️ seems too straightforward.

The worst one? I'd have to think for a second. I've thought. 🥦

What did a tree ever do to you?

In fairness, it's an extremely small and bitter tree.

And what's wrong with being extremely small and bitter? Some of my best friends are extremely small and bitter.

179 centimeters is above average height for a male of my genetic background, I'll have you know. I'm not small. I'm very bitter though, about many things. Not towards you; you've done nothing.

Who said you were one of the small ones? And bitter? With all the sugar you eat? Is that what it's for? (I may have done something.)

Sugar for bitterness? There might be something to that. What do you think you've done?

It does seem to be working. I don't think you're that bitter, either.

[It's mostly true. It's also a little bit to curry some allowances for the next part, which involves an attachment of a crooked photo of an double punched earlobe.]

It was my idea. I asked Harrowhark to do it. (She's one of the extremely small and bitter ones.)

[He wants to soften the impact, in case Lazarus is disapproving - but more than that, he's slightly apprehensive about what Lazarus might think to discover Paul pierced with flecks of bone under this particular roof.]

[...oh.]

I wondered what that twinge was. Was it an impulsive decision, or something you've been planning for awhile?

We tried to numb it out.

[Between them, Paul had thought they managed rather well, but he will concede he was relying on substances more than discipline.]

Is 'both' an acceptable answer? I wanted to do something to mark the occasion. Body modification is a ritual of observance for plenty of cultures.

There is no unacceptable answer; it's your birthday, and your ear. Is it a ritual of observance for your culture, or one that you admire?

[Just because someone out there is doing it doesn't mean you have to, he does not say.]

Both ears. I prefer symmetry. My mother would kill me. But I wanted something about me to be different. I wanted to feel something different. It worked, I think. I should have warned you before I did it. I am sorry about that.

It would seem that you do prefer symmetry. If your mother cared a whit about you, that's a treasure you should hold onto forever. But mothers care in different ways, and eventually you have to reconcile that with what you need as an adult. You're 17, and not an adult. Now is the time to practice, and screw it up a little.

[That's pointed, Paul thinks, lying on his back with his legs dangling over the armrest of a couch. Symmetry, well, he knows what (who) that's alluding to. Telling him he isn't an adult after that - he does think of his mother, a soft bloom of warmth in his throat.]

Balance is a good thing. She'd forgive me. She always does. She'd like you. I think I've told you that before. I might have thought it, and not said it. She wouldn't show it, but you'd be able to tell. When do people become adults in your culture? What are the rites?

Believing that about your mother would make me happy, so I'm going to truly try. My world is large and multicultural. It varies, as do the rites. In Japan, you're considered an adult at twenty; in the United States of America you can vote for the country's leadership, get married without parental consent, or be drafted into a war at eighteen. In Germany you can enjoy alcohol at sixteen. It's easier to know when childhood ends, because that's completely universal. It's when your innocence deserts you... but it doesn't necessarily make you an adult. People caught in the middle like that need the protection of the law more than anyone.

It is true, so you should. I know her.

[He tells himself, the way he tells himself a great many things, and even believes some of them.]

On Caladan, you're an adult when you assume the responsibilities of one. On other worlds, you're an adult when you're fit for conscription. On others yet, when you're blooded. Not very many places use age alone.

[He doesn't know what to say to the idea of a liminal space between child and adult; it catches on something under his low ribs and hangs there.]

What protection does the law give them, those people in between?

That's yet another way you're lucky.

[And he doesn't feel envy, even if it's just because he doesn't permit himself to. He wants better for Paul that what he had and what he could be, after all.]

Not nearly enough. The skill and passion of those advocating for these individuals matters a great deal, because they usually struggle to do so for themselves.

I know.

[He's had a great deal of luck when it comes to his teachers, his mother included.]

Are these advocates allies of the law, or its adversaries?

They can surely be either. When it comes to those caught between, the law is a tool for their advocates or their foes. It just depends on who can use it more effectively and cleverly. A sort of applied knowledge, more than just memorizing what's right and wrong, and adapting it to an individual situation.

So it comes down to the influence of individuals, rather than the framework of the law they operate in.

[Paul would have to be much more intoxicated than he is to miss the implications here, but he'd have to be more sober to decide what to make of them, speaking of being caught between.]

What benefit do the advocate derive from the arrangement? I can imagine what their opponents gain through dominance over vulnerable individuals.

An advocate can be a parent, or a lawyer, or a teacher, or any number of others. Sometimes money is an incentive, other times it's love or duty. A society that runs smoothly is one in which vulnerable people are protected in some way so they're not taken advantage of, or just a mode of gains for others. Look at me going on. I have a party to get to, and I can walk faster when I'm not typing.

[It's a blatant attempt to get out of the conversation, and Paul seizes on it gratefully. Neither of them are good at these talks as it is, even if Paul can't seem to stop digging his thumb into the bruise.]

Of course. We don't want you falling into a drain on the way here. I'm told that happens occasionally.

(no subject)

hearthebell - 2022-04-18 04:34 (UTC) - Expand

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