peripheries: (Default)
Kaworu Nagisa | 渚 カヲル | ᴛʜᴇ ғɪғᴛʜ ᴄʜɪʟᴅ ([personal profile] peripheries) wrote in [community profile] deercountry2022-03-25 08:01 pm

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 [plurk.com profile] worldtype)) or via PM.))

Birthday Board | At the Party | The Morning After | IC Party Games | Spice Dealer
wannasmash: "Thanks for everything." (smile scuffed)

a

[personal profile] wannasmash 2022-04-01 12:27 am (UTC)(link)
L was... busy after the Leviathan battle, and so was Midoriya. The Leviathan, Midoriya's subsequent Corruption, and a new secret threat did not so much change him as take some of his relentless determination and put it on the outside. It leaves less room for his usual guileless smiles. His eyes used to look at the world wide open in earnestness or surprise. Now they are restful, serious, and settled into this new face.

Still, past it all, he remains the kind, polite young Hero who reminded the camp to pick up their beach trash and couldn't bring himself to tell his good friend Paul what "69" was. (Now he probably could, but still wouldn't, for the laugh they'd have later about it.) He studiously waits until an appropriate(?) moment to intrude on L's staring-and-eating-cake contest with the skeleton and decides to treat it as normal and fine.

"Sauveterre-san, it's good to see you." Doing whatever the hell he's doing. Midoriya's voice is too calm and sober for this environment, but there is a slight garbling over his name. It's a difficult one with his accent, understandable to trip up. Or, he's had something to drink and it's just wearing off. A cup of water has been foisted on him, for his own good.

"I've been meaning to talk to you. Now's as good a time as any."
hearthebell: (I crashed before the birth of Christ)

[personal profile] hearthebell 2022-04-02 10:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Everyone seems to have brought some kind of restless strain to this party in their own way. Some are quieting or engorging it with substances; others are existing in the moment with it and allowing it to inhabit space, noting, with every step and glance, how it's changed the way they see the world and all who would call them "friend" within it.

Again, without a word really needing to be said about it, they understand each other.

"Deku..."

He greets the boy, speaking around a sloppy mouthful of airy and crumbling cake. The skeleton has won this staring contest.

"If that's so... yes, it's as good at time as any," he agrees, fumbling a bit himself as he tries to figure out what to do with the cake. He's taken three large bites total, and is probably full. He can't just put it back. He decides to grab some cups, likely intended for punch, and begin to break the cake into pieces small enough to jam into each one like all-cake parfaits. They stack nicely for carrying.
wannasmash: "Tomatoes in a fruit salad?!" (oh no that's bad)

[personal profile] wannasmash 2022-04-04 05:10 am (UTC)(link)
He must really love cake, Midoriya thinks, keeping his strained expression mild and fleeting. Table manners are apparently for people who are at a table.

"I hope you're doing well--Oh, I--can carry that for you if you'd like. Please don't let me keep you from..." eating an entire cake? His protest is his usual brand of politeness, but with less of a nervous energy. Midoriya wears his newly outward fortitude well. He shouldn't have to in so short a time.

Regardless of what form absconding with the cake takes, L has an accomplice and a corner free of people and skeletons in which to talk. Midoriya feels their low voices will be hushed by the noise ("Spooky Scary Skeletons") around them. There's no great need for secrecy at the moment, but it's not party talk.

"I'm continuing my Hero work after the battle, but I thought I'd make some changes. Pro Hero is a public profession. Most Heroes only have to keep quiet if there's something like a gag order for an ongoing police investigation." He explains this without hesitation or emphasis, a familiarity that comes with experience.

"I've been thinking being public isn't so smart here." He chooses these words carefully for their truth. They were sifted from something other than that.
hearthebell: (It's all uphill from here)

[personal profile] hearthebell 2022-04-07 04:32 am (UTC)(link)
L loves cake, so much as others love breathing, or resting, or human touch. It seems necessary; it seems to replace all those things. It's both very simple and painfully complicated.

He wipes some crumbs from his chin, noting and puzzling privately over a change that seems to have come over Deku since the last time they spoke, when he learned something no one here should have ever found out, all because L got overconfident about the winter mournings.

They walk, juggling cups full of mashed-down cake. They find a quiet corner, and as Deku speaks, his brows raise higher under his shaggy bangs. When he speaks, he does so carefully.

"It's... really a decision you need to make for yourself," he replies, blinking his overlarge, round eyes. "The question is... can you go back, from however public you've been so far?"
wannasmash: deep thots (look lonely)

[personal profile] wannasmash 2022-04-18 07:54 am (UTC)(link)
He handles the prized cake cups and his own water safely, if not exactly with grace. He hasn't had much contact with L since they met, other than brief Leviathan-related conversations as they worked in their separate divisions. L spearheaded an antitoxin, and Midoriya was with ground forces.

"Not really. Most of that's not a problem. My name, face, and what I do are known already, and I can live with that. I'm most concerned about the people around me being targeted. I wanted to ask you--everyone--to be careful who you talk to about me. I... don't really know what else to do..." he trails off.

As ever, L's large eyes, unlike Midoriya's, are inscrutable. Midoriya put on a more confident face for several friends already when he gave them this warning--even Paul, who he knows can lie perfectly. (Midoriya doesn't have to ask why that is, for the same reason he doesn't have to ask L.) Here, Midoriya's speaking to a professional closer to his career sphere. He's spoken with detectives before back home, but none on L's level.
hearthebell: (Watching all the resurrection junkies)

[personal profile] hearthebell 2022-04-22 05:36 am (UTC)(link)
"I'm discreet... we don't even know each other, if that would be better."

And he says it like he means it, with the painfully cold and distant air of one who treats all relationships like this could happen eventually.

"I am always in service to what is better... please know that."
wannasmash: "My personal life is FUBAR." (worried tired explain)

[personal profile] wannasmash 2022-04-22 06:28 am (UTC)(link)
"I think we've been seen around camp, or at least I have. It's fine if we've met in passing. It'd be weird if I suddenly stopped talking to people."

Though, as he says it, he wonders if L has had to go dark before, and for how long. Well, Midoriya is aiming for realistic and playing it by ear. He chews his lip thoughtfully before asking,

"What do you mean by 'better?'"

This wouldn't be a question he'd ask a year ago. Fighting for what is good and right and lawful was always presented as a given in Midoriya's chosen career. But some of the villains he's met have... They still needed to be stopped, but Midoriya could kind of understand where they were coming from. Then, here in Trench, he met people from very different upbringings and versions of what is normal to them in their worlds. So he asks L what the world class detective with the troubled childhood thinks better means.
hearthebell: (Watching all the resurrection junkies)

[personal profile] hearthebell 2022-04-27 06:15 am (UTC)(link)
L's glance is brief and furtive.

"It's never actually weird if people stop talking to me."

And maybe he does that on purpose, maybe he just accepts it as something that is likely or inevitable given his particular predilections and tendencies.

"Don't you know? I mean the outcome that is... right, or righteous. The one that benefits the most people at the least cost.Don't you share this definition?"
wannasmash: "My personal life is FUBAR." (worried tired explain)

[personal profile] wannasmash 2022-05-05 03:13 am (UTC)(link)
He will accept a wide range of weird, and has done so throughout his life. Still, he's someone who knows what it's like to be isolated, though not extremely. He was picked on and had no friends in junior high. It was lonely, existing right next to what he could be doing, overhearing conversations about karaoke or arcades after school. He threw himself into solitary pursuits instead and eked out his own corner of happiness.

Even now, having gotten past most of that, he can't fully grasp the effect this had on him--the bouts of shyness, floundering in social situations, or giving full rein to the admiration he feels for his friends because he treasures what he has now compared to what he didn't have before. It hasn't been long enough. He hasn't seen enough--though he's seen plenty of the world so far.

It's the old question about cost. Does he aim a trolley at one person to avoid hitting many? He's faced a version of this before. He was lucky--or very clever--to have found a solution then.

"It can mean different things to different people, so I wanted to ask. I know sometimes there's costs, but I would like to save everyone if I can."

He's a little quieter than the energy he was known for, but the young man who kicked open a door with feral intensity is no less polite or sincere than usual.
Edited 2022-05-05 03:18 (UTC)
hearthebell: (You came on like a punch in the heart)

[personal profile] hearthebell 2022-05-05 05:33 am (UTC)(link)
There are many ways the two of them are alike that they are aware of, and some that perhaps have not yet come to perfect light. L's dark grey eyes glance away, and he is momentarily silent and pensive in response to Deku's words.

"What if what you would 'like' isn't possible, and never will be, and you know that from a very early age? How do you act then?"
wannasmash: "I've had a lot on my mind lately." (hmm pensive)

[personal profile] wannasmash 2022-05-05 07:46 am (UTC)(link)
Midoriya knew just one thing like that from an early age. His shoulders rise slightly and self-consciously. He highly doubts Paul or anyone else would have said anything. The half-truth Midoriya told a handful of people isn't a dangerous secret, but it's personal. The full truth is something Midoriya (to his knowledge) has only told one person, and that person closed it up safe like a steel trap, inexorable as a wolf's bite.

"I did grow up thinking something wouldn't be possible, but always kind of hoping... I learned it was an impossible hope--but then I was proven wrong anyway." His eyebrows rise a little, indicating pleasant surprise. "I guess... there's things we just don't know and can't account for. Can't hurt to try, even if something I want is hard."

It's what he's always said. Now he adds something new, eyes flicking down, voice much quieter,

"Even if I fail."