balance_logs

Who: All troublemakers and part-time ghouls [that means open]

Where: The movie room, then the Quad

When: The very night of Halloween!

What: Get SPOOKY, get SLEEPY, get STUPID, it's a sleepover costume party.

Content Warning: none for the post; byocw (bring your own content warnings)

[It starts a few nights before, with a network post.]

10.27.xx 19:28:16 un:hudie

20:00....Halloween night...the movie room...

You'd better be there. You'd better be in costume.

10.27.xx 19:29:43 un:akapassionista

I can't wait to see everyone's Halloween costumes!! ♪♪(o*゜∇゜)o～♪♪

[You'd better. Because it's a party!

Kaede and Erika have dressed the room up for the spookiest night of the year. It's nothing professional - lights dimmed, music playing, store-bought balloons with jack-o-lantern faces on them, paper cutouts in pumpkin and ghost shapes stuck to the wall. A "bat" is fluttering around, but if you squint, it's actually just Erika's familiar with black paper stuck to her wings. There's some kind of plastic tub in the corner full of water and...apples? Is it supposed to be bobbing for apples? All in all, it has some kind of DIY charm to it all.

Of course, everyone's actually here for the refreshments, and there's plenty of those. Some Bender specials, mostly the non-enchanted fare, but you might find a couple of the milder curses and blessings on the table. Bowls of popcorn and chips and every other genre of snack food you can scrounge up at Fantasy Costco. Candy galore. A modest assortment of Faerunian treats familiar from missions. Paper cups and plates and napkins. Soda bottles and a water pitcher and a few big bowls of punch. (One is labeled "alcoholic". Be ye ware.)

And by the way, costumes really are mandatory. There's a sign out front saying so. If you came unprepared, there's a bin of costume components outside to choose from, capes and headbands and masks and whatnot, but they might not coordinate well. If you think you're getting in without making an effort, Kaede and Erika (themselves dressed in bargain bin warlock and bard kit, respectively) are ready and waiting to chase you down and apply whatever degree of force or Sleep they need to correct the issue, with costume accessories and water-resistant face paint in hand.

About two hours into things, the two get everyone's attention and move the party outside to the Quad. Out there they've got a campfire going, picnic blankets spread out for sitting on, ingredients for s'mores laid out, and...pumpkins! And tools for carving or painting them. A sign out by the campfire announces a contest for the best decorated pumpkins, but nobody ever comes along to apply judging standards, so everyone's just free to show off their creation.

Things wind down a little after midnight. You can head on home...or just sleep out here, between blankets under the stars. It's that cozy kind of night.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

H...uh.

[ Such a simple response, but to be fair, Alex can't think of what else to say to something like that. When someone's been alive that long... ]

What's it...like, seeing everything change so much?

[Michael lowers his hand, letting the old galaxy fizzle out, and laces his fingers back together over his stomach.]

All the really big changes came with humanity. Before that...I liked the stars when they were white, and I still like them now. I wouldn't have wanted it all to stay the same forever. We never would've been able to see any black holes.

[He's never minded change. Some demons do. Maybe most of them.]

I used to have trouble keeping up with how fast you all changed. I swear, I got a little absorbed in an assignment once, and suddenly England was important.

England started being important in... I don't remember, but a pretty long time ago, Michael.

[ It's fascinating. Like Will, with his...library catalog thing. He's asked before, how do you remember so much, how... But really, it's less that this time. More the act, the ability to see all of that... ]

...I don't think I wanna imagine how it must be. I like... Careful what you wanna know, right? [ A bit of a sad smile on his lips. ] But...at least to be able to see everything grow and evolve... That sounds amazing.

Whatever happened to Rome?

[Rhetorical question, he doesn't actually care.]

You're probably right. I don't think humans are meant to exist for that long. There's the afterlife, of course, but that's all...in Heaven, I figure that's all pretty static. Same people around, same world. You'd be alright.

[He questions them, really, and how much they actually care for humanity at the end of things. But they probably at least try to take care of the ones they've got.]

I liked seeing humanity evolve. Took us a while to catch on, you know, to what kind of potential you had. Lots of people thought you'd all just die off, or plateau like the other smart apes, but I thought you were neat. Even back then, living hand-to-mouth in caves, they'd decorate. Pick pretty flowers and keep them after they'd dried out.

[It's a little bit of a sideways lie. He had noticed that. He had found it interesting. But demons in general were always more intrigued by the darker parts of humanity.]

[ Alex runs his finger around the lip of his beer bottle, just listening. ]

To just see a whole new...species evolve, I honestly don't blame 'em, for not having a lot of confidence in us. But damn, isn't that amazing to think about. Just...watching culture develop. Watching people create...hobbies, societies... Just a big...history channel special, in real time.

[ Plinking at the bottle, lightly. ]

[Michael's not drinking himself, warier still of intoxication now after losing control so badly in Wonderland. He's carrying a little plate that must've once had some snacks on it, and he sets it to the side to fold both arms beneath his head.]

I wish I'd seen more. Once you all started showing up with us, and we got the afterlife system in place, there wasn't a lot of time for observation anymore.

[He's silent for a moment, and then sighs.]

I haven't even looked at the stars in a long time.

Me neither. Spent a lot of time...just looking around, afraid, for whatever was gonna come and get me.

[ A moment. ]

Well... 'Least we got this now. [ He gestures around, at...all of this. The quad, the group. ]

...yeah. This isn't so bad.

[Michael goes quiet for a moment.]

Oh, do you think they do constellations here?

Oh, I'd think so, right? Don't know a lot about stars, but...I don't see why not.

Huh. Those are such funny human things. We never did that - doesn't make sense when you can look at them from any angle.

[Also, demons are just sort of uncreative on the whole. Michael mulls that over, chewing on his lip for a moment, then points up to outline some stars.]

Those ones look like a goose.