nightlogs | XOXO ❅ VALENTINE'S EVENT

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XOXO ❅ VALENTINE'S EVENT

XOXO

One major problem with being the group that's responsible for solving all kinds of problems in the myth world is other myths can kind of be dicks about it. That's why, on Valentine's Day, Cupid shows up, quickly offloads his kid (the toddler Baby Cupid), and runs off to take care of spreading love on his holiday, with barely a how'd you do. He doesn't even say thank you.

To be fair, you can't fault him too much for only trusting the Guardians to babysit his kid in these dangerous and uncertain times, especially when children at risk against the fearlings.

Still, that means there's a giggling toddler, about 2-years-old in appearance, but maybe with the mental age of a 4 or 5 (he is definitely old enough to understand he's being naughty and deserving of a time out) flitting around the Pole causing all kinds of Valentine's related problems. Fortunately, the toddler has learned that he's not quite old enough to know the right times to help people fall in love (Adult Cupid just helps things along when they're already falling, or when they need help falling back in love, of course).

Instead, Baby C is doing what his father taught him to do and causing all kinds of tricks to try to get people to admit feelings that already exist or manufacturing ways for them to become closer to each other.

HONESTY ARROWS ♥ Baby Cupid isn't shooting magic arrows that cause anyone to develop feelings for each other but he sure is trying to make sure people talk about whatever feelings they have. Anyone hit will be compelled to blurt out various truths about themselves, their personal history, and their feelings to whoever is around them and will have difficulty stopping or drawing themselves away. In fact, if someone walks away they'll feel compelled to find someone else to confess to. The effect wears off anywhere between 5 minutes to a half hour.

TATTLETALE ROSES ♥ Vines of roses are now growing all over the Workshop. For those who are in love, they take the form of the face of the person they're in love with. The more they try to hide it or deny it from someone they're talking to, the more of them bloom with the person's face.

THORNY VINES OF CLOSENESS ♥ The rose vines have their own annoying purpose: bonding! For people that clearly need to become friends, fall in love, or fall deeper in love, thorny vines will wrap around both people, forcing them into a little cage together. The thorns fortunately won't poke them - they seem to be maneuvered in a way to just make sure there are no gaps to escape through. The vines are magically reinforced and can't be opened with any physical or magical means. After that, one of two things will happen:

1) A card will fall from the ceiling of the cage saying: Tell each other how you really feel about each other!!! This will happen if the cage thinks they need to affirm the status of their relationship, whether they need to admit they're in love, admit they've been bitten by the friend bug if they're reluctant to, or really need to talk about how much they mean to each other as friends. Only then will they be let out of the feelings shame corner.

2) If the two don't know each other, or both people could afford to get to know each other better multiple cards will drop from the ceiling with icebreaker questions, as if they're a bunch of new hires at an orientation.

How many will they have to answer before they're released? Who knows! But they have to answer them honestly or the cage won't open.

CANDY LONELY HEARTS ♥ People who are on the lonelier side and in need of support might find a candy heart on a random surface. The messages on them are on the platonic side (Like "You rock!" or "Shine on!") They'll feel compelled to eat them (even if they're on the floor). When they do, a glowing red thread will appear and tie itself around their finger. Briefly, in the air, the glowing string will form into letters that tell the person what they need to do to be release, whether it's telling someone they're lonely, asking for some kind of support, or admitting a vulnerability.

Then it'll whip out and grab someone else nearby, wrapping around their finger as well. Sometimes, two people might eat a candy at the same time and each have a string appear and they'll tie in the middle.

The strings are unbreakable, and they won't be set free until whoever ate a candy talks about their loneliness or vulnerable feelings - regardless of whether or not the other person is an eager listener.

OOC DETAILS
❅ Starters: You can make up your own wildcard effects, feel free! If you do, please consider posting it to the Wildcard comment below so others might be able to pick up the same effect as well if they like them.

❅ Multiple effects: Feel free to have characters slammed by as many of Baby C's traps in the same thread as you want. No reason someone can't have the worst luck and trip three Cupid traps at once or several of them in a row.

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Stacia raises an eyebrow, then opens her eyes wide an assumes an expression of fascinated vapidity.

"Golly-gosh Tim, but I always eat random things off of the ground! It's definitely not because maybe the magic candy is magic or anything!"

The vapidity drops away, but Tim's frantic failure to escape the red thread is funny enough that she smiles instead of looking annoyed.

"Are you actually going to break out in hives if we have a nice, friendly chat? Because that would be funny."

[Boimler huffs in annoyance.]

I'm fine.

[He gingerly sits up, with some difficulty due to the stiffness of his cybernetic spine.]

[And then he completely ignores the intended purpose of the string, taking out his tricorder to see what's creating the strand and if there's any possible weakness.]

Yeah, I am not obeying the random whims of a piece of embroidery. There has to be some way to disrupt its integrity somehow.

Edited 2024-02-17 04:43 (UTC)

I hate magic when it does weird nonsense. I like magic when it sits there doing something else that doesn't involve me and I can scan it with my tricorder.

[A pause.]

...Also! Saying you don't have magic bullshit kind of makes me think you do have magic bullshit.

[Why the emphasis otherwise?]

But, look, that doesn't matter. [As far as he knows the force this world conceptualizes as magic doesn't exist in his world but lots of alien species have uncanny abilities of various kinds. Telepathy, empathy, even Q's reality manipulation. It's really no big deal at all if someone has some kind of powers or magic bullshit.]

Let's just figure out how to get out of this. [He pulls out his tricorder to scan the string.] Preferably in a way that doesn't involve forced emotional intimacy.

"Well, if you did it, would have you been able to live with it? Whether you can or not, I guess your hesitation gave you some time to think about the answer."

Woah. That is legit the most empathetic and wise thing Jake has ever said. Time to make up for that.

"And it doesn't make you weak or anything if you can't, just means you're a loyal dog. Who's a good boy?"

Garurumon growls low. He's still clinging to that past bond, as much as he hates that. Is that invalidating the grudge he has been nurturing for so long? He's sure it does.

He also scoffs. "Oh, shut up about that. That's not me." Hardly a good boy, he's sure of it. "Thought you'd be worse than this. You seem like the kind of jerk who kicks others while they're down.

Partly because his opinion of Jake is pretty negative, and partly because Garurumon does consider himself the kind to do that. One tends to project onto others what you'd do.

"Yeah, I got here just in time to build gifts and torment billionaires. A good time as any, if you ask me."

Esspecially the tormenting billionaires one, unfortunately for people in general she has plenty of experience being a menace and is terrifying good at that, although Taylor hates that of herself. There's only so much justification one can try to give yourself when doing that.

Perhaps it's because of the string that she adds:

"Kind of makes me wish that happened more often."

Mostly because, despite the bitter feelings towards how good she is at terrorizing, bringing positive change by forcing figures of power to submit, especially if it's through sheer fear without harming them otherwise, is something she does like.

Edited 2024-02-17 17:17 (UTC)

[Taylor can't help but give a coy smirk upon Biomler seeing through her specific denial. She doesn't elaborate because she still is trying to figure out the trick of how to do the bare minimum to what the string demands. Clearly she hasn't done enough yet with veiled implications.

While she tries to figure out the next reasonable step, she nods]

Not wanting to play along with it? Sure, I'm game, I don't want to be telling to everyone things I don't want them to know.

[There are too many skeletons in her closet, and all Taylor hopes is that she can get away of this day having unveiled only the topmost layer!]

Never saw anything like these strings before? To dislike 'magic' and other you must have seen plenty of things.

[Taylor can't recall a power similar to this, at least from recent memory. Statistically speaking, it's guaranteed there's a parahuman out there in her world who can do something like these strings, and there's plenty of parahumans who manipulate emotions and the such, but this particular combination is one she doesn't recall seeing in person yet]

"Hey, Counselor." Dan sits up as best he can with his wrists and ankles tied together. He hasn't seen Price since their last farrier training session, but he did also spend most of the holiday season and January either drunk or on errands with Bunny, so it hasn't been from avoiding Price. It's simply been that Dan's been in his own world and letting keeping up with people fall on the backburner. Price has, at this point, known Dan for a few years, and possibly has observed that all of Dan's flakiest and most self-destructive habits kick into high gear in January.

"I been alright. Trying to beat the winter blues, you know how easy it is to just hibernate when it's dark and cold out. You?"

I'VE CRASHED MY CAR DRUNK THREE TIMES is over Dan's head, but he can't read it, and he doesn't even bother trying to interpret Price's.

"Just Boimler? Ain't you Officer Boimler, or am I getting my purple-haired folks confused?"

No amount of explaining what Star Fleet does could ever get Dan to want to do anything but run screaming from the whole concept - ranks, policies, directives, the fucking horror - but from what he's gleaned in his twenty-odd years of being a person with basic observational skills, people in these sorts of organizations feel proud of both their own accomplishments and the work they do. If Boimler earned himself a rank of sorts, then Dan wants to honor and acknowledge that.

"Well, even by my world's standards I'm a bit behind the curve, but we ain't been to space yet in my world so knowing this sort of thing ain't been a top priority for me." Dan's pretty sure they haven't been to space. Someone at a dive bar once told him that NASA was a giant federal money laundering scheme and he drank that conspiracy theory up like it was elixir from Heaven.

He looks at the circles on the tablecloth. He suspects Boimler's about to tell him about what's inside the sun, as if the solar system were the same as a digestive system, and that that's what this drawing is about to elucidate.

"But if you ever need help doing something real analog, like catching a calf or picking a lock, I'm your man."

"Oh, hi!"

Dan sits up on the couch, which is a bit of a struggle given the way his hands and feet are tied together. He has no idea that I THINK THE PERIODIC TABLE IS A PIECE OF FURNITURE is floating above his head; rather, he can tell there are words, but there's no point in fretting about them because he can't read them.

"Don't reckon we've met. I'd offer to shake, but..." He's tied up. He hasn't asked for her audience, so he wonders if the words above his head indicate that he's wheedling for some sort of free therapy (no thank you). "I'm Dan. How are you?"

"Ah." Dan doesn't even bother to glance up at his words - one of which currently reads THE IDEA OF SOBRIETY TERRIFIES ME, another of which reads I SINCERELY THINK PASTA IS A VEGETABLE, to go alongside the one that matches Jaskier's - since he can't read them anyway. "Well, in that case, we might want to lock the door, depending on what they say. If we didn't already want to do that."

He hesitates for a second, then figures if Jaskier doesn't already know, it might come out in the red threads eventually anyway. "I can't read. So your secrets are quite definitively safe with me."

He flops back onto the couch so Jaskier can straddle him. "You're cutting quite the figure in that jacket, by the way."

"It's Ensign Boimler. But people here aren't in Starfleet and back home people sometimes drop the rank when socializing anyway, especially if they're the same rank."

They haven't earned the full friend "Boims" nickname yet but all his friendly acquaintances that are other ensigns call him by last name. Might as well make it so everyone else feels comfortable with that at the start.

Also, command track gets training on dealing with civilians because sometimes conflict brings you into contact: you don't earn trust and respect by getting snitty with civilians about your rank and title. It's better to relate to them as just a person.

He doesn't act surprised when Dan says they haven't been to space where he's from. That could be from any number of things: year he's from, alternate timeline where space travel didn't happen, alternate timeline where the government did it in secret, etc.

The corner of his mouth does quirk up a little at the mention of doing things in analog, even though he doesn't look up from the circles he's drawing.

"I definitely have a feeling I might need help with something if it gets real analog so I may take you up on it."

The only thing he really knows how to do in a somewhat past-times traditional way is viticulture and God help him if the multiverse needs him to do farmboy vineyard shit to save the day.

Time for some science.

"Okay, so I used a lot of toy balls because a lot of the shapes of different cosmic phenomenon are spheres or oblate spheroids - slightly oblong spheres. The sizes aren't 100% accurate because I'd have to find a lot of hugely differently sized things. So just imagine they're stand-ins."

Where does he even start?

Oh yeah, the beginning of time.

"So billions of years ago the universe formed in an explosion of energy, heat, and matter. It was called the Big Bang, it was the start of time and space, blah blah blah. Before you ask, we have no idea what caused it and we have no idea if anything came before." A shrug of one shoulder. "It's one of the great mysteries of the universe. There was nothing and then, suddenly, everything."

That part isn't the most explainable even in his time, even if they know far more about the formation of the universe shortly after the Big Bang.

"So around the beginning, everything was this big molten soup of energy and superheated gasses and molten matter. And then it started to condense in a lot of places. Just by coincidence some of it was thicker in some places and thinner in others. But the thing with mass is when an object is big enough - way bigger than we are - it tugs on the invisible fabric of reality - spacetime - and that's what creates gravity. That's why when you jump, you come back down. Earth is so big it gives off a strong field of gravity that holds things close to it. Like...magnetism?"

He probably knows about magnets, right?

"It's not the same type of field, but it's a similar thing of an object giving off an invisible force."

He waves the marker around in a twirly gesture.

"The clumps of mass started to become big enough to give off gravity and that pulled in even more molten rock and it made all that matter tighten together into spheres, like if you squeezed a bunch of loose clay together in your hands. So the solar system is the local cluster of spheres that formed at the beginning of time, Earth and the other objects in the same system, the planets and the moons."

He points to the basketball at the center of everything.

"The Sun is at the center of it all. That's our local star. Everything else, the Earth, the other planets, fields of asteroids, all of it, rotates in circles around the Sun."

Well, not circles given the sun is moving too but that's definitely not a lesson 1 kind of thing.

"We probably haven't met. I'm Taylor, just going around to get people untangled from this stuff."

Doesn't even ask if Dan wants it or if he's fine like this. Taylor is squarely at that teen age of thinking she knows how things should be and tries to make things shape up according to them, no matter what others think. Thankfully, she generally is right. Most times.

What she reads isn't at all what she prepared herself to handle, and she's immensely relieved because although she's ready to help, trying to help with deep things can be exhausting and especially invasive if it's with a stranger. Feels like a weight off her shoulders. Grinning a bit, she asks, just to be sure that's accurate:

"You know what's the periodic table?"

Either Dan is immensely ashamed of this, or he has so few skeletons in his closet a confession of ignorance is one of the few problems he has, she thinks to herself. Almost everyone would be jealous of him -- who wouldn't prefer this to confessing something deeper? Taylor knows she'd have preferred to unveil she's not aware about a scientific concept than talking about her feelings!

[ Why is the first thought of so many people where's the guns? This isn't a gun situation. You can't fight magic with guns. ]

It's Tim. Yes, I know where there are some guns in this building. I'm not telling you because they belong to other individuals because this is Santa's workshop and it makes me deeply uncomfortable that you want to shoot toddlers. Even myth toddlers. It's a kid.

[ He stops his examination of his shirt (no hole, not even a pulled thread) and shoots Taylor a concerned look. ]

I'm not sure, and that bothers me more than the itch.

[ His hand stretches the neck of his shirt so it can slip inside and check the tingling skin. No, there's nothing wrong. He doesn't even have a scratch. ]

Why is it itching?

We had social security numbers. We just didn't need them.

[ Because Kon refused to let Tim file the immigration papers on his behalf, or even finish preparing them. It just slips out, like it all slips out because he's turned into a sieve. Or that's how he makes himself feel better about the confession, but Tim's proud of his cleverness and hacking feats. The only real issue is why he got them. ]

But I wasn't going to hack the databases again to get rid of them. Social security numbers only have names and birthdates - which were fake - so there wasn't anything putting us at risk. I'd made enough of a mess, and I didn't want to lose you. I didn't have you, but if I got caught manipulating a government database, I knew you'd think I was being overprotective again. I didn't want you to move out of the roach motel because... I wanted you to stay with me.

[ He'd like to think that the forced declarations aren't why he's saying this, that Kon's hope for a future together that gives him the freedom. ]

You make everything steady. You make me steady, even when you make me crazy. I don't - if we don't get home for years, I don't want - to wait for that. For a future plan. I like plans.

[Itching...oh yes, that's not a good sign. Taylor's knowledge of bugs and what they can do for self-defense sure has given her knowledge of a few toxins and the such -- although it's all pretty esoteric and unlikely to be used by anyone who, well, isn't her. She gives Tim a light push.]

Come on, you should go back to the dorms. I'll stay around until we're sure you're fine.

[And she should tell someone with the capacity of tending to a sick person, probably. There must be someone. A yeti? Probably not an elf. No, one of the humans in the group will be best, but who? She doesn't know everyone's skills well enough to be sure who would be right for this.

Needless to say, although she's alert and a few stray bugs are flittering around in the workshop, on the lookout for anything that's off or that could be harmful, a magical Cupid toddler flying around is not something she'll catch on in time. She's vulnerable to such things, as she'll be finding out soon. Tim won't be the only one with a need to reveal things soon]

[ Ordinarily, Tim is actually tolerant of most questions, and he's not intolerant of this one, but the honesty effect means that Henry is getting more of a response than he might have wanted. ]

I just got hit with a magic arrow, so no, I'm probably not okay. It's an improvement over the other 4 times I've been shot with actual arrows, and I'll take it over being shot or stabbed any day, but no, not okay. Thanks for asking, and unless you're a wizard, you can't help.

Well that's not too bad, Price thinks seeing the message. Truth is that his levels of tolerance are a bit unconventional, in terms the insanity in and around him. Also he forgot that seeing the sun is not a temporary exception and most people do not live locked in a tin can in outer space.

"I've been doing alright. I started working in the infirmary, besides the usual chores."

He will not address the messages of course. They are going to be here a long time, which can be convenient: he's not planning on hurting Dan but it's better to have ammunition in case he needs to do it later.

"Gee whiz, Stacia!" Two can play this nonsense. He's certainly used it on his family often enough. Does his voice sound itty bitty in this form? Yes. Yes, it does. "It's swell that the rest of us haven't eaten the magic candy!"

Tim is multi-tasking as a fireball until he gives up. Flight patterns a little wonky now, but it straightens out into a circle. "I'm not going to break out in hives if I talk to someone. I just want to choose the conversation for myself. The string could be forcing a Maserati on me: I want to be the one picking it."

[ Tim looks dubious. Disrupting its magical integrity seems like a fool's errand. At the same time, when he looks at the string from exactly the right angle, it spells out vulnerability in a tidy handwritten script in an anamorphic illusion. ]

"Vulnerability."

[ He reads it aloud for the other guy's benefit. Then he ignores it. ]

If this is the red string of fate, I want out. What do you want to try on it first?

Yeah, it didn't work for me either when I tried to set someone up.

[ That isn't helpful. What the heck is wrong with him. Tim doesn't like hearing a kid say that they've killed a lot of people, but there's a question of culpability in a child this age. Personally, Tim doesn't think true criminal capability kicks in until at least 12 or 13, and not on an adult level until 18.

Given the choices he's seen people make at 18, 19, 20... there should be another distinction besides juvenile and adult. ]

How old are you? In case the arrows are poisoned, which I don't think they are unless it's very slow-acting. Age can impact treatment as much as weight.

[ That's not why he's asking how old he is. It's because he's trying to figure out how to handle this conversation. ]

I have some tolerance for most basic mind-altering compounds. [At least for the ones from his universe.]

It doesn't feel like poison. [There's none of the tell-tale dis-coordination or tiredness of most truth serums.

Boba opens his mouth to answer 'almost fifteen'.]

Thirteen.

[No.]

Thirteen. That's not what I wanted to say! I'm thirteen!

[At this point he is seriously considering running for it.]

"Well it's a good thing you're blessed with a good imagination, isn't it?" Bunny was half kidding about the evolution lecture, but if Dan hadn't gotten himself a little more wiggle room between the start and now, Bunny would sincerely be going on about Punnet squares. Anyway Dan finds the spot on his neck that makes his leg twitch, and Bunny wrestles Dan back into a tangle with a laugh. "What are you tryin' to do, make me ten minutes late?"

[ Boimler's Bizarre Adventure eventually ends a hundred feet off the ground, in the corner of the ceiling that Miguel decided to park at. He appears to have been resisting the pull of his candy-heartstring by staying latched onto the wood ( if the cracks around his fingers and feet are any indication ).

There's a scenario where this might possibly be leading to a tightening rubber band effect with his string if he refuses to talk - but he doesn't know that yet. He takes the collision with the Ensign like a champ, barely budging from his spot as his pinky and Boimler's pinky meet at their dangerously vertical middle point. At least his body makes for a decent scrabble hold.

The eyemarkings narrow dangerously. ]

Don't. Ask.

[ Miguel will not be elaborating on what compelled him to eat food off the ground. ]

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XOXO ❅ VALENTINE'S EVENT

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two sided candy embarrassment