XOXO ❅ VALENTINE'S EVENT

[nightmods]

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.

Comments

Stacia

[credit_not_blame]

Honesty Arrows

[credit_not_blame]

"OW!"

This isn't as bad as the horrible little cupid-monsters on the Rig, but Stacia's still not thrilled about getting shot with magic arrows.

"At least you're not trying to take bites of me," she grumbles as the toddler flies off to, presumably, continue to commit shenanigans. At least the North Pole is largely childproofed due to the elves. Come to think of it, maybe she can distract the flying source of shenanigans with the elves!

Cheered by that thought, she proceeds deeper into social territory.

[dontleavehome]

Ami is ...not really running after the little cupid, because she has arrived at the conclusion that there's no much of a point in using her usual methods of controlling children on it. Most of them rely on having her packmates and mate (or other kinfolk) around, anyway, so they would only be so applicable in this case, anyway.

Which means that she's taken to wandering after it, half out of a feeling of duty and half because she's bored (what do you even DO when you're not trying to keep a Sept from sinking into chaos at all times). And is mostly just observing, watching what it does and what seems to delight it in an attempt to learn enough to distract it from causing chaos for a while.

Maybe. So far, the chaos has been all on the amusing and sometimes even helpful side. She appreciates the toddler's style. So at the moment, she's more coming up with contingency plans for if something goes wrong than actual plans to stop cupid. She's always been more of a hands-off-until-actual-problems-arise person.

So when she spots a younger woman starting to go after cupid, too, she does a quick jog to catch up with her and falls into step beside Stacia.

"Keeping an eye on the kid too?" Stacia will notice that the way she speaks resembles Rowan's a lot, though her pitch is a good deal higher.

[credit_not_blame]

Stacia looks around for the source of the voice and smiles warmly when she finds it. She doesn't recognize the woman, but given that she's in the Pole, it probably means she's in the same boat as the rest of them. Or an enemy spy or whatever, but probably the former.

"Yeah," she says. "I don't know how much trouble an unsupervised flying kid could get into here at the Pole, but I'd feel bad if I just let him find out. And since my Rage doesn't excuse me from babysitting in this instance..."

Hang on. Stacia's brows knit together and her expression darkens.

"Son of a fuck."

[50millions1pint]

Jake is already entertained.

"Heh, look at that little shit go--Ow. Fuck."

A moment of awkward silence.

"You, uh, you seem like you're kind of a bitch but also kinda cool."

He sure knows how to make a girl feel appreciated.

[credit_not_blame]

"Thanks," Stacia says, bemused but with every sign of sincerity. She's identified as a bitch ever since she started to outgrow 'brat'; she barely recognizes it as an insult anymore.

"You seem like a dipshit, but I'm sure that can be resolved by smacking you upside the head enough times," she responds in kind; then blinks in surprise. "Normally I wouldn't say that to your face. Huh."

If he were a Ragabash, she'd suspect she'd just been hit with Slip of the Tongue. She looks around to see if she can spot anyone else, before probing the area she'd been shot.

"What the hell?"

[50millions1pint]

"Oh, you know, it's one of those façades you gotta put on to survive, I'd rather be tough and laugh at everything because if I have to start crying or thinking about how I feel I might as well check into a hospital or the morgue directly."

He audibly facepalms.

"No way I just said that shit out loud."

[credit_not_blame]

"Oh, this is some Slip of the Tongue bull- nonsense," Stacia says with an aggravated sigh. "This is way more fun when I'm doing it to other people. I'm going to have to be so careful talking."

Maybe she should get herself a whiteboard and a pen. The Yeti at least have to have chalk and chalkboards, right?

She pats Jake on the arm in commiseration.

"Yeah, I get that we've all got to find some way to survive the horrors," she says. "I'll be gentle when I smack you; you're only human."

[50millions1pint]

"I know you're trying to be a bitch but that's one of the kindest things I've been told all year, so joke's on you."

Great job, Jake. That'll show her.

Thorny Vines of Closeness

[credit_not_blame]

Well, Stacia had been considering weaving herself a rose flower crown, but apparently that's not allowed!

"Yikes," she says as the vines weave themselves together to form an impenetrable barrier. "...I wonder how sharp and sturdy these are."

Listen, you think about these things when you turn into an eight-foot-tall wolf monster!

[kemonookami]

Probably not surprising the one who is an eight-foot-tall wolf monster virtually all the time comes across after a moment.

"Hah, what did you do to get yourself locked up like that?"

Garurumon shakes his head, having gotten somewhat used to the presence of all these strangers in the workshop, so although he still is hiding away in the depths of the workshop for long amounts of times, he's venturing upwards, and encountered Stacia among these vines. Having commented that, Garurumon paws at the thorns carefully, testing how bad these are. Since he can breathe fire, he's pretty sure he could just incinerate these, but also doing that indoors is a bad idea.

He has no idea every second he spends here is one second of risk of getting caged along Stacia in there -- and his luck is going to run out.

[credit_not_blame]

" 'Existed near them', mostly," Stacia answers cheerily. Huh, that for sure is a big, blue, talking not-a-wolf. And yet, still not the weirdest thing she's ever seen.

"You might want to take a few steps back in case they get any ideas into their...vines."

[kemonookami]

"It's just a bunch of flowers--"

That sure was the tone of someone rightfully confident in his own strength, but then, without even being able to finish his sentence, the vines wrap around him, immobilizing him. The thorns are no threat even if they were for real, but the vines are tight, and even though he tries to, he can't make them snap. Garurumon groans.

"You gotta be kidding me!" Not really something he planned for.

[credit_not_blame]

Stacia is not saying 'I told you so', and she deserves a tasty treat for that. Later, once they've escaped grabby plant central.

"If you want to sulk about it for a couple minutes before we start the planning phase, I'm comfortable enough," she offers agreeably, then jolts a step back on reflex when something flutters overhead. Oh good, just a piece of paper. She catches it before it hits the floor, and looks it over. Then she groans.

"Ice breaker questions? Again? Ughhhhhhh!"

[kemonookami]

Hearing icebreaker does make Garurumon stop the tentative struggling, replaced by the sulking Stacia suggested. Icebreakers...? Really?

"I should have stayed in the sleigh room."

At least over there he wouldn't be in a situation like this one! He'd slam a paw over his face, but he's a tad too entangled to even do that much.

"Let's do this as painlessly as possible."

It's not that he's against socializing, really -- well, he's been the proverbial lone wolf for a few thousand years -- but he has been catching onto that the theme of the day is to get you to speak and reveal things about yourself to others, and he's not proud at all about the majority of things he has to talk about. Keeping secrets is nice! Especially when they're about your feelings.

Hopefully icebreaker questions aren't so much about that, he thinks.

Candy Lonely Hearts

[credit_not_blame]

Stacia pauses just after she's crunched the candy heart between her teeth -- which isn't soon enough to save her from the attack of the red thread. After another moment, where she restrains herself from yelling or trying to fight something in her vicinity, she swallows the candy.

"Somehow, I don't think this is why I was always told not to eat random pieces of candy I found lying around," she says evenly. As if she needs and excuse to ask for a hug or emotional support!

[mostdangerousbird]

Tim was minding his own business -

Well, monitoring the globe wasn’t exactly minding his own business, but he wasn’t paying much mind to the workshop.

- when it happened. A red thread just lashed out of nowhere and curled around his pinkie finger like it belonged there, and Tim’s reaction is verging on panic. He stands up so abruptly the chair knocks over, because he lives in Santa’s workshop with an assortment of impossible myths and the red thread of fate just found him.

He has to find Kon.

No, he has to avoid Kon.

He hasn’t finished the internal debate over whether this calls for avoiding or finding when his eyes see the other person on the string. That can’t be right. Stacia’s not supposed to the one the other end of the thread. “What did you do?”

[credit_not_blame]

"Ate some stupid magic candy," Stacia says, rolling with Tim's horrified accusatory question with reasonably good cheer. After all, she did do a stupid thing, even if it was compelled. "Because Valentine's Day. Don't worry, it's not permanent. We just need to bond emotionally a little bit and then the string will go away."

[mostdangerousbird]

"Stacia!!" Does he have to explain this? (Yes. Probably yes.) "You aren't supposed to eat the magic beans under any circumstances. I think it's probably better to not eat anything you didn't open yourself around here. Too much magic and elves who have definitely tried to feed me glitter - real glitter, not sprinkles."

And now they have to emotionally bond. No, and no. Tim shrinks to get away, but the string goes from covering his finger to mummifying his entire tiny arm. Maybe he can burn it off?

Tim is very quickly a fiery little balloon for Stacia, but he is no less stuck.

[credit_not_blame]

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."

[mostdangerousbird]

"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."

[arthropoda]

"I feel I'm disappointing everyone I have known by eating candy from the floor..."

Taylor does feel somewhat ashamed over it. It feels like she subjected herself to something a little low, but overall it was harmless, no? Mostly because she's trying very, very hard not to think about the string wrapped around her finger. She knows what's the easiest way to get rid of it, and yet she really, really would like to try a million other ways to break the red string. She always was introverted, and this feels like putting her on the spotlight in some way.

Perhaps that's why, hiding her hand behind her back, she's gone around just talking to others because hey, aiding others in getting rid of theirs the easy way is fine and dandy.

[credit_not_blame]

"To be fair, it's magic candy," Stacia says, looking over the person who spoke -- and no, she doesn't miss the casual hand-behind-the-back. "I also don't eat floor candy under normal circumstances; especially since the elves around here are notorious lickers."

Ew. She makes a face and shudder dramatically, then slips back into her oh-so-cute-and-chipper routine.

"I don't think we've met before. You one of the people who showed up around Christmas?"

[arthropoda]

"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.

[credit_not_blame]

"Ah yes, two great methods of producing joy for the people of the world," Stacia agrees cheerfully. "Ugh, I need to get my computer skills back up to par so I can steal billionaire digital money. I don't know what tech level you're used to, but I get a little too much glee out of the idea of someone trying to trace a hack back to the North Pole."

It would be hilarious. Stacia indulges in a little giggle at the thought before resuming the conversation.

"So, I'm Stacia, I'm a werewolf. Don't worry, it's not contagious."