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XOXO ❅ VALENTINE'S EVENT
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.
❅ 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.
Boimler
Lonely Hearts
Oh nuhnuhnuhnonono, I'm not doing weird magic stuff today, please and thank you.
[Excuse you, weird magic past land. Sometimes you're amazing, what with all the history, and neat stuff like trains, telenovelas, music that doesn't exist in his world because it was made during all those nuclear oblivion years back home (this world is a much kinder one for having Lady Gaga in it, seriously), but he is doodling around with data on quantum resonance signatures this morning and having a grand old time of it.]
Yep, just gonna - excuse me - there we go - [He pushes past flowers that don't take the form of any faces for him but seem to be doing so for others, nudges past a viney cage of yetis who are actually sort of getting engrossed in a conversation about some really deep and unexamined feelings apparently, and steps over more of those stupid candies and some of the vines, to go get a mug of coffee from the kitchen and go back to his room for a quiet morning in of being a high octane nerd.]
[The problem is he sees one of the candy hearts on the floor and for some reason he's lulled into freezing in place. It says "Bee Yourself!" with a little outline of a bee stamped on it, which...really doesn't seem to fit the heart theme. Mixing some metaphors there.]
[Feeling a strange compulsion he picks it up off the floor.]
[...and then pops it in his mouth. The reflex to spit it out is only partly the fact his brain is rebelling over eating things off the floor like a weirdo, but mostly because it tastes like chalk.]
Okay, first of all...why did I just eat off the floor?! [He looks around accusingly at the everything. It is directed at the shenaniganry around him because surely there is something weird and magical behind it. (He wasn't paying attention to the babysitting thing because sooo not his wheelhouse.)] Also, follow up question, who makes candy that tastes like chalk? How is that candy?!
[If it were something alien he'd chalk it up to alien palates and call it a day but it's clearly human candy?? Whomst? Why, past people? You're also responsible for Beyonce! Why this?!]
[But he's distracted by a magic glowing string appearing and tying itself around his pinky. It spells out "Share your insecurities and make a new friend!" He has just enough time to roll his eyes and start to say something about magical bullshit before the string suddenly whips off and starts dragging him on Mr. Boim's Wild Ride through the Pole, somehow making his body lighter so it can drag him along with his heels scraping on the floor without breaking his pinky.]
[Before long the string will either tie itself around someone else's pinky without them eating their own heart, forcing him into a one-sided "making a fool of myself in front of a stranger and all they can do is stand there and feel awkward" dance, or the string will tie itself to someone else's string if they've eaten a candy heart themselves, and they'll be compelled by the same magic.]
[Either way it's going to suck. And naturally as the string drags him along at a high speed while looking for the right person, he shrieks like a train whistle the entire time.]
[ooc: Just let me know your choice whether he's just going to blather and it'll be weird, or there's mutual blathering!]
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Tim leads the red string, and the man that is getting whipped around on the far end of it, on a merry chase through several levels of the workshop with a mindset of help me help me save me hide me.
(It is a perfectly reasonable reaction to these shenanigans.)
He's going to owe so many favors though, because he definitely just burned a hole through an 8 foot tall teddy bear. ]
Sorry, Paulie!
[ The yeti's loud grumbling fades into the distance. Tim takes a hard left, then two rights, and abruptly extinguishes himself, dropping down onto a table and panting to catch his breath. He lost them, had to have.
There's a tiny candy heart next to him that answers his question with YAAAS. He smugly pops it into his mouth and crunches away at the familiar, vaguely fruity candy that tastes of nothing and yet is so identifiably candy hearts.
And then his finger sprouts a red thread, and tiny Tim is yanked off the table and flown back in the direction he came. ]
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Oof!
[Tim maybe has a chance of flipping to land in a crouch or something. Boimler just falls on his back.]
...ow.
[The strings are tied together so solidly they're one string now.]
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Ow is right.
[ Tim checks his shoulder, where the other man’s weight hit hard. Rotation’s tight, but it’s not dislocated. He can already feel the bruise he’s going to have. ]
Are you okay?
[ He’s taken a few low steps to lean over Boimler, ignoring the string tugging lightly on his finger. He’ll deal with that later. ]
Did you hit your head on the ground?
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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.
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"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?
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[Yes, he'd rather fire his phaser at it than talk to other people about his feelings.]
[Satisfied with whatever readings he sees, he puts down his tricorder and draws out his phaser, holding a section of the string against the floor. Firing on it does nothing other than cause an explosion of flower petals around them. The explosion makes Boimler jump and let out a little scream. Then he sits there with a face covered in petals, deeply annoyed, and blows out a mouthful of petals.]
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Taylor got a red string tied on her, and fortunately for her, she had been able to not get tied to someone right away -- mostly because, reacting fast, she managed to get a couple insects wrapped into it. It's like she's tied to herself...which is not favorable, because having to carry that around hanging from her hand is cumbersome, but she's been trying to find a way to get rid of it instead of having to do what the string indicated she should do.
Unfortunately for Taylor, this kind of magic won't be held under loopholes forever. She didn't take into account someone else would get their own string entangled upon hers, and so Boimler's ties itself to the string on her finger, connecting them. When she sees him careening towards her, guided by the string, Taylor mutters under her breath]
Shit...
[She really had hoped she wouldn't have to play along but looks like all options are closed off now, now that someone else is involved]
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I - and I cannot emphasize this enough - hate magical bullshit.
[A pause.]
I want to study the magic to figure out how it works on a fundamental scientific level - [Far from being annoyed at how nonsensical it is, he is fascinated by the tricorder readings he gets every day. He's Starfleet, of course he'd want to figure out how some kind of new metaphysical interaction with physical reality works.] - but also I hate it.
[Unfortunately, that statement doesn't count enough as any sort of confession. The string stays tied. He sits up but doesn't get off the floor yet.]
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Still, Boimler's statement does get her to raise her eyebrows]
I mean, I get it. Good news, a lot of bullshit does have its own little rules. Why hate magic so much, though?
[All magic is just science that hasn't been fully understood yet, they say! Or something like that -- and Taylor is well aware that's not too far from the truth.]
If it makes you feel better I don't have magic bullshit, so that's all fine. I have nothing like that.
[........
Half-truth. Taylor may not have magic, but she has superpowers, powers she has been hiding from the rest, things she didn't want them to be aware of. She can already see it coming: this string, and the rest of the things happening in the Workshop today, it all is going to lead to her unmasking. She's going to have to admit she's concealing actual powers over insects, she's sure that's big enough for the string to accept as she opening up and exposing some vulnerability -- because she wanted to keep it hidden to not cause undue suspicion on herself]
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[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.
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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]
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The magic thing is new. Even when extremely weird phenomena happens in my world, it's quantifiable and still follows the laws of physics.
Just...weirdly.
[Absurd bullshit can still be scientifically studied.]
This stuff just apparently works at random. It has internal logic but the way it interacts with physics makes absolutely no sense at a fundamental level.
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[Of course Boimler didn't mean it literally but if Jake has to be stuck with him and his yapping he should at least get some entertainment from driving him insane.
His own message says "Admit that you're hurt that your father left you", so they're gonna be here a long time because like fuck he's going to say that, especially now that he knows that his father is a genocidal maniac.]
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Conjecture.
[It's pretty easy to imagine something gross tastes like another gross thing. It was weird and gritty and coated his tongue in a weird way.]
I already tried breaking this thing before. Nothing works other than following the directions. What message did you get? Mine's always blah blah blah be vulnerable and make friends.
two sided candy embarrassment
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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[But then all of a sudden, the yanking goes very vertical. And keeps going. The Pole is very large with its many stories, with an open design in the center core and a very high ceiling. There is a whole lot of "up" happening very fast and he has no idea when or where it's going to end, or under what circumstances the "down" is going to happen after.]
[Boimler is not really scared of heights but it's very different to look down the vertical drop of a long vertical Jeffries tube or turbolift shaft when you've got lots of ladders and other surfaces for gripping and can voice command an emergency shut off of the gravity plating.]
[The screaming therefore gets louder and even more shrill the higher he gets pulled. He's screaming all the way until the thread throws him up in the air and slams him right into...somebody?? This high up? He doesn't even catch a proper glimpse before he's dangling again but he notices they're decidedly stationary and somehow not falling and he practically scrambles up them.]
[It is definitely some...body that he slammed into. An unusually firm body. Letting out a little "waaah!" of panic, he manages to swing up to an arm first and then scrabble his way up to a panicky hold around their neck, wrapping both legs around their waist so he doesn't lose grip with his weenie arms. Not exactly easy with his stiff back but terror is a great motivator.]
[He does not trust in the stupid magic thread to hold him up because an immortal toddler is behind it and toddlers aren't great about consequences even when they aren't surrounded by people not beholden to the whims of normal mortality.]
[It is only then that he leans his neck back enough to see a familiar mask and he realizes he absolutely is bodily clinging to nearly seven feet of familiar spandexed beefcake.]
Uhhh...
[Awkward.]
[The "Don't. Ask." confirms somebody must have also enjoyed a floor-based snack, too.]
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Boiml-
[ ... and is promptly smacked on the cheek by the back of his own tied hand! All the pent-up rubber band energy had yanked it at full force, as if retaliating for his obstinance. This jostles Miguel off his corner, dusting them with the splinters of broken wood and dust.
Luckily, they only fall for a split-second or two before he webs himself to the wall - tensing some of the muscles in the process, as one does while climbing. ]
Boimler - I have a feeling that I can't just cut this thing, but you should hold on anyway.
[ The arm blades materialize off his non-tied wrist. Anything to wriggle out of the greatest terror of all: emotional vulnerability. ]
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Can't you just swing us down?
Why can't we work on this on the floor?! Any floor!
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Right. Not everyone found comfort doing things at high elevation.]
There’s clearly some kind of magic at work here with the floor candy, for one. And for two-
[ he pauses, digging in deep for this admission. ]
Your end of the string… spelled out something embarrassing for a moment, right? Before the tugging.
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There are lots of floors, Miguel! They can't all have floor candy!
[Besides they already ate the candy so they can look for a candy-less place while probably temporarily invulnerable from eating more candy.]
And I know about the spelling. Something something about being vulnerable or talking about feelings or something similar, right?
Things we can continue to ignore and not do with our feet on a floor somewhere.
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[Seeing someone on the other end, clearly being pulled far more strongly, annoyance is replaced by amusement.]
And what did you fall afoul of?
[Have fun blathering at a God of Mischief.]
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[His voice is extremely world-weary at the words he has to say next.]
Magic candy.
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So I presumed. Well, now you know better than to eat strange candy you find lying around on a day of significance to mortals, hm?
[He motions with his hands and displays an array of the candies that have appeared.]
Which one was it? For reference purposes.