xistentia | I see trouble on the way.

Entry tags:

I see trouble on the way.

Characters: Everyone! Yes, you too!
Summary: Mandy's Masquerade hosts a fantastic Halloween party with a costume contest, some very special cocktails, and a few other surprises.
Date(s): Late in the month of October.
Warnings/Notes: Please mark any threads that need content warnings.

Mandy's is looking a bit festive this evening. Arrayed with spiderwebs, pumpkins, and other ghoulish decorations, the interior resembles a spooky haunted house. Spooky, not scary! Everyone's invited to stop by and celebrate All Hallow's Eve with spirited drinks, excellent company, and a lot of that Magnus flair.

You can loosen up on the dance floor to Monster Mash, Thriller, Dead Man's Party, or maybe something from this list. The spooky sky's the limit! Visit the bar for one of several special drinks you won't soon forget. You can also sample some tasty and holiday-appropriate baked goods, courtesy of the other Mr. Lightwood-Bane. Finally, stop by the table with the MAGIC 8 BALL to learn a little more about your fellow partygoers.

Potions.
drink list

Siren Song
If you're a little tone-deaf, don't fret. This drink will turn you into a master at serenading. It won't actually give you the ability to influence anyone via magical means, but maybe if your song choice is apt, you'll woo someone either way!

Firework!
A drink that comes with a portable fireworks show hovering over its surface. Drinking it will give you the sensation of ingesting liquid pop-rocks.

Blacklight
Does what it says on the tin and makes the drinker glow under a black light. It's also kind of sour.

Frankenstein's Monster
This drink is quite shocking. Not dangerously so, but when you drink it, you'll have the impression of getting a tingling little jolt of electricity down your spine. It's aliiiiive.

To Be or Not To Be (A Daemon)
Drink this and you will find you've been magically swapped with your daemon. It only lasts ten minutes, but hey! You'll get to see how the other half lives. A note: you won't inherit one another's abilities!

Who Wore It Best?
costume contest

Congratulations to our costume contest winners!

In first place for individual costumes...

Rafa wins for his devilish costume and he'll be awarded 2 potions: the first of which will up his luck stat, granting him good fortune in an endeavor (it says "Deal with the Devil" on the bottle) and the second will up his persuasion stat, helping him to be more successful in an argument (it says "The Devil's Advocate" on the bottle).

In second place for individual costumes...

Nico plunders the second place spot and will be given a treasure chest full of chocolates that are rum flavored. Careful, they pack a bit of a punch and when consumed, they'll make whoever eats them feel especially happy. No sad drunks here!

In third place for individual costumes...

Zeke and his amazingly sunny costume are in third and he wins a sunflower plant that will never cease to bloom and seems to have a bit of a glow about it. Plus, perpetual supply of sunflower seeds?

In first place for couples costumes...

Magnus and Alec came first for their portrayal of... each other... and they win a pair of seemingly mundane t-shirts that say "Bennet" and "Darcy" on them. What's that about?

In second place for couples costumes...

Vex and Kenzi delighted with their take on the Addams' family patriarch and matriarch and won second place. As a prize, Kenzi will be given a shampoo and conditioner set that seems pretty innocuous until you check out the writing on the bottles: 'Have YOU ever wanted hair like Cousin Itt? Are you ever in luck!' Just a small amount will make her locks lustrous and smooth. Vex will be given a very lifelike and animated hand in a box.

In third place for couples costumes...

Rose and Kaz were drop dead gorgeous in their mafia-inspired garb. As prizes, they will receive the following: for Rose, a pair of magical die that make music when thrown, and for Kaz, a set of playing cards that are intricately illustrated with astonishing art that seems to move. Watch out for the face cards, they get very opinionated about your playing. They both also receive a chip that can be relinquished to Magnus for a small magical favor.

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[ Darlene's mood for this evening pretty much hinges completely on how much alcohol she's consumed at the point in which you come across her. ]

It's close to midnight, something evil's lurking in the dark ( sober )

[ If it's still early in the night, she's still feeling fairly sober, perhaps glued to a seat at the bar, vibing along to whatever Halloween themed tunes happen to be echoing from the speakers with a brightly colored concoction in her hands -- at least, the one that isn't sporting a murder glove. She's not exactly a conversationalist, content to sit at the bar and get completely wasted in silence, but if you do decide to try striking up some kind of conversation, be ready for a slightly abrasive reply. ]

Cause I can thrill you more than any ghoul would ever dare try ( tipsy )

[ Somewhere later into the evening, it's likely you'll come across Darlene Krueger far more inebriated and it much better spirits. She's likely to be found requesting that Michael Jackson's Thriller is played more times than should be legally allowed -- even for a Halloween themed event. Offering to take lines of multicolored shots one after another -- in what she calls a drinking game, but looks a lot more like a way to get drunk as quickly as possible. Or possibly even out on the dance floor actually busting out some moves to one of her many Thriller requests. ]

There ain't no second chance against the thing with the forty eyes. ( trashed )

[ By the time she reaches near blackout, if you don't find her curled over a sink, or one of the toilets (likely groaning about how she'll never get this wasted again.), she's more than likely to be found taking in the cool nighttime air. A lit cigarette poised between her fingers -- and probably quite a few more finished all the way to down the filter at her feet -- and her daemon displaying various windows of news feeds, messages, endlessly scrolling lists of coding, and photos geotagged with nearby locations (most of which consist of shots from the party.)

Every few moments she pauses long enough to type out a message, but otherwise rarely looks up from the screens or her cigarette. ]

Wildcard

[ Anything you'd like, whenever and where ever you'd like! I'm happy to write starters, or you can ping

unnideul ]

Edited 2017-10-23 23:54 (UTC)

[ Rose doesn't know Darlene but she does know when a fellow lady needs an emergency gal pal to help her out. Being long-haired herself, the woman understands the troubles that come with it. Like, y'know, when you're purging the poison from your system into the porcelain god and don't want vomit chunks in your hair. It's a little unbecoming. Not that she's speaking from experience or anything.

Ahem. Anyway. That's what Rose is doing in this moment, crouched down next to Darlene and gingerly holding back her brunette locks. ]

Ah, yes, wise words to live by. You won't, really, but. It's the thought that counts.

[ Rose had recited the same mantra of 'I'll never drink again' after puking on the curb after the summer fair; yet, here she is, Darlene's hair in one hand and a magical martini in the other. Thankfully though, she hasn't purposefully pushed past her limit tonight. ]

[ Once upon a time in New York, Darlene could have partied on with the best of them. She'd drink all night, pass out, grab a Bloody Mary and a burrito for breakfast, and then do it all over again. Maybe the whole wormhole-portal-nonesnse that she'd gone through to get here has messed with her a little.

Or maybe she's out of practice, didn't eat much and didn't pace herself well. (Probably that one.) ]

Ugh [ She groans, another dry heave leaving her curling uncomfortably over the toliet. ] That was not regular alcohol in those things.

[ By now her stomach is practically empty... although, her brain has yet to actually realize that. ]

Thanks, by the way. [ She gives the girl holding her hair a quick glance. ] You didn't have to do all... [ Darlene waves offhandedly. ] ... this.

[ Everyone has bad nights. ]

Well, I mean, it could also be the magic. Might not sit well with some people? I still puke nearly every time I portal somewhere.

[ Rose considers for a moment how strange her life is that 'portal somewhere' is used as almost common vernacular. It's true though. This is her fourth world and even in-between, her best friend Magnus uses portals to get to and fro occasionally. ]

Don't sweat it though. Happy to help, really.

Could be. There isn't much magic where I come from. Unless you count David Blaine, or Cris Angel, or any of the hundreds of guys out in Vegas.

[ Darlene pauses, as though considering whether or not she's going to start blowing chunks again.

She feels safe for now. Everything stays down. ]

'Portal somewhere'? Is that a common thing that happens.

[ Ah, yes, the media 'magicians' that people were so dazzled by. It made her laugh, honestly, to think of actual mages like Feldspar and how they found the whole thing so distasteful... ]

Not quite the same, nah. But we got those kind of guys too where I'm from!

And it's common enough. I got a friend who makes 'em for me when we do stuff together so.

[ Patting the floor around her, Darlene eventually finds the bottle of water she'd been nursing and takes a swig from it, trying to rinse the vomit flavor out of her mouth -- and maybe more importantly, rehydrate herself. ]

They're bullshit anyway. Smoke and mirrors, sleight of hand. "Magic" [ She lifts both her hands to make quick air quotes. ]

Portaling places sounds like it's a hell of a lot more convenient than taking the train places. [ Darlene gives a quick snort of laughter, taking another drink from her bottle of water. ] Probably a hell of a lot more reliable, too, right?

[ To be fair to Darlene, alcohol aftertaste is like the absolute worst. Rose can't blame her at all if she was only using that water to rinse away the leftover tinge of shame on her tongue. The blond had been there herself during the fair when Alec and Magnus tried to get her to drink something that wasn't ]

Yeah, that ain't magic. Not the true stuff, but... lotta' people don't even know the real stuff is out there so.

[ They can't appreciate what's kept secret from them and all. Of course, seeing the way mortals tend to react to the unknown has understandably left the people of her world at least a bit hesitant to share but they know. ]

Sort of! They can be dangerous, I guess. Like, if the person doesn't know where they're portaling to you can just get... lost. In the in-between, maybe. I don't actually know how it all works.

If you're dying, you should drink this, [says a voice over her heaving shoulder. He isn't feeling incredibly well himself, but Tony's been at these games of self-destruction and alcohol binging a lot longer than Darla has— exactly how long, he doesn't tend to discuss. But-- awhile. Helpfully, a bottle of cold water descends nearby, and whacks her gently on the bicep.]

If you aren't dying, you should probably still stave off the paroxysms of a death-like state by drinking some of this anyway, [he notes.] It's not too late to cut down your vomiting forecast by twenty percent. [He's leaning against the stall of the bathroom she's in, looking away partly so as not to embarrass her, and partly not to get his own... plumbing going, accidentally.]

[ Tony sure is using a hell of a lot of words -- too many words for Darlene, whose head is already beginning to hurt and had long since started spinning.

Actually. Everything is spinning at this point.

Now normally Darlene doesn't just take drinks from random men that she's met in the bathroom, but.... well, desperate times call for desperate measures. So, she grabs the bottle and swallows down a few large gulps.

(And most shady men in bathrooms don't offer unopened bottled water. At least, not in her experience.) ]

Do what to the what? [ She groans, rubbing a hand over her face before taking another quick swig of water in an attempt to wash the taste of vomit out of her mouth. ]

[A beat. His eyebrows wrinkle. Tony reviews his own recentmost sentences with... somewhat more effort than that should take, and then kindly translates for the lady,] Drink more water, puke less later. [It's an important concept to grasp at this juncture. He knows that she's doing a pretty decent job evacuating the contents of her stomach right now, but he's had plenty of mornings after having puked up half a gallon, where he's still drunk and the floor no longer horizontal.]

More, [he suggests.] But slowly. You don't want it coming back up the other way. [Kindly, he also reaches over her, stretching to grasp the toilet flush. The last thing a puking person needs to see is their own fine works, in their effort to stop and collect themselves.] Nice costume, by the way.

No shit, Sherlock.

[ Darlene rolls her eyes at Tony's explanation -- but that ends up making the world spin wildly again, and soon enough she's heaving into the toilet, emptying her stomach of whatever remained in it.

Okay. So, she might want to follow that water advice.

She swallows down a few more large gulps before taking a much smaller one in order to rinse the taste of vomit out of her mouth, spitting it into the toilet just as it flushes. ] You sound like you've got experience with this stuff. [ She sits back and offers Tony a knowing sort of grin once she's fairly certain that she won't go blowing chunks all over his shoes. ]

Thanks. [ Darlene reaches up to tip her hat toward him only to find it gone, lost somewhere on the dancefloor along with her murderglove (or at the bar, or outside, or somewhere else in the bathroom, or.... well, you get the point.). ] I don't think Freddy had nearly as much trouble drinking, though.

I'm a forty-year-old white guy, [Tony says.] No offense to forty-year-old white guys who don't drink alcohol, but I'm taking the mean of the culture. [He acknowledges her not-quite-hat-tip with a nod, taking a step back to turn on the sink. Splash water on his own hands, his tanned face. Part of him would rather be more shitfaced. Part of him would rather be out working on the quinjet. Both sides symbolize-- something, probably.]

Yeah, I think Freddy had different compulsions to deal with. [The feel of cold water is soothing to his nerves. He used to love parties, and he doesn't doubt he will again, but time away makes it jarring. Pretending otherwise makes him feel more stable inside of himself, funnily enough.] Darlene, right? Costume competition, they named names. [Drying his hands, he steps over to the Iron Man suit he'd vacated off to the side. It's open, showing its hollow interior where he'd fit inside. But he doesn't go in, not yet.]

Which do you think is worse, though? Compulsive drinking or compulsive dream murdering? [ Darlene snorts in laughter -- quite unladylike (as though that ever mattered to her) and even more unFreddylike (which is really the most important.). ] You wanna know what I think?

[ Too bad if you don't, Tony. She's gonna tell you anyway. ] I think he was very misunderstood.

[ And then drunken laughter echoes out of her as she knocks the toes of her boots together. ]

You got it. Guilty as charged. [ Her gaze slowly moves to the metal suit, a look of obvious confusion taking over her features. ] What are you supposed to be? Robocop? The Iron Giant?

[Tony takes a minute, just looking at his empty armor, opened in the front like a door waiting for him to step in. He's wearing it as a Halloween costume, which irreverent, but since when was he not?] Actually, I'm Iron Man, [he says, smiling abruptly. He glances at her over his shoulder, then turns, steps back into his armor.

It closes around him like a hand. An impossibly complex, sophisticated armor hand, moving parts and fine joints clasping together. It pressure seals the next moment, red and gold over his T-shirt and jeans. The truth is, he isn't trying to be irreverent. He's being paranoid. She has her alcohol, he has his suits. We all cope in different ways.] I'd say compulsive dream murdering is worse. Ethics and all. End of the day, you hurt a lot of people, but as long as they're alive they have a chance.

Conventional wisdom. Open any Hallmark card, it's what's inside.

Well, Iron Man,it's a pleasure to meet you. Is this like your schtick? Helping out drunk people in the bathroom?[ Darlene's features knit together at both Tony's response and the way that the suit closes around him in what would have been quite an impressive spectacle were she not completely wasted -- and were she not very rarely impressed by much of anything. ] What've you got running on that thing?

[ While she might not seem outwardly impressed, it's still very relevant to her interests. ]

Ethics. Funny little things, aren't they? [ Another snort, she's got something of a complicated relationship with things that are considered ethically right. ]

They'd put 'go fuck yourself' inside of a Hallmark card if it would make them a few bucks.

[Iron Man ends up motoring across the bathroom floor a little, going over to the paper towel dispenser. He pulls free one square and wipes at spilled drink on the surface of him. It's weirdly domestic to see a big robot-armored guy polish himself with a bit of napkin, but these are the times and the resources. No personal workshop. It's only a little tragic. Sure as Hell beats a hole in the ground in Afghanistan.]

My schtick is stepping over the drunk people in the bathroom. But you weren't out on your face yet, so I figured I'd split the difference. [There's a backward smile.] You can also just call me Tony Stark. I guess that'd be more accurate.

Iron Man's 'schtick' is more like saving the world from alien hordes and psychopaths. What about Darlene's? [Swizz swizz. The servos in his boots sound gently as he steps backward her, and offers her a big, armored hand.]

[ Darlene just continues to watch Tony curiously -- guys in robot suits aren't really commonplace back where she comes from and a drunken Darlene is quite awestruck by it all. ]

Tony Stark isn't nearly as ironically obvious as Iron Man. [ She bites back a laugh, downing the rest of her water and tossing the empty bottle into the trashcan nearby -- or rather, at the trashcan, as she misses and the bottle goes bouncing loudly across the room. ]

Darlene's schtick is the destruction of modern capitalism. [ She eyes the robot hand extended to her for a moment before taking it and pulling herself to her feet. ] And the largest redistribution of wealth in the history of American.

[ She grins, wide and wry ] I'm a leader of the revolution.

I think that makes you the enemy of my less-obvious alter-ego, [Tony Stark observes, after a moment.] Playboy millionaire philanthropist. My generosity comes with the fine print. This part where I, like, totally sold out. [They're both being wry. An edge of irony to his voice. If he had any room for guilt left over, after costing American soldiers hundreds of lives with hardware sold to their enemies, he would feel guilty about that. As it is, life's too short. Even his. He's giving back, some ways.

Swizz swizz. His mechanical plod takes him back to the open doors of her bathroom stall. He tilts his robot head. His mask is still off, though, held in one hand. The other, he offers her.]

Lift home?

[ Darlene wants to laugh at the irony of it all. Here she is, completely wasted -- tore up from the floor up -- and being helped out by one of the exact guys she’d been attempting to completely ruin. That mysterious top 1% of the 1%, the guys that up until recently were nothing more than a faceless humanoid blob in Darlene's mind -- like someone requesting their anonymity be protected on television. They all had faces and names in Darlene’s head now: Phillip Price, Terry Colby, Scott Knowles, Tyrell Wellick, Susan Jacobs.

Tony Stark is a new face in the lineup, but she can venture to guess he’d be on that exclusive list too.

(The multiverse seems to have a twisted sense of humor.) ]

Well, money does have a way of making people do crazy things. The more it is, the crazier.

[ It could even cause a man to set fire to millions of it in the middle of Battery Park. ]

And unless you plan on plunging the fair citizens here into crippling debt while you sit back all cushy and sip martinis, then we should be golden, babe.

[ Darlene eyes Tony’s hand for a moment, a mixture of skepticism and curiosity on her features. The suit is clearly only built for one body to fit inside (or perhaps two extremely small bodies rather uncomfortably.) and her drunken mind is having some difficulty figuring out exactly how this whole lift home is supposed to work.

(Look, she's used to traveling by subway, taxi, or the occasional Uber. Robot suits are uncharted territory for her.) ]

Yeah, sure. One question, though. [ She’s a little wobbly on her feet, bending to pick up her hat and murderglove. ] How exactly does that work?

[There's a version of this conversation where Tony dismisses her question because laypeople tend not to understand, and he's usually not-- bothered with most -people at all. Never mind laypeople.

But she asks, and he's in a Mood lately. He's actually been very rarely out of a Mood these days. It makes him patient, in a sense. More patient than he would be.] This-- [he taps his chest, where the round glow of the fuel unit sits squarely in the center of his armor. Very aesthetic, but functionally essential.] Is an arc reactor. Back home, I just joined the renewable energy industry, hoping to make this kind of thing more accessible to people around the world, but it started with weapons.

And it connects to these repulsor units. [He exposes his palms. Taps one foot on the ground, a wrang wrang sound of metal on concrete.] Which can generate thousands of pounds of thrust. I've broken the sound barrier in flight.

Carrying one adult human passenger a few miles ain't no trick. [He winks at her, friendly enough.] I can do a princess carry, very ergonomic. Haven't received any complaints. [A beat.] Not that were my fault, anyway. Sometimes, in rescue capacity, the supervillain in question has to accept some responsibility, you know?

[This top 1% of the top 1% is not tremendously mysterious, as a general rule.]

[ Darlene listened closely, her eyes trained on Tony as he goes about explaining the suit to her — and for as drunk as she is, she manages to keep up with the whole explanation fairly well. It doesn't make complete sense to her, but she's also aware that it's not supposed to.

Her manner of weaponry is far less tangible, but equally as destructive. And when in the right environment, lies right at the tips of her fingers the same way that Tony's does.

(And it's a weird thing for Darlene to feel like there's so much common ground between them. She'd always assumed that herself and guys such as this couldn't have been further apart on the spectrum.)

(Once again, the multiverse had a very twisted sense of humor.) ]

Impressive, Mr. Stark. [ Darlene snorts softly in more drunken amusement. ] Well, as long as you get me back to my place all in one piece, I'll be sure to leave you a stellar review on Yelp.

You have Yelp to? [his voice sounds indulgently exasperated. He reaches up to fiddle the mask over his head, tapping on a corner, making sure the seal is tight.] Maybe we should let D.E.S.T.I.N.Y. take over. Could be what the Multiverse deserves, if this is what we're doing with it.

[But even if Tony Stark is making a stupid joke about nihilism and the end of the universe, he's not about to pull out of giving her a ride. One metal arm swizzes up behind her, at the small of her back, and his fingers close around her waist. His other arm goes behind her knees. It's an effortless motion, the way he lifts up beneath her, supporting her off the floor. She's nearly weightless given the mechanical advantage of the suit.]

Try not to barf on yourself, [he suggests, as he navigates them out of the bathroom. It isn't far to the club's exit, and outside, the cold gulf of darkness that is the deep autumn night.] After all this is over, they're still going to need you to fight the Man.

Not being sarcastic about that. Really.

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I see trouble on the way.

Darlene Alderson | OTA

trashhheeedddd (also lmk if this doesn't work)

it's all good in the hood, frand!

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trashed;

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