I see trouble on the way.

[lacquers]

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.

Comments

[pillz]

Yeah I guess so, [kavinsky agrees.] Might be some shit we want to fly too. The roads don't go all that far into the woods and it can be a pain in my ass. [it's problematic, when you end up having to loop around because you wanted to go for a long angsty gay drama drive, which kavinsky tends to enjoy doing quite often. when he's driving fast enough, he can't even get through a whole album. it's tragic, really, offset only a little by the fact that he enjoys having more shit to complain about.]

You're doing all right here, huh? Learning some skills, making some friends. All your Pokemon companions, dressing that ass in leather. [kavinsky cocks his head.] The Goddamn apocalypse works for you.

[miss_brilliant]

[Amanda's actually been trying not to think about that too much--that, strangely, this place might be better for her than even Eudio was, in some ways. Eudio fixed her body, but here she really has things to do that feel like they might matter in a big way]

Yeah, I guess it does. I actually really hate that 'when one door closes' kind of stuff, but I guess that's sort of the only way I've kept going sometimes.

[she recognizes her probably not always healthy ways of coping for what they are, and really doesn't see much point in picking at them when they've worked]

I don't know. I guess this [she gestures vaguely at her legs] has finally stopped seeming like something I'm going to lose. And the kid I was back then would be really ticked off if all I did was make someone's robot stop recording them without permission. Which is still cool, but it's not the kind of thing I thought about when I was watching shuttle launches.

[she pauses, fidgeting with the leather on one leg for a moment] The persona I had back there wore leather and things like that all the time. She was...cool. Also kind of bitchy but I can get whre that came from. It was kind of what I guess I would have been like if I hadn't decided to mostly tune out what people said about me. And she...knew she was attractive. I guess that's still hanging around a little. [she still has trouble seeing her that way, because she's not seeing it reflected in someone else's eyes in a way that matters, but maybe faking it will make it at some point]

tw suicidal ideation

[pillz]

[there's a short refrain of quiet as the vampire boy thinks about all that, and drinks his alcohol, and thinks about that. much of it goes by him, of course. if you were to weigh his pain against amanda's, most people would determine that he had considerably less to complain about. you're not supposed to compare two people's pain, sure, but when there's a learning opportunity

well, joseph kavinsky can't very well be relied upon to learn from opportunities.] Wish I'd met leather BDSM has superpowers Amanda, [he remarks, brightly.] As for the other thing. You really been walking around here, thinking maybe someday, unexpected, it'd suddenly disappear? Like your legs would fold and you'd fall on your ass some point. Out of the blue.

[he studies her face in vague surprise. something akin to sympathy, or as close as he's going to get. he thinks about it sometimes, about his current -- relative mental wellbeing deserting him all of a sudden, a backslide into the depressive abyss. sometimes, it's even felt like he's come close, smashing the brakes while rafaello was driving, hurling rocks at vex's head, bothering-- everybody, with his fangs and greedy fingers. but he hasn't wanted to die again. and even though mental illness is certainly its own thing, certainly acts of will and personal decisions could affect it and its outcomes easier than such mental phenomena could with quadriplegia.]

[miss_brilliant]

[her laugh is a little forced] She probably would have fried your phone and thrown her drink in your face.

[she bites her lip, running a finger along the edge of her empty glass] Not quite that literally, no. But...I used to have this recurring nightmare about when I woke up in the hospital after the accident, only it was...worse than what I acutally happened, becuase there wouldn't be anyone there to explain what was happening, or I'd literally be...playing in my yard or whatever and suddenly back there.

[and yes, she knows that's a thing most people would probably talk to a trained professional about. But she sort of got tired of trained professionals before she hit puberty, because back then she was a lot more angry about what had happened, and what was the point in talking about it because talking wasn't going to fix her vertebrae.

Now, she's just mostly accepted it's her normal, that sometimes she remembers that and it's awful but temporary]

And, uh, anyway. It's been like that in the back of my mind, kind of. Part of me kept thinking I was just having one of those dreams, that I ws having this great time driving and going out and I was going to blink and I'd be back in my chair. It's...illogical, but I don't think most reactions to trauma tend to be very rational.

[because as much as she likes to minimize it, she knows that a nine year old getting paralyzed is really traumatic and that if she ever had to go into a hospital again she'd probably lose it. But that's another thing she really doesn't want to bring up]

So uh. Yeah. I guess I kept thinking it really was too good to be true, so I shouldn't get attached to it. But maybe hitting the year milestone made something really click in my brain that I'm not actually having a really great dream.

[pillz]

It doesn't sound like the best dream ever, [kavinsky agrees. he glances around, finding the nearest couch. dumps himself onto it, a skinny rack of tattooed limbs. then he gestures for her to come sit. he acquired a new drink at some point and takes a pull from it, making a brief face at how different it tastes ever since his palate switched over to 'blood is the most delicious tho.'] Used to think I was supposed to start getting recurring nightmares and shit, about how I did my life before Eudio.

['did my life.' an adorable euphemism if there was one.]

But I guess my brain's wired different. [it isn't. he used to have recurring dreams, and there was evidence of it that he'd take out with him into real life. cinemas with seat rows that stretched on forever, dozens of cars, misshapen but largely identical. he used to be more afraid of it, but then--] I got pills for that. [it helps to have your entire subconscious in a biochemical, quasi-magical strangle-hold.] So you don't dream, if you don't want to. With sleep, you gotta be able to get in and out. Like a motherfucking thief.

[incorrect, kavinsky. but #ok.]

[miss_brilliant]

[Amanda laughs softly as she sits down]

Sedatives don't really play nicely with an already pretty broken nervous system. I think that might be another reason I got into computer, people don't think it's quite so strange when a programmer stays up all night. [and is also probably part of why she fell in love with someone who thought coffee was a food group.

She raises a brow at that; just because she's known him for a year doesn't mean she can always follow his logic. She's pretty glad she often can't, honestly. There's only so much she wants to change] Ah, if you say so. I do wonder if this [she taps her temple without conciously realizing it] Has something to do with it though. And not just because I didn't have all that baggage when we were in there. I think this is the first time that being able to do my work without my hands hasn't felt like it was...worse than the way everyone else did it.

[that's...something she doesn't like admittitng out loud, that she often thought that using voice-to-text and cameras that followed her eye movements instead of using a mouse were less than. It's not a very progressive feminist thing to think about herself, but it's the truth]

tw ableism

[pillz]

[that takes kavinsky a long moment, spent sucking bloody cocktail off the rim of a glass. and then his narrow face lights up like christmas.] Oh, yeah, [realization! makes his eyebrows go up. he sets down his drink and nods wisely.] 'Cause you got powers, instead of relying on tech and shit to do like basic life stuff, and your job, and pissing in a bag. [by 'wisely,' we mean like a gigantic turd lord, and ableist as fuck in a way that's indifferent to the pain of most people other than himself.]

Well congratulations, sweetheart. [this part, at least, is heartfelt. and the question--] Now what do you want to do with or without your hands, in order to fuckin' celebrate? [is crude, but about as well-intended at least in the grand scale of potential reactions by one kavinsky. he opens his skinny arms and nearly punches a passer-by in the hip, spreading a gesture out the nightclub at large. all the pulsating lights and people in it.

he's no good at all at sympathy in the traditional sense. but celebrating, he can do.]

[miss_brilliant]

[Amanda has a look of odd, fond annoyance at that, and just shakes her head] You continue to be the most tactful person I have ever known. [and yet, still, better than some people she'd known before. She thinks that might say more about how awful some people back home had been]

But yeah, basically. I mean, it was cool, getting to see all of that technology develop as I grew up so things were easier and helping to test some of it but...it would have been nice for it to just be an alternative like it was for some of my colleagues, instead of the only option.

[because she knows the things she had to use had practical applications for abled people, which had helped it become better and more affordable, but...needing to rely on it so much sucked.

She can't help laughing at his exuberance, though, as strange as it still is. She chews at her lip for a few moments] Well, if Nick were here I might actually feel confidant enough right now to show him how I look in these pants. [that's actually a big step for her, to admit that even if she doesn't feel it really, she wants the man she's wanted for years to think she looks hot in tight clothing]

...but I guess it would still be a waste not to show it off, even if everything stays on at the end of the night.

[she knows where Kavinsky's mind tends to go, and while she is still amazed that she left Eudio with her virginity and isn't sure if she wants to keep it, she doesn't think she's quite ready to really make that jump just yet.

She stands up only a little reluctantly]

I'd probably be more worried about embarrassing myself, but you've been living with me long enough to overhear me singing One Night In Bangkok, there's no way I can be like anymore of a dork on the dancefloor.