[OPEN] Dendarii Halloween Party!

[dendarii]

WHO: Dendarii staff Halloween party! Staff friends/CR and café employees are welcome. Party crashers in general also very welcome-- it's a café, feel free to show up and demand coffee! Or assume Miles invited you.
WHERE: The Lucky Cat Café!
WHEN: Today (Saturday October 29), in the evening.
WHAT: The Dendarii Security Corp. is having a staff party for Halloween, costumes mandatory strongly encouraged. Guaranteed night of silliness and meeting your coworkers you have probably forgotten exist.
WARNINGS: Tacky Halloween decorations?


to the Lucky Cat Café and the first annual Dendarii Halloween party! Since this is the first Halloween that the Barrayarans have ever experienced, they’ve gone for the full experience. Fake cobwebs hang from every available surface. Someone (it’s Miles) has dumped out several bags of those plastic spiders all over the place as well. Mostly into the webbing, but. Well. He was a little overenthusiastic.

Which goes for the rest of the café in general. Name a tacky Halloween decoration and it’s totally here. Fake plastic skeletons hanging from the ceiling? Check. Motion-activated witch that sings an annoying song when you pass it? Double check. Fake bats, crudely carved jack o’lanterns, black cat silhouettes … All of these things are completely necessary for a proper Halloween celebration.

The spread of food is equal parts lavish and hackneyed as well. It’s being tended to by a dour, large-nosed wizard and his hyperactive bird familiar. Who are totally not the Emperor and his pet boyfriend, what are you talking about. In addition to the array of finger food, there’s a huge bowl of spooky punch - made with blueberry-stuffed lychees for that authentic eyeball look! Be careful, though, as there’s two bowls … and one of them is a little more adult than the other.

There are tables set out for traditional Halloween activities as well. One is home to a slew of pumpkins and plenty of carving knives to go with it. There’s also a big ol’ metal tub with ice cold water and apples for bobbing. And don’t forget your goodie bag before you go home! They’re filled to the brim with candy and snacks.

There’s only one catch: if you’re at the party, you must be in costume. Fortunately there’s also an assortment of cat ears and alien bopper headbands available if you forgot to wear something slightly less embarrassing.

Join the party! Carve some pumpkins! And enjoy an evening on the Dendarii.

 

Comments

MILES | OTA

[dendarii]

BIRDMAAAAN

[ Miles' costume for the evening is probably cheating. He's flitting around the party as "Captain," Gregor's tame (and magical) kestrel, alternately posing on his emperor's shoulder as the falcon familiar to Gregor's wizard, and harassing the party guests with offers of treats or snacks. More the latter than the former, although he always makes it back to Gregor's side eventually. Miles loves playing up the whole "I'm totally the Emperor's magical pet" angle.

Perhaps he's flown over to offer you a goodie bag. Or maybe he's preening happily on Gregor's shoulder. Either way, he's ridiculously pleased to see the array of guests. ]

Are you having a good time? Can I get you something else?

CARVING JACK O'LANTERNS

[ Halloween is already a fascinating new tradition for someone who's never celebrated the holiday in his life. When not birding it up, Miles finds himself fully embracing one particularly Barrayaran aspect of the holiday: disemboweling and then carving a gourd with a way too sharp knife. Fire being involved is also a huge plus.

So he spends most of his human time at the jack o'lantern table, cheerfully scooping out seeds with more enthusiasm than skill. He's wearing a pair of pointed ears and a vaguely fantasy-esque costume to match Gregor's (again), although this time he's claiming to be a hobbit if asked. ]

Who on Earth came up with this holiday, anyway? [ He says, grinning even more widely as he manages to splatter himself with pumpkin guts. ] Because I'd like to thank them personally. And take it back to Barrayar. Why don't we do this?

OTA

[ Got something else you'd like to do? Miles is all over the place as a human or a bird. Feel free to approach him elsewhere at the party as well! ]

lol looks like you beat me to it in their thread

[driftsintobuffetline]

Pretty sure Halloween started off pagan, but I'm really not sure on that one. What are you supposed to be, anyway? An elf?

[He isn't going to comment on the height thing. Tolkien did not own the trademark on what elves looked like. Santa had short ones. Miles could totally be a short elf.

Newt pulls up a seat, checks out the tools, and wishes he had his saws and scalpels from the lab. They'd be perfect for carving up one of these bad boys.]

You should probably save the pumpkin guts. I'm pretty sure you could use them in some pumpkin-themed desserts here at the cafe. Those are always a big obsession this time of year.

[vorbarra]

[ Gregor is perfectly happy to let Miles do the disembowling pumpkin innards part while he uses the results to practice his newly acquired whittling skills. The first couple don't go so well, but this attempt he seems pretty dedicated to, and answers absently, distracted. ]

Candy and costume companies, I think. There's always financial interests behind holidays like this.

I take it you're having fun.

[rathercommon]

It's a melding of a few different traditions.

[ This is coming from...jesus christ, is that Ronald Chump? Yes, as a matter of fact, it is: a perfect simulacrum of the man himself, in all his vile hideousness, with a few differences. First, he's in quite a girlish pose - sitting atop the counter, legs crossed at the ankle, leaning on his hands. And issuing from his mouth is Kitty Jones' voice.

Horrifying. ]

Samhain - which we still celebrate, where I'm from - and All Souls' Day. This is actually quite a dangerous time back home.

Mark, OTA

[jacksonian]

[ Mark, of course, thinks this is all fairly stupid. Now, if he'd been exposed to the true meaning of Halloween - unchecked gluttony and girls in skimpy costumes - he might have been more on-board. But instead, this silly-skeleton-and-plastic-spider version of Halloween leaves him rather cold.

So he wanders in without any sort of costume on: he's dressed as he normally is. And he takes a look around himself with distaste - then strolls over, not talking to anyone, just making a beeline for the food. And once he's there, he experiments - namely, with finding how many peanut butter cups he can stack before the structure collapses. ]

[dendarii]

[ Then he's occupied enough for Miles to pounce on him, attempting to fit one of those alien headbands on his before his brother notices. And/or hits him for it. ]

Mark! Didn't you get the memo? Costumes are mandatory.

Re: Mark, OTA

[heart_wrenching]

[ Well, it might not be skimpy, but she is pretty damn cute. ]


Mark! Where's your costume?

[protects_the_small]

[Kel is only slightly better in the costume department than Mark, but it does provide a nice contrast to her very modern coffee cup as she stretches past him to get at the caramel corn]

Beg pardon.

[Glancing down, she gives a very slight smile]

Did you come dressed as someone who will be accosted by Miles then?

[fullmetalbrat]

[Ed is dressed as a super cool demon with costuming and makeup he definitely got for less than $30. He's wandered up to the food table, pausing to eye Mark's peanut butter cup stack curiously.]

Has anyone beaten your record yet?

nicolas | ota

[unwiseheart]

rip motion-activated witch

[ Look, he's never celebrated Halloween before. This is all really weird, but then, when aren't things weird in America? The jury is also still out on whether or not he should be offended by the amount of werewolf costumes he's been seeing advertised across the city, but... probably not. At the very least, he can find the inaccuracy funny, like he does with all the horror movies. He can even get into the spirit (and, to some length, make fun of his own literally missing eye) by dressing up as a pirate. However, no one said anything about decor that SPRINGS TO LIFE when you pass by it.

So what happens is Nicolas happens to stop too close to the damn witch. It goes off. He doesn't mean for anything to go wrong, but startling a garou has plenty of downsides and, in his particular case, that includes tech frying. Lights nearby flicker, as well, but most of it is, when he whirls around to spot the singing witch, the song begins to warp, drag out, sputter, and then there's a sizzling and some smoke when it finally bites the dust. ]

Uh.

[ Well crap. Did anyone see that? No? Maybe? Nicolas looks around to check before trying to abandon ship! Which is to say, inch away from the scene of the crime... ]

obligatory he spends most of the night by the food

[ Post-unfortunate singing witch demise, he'll decide to stay away from most the other decorations and where better to do that than by where all the food is? Careful, a werewolf is liable to clear through most of that given the chance, though he will try and pace himself. Although the big fake fuzzy spider looming over the cupcakes earns itself a few disapproving looks.

Why spiders? Who thought spiders as decor was ever a great idea? Have they ever met one? It's just awful. ]

WITCH

[dendarii]

[ Sorry Nicolas, this bird perched nearby totally saw everything. Good job breaking it. He clacks his beak a bit, shaking his head. ]

Already? I was hoping it would stay intact until the alcohol, at least.

WITCH!!

[heart_wrenching]

[ As soon as she sees the flicker, the girl is BEELINING thattaway and snatching it up ]

Oh no! I better see what went wrong.

Witch

[dualismum]

[ Sasaki is cross-dressing tonight and even if he does look out of place, it's not really because of the costume he picked (because he is pretty okay with it, it's not the first time) but because parties are so... awkward to him. He can't eat or drink, and it feels like he's never sure what to tell others.

But Nicholas is a familiar face that he hasn't seen a bit and so Sasaki approaches to say hello, when the mechanical witch just... dies...? ]

Oh- it seems like it wasn't a good quality product. [ sure. he will still smile wide at the other ]

Hello.

Witch

[fullmetalbrat]

[The unfortunate thing about being in a room with a lot of military and ex-military is that they notice when Weird Shit Happens. Ed isn't sure what caused all that flickering, but it's attention-getting enough for him to come over to investigate.]

What the hell just happened?

Aral | OPEN TO ALL

[use_everything]

[And here behind the counter is an intimidating man. Muscular, scarred, and with a piercing, resting scowl... and all of it goes rather well with the startlingly legitimate cowboy costume. A little dusty from its first use, the linen shirt and real leather vest and chaps are topped off by a cowboy hat.

He would look absolutely Marlboro man if someone hadn't obliged to also perch cat ears on top of his hat. He seems to have tolerated it with good grace and is mostly focusing on serving coffee.

The coffee, for the record, is boss. Come get some.]

[dendarii]

[ Miles is going to skip the coffee in favor of laughing. Surprisingly loudly, given he's a tiny bird and really shouldn't be able to make any noises that large. ]

You look amazing, Da.

Kel, OTA

[protects_the_small]

Pumpkin Carving

[When Kel arrives it is with plenty of extra pumpkins, perhaps not up to the standards of of the huge ones for carving, but there are so many volunteer pumpkins in the garden, send help.

Her allowance to costume tradition is to wear her clothes from home cleaned up well enough they ALMOST look new.

Eyeing those carving knives, she dumps two bags full of hastily washed sugar pumpkins on the table]

Perhaps one on top of the other, like a snowman?

Food

[The nice thing about having this in a coffee shop is that Kel can get her iced americano and AVOID the excess of sugar in everything. But for the look of the thing, she's got a small bowl of popcorn as she sits and people watches. She'll smile and say hello to anyone passing by, but for the moment she's enjoying the relative quiet.]

Wildcard!

[Or bump into her of your own choosing!]

PUMPKINS

[dendarii]

[ Miles looks up from his own mess when Kel arrives. Oooh, those look like they could be fun. He gestures for her to set them down next to the larger ones. ]

Or perhaps I'll have this one eating a smaller one. Properly gruesome.

[ He gestures to the gaping maw of his own pumpkin. ]

Winry | Obviously OTA

[heart_wrenching]

[ And here is an ADORABLE RACCOON. and she is serving herself a very responsible (smol) portion of Adult Punch. ]

It looks so great in here! Do you really do this every year?

[dendarii]

[ Clearly Miles should have dressed up as a kestrel while human too. He grins at Winry and waves. ]

I certainly intend to make it a tradition. Isn't this an amazing holiday?

Ed Elric | OTA

[fullmetalbrat]

[Naturally Ed has dressed up as a very cool demon, complete with a pair of cheap costume shop horns and some black and red face paint. He can be found hanging around the food table or at the pumpkin carving station trying to find the best pumpkin to turn into a really cool dragon head.]

[dendarii]

[ Oh yes. An alchemist at the jack o'lantern station. This is exactly what Miles wants to see. ]

Important question: does alchemy work on pumpkins?

[protagerrant]

[Yuri's wearing his demon lord costume and thankfully has the confidence to pull it off well.]

A. Pumpkin Carving
[After accidently completely annihilating a pumpkin with an an arte Yuri shrugs off that failure and goes to it the old fashioned way. Sort of. He's using his sword, but he does seem really good at making grotesque faces.]

B. Other
[Yuri snacks on sweets almost exclusively, as usual. He always uses these events to indulge, like he doesn't have enough disposable income to make cake whenever he wants.

At some point, maybe after a drink, Yuri's contemplating one of those cat-eared headbands.]

B

[dendarii]

[ Miles is a bird at the moment, but that doesn't stop him from giving Yuri an appreciative glance. There's a lovely costume. ]

How very bold of you.

Newt & Hermann

[driftsintobuffetline]

Food

[The nerds do arrive in costume, though theirs is mainly closet cosplay. Hermann is dressed in a dark beret, white long-sleeve button-up shirt, with a pair of glasses (probably reading glasses). The telltale sign that this is definitely a costumes? He's been convinced to wear a rather ridiculously walrusy-looking fake mustache/goatee.

Aside from the brown fedora on his head, Newt might not even look like he's in costume. He's attempted to lighten his hair a bit and brushed whatever lightening agent he used into the scruff on his face (which isn't a full beard by any means but hasn't been shaved in a day or two), but he's still wearing his signature black-rimmed glasses. Under a brown leather jacket, he's got on a black tee-shirt on which he's stenciled the words "I reject your reality and substitute my own" in white ink. Otherwise, he really just looks like Newt.

Your character may or may not recognize them as two famously bickering and explosive special effects collaborators. If all else fails, the scientists have signs to help: BUSTED and CONFIRMED, though they know most of the imPorts are going to have no clue who they are.

Newt procures an alien bopper headband and puts it over his hat as they wander around, trying to be social. He's hoping to spot someone tall, handsome, and mustachioed, but so far no luck on the Joaquin front.]

"The cupcakes are amazing. I'm getting another. You want one?"

Wildcard!

[Separate or together, depending on your preference. Just let us know if you want Newt, Hermann, or both.]

[mathemagier]

[The beret is alright; Hermann's hair is short and closely shaved in the back as is, so it's almost as good as a bald cap.

But what he can't do is leave his false facial hair alone. It feels incredibly unnatural, given his utter lack of ability to grow any naturally, and it looks terrible on his face to boot. Whether or not it survives throughout the evening is questionable. He only feels slightly less like an idiot than he did at the unexpected faire.

But invited as they are, and with how closely they could relate to both tv show scientists, it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

Hermann catches himself rubbing his fake goatee again and drops his hand to his side, irritated with it and himself]

No, it's rather difficult to eat one without getting anything in this infernal hair. I don't even know what it's made of, for heaven's sake.

Gregor | Open!

[vorbarra]

[ Gregor is, indeed, dressed as a wizard, although not quite a conventional one. He hadn't entirely been able to consign himself to a cheap costume-in-a-bag wizard variation given how ridiculous he'd look in it, so he went for a slightly cobbled together Victorian style wizard, with a waist coat and Victorian traveling cloak tossed over the top. Still very, very different from what he would ordinarily wear but enough like old formal Barrayaran that he can wear it without being extremely self-conscious.

There is, of course, a corresponding top hat, and he has a wand and some fake-stuffed bags of 'supplies' tied to his belt to account for the wizard bit. It's haphazard, but he at least doesn't look too absurd. He hopes. He does look stately with bird-Miles perched on his cloaked shoulder.

Hosting a party is something Gregor has ostensibly done many times before, but is a very different experience without Alys Vorpatril to flit about taking care of all the details and directing his attention to where it needs to go. He hasn't thought on her overmuch since coming here, but he has an odd pang of missing her at how starkly outlined her absence is at this event. She'd never have let it be nearly this tacky, he thinks with some amusement.

For his part, he likes the tackiness. It's exactly the sort of thing Gregor wishes he could do more of.

Nonetheless, he makes for something of a bad host: he doesn't seek people out to greet them, although he will make polite conversation with those that stand nearby, and after he's done his Social Duties (as he thinks of them) he settles in intently to try carving a pumpkin. After half a semester of whittling, this gets a more serious attempt than others might be making. He goes through two just to get a feel for the texture of pumpkin vs. wood, tosses them out, and finally sets in to try something more serious.

He knows exactly what he wants to carve: the Dendarii symbol, mountains with a moon and stars above it, simple enough that he thinks he can manage it in a pumpkin. And it'll look nice lit up. ]

[protects_the_small]

[Kel is surrounded by many smaller pumpkins that she brought as extras (they're taking over the compost heap oh gods send help) and promptly set to doing...

Well, she's not BAD. But she does send an impressed look over to her neighbor and laugh a little at the comparison.]

You're a fast learner.

Sasaki || Open

[dualismum]

[ Parties are always a bit awkward to Sasaki, as he can't eat OR drink (except coffee) and he is actually a lot more introvert than he lets out. He enjoys dancing, but this time around he feels a bit shy. maybe because he is all dolled-up.

But he did dress up! In fact, Sasaki overdid himself, just like he always does when it comes to dressing up or go undercover. He is wearing a white wig down his shoulders, a beautiful dress with fake breasts underneath, and amazing make-up - which he is surprising good at applying. Yes, he is cross-dressing.

Sasaki is currently standing near the food, sipping his coffee. He will smile at anyone who spots him, but most of the time he will be found stealing sneaking cupcakes into a small paper box, so he can bring some to his roomates at the end of the night. Specially Hinami , because now that they've found out she can eat food, he will be getting her all sort of things so she can try them. ]

[dendarii]

[ That is impressive. Miles is Barrayaran, but he's Betan too, and is thus not particularly startled by the costume. Only impressed by the expertise. ]

I can get you a larger box, if you like.

Kitty Jones, OTA

[rathercommon]

[ Crashing the party is someone truly, deeply vile: Ronald Chump. In all his leering, orange glory. Except there are a few differences between this Chump and the real one. First, this one moves in a way that's not wholly like Chump's alpha-male swagger. Second, he has a distinct sweet tooth, pecking at candy and avoiding the savory treats, in contrast to Chump's love of everything steak (well-done). Third, he's wearing a sign around his neck saying "I apologize for everything." And, fourth, he speaks with the voice of Kitty Jones.

The whole situation is rather distressing. ]

[driftsintobuffetline]

[Once he realizes it's not the real Chump, Newt approaches Kitty.]

He'd make an even better piece of decor than a costume. Head on a pike or spike up his ass. Put him on the lawn like a scarecrow. Hell, he could almost be mistaken for a jack-o-lantern: big, empty, orange head with a fake grin who's hopefully going to be gone by mid November.

Long time no see. How're you?

Kururu | OTA

[resoundingpledge]

[ "Come by next Saturday evening," Aral had said. "I've been told that costumes will be expected," he said.

Peeking from under the brim of her witches' hat, soft steps as ghostly as the tattered edge of her skirt and cloak, it's pretty clear that whatever she'd been expecting, it hadn't been anything like this at all.

Most of the crowd holds familiar faces, and everyone seems happy and relaxed, but it . . . really doesn't feel like a café right now at all. ]

Is it . . . still okay to order coffee?

[dendarii]

[ Miles gets up from his pumpkin carving station to welcome her. By now he's lost track of all the invites he's sent - and furthermore, it doesn't really matter. He's glad to see anyone who shows up here today. ]

I'd say so. Da is over there behind the counter if you want something.

[ He thinks. Not having checked in a while. ]