riverviewlogs | player-suggested mini-event: A STRANGER'S BED

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player-suggested mini-event: A STRANGER'S BED

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: Player-Suggested Mini-Event
when: August 26th - August 31st
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

a stranger's bed

As a lead in to September, Riverview's ♥ Month of Romance, this is a completely optional mingle that will cause affected characters to end up in each other's beds. There are various options for both established and new CR. While it's easiest for characters still living in Communal Housing, anyone who has moved to their own homes can be affected and end up finding their way to Communal Housing, or within their own housing.

Residents of the Quarantine may notice that various businesses selling food and drink - cafés, diners, bakeries, restaurants, and other such establishments - are heavily advertising a new flavor that's supposed to be the biggest thing since pumpkin spice. A flavor additive that's said to subtly change the flavor of whatever the diner is eating or drinking to optimize the dish, drink, dessert, or any other food item it is added to for each person's individual taste, it's been selling like wildfire and is the latest trend.

After the cause of the rash of amnesia was revealed to be plant-related, sellers are keeping the origin of the secret ingredient very close to their chests, since it is a derivative of a recently-discovered plant dubbed chameleonis. Depending on the method of ingestion, this additive can have a variety of unexpected side effects, but only once the person who has ingested it becomes sleepy. Methods of ingestion include:

● Ingestion: Beverage: When ingested as a flavor shot to drinks ranging from sodas to coffee to alcoholic beverages, it can cause a desire for closeness to a particular other person. Affected characters end up crawling into bed with that specific other character when they become sleepy.

● Ingestion: Food: When ingested as a flavoring added to a baked good or other meal, it can cause an intense desire for body heat when the character becomes drowsy. It won't matter to an affected character who is providing the body heat, so long as it's someone, and they will end up sleepily crawling into someone else's bed for warmth.

● Inhalation: When inhaled ether from a steaming hot beverage or soup, or as an essential oil or aroma from a bakery, it can cause disorientation when a character becomes sleepy. Affected characters either aren't sure which bed is theirs and simply crawl into the closest one, occupied or not, or become convinced that another character's bed is their own.

Feel free to post up a top-level for your own character either affected and invading a random bed or unaffected but open to having their bed invaded by affected characters, or tag around to other people's top-levels.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah? Doing the ol' step-father routine, eh? Well, good on you. Bit young, if you ask me, but it's your life to sod up. Never wanted children, myself. Not when I was alive. They like to tell you turning someone's the same, but it's not.

Everyone keeps saying that. [How young he is to be raising a kid.] But Vikings don't live long lives.

[Being your thirties in their society meant you were middle-aged. He cocks his head curiously at the odd expression.] What do you mean 'turning someone?'

You know --[A casual wave of his hand between them, then at his face, which was still human just then.]-- the whole vamp business. Turn someone into a vampire. It's called 'siring' where I come from, but there's not usually a bond or anything nancy like that.

[Ivar's natural curiosity grows as the cigarette in his hand begins to dwindle down to a stub. If he ever bothered to go to school here, he would have been a great student, having a desire for knowledge.]

How do you do it? Is blood involved? I feel like lots of it would be.

Bit, yeah. You'd take a little from me, then I'd drain you and you'd die. Usually takes about three nights for it to hit, but you'd rise as the undead. Ta-da. Not a lot of blood wasted. A turning feed's one of the better ones to have.

Sounds interesting. Wonder what immortality would feel like. [But his desire for death on the battlefield and Valhalla is stronger.] Don't you ever try it on me. We might not get along so well if you try to drink my blood.

Oi, I don't have to kill you to have a sip. It's a process. I've had loads of drinks of tons of people and not killed them.

...

I have killed a lot of people, though.

[Ivar looks extremely dubious. Spike has the look of a killer. Ivar knows it. He's seen it in the faces of Vikings his whole life.]

You know, that's not really a winning argument you're presenting there.

Would you rather I lie to you? You can ask others. They have donors here. People that like a bit of a bite. I've met some that get off on it. Takes all types, really. Hell, back home, there's people that'll toss you money to give 'em a nip. Lucrative business.

People get off on that? [He looks rather thoughtful at that image, thinking of certain quirks he had himself. Ivar found sex and violence inextricably intertwined, so he'd often gotten a sexual rush from killing people. He wondered what it'd be like to be the prey instead of the predator.] And pay you for it? So you're a prostitute?

What? No, I'm not a- I never did it. It was more like a junkie looking for a fix. Vamp bites can be... pleasurable. Something about the saliva, I wager. Keeps the prey nice and placid while you drain them dry.

[Wow, Ivar. Way to get him offended. Call him a whore. God.]

It was an option if I needed, but I screw to screw and bite to feed. Sometimes the two fold over, but I can't say I've ever been a kept man. Might be nice, actually. Not to have to scrounge for everything.

Sounds like one of those things I'd want to try once and never again.

[He's grinning now and it's clear he deliberately said what he did to rile up Spike. He's a little shit that way and is just going to continue to be so.]

You know, I can just picture you like that, as someone's little pet.

[He wears enough leather to make a little leash and collar not seem that far off.]

Ah, but you'd try it. Curiosity is always what gets them at first. It's what got me.

[He takes another drag, turning to blow the smoke at Ivar.]

You're trying to rub me, but you're rubbing the wrong way, mate. I know when I'm love's bitch. That's fine by me.

I'll try anything once.

[Which is an attitude that will likely end up with him either losing a limb or gaining an STD eventually.]

Then you're a fool. Love is for idiots.

[Don't mind all the bitterness and cynicism in his tone. He's really upset Letha dumped him by running off to his world.]

Everything except fall in love? Whose the fool now? It's worth the pain when you're in it. We all hate to lose, mate. You've just got to find yourself another bit, or get the one you lost back.

All falling in love gets you is being hurt when it's over.

[Ivar's pretty fresh from his forced break-up. He laughs darkly when Spike mentions getting back the one he lost.]

If only I could. But she left without even saying goodbye and ran off to a completely different world to get away from me. Pretty sure that's a clear sign she wants things to be over for good.

So find a new one. Take a while and have your little bleeding heart fit, then get back on the horse. Trust me, you're too young to give it up for good. Hormones will get the best of you.

You make it sound so simple.

[He flicks his cigarette butt at Spike.]

It's a hell of a lot harder when your heart is shattered into a million pieces. And most people see an object of pity, not someone they might be interested in.

That's 'cause it is. Never understood this obsession humans have with trying to make it something so much more complicated. It's feelings. It's as simple as it gets. You feel it, want it or not.

[He looked over at Ivar, brushing the butt that had been flicked at him on the floor.]

I been where you are. All messed up, couldn't walk, had to be babied by the woman I loved. Then left by her. Yeah, it hurt. It burned and left its own scars. But you move on. You heal and you figure out what to do that lets you keep existing. So you're not going to walk again. Big sodding whoop. They've got loads of gadgets here. Might even be able to fix you up if you can find the right doctor to do it. Only one feeling sorry for you is you, mate.

[There's a look of keen interest on Ivar's face as he actually takes the time to listen to a monster far older (and wiser, though that part was up for debate) than he was. He makes a scoffing noise at Spike's words about his legs.] I accepted that fact a long time ago. It's everyone else around me who doesn't seem to understand it.

[He thinks back on Letha's first words to him. 'You don't look like a cripple.' Yet somehow the little minx had still stolen his heart. The thought makes the pain rise up in him all over again.]

I'm going to feel sorry for myself and go on feeling sorry for a good long while. I don't love many people. When I do, they always end up leaving me.

That's life, mate. People leave. People die. There's no way to beat it. Even vampires die. We leave each other. Still hurts. When you've been with someone a hundred years, that's a big hole to try to replace.

[Dru had done quite a number on him, so he really did understand. He just didn't empathize.]

If you want to wallow in shit, that's your right. But it's bloody annoying and it gets old quickly. I've always found moving on quicker takes the rub off, and it has the added bonus of sticking it to them a bit.

[Ivar scowls, but Spike's words hit home. Ivar's never been one much for lying around and sulking. He's always been one for action, usually violent and bloody. He did his best work when it involved fighting.]

I've been thinking I should go to Kattegat. If they sent her there, they can send me back too. I'm going to wrap my hands around her pretty little neck and just keep squeezing until she's good and dead.

[Was this psychopathic anger a better or worse attitude than the typical teenage angst he'd been going through?]

Sounds like you have a plan, then. Nothing wrong with a little revenge when you've been wronged. I've indulged in it myself.

[Sitting up, he dropped his own cigarette on the floor, moving to crush it with his boot as he slid his legs over the edge of the bed, looking back at Ivar.]

Don't suppose you've got something to drink, do you?

Yeah, well, every time I've sought revenge on someone before, I wasn't in love with them.

[It was a lot easier to kill people when you hated them. But both emotions were ones he felt intensely. He could use that.

When Spike asks him about things to drink, he gestures with his hand in the direction of the kitchen.]

Beer, ale, and Coke in the fridge. Take your pick.

You want something? Might as well, since I'm up.

[He moved to his feet, boots still off and on the ground as he stretched.]

Love's a funny thing, mate. Someone's always getting hurt. Might as well do it intentionally, eh?

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