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

Prophecy? Really? Seen a few of those come and go. What's yours about? 'And lo, the bloody whelp will suckle some teats and chew faces off'?

No, dumbass. [Spike gets a withering glance from Ivar. He also picks up a pillow and makes a lazy attempt to smack him with it.] My mother had the gift to see into the future. She predicted my brother would be born with a pupil in his eye shaped like a snake and he did. Then she predicted before I was born that was going to be a monster. When I was born a cripple, everyone assumed that's what it meant.

[Ooh. No. Not a pillow.]

Cripple don't mean monster, mate. But that's not where you shine, is it. I bet you're a regular ripper, when it comes down to it. Might have liked you around when Angelus was being a ponce.

Tell that to, oh, every single person in 816. [In their eyes, being unable to walk was pretty much the same thing as being a monster. Spike's next words make him perk up a little.]

You'd be right. I'm good at killing. Always have been. [Maybe just a touch too good. He'd killed another boy when he was no more than fives years old. Not one of Ivar's proudest moments. He preferred not to dwell on it if he could help it. He pauses and sounds curious as he asks.] Who's Angelus?

Nothing wrong with that. At least you're good at something.

[He reached for his beer, finishing it and setting it down after. The mention of Angelus, not from his lips, had his hackles rising.]

That's going to need another drink. Mind?

True. You work hard at something every day and have a little bit of talent, you eventually get good at what you do. [Even if that something is probably going to get him classified as a serial killer someday in Riverview.]

Go on. There's more in the kitchen. [Who would have thought a blood-sucking monster would enjoy alcohol so much?]

Want another one. We can make a right party out of it. Sit and talk about the 'good old days' and continue pouring our hearts out.

[He knew it was a bit of a pity party going on, but it seemed he wasn't the only one who needed to vent. And he also wasn't the one who'd been left with a living, physical reminder of a love ripped away from him. He could give the young psychotic some time and an ear.]

Where to start with Angelus... I mean aside from the obvious fact that he was a prick.

You know what they say. There's no problem in the world that alcohol can't temporarily fix.

[Frankly, Ivar could do with getting a little drunk right now. It would dull the pain away a little over losing his first love. Being distracted by whatever Spike was going to tell him seemed like a good idea.]

That sounds like how I would start out describing my brother Sigurd. I love him some of the time, but most of the time, I want to kill him. [He pauses.] Or just have really bad things happen to him.

[He grabbed two more beers, bringing them back into the bedroom, which seemed to be where they were going to be having their little sobfest.]

Oh, no. This wank was nothing like a brother to me. Grandsire, yes. Brother, no. He sired Dru... Druscilla, who then sired me. Of course, because he was a sadistic prick and she was... I suppose something like your mum, he drove her batty first. Tortured her. Tormented her. Then turned her. So Dru was always a bit... off. Still loved her. Still followed her for a century. And he would always swoop in and cuckold me. I walked in on 'em once. And they both laughed. Thought it was funny.

[He cracked his drink open, taking a long swallow.]

Then he went and messed with the wrong gypsy lass and got a curse put on him. God his bloody soul back and turned into a useless sack. When he lost it again, what do you think he did? Made fun of me and took my Dru away again. Bloody ass. If I hadn't been laid up in a bloody wheelchair at the time, I'dve killed him myself.

[This is definitely a conversation that requires copious amounts of beer. Ivar listens, really listening in that way that most people usually don't, too busy thinking of other things or focusing on what they're going to say next. This is the first time Spike has spoken candidly about himself, so Ivar takes it in. When he finally pauses, he can only say one thing.]

Fuck. And I thought my life was complicated.

[Then he cocks his head, asking almost the same question his father had once asked of a priest he had made a slave.]

What is a soul?

Ah, there's a tricky question. Some say it's what makes you human. It's you. But I still think I'm me, even after I lost it. I think it's more or less your conscience. That little voice that tells you what you're doing is wrong. See, when I was alive, I was a poncy sack of shite. I was weak, timid, and constantly wanting approval. After, I stopped caring. Oh, sure, I still give a damned about love. I can love. I can also tear someone's spine out their chest and not feel bad over it.

[Taking another sip, he looked Ivar over.]

Maybe that's your monster, lad. You were born with no soul. It's happened before, you know. Humans without souls. You don't have to be a demon to not have one. I just think it means you won't be so different as a vampire if you were to turn. It's the loss of your soul that really changes you. The before and after is always so drastic.

[Vikings had a very different concept than the Christian ideology of what the soul should have been. It's divided up into four parts, for one, and tends to be a much more flexible type of concept then what a traditional soul is said to be. Spike's words make a lot of sense to him.]

Conscience? No, I don't have one of those. Never felt bad about the things I've done, even when I know that logically what I'm doing is wrong. I just see things differently. It's like playing a game of chess. Just manipulate the board and you win the king. Do the same thing in life and you get what you want.

[He saw a single line towards what he wanted. Getting from Point A to Point B was what he did best, no matter how many people he had to get there. Some modern-day people might have been disturbed at the thought of not possessing a soul. Ivar just sort of shrugged and figured that was okay.]

[Spike's reality was one where there were just too many deities and religions to really ever have anyone other than 'normal humans' think about just Christianity. He's seen Sumerian, Aztec, and Greek prophecies rise and fall. Of course, there were also the demonic deities that most humans had no knowledge of, outside of small factions like the Watchers. Humans did like to think they knew everything...]

Then you'd make a bang-up vampire, mate. Transition will be a hell of a lot easier. No initial squeamishness over drinking blood. The first bit can be hard, but that's just that pesky lingering humanity. It fades quickly.

[Looks like Spike might be trying to lure over a convert. A vamp buddy. Come on. He couldn't be the only one. All the others had left.]

Vikings already drink blood on occasion anyway. I think I told you that before.

[He really is seriously considering the benefits of being a predator of the night. Being supernaturally strong and fast would be rather nice advantages. But he's got some hang-ups.]

Tempting offer, but I wouldn't want to be stuck at sixteen forever.

[Yeah, somehow, the drinking blood and killing people to survive bits don't cause him to hesitate at all. It's being stuck in his teens forever. There's not many that would want that, no matter what popular vampire media tends to portray.]

And I've got Winter to think of.

[He'd miss out on a lot with his daughter if he couldn't go out into the sun anymore.]

Give it a few years, then. Offer's open -- unless you do something right rank to piss me off.

[He drank his beer, remembering what it had been like when he'd first been turned.]

You'll still be you, you know. Mostly. Probably more so, what with you being off in the first place. If you don't want to hurt the nibblet now, you likely won't after. I turned my mum.

[There was a sour look on his face after that, his gaze dropping down to the beer.]

Wrong decision, in the end. She... well. It doesn't matter, does it. But you can still be as you are. You can still care. I've loved more deeply undead than I ever did with a heartbeat.

I'll keep it in mind then. If I live that long. [There was always the chance he'd fall in battle before then. Well, he planned to end up in Valhalla one way or another. If it was five years or a hundred from now, it didn't matter.]

Good. She's the only one here I can say I truly love. [It was a fierce and possessive sort of love, but because she was so small and helpless, it was able to be easily reciprocated. Ivar had found he rather enjoyed being a father. He looks sympathetic when Spike speaks of his mother.]

Yours too? My mother was the queen. I was off with my father when she died, shot in the back by my father's first wife. I wasn't there to protect her. Then the cowardly bitch who killed her wouldn't face me in a fight. But I'll avenge her one day.

Vengeance does wonders to keep the blood warm, doesn't it.

[More a rhetorical question than a real one, Spike grinned up at Ivar as he took another drink.]

So, you've found yourself a bit of love and heartache here and now you're a dad. I suppose that means you plan on staying here, eh?

For now. It's better here for me then it was back home in some ways.

[He pauses, eyes going distant.]

But I'll have to go back one day. I've got too much unfinished business to rest here easy forever, get complacent like a fat pig waiting to be slaughtered.

Nothing's perfect, mate. Ever. Even when you think it is in the moment, it's only for that moment. It's why I try to grab what I can when I can. It's all eventually going to go to shite anyway, eh?

Still, it's not like anyone has to make their mind up now. If you want to, you can. If not, I'll still probably come around and nick your beer. And I've already promised not to nibble the little one. So, we're good, yeah?

You know, for someone so annoying, you're kind of wise. [This is the only way Ivar can give out anything resembling a compliment: in a backhanded manner. He does smile though. Somehow, during the course of this conversation, he's come to realize he and Spike are friends.] Yeah, we're good.

Figure you have to pick up some nuggets of wisdom if you're around for longer than a century.

[He wasn't as dumb as he made himself out to be. Being underestimated as some punkass vampire was exactly what he preferred -- until he didn't.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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

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