[open] the caring and keeping of trollish sentiment

[uncodlyawwesome]

Who: Eridan Ampora and you!
What: Someone is acting TOTALLY NORMAL about a DUMB HUMAN HOLIDAY.
When: February, thru Valentine's Day
Where: The cabin hallway, Mikabo, and the promenade
Warnings: None so far, will update if necessary
Notes: Eridan's mostly active from 4pm to 5am. there's a 50/50 chance he'll decide to simp over your character regardless of who they are... tis the season!

1a. [Cabin 160] the art of exterior decorating
[Eridan opens his door one evening early in February and walks right into a smattering of chintzy paper hearts and glittery red streamer. the first few seconds of flailing are a trigger response to feeling something almost but not entirely like the Bahanamal touch his head. the next few minutes are a more purposeful tantrum as he furiously rips the cheap decor down, complete with meticulously tearing up a heart and then stomping on the remains. he glares around the hall, but he doesn't know anyone well enough for them to pull this kind of miserable stunt on him. nobody here even knows about his painfully scorned love life except for Karkat and Nepeta, and neither of them hate him this much.

that doesn't stop him from giving anyone nearby an absolutely devestating stink-eye as he destroys more Valentine's decor. Yeah, you over there, eyeballing him, he sees you! If you had anything to do with this, you better fess the fuck up or mind your own goddamn business!!!]

2. [Mikabo] the art of custom sushi rolls
[he thinks he's safe when he makes it all the way up to the Promenade without seeing any massive displays of hearts or other flushed symbolism. there are a few places with familiar hearts plastered to the wall and stuff like that, but nothing on the level of his own door.

unfortunately, he's quickly reminded of the situation as he sits down for breakfast/dinner and is met with a rotating selection of HEART-SHAPED SUSHI, many covered with an UNIDENTIFIED PINK SAUCE. the normal options are few and far between, and even the sashimi comes out curled into heart shapes around lumps of wasabi.

it turns out that the PINK SAUCE is actually just mayonnaise with color added to it, but still. weird..

he stares at whoever enters while he's there, as usual, but he's decidedly not accusatory when he asks:] Just wwhat the fuck is goin' on, here?!

1b. [Cabin 160] the art of investigating a crime
[it seems like no matter what Eridan decides to do, he's destined to return to a door decorated in flush red hearts and pale pink diamonds. (they're actually just badly shaped stars, but nobody tell him, he's having a moment.) he tears everything down with the same vigor the first few times, but that doesn't seem to stop the paper flowers and glossy plastic streamers from adorning the frame. now that the anger and outrage have given way to confusion, he's not tearing things apart so much as he is carefully examining each piece as he removes it.

he doesn't seem to notice if anyone's watching this time around, mostly because he is deeply dedicated to his new human holiday research. it's fucking weird, is what he's getting.] Wwhat do angels havve to do wwith matespritship? And the mortal wwounds... wwhat does that mean?

3. [All Over] the art of cultural osmosis
[this investigation eventually expands from his cabin to the ship as a whole. there's a non-zero chance that you might encounter him staring critically at a random Valentine's day arrangement, as if trying to analyze a particularly obscure bit of modern art. he treats them as if they're up for grabs, and occasionally plucks one off the walls -- usually ones with pictures of cartoon fish with shitty slogans like "I REELY like you" or "It's o-FISH-al, I'm HOOKED on you!"

(look, being fish-themed is a full-time gig!)]

[wildcard] the art of making shit up as we go
(throw whatever you want at the fishboy, or hmu for plotting!!!)

Comments

1a

[busball]

[Klaus is only vaguely aware of the time and certainly mostly unaware of the fact that it's February. Isn't it still January?

Anyway.

They've been back and forth down the hall, trying to decide whether or not to knock and talk to Ari again now that they're not feeling like absolute trash. At least physically. But they're also not really sure how to do it without it being awkward.

So seeing Eridan ripping down Valentine's decor distracts him entirely from his plans (read: gives them an excuse to just pretend that's not what they're doing and then do something else).] You must really hate Valentine's Day. [Wait a second. It's Valentine's Day soon? Shit. He's got a lot of planning to do.]

[uncodlyawwesome]

[he squints suspiciously, midway through ripping a six-inch shiny red heart into tiny quarter-inch pieces.]

Wwhat I hate is offensivve vvandalism!!

[busball]

[Klaus is resisting the urge to laugh a little.]

Oh. Right. Right. Offensive vandalism. And the Valentine's Day decor is vandalism. [They shrug.] It might have been cute to have it. Nobunaga probably loves that kind of shit. Colorful, the hearts...all of that. Oh man. I need to bother Jeff, actually. But that's...not important.

You okay, buddy?

[uncodlyawwesome]

[don't you dare laugh at him!]

Wwell, I didn't put it here, that's for sure! [he tries to chuck one of the hearts at Klaus, but like. you can't really throw paper and expect it to do anything but flop on the ground.] Ugh, you take it all if you like it so much, just tell wwhoevver put it here to leavve me out of wwhatevver sick prank they're tryin' to pull!

[busball]

[Maybe stop being funny.

Having a paper heart unsuccessfully chucked at him does make a small laugh escape.]

I don't know anything about this. I was just coming down the hall and here you were and here it was...on the floor mostly.

2

[pinballer]

[ And who should walk in but the boy with an angry scowl, and a spade and a club prominently displayed on the shoulders of his vest? ]

What do you think is going on, asswipe? [ He rolls his eyes, because the fact that Eridan obviously isn't human doesn't make him think twice about the fact that he might not know what Valentine's Day is. ] It's fucking Valentine's Day.

[ A holiday that Vance usually despises, but this time he has a girlfriend so he has to at least pretend not to gag at heart-shaped decorations. ]

[uncodlyawwesome]

Excuse me?!

[that's the second time so far that someone's suggested he should know what the fuck is going on around here, and he doesn't appreciate it one bit!! forget that beautiful hair and attractively surly demeanor!]

Howw does that havve anythin' to do wwith bad sushi?! Wwhat does that evven mean!

[pinballer]

It's a time when all good taste is sacrificed so everyone can ram heart-shaped garbage down your throat. That's what it has to do with bad sushi.

[ And Vance is not a fan of it. Thanks, St. Valentine. ]

[uncodlyawwesome]

[okay well. fine. they're on the same page about the bad tastes all around. just so long as they don't start getting CHUMMY over it.

ugh, that's a stretch by anyone's standards. he's definitely not saying that pun aloud to anyone, ever.]

So wwhat, it's some kinda yearly reminder that if you don't havve at least one quality relationship, you're doomed to be culled wwith the rest of the affectionless flotsam? Ugh. Humans are so fuckin' wweird.

[pinballer]

[ This kid clearly isn't from Earth, so it'd be mean to tell him false information. ]

That's the gist of it, yeah. But afterwards comes Anti-Valentine's Day where the affectionless flotsam get to beat everyone else with a stick.

3

[skaikru]

( and today, this particular gaudy set up is taking up like, three endcaps in the all and sundries storefront. it's awful, and almost offensively pink. but offers a few items that stray from the normal stock of the shop, and thus clarke has to investigate.

she is picking up a heart shaped box of chocolate and giving it a shake before spotting eridan picking from a display of seasonal greeting cards right next to the postcard display. and she judges his reaction to the paper he's holding to be something between... awe? disgust? confusion? whatever it is, clarke's not much help, they don't do this holiday in space either. but, reading fiction nearly every day for the past almost-year has allowed some connections to be made easier than others; the cultural osmosis has been jumpstarted on this end.

and it's just a step closer to strain her eyes and read "YOU'RE A CATCH" above a cartoon picture of a goldish in a bowl.

ugh. ) They're all awful, aren't they?

[uncodlyawwesome]

[Eridan's in the middle of debating on how far a pun can stretch before it turns into a meaningless bundle of words when Clarke speaks up next to him. he IMMEDIATELY thrusts the card back onto the rack, but like, badly, and jams his finger on the plastic bit, because that's just his luck, gettin' caught looking at fish puns by someone he thinks is cute wants to garner the respect of!!!

now he's just gonna act like he didn't violently return that card --]

You're tellin' me. Ugly art, bad puns... wwho evver thought this wwas a good idea??

[skaikru]

( well that sure was an oddly aggressive reshelving right there! to miss eridan's uncomfortable mortification would be to not have eyes or any adaptive items to compensate for not having eyes. it's... weird.

and slowly clarke reaches out to pull —



— off the rack. just to reinforce that, yanno, it's okay to touch them and okay to look. they won't burn. the pun is still horrible but the depiction of pizza reminds her that she's probably hungry. )

My understanding is it's all part of an old world tradition. The bad puns, the chocolates, the flowers, the heart shaped confetti... A useless holiday, but some people like it, just like Halloween.

[uncodlyawwesome]

[what do you mean, oddly aggressive? nobody's aggressive here! it's just a cool alien teenager caaaasually leaning one hand against the card display rack. he tries to look vaguely disinterested in the card, but woof that is a BAD PUN. probably one of the worst ones he's seen.

(he's also only familiar with the buffet-style pizza, which is probably one of those square-cut ones...)]

Ugh. It's dumb. An' wweird. Wwhy just hearts? Wwhy not diamonds, too?

[skaikru]

( it's just really hard to be mad about pizza. there's plenty of distasteful cards around though, and when clarke inevitably reshelves "pizza my heart" and picks up "in space no one can hear you scream", she's gonna make a face. )

Why would there be diamonds?

1b

[astrogator]

[Eridan's neighbor over in 159 wasn't in her cabin the first time that he'd had to deal with the holiday nonsense. She'd seen the decorations on his door, yes, but she'd assumed that he'd done it himself. Stepping outside to see him tearing it all down, then, is more than a little surprising.]

Angels are an Earther religious concept. I have no idea about the rest. Wait...you weren't the one that put all that there? You want me to help you get rid of it?

[She'll be only too happy to help destroy the bizarre little display if it's unwanted.]

[uncodlyawwesome]

Earth religions are fuckin' stupid, then. Nobody should be wworshippin' those feathery bastards. They certainly shouldn't be makin' them into deformed human babies and then pretendin' they got anythin' to do wwith romance!

[his opinion is very clearly "fuck angels." time will tell whether or not he applies that sentiment towards all winged bastards...]

Ugh. Yeah, if you wwanna. Startin' to think this ship's got it out for me personally, wwhich is no fuckin' surprise considerin' the rest of my goddamn life!

[astrogator]

What? What's romance got to do with it? Earth religions don't make two quarks of sense to me either, but I didn't know angels had anything to do about romance and babies. Wait, is this about that angel that tells women they're pregnant?

[Ari's ideas about Christianity have not exactly been clarified by reading Bible stories.

She does, however, start tearing down the decorations adorning Eridan's door. There's an alarming enthusiasm in her destruction. She seems to be enjoying it.]

[uncodlyawwesome]

I don't knoww! [he waves a paper cherub at her as she begins ripping down decorations; the wings have been torn off so it's just a fat baby, but still!] They're all shootin' arrowws at hearts, wwhich wwould probably be fine if this wwere about kismesissitude but it's obvviously not!

[he's so angry he's forgetting that nobody else knows what the fuck he's talking about most of the time.]

[astrogator]

Shooting arrows at hearts? That sounds violent. [Strangely violent, for something that is about romance, babies and angels, apparently.]

Hold up there. [Now she's curious.] What's kismesisstude? [she pronounces the word carefully.]

2.

[seethesun]

Eleanor has not had sushi before. She has memories (via Blood Google) of sushi, and she's curious to experience it for herself, but Eridan isn't the only one who has been stopped up short by walking into the fish joint and finding it violently pink. She's staring at a plate of it with what is either the five stages of grief or intense meditation when his question makes her aware that someone else is here with her. She turns her head and -

- that is...a fish person -

Eleanor sallies a weak smile. "Excellent question. I have...never seen sushi like this," or sushi at all but shhhhhhhh, "and I am uncertain why one would do this to fish. They almost seem like romantic novelties..."

[uncodlyawwesome]

"It's the wworst display of flushed affection I'vve evver seen." Apparently, he's pendulum-swinging between "outraged at deeply offensive imagery" and "outraged by inane decor." He can suffer through a holiday dedicated to matespritship, but he refuses to suffer silently.

He also refuses to notice when people are weirded out by his appearance. As far as he's concerned, the humans are the weird-looking ones here!

"It's not evven good. The pink stuff doesn't evven taste like anything." It just tastes like mayo, because that's all it is.

[seethesun]

Things not said out loud: how are you doing that with your mouth?

But also...

"Flushed affection?" It's said with genuine curiosity; it sure seems to be bothering this fish person. Eleanor's curiosity gets the better of her about the mayonnaise though, and she touches it with her fingertip and gives it a little lick.

Give her a minute Eridan she's weak to Flavor.

[uncodlyawwesome]

What, she's never heard a heavily implied Finnish accent, done entirely for the sake of a fish pun?

"Yeah? Hard to miss, wwhat wwith all the red hearts evverywwhere." Sorry, but he's decided to staunchly refuse to believe that humans don't know what he's talking about!

[seethesun]

"Yyyyessss, this is why I was suspecting romantic connotations. People send these sorts of things to each other to affirm their love or confess it, but I am quite lost as to why it's everywhere."

She's still confused but Eleanor is trying to be patient. Surely this gentleman(?) will realize she's behind his reasoning soon?