i'm feeling devious, you're looking glamorous | OPEN

[cacophonish]

WHO: Jeff & OPEN
WHEN: June 1 - June 10
WHERE: Random cabins, every bar, the buffet, idk basically anywhere
SUMMARY: A messy new arrival hits the ground, uh... stumbling to rock bottom. I swear he'll chill out after this.
WARNINGS: Binge drinking, references to demons, possession, trauma, and death. Oh and Billy Joel slander.

So, like...

All things considered, Jeff thinks he's taking this pretty well. Obviously, he's majorly fucking dead, which is about what he expected after performing the ritual to give his body over to a demon. And, okay, so the afterlife is a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, and that's, like, really not his scene, but it's better than the big empty void of oblivion he'd been expecting, so... Things are already looking up.

Look at him. He's chill. He's copacetic. He's not freaking out about anything at all.

After the mandatory safety drills are done, you can find Jeff all over the Serena Eterna, exploring all the fine shops and amenities the ship has to offer.

i. bar hopping...

...fuck it, okay, fine, he's bar hopping. That's all he's doing. Look, there's a lot of places to get a drink here, and Jeff's a connoisseur of self destruction and debauchery, and besides, he's already dead, so it's not like he has any reason to sober up now.

So, really, if you stop by any bar on the ship, you're likely to run into Jeff there at some point or another, in various states of intoxication. Maybe he's holding a one-sided conversation with an indifferent ghost at the poolside bar, while it blends him a daiquiri. Maybe he's singing to himself and anyone around him at Hurrikane-- hey, wait, did a cocktail napkin spontaneously burst into flames while he was singing? Maybe he's dancing with anyone who's got the misfortune of being at Rischie at the same time as him. Or maybe he's grooving alone at John's, to the beat of some song in his head, stopping to hurl expletives at the ghostly piano player as it launches into its set. "Fuuuuuck you, Piano Man. Billy Joel's a hack. Ha... ha... Fuck. Billy Joel. I'm in hell..."

The ghost of the piano man doesn't even care. Somehow, the indifference stings.

ii. strange bedfellows...

Big messy breakdowns can take a lot out of a guy. Not that Jeff's having a breakdown. It's just a general observation, about breakdowns in general, for other people. Jeff's fine, after all. He's just having a good time.

But sooner or later, that breakdown good time starts to take its toll, and Jeff's gotta crawl back to his cabin to sleep it off. The only thing is, he doesn't actually remember his cabin number. It's... 123, right? No. Wait. 113. 102... He knows for a fact it starts with a 1.

(What do you mean every cabin starts with a 1?)

Eventually, Jeff finds his way back to his cabin, or at least what he thinks is his cabin. Maybe it's actually your cabin, in which case: if you left the door unlocked, he's definitely going to stumble in and zonk out on one of the beds, thinking it's his. Total Goldilocks move. If it's locked, well, he'll just slump down in front of the door and sleep the booze off there, in the hall. You might have to step over him, or just wake him up.

iii. breakfast of champions...

Decked out in Tommy Bahama, with sunglasses perched in his hair, Jeff looks like he's finally settling into the cruise life... as he groans and slumps his head down on a table at the buffet, a plate of untouched food beside him. What's the point of hangovers in the afterlife?

"'s not fair. I wanna diiiie..." he whines into the table, as if this hangover is, truly, the worst hangover anyone's suffered, ever, in the history of the universe. If you join him, Jeff will lift his head and look absolutely pitiful. For as much of a mess as he is, he really has mastered the art of puppy dog eyes. Somehow, he actually manages to look like some kind of innocent Disney princess decked out in Tommy Bahama.

"I don't think I'm doing so good right now," he confesses.

Fine. Okay. So maybe Jeff isn't taking any of this well at all.

iv. wildcard...

go wild, throw anything at me. hit me at weeyotch or weeyotch#8200 if you want to plot something in particular!

Comments

[cacophonish]

"He just..." Jeff gestures at the piano, as if the Piano Man himself were sitting there performing. Given the level of drunken vitriol he's showing, surely there must be some legitimate grievance here. He must have a totally articulate, well-reasoned argument and--

"...he suuuuucks. It's all fucking... empty, sentimental bullshit and he never says anything real, and... and..."

--or not.

"Like, 'We Didn't Start the Fire'? It's just... a fucking old dude whining about history and it's not even a song, he's just listing facts, it's like... it's like going to school!"

[millay]

Maeve considers his words, looking at the piano and back to him. She doesn’t know this Billy Joel, but he is some musician and he didn’t start a fire. That was a song?

“And going to school is a negative thing?” Not that she went to school. Technically speaking. She has vague memories of being taught to read and write, but everything is programming.

“Or is it simply that it isn’t what you look for in music?” She assumes it’s the latter. “Who do you prefer, then? For musical enrichment?”

[cacophonish]

"Um..." Huh. Is</> school a negative thing? He wasn't expecting to debate the merits of an education while dragging Billy Joel, but it seems like her question is a good distraction from his music rage, at least for a moment. It takes some of the heat out of him.

"Well, yeah, like... It's like pointless unless you're gonna, I dunno, go to college and become, um, a doctor or something... Especially history. It's just propaganda, anyway."

In any case, an artistic soul like Jeff definitely didn't lose out on anything by dropping out.

"Oh man. That's a big question, you know? I like... pretty much anyone but this guy. If we're talking piano... Queen, Elton John... Oh! There's this chick, Tori Amos? She fucking rocks..."

[millay]

She listens as he tries to get himself mentally together. She understands he is quite drunk. She's seen this plenty of time before. "Hm. I suppose an understanding of history might be useful in some way." She can't help but consider knowing more would help her be able to make parts of her story make more sense.

She knows none of the people he's talking about, but she nods as if she does all the same. "There's a lot of music in the world," she agrees. "We had a piano in the Mariposa, but it played mostly whatever it was programmed to."

[cacophonish]

"I dunno, I guess, like... if you got the real story, you know?" He scoffs into his drink. "Not the version the winners tell themselves to feel better about all the shit they did..."

Fun fact, Jeff will grow up to become a history teacher. But that's quite a few years away for him, and he's blissfully unaware, so in conclusion: fuck school, it's dumb.

"Like a..." What are they called. He moves his fingers as if on an invisible set of keys. "...player piano or whatever?" He makes a thoughtful noise. "That was it? No one could play it?"

Come to think of it, can anyone freestyle with a player piano, or would it fuck it up? He's got no idea.

[millay]

Maeve can't fault the logic. She doesn't know too much about human history. She knows her own fights and nothing ever came clean. "It's hard to fight a war without casualties. At least in my experience." She doesn't look like she's been in a war, but it was a war against humans, against the people that she is now aware enslaved them because they decided they were lesser beings. It seems like a lot to discuss with someone that is drunk, however.

"Yes. Something like that." She wonders idly if she'll ever really know the names of songs. "I guess they didn't want to worry themselves about it." Maeve shrugs.

[cacophonish]

Jeff looks at her for a few, lingering moments as he considers the observation. In her experience. "Like... personal experience?" he asks, and maybe it's a stupid question, putting it like that. But he's drunk and not super articulate on even his best days, anyway.

"Who didn't want to worry about it?"

[millay]

"Yes. Personal experience." It was Hosts versus humans and sometimes even Hosts versus Hosts. She wasn't going to let anyone kill her and so she found her voice and used it. "But it's nothing to worry about, darling. All in the past." Only it isn't.

"The people that built the park I was in. I think it was easier to automate it than hire someone to play it."