We're wide awake now, our eyes are wide open. We're running this world, we keeping it turning

[opheliac]

Who: EVERYONE ON THIS DANG SHIP!
What: IT'S A PARTTTYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When: last week of april before more shit happens.
Where: rischie
Warnings: PG-13??? alcohol is definitely involved, teens being teens, drunk people or doing bad decisions??? who is to say!!!





Fast Travel Thread Links

★ ENTRANCE.
★ THE DANCE FLOOR.
★ AT THE BAR.
★ GAME AREA.
★ DJ TABLE // PRIVATE WITH JINX
★ LOSER CORNER.
★ THE FOOD TABLE.
★ KARAOKE.
★ OUTSIDE RISCHIE.
★ WILDCARD.

Comments

[wimdy]

[ he might be a bard first and foremost but music and dance are so closely entwined as arts, of course venti is versed well in both. his would be light and airy with dainty movements of his arms, a twirl of his green cloak trailing with a soft wind that seems to curl around him that might not just be from the movements of the dance. he's spent quite a lot of time in the bars of this ship, enough to familiarize himself with quite a lot of the songs on the playlist, so he would likely even sing sweetly, melodically along to cyndi lauper or prince or blondie while dancing--somewhat anachronistically when the dances he knows are more on the folk side. it's clear song is more his love than dance, but he's terribly fond of and loses himself in both.

he's flexible enough to improv and simply move with the music, likely with a martini in hand. and he's cheerful/friendly/annoying enough to request a dance of anyone, whether you're already on the floor or might be hanging out farther back or even if you could very well be at the loser's corner: if you're unlucky enough, venti is there, beaming at you and perhaps patting excitably at your arm-- ]

Listen, they're playing my favorite song! [ ... he will have a lot of favorite songs. maybe all of them are his favorite songs, when all of these songs are new to him. yes, even rick astley. ] Dance with me, would you? I'll buy you a drink!

[ the drinks don't even require pay, but still. this is the face of someone dying for a dance. ]

[luminessense]

Venti... You know if you're going to drag me to something like this, then the least you could do is spare me the embarrassment.

[ It's not as if Lumine can't dance, but she's very... overwhelmed by everything. Venti has a bit more experience with all this under his belt than she does. And between the lights and the music and all this noise, it's a lot. And it isn't helping that Venti is just so casual about it. ]

How long is this supposed to last?

[wimdy]

[ no, he absolutely refuses!! it's all embarrassment all the time when she's stuck with him, sorry not sorry. ]

By 'this', do you mean the song or the party? If it's the song, then~ [ let's say it's whitney houston. a classic, and a crime not to dance to, it's right there in the song title! ] It's not long, promise! And if it's the party, it's until 'Who Cares'-o'clock. It was written right there on the poster you know!

[ regardless of his bluster and cheer, the way he takes her hands towards the dance floor is coaxing, reeeeally not wanting her to pull away and run. though, he'd obnoxiously whine at her if she does. ]

[luminessense]

Both, honestly. [ She did agree to coming here with Venti, of course, so it's on her for not figuring out the specifics beforehand. Also now that she's here, she's just very antsy. Sigh. ] ... If we dance for this song, you have to promise me something first. But I need you to tell me okay before I tell you what it is.

[ Because if he's gonna be a little shit, then she can play that game, too. ]

[wimdy]

You really have to squeeze a favor out of me for a dance, do you. [ what a hardass. but unfortunately it’s what he really likes about her. whoops. ] Fi~ine, I accept, whatever this mystery promise would be.

Don’t be too cruel to me now, my life may as well be in your hands!

[ he’s so dramatic but barely knows how not to be. ]

[luminessense]

We can dance first. I don't want to take up more time of your favorite song anyway.

[ Plus, the suspense for Venti will be fun. Teasing him just a little is fine, right? He's the one who dragged her to a party she didn't want to go to, after all.

She holds her hand out. ]

[wimdy]

[ he takes her hand lightly in his, a warm clasp, then--

using it to pull her close to him with a bright smile. he does know polkas, waltzes, box steps... his fair share of folk or even ballroom dances. dancing with lumine may as well be a dream, he would savor it for any kind of favor. ]

Shall I lead? [ and if she acquiesces he would indeed do so, something playful that would gradually shift to something like this, if she may accept his hand light and warm at her waist. ]

[luminessense]

[ She nods, of course, and follows Venti across the dance floor the best she can. Fortunately, she's able to keep up with him relatively easily. And she's got enough grace that any fuck ups she's made, she's able to recover.

She laughs a bit at Venti's personal silly flares he'd throw in, more so relieved and enthused that he's still able to have fun like this. And while this place may smell of alcohol itself, this is practically the first thing they've done here, so... it's nice. It's about time she's had a break from her nervous mind as well. ]

[skaikru]

( this is still earlier in the evening — before clarke discovers the joys of mai tai's and the thrill of the knife game — so the face of someone dying for a dance is met with the expression of someone dying to rewind time and never show up here in the first place. but there are many moments in her life she'd like to avoid, and yet most of them were successfully twisted into some sort of tactical gain, to the point where clarke willingly shoved aside her personal feelings for the benefit of her people. and the second venti crowds in her personal bubble and paws at her arm, it feels like a chance.

an opportunity.

the last time she'd see him had just been a split second of eye contact; half a heartbeat in mizuki's under-used cabin, before an ethereal swirl of feathers dragged him out of a tangible form and into the heavens. he'd missed the aftermath; clarke and mizuki knelt on the floor, putting diving terminology to faces and the fallible holes in his story. he'd missed clarke saying he was right about war, and mizuki crumbling beneath a suffocating sense of failure. he'd left her to pick up the pieces of a conversation she'd not even wanted to deviate towards.

the last time she'd seen him had left an aftertaste of animosity and resentment along the back of clarke's tongue, and no, she doesn't want to dance. not at all, not with venti. but those residual questions eating at her thoughts overtake simple human desires, and if he offers a hand again, she'll take it. allow venti to drag the two of them to the dance floor, but the second he moves to meld into the music and dance away from here, clarke takes her turn to grab his hand.

hard. unyielding. and guiding one of his arms to her waist and draping one of her own around his shoulders. drawing close, the stiffest slow dance posture as hungry like a wolf blares over the speakers around them.

this is fine, venti. give in. if he'd seen humans bring gods to heel before, he can accept that it's going to happen in the middle of the rischie tonight too.

they're the same height, it's no big task to crowd further into his personal space. to slot their cheeks alongside each other until clarke can speak directly into his ear and ask those follow up questions she'd been robbed of a few days ago. )

So what's it like?

( being a god. )

[wimdy]

[ ah, what a prize this is...

no, but dancing with lumine and jinx and mizuki and whoever else might be horrifically unfortunate to score a dance with him, they may be all fine treasures, moments of warmth and fancy and pleasantry and fun after the chaos of jenny's visit. he is exactly this avoidant and irresponsible and flighty, he would prefer to confront almost all problems with exactly these vices. surely he can drink or sleep or fly all his problems away, or at least try.

clarke isn't a problem however. perhaps she's a challenge, if he were anything close to confrontational--there are times he might be, he's terribly inconsistent even if on the whole he would support and admire heroes of humanity. and he does admire her; he could guess that she might distrust or hold some grudge against him now but what a surprise it is that she could accept a dance. how lucky he is to score a dance with miss clarke, like winning the lottery. and maybe just maybe he would deserve to get mugged and drained of his winnings straight afterwards.

for now though he seems nothing short of tipsily cheerful as duran duran plays and he gives a playful small pat to her shoulder, a winsome tip of his head towards her, his braids brushing her cheek. ]

What's it like? This song, do you mean?

Quite charismatic, if I could say~ I'd love to learn these lyrics and play it for you, give it my own flair on a lyre. I'm sure I could impress!

[ if she's on the hunt could she pin him down? like trying to nail wind. ]

[skaikru]

( windmills and turbines are specifically designed to catch the momentum of the wind and turn it into an entirely different power source. so if venti wants to be coy, and pretend she gives a damn about the music vibrating around them or what he could do with his own instrument and honied tongue, he's sorely misjudged her pliability.

or maybe he's just coy, which clarke isn't in the mood to entertain. his hair brushes her cheek, and she turns her head just enough to pointedly push her nose into the top of his jawbone. still close, still basically hissing in his ear; )

I don't want to hear you sing.

I want to hear what it's like to look down at people who need you, and still chose to leave them in their worst moments.

( the entire passenger manifest of this ship begging to be delivered from the captain, who maybe isn't even a god. whatever people he'd left back on his home world to come here, strum a lyre, tug at heartstrings, and drink himself into uselessness. even mizuki, on the floor and begging for attention even if his words had come out more confrontational and alienating than desperate.

so what's it like to be useless, venti? )

[wimdy]

[ it feels like hell.

and it's one of countless reasons why he'd drink. he doesn't flinch, it must be damning but part of him expected this the moment she'd accept the dance. because she must have done so only because he's so charming and cute! interrogation or anything else is 100% secondary, a little sidebar. ]

You mean Mizuki? [ because, he wonders, he's pretty sure he hadn't told her any tales of his country. whether he's saved his nation--he has on occasion, because he loves his homeland even if some would say--or whether he'd abandoned it. in a world of gods and nations, there was one nation who chose not to have a god and they were destroyed by the heavens. and there was one nation whose god left them, and they... ]

I would hope Mizuki doesn't need me. [ this may or may not be true, but it's probably tipping towards truth than not. the more someone might need him, the more he might be tempted to fly. nobody can expect him to be reliable. ] But I know I left at a poor moment. [ and this is where 'i'm sorry' would probably go, if he could be a remotely decent person and say it. ]

How has he been?

[skaikru]

( his own failings as a god needn't be spelled out. clarke remembers the story of the city without a god, who'd been crushed by elemental beings, and immediately equates it to abandoning his own people to a similar fate whilst they cried out for help, still believing he'd return some day.

...there's a little bit of projection here, but. means to an end. wounds matched up alongside other wounds, to see who bleeds the heaviest. )

How much do you actually care?

( that lack of i'm sorry is noticed. even if clarke continually makes the same heartless mistakes over and over again, she at least has the decency to say she's sorry before repeating the offense all over again. how exhausting it must be to be thousands of years old and still left to deal with the over bubbling anger and affection of teenagers..

still, just because clarke had touched his face in his dark moment, and summarily been comforted in one of her own, she won't be so easily distracted by talk of mizuki here. like a bulldog with a bone between it's teeth, or a bulldozer with a mountain of pebbles to be crushed, she's back to her original intention in the span of a few heartbeats. )

How much do any of us matter to you, Venti? You think you might be worth collecting, but it's been two months and I haven't seen you do much of anything.

[wimdy]

[ how much does he care...... he spends maybe a good few seconds thinking about it before deciding, you know what, he's drunk and he has no idea how the heck to measure caring-ness. whoops. ] All of you matter. Of course I care about humanity. I've cared for a long time and I still do. [ but how much does caring really matter when action really is what counts? he'd try to secure his country, set the winds to protect the nation and alert him when there's real disaster but otherwise--

he'd rather sing, drink, sleep. whoops. sorry for being a god far less legitimate than the angry or affectionate teenagers on this ship. ]

You've seen Miss Jenny. I suppose what I can say is that I'm younger than her and less capable than her, even when I had greater power than I do now. I said I might be worth collecting but even so, I don't know if I really count...

Do you think, if I were capable and knew what to do to help free everyone, I wouldn't do it?

[skaikru]

( but that isn't a real, quantifiable answer. and if there's anything she's learned in a year long stretch of fighting for humanity to survive against insurmountable odds, it's that it gets... tiring. breeds apathy. fosters disconnect between the idea of people and people themselves. it wasn't that long ago she'd been asked to sit down and make a list of 100 people most worthy of surviving the second end of the world, and while clarke had struggled to find reason to add herself to the list, her friends inevitably made it on there. ...most of them, at least.

all of this feels cheap to compare against what it actually must be like to be a god, but enough of the people she'd held close to her heart have accused clarke of playing god that she still finds some emotional and conversational footholds. )

I don't know you well enough to say what you would or wouldn't do. All I've seen is you spin pretty tales, offer pretty wings, and vanish the second someone who reveres you actually wants you by their side.

( ...okay yeah, she's talking about mizuki. with rose-tinted shades cast back along their last conversation. )

None of that is action.

And yeah, I've seen Jenny. I've spoken with her, too. And she told me that a god never stops being a god, or having the power of one. So what's holding you back?

(Lucy)

[scarredhorns]

[Oh, it's the guy who asked about pirate ships. Lucy isn't in the loser's corner, but she is trying to wallflower (emphasis on "trying"). She doesn't swat away his hand, but she isn't eager either. She shifts, uncomfortable under his absolutely gleeful expression.]

I... don't know how to dance.

[wimdy]

[ aw, a newbie... all right, he can definitely go easy on her. ]

Not to worry, we all start somewhere. There was once a time I couldn't tell a waltz apart from a rumba! [ a wink, he keeps his hand offered outstretched, but tones down his smile just a bit though it remains terribly hopeful. ]

Let's start with a simple box step, could we? I'll teach you, and then you can impress all your dance partners with your grace and elegance in the future!

[scarredhorns]

I've heard of a waltz before, but not a rumba...

[She considers his offer for a few seconds - and extends her own arm to take his hand.]

Fine, but don't get mad at me if I step on your feet by accident. You're the one who offered.

[wimdy]

I won't get mad, I'm the one offering!

As for the rumba, it's similar to the waltz but it kind of involves more... rhythm and sway~ [ he wriggles his hips a little to demonstrate, his smile with a hint of cheek. ] And arm positioning, and proximity. But, there's a lot of dance styles! If you're really curious I could go more in depth but for now~

[ hm, instead of doing a couples' dance, he'll link his hand with hers with a reassuring squeeze and go through the motions to tutor a box step: step forth first, then to the side, bring feet together, step back and then to the original position, feet together, creating a little 'box'. step step step, forward side back, in an easy movement to the beat of the song. ]

[scarredhorns]

[He's got enough enthusiasm for the both of them, which is good, considering Lucy is really lacking it. On the other hand, she is a tiny bit interested in learning how to dance, so it wasn't something completely forced onto her. She watches his movements and mimics them (without stepping on his feet).]

You're pretty graceful and knowledgeable. You a professional dancer or something?

[wimdy]

I'm not a dancer, I'm a bard. So you could say entertainment is my livelihood and, you know~ song and dance are intricately connected! You can hardly have one without the other! [ a little twirl on a foot here, with a whirl of his cape around him, to punctuate this point. he likes all fields of the arts, even if he specializes in music. ]

And what might your profession be, before you came to this ship? Miss... [ ...... ] I forgot if I received your name!

[selenokinesis]

[Rather contrary to Venti, perhaps, Ebalon is the sort of man who knows only ballroom dances — noblemen of his stature are not taught to simply go with the flow and he's rather awkward about anything like that. More for his pride getting in the way than anything, but still. His being on the dance floor is happenstance due to his wandering, so of course his awful luck would get him immediately accosted for this unfamiliar swaying.]

I'm afraid I have no experience with such... loose footwork.

[He smiles down at Venti, friendly, but in a measured way. He doesn't point out that the drinks are, in fact, free, like everything else aboard the ship has been.]

[wimdy]

[ the drinks are indeed free but he might even have a bonus free glass of water as well if he approaches one of the bartenders, delivered upside the head rather than to his hand, maybe this spectacle would be worth the price of a horrible dance with him. ]

Ehe, me neither! I've never heard music like this before I came to this ship, you know. [ his eyes flicker over ebalon's look and style of dress, he could speculate ebalon surely doesn't come from the era or world the serena eterna is from. ] But there's fun in improv! [ in another world, venti might just be a theater kid. song comes easily to him, dance does as well. ]

Or we could dance how you'd prefer. I'm quite familiar with a lot! [ when entertainment is his profession, he does indeed know his ballroom dance. ]

[selenokinesis]

[Certainly not; Ebalon has the look and poise of a man raised wealthy but from a world where technology is quite a lot out-of-date in comparison. Improvisation is fun, yes, but for Ebalon more of the fun of that comes from playing the piano, not... dancing.

...

But this music doesn't sound like something he'd do a waltz to.]

As much as ballroom dances are more my specialty, I don't believe they fit with the tone of the music. [If he's going to make an ass of himself he can at least make an ass of himself in a way that matches the beat. Right.] Very well. Just promise not to poke too much fun at my lack of experience.

[This kind of dancing was more Ventus' thing. Ventus, Venti... they'd get along. An observation he's basing entirely on this alone.]

[wimdy]

Ehe, I would never! Why, I'm terribly grateful to anyone who would possibly share a dance with me, what a gift it would be~ [ in a lilting sing-song, but it's actually completely sincere--he is this carefree, this simply happy to let loose and simply be with others and have such silly fun as this. and... well, it's probably worth noting how very similar his voice is to mizuki's. ]

And! I sure like my fair share of ballroom dance too! But perhaps it just depends on the song and rhythm, something a little slower than Miss Houston could do. Say, for instance... [ and shuffle or the DJ chooses the next song to be...

tears for fears, could this be a song for him?? well who doesn't want to rule the world? maybe coincidentally enough, this runaway god who doesn't even want to rule a country. but he does want to dance smoothly with this smooth-looking stranger, he actually has complete confidence in ebalon to this more manageable rhythm as he links hands with ebalon, other hand falling to his waist simply because... ebalon is quite tall... but he would hum happily alongside to the song, sing lightly and breezily to the hook; either taking the lead if ebalon might hesitate, or allowing ebalon himself to.

Help me to decide
Help me make the most
Of freedom and of pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
Everybody wants to rule the world ]