hashtag_chocobro | The Apartment above the Photo Hut; Sunday Afternoon [02/11]

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The Apartment above the Photo Hut; Sunday Afternoon [02/11] - PuppyBowl Birthday Party!

Prompto would be entirely honest; if there was anything a bit different going on in town, he was completely unaware of it, because he'd been singularly focused since pretty much Friday on getting things all ready and set up for Noctra's birthday party today. The decorations were an amalgamation of both puppy things and football things, with a both First Year Down! and Let's Pawty! balloons to really drive it home.

And, of course, the birthday girl herself was showing her appreciation for the theme, as well! Unfortunately, with her dad's excitement all morning in getting things up, she hadn't been able to nap like he was hoping she would, so he was holding his breath that the whole thing wouldn't make her too cranky or overwhelmed, but at least there was plenty to distract her in the meantime. Including a little help from Rain pulling in duty as Party Ruferee.

Then there was getting everything with the catering set out for the guests, which included your typical moddable game day fare, but especially puppy chow, mini hot dogs, and, of course pizza rolls! There were a puppy bowl birthday cake, even, with some vegan cupcake puppy players!

And, of course, near the entrance, there were plenty of party hats for anyone who wanted to claim their allegiance for Team Ruff or Team Fluff or just Team Noctra (he suspected those would be the most popular, really).

And for once, after everything was set up and copious amounts of pictures had been taken, Prompto actually wasn't feeling like he hadn't gone enough on the theme, and was feeling pretty good about this one, actually!

[[ open party is open! If you've ever talked to Prompto or Liz even once, you probably got an invitation. Heck, even if you've never talked to either of them, you could have ~mysteriously~ gotten one, too! Maybe it's your big destiny to meet your true love at a one-year-old's puppy bowl party, you don't know!! ]]

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Nope, nope, he was still on the logistics. "How did you manage it in a day?"

He was going to assume she didn't mean eavesdropping on private conversations but rather things like small talk. Liliana was far too nice to do otherwise, right?

...Sure, Jan.

Normally, this was when the narrative would remind people that nice was different than good, possibly in song, but Liliana wasn't particularly good, either.

"Oh, it's something that Planeswalkers can do," she explained. "When we Planeswalk somewhere, we learn the predominant language of the area almost immediately, and then any other languages we pick up quickly, usually within a few hours of listening to people speaking it. Sadly, that's spoken languages only. Literacy takes longer to pick up, sometimes a matter of weeks for a particularly difficult or convoluted writing system."

Truly, the suffering.

"I see," Steven said, as it now made sense. "Sort of like how everyone on the island can understand each other even if we're from different places. Dead handy, that. Though interesting that it doesn't apply to reading. Mind you, I enjoy puzzling out things that I read."

Because he was a huge nerd.

"I far prefer puzzling over meaning rather than puzzling over the words to attempt to get to meaning," Liliana declared. "But I have also noticed that Ignis has been able to speak to people on Innistrad with no difficulty, so perhaps something with portals or Fandom itself makes that possible...? Like how my phone works in places it really ought not to."

"That's a good point," Steven said. "When Llewellyn and I went back to his Toronto our mobiles worked as well, even though there's no such thing in that time. Though now you've me wondering if I've been assuming every time I've encountered English in places where on my world it would be spoken if it wasn't English at all."

A rather Fandom-esque "What if the color blue for me isn't the same color blue for you?" moment that might give Steven a bit of an existential crisis if he thought about it for too long.

"Well, I can certainly promise you it wouldn't be spoken on Innistrad," Liliana said, helping that existential crisis right along. "Though, do you hear other languages you don't understand spoken on your world? Or is it only English?"

"I do hear other languages," Steven said. "Only some I can speak on my own. So that's interesting in and of itself, isn't it? That it only works so far? I wonder how that's managed."

At the speed of the plot, Steven. Just like the reliability of portals.

"Perhaps it only kicks in once you've traveled to a different plane?" Liliana mused. "But on your home plane, it doesn't bother?"

"Would make sense," Steven said. Or as much as anything did about how Fandom worked. "Same as how we're able to breathe the air or eat the food I imagine."

Look at them, trying to rationalize narrative convenience! It was precious.

"I know Planeswalkers instinctively avoid places that will kill us when we travel to new planes," she said. "Though, I suppose that's survivorship bias, though I don't know if I've ever heard of anyone getting seriously injured, either."

Then she frowned harder. "Though I suppose further that that may only be because I've rarely talked to post-Mending Planeswalkers and the pre-Mending would hardly be affected, would we? Hmm, something to consider."

Steven looked curious. "How would before and after the Mending have affected it?"

Some might say Steven was risking encouraging Liliana to talk about this sort of ~~lore~~ history, but those people clearly did not know how much Steven loved learning about other people.

And, fortunately, Liliana loved expounding upon magic and history.

"So the Mending was an event that happened roughly sixty years ago," Liliana said, making a face about it because she would never let this grudge go. "It rewrote the laws of the Multiverse, vastly diminishing the powers of Planeswalkers. Before then, we were nearly immortal - it took a Planeswalker to kill a Planeswalker, because our bodies were mostly mental projections of ourselves. We didn't have to eat or sleep, we could create whole new planes and invent races of people to populate them with, we could teleport, we could travel the Blind Eternities with others and protect them with our Spark...Our power was on the scale of universes."

She shrugged. "Not so much anymore. Even being empowered and immortal once again, I'm still not what I was. New Planeswalkers have...none of that capability anymore. They're still incredibly powerful, mind; likely capable of altering a plane, but they are powerful on a scale of mortal beings. So an old Planeswalker who found themselves standing in a pool of lava need only will themselves elsewhere and create a new bodily projection. A post-Mending Planeswalker would simply die."

"I see," Steven said. "That would be a bit of a ~~nerf~~ hardship, wouldn't it? Get in the way of the travel if you had to be concerned about being hurt while you did it. Though I suppose it makes it all the braver for you and the others to do what you do. Take the chance instead of walking away for good.."

Liliana took a quick sip of whatever it was she was drinking. No reason, she was simply parched. Obviously.

"It was a trying time," she agreed when she had swallowed, deliberately not thinking of the absolute hell those first years had been, all the pain and grief and hardship. "With a number of fatalities, I'm sure. One doesn't go from being immortal and invincible to vulnerable overnight without needing some serious lessons in your new limitations."

Or so, you know. She'd heard. She'd been fine. Obviously.

"Must've been like learning to walk again," Steven said as he thought about it. "A whole new way of interacting with something you knew so well."

Steven then grinned as he realized. "Learning to planes walk again."

Liliana gave him a polite smile - not his fault, the joke was quite cute, but it just hit too close to a nerve for her to be charmed by it.

All that was left were ashes...

One might note that an excellent way to avoid this kind of thing was to be open and honest with people about the hardships you'd faced, but that couldn't possibly be right. Much better to hide it away and pretend that nothing fazed you. Clearly.

"I wasn't sure how many Planeswalkers from those days had survived, but we're up to four by my count, which is double the ones I'd known of a few months ago," she said, angling the conversation away slightly.

"That's good then, isn't it?" Steven asked. "Were they friends of yours?"

"Oh goodness no," Liliana said with a laugh. "I didn't recognize the kor woman when I freed her, and the other is Sorin Markov, a tiresome, miserable, self-righteous bore of a man. I hope he chokes on his next mouthful of blood."

There was a lot to unpack there so Steven went with the last bit and asked, "So he's a vampire then?"

"Yes," Liliana said. "As far as I can gather, about six thousand years ago, his grandfather created the ritual to turn himself and his allies and investors into vampires. Sorin underwent the ritual, possibly against his will? And that's what ignited his spark, but the damage was done and he was already a vampire."

You know. As happened.

"I see," Steven said. He was rather proud of figuring that out. Because surely Liliana wouldn't have randomly wished for someone's mouth to be filled with blood when it wouldn't normally be, right? She wasn't that kind of person.

"At least not all vampires are bad? There's that one on the island who works with Lucifer. Doesn't hurt anyone."

Not on the island anyway.

...

Oh, Steven, you sweet, sweet man. No, of course she wouldn't. Not ever. ~~She wouldn't wish for it, she'd just make it happen~~

"Oh yes, vampires on the whole are fine. One of my mentors in necromancy is the progenitor of the Stromkirk clan, and my...mmm, friend is close enough, I suppose, friend Olivia is the progenitor of the Voldarans. It's not their fault that Sorin is determined to be a miserable bastard and Henrika Domnathi's a dreadful cow who believes sleeping with demons is a perfectly adequate substitute for a personality."

Look at you, Steven, getting the all the hot Innistradi vampire goss!

"Vampires are one of the first things Khonshu protected people from," Steven said, since hey: he had a little lore of his own he could share! "Those and werewolves since, well, moon. But if they're not hurting anyone he's not fussed about it. One of the few nice things about him. He's not interested in harming those who haven't done something wrong, no matter what they are."

"I mentioned before that Khonshu would adore Innistrad, yes? Because the moon controls basically everything and there are plenty of vampires and werewolves and spectres and necromancers to protect people from?" Liliana asked.

She didn't think Steven would like it at all, but Khonshu might have a ball with it.

"Have to admit I'd find it interesting?" Steven said. "He's an odd bird - er, in many ways. But you never know with him. Just as like he'd be fussy about not his moon as he would be that all moons and night skies are under his protection if he'd like them to be."

Look, just because you were a god didn't mean you lost the right to change your mind about things. Besides, if you couldn't be capricious when you were a god, when could you?

"Haven't yet had our powers fail us in other - er - planes," Steven said, correcting himself because he was talking to Liliana. "Suppose that's a bit of a hint. Might not be the moon from where we're from but his abilities still reach us no matter where we are."

Or until ~~the plot~~ something came up to get in the way with that. There were infinite places out there in the multiverse, you couldn't rule that kind of thing out.

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Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

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Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

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Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.

Re: Arrive & Mingle - PuppyBowl Birthday Party! - 02/11.