nexus_crossings | Happy Naberus! [Party post]

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event

Happy Naberus! [Party post]

There's a chill in the air and a distant howl, and the sun is nowhere to be seen. On the outskirts of the Plaza, grinning faces carved into squashes tempt passersby to follow their lighted path, leading visitors down twists and turns through darkened streets, fog swirling around their feet. Did you already pass this way before? Are you going in circles, lost forever? Doubling back on yourself will lead to much the same result. And you don't remember when or how, but your clothes have somehow become a costume - whether funny, horrific, or downright bizarre.

Eventually, you find yourself in a small street carnival, tucked away far beyond the beaten path. Lights and lanterns run the length of a darkened street, the smells of fried and baked treats in the air, a light haze of smoke gathering under the awnings of food stalls. Beyond the food stalls, a haunted house beckons the brave to venture into its dark, cramped corridors, the sounds of distant screams coming from deep within. To the other side, a mountain of pumpkins waits to be carved, scoops and wicked-looking knives laid out on a tall table. Further still, wooden washtubs full of dark red wine host a small flotilla of apples to be bobbed, leaving all participants with deep red stains running down their necks from trying.

But before you can investigate the many wonders this strange little celebration has to offer, you must first be confronted by the host.

What looks for all the world like a fleshy flower writhes in the entryway to the festival, already towering over most visitors at fifteen feet high. But then that flower opens, unfolding into the form of an even larger young woman, bloody handprints painted on her exposed skin and shards of glass seemingly jammed directly into her head, and papercraft severed limbs hang in a necklace around her throat. She grins at you with unrestrained glee. "Couldn't resist, right? This is the happiest time of the entire year! Happy Naberus! You do know what that is? The Orokin festival of death, darkness, and deviance." She peers down at those in her presence. "We're all equal on Naberus night now, under our masks. Who's to know who's powerful and who isn't?"

She straightens up and laughs, waving her arms towards the carnival behind her. "Don't say I didn't warn you!"

[ooc: Happy Naberus, Nexus-goers! This is a party post, so feel free to tag around under the activity tags or just with each other! And remember, everyone must have a costume to participate! You can make it as mundane or as terrifying as you like. If you are open to spooky and/or horrifying events happening to your character, please also contact me through DMs here or to Ael on Discord so we can plan it together beforehand. The horror side of this event is opt-in, and threads containing such content should be tagged in the subject line.]

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Of course, when Minoru spotted Ziggy, he happily came up to join him for a little while.

He’d arrived at the street carnival without a costume, and the party itself seemed fit to give both he and Isamu similar sets of fantasy-inspired samurai armor, complete with accessories. (Isamu was sporting two swords he had no idea how to use and Minoru had a large gunbai. Between the two of them, the party apparently decided Minoru was the most fit to be the commanding officer.)

“If this armor doesn’t disappear when the party ends, I really need to get a selfie with you in one of your kimono.” He laughed.

Ziggy is glad to see Minoru and looks up from where he has started to paint on a pumpkin. Grinning he approaches to give him a hug without much thought of the armor at first. "My Nexus house is nearby. I could go change."

The selfie idea was definitely a cute one.

He lingered in the hug for a moment. The armor might have been designed to deflect swords and arrows, but Ziggy’s warmth seeped right on through every panel.

“When you’re done with your pumpkin, of course.” He smiled. “It’s gonna be a while before the line for the haunted house dies down. And I definitely need to make my way through that!”

He picked up one of the unadorned pumpkins. There were more than enough art supplies and carving tools to go around.

“Mind if I join you for a while?”

Ziggy is always happy to linger in a hug for as long as Minoru would like.

"I don't think I want to be in a haunted house." Ziggy sat back down, scooting over on the bench so there was enough room for Minoru, and his armor. The idea of being an empath somewhere where the point was to have everyone scared and panicked sounded like the stuff of nightmares to the singer. Though, he did understand why a thrillseeker like Minoru would be excited to go into one.

"I would love for you to join me." He was back to painting this pumpkin in the wildly organic, geometric, loud colored designs that Antheans preferred and often appeared in his stage leotards.

Minoru picked out a pumpkin and sat down next to Ziggy.

“That’s okay. Isamu doesn’t want to go in either.” He smirked. “He had a lot of reasons why, but I kind of I stopped listening when his reasons started sounding a lot like neurotransmitters.”

Picking up one of the carving knives, he started cutting into the top of the pumpkin. It wouldn’t take too long to scoop out all the insides.

“So, how’s the trial going? Do you know how long you guys are going to be stuck in LA?”

Ziggy shook his head and giggled a little to himself. "Could you imagine if I were in there and projected all those emotions out here?"

He went on painting and wondering how bad that would be then grateful that he had more control over his abilities than in the past.

"I don't know much but I know they are advocating for intensive therapy rather than prison." Ziggy knew exactly why Rekker behaved the way he had, could feel it and he sympathized with the man for the intense fear and worry he was feeling. They lingered even days after the incident. "Robert said their brother is going to come in and testify. I think he specializes in trauma response, so maybe that will help."

"I think Gilly and Hunter might be going to therapy." Ziggy had heard, and felt, Gilly's response to the blood and being witness to what happened. Minoru might feel the twinges of sympathy and sadness Ziggy had towards everyone involved. They all realized things like this could happen but the shock of it actually happening hadn't worn off for a lot of the musicians, not yet. "Are you alright after the incident?"

Ziggy knew Minoru was friends with many of the musicians, some more than others. With so many involved directly or indirectly it was easy to imagine he might be effected as well.

It might have been a rhetorical question, but Minoru answered it anyway. “Forget waiting in line. The whole festival would be a haunted house!”

For some, that might be good, but for most… no, some things were probably best left as giggled imaginings.

Minoru listened. With the tour grounded, he hadn’t been in Ziggy’s world as often as he had earlier in the year. Granted, that was also due in large part to work and the online class he’d secretly signed up for without anyone else knowing. (One was so much more manageable than five!)

“That’s good to hear. For all of them…” he nodded. Therapy was like rehab for the mind. He actually remembered that from one of his classes.

“I kept telling Erik we should race on our crutches, but maybe it’s a good thing we never actually did it.” He laughed softly, keeping their spirits high, but it trailed off with the admission, “I know you said being a rockstar, or even dating one, could be dangerous. I’m sorry that someone had to go and try to prove you right…”

Ziggy would rather not force anyone to feel things they didn't want to, at least not on purpose or when it could be avoided.

He reached over and stroked Minoru's shoulder and would pull him into a hug if he wanted on. "It's not the first time I've experienced this and I feel there will be more times."

It was something he understood when arriving but he felt mixed feelings about others being involved. He knew they wanted to break their own sets of barriers but seeing them in danger was something that upset Ziggy more than he would admit to most.

"Everyone is safe that is what matters." Ziggy tried to keep positive and then looked back at the table. "What were you going to carve?"

Minoru nodded softly, focusing on the positive as well. They made it through this, and they’d make it through the next time too. There was no sense worrying about a next time before it happened. “That’s exactly what matters.”

He looked back at his pumpkin.

“I’m gonna try to do my Fan Man fan.” He grinned. “Though, I’m not the most artistic person… so if it looks like a spoon or something… oh well!”

Ziggy grinned. "Besides, I think Rekker has scared most of them off for the time being."

He'd heard rumblings around about the absolute terror the ginger had elicited from the people who had spoke out about the behavior of the people on the tour. Much to the other ginger's amusement, he was sure.

"I'm sure you can do it." Ziggy encouraged as he sat back down to continue his own carving. Ziggy was working on a series of patterns around the whole pumpkin.

Minoru set to work, cutting through the pumpkin. There were a few moments of slight disgust - “ick, I forgot how wet it was inside. How many seeds does this one have?!” - but for the most part, he was smiling right alongside Ziggy.

Of course, every time he glanced at what his koibito was making, he was all the more impressed. It was bright, bold, colorful, and amazingly artistic. Ziggy was a creative genius in every medium he touched. Why would gourds be any different?

The fan Minoru carved was simple. It didn’t look like a spoon. Maybe a little like a spatula. But definitely enough like a fan that Minoru was pleased with it.

“Got any purple paint over there?”

"Maybe they have gloves?" Ziggy offered when he saw the face Minoru was making and felt the emotions.

Ziggy giggled at the question about paint. "What shade? How purple?" They didn't often talk about how differently he saw the world but color was one way his eyes were far beyond human. "Or should I just pick one I think matches your fan logo?"

Minoru realized the difficulty of that question as soon as Ziggy asked a couple of his own. It was the exact opposite of asking a color-blind person, but it was functionally the same thing.

“Anything kinda close to my fan logo’s fine. Doesn’t have to be exactly the same.”

This was a pumpkin, not an exercise in brand recognition. (If the president of the Fan Man Fan Club felt differently, so what. He was off eating snacks or calculating the mathematical formula for the perfect apple bob or something.)

Ziggy looked around and offered Minoru three options. To his eyes they all looked different but who knew if a human would notice the shades.

"I found black fabric with purple Japanese fans on it. Would it be too much to make something out of it?" Ziggy questioned now that his mind was on Minoru's logo. He wondered if it would be strange because he did wear his own lightning bolt and enso logos.

Minoru took the offered colors and dipped his brush right in.

“Oh, planning on making something to wear during the finals next year? Assuming I qualify, of course.”

Humble as always, he didn’t want to jinx it. But should he make it into the finals for a third straight year, he’d invite Ziggy to join his family on the sidelines again.

"I was thinking about it, if it isn't too... strange." Ziggy smiled but sometimes his social thoughts and aesthetics didn't always align with humans.

"You've got this." Ziggy wanted to say more but he knew more than one superstitious person at this point in his life. "Jack mentioned your training with the Dogs is going well."

Minoru laughed. “With the number of boxes of fans Isamu’s planning on ordering? Nah, it won’t be strange at all! He’s also been thinking of setting up an online store with Fan Man merch. So if you’ve got some ideas…”

Really, Minoru could use some. Marketing wasn’t really his strong suit. And it wasn’t really Isamu’s either. The fans were obvious. Inspirational slogans for t-shirts and the like, that was a little more difficult.

"Is he taking Aarne to help pass them out again this year?" Ziggy could hear the screaming all the way down on the sidelines. "Ideas for the site, or the merchandise?"

Ziggy wasn't sure which or if it was both. Either way he would help, and he could hook them up with his people too who worked on his shirts and other items.

“He’ll have to, to pass them all out. He said something about doubling the number of boxes this year. Again.” Minoru laughed.

He sighed a little as he admitted. “Both? Neither of us have the foggiest idea how to do that part. But it would be pretty cool to have some t-shirts that advertise, well, not really me. I mean, they’d have my fan on them somewhere. But really, it’d be more about getting out there, freerunning, getting up and moving. Good positive messages. You know?”

It was the whole reason why he started doing those PTA classes, why he enjoyed his job as an orderly every night, why he couldn’t seem to keep his feet on the ground.

"I'm sure he will find volunteers."

Ziggy smiled as he painted because he knew that Isamu could ask and he would probably get more volunteers than he could manage. He listened to what Minoru would need and grinned.

"We have a whole apartment full of artists who are waiting." He stopped painting and considered what he was thinking. "Maybe you should ask everyone to see what they come up with.

Minoru all but squealed, “that’s a great idea!!”

His pumpkin wasn’t exactly a masterpiece, but at least you could tell it had a fan on it, and it was purple. The entire entourage was full of some of the most creative minds Minoru had ever met. It was an absolutely brilliant idea.

Ziggy leaned his forehead into the side of Minoru's head, a replacement for a kiss. "You could probably make it a competition and they would all have more than you could ever use."

The response made Minoru chuckle. He hadn’t thought about that, but it was probably true!

“What, design a Fan Man tee?”

It came out sounding like a joke, but once he said it out loud, he seemed on board with the idea.

“That’s kinda brilliant.” He grinned. “Okay! Let’s do that!”

"Yes." Ziggy shrugged. "Any other common band merchandise, too."

He knew, at least, Aarne and Rik had designed their band items and Mikkel was an artist, and Erik. There were a few just off the top of his head. Probably any of the people who customized their guitars too.

"I think if you mention it to one of the louder ones everyone will know quickly." He looked at the pumpkin he was still painting. "I'd give them a deadline."

They might take forevr if they didn't have an end to the creative process.

The more Ziggy explained, the more excited Minoru became.

“That’d be awesome!!” He exclaimed. “If I make it up the Mega Wall again in the qualifiers, that’ll be $10,000 I can throw into merch. Well, minus what Isamu orders in fans. But still… Think that’ll be enough for everything? And, well, everyone?”

He didn’t want to ask them to just make art for free. But he’d made it up the Mega Wall the last two years with no problem. So this year shouldn’t be any different.

Happy Naberus! [Party post]

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