[OPEN] Valentine's Mingle

[passingmod]

Who: Everyone! Open to All
What: Valentine's Day mingle logs
When: any time generally around the holiday
Where: awkward cupid / conversation hearts / repay the gesture

Love is in the air, from chocolated Japan to cherubic America, from Victorian times to the far-off future. There are dreams of romance, candy, timid (and bold!) love confessions, and hearts everywhere.

(ooc: This is a post to keep threads together for Valentine's Day. Separate posts or additional subthreads are also fine, and this one is optional. Since some of the affects have potential to force a character's reactions icly, it may be best to discuss between the players or note your preferences/anything you'd rather avoid.)

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AWKWARD CUPID

[passingmod]

What would valentine's be without Cupid? Be careful if you manage to spot him aiming his bow: Those golden arrows with their heart-shaped tips work, with no thought for compatibility. Unfortunately, you may never see it coming: It's said he's quite a skilled sniper...

This can produce anything from the shy blush of first love to a life-long devotion to fiery chemistry between the two.

[If players wish, a miniature (think charm-sized) version of a heart-tipped arrow can be found nearby when the character wakes up.]

CONVERSATION HEARTS

[passingmod]

It's a giant warehouse. There are bowls, buckets, even entire vats of conversation hearts around with all kinds of messages. Eating one will make its words come true, whether it's a simple 'hug me' or something far more close or passionate.

Or maybe these hearts are totally personalized, such as 'go soak your head'. It's all about the feeling.

[If the players wish, candy hearts can appear on the characters' pillows when they wake up. For fun, there's also a candy heart maker here.]

REPAY THE GESTURE

[passingmod]

Anything done for you at Valentine's Day should be returned threefold at White Day. This time, it's come a bit earlier. As in immediate. If someone buys a gift, their partner will feel compelled to buy one three times as big or expensive. If it's a dance, the next three are theirs. Give a ten-minute backscratch, get one for half an hour.]

[waterfell]

She's in a warehouse, one she's never seen before much less walked through. There are absolute piles of little candy hearts, so many she thinks if they were all dumped out, she could swim in them.

She's pretty certain Japan doesn't even have warehouses and factories making those, but here they are and somehow that doesn't seem to be strange. She looks through the nearest vat. The messages at the top are cold words, callous, on candy dyed shockingly black.

Her fingers tighten together. But somehow, something compels her to go on, and she keeps sifting through them. She reaches deep down below, to some place beyond the black. Whatever she finds seems to be an improvement, because she begins to slowly take a few out and hold them in her hand. Most of these are blue.

[decaying]

[The sky was dark and the stars were bright. It was the perfect place for a midnight rendezvous like this. It was somewhere in the country side of Italy where he found himself lying in a haystack staring up at the stars. Things were always better like this, in the dark. He could easily fall asleep here for the night if he knew the Finder's wouldn't eventually find him.]

This sure beats the city, doesn't it?

[decaying]

Some place, hu?

[Kanda wasn't big on candy but he knew someone who was. There were all sorts of words on them but he had made it a point to only find the right ones. He put a bucket of candies down on Ami's feet with a grin on her face.]

Got you some.

[waterfell]

[Ami found that the city had its charms. She enjoyed the way the taller buildings overlook the bay, or the view from a high rooftop. She enjoyed the conveniences.

However, in the city, there definitely weren't chances to see the sight above them right now. Italy - one of the many countries she wanted to see some day, now within her reach. Kanda always seemed to mean escape and freedom. She lay beside him, heedless of the scratch of the hay and feeling something like contentment.]

Look up. [It was something approaching an order, but softened very slightly.] You can see the stars clearly tonight, out here.

[waterfell]

[Kanda's appearance was enough to startle Ami from her reverie, but she recovered quickly as soon as she recognized him. She turned her head to look down at the candy bucket. A holdover of fear from the black ones gripped her briefly, making her reluctant to look and see words like that from him, but she knelt down to pick one out and hold it up.]

What does it say? [She glanced at its expression, with far more avid interest than her careful posture would suggest.]

[braidstobows]

[Homura had made a thorough search of the premises before examining any of the stacks of candy hearts. Part of her was ready to brush it off as the childish nonsense it clearly was, but amid all the pink, she couldn't help thinking it would be a sight Madoka would have enjoyed.

She didn't remember ever being somewhere like this before, and perhaps a year ago, that would have been a worry; a timeline should not have diverged so far as to leave her clueless. Now, it was... not unpleasant, she supposed, the freedom of not knowing what was coming next, the release from Cassandra's burden of warning.

The hearts had very typical messages. But among them, she found a few that seemed oddly specific to her own feelings. She picked these out and kept them. There were so many; it didn't feel wrong to take a handful or two.]

[decaying]

Don't act dumb. I know you can read. [He felt so sure of himself. Nice and smug. He normally wouldn't do things like this but it had hit him it was something corny to do for the girl you liked. He didn't know the repercussions of course, but who cared. Every heart in that bucket said 'kiss me'. Totally original.]

[decaying]

[He did as he was told and tilted his eyes back to the heavens. He gave a smirk.]

I know how much you like star gazing.

[waterfell]

[Of course Ami could read. She picked up a small handful of the hearts, a little rainbow of colorful messages, and stood up before looking at them.

Kiss me... kiss me... kiss me... kiss me... (and it went on like that).

Before she could make a joke, or laugh at the sameness, she found herself, uncharacteristically shameless and heedless of whether others were nearby, pulling Kanda to her for a kiss.

And then another.

Another.

One more... little, fleeting kisses at his lips that lengthened with each new one until somehow she'd reached the same number of kisses as the hearts in her hand.]

[waterfell]

[It was a romantic scene, really; even she was aware of that. With Kanda as the one beside her, she didn't mind it. She wanted it that way.]

You remembered that? [She seemed pleased; she moved onto her side and propped herself on one arm, facing Kanda.]

[decaying]

[Kanda had been expecting a positive response from Ami but he didn't think it would come this quickly. He was surprised at the first few kisses before taking her in his arms and kissing her in return. She was normally not into public displays of affection but he wasn't a sucker to shove her off.]

...I guess you liked the thought.

[waterfell]

[Actually, she was as surprised as he was, but that would be the exact wrong thing to say and for once, she got it right. Besides, she supposed it was also true that she liked the thought of him being interested in her.

She gave him a smirk that was part challenge, part triumph. Then she became more serious, as though not quite sure how to proceed with what she was about to say.]

I also have one, to give to you. [She held it out in both hands, an almost oddly childish gesture. A single blue heart: 'Love me.']

[one_one_se7en]

John sits on the grass as his visor stares at the silvery lake in front of him... strangely melding with a city behind it. From up there, he could see several couples moving together, acting together. Not unlike how he saw many friends of his live.

His fingers hold some strange hearts that appeared in his ammo slots, many with thoughts more accurate than he would have admitted them. It confused him somewhat. But little by little, he wondered if he was coming to understand it.

He looks at his radar. Maybe somebody else is here. He felt out of place in here.

[waterfell]

Ami walks the shoreline; the tiny waves lap at her bare feet and wet them. Where she steps in the saturated ground, her footprint fills with the overflow. Nothing of her shows on John's radar. She holds one of the candy pieces tightly in her hand, gripped hard as it presses into her palm.

She approaches where he sits. For once, she is the taller, and when she is close enough, she looks wordlessly down at him seated on the grass for several moments before speaking. It takes her a moment to work up the words.

Or the courage.

"You saw me with Kanda," she reminds John bluntly, without preamble. There's a pause before she adds, "Did my face look like someone in love?" The tense way she stands, the sense of withheld emotion, suggest the answer's importance to her.

And she has no one else to ask.

[forhiscause]

Cortana had known about holidays the humans tended to celebrate but being on military bases or ships in space made it really difficult to see it first hand. She had heard some soldiers talking about how their women back home would normally send them treats or questionable pictures as gifts, but that was it. Love was an emotion she had been told she could never understand. Being a machine had that fault, but she wasn't so sure anymore.

Thankfully, Cortana had mastered the art of walking or else she probably wouldn't have gotten far inside the warehouse. She was looking inside bucket after bucket, still unsure whether she should grab at anything or not. She didn't want to be disappointed so instead she kept her hands at her sides as she moved around the warehouse reading a few hearts here and there. Sometimes, their words would make her stop and think. Why was she finding all the raunchy hearts?

"'Take me'. Seriously? That's not subtle at all?" She gave the bucket a disapproving look before peering into another. "'Come for me'. Well, I wonder what that means." She'll just move away from this general area. This is clearly the marine's section. The things that those men can come up with....

[decaying]

What do you take me for, an idiot? [Of course he remembered that. He didn't have a lot to keep so the least he could do was remember all their memories together.]

[decaying]

[He reached for the blue heart and read the words on it, giving Ami another smirk.] Isn't this supposed to say something else? [You know, like something around the lines about how she loved him? He wasn't a big sweets sort of guy but he kept it in his hands pulling her over to him. People watching be damned.] You know I all ready do.

[waterfell]

Something else?

[No. She was very sure this was what she wanted from him, for him to love her, although it struck her as odd that she was handing it to him so plainly.

Thoughts came to mind, other things she did want to say to him, but they didn't put themselves into words - yet. She shook her head.]

Just this. I want you to accept these.

[She held out a small wrapped package which would turn out to have chocolates, typical Valentine gifts from a girl to the guy she was hoping to confess to. It said... something, at least, while she found the words.

Less typical was that they were in the form of large roses, deep black with a slightly bitter quality from the dark chocolate used.]

[waterfell]

[It was less 'Kanda is an idiot' and more 'surprising he'd noticed her that way, storing up all those thoughts and memories'. Maybe it shouldn't be, by now, but it was taking time to smooth off that edge of expecting the worst.]

I remember last time, too. I don't want to forget. [They hadn't even just watched the stars like this; she'd taken him much closer, to watch the deep darkness of space illumined with their tiny pinpoints of light.]

That was when I decided, I wanted you to know more of who I was.

[waterfell]

If she were honest, Mercury had to admit that Kunzite's so-obvious interest had been flattering, a balm to those feelings of being left behind and forgotten. She'd liked leading him forward, holding him off, being wanted and most of all, having it on her own terms. Knowing that in this, at least, she could deny and refuse him even as she was bound to the life he gave her in the Darkness.

There'd been a price. Over the years, and as she grown from a girl into an adult, she'd seen the amusement fade from his eyes and something dark take their place. The explicit hearts reminded her of it. She didn't like that. She looked away from them until she found an 'i want all of you' next to an 'undress me' in green. Hmm.

She nearly dropped on the floor in her haste to put them back where she'd found them as soon as she spotted Cortana: the same AI, she remembered, who'd called her a centerfold, and was now standing in front of the aforementioned explicit hearts, who could probably see the ones she'd read. Filthy-minded machine. (Or just curious. Mercury herself knew that curiosity all too well.)

"What a sentimental place." There was sarcasm there.

[forhiscause]

"What are you talking about, these are completely classy come-on's in some part of the galaxy."

Sure, she didn't have any proof of this but it was totally a comedic thing to say. She grinned, moving about more buckets to look in the ones she had been inspecting. She reached for one.

"Too bad undressing me won't work. I don't think I was programmed with any clothes."

[waterfell]

Mercury had several types of lingerie stored very privately on her teletia-S. Cortana was missing out.

That wasn't the point here!

"Try dressing instead," she suggested mischievously. It was much less embarrassing to think about in terms of an AI. Besides, there was something faintly amusing about the idea of turning the entire concept on its head.