LOVE POTION #9

[metamods]

LOVE POTION #9

LOVE IS... not in the air! The reintroduction of Confluences into this world has left it rocked, so the season of love is not quite as lovey-dovey as it usually is. People are stressed and anxious. Valentine's events are being cancelled left, right, and center in fear that a Confluence may catch young lovers unawares.

Unbeknownst to mortals, the God of Love really can't afford his month to be ruined by a few little dimensional catastrophes. This is his month! ... And for whatever reason, he seems to be stranded on the Earthly plane.

Surely he can fix things. Push it along a little. Though Gods don't usually meddle in mortal affairs, this is a personal catastrophe. All it takes is a few drops of love potion on a token of affection, and voila! Instant-connection.

(This event has a blanket warning for dubious consent of the love spell variety. To opt out completely, characters can simply not be in Sunset Falls at the time of the event, which runs through Valentine's Day.)

WHITE HEARTS FESTIVAL

Welcome to Sunset Falls, the most magical place in all of America! Literally. The streets are charged with magical energies, and while it won't be spinning your words into spells, it will give anyone who is magically inclined a comfortable little buzz. Maybe it's the boost you need to get a spell working, or maybe it's just a pep in your step. Confluence-displaced metas who take the Guilds up on their offer to tour the new housing will arrive just in time to witness the an annual tradition: The White Hearts Festival, a festival dedicated to all forms of love - familial, friendship, and romantic.

The whole town is decked out in pinks, golds and reds. Town square has been overtaken by food booths peddling elaborate meals and desserts with various magical effects. (It's probably better not to ask why some of the cookies being handed out are in the shape of anatomical hearts.)

• Eat an emoji cookie and find yourself sprouting heart-eyes, or gaining a flurry of hearts above your head.


• The Bolder Biscuit - by far and above the densest thing you've ever tried to eat - makes you bold. It compels you to march right up to someone and tell them what you think, good or bad.


• And there's also the Firework Delight cake, which makes you shoot off literal fireworks the moment you touch that special someone that makes your life complete... but honestly, they go off when you touch anyone. Sorry if you end up giving off the wrong impression!

In addition, pop-up craft stands sell trinkets that guarantee you'll be together with your people forever and ever. The most popular item on sale this year appears to be the Eternal Bond - which is just an enchanted finger-trap that refuses to let go unless you tell someone a deep dark secret.

There is an altar at the town park where you can make your offering and give prayers to the God of Love in hopes he will smile favorable upon you. Lay your chocolate heart at its base and offer up a prayer to the God so that your life will be full of love and connection.

Truthfully, when it started it wasn't as cutesy as it is now. It became a lot more wholesome when people began to offer only chocolate hearts to the God of Love. Now it's fun for the whole family! ... So long as you don't veer into the woods. Some people still practice the old ways, and there are (what you hope to be) animal hearts nailed to trees. This is Sunset Falls, after all. Weird often goes hand in hand with terror.

LONELY HEARTS

For those of you who don't yet have those special people, lonely hearts still single can collect white rose enamel pins from the festival committee. They're expected to pick someone to give it out to as a declaration of their attraction by the end of the festival. However... there seems to be an issue this year. There's more pins here than there are people in town. Committee members start handing them out to anyone, single or not, and from there that's where things start to get a little weird...

You clip the pin onto your shirt and at once, your life has suddenly become a romcom. Everything is just a little brighter, the sounds a little more musical (sometimes literally), and you're suddenly compelled to reach out and find connection.

And the universe is conspiring to bring it your way! Cliches won't stop happening around you. Suddenly people are determined to give you a makeover so you can catch the eye of an admirer. Your friends are betting on your romantic future. A complex love triangle is springing out of previously platonic friendships.

You're not not limited to one partner, and that partner doesn't need to be romantic. It could be a best friend, or a nemesis that you're compelled to fight over and over again for the joy of it. What matters is the connection and the way the world seems to stop at nothing to give you that perfect three act structure: You Meet, You Lose, You Get.

Reach the end of your romcom's little arc and you'll find yourself freed from the spell... and probably will have some choice words for its caster.

HEARTS ON FIRE

Regardless of how you participate in the festival, everyone is at risk when the town itself falls under a love spell.

This may be unlike anything you've known before. Perhaps it's the first stumbling steps of puppy love. You want to be with this person all the time. Hold their hands and work up the courage for a kiss. Or perhaps this is something fierce and passionate. You want to be kissing them always, pursuing these passions heedless of consequences.

This doesn't need to be a romantic love. It can be strong and familial. Perhaps the sort you've always desired but never had. You could fall into a family unit with others affected by the spell. Compelled to hug each other and say words of encouragement or praise. Perhaps you, while living your own love story, are the best friend in someone else's - offering up the speech that tells them they deserve more than they think they do.

Whatever your flavor of love may be, you're prone to dramatic declarations. Confessions at the drop of a hat. It's go big or go home, and since nobody's going home right now, you might as well go as big as you can. Perhaps you're arranging for Flash Mobs to declare your feelings! Or making plans to move in together despite only having met a few hours ago.

This is all fine and well at first, but it may become clear pretty quickly that characters who try to hold their burning passions are likely to burn themselves! If you're the repressed type and you try to resist the compulsions that the love spell puts on you, you might just burst into flames, and someone will need to put you out. Don't worry — move quick enough, and there won't be any lasting damage, and if there is, the Guilds' healers can help you out.

MEET CUTE-PID

For those paying attention to that sort of thing, one constant of all these wild declarations can be spotted in the background. A tall man with curly blonde hair and an all too charming smile never seems to be far from the romance.

Those who are curious enough to follow will find he retreats to a lavish mansion on the outskirts of town. The mansion has the gaudy and abundant decor of a honeymoon suite on the Las Vegas Strip, with lights attuned to music and a massive twirling heart above the roof of the building. Peer inside and you will see hundreds of tiny viewing windows, each depicting a different romantic story unfolding outside of town. The door to the mansion appears to be locked tight and the windows are magically sealed, but some quick thinking may get you inside.

If anyone wants to engage him, HERE is a top level where we will summarize encounters. The more PCs involved in an encounter, the bigger its outcome will be. We will determine the impact on the god of love on Valentine's Day, so get your comments in by end of day on the 13th! You may also use this top level to ask event-specific questions about the effects on this page! (Please refer general questions about the setting to the FAQ, and refer any player plots to the PLOTTING page.)

Comments

aww peter bb

[portolan]

[ He sees Peter's gaze go to that disposable cup he's held onto. Balthier does not touch crew members' things without permission; a hard and fast rule of piracy and respect. He suspects now it's some talisman for home, for these friends Peter has lost apparently very recently. He knows in reality that he is not that much older than Peter, but in this moment it may as well be a hundred years. How long has it been since the first time he lost people in a way he couldn't go back? 7 years? 8?

Peter's observation pulls him back. He shakes his head, but he's smiling. Either he's been a mess since he arrived, dropping his usual careful defense, or Peter's astute. Maybe both. Maybe without Fran he's reaching out for community. But he's alright with Peter thinking that. Glad, even, because Peter sounds like he needs a friend, or a mentor.

Balthier would never admit it, but Peter's comparison that they are both poor at keeping their identities secret is apt. ]

I thank you for your discretion.

[ But he watches Peter's reaction to the question, takes in the discomfort in his affirmative response. Balthier's heart goes out to the boy. He rises silently and goes to give Peter a firm hug, the kind that reaches where words don't. There are things he'd like to say -- you're alright, you're a good person, you're always welcome here -- but they feel trite and impersonal. He hopes the gesture is affirming, at least. ]

[tinglesense]

[ Peter hasn't been doing this hero thing that long, really. He got bitten by that spider at 15 and met Tony Stark not long after. But the worst of it, all these things that piled on right after the other, Thanos and Tony dying and Quentin Beck and now the spell and everything, those are all in the past few months. Some of that was even in the past one month. He hasn't had any time to really deal with it or get used to the idea that people just die or disappear or you can't save them, and that there will always be some element of that. Tony had sort of tried to tell him about responsibility, but he did it in a Tony way, which wasn't actually very helpful. It wasn't a conversation he'd really had with May, but she had assumed that the older heroes would keep him safe, generally speaking.

There are things about the whole Thanos thing he absolutely did not and would not ever have told her, and for good reason. Though he'd tell her all of it if it meant he got her back, even if she'd be furious. That's just how loss and grief and regret go.

Peter finds himself smiling back despite all his twisted up messy feelings. ]

I wouldn't ever tell anyone else's secrets.

[ That's true, at least. Ned had come up with some absolute bullshit lies for him over the past couple years, but he'd have done the same for Ned in a heartbeat. Friends just do that! They keep each other's secrets.

Balthier might go on about how old and wise he is, and Peter has no idea how old he is, but he doesn't strike Peter as, like, one of the Avengers. He's not so far apart in age that he feels untouchable or unrelatable (all boomer tech memes aside). He's probably the closest actual friend Peter's made in this weird Confluence city so far, though he wouldn't have quantified it like that.

Despite his words about how he sucks at friends, he'll make others. Bart, Alina, someone else. They're there, too.

He returns the hug, probably too tight, because he needs something to hold onto in the worst way, and Balthier offered to literally be that for a minute. Peter is aware, though Balthier might actually not be yet, of his own strength, though. He's much, much stronger than he looks, and something like holding onto someone too tight without checking himself would be pretty painful for them. This isn't that! This is just…normal human too tight, luckily, hands tight in Balthier's shirt.

He'll check himself on that, too. He just needs a second. Human connection is good, actually! Who knew, right? ]

[portolan]

[ Balthier may be more the type of person May was picturing; as aloof as he pretends to be, he's never been able to leave someone to danger, especially someone younger than him. It's gotten him into trouble countless times. He's never changed that habit; he doesn't think he can. It would make him too cruel, too much like his father. And maybe there's healing, in being the person he needed for someone else.

And so he's glad when Peter hugs back firmly. There's grief and need in that hold. He finds his throat tightening, feels pressure in his eyes. It's been a long time since Balthier's hugged anyone, either, and when he was in Peter's position, well, the person who'd offered support had betrayed him later. He would never say it, but he might need this hug as much as Peter does.

They really aren't so far apart, in age or experience. Maybe just enough that Balthier would fill the space of a brother or a cousin, but certainly not so much that he's actually Peter's elder. Maybe it's just been a long time since he's made an actual friend. ]

I suppose spilling secrets would ruin your carnival gig.

[ He still does not understand superheroes. But the comment is meant as a joke either way.

He tightens his grip, just a little, because he wants Peter to know it's alright to stay as long as he needs. ]

[tinglesense]

[ Peter is relieved to find that by do you need a hug, Balthier didn't mean some cursory awkward thing that lasted .5 seconds and then was over. Haha, sucks kid, bye. This isn't like that at all.

Maybe they both needed it, but Peter is way too smart (for once) to call that out out loud. He doesn't want to lose it.

He butts his head against Balthier's shoulder softly at that comment but doesn't manage to untangle himself yet. ]

I'm not a carnival attraction, c'mon! But I can do some pretty neat tricks. I'll show you my YouTube channel sometime.

[ The good thing about the channel here is that all his old ones from back home don't exist here. There's nothing terribly embarrassing from when he was trying to figure out his abilities. These ones are all just pretty impressive. It varies how popular they are, but it gives him something to do, filming them. ]

[portolan]

[ Balthier chuckles at Peter's reaction -- both the headbutt and protest but also that he's willing to take what he needs from the hug. Good. he hasn't gone as cold and aloof as he may pretend. He's just a kid. And we all need support. ]

Peter, I've no idea what a YouTube channel is, but I will gladly let you show it to me. It will take some more convincing that you aren't a carnival performer, though.

[ No old man jokes, but also less need to monologue about how strange he feels at the huge number of things he doesn't recognize. Maybe the spell is lessening. ]

Peter, I'm sure you're sharp enough to have figured this out, but I suspect we've been under the lingering effects of an oversharing spell. I just want to be clear that anything you've disclosed to me is private. And will continue to be any time you need to talk.