CLOSED | Dylan's 15th Birthday

[codicies]

Who: Dylan Brock codicies, his housemates, and those invited to the party — which is pretty much everyone he's had a positive interaction with.
What: Dylan's 15th birthday party, a bonfire cookout!
When: October 8
Where: Home of Diana Prince in Little Love, KS
Content Warnings: none (but will label things if asked)

Dylan's 15th Birthday Bonfire

Toplevel Prompts:

SETUP

(CLOSED to Dylan's housemates & anyone who might have showed up early to help prep)

Setting up for the party beforehand.

FOOD

Autumn has set in. The daytime is cool, the evenings are chilly, and there's a bonfire roaring in one of Diana's fields. Dylan's been prepping food for the party all morning — There's sausages, s'more supplies, and shish kebabs stacked with meat & vegetables. There's even some sweet potatoes! He saw a video on Japanese street food and wanted to try cooking potatoes on the fire in foil.

As for drinks, of course water and soda are available, but he managed to borrow some coffee urns from a kind caterer in town in exchange for a little manual labor. Now he's got a great setup for hot coffee, hot chocolate, AND hot cider all evening!

There's also a VERY large sheet cake for serving later. He'd been offered a brain-shaped cake, but the pictures had been a little too realistic, and he didn't think he (or the guests) would find it all too appetizing.

Though he's a little afraid the brain cake is still coming out, whether he likes it or not, but the sheet cake will be what he uses to blow out the candles, thank you very much.

SWORDPLAY

One of the gifts Dylan received was a real-life sword from Diana! He's been taking lessons from her and is ready to try it out. There's a little clearing a little ways from the bonfire where he's trying it out. If you want, you can come and spar — with Dylan, with Diana, or even with each other. With swords, sticks, or even with fists!! Come join the impromptu Fight Club.

EDIT to add: there are real AND wooden swords available for sparring, as well as wooden & straw dummies to practice on as well!

GAME TIME

There are frisbees, a football, soccer balls, even a ninepin set?? Do you have these games in your world? There's all kinds of fun sports gear available. Or you could grab something at random and start a game of Calvinball.

FIRESIDE

With the daylight fading, the fire becomes the center of activity. As you roast marshmallows or weiners (or grab one of those potatoes out of the fire) everyone huddles around, seated on rocks, stumps or lawn chairs as we all sing songs and tell stories.

Any spooky tales from your homeworld? Any songs you'd like to sing? Dylan had gotten a few guitar lessons from Jaskier before he disappeared, so if you start singing, he'll try to follow along with chords!

FIREWORKS

oh my god who brought those. please don't set any crops on fire. EXTINGUISHERS ON STANDBY.

WILDCARD

Any Standard Bonfire Activities I've forgotten, go ahead and throw them in!

After-Party Sleepover

(CLOSED to Dylan's housemates + Nico, Will, Hunter, Hibiki, and Chris Yukine)

Six teenagers sleeping on couches & air mattresses in the living room, watching movies... what crimes will they commit?

Comments

[robintohood]

I think I get it. I'm more of a city guy myself. It's only been my third time being out here. Still not used to this much wide space.

[Though he's been to other countrysides throughout the years]

[doctopoda]

No surprise they had aliens out here, that one time.

[It looks like a set from Signs? Otto turns to walk down the drive to what he assumes must be the correct house, a few of the tentacles still turned as if looking at Jason. This...isn't the Brock's home, is it, there was a Diana mentioned.]

Have you met our hostess before?

[robintohood]

[Jason calmly follows. Occasionally he looks back at the tentacles. Are they sentient?]

Yes and no. This is gonna be my first time on this property. I know a Diana Prince back home but when you consider how the multiverse plays on this Earth, this Diana could be different from the one I know.

[Either way, Jason's been trying to contain his excitement to see Wonder Woman. She's one of the few superheroes he still respects]

[doctopoda]

Ah. Yes, I've been through that a few times since coming here. I'd try not to have too many expectations.

[Good or bad - it would sure be easier on Otto if some people dropped their expectations of him. But that's unfair.]

[robintohood]

Same here. It's jarring to hear about some other version of me.

[Then there's the possibility that this is also a timeline issue and Jason is further behind than some others]

Have they been good surprises for you or not really?

[doctopoda]

[Otto waggles a hand: somewhere in between.]

The alternate versions of people I know have been just fine. But it seems I've got a few versions out there who aren't.

[He's been other people's bad surprise, mostly.]

[robintohood]

[Huh. Interesting to know Jason's not the only one who's got that issue]

An awkward welcome wagon you got then. Did they eventually ease up on you?

[doctopoda]

For the most part. There haven't been too many people who had personal dealings with him. I'm grateful for that much.

[Of those, the oldest Spider-Man was the only one Otto never really made peace with, and he's gone now. Otto sort of regrets not getting to know him a little better. But he wasn't going to harass the kid; every new person who recognized the notorious Doc Ock had just driven home how much damage his counterpart must have been responsible for over the years.

It might say some stuff about what exactly his double's been up to, though, if he's as well-known as that.]

[robintohood]

[Jason nods, feeling a little sympathetic to Otto. Dealing with a family that's at least twice as big as he remembered it pre-Confluence has been a jarring and emotional experience for him]

It sounds manageable at least, as long as you're different enough from the other you.

[doctopoda]

I saw a bit of him in someone's memory recently. Our features are similar, but he's about this tall.

[Otto indicates a height that's like, possibly a full foot shorter than himself. And - yes, he figures Jason probably means personality-wise, but he's not really prepared to get into his own relationship to being a notorious supervillain just now!]

[robintohood]

[Jason snorts]

Good enough. Shorter tentacles too?

[doctopoda]

At rest. I couldn't say what his full reach was - they telescope.

[He stretches one of his out a little longer in demonstration. Just a bit, not near their actual full length.]

[robintohood]

[Jason watches that tentacle, interested]

Huh. Helps with compacting them at least.

[doctopoda]

Mmm. They weren't originally intended for regular use, or I'd have made them even more compact than this.

[There are so many things he'd have done differently, if he'd ever had the slightest inkling that this might happen.]

[robintohood]

What were they originally for?

[doctopoda]

Operating a nuclear fusion reactor.

[you know, as you do]

[robintohood]

[Whistles. He's a little impressed]

Hence the need for metal and distance.

[doctopoda]

Exactly! Though of course, I'm not in that business anymore.

[Don't! Worry! About it!]

I've gotten involved in neuroprosthetics here. Not anything like these, of course, but they did serve as a decent replacement for a job history in this universe.

[robintohood]

I can imagine. Excelsior must be have a good demand for that stuff.

[doctopoda]

It did. It still does, if the local government doesn't crack down on it.

[robintohood]

Would they? It's still more science than meta ability. It'd be a shame for that stuff to stop just because of unfound fears.

[doctopoda]

Ah, they've had problems with anything technological lately. We had a robot uprising, during everything in August.

[He's being dry about it, but really it did cause rather a lot of damage. Still, Otto thinks the crackdown is unreasonable.]

For whatever reason, prosthetic tech is getting a lot of the backlash. There is an A.I. component in our work, but that's for making motion and pressure calculations - making the experience more seamless for the user. It isn't a learning A.I.

[Like, who puts actual sapient minds in someone's robot arms, asked Otto Octavius the Sapient Robot Arm Man]

[robintohood]

[What a crazy idea!]

August was a bad month everywhere.

Not an expert on this stuff but seems like those AIs are pretty different from each other.

[doctopoda]

They are. This isn't what people think of when they hear the word "A.I.", it's not going to gain sentience and take over your arm. It's just to help compensate for natural processes - there's a million tiny calculations your brain performs every time you move a limb, but a prosthetic device can't imitate that kind of natural movement without some help.

[Jason maybe didn't ask for all this but he's getting it!]

[robintohood]

[Luckily this isn't the first time someone's talked a bunch of science at Jason without him asking]

Right. There are very specific end results you're trying to reach. Actual sentience is a lot more complicated and a lot more factors are involved. Like solving one plus one versus reading a word problem and needing to comprehend which operations are needed to solve it.