metalogs | [OPEN] Maybe not a literal monster mash

Entry tags:

[OPEN] Maybe not a literal monster mash

Who: Jason Todd

robintohood and you. Also a mingle!
What: Various antics at Descendant Karaoke Bar and Lounge during October
When: Throughout October
Where: Central City
Content Warnings: N/A for now. Will edit if needed.

[There may be some changes to the timeline now but Descendant Karaoke Bar and Lounge is still open for business. There are always people looking to have a good time drinking and blowing off some steam with a good song. It doesn’t matter if they’re ordinary civilians or some of Central City’s more... colorful characters. Just be nice to the bouncers and check your weapons by the entrance first.

To reflect the fall season, Descendant has included seasonal drinks like pumpkin beer, apple cocktails, and spiced maple bourbon.

Meanwhile, some of this month's most popular songs seem to be reflecting Halloween, such as Highway to Hell and Monsters. Or maybe you want to do a more classy number like Witchcraft? Descendant looks like a speakeasy after all. And in a total coincidence, Time Warp has also shown up on the popularity chart.

If you drop by at Descendant on a Coyote Ugly Night, you’ll find the atmosphere considerably wilder and wetter. You might’ve even already seen some of the social media posts and videos of the employees performing. They certainly look like they’re having a good time.

Perhaps you’re coming in during a more normal time. Come by for a drink. Maybe rent a private karaoke room or karaoke on stage in front of others if you’re feeling brave. There are some bar games around too.

You can always just people watch as well. Those who are especially observant might notice that some of Descendant’s customers are a bit... furtive as they keep their heads low or quickly scurry to one of the private rooms.

There’s always the reading room too for those who want a more quiet ambiance.

And then there's the very select few who are allowed upstairs in the attic apartment.

Whatever the case may be, Jason will be around. As Descendant’s owner, he’s a busy guy with plenty he has to do]

((OOC: Jason will be around but feel free to mingle! My contact information is on this journal's profile and I'm in the game's Discord server. Also feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns as well. I also have a feedback post.))

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Jason appreciates how Donnie brightens up at the mention of the reading room. It's his favorite in the whole building. He walks away from the bar to lead Donnie towards the back.

"It's like another take on the Little Free Library," he begins to explain. "People are free to take any book or donate a book. So the collection's constantly changing."

The turtle hops off of his seat, trailing after Jason then, his hands once again returning to their hoodie-pocket burrow.

"Ooh, that sounds fun. I love those. I mean, the books are hit or miss sometimes but that's still cool." Relatively low maintenance too, so long as no one decided to up and take all the books or something but who'd do something so heinous!

"Yeah, we've been lucky that we can just run on the honor system for it," Jason says.

They walk across the main open bar area towards a hallway where the private karaoke rooms. Jason's office, the employees' break room, and the reading room are further towards the back.

"This place is a lot bigger than it looks," Donnie observes. And this is only one floor.

"Got any security aside from the guys out front?" he asks, grinning mischievously. After their talk at the penthouse it's only natural he'd ask.

Jason laughs as he also remembers their conversation about the penthouse's security.

"Don't worry. We got our ways here. It's covered," he replies.

Soon they reach the reading room. It's a noticeably cozier place than most of Descendant with the furniture resembling that of a private home library and wall-to-wall books on the shelves.

He probably shouldn't be terribly disappointed nor surprised that security's covered. Not like Donnie needs more projects anyway.

Once they set foot inside of the reading room, his mouth opens with a pleased gasp as he spins around slowly to take it all in. "You know, I wouldn't have picked this for my aesthetic personally, but I love it..."

He's already skimming the shelves of books as he goes to plop down on one of the couches because he absolutely has to test their comfiness.

The reading room is also one of the spots Jason's most proud so he's pleased by how awed Donnie is by it.

"Well, I had to match it with the classy speakeasy look most of the building has. Glad you like it though," he says. "You're welcome to drop by here too."

From the look on his face at that invitation, Jason might have offered him a million bucks. Sure, he has access to public libraries but as much as he loves them, they're built for specific functions and not particularly for private comfort.

"You mean it? Oh I am so taking you up on that," Donnie says eagerly, springing on his feet.

"Yeah," Jason says, recognizing a fellow bookworm. "Just follow the rules and you'll be fine."

Edited 2023-10-09 02:41 (UTC)

Donnie looks about ready to just ensconce himself right then and there with a book but they've got other things to see, and the reading room isn't about to go anywhere.

"Nooo problemo." Couldn't be any more complicated than library rules, surely.

Jason grins, seeing that Donnie was ready to make himself comfortable. Not that he blames him. It's very relaxing to curling up in a chair and take in a book.

"And feel free to drop off or take a book whenever you want," he says. "Come on. I'll show you upstairs too."

That's not something Donnie will need to be told twice. True, he has some specific tastes when it comes to books, but having the luxury of having free pick of something he can possibly keep is nice, and certainly he can return the favor.

The turtle teen nods happily, the open invitation making it easier to say goodbye to the room for now in order to appease his lingering curiosity for the rest of the place.

Jason leads Donnie back out to the hallway towards the main bar area again. As they walk past the closed doors to the private karaoke rooms, music and singing can be heard. Some of the singing is more off-key than others.

"You do this kind of stuff back home?"

Donnie winces a little at the singing, but he still finds himself grinning. What's karaoke without some off-key singers?

"Not really, no," he admits with a shake of his head, eyes lingering on the doors in passing before he looks back down the hall. "Back home we try to keep out of sight, do most of our outings at night, sneak into places when we can. So...being able to do things here like other people has been kind of nice."

One of the nice things about being in this weird, crazy world, anyway.

It's easy for Jason to imagine how that kind of life could make someone restless for more beyond their home. It's partially why he isn't kicking Donnie out despite his own rule about kids being on the premise.

"So it was just all disguises back home? No holograms either?" Jason asks.

"Yeah, more or less," Donnie says. "No holograms, but we could usually get by just wearing hoodies or under other circumstances, say we're cosplaying. People usually don't ask too much questions, but then it's probably easier to ignore small details when bipedal humanoid turtles are not a natural existence."

He doesn't seem particularly upset about it. It's just been fact, and while he and his brothers had at one point made the attempt to get people to warm up to the existence of mutants, it had failed pretty badly. But it hadn't gotten them down, not exactly. They just went back to how they always did things, and how they lived hadn't necessarily been terrible. Ending up here just opened up so much perspective. Donnie feels a bit spoiled for it, having a taste of what it's like to live like humans do.

"Must be a total 180 after coming here then," Jason says.

Once they're back in the open bar area, Jason leads Donnie to the staircase leading up to the second floor. It's not as spacious as the first floor but there's still plenty to do. There's a small arcade area with a couple of pool tables, a pinball machine and an arcade machine for a fighting video game. Meanwhile, most of the tables and chairs are positioned towards the back of the second floor, where a stage for live performances is.

At the very corner of the floor is a mostly unassuming locked door with a "PRIVATE. DO NOT ENTER" sign on it.

"A little, yeah. I was kind of trying to stay hidden at first, when I got here. I never registered and Leo figured it was probably better that way. But I guess that's not a problem anymore at least, and to be honest, I'm kind of tired of hiding."

It's such a pain. And how's he supposed to show people what he can do when no one knows who he is?

Donnie sighs, rolling his shoulders back as he follows Jason up. His eyes immediately go to the arcade machine before doing a sweep of the rest of the setup. It's a simple setup but it looks fun.

"You have a lot of private events?" he asks as he looks towards the stage area, eyes inevitably trailing towards the door in the corner, but seeing a restricted area is certainly no surprise.

"Sometimes. We but also have to have places for storage," Jason replies with ease. It's a well-practiced answer and one of many ways to hide what Descendant actually is. He then shrugs.

"It's just easier this way and we can't shove everything in the basement."

Not that Donnie had thought too much about it. Most businesses had some kind of off-access area.

"Too true," he nods, walking over to check out the
arcade machine. It's a lot more to-date than any of the cabinets they had in the old lair but the boys hadn't been too picky. After all, they had an entire private arcade and old games could be just as fun as new ones.

"We try to rotate the machines every few months or so, depending on how popular something is," Jason says. "We might add another if we got enough space for it. You ever played back home?"

"Sounds like a reasonable plan, especially with limited space." Donnie laughs then. "Do turtles swim? -but of course I played! Maybe not this specific game but back in the old lair we had our own arcade, it even had one of those dance games. Lemmee tell you, that was a pain getting into the sewer but we made it work somehow."

He sighs wistfully as he pokes at the buttons on the machine. "The place got trashed though. That was a couple years back. The new lair's not as open as the old one was but it's spacious enough and it's still home."

"The new place is somewhere not a sewer?" Jason guesses. Though he understands the comfort one could possible get from a subterranean home. The BatCave was part of his home and he had plenty of good memories from it. "How you'd haul the stuff?"

"Oh, we're still underground. Abandoned subway station. It's even got some old forgotten railcars. I still miss the old place though. We had these giant skateboard ramps in the middle of everything, and several levels of repurposed pipeways." He sighs wistfully.

How did they get anything down into the sewers? Donnie laughs a little as he turns from the game machine to go poke around the pool table.

"Our big brother'd usually handle most of the heavy lifting, but otherwise it'd be group effort. And there are more ways than manholes to get into a sewer. I mean, how else would I have built a tank from a prop movie-vehicle down there?"

Given the other inventions Jason has seen that were made by Donnie, he believes him and whistles. He's impressed.

"Seriously? That's a hell of a job to pull off," he says. "The tank was also part of security?"

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