Costume Party in Honor of Lex Luthor's Birthday [OPEN]

[defenestration]

As stated on the invitation, Adrian is throwing a costume party to celebrate Lex's twenty-fifth birthday at the Luthor-Veidt Building in Brock Marsh. Everyone is welcome, whether they know Lex or not. There's plenty of food and free alcohol (mostly wine, fancy beer, and champagne), music and a space for dancing, and room to mingle and make new friends. Some simple and classy decorations, purple of course, have been put up on the first and second floors to create a festive atmosphere.

(A note to those who might try to take the opportunity to go snooping: security is insanely tight. The elevators will not go beyond the first and second floors without a special code, and there's an elevator operator who is very obviously there to make sure you don't try anything funny. The stairwells are likewise under guard and the private areas of the first floor are locked and under camera surveillance.)



[ooc: Please wait until a few threads are set up before tagging! Party time! Everyone is welcome!

Note: I've turned off notifs so if you need my attention in a specific spot, please PM or plurk me.]

Comments

[captainredwhiteblue]

He's not entirely sure what she means by boss--it's yet another term he's just not familiar with. That's happened a lot since he got here. But he gathers from the look on her face and the way she looks at him that it's a good thing.

"Thank you, ma'am. And sort of. I'm Captain America. It was... back during the war." He forgets, sometimes, that people don't have the same frame of reference here, that there have been many more wars since his war.

"But my name's Steve Rogers, ma'am."

[magnetic]

By some measure of luck, while hanging around the bar Erik soon finds himself next to another person he recognizes, which suits him just fine. Well, he's pretty sure he knows who this is, anyway—she's kind of difficult not to place, really, you'd have to be trying awfully hard—but still makes a little show of dipping like he's trying to get a better look at her face beneath the mask. (He, himself, is not wearing one.)

"Njoki?" This attempt at her name is pretty well accurate to the way he remembers she pronounced it. How about that.

[aviophobia]

That is, in fact, precisely what McCoy intends to do. "And what's wrong with sitting in a corner? Someone's gotta keep it in place, you know, damn things go all over the place without proper guidance."

[aldabeyoun.livejournal.com]

"Hey, Erik, good to see you again." While it might take her a moment to remember his name she is genuinely pleased to run into him again. "How has the city been treating you?"

[magnetic]

Although he may not be willing to admit it openly, Erik's still dealing with a few echoes of culture shock over here—among other low-smouldering feelings, not the least of which being a dreamlike sense of surreality—and so finding a quieter place to sit for a while is definitely a relief. The array of cakes is impressive, but he doesn't help himself to any, only gives the table a look over while making the rounds. This tumbler of whisky he's got will suffice for now. (It's his second and probably not his last.)

His discarded mask is still down on the first floor, presumably, leaving just plain Erik in his grey suit and respectable shoes, sat there in a chair out of the way. ...hm. There is rather more purple up here, isn't there. At least the hosts have that going for them.

[selfmadman]

Don's costume isn't much of one: a black half-mask with a twist of gray arcing up and around the left eye-hole. He wears a suit, also gray, and a narrow gray-and-black striped tie. The lone spots of color are the gold cufflinks at his wrists.

Grateful for a respite from the music, he wanders from one room to the next, paying more heed to the guests and the decor than the food and sipping unhurriedly from his beer.

[wandandsickle]

Jones has never been one much for parties, let alone costume parties. Last time she'd had to go to one she'd gone as the Proletariat; at this one it wouldn't be quite so topical, though, and she'd not had a chance to find out how the costume went over, since things had been... interrupted.

So she figured, well, why not dress in the garments of her people. It takes on a bit of a costumey quality anyway, the sterotypical garb of the Moros. She arrives in a long, fluttery black dress and a black mask that covers the upper half of her face and stands by the wall, looking kind of uncomfortable.

[magnetic]

"About the same," he says, with a so-so bob of his head. Not great, but not terrible. Actually, he's been mentally scrabbling for a way out of here since he arrived, and has felt a sense of total unreality fairly frequently, which is probably not great given his psych history. But hey. He's genial now, right?

"Had any new business since we last met?"

[captaincocksure]

Jim resists the urge to throw up his hands. At least, he tells himself, Bones isn't sitting in a corner alone in his room. He still might manage to meet some people.

"All right, all right." He points at Bones. "Don't go getting sloppy drunk. Don't make me have to carry you home, you'd never live that down. Hauled home by a horse's ass."

[rhinemaid]

Tasteful touches of purple, nothing too overwhelming- if Ilde is honest, designing around colour preferences that largely included her own favourite colour wasn't exactly a hardship. She's thinking less on that at the moment than on the fact that crowded parties are, it turns out, a little harder to deal with nowadays when she's making herself do it sober.

On the one hand, she's more observant. On the other hand, the crowd of people she doesn't particularly trust is making her anxious, and the anxiousness is making her irritated, and she's looking for a distraction that won't make it worse, that won't draw any especial attention to herself, when Erik's quiet corner of the room comes to her notice.

"You should have a martini," she informs him, sitting down without evident concern for whether or not he wants her company. "Shaken, not stirred."

Clearly he did not come without a costume and is merely also James Bond.

[magnetic]

Clearly.

Although Erik does not know this woman, he does at least understand what she means—he's read many of those books, in fact, shh—and breathes the nearly silent, mostly visual, but still honestly amused huff of a fellow who doesn't care at all for pretense. His wan smile speaks much the same. It's not exactly an aloofness, mind; her presence does not appear to bother him.

"I knew I was missing something."

How mysterious.

[goodeintentions]

Aimery knew of no such connotations- that's just what Adrian said he'd heard the vigilante's name was. If he had known, he might have made some connections, what with Adrian dressing as Ramesses, but alas. Ki's costume similarly left him unable to make connections. If he'd wore it because he liked the mask, why go around admitting it was a ladies mask? Whatever, Aimery wasn't one to judge.

Oh wait, yes he was. That was weird.

"I see," he said, a note of confusion in his voice at first, "Well it counts as a costume if you call it one. It's a good choice, the dark clothes with a light mask. Draws the eye."

[rhinemaid]

The subdued air is essentially what drew her over here; she's comfortable with other people's quiet, her own is a source of refuge and when she doesn't want to leave the party to settle her nerves, this is the next best thing. (Top ten people who you wouldn't expect to be used to settle nerves: Erik Lehnsherr. On the other hand, she also occasionally uses the vivid memory of the first person she killed to calm herself down.)

"You could be Connery," she says, thoughtfully, "or Dalton. I think Boromir has to be Craig." Another man in a dove grey suit this evening, if taller, blonder and a bit less sharp-edged.

[magnetic]

That, on the other hand, flies right over his head. Still: "Actors?" Not the most garrulous of gents, no, but at least he has a few math skills to work with. And a fully functional set of eyes, too, which drift their attention over Ilde's costume now, since she's right there, and he's over here, and she's placed comfortably within his line of sight and all. He may also be checking her out a little, who knows. Another mystery.

[goodeintentions]

"Briefly, over the network," he felt the need to clarify that to Ilde before replying to Cindy, with utmost sincerity, "And thank you, it's healed up quite nicely. Your concern is touching."

Aimery looked back at Ilde, opening his mouth as if to say more before closing it again. It wasn't his place to warn her about Lex's potential territorial behavior or the Luthor family squabbles — and he knew Lex would be angry if he said anything at all about it— yet he would feel bad for her if she wound up between them, like him, through her good intentions. So he settled for something vague, innocent enough to be nothing, but maybe he could pretend to himself that it was sufficient foreshadowing: "I hope Lionel appreciates your work as much as we have here."

[rhinemaid]

A quick mental recalibration occurs; he recognizes James Bond, but not the actors (even Connery? that's terrible), so...comparable world, but earlier in the timeline. "I'm sorry, yes. I never saw Daniel Craig in the role, though." The world ended, the film wasn't released, these things happen.

She's not unpleasant to look at, if he does happen to be observing that; her illusion of humanity doesn't even pretend to actually be designed to convince anyone she's human so much as it's there to conceal whatever lies beneath for her own comfort, hinting at the shape of it in the subtly otherworldly nature of what can be seen.

"He was blond." This is somehow relevant. Presumably.

[rhinemaid]

Ilde's expression is briefly curious - she's not the most expressive person in the world when she's sober, but her little headtilt is fleetingly reminiscent of a cat that's just spotted a dangling string - but Aimery can rest easy that his warning would be unnecessary. Or he would be able to, if they were actually going to have that conversation, but as it is, they'll just have to live with keeping their respective observations to themselves.

"He will," she says, placidly self-confident. "Thank you. And thank you for the masks- I think we're going to go and get a drink."

[fish]

Welp, hopefully this party on the whole is feeling a slight dearth of both flippancy and sparkles, because that is what Fish is bringing to the table. He comes dressed in a motley assemblage of items meant to replicate the most stereotypical vampire getup he could contrive without totally sacrificing his dignity, wearing a serious amount of makeup, false fangs, and yes, oh yes, an abundance of glitter. His hair is also teased up and back in a black Burtonesque approximation of a certain brooding C-word's messy pomp (it'll fall down in his face soon enough, but for now it's great). Is he not fearsome? Is he not dangerous? Gaze upon his dark majesty and tremble, ye fools.

At the door he slaps a plastic audio cassette tape into Aimery's hand whether he wants it or not; it is chock full of various tracks from the 70s and 80s. Also the Ghostbusters theme. "Hey! I promised that one guy I'd bring some music—holy shit, I love your costume!" PS, his pupils are enormous.

[magnetic]

The very same thing nearly happened with the very first Bond film in his own world. Wouldn't that have been a funny coincidence? Ha ha. ...Life is horrible.

Relevance aside, this is a random enough topic that he feels comfortable rolling with it, yet not so random as to be aggravating. Why not discuss James Bond's hair with a lady dressed in an elaborate princess costume? Just, why not. It makes about as much sense as going to a party inside a prison, and what's more, it's a decent distraction from whatever is going on inside his head right now.

And so: "Was he." It's...kind of a prompt to go on? God, Erik, you are just too talkative, stop it.

[rhinemaid]

"Before the world ended." Her serenity is the kind that tends to have intense trauma underlying it, but this is just the sort of thing that happens occasionally during her conversations; as far as she can guess, those people might well all be dead now, though they'd have better chances in Europe, where things aren't quite so fraught as North America.

Her shoes clink quietly when she crosses her ankles, swaying into a more comfortable position, settling them to one side. After a moment, as if it's nothing unusual as a follow up to her last remark, "He was a bit shorter than the other ones. Stockier. I think he would've done all right, but he got bad press."

[magnetic]

Before the world ended. Well, that's intriguing, in a distinctly morbid way. Between that and the growing sense that she reminds him of someone, if only nebulously, he may not even need to down the rest of his Scotch to get through their conversation. He does sip at it, though, and looks into the glass as he swallows, his eyes lifting to meet Ilde again only after he asks, "What happened to the world?"

[goodeintentions]

"Enjoying the party, sir?" Aimery asked as headed over to Adrian during one of his excursions away from the vestibule, taking up a somewhat heroic pose beside the other man with his hands on his hips and head held up proudly. There was still a note of approval seeking in his voice and slightly inclined head despite that attempt at self-assured face. They matched, in a way: both were dressed as powerful figures, looking very commanding with their muscles (faked or not), rich purple capes, and gold accessories. They even both wore circlets. House of Ego certainly had a theme going on in it's resident's costumes what with Lex's Alexander costume, and Aimery aimed to live up to it.

[rhinemaid]

"My world." It's a fleeting caution- her world is not like others, she's already heard of places that continued on past the point at which the storm came, and...mostly they make her angry. It's a quiet, private anger but it is there and there is a taste of it in those two words. How dare they-

It takes her a moment to choose her words to follow that.

"There was a storm," she settles on. "Most people died. Some got more themselves, others were changed into things they weren't meant to be. Most of the latter killed more of the survivors. I missed a lot of it, Sonja had to catch me up later."

...given how difficult it would be to miss something like that, Erik should probably use his discretion before deciding whether or not he wants to know the explanation.

"I think I like it better the way it is. It's more honest."

Well.

[goodeintentions]

Lex hadn't forbidden Lionel to attend, to the best of his knowledge, but Aimery hadn't really expected him to show up either. So it was a bit of a shock for him to glance away from the small group he was chatting with and spot Lionel's unmistakable mane. He was content to keep his distance and one eye on him, knowing Lionel's son preferred it that way... but then he glanced again and recognized his costume.

He just had to at least confirm his suspicions and say hello. Sure, he considered himself off duty and had had a drink or two, but it was Aimery's job to greet the guests and make sure they were enjoying the party, wasn't it? Surely Lex couldn't get mad at him for simply doing what was asked of him as long as he made that his focus. After excusing himself from the conversation, Aimery retrieved a fresh glass of wine from the caterers, had a good, discreet look around to make sure his bosses weren't going to see, then made a beeline for Lionel, approaching from behind.

"Your wine, sir," he announced as he rounded him, holding out the glass as if he meant to deliver it, then put on a suitably surprised face when he 'saw who it was'. "Oh, Mr. Luthor! Apologies, I thought you were someone else. It's so good of you to come."

Aimery had no illusions that Lionel would be fooled, but he at least had plausible deniability.

[magnetic]

Well indeed. This is frankly a lot of sharing to be doing with someone you've only just met, and he's not sure her voice suggests she's made enough peace with it that this is a wholly comfortable topic. Still, if she finds some solace in honesty... he can sort of relate. There's no reason to tap the mirror in case it might show a clearer reflection, though, so he leaves it be.

There may very well be a silence here, although not an uncomfortable one—not on Erik's end, at least, since he isn't the one being considered. At the end of it, he leans forward and places his beverage on the low table there, the tumbler still adequately full on account of he's only sipped from it twice. "Here." A gentle push from his long fingers moves it toward her, just so. "It seems like you need this more than I do."