Event | Sinbrilee | Bacchanal

[ironwood]

Characters: Any and all!
Date: August 24 - 30th
Location: Sinbrilee
Situation: An ancient festival of an ancient city, all are welcome at the Bacchanal!
Warnings/Rating: Please label threads as appropriate.

Death and destruction cannot curtail the single most important festival celebrated by the denizens of Sinbrilee: The Bacchanal! The ghosts in and about the city have begun to gossip about high fashion and festivities, sending any that inquire to the Amphitheatre -- a grand, circular structure nestled in the west side of the city.

This structure bore the fall of Sinbrilee and the wear of time with dignity, having lost handfuls of archways and one long stretch of wall to crumbling decay. Despite this, it is obvious that the amphitheatre once hosted many a display and every more festivities than the mind can grasp. This was their solace and safety; here is where the people of Sinbrilee came to find the mind's escape from all that threatened them and their great turtle.

Ghosts have been busy throughout the week, clearing paths through debris and hanging great cloth banners of soft blues and greens to disguise the more blatant signs of its decline. Many hundreds of them shimmer and slid through the area, providing for tables upon tables of food, offering drink, and overseeing competition of sport and skill (some even denying death's non-corporeal curse to enter).

Here, well... Here is where the party begins!

Food & Drink | Music, Discussions, & Dancing | Wrestling & Competitions

Comments

[depicted]

He lights on the last of her words, remembering the first for later. "Suspicion?" He lifts his brows, a lightheartedness smashing the seriousness of the query. "Not comfortable with ghosts?"

[doc_holi]

"They aren't supposed to exist where I'm from, but, then again, none of this is." Giant turtles and what have you.

"Not so much as going out of my comfort zone as it is trying to prove to myself all of this is happening."

[depicted]

"And what better way than talking with ghosts," he answers, playing along with the reasoning. "It's something of a . . . twist on the expected, to drop into something like this; I understand. I continued to be surprised by the number of people who seem to find something like this within the realm of the ordinary."

[doc_holi]

"I would be quite surprised, too. Have you been here a long time?"

[depicted]

"Mm," Dorian tries to remember, "eight, nine months, now, I think?" He laughs a little. "I'm afraid I'm almost getting used to all of this." With a gesture of the hand, he indicates the strangeness around them.

[doc_holi]

"Almost getting used to it. There's hope for me yet, I guess."

Sarcasm, of course. Holiday wasn't sure if any of this would ever become ordinary. "I'm still new here. Only arrived... maybe a month ago."

[depicted]

"Then have a little faith. People are wonderfully adaptive. They have a habit of finding a way in any situation, regardless of what it is." He may not think much of the human ability to change, but adaptation? Oh, he can accept that easily.

[doc_holi]

Holiday chuckled. "I know all about that. I suppose you're right. I'm just not having enough of an open mind at the moment."

If she can get used to nanites and EVOs, she can handle this.

[depicted]

"Accustomed to watching others acclimatize, then?"

[doc_holi]

"Accustomed to doing so myself, actually. My world was one of those that did away with any sense of normalcy over night."

It's been tough, but she's fought through it... like everyone else.

[depicted]

He grins. "Alien invasion?" With a 21st century mindset, it's the first time of jarring event he can think of.

[doc_holi]

She laughs. "More like wide spread plague after science went wrong, but I imagine that would have been just as enjoyable."

[depicted]

He winces in sympathy. "That sounds like an unfortunate one. Sorry about that."

[doc_holi]

"Don't be. I've adapted. The human race is good at that. Things are slowly getting better."

Not extremely better, but possibly in the future... You never know.

[depicted]

"It seems to be our specialty," he agrees, turning the step of his wine glass. "Then let me say congratulations on your Earth's recovery."

[doc_holi]

"Thank you." Good luck might be a better term, but she won't correct him on that one.

"It is amazing to watch how people can bounce back and adapt to such a big change. I suppose the same goes for here."

[depicted]

"Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis," Dorian answers, saying out of habit the Latin phrase they taught him in school instead of the English translation—it would be translated to a listener either way, so he supposes the schoolboy habit will do no harm. "Though some of us do not." He glances over at the people here, dancing and wrestling with ghosts, eating food that is surely entirely foreign to them. "I don't know. What do you think? If people only wear the mask of adaptation and within cannot cope to the change, have they really adapted? Does faking it count?"

[doc_holi]

"Faking it?" Her face to one of curiosity. "No, faking it doesn't count, because they're still fighting on the inside... Do you think people generally fake adaptation?"

Not a rhetorical question, either. This young man seemed smart enough to hold his own in an intellectual debate and she wanted to know his thoughts on the matter.

[depicted]

Dorian glances askew at her, wearing half a smile but looking also as if he isn't accustomed to being approached as she has just done. He knows Lord Henry's words. 'He is some brainless beautiful creature who should be always here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in summer when we want something to chill our intelligence'...

No, Dorian Gray is not a subject prized by others for his intellect. Not often, at any rate. A genuine curiosity about his opinion, rather than a question designed to reveal his soul for the pleasure of psychological vivisection? It's not the ordinary course of things.

Dorian presses his tongue behind his lips to the roof of his mouth, considering before he answers. "I believe people truly do adapt, often, and without being wholly aware that it has happened. Our minds are suited for adaptation. We are a plastic species, if not an elastic one, and when our circumstances change we learn to accommodate those circumstances. Even if we don't like it, even if our souls remain the same, at least our behaviours adapt. Children learn to live outside the home, and people who hate technology use it for business. Because they must. Because that is the only choice worth taking."

His eyes cast out towards the party again. Harry is here somewhere, he knows, and Dorian worries for him as he has for months now. Harry cannot change. Harry has only appeared to have adapted. But Dorian draws his gaze back to Rebecca before he catches sight of Lord Henry, and he continues. "But sometimes, we only pretend to do so. I know, without having ever asked them, that there are those here who appear to have adapted and yet cannot reconcile their circumstances with what they know of the world and themselves. They have all the behaviours of adaptation, they act as they should, as they need to, but their souls are in rebellion. They live out their day to day lives performing their role, yet inside, in ways they can't confess even to themselves, they are sickened and disturbed, and eventually . . ." He trails off in a soft sigh. "Eventually, the dissonance is too much. They cannot cope with the part demanded of them. And they are lost.

"Have you ever seen that moment? An actor on the stage, in the middle of their performance—of a scene, a speech, even a single line of perfect iambic pentameter. And suddenly, finally, that actor comes to realize they have no real sympathy for the role. They have tried all this time, they have done everything they should have, but they simply cannot feel their part in harmony with themselves. Their performance lacks a soul, and in that instant, they realize it. It is an unsettling thing to see—a reminder of just how fragile everyone's place in the world really is. Of how quickly we can become strangers to our own lives. Or of how much effort we must put in every day to deny that we are strangers to it all along."

He lets the words hang and trail away like his cigarette smoke used to. The fallen king of Britain, staring down fifty storeys to the city that made him into this.

And then Dorian laughs. "So, short answer: no, but there are some, and they suffer for it. People who want masks always do." All of Dorian's attention is on Rebecca now, and his smile is a becomes youthfully playful, as if it could sweep away the agedness of his monologue. "And your thoughts, Rebecca? Are humans most likely to change, adapt, or lie?"

[doc_holi]

Holiday listened intently to his words, knowing that what he said was true. People had problems with adaption into new roles, whatever role that may be, and it hindered them until they broke.

When he came to the example, however, she did not see an actor on a stage, but herself a year younger as the assistant lead researcher of Providence. Back before Rex had been found and things changed. Back when everything was still chaos and no one had an answer for their loved ones turning into monsters. Back when Beverly, her sweet, funny, beautiful baby sister turned into that thing and tried to kill her. When she signed her life over to them, when they performed autopsies on aware specimens, when they killed just to see what doing this might do. She had failed to adapt into that role and if Rex hadn't come along when he did, she wasn't entirely sure what would have happened.

Almost upset, she blinks out of the flashback, suddenly aware that she had been asked a question. Holiday takes a breath and is back to herself again within a moment.

"The species can adapt, but sometimes the mind doesn't want to. I think humans are more likely to do whatever suits them best on a personal level. If one values the way things were before their current situation or are perhaps convinced someway that things can't be any different, I imagine it would be difficult to adapt. Not to say everyone in those sorts of situations can't with time, but sometimes a part of them doesn't entirely want to, rather it's for selfish reasons or paranoia. If anything, humans are more likely to adapt as a society, but I can't say anything about an individual."

[depicted]

It has hit a mark, then, and entirely by accident. A strike close to home. He can only assume it has something to do with the things that struck her Earth and changed it, but it could just as easily be a deeply personal matter.

Or both, Dorian thinks.

Either way, he could only know by asking, and he isn't sure that's the wisest course. Not with someone who snaps back that fast.

Instead, he laughs. "Society adapts, and the demographics that don't pass on? True enough. It makes pinpointing beginnings and ends a rather artificial process. But I don't blame those who can't adapt to their era. It's not as easy as the up-and-coming generations would love to think it."

[doc_holi]

Holiday shakes her head with a small smile. "No, no one's to blame if they fail to adapt. It's just the problem of being in a bad situation at the wrong time. Society adapts for the survival of the species. Instinct and all that. During the great chain of evolution, some must be cut out and it's no one's fault."

... She takes a deep breath, looking off to the side for a moment. "That's a bit of a morbid way of looking at things, isn't it?"

[depicted]

Perhaps, but morbidity is not a sin as long as it isn't heartless." He holds up a hand with a smile. "As long as I won't hear any Social Darwinism from you, I won't protest."

Dorian understands the place that those ideas come from. He has been witness to it, generation after generation. He can't judge it.

[doc_holi]

She smiled, too. "Thank you. Trust me, I don't usually buy into that stuff either. My head is still stirring from arriving here, I guess. Giant turtles, you know.

"What about you? How have you adapted so far, if I may ask?"

[depicted]

"Perfectly understandable," he assures her.

"Mm? Oh, I think I've adapted reasonably well." He traces the edge of his glass with a finger. "I've even been growing to like it here. It's . . . a very interesting place."