deathsmajesty | Halloween Party, Creepy But Nowhere Near Abandoned Mansion, Tuesday Night

Halloween Party, Creepy But Nowhere Near Abandoned Mansion, Tuesday Night

After basically being dared to do it by Tony Stark (and putting in six weeks of renovations, bless Hannibal for the contractor), Liliana, dressed as an empress, hair pulled back in a profusion of curls by her angelic headpiece, was ready to throw her first Fandom party. Sure, it was for a holiday she didn't really understand, but she'd heard enough about it to make due: there was supposed to be candy and people were supposed to be in costume. Done. Everything else was just the same as a regular party, right?

Granted, the last party she'd hosted had actually been for a bunch of vampires and that had been seventy years ago on a completely different plane, but bah, details. You had food to eat, music to dance to, dark corners to sneak off to, and either enough witty people or enough alcohol to keep the conversation flowing. Liliana was hoping that there would be plenty of the former showing up, but just in case, she'd made sure to stock plenty of the latter.

Though her newly refurbished ballroom was actually very light and airy, she had done her best to recreate some of the spookiest elements she'd seen in her travels. The dancefloor was covered in about a foot of heavy fog that swirled and eddied with every movement. While most of the chandeliers were shrouded in fabric and false webbing, she personally found the main chandelier was decorated in something she much more unnerving. Black and red candles flickered about the room held by ghostly hands, dripping skulls, and the occasional elegant standing candelabra. One of the few concessions to magic she'd used tonight was to have the candles lit with tongues of false fire, which provided light but no heat. And they glowed blues and greens and purples, which was a nice effect. Red roses were placed upside down in vases, while more questionable arrangements sat in decorative vases. Out of deference to her guests' ~~squeamishness~~ sensibilities, all creepy critters, skeletons, and dead bodies were all cunningly crafted fakes, not a single real bone or drop of blood in the place.

Other than, of course, what her guests brought in with them. And should they leave with fewer of either than they'd come in with, well, that was hardly her fault. Probably.

Arrive and Mingle / Photos / Dark Corners [NFB] / Refreshments / Dance / Gardens / OOC

[~~Please hold for~~ OCD up! Do the thing!]

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"Hannibal, darling, a pleasure as always to see you," she said, giving his suit an openly approving smile. "And exquisitely tailored, as usual. If you're someone specific, I'm afraid I don't know it, but I admire the look anyway."

"Thank you, my dear." Hannibal bowed over her hand. "Nobody specific, I'm afraid. I ~~only had one nonstandard icon left~~ had hobbies that kept me rather busy these last few weeks, so I elected for a more general look. This is formalwear from this area a century ago. And you? Look divine. Are you anybody specific?"

"Thank you, darling, and no, nobody specific," Liliana said, hand smoothing over her gown. "I don't know Earth culture enough to choose a costume from that, and I felt it easier to just go to my modiste on Innistrad than try to find someone new."

"If you'd like someone on Earth, I would be happy to recommend a tailor, and I imagine Ms. Adler - have you met her? - could also help; she has extremely good taste. Is this current fashion on Innistrad?"

"Only just a few minutes ago," Liliana said. "Which, having done so, I can say is an absolute crime that we hadn't met before. She seems an absolute delight. But I've been introduced to multiple people tonight and if nothing else, I'm going to count my party as a success for that reason only."

And then she smiled and waved down at her dress. "Oh hardly. Innistradi fashion is...closer to yours, I'd say. It's slow to change, as most of the nobility and leaders of fashion are secretly vampires. This...if anything, the design of the fabric is very New Capennan and the style is...something we collaborated on, I suppose, when I showed various sketches of Earth inspirations. Goddesses, empresses, that kind of thing. I wanted something that was very clear was a costume."

"Parties are wonderful for meeting people," Hannibal agreed. "I should have another myself. Perhaps for the next holiday - it centers around food," he confided.

He shook his head at the Innistradi. "Immortality is no excuse not to keep up with the times. Why not experiment and drive new fashions? See how far you can push it." Said the grinning man who usually matched plaids and paisleys. "But in any event, your outfit is lovely, and yes, very indicative of Earth royalty or mythology."

"I was talking to Detective Watts about having a small wine party or the like," Liliana said, "and you were on the list of people I knew I needed to mention that to. But tell me more about this food holiday." She paused to calculate the rough date, since the concept of 'October 31' meant nothing to her. "Ah. A harvesttide festival, then?"

"A wine party would be delightful," Hannibal agreed.

He nodded. "It's called Thanksgiving. Its origins are questionable, but yes, it's a harvest festival at its heart. A time for gathering with friends and family and eating a very large meal, with autumnal foods traditional."

"That sounds delicious," Liliana said. "I love holidays centered around meals. You find so many that are about religion, which is fascinating to learn about but dreadful to be subjected to."

Tilting her head, she asked, "When is this Thanksgiving in comparison to today? And to the Winter Solstice?"

"We're currently at the last day of October; Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November," Hannibal explained. "So, four weeks. The Winter Solstice is around the twenty-first of December. There's another major religious holiday just after that, and some minor ones for other religions around the same time. The focus is generally on winter-themed objects, presents, and rebirth."

Liliana nodded. "Dominaria's - my home plane - year is 420 days long, with twelve months of 35 days each," she explained. "So I'm trying to situate where we are in this plane's year roughly around the Argivian Reckoning." She winked at him. "My birthday is coming up it seems, and I'm trying to figure out when. The easiest way I've found to do that is figure out when the Winter Solstice is on a plane, if they have one, and then counting backwards a little less than a month. Well, 32 days."

Hannibal chuckled. "Always a good date to know. So, that would put it around the nineteenth of November, shortly before Thanksgiving. What are Dominaria's birthday traditions?"

"Is it?" Liliana nodded once. "The nineteenth. So Earth months are thirty days long?"

Because why wouldn't you have uniform-length months? Otherwise would just be ridiculous.

"Oh, celebrations and gifts and the like. For most, it's usually a small gathering of friends and families, for the nobility or royalty, it's great feasts throughout the land. I remember my brother's--" The barest pause, a slight inhalation of breath "--tenth birthday was quite the festival, or though it seemed to me."

"Similar to Earth, then," Hannibal noted. He noted that pause and said, all too casually, "My sister's final birthday was quite the production."

Then he shrugged. "Months in the predominant calendar are of varying length. November is thirty days; today is October 31st, and December will also have thirty-one. There are mnemonics to remember it, but if you're still learning the names of the months, the easiest thing to do will be to purchase a calendar."

Interestingly enough, that reply made Liliana twitch. Very slight and subtle, something most people likely wouldn't even have noticed.

But Hannibal was hardly most people.

"Well, who came up with that nonsense way of timekeeping?" Liliana asked with a laugh, definitely focusing on the calendar discussion for no real reason. "Does it follow some natural phenomenon? Or is there some other reason that you all didn't decide to keep your months tidy?"

Hannibal chuckled. "It's meant to be a lunisolar calendar. But it was also created centuries ago and hasn't been adjusted in some time.

"Roughly every other month has thirty or thirty-one days, and one month has twenty-eight three years in a row, and then twenty-nine on the fourth year, unless it's divisible by one hundred and not by four hundred," he added cheerfully.

Edited 2023-11-02 02:20 (UTC)

"Ah yes," Liliana drawled. "I do so love needing an abacus and a mnemonic in order to figure out the date. Perhaps I'll ask Detective Watts to have his wine party on the square root of the third week of the last month with thirty days."

Hannibal laughed. "It would make about as much sense as trying to figure out the date for Easter. That holiday's in Spring."

And actually probably made more sense, since it was lunar.

"You do get used to it, but I can't claim it makes much sense."

"I don't suppose it's a holiday based on figuring out the best time for planting or something and therefore it's a confusing date but it's at least based on something concrete like weather?" Liliana asked hopefully.

"You give religion too much credit," Hannibal said wryly. "It's the first Sunday after the first full moon closest to the date on which the equinox often - but not always - falls."

Welcome to Earth!

"Mmm, I look forward to being absolutely surprised by it when it comes around and putting in exactly no effort into knowing when the next one will occur," Liliana said with a laugh.

Hannibal joined her laughter. "You and many others. It's not a terribly interesting holiday at any rate, unless you follow its religion or are a child."

Look, Easter brunches weren't terribly interesting. Hannibal had his priorities.

"That's true of most holidays, I've found," Liliana noted wryly. "Once the wonder wanes and the obligations begin."

"True enough," Hannibal agreed. "Although some, such as this one," he gestured around the ballroom, "have found ways to keep the amusement going."

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Halloween Party, Creepy But Nowhere Near Abandoned Mansion, Tuesday Night

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