i know it's just a number but you're the eighth wonder [ OPEN MINGLE ]

[postictal]

Who: Tim and EVERYBODY WHO WANTS IN ON THIS CAUSE IT A MINGLE
What: Nail-painting. Destressing. We have earned something Nice for ourselves.
When: February 12th
Where: Just outside the Storyteller's Temple
Warnings: Probably nothing of note? Will add if needed.



There's a man sitting cross-legged outside the Storyteller's Temple, general hub of interaction that it seems to be turning into. He still looks like shit, granted, his face a colorful patchwork of bruising and a fresh bandage slapped around his middle, but that hasn't stopped him from making the best of things. A few vials of some various colorful fluids might not be familiar to everyone here, but after everything? Screw it, thinks Tim. They've deserved a break. He deserves a break. The kids here, especially, deserve a break. It's time to celebrate the fact that they are no longer in danger of freezing in the dark and living out the remainder of their days in a bleak, sunless existence.

And he liked colors, as a kid. In the blank white walls of a hospital, where everything was drained of variation and bleached white and left bone-blank, the occasional bursts of color allowed in packages of crayons and colored pencils at art time were treasures. They stopped giving him crayons after he drew the man in his room one too many times, a tall black shadow in the back of every drawing that had the doctors exchanging looks with tightened jaws and the clearing of throats that too clearly spoke to their disapproval.

It dogged him, even once he stepped out of those empty walls, his wardrobe as consistently drab and dull and monochrome as his life. It dogged him with featureless rooms and

Fuck that.

Fuck that especially, because it means that kids like Ren grew up without colors in their lives, and it means that they've had precious few simple little pleasures in the past month, and it means that they are all owed a goddamn break. And if he's bound to be a freak no matter what he does, he may as well be one with a spot of color or two.

So today, to celebrate? We're painting nails.

Fuck it. We're painting nails.

It's safe to say that Tim's new at this, particularly when he only has one good hand at the moment, but he'll still seem quite open to sharing with whoever happens along - especially if you're a kid.

[ooc: yes this is a mingle for painting some nails feel free to top-level all over]

Comments

[postictal]

"I was too busy spending the rest on fireworks." And also waterproofing material for his nascent structure on Ensō, but that's not something he's necessarily advertising. If people stumble across it, fine. He's not here to make it a Thing just yet, until he knows that he actually has the requisite capacities and materials to make it so.

Fireworks and nail polish. Those are things that kids enjoy in the Tim Wright perspective of the world. Makes sense, right? Absolutely.

[ohshitsweetflips]

That gets an eyebrow raise. "Fireworks, huh? Lup put you up to that?" Taako is well within his rights to make that guess. "Is that uh, is that act two for this shindig or have you got something else planned?" The switch has flipped, from casual snark to an offer of conspiracy.

[postictal]

"Set 'em off back on Chol already. Sorry." He doesn't quite sound sheepish at that one, but it's a near thing. It had been a short-lived burst of inspiration, but at least he's gotten confirmation that they were something of a hit - among the kids and the, uh, slightly older kids, both.

Look. In his defense -

"Ren said she'd never seen fireworks, so...y'know. Figured she should see 'em."

[ohshitsweetflips]

"Ahh, yeah, that tracks," he says, with a sage nod. Ren's edification is a perfect excuse for all kinds of shenanigans, ill-advised, explosive, or otherwise. And that's absolutely all it is, an exceptionally sturdy alibi and Ren singing about food he's cooked has definitely never added years to his life.

"Good thinking. Her world sounds like kind of a bummer." A moment of-- consideration, maybe? "What about a light blue?"

[postictal]

"...for, for nails, or for the fireworks? 'Cause they didn't come in blue. The fireworks. I mean..." The polish, however, does come in light blue. He fishes out a periwinkle-shade, turning the vial this way and that contemplatively before offering it out.

"Something a little like this, maybe?"

[ohshitsweetflips]

See now is that, is that the sarcastic kind of conversational meandering, or the legitimate kind? Taako doesn't know, even as an expert in both, but it's maybe a glimpse behind the curtain either way. He takes the nail polish. Is he supposed to, or just approve the choice? Too bad.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's--you want something bright and simple." He doesn't explain any further. It's not like they've got all day to spend on color theory, here. "Unless you wanna go all out?" Is that a challenge?

[postictal]

"Wait, so - are we painting your nails or mine?" This has not been made clear to him. He's not sure who among this mingling party of wayward souls is actually interested in self-decoration, but he's learned not to simply make assumptions. It's, uh, safer, he's pretty sure, if he doesn't.

Help him.