THE CHRISTMAS MINGLE YOUR PARENTS WARNED YOU ABOUT

[carpevinum]

At some point in the night, taking advantage of the perma-silence, Lucifer and a few others sneak about to decorate the dormitory for the holidays. The morning of 12/25, you'll wake up to the smell of Christmas cookies wafting from the dorm kitchen, and upon actually leaving your room, there are string lights and decorations thrown up in the hallways and the common room proper.

The decorating is, of course, courtesy of Nene, who has been working hard to ensure that there's something more beautiful than those ghoulish paintings on the walls here. You can thank Helena, Sidney, and Lucifer for both the cookies and other, more substantial food which will periodically be presented throughout the day — Lucifer practically lives in the kitchen for the duration of the party and can sometimes be seen shooing the other two out to go have fun. That said, the table housing all of these dishes, ranging from traditional Christmas meals (as best they can do with limited resources, anyway) to more ostentatious treats will never be empty, so please eat to your heart's content!

Thanks to Amami, there's a large, undecorated Christmas tree in the middle of the common room that looks to be very well taken care of. Next to it is a table full of art supplies for making colourful paper ornaments, and a small card lying nearby that instructs those participating to write down a wish on the ornament proper before hanging it on the tree. It may not come true, but you know it'll be safe since no mysterious forces set this up — wish away!

Should you come to spend time at the party and fraternize, you'll find that you're being waited on by a number of small little imps except they're all wearing tiny Santa hats — they'll bring you food and drinks and candy should you request it, and they're on their Best Behaviour, so please be nice to them! They are simply underpaid service workers. They're absolutely thrilled to talk to you in chirps and weird demonic chittering, and they understand what you're saying at least.

In the back corner of the room, there's a minute-to-win-it type game set up: two chairs are tied by the backs together by two ribbons, about two feet apart from one another. Nearby, there's a table of candycanes for use in this game. The goal of the game is to toss a candycane while standing on one of the chairs and get said candycane to catch on the ribbons, or to see who can get the most candycanes on a ribbon in a minute. The instructions are explained on a little card sitting nearby, with further note to not eat all of the candycanes (there are more set out on the food table, you see) so people can play, and another smaller note banning the use of magic against an opponent who doesn't have it. Let's keep the game fair, people. And let's thank Hikaru for running out to get an obnoxious amount of candycanes for everyone.

Lucifer will intermittently come join the festivities from time to time when he's not cooking, wearing this, please feel free to bully the demon for celebrating the holiday from the religion he hates. He can take it, it's okay.

Last but certainly not least, Noah is roaming about the party using his magic to try and liven the place up. Little stars hang from the ceiling around him in a ten-foot radius, and should you frown at all, he will come up to you and put cat ears formed of magic shadows on you until you laugh. On occasion, he can be seen slipping out of the party with cookies and stacking them on a plate in front of Komaeda's door. The stars go with him, but the good news is that Natsume is also helping with their little lightshow, so the twinkling indoor galaxies will not be absent for long. It's a joint effort between Clamor's apprentices, and their hard work really shows through, magic training is difficult after all. Feel free to bother either of them to do magic tricks for you, if you'd like, or just lie down under a curtain of stars.

The night promises to be magical (semi-literally), even if we're all stuck in purgatory, so relax, put your feet up, and sing Christmas carols to your heart's content. And don't worry about the cleanup — just try not to pass out on the floors.

[OOC: Merr Crimmus try not to kill each other, that is my only request, otherwise go buck wild]

Comments

[carpevinum]

As someone who used to stay up for days on end to get paperwork done and help the Prince of the Devildom get his life in order, I recognize that deathly tired look, unfortunately for you.

[It really is a wonder Shin isn't just a puddle of flesh on the ground, but good for him for making it this long. At the mention of stasis, Lucifer merely shakes his head; he's volunteered, and he's grouchy because he's in a lot of pain, but that doesn't mean he needs the pity.]

I believe holding those students in stasis is worth it, as we need as many people as possible to be able to escape the school. While the argument could be made that they could turn on our group at any moment and slaughter us en masse... [Lucifer leans back, a smirk playing on his lips,] I believe they owe us for saving their lives, and if I were them, I wouldn't cross the Devil.

[There are many motivations for saving those students. One of those is the obvious moral conundrum, one of them is for purgatory escape, and the last is simply insurance.]

[notsosou]

[Honestly it does feel like becoming a puddle of flesh on the ground is one good sneeze away.]

...Calculating of you.

[So that's how it is... he doesn't know why that's making his heart sink a little. Or rather he does know, but he's not sure why he's surprised and a little frustrated with himself that he is. Lucifer did kill five people here... Still, he's got his smile on top.]

That's a pretty big debt to hold over someone, huh?

[It honestly hadn't occurred to him until Lucifer put it like that, or rather, hadn't become stark. The idea of telling the eight he's responsible for that they owe him now because he saved their lives... doesn't feel great. At all.]

Slaughter en masse... you really think that's possible?

[It's not impossible, and now he's going to be thinking about it, but... it also doesn't make a lot of sense. Both for practical 'the Devil' reasons and also... do people hate the transfer students that much? They're not liked sure... But also just because gratitude feels weird to expect doesn't mean people are going to instantly try to kill someone who saved their life? Probably?

He doesn't know about the whole 'conscious-in-stasis' thing, or he might have had more protests at the time.]

[carpevinum]

[Lucifer simply doesn't understand why people want the literal devil to be good. Every human is equally as manipulative as every demon is; to say that he's somehow worse than humans is undeniably true, though he'd argue that there's a reason humans strive so hard to avoid "sin" and go to Heaven — it's simply because they're closer to devils than they are to angels. Really, Heaven is such a lofty goal to strive toward.

It's entertaining, if not annoying. Why change everything you are when you could simply be awful, hypocritical, cynical, and sinful?]

Owing a demon is one of the biggest debts of all, though I don't intend to collect in this case. I have no interest in it. My only interest is in keeping those I care for safe, as well as escaping this place with my head still on my shoulders. I'm sure you must share the sentiment.

[But, should those students turn on the transfers... well.]

I don't think that those students entirely have the will in them to kill us all, but let's just say we had a... bad experience with a non-transfer once. I simply don't feel like risking it again.

[Clamor, he means. The student who killed Clamor and bodyjacked him clearly wasn't among the transfer students, or they would've known someone was gone. That's how Lucifer sees it, at least. He could be wrong.]

Insurance is important in a place like this, after all.

[notsosou]

[If it helps, Shin's got a fairly cynical view of humanity itself despite the cracks running through it now, created by injury. The strong and callous taking advantage of the weak and kind who place their faith in them... it's not as clear cut for him anymore, a confused mess when the clearly delineated categories blur, but it lingers, still. He doesn't like this. He doesn't want the world to be this way. He wants to be proven wrong, prove himself wrong, because he doesn't want people to share his experiences. And he has been, even as he's also been proven right.

For Shin, it's not so much that Lucifer's the Devil so much as he holds power over others. That's clear even beyond the imps.]

Mm. Suppose it is...

[His thought runs along the same lines - that was one student, so it's hard to say if that extrapolates out to a massacre. Shin's got some complex feelings on Redacted, but they can boil down to the same self-loathing he has for himself.]

The non-transfers... they tend to leave us alone, apart from that. [A good thing, Shin thinks sometimes, when he watches the roster shift and change with background murder.] We've been killing each other more, haven't we? I'd say we're our own worst dangers, ahaha.

[You're more likely to die to someone you know than a stranger, after all... Ugh, he doesn't like thinking about this.]

Keeping people you care for safe, huh...

[Lucifer's right, he does share the sentiment, down to the two motivations. It's like being in the now-defunct Ethics Club all over again.]

[carpevinum]

Indeed, we seem to be. I've been alive too long to simply put faith into either group, however.

[Call him a cynical old man, a haughty know-it-all, whatever — Lucifer firmly believes certain things to be true. He trusted his Father and was betrayed, he trusted Belphegor to not go off the string and then Belphegor turned around and murdered someone close to Lucifer (they got better — but still), he trusted Michael to have his back, he trusted that Minato and Elizabeth wouldn't turn on him, that no one would kill someone he loved again, trust and trust and trust. In the end, to him, the person that was wrong was himself — himself for not controlling the situations he was in more, himself for thinking others would be reliable.

Contradicting that, Lucifer also thinks he can trust certain people, like Clamor and Sidney and Shin, who he's talking to now, and that's because of people who have shown him that not everyone stands against him. It's a vicious cycle. On one hand, Lucifer would like to think that existence is simplified by thinking that everyone in the world stands against him and those few he cares for. On the other, existence is far less lonely if he risks putting faith into others.

Sigh. He's been around mortals too long; gotten soft for them. And maybe that's alright.]

I've lost people I've cared deeply for before coming here. [Lucifer's smile is bitter and sad.] Clamor was not the first. My Father is the reason my sister is dead. You could say avoiding further losses in my life is my number one priority.

[And yet he would cause a billion other people to lose if it meant his chosen people got to live on. Isn't it funny, how human that mentality is?]