DECEMBER 2ND, birthday armageddon action mingle

[parodeity]

So, anyone in the entertainment room area come December 2nd will be subjected to a ridiculous clash of colors and decorations. While the only advertisement was word-of-mouth, it's a six-way birthday party although none of the guests of honor seem to care if people actually celebrate their birthdays; it's possible to just come by for cake and/or random hangouts. The room seems to be divvied up into six pie slices with decorations, with a table in the middle with six cakes. The slices are kind of variable but easy enough to match up to their respective "owner": Jade's is neon green paired with white decoration-wise and seems to mostly be dog themed, although there's also more glitter in her slice than anywhere else; Jake's is less neon green paired with black and the collective Dave-and-Rose decoration committee apparently decided skulls was as good a theme as anything; Dave's is red and black and records although also just really dumb sbahj drawings which tbh have infected the other slices aside from Rose's; Dirk's is orange-and-white and robots; Rose's is purple-and-black and wizards and octopi; Roxy's is pink-and-white and cats and wizards. None of the decorations really seem intended to mesh with any other slices' decorations at all?

The cakes are equally mismatched, although some of them work together. Jade got a Bec-head shaped cake; Jake got another...skull...THEY TRIED, OKAY JAKE; Dave elected himself for hella jeff; Dirk got assigned sweet bro because Rose couldn't convince Dave to Not; Rose herself got a very disturbing octopus tentacle thing, what the fuck Rose; and Roxy got a cat.

There are like six pinatas in various colors and some party games and a movie marathon that seems to have literally no theme beyond being chosen by Dave and Rose and therefore the theme might actually be "what movie will annoy my sibling most" back and forth. So there's. Just a super variety of stuff there. And there's music which Dave seems to have been in control of, although most of it is lowkey so that's nice???

Sorry if you wanted to do something in this room related to not this hot mess today, BUT AT LEAST THEY'RE NOT DOING SIX SEPARATE PARTIES??? Also there are party hats in the colors of each slice (with a dumb paper crown in slice colors for each birthday kid) so pick your poison. There's a generic and very messy "HAPPY 17TH BIRTHDAY" banner so apparently it's just. 6 17s? Nice.

Comments

[splinten]

[Dirk comes over to Dave and holds out a comically large birthday box to Dave. It is lightweight. The first box has a tinier box inside it, but that box actually just has an ironic 'Amazon' package box inside it, and inside of the Amazon package is a very large version of those capsules you get toys from in coin machines.

But the capsule clearly has what to all appearances is a very nice looking book with a fancy cover. The pages are even still uncut. Amazing! There's gold leafing! What is this shit!

Dave will have to find out when he gets there.]

[parodeity]

[ dirk why the fuck did you make this so complicated?

dave will swap him a much smaller package, in which is just a flash drive with some tape around the handle. on the tape in dave's spiky handwriting is just dirk's name. it's nicely wrapped only because rose...helped him wrap shit (rose's own present is therefore terribly wrapped). ]

Is your present to me the present of opening a thousand things?

[ also that flashdrive has a variety of songs on it, though none of them should sound familiar - that is, they're original. however, all the instruments and vocals might sound more familiar. dave got everyone to record shit for him separately "for fun" and combined everything into tracks from there without explaining at all that he was manipulating them into birthday presents. among the instrumentals are distaction, conversation, vacation, aggrieveation, heart. there's a few raps and whatever in there too, and in addition to persuading rose to violin it up for him he got jake to agree to do some vocals???

so like

enjoy that ]

[splinten]

Would you reject that present?

[Dirk... doesn't open the package. He just holds it like a loser. Because Dave clearly gets freaked out when Dirk has too many Emotions about presents so he'll not do it.

The fancy book, of course, is a luxe edition of the Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff comics, including Dave's Subnautica additions (the Papyrus comic). Reading it through chronologically may help Dave realize exactly what happened here. Dirk started writing in the margins with all of his thoughts, like talking about the different ways things work. This breaks off by the Stairs comic into a huge philosophical tangent, and in the margins of the church comic Dirk actually has a footnote talking about how he knows Dave’s process is totally careless and ridiculous and all of Dirk’s readings are giving it a depth that Dave never intended for it, but for Dirk that’s part of the particular fun of these specific comics Dave made and he’s really grateful that he has the chance to give his wild interpretations back to Dave

Of course, by that point, Dave could be excused for missing the note. After all, several comics have been covered in postnotes with Dirk's theories. The nancho comic has a URL (or whatever we have on the base) written in the margin that will lead Dave to a weird, vaguely nacho/nacho fifteen minute long Theatre of the Absurd audio piece that Dirk recorded in his own voice. The nancho falls forever, Dave.

There is also an insert page that contains two fanfics: one that is lavelled "SFW" and is just about Peaches and Geromy having a normal day, and a second version by the same title labelled "NSFW" and sealed with a note that you must be 18 or older to read it. Opening this will allow Dave to read I can't believe you actually opened this. And that's all. There is QR code in the middle that will lead Dave to a Dramatic Reenactment of the DISTACTION comic with Dirk and Wiz. The video quality is pristine, but the costumes somehow are peggy. Wiz is Jeff.

Finally, there is a map. This map will lead Dave across the island where he will find a small tree house built near the edge of a mountain. Inside this tree house is an art installation of “Sweet Bro, Hella Jeff, and the New Friend Geromy” as coral in a case, but mostly they just look like dicks, except for the Geromy coral that actually looks like Geromy.]

[parodeity]

Obviously not? Although apparently you would.

[ open your present, dirk????? dave is clearly waiting???????

when he finally his the book he obviously cannot. read all of this in one sitting what the fuck dirk??? well he CAN, but he'd have to time stop and it will probably take him until tomorrow to follow the map. for the moment, however, his immediate reaction to opening the book and seeing his own comic is the immediate uptick of the right corner of his lips.

at the very least one of them is used to gifts at this point, or more accurately dave is used to dirk throwing random shit at him and so he's pretty relaxed about getting a present, even as he flips through the pages, scanning the notes.

yeah, he's gonna have to stay up reading this all???? ]

[splinten]

[He has to watch Dave open his first? The uptick is enough and Dirk will wait on the rest. Because, you know, he assumes Dave will have to take a while to read it instead of doing it in looped time. What an idiot Dirk is.]

You sure you want me to open this one in front of you? Referencing back to your aversion to remaining in my presence after certain objects are passed to my person, based on unfounded assumptions about what I'm about to do next.

[He was Not going to cry.]

[parodeity]

If it's unfounded it's fine, right?

[ YEAH. DAVE IS DEFINITELY GONNA HAVE SEEN EVERYTHING BY THE END OF THE NIGHT, CHRONOLOGICALLY, FOR EVERYONE ELSE. COME ON DIRK? ]

It's not as impressive as like, this, [ the book ] so you shouldn't, uh, be overwhelmed? Thanks, btw.

[ he won't say "happy birthday" until tomorrow when he doubtless is gonna make a point to say so at like. 12:01 am. ]

[splinten]

That isn't really impressive.

[Dirk's first mistake was thinking Dave wouldn't run off and abuse his powers to play with his present. Dave's first mistake was thinking Dirk could take a compliment.

But fine, he will open the present. And it is a flashdrive! He looks back up from it at Dave although, shades, is that even visible. But still.]

Can I check it out now?

[parodeity]

You made me a book? That's impressive.

[ are they gonna argue about this... ]

Uh. Yes? Or you can just hold it and look dumb, I mean, the ball is entirely in your lane.

[splinten]

[The only thing worse than Dave's malapropism is Dirk assuming it's right.]

Okay. I'll, uh, do that.

[So good at this. He pulls out one of his extra tech things and hooks it up and pulls up the files. Distaction comes first for the obvious reasons. He listens for a bit, and then...]

And orchestrating, on a literal and figurative level, some jams isn't impressive. Dude. This is awesome.

[Dirk loves it already.]

[parodeity]

[ someone save them from sports terms. despite saying he was okay with and wanted dirk to open the present, dave hooks his hands into his back pockets and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. ]

It's not really a big deal, I just kinda threw 'em together. Gettin' you not to ask questions was the only hard part. [ like that's a full on lie? he absolutely thought about these a lot and they're composed on the themes they're named for and it's possibly the clearest dave's ever been at the outset on feelings.

...by...turning them into music?

thanks dave you're useless ]

[splinten]

Don't be an ass, these are awesome and took a lot of work.

[So, let him hug you? Because he's gonna. Can't Abscond.]

Thanks.

[parodeity]

[ okay but dirk isn't crying so this is okay and dave will - well he stands there for a moment awkwardly because dirk HUGGED HIM while his hands were in his back pockets so he has to struggle for a second to like, untangle himself so he can hug back, but.

clearly dirk has not deciphered any deep meaning into the songs if he's just enthusiastic, probably, so dave relaxes. ]

You're welcome. I thought it'd be...nice?

[splinten]

[He has only had them for about two minutes and listened to five seconds, and unlike some people he cannot LOOP OUT LITERAL HOURS to analyse the music.]

Dude, it's great. If I'm right in assumin' you made these for all the others too, I know we're all gonna love them.

[parodeity]

[ DAVE WILL THINK HE'S SAFE RIGHT UP UNTIL DIRK CORNERS HIM ABOUT FEELINGS, OKAY, IF THAT EVER HAPPEN ]

Yep. They can share their tracks with you if they want, but otherwise...

[ apparently he won't be sending dirk those tracks? ]

[splinten]

I figured.

[He does actually half pull out of the hug. It's only half because he has an arm around Dave's shoulders.]

Do you want me with you when I listen to them or should I do it out of your presence?

[parodeity]

Uh. [ sHIT DON'T ASK HARD QUESTIONS ] I mean, you can listen to them whenever? No need to wait around on me. I'm sure you'll tell me what you think eventually.

[ super casually said which means it probably isn't casual??? who knows. ]

[splinten]

[Dirk senses this. So he clarifies his question. He is merciless.]

Yes. But I'm asking for your preference.

[parodeity]

My preference in this is whatever yours is?

[ dave please. ]

But uh, you can listen to the rest on your own time. Otherwise I am just like, awkwardly standing there waiting for judgement I guess?

[splinten]

Sounds good to me.

[He holds his fist out for a bump.]

Love you, bro.

[parodeity]

[ that much dave can do, immediately fistbumping. now he is FREE!!! from discussions about feelings unless anyone cracks the codes to these tracks. (rose literally has a track named "three" which is meant to be about three specific words, like. idk. I LOVE YOU.

someone save dave strider from himself) ]

Love you, too. D'you like the decorations?

[splinten]

[They're gonna work it out you dumb child. But for the moment, Dave is temporarily not going to be forced to confront the fact that he has feelings and they all know it.]

The only thing more ridiculous than each individual section is the multicoloured atrocity that they make together.

I fuckin' love them.

[parodeity]

Rose figured as long as everyone had their own cakes and party hats and pinatas no one would get upset?

[ it is up in the air which of them decided pie slices of colors/decor was a good idea, though. ]

[splinten]

My impression of our group is that everyone would feel pretty happy just from getting to celebrate a birthday party in the manner of relatively normal people.

[You know, being isolated children and all that. It's not like even most of the Beta side of this affair got to have many proper birthday parties in the past.]

Honestly didn't expect pinatas to come into it. We should tag-team one.

[Why??? Because.]

[parodeity]

Sure. You're pretty much the only person I trust not to accidentally hit me while we're both blindfolded.

[ since he assumes dirk can just listen for where he is? ]

[splinten]

[This is true, Dirk absolutely would.]

I'm sure Rose wouldn't hit you on accident.