WEI WUXIAN CATCHALL

[chaoticlootral]

Comments

WEEK 0 - POST EXECUTION

[chaoticlootral]

[Hey, no matter what horrible creation Wei Wuxian is cooking up this time, Taako is trying to cook at exactly the same time, and being . . . a huge bitch about it. Just constantly getting in his way, moving his own ingredients between his, constantly trying to get him to move because he's busily baking himself.

This time he's got a whole tray of cookies and is walking way too close behind him.]

Behind you! Again.

[givethemhell]

[For better or for worse, Wei Wuxian is the kind of easygoing fool who's incredibly hard to ruffle barring very specific circumstances, so he's just BEEN HERE SUFFERING THROUGH THIS NONSENSE, NONSTOP, with just laughing apologies and "it's fine"s and "oh, sure!"s. To be fair though, Taako is doing the rest of the hotel a great favor by making it harder for him to finish making his-- unfortunate... fire-engine red pot of... soup(???) here.

But you know what!! After he walks by way too close probably for the umpteenth time, Wei Wuxian just abandons his soup for the time being, carrying the ladle and following after Taako like an obnoxious mosquito.]

For someone who has such a hard time moving in confined quarters, it doesn't affect your cooking at all! Those still smell quite good. I should get to try one since I've been here from the start.

[Reward him for his patience!!]

[chaoticlootral]

[He just won't take a hint that he should A) stop making that horrible soup (every time Taako has passed it, he's also been muttering suggestions, such as to use less of a particular spice, or add more salt, but never actually saying this loud enough to be helpful . . . and B) that Taako apparently wants to be alone to stress-bake.

He pauses this time, when he's followed, whipping around and narrowing his eyes. Apparently not in a very good mood? The cookies do probably look worth dealing with this bullshit though.]

I'm a professional. I'm used to working in whatever conditions I can tolerate, you know?

[givethemhell]

[Hm, yes. Yes, he will put himself in the line of fire for these cookies. Though he will say, bluntly and like a punk:]

If you wanted better conditions, you should have asked directly! [Use your words, Taako!! He skirts back a bit though, doing a little pivot so he can shake his ladle free of Hellish Spice in the sink.] I wouldn't have minded moving out of the way if you had. But I am hungry too, you know - I'm not trying to make your time here difficult because I think it's funny.

[This is the one and only time he'll ever say this and actually mean it... Though he hadn't been particularly rattled over the execution (if anything, he was scrutinizing the entire scene like a bio student watching a lecture, good lord), he's not so emotionally dense as to intentionally be inflammatory after they unleashed The Demon, Thot™, and also lost four members to the void and NPC heaven, respectively.]

WEEK 1 - POST TRIAL

[chaoticlootral]

[Taako can easily be found in the Kitchen. Like a lot of other times. But he's not actually cooking at the moment, just . . . sadly examining the sad state of the oven. If his Gremlin cohort happens to walk in, he'll mostly be muttering angrily to himself.]

Break my fucking oven. Steal all my fucking knives. Use all the fucking cooking oil.

[givethemhell]

Annoying one, isn't it? Haha, it's been a long time since I've run into something like this.

[BAD BAD DEMONS... But he'll helpfully wander on in the rest of the way - he'd just been planning to swing by for a snack first - and stand in front of the oven with his hands on his hips.]

It should go back to the way it was before at least, shouldn't it?

[chaoticlootral]

Probably, but the demon hands all over it . . . really gonna add some nasty flavor to whatever gets cooked in there, you know? Little bit of infernal aftertaste on the back of the tongue.

[Turning to him, just looking over his shoulder.]

Should I steal the rest of the knives? If you lot are going to take them all, I want to make sure I have enough to actually work with here.

[givethemhell]

[This is where he'd normally offer to purify it just as a precaution, but he's still too sore and pissed about his protection attempts not working in the least, so he just laughs.]

Guess we'll have to cook on the top, then. --And to be honest, if anyone's going to take the rest, it might as well be you. At least then we'd still get good food first even if you were to get possessed and stab someone later.

[There's a little heavy edge clinging to his usual shitpunk jest, though, that indicates some of the agitation and tension he's hiding quite well otherwise.]

week 2 post trial

[givethemhell]

[Is it time for Stress Cooking In The Local Murder Kitchen already?? SURE IS. Today, Wei Wuxian is already working on something - Taako will probably recognize it as the soup he'd taught him to make earlier. He's left plenty of room, though, only taking up one burner and a small portion of counter space because--]

—Figured you might want to make something, too.

[Or at least just have a space to chill in a familiar room, maybe.]

[chaoticlootral]

[He'd wandered in here, because at this point, he just sort of expects to find Wei Wuxian in here? It's almost comforting that this same dude is sharing the space like always. Though . . . he looks at the empty counter, and simply shrugs.]

I don't know what to make.

[givethemhell]

[When gremlins find a home, they just keep returning to it...

He glances up and over at that, though, curiously canting his head to the side. It's not like his opinion was asked for, but after a second of consideration:]

Something sweet? Something with fruit, maybe - apples, if you can.

[chaoticlootral]

Apples. Apples apples apples-- I can do that.

[Going around, collecting his ingredient then. Butter, flour, sugar-- obviously apples.]

You like apples then? My aunt used to make this one.

week 3!

[givethemhell]

[DAY UP TO YOU my pc timelines are just a hot mess of confused scribbles

But it's the next time they happen to be sharing the kitchen, which is just apparently what they do now! Things are going pretty well, all things considered. No fires, no puffs of extremely dangerous spice powders drifting into anyone's eyes - a nice, normal time just cooking normal things.

Except then Wei Wuxian opens the oven to make sure no one's left anything inside before he starts to preheat the oven and he just jerks back in mild surprise.]

Oh—!! Oh?! Oh... [What a wild ride of emotions?? If Taako peers in, he'll see someone appears to have left some kind of book on the top rack... A really nasty one, at that - covered in dirt and blood stains, the pages all torn around the edges. Gross.]

[chaoticlootral]

Is someone leaving fuckin' murder junk in my kitchen again?

[Coming into the kitchen anyway despite his better judgment, so now he's in the MEMORY SHOCK ZONE. Hit him. Hit him!!!!]

[givethemhell]

Oh no, this is mine—

[HE SAYS IN DESPAIR because by now he knows what's coming - the compulsion to pick the book up! His hand is already moving before he can even think to stop it, though of course, as soon as his fingers touch it it's poofing into dust and HERE COMES THE BARRIER.

Taako also immediately wakes up somewhere else...!]

[chaoticlootral]

[There's not much of a breather before you're being ripped out of that cold, dirty, bloody room to here.

It’s bright in here.

Too bright. Neon. You’re exhausted, you can feel sticky blood not quite dried around your stomach, but the end seems so close now. You’ve just owned that catwalk, unlike the other two you’re with. An older dwarf - Merle - and a tall, muscular human man. Magnus Burnsides. So named for the impressive sideburns? You don’t know why you’re thinking this. You already know all this. You’ve known them for at least a year now.

Around you, down the catwalk you see the audience. Mannequins, blank wooden faces, all staring and posed to point at you.

One of the two elves standing at the end (you recognize them, obviously, as your tormentors here in The Suffering Game) continues to speak. They’ve been giving you their dumb villain speech. Until,

“Magnus, you landed on skull in the last round, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Bad luck.”

And then you hear the Animus Bell ring. And just like all the other grand relics you’ve seen used during your journey, the effects are immediate and horrible.

You see Magnus reel backwards, threatening to just fall straight back, and a light casts out of the back of his body for just the briefest moment as he falls. And then you see him spasm, and come to, and he throws a leg back to catch himself before he fully loses his balance. And he steadies himself on Rail-Splitter.

And he stands up to face you, and he says, in a voice familiar but not quite his own, “You know, boys, I don’t think Wonderland’s that bad. You know, I feel like I’ve learned a lot about myself here, and I feel like our friendship has grown even more powerful, don’t you think?”

You feel immediately sick. Angry. Bad luck.

He and Merle are saying other things. The imposter is trying to convince you to . . . what? You don't care right now. A brief argument, maybe, but you aren’t paying any attention. You’re thinking too fast, going through lists of spells in your mind, trying to think of anything— you know somethings wrong, something terrible has just happened, how the fuck do you fix it this time and then. Ah.

“I got a fuckin’ idea for ya.” Your own voice sounds so tight and serious, unlike you.

And then, you cast Magic Jar. It goes dark, cold, extremely suddenly as you rip your own soul out of your body - which you can now see abandoned like a rag doll on the floor - but there's no time to think about it. You see the hole in the Astral Plane, with all the chill of Death seeping out of it and the great ocean of souls beyond whipped into a frenzy, sucking you in. Sucking Magnus in. His soul. You think you even catch a glimpse of-- no. Couldn't be him, right? Fuck that. Fuck this place. Fuck the bastards who keep trying to take things from you.

He's yours, your friend, and you're going to take him back. You take his hands, and as you do you feel around your (spectral) ankles, a sensation of being pulled back to the Material Plane - a comforting force - and it’s Merle, casting a spell to drag you both back out of the gates of actual Hell. Arms outstretched.

And then, as you come to - feeling suddenly solid and heavy and extremely corporeal again in your body, you look and next to you, wearing a plate of fashionable elven scale-mail, you see one of the mannequins has climbed onto the catwalk. The thing wearing Magnus' body turns to look, shocked, stumbling out a what before suddenly, the mannequin points (with . . . whatever hands it has), and it shouts out in a familiar voice.

”I’ll be having my body back, you undead fuck!”

And you feel the grin break out the instant you hear it.]

w3 post trial

[givethemhell]

[Kitchen time? KITCHEN TIME. There's a demon on the loose still, but surely that's... okay... Haha. Right?? Right.

Well anyway, he's here at least, and he's making another batch of soup because that's the only thing he can make that he knows people really enjoy. Whenever Taako moseys in:]

Still up for helping?

[chaoticlootral]

[ KITCHEN TIME. Taako simply nods, moving over to help - and by help, I mean mostly be a rude jerk and taking over the cooking from him without asking.]

I did say I would. [Pause.] I think? I did, right?

[givethemhell]

[WORKS FOR HIM. He'll step out of the way, though he hovers nearby in case he gets called upon to do Kitchen Serf stuff.]

You did, yes! But considering we still have at least one possessed person running around, I wanted to give you the chance to back out if you wished to.

w4 tuesday 4pm, the... kitchen......

[givethemhell]

[me still touching the ground loudly

BUT. HE'S HERE. IN THE KITCHEN. He's not really cooking anything in particular for the moment though, instead just looking at something on his clamshell (one guess as to what it is) and snacking on some apple slices he's cut up for himself.

Whenever Taako happens to meander in, he'll just hold one up and out toward him!]

—Hungry? This one's not sour at all.

[Why has he been getting sour apples...]

cursed things reside here, turn back

[chaoticlootral]

[Snatching it, then shoving it in his mouth, just like any proper gremlin. Then, with his mouth full:]

Why have you been getting sour apples?

[Also hope that wasn't poisoned, but whatever. Too late now! He accepts death.]

too late for everyone but them

[givethemhell]

[It's just a perfectly delicious apple! He plucks up another slice to take a bite from, and then glances at it...]

I'd like to know that, too! Bad luck, maybe? Karma for saying watermelons are the superior fruit? I'd take it back but then I'd just end up getting a bunch of flavorless melons and that would be even worse.

[They need watermelons more than apples right now anyway EVERYONE'S GOTTA STAY HYDRATED.]

w4 post trial

[givethemhell]

[What do we get when two people with low emotional competence transform and roll out...!

Wei Wuxian might get to the kitchen after Taako today, in any case - he all but vanishes for a solid 20 or so minutes after trial, and when he gets to the kitchen door he just stands there because BLOOD.]

...This seems like it might be a little bit unsanitary?

[BUT HE HAS A DUTY.]

[chaoticlootral]

[HE LOOKS . . . ILL. Taako's been doing nothing but standing outside the kitchen, looking at the blood, trying to decide what to do.]

. . . It's nasty.

[givethemhell]

This is going to get in the way of our plans a bit, isn't it.

[IT HAD BETTER?? He still looks a little disappointed, though.]

Maybe we can just grab things from those stands downstairs?