lucetilogs | The Cultural Fair!

The Cultural Fair!

Who: Everyone's invited!
What: The Cultural Fair
When: June 5th- 12th - admittedly dates are sort of nebulous - set up could have begun as early as the 5th, but given the event recently, more days could have been taken to do it and for people to involve themselves, so it probably "officially" starts a little later (by the 8th at the very least, though work can go on throughout it) - feel free to use your judgement/have fun!
Where: All around the town square!
Summary: Here.
Rating: ... who knows?!

Notes: Booths can be labeled as separate comments! Just put [booth name] or something in the subject line so people can find top level comments easier.

Work probably started for it on the 5th-7/8th for labor purposes, though feel free to use dates to your advantage here! (Even if characters slapdash something at the last minute, it would be fun to see! It would even be encouraged after the crazy from the last event - kind of a way to get back in touch with themselves.)

CHARACTERS ARE WELCOME TO TAG THE LOG FOR INTERACTING WITH OTHERS, NOT JUST BOOTHS, SO FEEL FREE TO TAG IN! Also a character who might not know what's going on is welcome to walk by and question it! And so forth. (Helios and Ikki made posts in regard to it and there have been art club posters around, so anyone could have noticed those as well!)

I'll leave descriptions up to you all as there isn't much that is too uniform about the displays, as everyone is encouraged to be creative about their presentations and how hard the characters worked isn't something I could define for each of you. Just keep in mind that this takes place in the plaza, there shouldn't be an issue with blocking traffic (there may be ropes up to try and keep pathways clear, however!), though it may branch around various points of the square depending on where someone wants a booth located / the number of actual participants. The square will also have a lot of brightly colored signs and decorations indicating what is going on!

For ideas/reference on how it was handled last time, feel free to look through here! There's no official signup, so go forth!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It's really hard to find the right words when she finds Loki's booth. Pepper honestly has to wonder if there's anything that's not meant to be an insult in some fashion--particularly the throne.]

So this represents what Asgard is like?

[Loki smirks.]

A true and complete portrait.

[Pepper shakes her head slowly as she traces her fingers over the pile of cotton balls supplied for beard building. In truth it’s simply a safer place to direct her gaze than Loki’s self-appointed seat.]

You never answered my question.

His eyebrows went up. "What question?"

“The one I asked you at the gallery.” And then she gave a pointed look at the throne he sat upon. “Do you still think it was necessary?”

"If you asked that, I did not hear it." Loki shrugged, then kicked one foot out lightly. "Knowing the circumstances and strategies leading up to it? Yes. Though perhaps I might have a slightly different intended result now. I haven't decided."

Because he’s deaf and Pepper could have kicked herself for forgetting. She’d asked when his back had been turned, so of course he hadn’t heard. She bit back a sigh, however, because now she was getting her answer—and it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

“What do you mean? What would you have changed?” Somehow she doubted it would be anything that would meet her satisfaction. Loki didn’t know the extent of the damage he’d done, how it still bled into their lives even half a year later. And more importantly, Pepper didn’t think he truly cared.

"I haven't decided," he repeated. "Though second guessing is a losing prospect, always. The past does not change, and the circumstances are what they are. That is the clay that one must work so to speak, yes? There are many ways, but none of them lead backwards."

He straightened a little on the throne, then leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "The real question is always the ultimate goal and how to arrange everything so all paths will lead to that result." He tilted his head. "Why is such a meaningless question so important to you?"

“Because it isn’t meaningless.”

And that Loki thought as much spoke volumes toward the answer Pepper had been seeking. No, no one could go back and undo what had been done. But they could regret it, or attempt to make some sort of amends. They could care that their actions did such great harm to relationships and lives, that a person couldn’t even look at someone without feeling fear. They could realize how wrong that was.

Something like that could define a person. So could the lack thereof.

“Why haven’t you decided?”

"It is the definition of meaningless. Once the event horizon has been crossed, looking back produces only madness. The past is immutable and nothing can change it, fix it, or heal it. To pretend otherwise is the hope of a desperate child."

Because he could still wish, sometimes, that things had gone differently in Asgard. But those decisions had mostly not been his, had been set in motion before he could even talk, when he'd thought the world soft and warm and loving.

Only that would mean returning to a place where he was a lie someone else had created. Never.

Loki flicked his fingers as if to shoo the point away, then sat back. He shrugged. "I'm considering what it is I want. And with the added benefit of being entirely alone in my own head now."

"You're wrong. Even if it can't be changed or fixed, it can be forgiven--if a person attempts to make amends." And in her mind it wasn't desperate children who thought that way, but much wiser people. While Loki may try to dismiss it, Pepper truly believed in that.

"You mean without Twila. You were one of the ones it possessed, right?" She'd heard that somewhere along the way. In Tony's case, the spirit had given him certainty, and her head tilted slightly to one side. "What did it give you?"

He chuckled lowly. "Oh Lady Potts. We do not forgive. And we never forget."

He would never do either for Odin or Thor. And he knew from long experience that forgiveness was a thing never offered to Loki; that was fine. He didn't want it anyway. To want forgiveness was to admit that he wanted anything at all from them but vengeance.

"Oh, I was possessed. But Twila is not what I meant at all."

Edited 2013-06-19 23:36 (UTC)

There was something so dangerous in how he proclaimed that. Loki’s animosity not only remained, but thrived. That much seemed clear to her, and she silently wondered just what those choices were he wavered between.

“Then what did you mean?” If not Twila, then what else had inhabited Loki’s mind that wasn’t there any longer? But it wasn’t the only question she’d posed, and the fact that Loki left one unanswered didn’t go missed. “And what did it offer you?”

"Ask Barton of the Tesseract. She sings a lovely tune." He smiled thinly. "Clarity, Lady Potts."

"Wait...isn't that what you used to control him?" An energy source that could do so much more, or so she'd gathered. Pepper narrowed her eyes at Loki, trying to understand what he was implying. "Are you saying you were being controlled too?"

"Aye, some tiny speck of her power went to that." He shrugged. "I don't get controlled by things, Lady Potts. I am not so weak as that. They simply ride about in my head and make it difficult for me to hear myself think."

It's a point of pride for him, even if it's not necessarily true. He isn't going to claim something wasn't his fault because he was to weak to control his own actions. Though in the case of the Tesseract he was in control of himself. What might have subtly been twisting his butting was not a discussion he'd entertain, because it made him feel entirely too helpless.

And he had come up with the broad outline of his vengeance completely on his own, ad he'd fallen through that event horizon.

"So what part did it play in what you did in Manhattan?" If Loki hadn't been controlled then he'd still been influenced, or so he said. Would the results have been any different without the Tesseract's force acting upon him? He'd said his head was clear now, and on looking back he still thought it necessary.

"Manhattan was strategy," Loki said, shrugging. "I dreamed it all in the arms of a black hole." It was tempting to use that little out she had offered, and pretend that it had not been his choice. It might certainly get some of the humans off his neck about certain things. But pride prevented that. He didn't need these humans to like him, just to leave him alone.

And he was really very tired about their complaints about a few holes put in a single city, when the real game was so much larger. When he'd given them a nice chance to destroy the army of an enemy they hadn't yet met. They'd performed so admirably, far beyond his expectations. Really, it was for the best he'd had many alternate lines to the next step in the plan.

"Why is it so important to you? You won't like any answer I might give, because it shan't end in me begging for forgiveness." He smiled thinly. "I used the last of my store of that up before I was thrown through that event horizon."

Loki may have seen the bigger game, but Pepper saw Tony in the grips of panic. She saw their relationship falling to pieces because when he thought of New York, terror gripped him. She saw everything that had happened in the days and hours just before they'd been pulled back to Luceti, ending in flames and the sense that she was falling, dying, burning in those last few moments of life she had left--

"I guess I keep hoping you might give a different answer. One that I would like." But he had made it clear before too, hadn't he? The invasion was necessary. Some things were regrettable but Loki didn't regret the whole, didn't seem to care that lives were lost or altered irrevocably by his actions.

"We're the ones who have to live with the consequences of what you did." Tony, Natasha, Steve--all of them. Everyone except her, who no longer had a life to go back to, and that made it all so much worse. "That's why it's so important to me."

"And what answer would you like?" he asked. Why would she want anything to like, from him? They were not quite mortal enemies, but neither were they friends. Not even close.

He laughed softly. "And so are we all the victims of choices not our making. That is the foundation upon which all realms are built."

"Like you said: one I won't hear." They weren't friends and they would never be, and yet Loki had come to the gallery and told her of Tony's panic attacks. Whether it was out of regard for Rogue or Tony or Pepper, she still hoped on some level that he might understand what had been wrong about all he'd done. It'd make it easier for them to come to peace with it.

But peace remained a rare thing, and his laugh only earned him a hard look. Even if he was laughing at the circumstances and not at her, it wasn't a truth Pepper found so amusing. "Maybe. That doesn't make it right."

"Redemption is a pretty fantasy. As is the notion that right and wrong have any meaning at all." He smiled crookedly, resting his chin on one hand. "But I find it charming that you continue to hope, particularly since I'd wager not a one of you would believe me should I start singing that song."

“Or maybe what you’re saying is an excuse to do what you want.” Because the people who had disregarded any concept of right and wrong, who focused solely on ambition most recently in Pepper’s life? Had done horrible things to her. Unspeakable, unforgivable things. He may have thought they lacked meaning but Pepper knew they were necessary. And redemption—

Redemption would only matter to someone who wanted it.

“It isn’t a quick fix, Loki. Saying you’re sorry doesn’t erase everything. It’s just a start.” One step he wouldn’t take, and Pepper had had her fill of this conversation. “But since it’s pointless, I think I’ll keep looking around now.”

"I require no excuses to do as I like," he said with something like cheer. Justification wad the tool of doubt, in his experience. He'd spent centuries doubting himself because of the lies he'd been told. He was done with that, refused to shiny at all, at least not where someone who would try to take advantage of it would see.

He snorted. "Nothing is ever good enough." While unspoken, the, "For you people," was implicit in his tone.

"Have fun. Do take a beard with you."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Cultural Fair!

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