you can't handle the truth

[bouchonne]

WHO: Whoever wants
WHAT: Kickoff of the truth plot!
WHEN: Right now
WHERE: The dining hall
NOTES: Feel free to use this to post open starters with prompts! Or make your own logs. Or create open posts on the network. Do whatever you'd like. No rules just right

If only the cooks had screwed up the soup. The problem is that it's a particularly nice soup today, full of fresh summer herbs, nicely seasoned, and plentiful. And so it's quite likely that you grabbed a bowl - maybe even got a second helping - and so ingested the potion that a devious hand had tipped in there earlier that day.

The effects begin to set in within twenty minutes of ingesting the soup. They may be mild - your tongue stumbling when you go to tell a little white lie...or they might be strong, and you might be overtaken by a sudden hysterical urge to tell deep truths to anyone who might listen. Or perhaps you skipped that soup, and instead, you're surrounded by babbling, confused people who want to tell you their life stories.

The potion's effects will last for up to two days. And they may at times be stronger, and at times weaker. Here's hoping you'll do minimal damage to your reputation in the meantime.

Comments

Barrow | OTA

[thereneverwas]

I. Immediately Post-Soup

Barrow isn't a small individual. In fact, it might be argued he's one of the larger among Riftwatch's ranks, which means that he puts away a not-insignificant amount of food during any given mealtime; the soup is no exception, and he's about three bowls deep when the comment bubbles up to the nearest person, emerging before he can do anything to stop it:

"Last time I had soup this good was right before I fucked Bann Loren's wife. That woman could cook."

He pauses, spoon raised, and blinks at it.

"...did I just say that aloud?"


II. After Soup, Any Ol Time

A quick "nope," and Barrow tries to abscond from anyone who looks like they might approach him to speak, his hands extended in a wordless plea for mercy. "Can't talk, I won't stop," he explains against his will, as he backs toward the door of his chamber, "and I'd rather not tell you my life's story, I doubt you'll react well to the lot of it, it's nothing personal, please go away--"

ii.

[exequy]

"Oh, no," Kostos says.

There is still time for him to go down for soup, before anyone figures out what to warn people away from, but he hasn't had it yet. He is only a shark who's smelled blood in the water, stepping toward Barrow as he tries to back away.

"Let's hear it.

i. (extra stupid just 4 u)

[muckspout]

"What a lucky lady!" Edgard responds who's also eaten a fair amount. He pauses and then goes to save it.

"I mean, because she got to fuck you and was rich." Edgard's eyes widen and he covers his mouth with both hands.

This is awkward.

bastien | ota

[cozen]

i. ferry or docks (day one)

There are meals Bastien hangs around the dining hall to be chipper and chatty; there are others when has places to go, people to see, and he scarfs down a meal so quickly he's still eating on his way to the exit.

Today is the second kind. He doesn't even sit down. He begins spooning soup into his mouth from the moment he leaves the line for the pot, waves at a familiar friendly face with his elbow so he doesn't have to pause, and drinks the last of the broth from the bowl just in time to drop it off with other empty bowls and cups on the table nearest the door. Places to go! People to see!

An hour later, he's on the ferry coming back to the Gallows from the city—or sitting on the Gallows' docks after arriving, either way—with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. There's a long pause before he says, "Is there some bullshit going on?"

In his accent, that's bullsheet. It bursts out like he's been trying not to say it for the whole sixty preceding seconds and has finally lost.

"I told Lord Marinet I did not like his poetry. I have been telling him that I like his poetry for three years—and it is not that bad. I am sure it is good for someone. Just not for me. It's too opaque. I don't understand it." Plaintively, head still in his hands: "What the fuck."

ii. offices (day two)

Most of the last twenty-four hours, he's spent behind locked doors. But there is a war on, and Bastien can't in fact take a two-day vacation because of—whatever this is. He does some tests in the mirror first. Enough to discern he still can't lie, not even to himself, but is also more capable of holding his tongue than yesterday.

He traverses the space between his room and his office like he's on a mission. No getting caught. (Probably.) When he makes it to his office he shuts the door behind him. But it's not long before he's emerging again—cautious and cocky at the same time—to poke his head into the Scouting or Diplomacy work rooms.

"Do you still have that file on Barbeau?"

Questions seem safe.

iii. wildcard

(Or tell me if you want something custom.)

wildcard.

[deuselfmachina]

Has it been, simply, weeks since Madame de Fonce told Florent Vascarelle about this newsletter business that he has not been invited to? Maybe so. But maybe certain people are very busy, and certain people include Florent himself, and probably Bastien as well, but the point is,

now's a good time.

"Hey!" he greets, cheerfully, swooping in on where Bastien is power-walking down the hallway. Swooping as in borderline coming out of nowhere, trailed by errant flutters of satin from whatever mostly-decent clothing he is wearing in this frankly disgusting weather. "There you are. I have a pressing matter that needs your attention."

ii

[altusimperius]

"I don't remember."

A frown of vexation and a sigh through the nose-- Benedict would have liked to hedge that a little more, maybe come off with a bit more confidence that they can find it, but that's just not the way things are going lately.

"...you're welcome to look for it," he adds apologetically, with a resigned little gesture toward the rest of the office.

[bouchonne]

i. day one, mutual panic and discovery
When Byerly hears his neighbor at the table getting a little too honest about their most recent bowel movements, he laughs. It's funny. Or, well, it's funny until he opens his mouth and says, "I've had nothing but loose stools since I hit thirty," and then he looks absolutely stricken and gets up and absolutely hustles out of the dining hall.

But - not fast enough; he runs smack into someone and bites out, "You look like an absolute mess today."

ii. day two, a little more controlled
After a certain point, Byerly has learned to isolate himself. He creeps out only every once in a while. When he does, though, his tongue is horribly unstoppered - blunt and unadorned commentary on anything and everything around him. Approach with caution, avoid if possible.

ii.

[cozen]

At this particular moment, Byerly has not crept out. Bastien is creeping in. The door to By's office creaks open slowly, with no immediate visible cause, like something out of a ghost story—and then around it peeks Bastien's head, at an angle, so only his hair and eyes appear.

He'd wanted to see him yesterday. He'd also wanted not to see him. Back and forth. Moments of fear someone would say something that would hurt, moments of certainty they wouldn't. And there's nothing left to hide, really, but Bastien has always cherished having the choice to keep things to himself, and the choice to offer them up.

But this is a choice, too, to be peering around the door. Bastien raises his eyebrows in question. Behind the door he's biting both his lips.

i

[armd]

"Wow. Thanks," Abby replies gruffly, on her way in for lunch, "Is this some kind of thing we do now?" Where he tells her that she looks bad, and she feels like an idiot, "I don't like it."

There isn't even any dog-related mud on this outfit do you understand how rare that is

wildcards u like a fiend

[altusimperius]

In order to properly escape the world, Byerly will first have to return to his chamber through his office. It's just his luck that on this particular night, Benedict remembered mid-soup that he'd left some t's uncrossed in some correspondence or another, and brought the bowl up with him to finish his work while most of the Gallows is down in the dining hall.

What a peaceful and quiet evening it is, with everyone out of the offices, allowing a fellow to work undisturbed.

i.

[notathreat]

"Thanks. I've always hated your beard..." she gestures. "Situation."

Ellie, on her way into the dining room, has feathers and griffon down stuck in her windblown hair, and other than her hands, hasn't scrubbed off the blood from her last assignment.

She also hasn't had any soup yet.

ii.

[elegiaque]

“I haven't had a decent night's sleep in a year and a half and Hardie knocked me out of the path of a cart and into a puddle of mud,” Gwenaëlle says, only mildly disgruntled, “what of it.”

i.

[muckspout]

Edgard who also tried to leave and then quickly remembered he'd meant to grab a spare roll for Sunbeam and turned back, huffs out a curse, but recovers quickly.

"I know I'm a mess!" He responds with a whining shout. "It's on purpose! I am lazy! and petrified of water!"

ii, ish.

[katabasis]

It's late that first evening, at some hour when honesty has driven most the Gallows to bed (mortified or otherwise), when the heavy thud-thud of a fist comes rapping at the door to Byerly's office.

He'll be there. He'll be awake. Flint is certain of that much.

Ellie | OTA

[notathreat]

i.

Maybe she should've anticipated something awry when Byerly had rushed out of the hall looking horrified, but really, she hasn't. So Ellie, covered in dried blood and griffon down and looking like she hasn't slept in a solid week, sits down and inhales two bowls of the soup and a hunk of buttery brown bread. (Don't worry, she washed her hands before coming to the table.)

She's nearly asleep when she tilts her head, glancing down at the hall at a woman -- pretty much any woman of Riftwatch, choose your own adventure -- takes a bite of her bread, and says to the person sharing her table:

"Are all the women in Riftwatch smoking hot, or is it just me?"


ii.

Later, as someone heads up a stairwell, or is in the library, or is getting supplies, or is otherwise just minding their own fucking business, Ellie appears out of goddamn fucking nowhere with a blue, hazy shimmer around her eyes and chest.

Her words are breathless, stumbling over themselves compulsively.

"I go invisible because I kinda hate the fact that people can see me, and I'm scared that if anybody sees all of me they'll leave."

i.

[elegiaque]

Gwenaëlle is about halfway through what will be, by the time she's done, her one 'most of a bowl' of soup and is sort of incidentally sharing Ellie's table rather than having done so on purpose — potentially, she looked like the person she'd least object to sitting next to, even though she is harbouring a belated grudge about the stabbing — a matter which speaks to her opinions broadly about Riftwatch more than on Ellie. (Ah, but they are her intolerable bellends, nevertheless.)

She stops to consider it. Visibly, as if she's cross-referencing a mental checklist of every woman in Riftwatch she's come into contact with, and finally settling on, “Well, they're not objectionable looking.”

i. also

[sprent]

Oh, a game, is this a game? Gela's eyes are bright while she soaks a heel of bread into her own bowl of soup. She scans across scattered Riftwatch members: sitting at tables, exiting the halls, flagging each other down in passing. She assumes she does not count, for being new.

"Not just you," is the conclusion given, only after she's finished chewing. She's got an elbow on the table; she gestures toward somebody with the other half of her roll. "So are the men." Whewf. "Maybe it was a prerequisite to enter."

truth soup vs whiskey. closed to gwen.

[charmoffensive]

They're hitting a wall. The wall is the same wall they've hit before, that being the blank space where a culprit should be, and a cooling trail of late. Not that Loxley would like anyone to be trafficked to make his life easier, only that it is what it is, and they find themselves sitting on the parlour in her Hightown home, surrounded by bits of paper that (after a stiff drink or three) are all beginning to become meaningless, and moving off the topic at all.

(Loxley has also been at some of the contents of the pantry. It's what he gets, he supposes, for being late to lunch at the Gallows, and finding naught left but fucking soup.)

He polishes off his glass of expensive liquor, setting it down on the floor. One more of these and he'll likely get drunk in earnest, and he's hitting that place of thinking that sounds nice to do and forgetting what hangovers are. He opens his mouth to say, well, something, he honestly has no memory of what it was going to be—

"You're very beautiful," and sort of frowns. Huh. Well, maybe that was a good idea and he should continue. "Not just now, or anything, but generally."

[elegiaque]

Objectively, if you were to ask Gwenaëlle, he is correct: the hairstyle that's only now beginning to come undone had taken three de Coucy maids an hour to achieve, and the gown she's wearing has halved the size of her waist and produced the convincing illusion that she might well even have tits. The deep shade of forest green sets off the faint glow of her anchor-shard, and the visibility of the upper-most scars where the rage demon had at her in her cleavage (...sternum area) cast her as sort of rakish and exciting.

And she's fucking fit, besides. Multiple nude portraits of her exist just in Kirkwall.

“Well, it'd be more useful if I were half so good at Margaery as pretending it's interesting when people notice,” she says, the ready complaint of one who is in the moment more concerned with the wall that they've hit than the possibility he actually intended to pay her a compliment rather than assess the tools at their disposal. “Astarion would be perfect, but first of all I'd rather die than ask him and second of all he'd lose his nerve immediately if it mildly inconvenienced him.”

(It was a perfectly fine soup.)

mobius | ota

[favoriteanalyst]

The thing about Mobius is that he isn't prone to big, deliberate lies. He can be cagey about specifics, and he has skated by about seven years on technical truths, but he's never been a very good liar. Either because he doesn't want to be, or because he tends to be painfully earnest.

So it takes a while to notice that anything is strange with him after he's had his deliciously soupy meal.

He doesn't just blurt out every thought that comes to mind. And he isn't gripped with a sudden need to tell his whole story to anyone who looks at him. He does notice that people are starting to act oddly as the day wears on, and he is, as ever, attempting to be helpful. Maybe the dreams and interrupted sleep have finally reached a mass hysterical breaking point?

I'm sorry if you get caught with him when he inevitably asks you: "Are you feeling okay?"

((or y'know wildcard a mof if you want to talk to him specifically about shit))

[thereneverwas]

He's caught Barrow returning from an inevitable trip to the privy, and the man stops with an uncharacteristically panicked look in his eyes, only to answer almost immediately: "something's fucked mate, it's right fucked."

Sylvie Laufeydottir • MCU: 𝕷 ๏ Ҝ 𝖎

[apocalypsegrown]

1:

Sylvie's tiny attic apartment is cozy and comfortable, though barebones, and contains a small stove in which one can heat tea and prepare small things-- but she still mostly gets her food from the Riftwatch cafeteria. The lack of a sink at her place really does make it more convenient, and every so often the food is actually something to write home about.

Like this soup. It's delicious. Seconds delicious. The heat of the soup warms her from the inside, and she hums a little as she shovels each spoon into her mouth, scraping the bowl clean of any remnants. Tosses the bowl in the intake line and makes her way to complete the bare minimum on her paperwork as per usual so that she can focus on her own pet projects. Finds herself with words pouring out her mouth that usually would stay deep in her head as she looks up and down the person she's passing in the hall.

"That color looks awful on you."

2:

Sylvie had been avoiding people before, but now she's walking a bit more like she has something to hide, eyes down, taking quick turns if she sees another person, not at all wanting to trigger a conversation that would end with her spilling her guts and thoughts to anyone who stuck around long enough to listen.

Sometimes though, it's impossible to avoid-- and she grits her teeth and looks anywhere but them. "Make it quick, I cant keep my mouth shut and you'll probably hate me after."

[Feel free to make up the details of their interactions!]

2

[armd]

Abby, who had been planning on asking Sylvie if there was some way she could detect the spell that is affecting all of them at the same time blurts out,

"Why would I hate you? You're so hot," instead.

And promptly goes wide-eyed.

Abz, open

[armd]

01

Soup in summer is a little weird but it's good and tasty, and Abby ends up going back for a second bowl of it. While standing in the line she thinks, suddenly, to tell the person in front of her, "It's actually good." The remark earns her a dirty look from somebody clearing empty bowls. What? It's just the truth.

Later, halfway through the story you're currently telling her, she heaves a mighty sigh and palms her face. Adds, "I'd rather be walking my dog than listening to this shit."

And slaps her hands over her mouth far too late

02

Now that she's realised some fuckery is going on she'd love to get to the bottom of it but surreptitiously... Without being seen... Unfortunately, she's not the type to get away with sneaking around successfully. Not with footsteps that loud. She can be found pawing through the infirmary, hoping to come across some kind of general antidote. Please please please

To warn off the person trying to enter, "Go away, I'm trying to find a cure." And then laughter suddenly bursts out of her. Oh, man.

In case you were wondering, "It's funny because my dad was looking for a cure for CBI, back home." Like father like daughter, right? Hilarious!

02

[muckspout]

"That's not funny!" Edgard says entering, his arms out stretched. "You're not funny. And you're a little mean sometimes."

He shakes his head, cringing slightly, he's weary of this, but lets it happen.

"Sometimes I have a problem with women who are mean to me. Also, I would really really like to help you."

lunch meeting, closed to divheads;

[katabasis]

[The young women who had run up the soup tureen and associated dishes had appeared so harried that when one of them blurted out, 'I'm sorry, Messeres, but Cook is telling everyone about her and the ferryman and so we have to run back down or else will miss everything,' it had probably constituted as a bizarre kind of relief. At least nothing was actively burning down elsewhere in the Gallows.

They can save that for later. Halfway through the meeting, the topic of conversation having some time ago shifted from But where does either of them find the time? to an entirely different sort of personnel management, Flint sets his spoon aside and plainly remarks—]

We should have cut Artemaeus' hand off when we still had the chance. It might have saved us from some of this.

casually doing timey wimey timeline shenanigans and pretending he doesn't know about soup yet

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly could normally have been expected to respond to that with a bit of wry drollness. Not the paperwork hand, for example, or something of the sort. But instead, he finds his mouth uttering something rather ferocious and uncharacteristically honest: he says: ]

Artemaeus is my charge, Flint; do him harm and I'll ensure that I find some way to return it to you.

[ And then he frowns, and shakes his head, and tries to give a laugh like that was a joke. It comes out a bit confused. And he tries to move on: ]

What do you mean by some of this, anyway?

closed to Gwenaelle

[wearyallalone]

Vanya is not a chatty person ⁠— by temperament, but significantly less so in the past few years. He is, however, an observant one, and he notices that something is going on in the mess hall, so he quietly finishes his meal and gets up to go. Probably best, he thinks, to be elsewhere sooner than later.

What he doesn't count on is that "whatever is going on" has followed him with a vengeance, considering that he liked the soup enough to have seconds. This isn't entirely a problem when he goes to the training yard, as he mainly runs through his exercises alone and today is no exception. But it might be slightly more so when he arrives at the baths after and finds that they are neither empty, nor full enough to feel anonymous. The way he hesitates at the entrance betrays a brief moment when he considers whether he can leave again before being spotted.

[elegiaque]

Having, by this point, finally been alerted to the fact that something is in fact happening—

the quiet of the baths isn't so much a relief to Gwenaëlle as a relief from the ambient stress of everyone else, apparently unaccustomed to not being full of shit every hour the Maker gave. She supposes that probably many of them will give somewhere generally naked and vulnerable a wide berth under the circumstances, so it's been relaxing, after her own time in the training yard, to sprawl in the hot water lazily before she faces the commute back to Hightown.

However, taking in Vanya's hesitation,

“Don't be a fucking coward, Orlov.”

what could go wrong. closed to julius.

[luaithre]

By the time Marcus has spent an afternoon being more verbally critical of some horses than he otherwise would normally be, he has at least checked the crystal network, gotten the gist of the matter, and pocketed it again. Much of the rest of the day is spent on an intrusive quest of assisting in cataloguing how much of the larder needs to be wholesale discarded, but on the bright side, a contamination of truth serum means that no one is lying about being ignorant as to how this happened.

Perhaps the worst outcome is simply they'll all be eating plain mutton and turnips for a week. Which isn't nothing.

He ascends the stairs, finds his way to Julius' office, something of a guess as to where he might find one or either of them. A short moment of lingering at the closed door, listening for the cadence of work meetings, and when he hears none, he gives the door a short knock before testing whether the door is locked (it isn't) and letting himself in.

"Busy?"

[overharrowed]

"Always, but a lot of it isn't going to lead anywhere," which is rather frank, even for the two of them. At least it causes Julius to shake his head and add: "Sorry. The soup."

He leans back in his chair a bit, gesturing Marcus in properly. "I thought I might be where I could be found in case, I don't know. Someone starts a diplomatic incident or discovers a new spy within the organization or something else. But so far it's just been a lot of gossip on the crystals." Mildly uncharitable, though not fully inaccurate.

open

[hassaran]

[ One might assume that Yseult would spend the duration of the truth poisoning event locked in her office preserving her air of mystery. It would be a fair guess, and it is certainly a course of action that she considers. But her office is too predictable a location for anyone attempting to seek her out to take advantage of this opportunity, and she's not sure whether this affliction runs as far as preventing her from pretending to be Not At Home. (She's a little wary, too, of what might pop out of her mouth or Darras's if they spend too long in there together. Some degree of secrecy is a good thing in a marriage.)

She doesn't dare venture out into the city, so instead it's to the eyrie to play catch with Pockets, who thankfully cannot talk, or tucked between crenellations on one of the remoter parapets listening to the crystals as she smokes, or reading very quietly in one of the library carrels in an unfavored location near the back away from the windows, legs curled up onto the chair making her even harder to spot. ]

parapette.

[propulsion]

[ Tony has had zero strategy, personally. But to be fair, having a tenuous relationship with mouth-words control is not a completely unfamiliar situation.

After a little bit of fucking around and finding out, matched with avoidance by doing some extremely boring budget work for a good section of afternoon, Tony finds himself seeking some fresh air. His appearance is not stealthy, the squeak of a door hinge and then boots scuffing stonework, and he notices her at about the same time as she will notice him.

There's a wobble, like he considers doing a 180 and walking back inside, but instead ambles over, a sort of knowing smile hooking briefly at the corner of his mouth. He's about to say fun day, huh?, but this bit of sarcasm gets trapped in the censors.

So what comes out is; ] Deeply stupid day, huh?