it's a dead man's party

[self_composed]

The guest list winds up being pretty huge.

To start with, there are now eight Bells. Pattern isn't bringing anyone besides herself, and Aegis no one besides herself and her Whistle, but everyone else -

Between Alice, the Joker, the rescued Queenie, Kas, Micaiah, and Sue, plus Ghosty who Amariah picked up on her way home, that's seven Whistles. (Stella thinks ahead: there is a soundproofed orgy chamber away from the main party awning. With a few nodes off of it in case more than one orgy forms; she can think of at least two other likely ones.)

There's an equally absurd number of Sherlocks and Tonies if you count them together. They have Juliet's matched set, Shell Bell's matched set, two other matched sets from Bell-less worlds (one with souled vampire, one both human), a stray Tony, and a stray Sherlock from Downside.

Amariah grabbed a random Libby on top of the random extra Whistle, but at least she's not incorporating anyone from home.

Golden's bringing much of her family and many of her friends - although Edward is staying home, that still leaves Elspeth and Jacob, Alice and Jasper with little Brandon, Rosalie and Emmett and little Henry, Nathan accompanying his mate and their child Kerron, Esme and Carlisle and their Lily, Addy, and Elena who'll get to see her brother. Golden claims that this is a conservative list and she could easily have produced another twenty enthusiastic guests. Stella doesn't doubt it. She puts up a few signs reading Please Conduct Adult Conversation Only Via Brainphone. Little Half-Vampires Have Good Ears And Perfect Memories. As a last-minute surprise, Golden has taken Elspeth's suggestion to bring Edward's deceased mother Elizabeth, too.

Juliet has, on top of her boyfriend and his - progenitor? - her tiny Libby, James, a tagalong thereto called Virginia, and a ghost called Minnie, plus Giles.

Angela's list is more modest: her, her husband, and their friends Alleluia and Caleb.

Shell Bell is responsible for half the Sherlocks-and-Tonies all by herself, a tagalong called Pepper, and also someone called Darcy and also Matilda. (Shell Bell is also the reason Angela is not inviting her brother-in-law.)

Stella herself is responsible for inviting Libby, Orfeo, Chris, Mary, Anna, Sandy, Eights, Chainsaw, Lazarus, Kolya (who is informed that it would be awfully inconvenient for a majority of Bells to all have to coordinate on pretending he doesn't exist when only one of them has even met him to be able to identify him in the first place, so he can simply stay home if he's planning to be hidey), and Bridget.

Stella sets up a name tag system. Everyone will have a tag stuck to them. Solo persons - a minority - will just have their names. People with template names and nicknames will have both stamped on automatically. ("Hi! I'm a Bell, and you can call me Stella!"; "Hi! I'm a Whistle, and you can call me Alice!" "Hi! I'm a Sherlock, and I don't have a distinguishing nickname yet but as soon as I pick one it will appear here!")

She conjures up a nice buffet of food and beverages which will stay its correct temperature until consumed, and assorted synthetics for the vampires (labeled not for human consumption), and dishes and flatware (all glass; even some of the food-eating guests might dissolve anything else) and fusses with the awning opacity until it lets in just the right amount of sun, and, what the hell, she throws in a stage in case Angela wants to sing or she decides to play the flute or someone decides to pentagon some other performative skill to entertain the crowd. She makes sure there are enough bathrooms for all the people who still need bathrooms.

She puts out a few tables here and there with little bowls of squares and triangles - a mix of her glowing red and Alice's shifty black - in them for everyone's convenience. She accumulates coins in those sizes faster than she generally uses them and has a great many, so there are plenty for anyone to dip and wish if something comes up. She double-checks to make sure the Martian ground rules prohibit any misuses available for those size coins.

Jane gets one of those high-tech holographic projectors, on wheels, which she promptly manifests in, drives around the floor, and makes faces through.

Comments

[sicaria]

"That is a terrible idea," she says fondly.

[ferratus]

"And don't call her 'girl', we have lots of distinguishing characteristics that aren't that one, we're the farthest pair from the middle here."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Not very namey characteristics, though. Or ones with particularly nice associations."

[cross_and_bow]

"Does no one like my shortlist-and-a-hat idea?"

[toblameforit]

The three least-distinguished Tonies exchange a glance.

"I honestly can't think of anything," says one.

[cross_and_bow]

"Could play on the names themselves. Shell Bell's Sherlock can be, what's a variant there, Shirley? Or, doesn't it mean something - 'fair haired' - I'm just brainstorming at this point - and "Tony", what've we got to work with there, Jane, help me out."

[mind_game]

["Anthony", or in the Atlantis case "Antony", means priceless, flourishing, or praiseworthy. Variants include Antoine, Anton, Antonello, Antonio, and assorted spellings of same.]

[cross_and_bow]

"Oh, so you're already an odd one out if you just go by full name," Juliet says to Tony-which-is-short-for-Antony. "So there's that. And have you got middle names, maybe? There's options."

[she_sells_seashells]

"The rest of you are An-thon-y? With a th - huh, weird," says Shell Bell.

[pythbox]

"No Antons," says Iron Man. "I put a veto on Antons."

[toblameforit]

"Why...? Never mind, I don't care," says an Anthony. "Anyway, I hate it when people call me Anthony, who's with me on that?"

Everyone. Everyone is with him on that.

[ferratus]

"I'd hate it too, if anyone ever had," the Antony chips in.

[sicaria]

"No one is permitted to call me Shirley," says Sherlock.

[cross_and_bow]

"Sheesh, you guys are tricky. ...Do you all have the same favorite color? Bells don't seem to, I'm rocking an indigo theme and so on, no two of our Jane-gems match straight across, our coin colors are all different."

[she_sells_seashells]

"None of the Tonies are mints," Shell Bell points out, "and only two Sherlocks are. Could we find out coin colors without actually just minting them all?"

[cross_and_bow]

"If this looks like a fruitful avenue we can find out," says Juliet.

[toblameforit]

The Tony-wide favourite colour, after a short conference, is apparently 'red, I guess'. (Iron Man snickers behind his hand and won't tell anyone why.)

"Sure," a Tony says finally. "I'd go by a coin colour unless it was something ridiculous."

There is widespread nodding.

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell designs a power that will let her see hypothetical coin colors even on non-mints. It doesn't have to last long, so she only spends a pentagon on it, then peers around.

[pythbox]

Iron Man's coins would be gold - not as in the colour, but as in the metal, polished and shining.

The two minted Sherlocks show up correctly: Shell Bell's as a pearly grey, Minus as a darker, smokily translucent shade.

[bitofafiction]

The other human Sherlock is likewise grey, but his is bright and pale and flatly opaque, like an overcast sky at noon.

[dearsweetsoulful]

Plus is another grey, not foggy-smoky like Minus's but almost transparent, with darker tendrils curling through it like the smoke from a snuffed candle.

[finaldiscussion]

Strat is a much darker grey, soft around the edges, like deep fog.

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell conjures up associated illusions of squares in front of each for everyone to look at as she looks at each one.

[toblameforit]

Among the Tonies, one is bright red, like a sports car or a fire truck; one is a brilliant blue-white that seems like it should be glowing, although it gives off no light; and one is a blue so dark it's almost black, with enough reflective gloss to obscure the underlying shade almost completely.

[ferratus]

And Shell Bell's Tony has a faintly bluish brushed aluminum.