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

[manofmyword]

"Innnteresting," says the Joker. "You could call it one'a those, sure. But what's it to her if that's what we wanna be called?"

[her_imperial_radiance]

"If you care so much about what people want to be called, why do you keep calling Mama 'Goldie'?" Elspeth inquires quizzically.

[manofmyword]

"She hasn't asked me not to."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"She doesn't like it," Elspeth says.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Well, that's her business if she wants to ask him to stop or not, but the Jokers want 'Joker' on their nametags and are saying so," shrugs Angela; her wings ripple with the motion. "I'll see what I can do to convince Stella if you'd rather not approach her yourself."

[manofmyword]

"Much obliged," he says to Angela.

[jovahs_heiress]

Angela crosses the room, finds Stella, and brings her over after a brief discussion.

[self_composed]

"The lot of you are all agreed on this?" is Stella's first question. "Everybody wants to go by the blowing-things-up clown handle, up to and including the telepathic child soldier and the benign Edori and my Alice who actually has 'Whistle' incorporated into his name and whatnot?"

[manofmyword]

"Yes," the Joker enunciates.

[jovahs_heiress]

"I don't think it really matters if it's to our taste," Angela tells Stella.

[self_composed]

"Suppose not," sighs Stella.

The nametag changes.

Stella turns to wander off.

[manofmyword]

"Thanks," he says quietly.

[self_composed]

"You're welcome," Stella says over her shoulder.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Even if you're the most central example of the template," Angela says after a moment, "I'm not sure why that makes your name the best name. Pattern is the most central example of our template except for not having any magic - that's why she's called that - and the next best candidates are Stella and Golden. And they all go by Bella. But we're Bells instead of Bellas because that's what we have to cut it down to in order to include everyone. We're all Bells even if the only one actually named Bell is from a bit off standard."

[manofmyword]

"Mm, that's not quite it," he says, shaking his head. "It's not that we're taking the name because the name's mine and I'm us. It's that me and Ghosty and Queenie all took the name because the name is us."

[jovahs_heiress]

"I don't understand," says Angela after a moment.

[manofmyword]

He glances at Elspeth. "Little help here, or are you lost too?"

[her_imperial_radiance]

"I - hm. I can't always do that sort of thing on purpose. Let's see." Elspeth closes her eyes. "The name Joker was chosen for reasons and in a way that are about the core features of the template in a way that none of the other names on offer were. If you had to symbolize Bells with a picture, symbolize and not just refer, you wouldn't do it with a bell. You'd do it with a pen, maybe, or a crown or with some culturally appropriate marker of self-knowledge or mental opacity - Bell is a sound where Joker is a meaning - Angela, you might not have the background for this, but in a deck of cards as used on standard Earths there's a pair of traditionally wild cards called jokers, in the deck but not part of it for most conventional games." Elspeth opens her eyes again. "How'd I do?"

[manofmyword]

"Pretty damn good," he says. "Thanks."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"You're welcome!"

[jovahs_heiress]

"A wild card," muses Angela. "Yes, I suppose that makes sense."

[manofmyword]

"Doesn't it just," he agrees.

[jovahs_heiress]

"I think if Elspeth had explained that while Stella was here Stella would have proposed that you call the template 'Wildcards'," Angela says. "To avoid redundancy."

[manofmyword]

"We wouldn'ta gone for it."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Why not?" Elspeth asks.