16556/Putting on a Rave face

Putting on a Rave face
Date of Scene:	13 December 2023
Location:	Abandoned Subway
Synopsis:	Harper hits a Rave, and by happy accident bumps into Rose, another Outsider, looking to blow off steam off the clock. No Joker bombs or Bane blow-ups, just many musical bangers.
Cast of Characters:	Harper Row, Rose Wilson

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Harper Row has posed:
Gotham's youth often feel a pull towards the light or the dark. As they grow and mature, the pressures of life and their environment nudging them this way and that. Nature and nuture, within their rather distinctive urban playground. The hot fire of passion unable to be doused by the frequent dark nights or disapproving looks of those aged like the mortar of its most notable edifices.

And so they find a way to coexist within its walls and its streets.

Like some sort of dynamic relationship, they come together here, underground and off the radar. Light and dark together, united with the purpose to push themselves and feel things. Not perfect, typically troubled, but teeming with life.

Harper has felt the pull to dip herself into the cauldron of activity. She can wear a different mask here, the glow-in-the-dark body paint turning her features into neon tribal markings, like voodoo death's head aesthetics, post-apocalyptic tattoos. She's stripped down to stuff she won't mind getting a little dirty or sweaty. A shirt and leggings, the kind you could use as a gill-net. Wrist-bands and torn tee, piercings and thick makeup of the luminous or shadow-pocket variety. Better than her half-mask Bluebird alter ego. Stompy biker boots, chains and choker, a biker bunny crossed with a rave chick chemical-chaser.

The walls in the curved antechamber of forgotten transit has been daubed with hasty strobing sheets and projections while the music pummels those that writhe and dance within to beats that layer upon themselves. Rising, falling, dropping and demanding the herd follow the hindbrain in action and movement.

Rose Wilson has posed:
Rose has been away for a while, so she is out discovering her old haunts as well as trying out a few new ones. She could really use the excuse that she's doing recon, or trying to infiltrate some gang or another. But really, Rose is just here to cut loose a bit.

Blending in with white hair and an eye patch isn't easy, under the best of circumstances. Rose leans into the pirate theme, however. A black bandana is worn as a skullcap to keep the long hair back, the eye patch prominent and black. The shirt is blousely and loose like a peasant top, and would be decent if it weren't fishnet fabric. A scant, black tubetop keeps it decent. Pants are skin-tight low-riders, clinging to her hips and thighs before billowing out from the knee over her black biker boots. Her own makeup is very goth, dark eye shadow and black lipstick... black fingernails.

Rose is starting to find her place in the ebb and flow of the crowd, leaning into the music and letting the crowd take her.

Harper Row has posed:
The dance floor, if it can be termed that, is an organic vortex of bodies. The flow has become a bit like a laundry washing cycle: First surge clockwise, and then counter. No flash mob this, just a lot of people going to and fro with the flow.

Harper can't help be on guard, what with all that training of never accepting drinks from certain people and places. But she's finding it easier to turn off her brain a little, let her guard down and let it put its feet up while she puts hers down. She offers a grinning half-skull face, teeth painted onto her lips, to a passing trio of tipsy folk, weaving between and through them to also to get to the dance floor. She may have done a little pre-loading before arriving. Just a little, under what she'd self-diagnose as still being responsible. But now that she's here, she wants to be very irrespondible. Words from her mentor are being drown out by the skull-drumming of the DJ committing crimes against eardrums within this chamber where certain tones careen about like superballs.

She arrives at the edge of the people-whirlpool and it isn't long before she's snagged, and she can't help but let out a hoot 'n holler as she has to tip-toe double-quick to avoid falling over and get carried along. The smell of perspiration and the differing cloaks of perfume and drugs blanket the place enough to make the back of her throat tickle.

There is an awful lot of bouncing, hip-checking and swaying. Impossible to avoid the press of bodies. It carries her, carries her right into a rather striking buccaneer. And it's coming real close to the beat either causing a faux-drop cheer-groan from the crowd, or a chaotic orgiastic crescendo. "Fuck yeah fuck yeah!" She raises her arms up so they're less windmills of mass destruction and more like flag pole pennants needing to be waved. Or helping to raise a few roofs.

Rose Wilson has posed:
Rose Wilson's mentor, her father, always focused on discipline. Push-push-push. Rebellion was both natural and to be expected, and Rose didn't disappoint.

All the same, Slade gave her a long leash. And now she's slipped that leash, to run with the Outsiders.

The white-haired faux-piratess moves with the grinding, circling crowd. As Harper works in from the outside, Rosie is in the thick of it. Arms raised high, she bounces and twists and grinds with the deafening beat of the music.

That's when her course merges with half-mask voodoo girl. Rose lets out a whoop, managing to keep up in the crowd thanks to surprising strength and reflexes. For a moment, her gaze locks with Harper's and there is a flash of recognition.

Rose winks.

Harper Row has posed:
Drinks are spilled, vaping pens gush thick curls of smoke, but Harper's piercing blue eyes pierce the non-essential. She locks onto Rose's face, chaotically lit by ambient glows and stutter-shutterbulb explosions of laser FX, and she stares. A curious moment of fight-or-flight-time hits her like a slap. Thankfully she can't see her own expression. That wink settles things, triggers things and fires off the required rounds to help the thinky parts access what is needed.

Harper starts to smile with both sets of teeth, the painted and the pearly whites. The cheshire grin going from wry to impish.

Harper doesn't break stride any longer than she can avoid, and keeps with the bopping beat. The crowd threatens to take her away, catch her like velcro on felt. She fights it, shouldering her way back to party ~with~ Rose.

Don't say Arrr...Don't say Matey...

Try and keep up with her, match her, see if they can make a little whirlpool amongst the vortex. A spinning and revolving constellation within the spiral galaxy. "This is crazy!" she yells for lack of a better blurt of greeting. She raises her voice to be heard better, fixated on that eye patch, trying to shift away from the groping going on behind her. "I guess...I GUESS...we're off the lock...yeah?"

Rose Wilson has posed:
Rose Wilson didn't even get high before the rave. Okay, so she did get a little stoned to take the edge off. The lights, the explosions, the flashes, she finds them a distraction as she bounces and thrashes around in the crowd.

Harper smiles and Rose smirks right back. The crowd pulls Harper a little away, but she fights back. Rose is stronger... stronger than Harper and probably stronger than both of them should be, combined. She pivots around with the other girl, turning in lazy circles as the crowd begins to crush them together.

"Well I'm off the clock unless somebody does something stupid, yeah." Rose yells back, arms raised high again while they bounce together. Something stupid? In a rave? What could go wrong with that? "That's a good look for you!"

Harper Row has posed:
Harper's skull-face smiles wider while the eyes twinkle with an excited thrill as Rose shows the crowd who's the boss. She has to admire the way the other woman is packing a lot of swole in her limbs. "Thanks! I was feeling like being stupid! I mean feeling good!"

She's pressed in tight, and for a wonder, yup, when the current gets too strong, Rose is able to direct traffic. It seems to Harper like what she doesn't dodge, she parries the darn bodies and limbs. As long as she stays very close.

"You only have to worry about meeeee!" Harper half-jests and adds a wink and adds an expressive ~mwah~ with her mouth like she's a real party girl dosed to the gills. She gets a bit more into it, what with the lessening threat of being taken out if she wants to get a bit more zealous in her movements. She wants to sweat and burn off the responsibilities of the week.

What makes a rave more fun? Dancing with someone dangerous of course.