& when you understand the world

As it turns out, even in a place like the Mansion, where the jobs are made up and the points don’t matter, it can still be incredibly difficult to get schedules to align enough to have rehearsals for a play. Eventually Susan and Dionysus work out a schedule that meets everyone’s needs though, and rehearsals are able to start in earnest. No doubt the colder weather outside has everyone thankful for a hobby that they get to take part in indoors, Dionysus having set up the dance studio as a rehearsal space for the time being. At least, he’s hopeful everyone is thankful for it. Nobody outright said they did not want to take part after being volunteered for the cast, so he’s going to take that as a net positive and assume they’re all happy to be there.

The first few rehearsals are a bit touch and go, of course. There’s a decent amount of the cast who have never even seen a play, let alone been in one, but Dionysus is a patient co-director (and a gracious scene partner). He does what he can to help everyone feel safe enough to be comfortable making their choices with the text, and… gently guiding them, let’s say, when they might need a little assistance.

Susan watches everything with a critical eye, but it isn't one that's seeking errors to correct. Instead she's taking copious notes, trying to envision better ways to construct scenes so that they translate well to the audience, considering the sort of stage she'd like to see so that she might pass along her notes to Laertes, who is overseeing its construction. She hasn't got a long history with the theater the way Bacchus has, beyond sleeping with an aspiring actress in London. She knows every line so that she might fill in as needed, and everything else is in service of creating an entertaining show for the rest of the residents - both those who are participating in the production and those who shall be watching it. She leaves the corrections to Bacchus, primarily, but shares her notes with him during breaks in rehearsals to see if they align in their opinions, and steps in whenever someone might need to be bullied into some confidence.

Dionysus is, as expected, ecstatic that the play is at long last properly under development. He’s the god of theatre, of course, but more than that, he just loves it. He loves getting to watch the group come together to try and create something, to tell a story using everything at their disposal, figuring out how each of their talents and voices can combine to best convey the message they’re delivering – in this case, a story about a group of friends from two very different worlds, who met through chance, who all realized what they thought were weaknesses were actually their greatest strengths, and who became something of a family.



(This post is open for primarily prose responses about how your characters are handling rehearsals. If anyone WANTS to thread something out, let me know, but obviously having a thread of an actual rehearsal would be near impossible, given the amount of characters present at most rehearsals, so I figure just a prose response if you want to would be best in this situation. As a reminder, here's the cast and crew list, and let me or S know if you have any questions about anything!)

This post is backdated to be occurring on the last day of Rainbows. Thank you for your understanding :)


He isn't really sure how it happened, the first time. He went to make some jelly for toast, his thoughts drifted, perhaps, and he ended up not just with the jelly, but also with several bananas. This was, as you can imagine, a huge shock, and he actually jumped back when he first noticed them, startled by the absolute jumpscare of their appearance. He calmed down quickly enough, and started playing around to see what would happen.

In a way it makes sense. He has been able to tell that everything is more magical here this month, a complete opposite to the effect Dark had on things. During Dark his powers were weakened, so it would follow they are stronger now. He just didn't assume that would mean expanding his powers.

This, of course, brings us to now. It's early afternoon in one of the many parlors of the mansion, and he seems to finally have gotten the hang of things, as evidenced by the fact that he's absolutely surrounded by various fruits, fruit wines, preserves, vegetables, and even a few bags of rice. His thyrsus, which has scarcely left his side since he found it a few days ago, is resting against a wall. If his new powers are linked just to Rainbows, that means he has less than twelve hours to enjoy them. He's reasonably certain that the thyrsus will remain after the season changes.

His class was originally supposed to be weeks ago, but with everything that was happening - the wedding preparations, the beach suddenly appearing out of nowhere, all of... everything else... it seemed a good idea to postpone the class slightly. Now he's grateful he decided to do that, it's giving him something productive to focus on. Teaching people how to make wine is something he has always enjoyed doing, and getting things prepared has been almost meditative for him. He has been able to pay attention to setting up the garden, and finding a wine press, and making all of the various bottles they'll need, and getting supplies, rather than letting his mind drift and dwell on Aornis.


They meet out in his garden, where he hands everyone a notebook, pen, grape shears, and a nice, big basket. It's important to know how and when to harvest the grapes before you even get into any of the business of fermentation. He has set the garden up to show the progression of grapes from seedling to harvest, and spends the first part of the day going over how grapevines grow, ideal growing conditions, and other things related to the plant itself. They spend some time collecting all the grapes they'll need for the day in the baskets, then make the journey back into the mansion, where he has one room set up with tables and everything else they will need.

Each station has a small flight of different wines to try (Dionysus offers to make them nonalcoholic for anyone who wants to taste but doesn't want to drink the alcohol; this is a perk of taking wine classes with the god of it, after all) and Dionysus explains the basic concepts behind how different sorts of wine are made. Today they're going to be making a red wine, so they'll be leaving the skin of the fruit in with the juice as it ferments.

After they've cleaned the grapes and Dionysus has shown them what stems to leave on versus what stems to cut away, they start crushing them - in a bowl with a potato masher, since they're each making relatively small batches. Mercutio in particular seems disappointed they're not just throwing everything into a big vat and stomping on it, but Dionysus promises him he can do that some other time, if he really wants to. Each student has two large jars to pour everything into and cover tightly with cloths. One jar they will continue working with today, the other he has them set to the side for now. Another perk of learning how to make wine from the god of it is that he's able to speed things along a little, so that everyone can do the entire winemaking process in a few hours. The second jar will be for them to work on in real time, putting the knowledge Dionysus is giving them today to use to make it on their own.

Between each step, Dionysus uses his powers to age everyone's wine along, mentally checking how it's going for everyone and offering suggestions on how to better care for it, so they each get the best possible version of wine out of it all. Twice "a day" they need to push the floating skins down into the juice, the liquid changing impossibly fast from a cloudy clear to a dark red as he speeds the process up for them. He explains how and why and when to check the sugar levels of everything, helping everyone with that as needed.

Pretty soon he has everyone transfer the liquid to a carboy, then everyone combines the leftover skins in the wine press. They take turns squeezing the remaining juice out of the grapes, which then gets used to top off what's in their jugs, that gets sealed off with an airlock. Now it would be a waiting game, but again Dionysus ages everything about a year in seconds' time. He explains in detail all of the steps you'd take to properly care for the wine as it ages, then has everyone bottle up their batches. Everyone should have enough for around five or so bottles, if they didn't spill too much during the process along the way.

He hopes everyone had a good time. It seemed to go over well at least, he thinks.

Spring is a very important time of year when you are a nature deity tied to a plant, and it has been a painfully long winter. But now the weather is warmer, there's no snow on the ground, the sun is shining (in more ways than one, you could say, since his big brother is now here as well), and in general things are looking up.

Dionysus made up his mind a long time ago that he would start up a vineyard as soon as the weather was more cooperative, and he has spent the past few days getting things set up. He found a nice spot of land for it, got everything prepared, and now he can be found wearing overalls rolled up at the bottom to just above his ankles, a tshirt, and a large sun hat¹, walking around the area bringing up some vines from the ground, winding them around some trellises he has made. They're just going through bud burst, he has called them into being as if they are a few years old but just starting to wake up for the season. He could have grown them completely from scratch, but he's impatient and would like an actual harvest this year, and what's the point of having magic if you're not going to use it from time to time?

He also has made room for a smaller garden at the far edge of his little area, where he has planted some various vegetables that he just likes growing for the hell of it. Those he does have to do the slow way, unfortunately.


1. He has his usual vine leaves wrapped around the hat, of course, do you think he would go without? They're his signature.

The first day of Dark was difficult enough to get through. When the situation didn't improve after a few days, however, Dionysus really began to worry. That the house would stop cooperating when it comes to creating food at the same time his own powers of generation have become so severely diminished... it doesn't sit easy with him.

He is grateful that he still has some powers, but he's been finding it difficult to produce grapes or wine (or any related products) of any quality, whereas before it came to him like breathing. But he considers it his duty to do what he can to offset the dwindling supplies, so every day he spends a few hours creating what he can: grapes, raisins, cartons of grape juice, and of course, bottles of wine, before diligently distributing it to the various kitchens and eating-places in the house. Wherever he thinks people may go to look for something to eat. Should anyone need him, he shouldn't be too difficult to locate.