Bright lights! An abundance of color! A cacophony of laughter and delighted (?) shrieks! Welcome, everyone, to the carnival! Enough of those nonsense protein shakes and that hoity-toity recycling; it's time to let loose, have some fun, and live a little! No judgment will be allowed today, not when everyone’s dressed up in ridiculous costumes and eating those unnecessarily huge turkey legs (it... is turkey, right?). For you see, CERES has invited the Traveling Circus of Tjghsldiwk (they hail from a different planet, but here's a hint: the h is silent) to bring some joy to the colonists. This is a safe place to let your inner wild child out, really. Definitely safe. Promise.
Yet for those who are a little less easily convinced to follow the sounds of laughter and amusement (bless your sensible hearts), they will find themselves grabbed and forcibly dragged by a pair of friendly souls in matching costumes. Everyone should be able to enjoy the festivities, don’t you think? Can’t have them missing out on all this jolly good, innocent fun!
The Public Announcement System crackles with... well, a fit of coughing first. But then a gravelly voice speaks! It seems the ringmaster has an announcement for you all. What joyous news can he bring?  Listen... I know that we’re supposed to keep these idiots entertained for at least another day or two but the machinery’s starting to complain. I think I heard the gates of the petting zoo groan – they’re on their last legs.
... Wait, this isn’t the direct line
Oh.
Ohohoho!! Have a great time, everyone! Everything is perfectly fine!
|
PHASE I [ 11 00 ] Come one, come all!! There’s quite a large amount of people here, isn’t there? You’ll find yourself tugged this way and that – up until you get dragged right into a changing booth. The helpful attendant meets you with a worryingly large grin – how is her face not breaking? – before pushing you right through the curtain. Then you’ll be given your choice of one of these lovely garments to change into. Look, one of them has to match your skintone, right? Don’t be picky about it! You also have... 90 seconds to figure out how to wear it before you’re tossed out into the middle of the crowd again. Have a good festival!
If you’re not willing to put on the outfits though, that’s fine. Instead, they’ll top you off with a cape and crown, shoving you out onto a... stage? Your adoring public cheers for you, yells your name, and throws confetti in your honor! Then a jester appears again, announcing your grand title:
The Ugliest in All of Cerealia.
Don't worry, that's just your introduction to the carnival; enjoy the rest of your time here! (They may or may not have given you back your clothing.)
PHASE II [ 1600 ] Do you hear that? Cymbals crashing together, trumpets blaring off-tune, the march of absurdly tired feet – a parade is coming! Best move off to the side before an acrobat quite literally tumbles into you. If you are an unfortunate casualty, they’ll actually just start to fall asleep on you because they’re tired… so very, very tired.
Yet the parade continues to march on without them and you can let yourself be distracted by the impressive jumping around and festive partygoers (who seem to be joining in the parade as they please, in various states of undress). But be wary. Distraction will only make you easier prey for the very hungry caterpillar that’s coming up the street next. Run if you can, but it has so very many legs and it’s coming after you.
For those unable to make it away from the caterpillar, they will find themselves gulped right into its gross, drooling mouth – and about five minutes later, they’ll be released out again onto the streets covered in a pink slime. It looks like you won't be able to free yourself from the stuff, so hopefully you can find a friend to get some help! Or one of the strangers around you? Unfortunately, when a kind soul finally comes by to pull you out of the slime, they’ll find that the outside of the gunk is not only immensely sticky but also slippery. If they're not careful, you'll both end up stuck to the gunk together.
You both better get out of that stuff quick because once someone joins you, the slime starts to move. Quick and gooey, it'll pull you and the hapless soul with you down the street at a much too quick pace. Hopefully you won't slide into too many people as you skid your way through the streets of the Entertainment District like some sort of demented Katamari Ball. This is why you should never trust giant bugs!
PHASE III [ xxxx ] In a smaller booth, toward the outskirts of the carnival, some may find a familiar face manning a quiet little shack on her own. Although those who have been in the colony long enough may have first encountered her as an 8-bit version of herself, Aria the fortune-teller is now back and more than willing to drag unsuspecting people into her hands again. Once you step into her stall, she takes one long look at you before sliding over a fortune cookie and a mask. What do you mean you didn’t ask for a mask? That's too bad, because it's yours now. She won't say anything more than that, giving nothing more than a quiet dismissal with a hand and an enigmatic smile to match.
When you step back outside, you’ll find that you just can’t get rid of the mask. If you toss it into a trash bin, it’ll be right back in your pocket. Throw it at a friend? It’ll be in your hand in the next second. Throw it away enough times and it’ll suddenly plant itself on your face -- which leads to all the alien carnival goers in the nearby vicinity suddenly going still with fear before moving to get as far away from you as quickly as possible. Well... you seem to be able to take it off for now if you still want to enjoy the carnival. It just won't go away, and every time you try to throw it away, it'll attach itself to your face. Might as well just keep it.
But... still, it's strange how none of the aliens running the carnival will look you in the eye now, isn't it?
PHASE IV [ 1200 ] For those who aren’t interested in dealing with the abundance of people, there’s also an assortment of critters gathered around for the petting zoo! They all seem to follow a general theme… kind of. That might be floppy ears and a tail if you... squint. The alien staff is right there and quick to ask you not to worry, they're perfectly harmless -- they don't eat humans! It would be bad for their diet, so feel free to pet them, if you can gather enough courage to do so.
Unfortunately, it seems as though this part of the circus was not put together very well; the rickety fences and cages don't really seem to do much against these giant...creatures. Towards the end of the circus' time here, it looks like those cages will start breaking down more and more, too.
The animals rattle the makeshift fences of the petting zoo, until finally, the fences just... collapse. Oops. The ground shakes as the animals stomp and immediately move to break out of their little ring. Well, would you look at that? You’ve apparently found yourself in the middle of a little stampede -- and those warnings about these animals not eating humans doesn't seem to hold much weight when now they're looking at you -- and they look pretty hungry.
BONUS [ why o'clock ] Left and right, there are voices shouting for your attention. "Hey pretty young miss!" or "Excuse me, you stud!" or "Look at this, jackass!" – that said, aliens think that you all manage to look the same, so who knows if they’re yelling at you in particular – and they’re all daring you to come and try your hand at their carnival game.
It’s run of the mill stuff: shooting games, tests of strength, and knocking down a couple of milk bottles. You might actually be doing well! Or... you might be embarrassing yourself in front of whatever cute person you’re trying to impress! But regardless, in the last allotted ten seconds of your game, no matter what, you’ll find your point score plummeting right into the negatives. Did you get a bullseye? What do you know, that’s now worth -1000 points! You missed? -5000 points.
The stall assistant seems to be having a grand old time, laughing at your pain and when the clock finally runs out, they'll give you a large grin. "Look at that score! Well, you know what that means, don’t you? Now, we win you!" With that, metallic tentacles suddenly sprout from the booth itself, looking to capture you and whoever you’re with. Welcome to the carnival, now you're one of the prizes. And it seems you'll be here for quite some time. That is, of course, unless someone can win you back from these really horribly rigged games.
Looks like you'd better get comfortable hanging motionless from a display, like an oversized stuffed animal. You'll be here for a while.
[ Remember to apply proper warnings on threads with sensitive or inappropriate material and do let a mod know if your thread careens off into maiming or canoodling so we can lock the log. ] |
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done.
SHE'S NOT BLUSHING SHE'S SCOFFING ANGRILY -- and rearing back. ]
Hah! No offense, Chat, but, uh. Heh. Are you sure that's not just an excuse not to take off yours?
[ Time for revenge. Rapunzel, feeling extremely self-satisfied and proud in advance of herself for this, leans in again (though she's intentionally blurring her eyes a bit so she doesn't have to meet his gaze quite as... intensely), and taps his forehead. Right on that mask. It's remarkably sassy and also pretty patronising. ]
Mon minou.
yeah rapunzel sure is shoving him there 1/2
chat doesn't lean back, but he hadn't expected any bit of her reaction. it's seen in the way his ears perk up on top of his head, the way his shoulders tense slightly, and during her staring she may have noticed that his eyes widened just a fraction at the tap on his forehead, and then a bit more at her choice of phrase.
mon minou. he's distracted. ]
Maybe, My L--
[ nope, no, cutting himself off there. adrien almost considers asking plagg if it was possible for the miraculous to shift eye color, hair color, hair length with the transformation, but that's a silly thought from silly similarities and he's silly. ]
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almost call her my lady.
that was a reflex to familiar banter. she may have been right. he can't call her something new every single time she calls him something new. ]
Er--
[ blondie's got his tongue. ]
--I didn't expect the French.
[ he didn't expect the e v e r y t h i n g. ]
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Embarrassing.
No, embarrassed, which is even better frankly. Her expression speaks volumes for how delicious this whole thing turned out. ]
Clearly. Now– Hm. What... was that you said about control again?
[ After a beat, Rapunzel relents and sits back, arms crossed and hands clasped primly in her lap with a look of completely blamelessness. Pascal, for his part, scuttles to and chirps disapprovingly in her ear before shooting Chat a seriously filthy look and parking himself on top of Rapunzel's head with a second look that could only say, I'm watching you, loser. I know what you're about and I know about the puns. Keep away from my Rapunzel and we will have no further need for engagement.
Or something. ]
Heh. We didn't really speak it much; mostly it was for reading purposes? Where I'm from everything is in French or - that other language Mother taught me. But! Yeah. I can speak French too, Superhero. [ great here they go ]
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that was a warning look from a chameleon, wasn't it? he's probably going to hear something about this and that from plagg; something like you don't think, you're entirely too easy to fluster with clever words and a bit of spunk and just a reminder, you dramatic boy, cheese doesn't talk back.
... also, didn't he come here with the intention of cheering her up? she seems chipper enough, but he's not sure if he should consider this entire exchange a success. did she cheer herself up, or is this just a case of shoving it away to deal with later? she evades his questions well enough.
chat collects himself. how did smooth-talking, low-voiced demon go again— ]
Oh là là.
[ yeah, like that. embarrassing. ]
Well, it sounds like I finally learned something about where you come from. [ a somewhat careful glance at pascal, before he offers rapunzel that cheshire grin of his. a sweeping gesture with his hand, referring to himself, and then to her. ] Which means... I mean, with the cat puns, being clever, and masked, the French—it's like we're becoming a pair, non?
[ he's going to get mauled by a chameleon.
but he can't help it. ]
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Her attempt at a snort comes out a little too successfully. ]
–E-Er. Yeah? A pair of what. Criminals? [ Said with a flip of the hair because two can play the
stupidcharming game ] Pretty sure the only masked cats around here are burglars...........I asked around.
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he raises his brow at her words, though it's really more like half of his mask raises up in place of his non-visible eyebrows at the moment. ]
Hey, considering my line of work, that's kind of insulti—
[ it's really not, honestly, he's just pretending... but the last part of her teasing sinks in then, killing the rest of the word before it leaves his mouth.
he, instead, rests his arms on his knees, giving her a look as his tail curls behind him. ]
Wait. You "asked around"?
[ the why is implied. ]
1/2
Rapunzel immediately gets to her feet, leading to Pascal's untimely fall to her feet, where he bounces and manages to hold onto one of the trailing blue ends of her outfit. Chat's death may be postponed after all! ]
I-I-I wanted to know where I could... I-If I– If I could find– [ What is this? She's never had this much trouble speaking in her life! She's a natural orator! Given to untimely speeches and brave declarations and poignant observations in warm, whispered tones. Not even asking her mother about the lanterns lead to this kind of absurd stumbling.
Her head is lighter than air. ]
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[ Fuuuuuuuuuuuck. ]
I mean. Which... which line of work. Is.
That.
[ She wants to die she wants to die oh god she wants to shrivel up and die right now and never ever come back. ]
1/2
it was his concern at first, then his fluster and then his focus on her face that drove his attention away from her outfit (those have been around, he's noticed, which may have helped this be less embarrassing except things are different when that's on someone you Know)... but there's none of those distractions when she's straight up jumping to her feet.
for the second time this conversation, his eyes widen. and his immediate response is to turn away from her, while still squatting, accomplishing this with a frog-like jump or two.
then she yells, his ears are sensitive enough (cat superpowers) without that and really, he's in fashion so he should be used to That's Not Even A Shirt— ]
Superhero. Remember?
[ —he won't mention her volume change. ]
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he straightens somewhat.
rather genuinely: ]
What were you looking for? I could help.
[ since he's a superhero.........
......... what would she be trying to find while asking around about black cats though.... ]
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Until the smell of something baking wafts down the alley and catches his attention.
Rapunzel, who's looking down at the top of one very blonde head - unexpected, that; what was his reaction all about, anyway? did she scare him? - notices too and looks up towards its source, momentarily distracted. Her clenched fists relax. ]
Ah... I - I wanted to know about crimes. –And stopping them, of course. Criminality. Burglary. Kidnapping. Things like that. I wanted to know how the people in charge of dealing with that sort of thing do it.
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Food's your weakness, huh? Me too.
[ he mumbles that to pascal quietly, leaning forward just a tad. his nose had taken in the smell, too, but his mind was largely on rapunzel's curious line of questioning.
he supposes the same kind of girl who would own a whole lot of hair and a very animated chameleon would steer right towards the weird. it's... an odd thing to want to know about, very particular, and not exactly what he'd expect. honestly, he almost looks over his shoulder to see her as he responds, before snapping his attention back forward to pascal when he remembers the current situation.
smooth, smooth. ]
Very stubbornly. [ from his own personal experience as a One Day Criminal (though that was a misunderstanding, he's mostly joking). it was pretty rare for him to dabble into regular crime, preoccupied as he was with akuma, but it wasn't like he hadn't before (or that he didn't know, too). ] I didn't think you'd be so nervous about admitting you were asking around about that stuff.
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Turning darker green again, the chameleon chirps and climbs up Rapunzel's leg to sit curled around a hipbone where he can nag her better. Again, she's not paying him much attention with Chat at her feet... Hm. Her feet...
Momentarily inspired by this rare moment where she has the upper hand between them - physically and mentally, it seems - she lifts a leg - the leg of someone flexible and used to doing such things, of course - and taps him lightly on the head with her toe. Soft as hers! Interesting. She would've thought men didn't care so much about their hair. ]
I wasn't. I mean– I'm not. That is nothing to be worried about. [ YES IT IS ] Do you smell that?
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[ is she evading, he means, evading the topic again (and usually he's the pushover who lets people do that, because he gets it and does it himself, but the context is odd and frankly quite concerning, so maybe he won't let that slide so easily this time), as a clawed hand goes up to blindly try and catch what exactly she had pressed up against his hair.
he thinks it's going to be a hand. it didn't feel like a hand, but he thinks it was a hand.
all the while he's going to try and push aside that baking smell, even as it assaults his especially sensitive nose. ]
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Is - is it working? I mean. [ Can you hear the smirk in her voice? Man, she's
THIRSTYhungry. ] We can eat and talk at the same time. Though you'd have to take off the mask...no subject
[ ha ha h a h. so, the usual mask is staying on, and he continues with a less hush-hush tone: ]
Anyway, I'm pretend-distracted for now. Just a warning? It'll be purr-ty hard to keep up that pretending while I'm talking and eating.
[ like he's even trying. where she has the smirk in her words, he does too, with that honesty of his. it's not like he wants to be nosy, but the talk of crimes and kidnapping and the state he found her in when he parked his butt in their not!alley means he finds talking a little more necessary.
not that he'll push too much. it's here, when he moves to stand and let go of whatever he's holding, that he realizes it's not a hand that had been in his grip the whole time.
no, it's a foot. she poked him with a foot, and that's what finally gets him to turn his head and look at her over his shoulder.
slowly, he drops it as he moves to stand. yeah, so much for seeming cool. ]
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However, she will spare him any further humiliation on account of the pun, making the wise choice to instead sigh and wrap both arms around her upper body with a shiver. Spilling secrets onto the carpet and chattering away all night about the things that keep you up isn't her idea of a good time, precisely, but she's willing to go along with it for science. (In this case, "science" can be neatly translated to getting something to eat with this annoying fur ball. ]
Hah. Yeah? Why is that, Chat Noir? [ Why the emphasis? ] Can't catch your cat's tongue, huh?
[ An idiom she only just learned and is utterly thrilled to be trying out on him. ]
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it's that shiver that gets him composing himself again as he stretches, fully standing now (one arm extended fully over his head, the opposite arm's hand at that elbow... and then he switches). ]
Hmm, nope. It's the cat's job to catch tongues, you know? [ the correction he offers as he takes a few steps closer to the main path, gesturing with his head for rapunzel to follow.
he thought that was smooth, probably, but now it's time for science!! annoying fur ball science. ]
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Whatever.
[ Not that she's ever going to tell him that. ]
–So, um, do you only eat fish? – poisson, sorry. [ Show off. ] Orrrrr is your diet a little more flexible? [ Still trying to show off, she does a pirouette to catch up with him, dancing around and ahead in a way that allows her to, well, show off her dance moves (that was Rapunzel's aim) but which, in this outfit, shows off a lot more than that. Man how many fifteen-year-olds wind up with older women chasing them? Much less one this nuts. ]
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sometimes kind of inexplicable. whatever, she says. did he win that one? he might've won that one.
except when she's dancing and reminding him about her outfit and his adrien-y teenage fluster despite his superhero bravado and smooth chat noir exterior. he blinks, puts his focus on the stalls surrounding them, nose twitching as he follows the baking smell, eyes shifting as he looks for something warmer she can wear.
though maybe he doesn't need to bother. she seems way comfortable.
with a hum: ]
I'm pretty partial to sweet things. I know, I don't look like the type. [ that he can't really eat, but he'll probably indulge here. ] But fur you, I'll eat whatever.
[ he means this in just a nice way but?? still looking this way and that way. ]
—Hold that thought!
[ HE FOUND SOMETHING so excuse him. ]
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Whatever, huh? What if I want– Hey! [ The abrupt outburst doesn't annoy her any, but it is a surprise to see him behaving so... openly? His affect is no longer entirely distant the way it had been when talking to Chat was like talking to one half of a whole person. That's part of the allure, of course, the subtle strangeness of him. Sly smiles juxtaposed with a seemingly honest desire to do right by people.
Here, though, despite the mask and general cloak-and-dagger aspect of his outfit/persona, he seems... happy? Excited? She can't tell exactly, but she wants to find out. ]
Uh, yeah! Wh-What's up? Is someone giving away tuna steaks?