+ Somewhere a Grandiose Carnival Was Going on in the Sky +

[vitaelamorte]

Who: Everyone!
Where: The grounds of the Mansion
When: March 9-16
Rating: PG-13 (warn if you go higher)
Summary: The Red Queen has thrown a carnival for everyone!
The Story:


From Friday, March 9, through Friday, March 16, the gardens and grounds of the Mansion will be a sprawling a carnival. The masked, unspeaking vendors will be selling trinkets and running free game booths. Carnival rides, exhibits, and foods represent all of the various cultures of those currently residing in the Mansion.


Of particular note, and perhaps incongruously, everything is decorated with red hearts.

Use this log for any and all of your carnival needs!

Comments

[postictal]

"Flashlight head?" He's not well-versed on his robot mythology, or on who's who outside of the circle of people he interacts with regularly. Despite him making active attempts to be less of a shut-in, he's still woefully under-socialized, and it's starting to show.

Especially considering Mae hasn't been here nearly as long as he has, and yet has managed to meet more people than him in a much shorter span of time.

[deadshapes]

"Yeah, uh, I see them on the network sometimes? They're...I think they're from Shepard's world?"

He must know Shepard at least. Everyone knows Shepard.

[postictal]

...right, yeah. He's - he thinks he's met them, actually. Not that he was in the right mind at the time. He was stomping through a painfully humid jungle and halfway out of his mind and on the verge of a catastrophic relapse, so he wasn't exactly in a stunning state to be taking notes.

It takes him a minute to recall their name.

"Legion?" he ventures finally. "I think that's it."

[deadshapes]

She snaps her fingers and almost drops the rest of her funnel cake.

"Yeah, that's it. I knew it was something creepy-sounding like that. Man. We really got all kinds here, huh?"

She loves it. Even if it means everyone and their mother thinks she's a cat.

[postictal]

"I dunno about 'creepy,' but yeah, I think they've been here for - maybe longer than I have." His conceptualization of time isn't great, but what else is new? "We've got someone calling himself 'Lucifer' who owns a club. Jury's out on whether or not he's actually Satan."

Does he care? Not particularly. It doesn't really concern him one way or the other.

[deadshapes]

"God, I keep forgetting that that's a thing. I don't think I've ever talked to him. Just like, oh yeah, Satan's here. Which makes you realize there must be versions of Satan, right? Which is surreal as eff."

If there's different universes and timelines and dimensions then there must be variations on everyone. Wonderland is so damn weird.

But at least it has funnel cakes.

[postictal]

Maybe he should ask Satan if he had a hand in Tim's creation, he almost jokes aloud, before remembering who he's talking to. As much as morbid humor is well and good between the two of them, he shouldn't go blurting shit like that to just anyone.

"I dunno. I think most people don't go outta their way to talk to the literal Devil." Assuming he is the actual Devil. He goes around proclaiming himself Lucifer Morningstar, so that probably counts for something.

[deadshapes]

She makes a face. "I can think of a few people who would deffo go out of their way to talk to the literal Devil."

She never thought about their being a Venn diagram between goth kids and actual cult members, but there you go.

"How's your funnel cake?"

She's practically finished with hers, and though her stomach is starting to complain, she is absolutely planning on going back for seconds.

[postictal]

"It's...good." He almost sounds surprised to admit it, to both her and to himself. He doesn't allow this kind of thing for himself all that often. He has to more or less be walked into it, or pushed into it, or has to do it on the behalf of someone else, simply because it never occurs to him that he should for his own sake.

"I'm gonna have like, ten cavities, but - " He was gonna say all you gotta do is die to fix it, but that seems a shade more morbid than is necessary. "...uh, I guess it's pretty worth it."

[deadshapes]

She absolutely beams. He's got that sort of halting tone, like he's still surprised that it's actually good. Like he's surprised something so simple and god can even exist.

"Pfft, yeah, but someone around here's gotta have like...dentist magic or something. It's Wonderland. But either way, hell yeah. Worth it."

Always worth it.

[postictal]

"You wanna finish this one off?" He's...not sure he can finish, honestly, and some instinct left over from the weeks he and Jay switched off ducking into gas stations for whatever shitty not-meal they could scrape together, that would get them by for another day, urges him not to let something like that go to waste.

He's still got a good third or so of it left, and he's officially reached his limit. He's never had this much sweet anything in his life, and he's starting to feel it.

[deadshapes]

"Sure. I got like four stomachs."

That's a total lie. She can practically hear Bea chiding her, telling her she's gonna make herself sick. Screw it! YOLO or whatever.

"We should do this again sometime, dude. I bet I could figure out how to make these. It can't be too hard."

She's going to make funnel cakes or light the kitchen on fire trying.

[postictal]

"Uh, if you're sure." He's privately of the mind that something like that would be a terrible idea on par with driving into a gasoline-soaked house full of zombies blaring eighties music, but sure. She can do what she wants; he's hardly got a track record that would suggest he's in the position to judge.

"Are you...like, a cook, or anything like that?"

[deadshapes]

"I am rapidly becoming more sure."

This is how all of her bad ideas start.

"Me, hell no. I mean, I know how to make ramen. And cereal. Does that count?"

[postictal]

"...sure. Why not?" He's no better. This won't be fucking disastrous or anything, surely. "That's about on par with what I could scrape together in a dorm room or on the road, so yeah, that's...that's gourmet, right there."

Funnel cakes sound intensely complicated and a bad idea for elementary cooks to set about making on a whim.

That sounds like the kind of batshit idea that's doomed to failure.

[deadshapes]

"No no no, you wanna talk gourmet, gourmet is when you dump Froot Loops into the ramen, because you skipped breakfast and that feels weird and it's 11 pm and you're like 'well shit, I gotta eat something.'"

It really, really didn't work out very well, but whatever. College was weird.

"Dude, you and me. Setting kitchens on fire. We're gonna do it."

[postictal]

"Oh, jesus," Tim mutters, because that sounds a little too Brian for his tastes, but you know what? He can believe it. He can believe that she's done it. He can believe that she'd do it again.

But, hell. Why not, right? Won't be the stupidest thing he's done.

He shrugs.

"All right, all right. Fine. I'm in."

[deadshapes]

She throws her arms up, almost dropping the rest of her funnel cakes in the process.

"Hell yeah, lawlessness in the pursuit of flavor! FLAVORTOWN, WONDERLAND, POPULATION: TWO!"

[postictal]

He snorts despite himself. He's gotta hand it to her for being one in a million - she's got exuberance, if nothing else, something to compliment his near-complete apathy.

"Flavortown, huh?" A pity he isn't up on his most recent memes; he'd make a Guy Fieri joke if he could.

[deadshapes]

"Flavortown! Where the flavor is mostly sugar."

She gives a sage nod.

[postictal]

He shakes his head, one corner of his mouth quirking upward very, very slightly. It's not much, but for him, it might as well be full-bodied laughter.

"Okay, buddy. It's on."