Log:Lost Circus: TTS Fun Master of Mentality

Lost Circus - TTS Fun Master of Mentality

OOC Date: January 23, 2018
Location: The Lost Circus - Corellian District, Nar Shaddaa
Participants: Naelyn, Lorana Adella, Nadia Cuul, Hex, Navi, Asiir Cuul, The Toxic Frogs

Unlike the first day of the To the Stars Fun Meet, it is not raining outside but rumors about the excitement of the competition and almost streetfair like event has drawn alot more people. There are more vendors. There are posters with the shadow shilouettes of what is probabyl supposed to be a Gand, and then some other profiles that are more human like. People walk around laughing and eating snacks from various vendors. Proceeds taking the form of donations to various families or organizations that require financial assistance. Small children dressed up in black or white tunics run around handing out bead garlands made by small hands and they have sparkly gold or silver stars painted on their cheeks, faces and arms or even their tunics. Volunteers greet people offering them shimmery black, white or grey tunics.

The tents have been arranged in a different way to allow for a centralized playing field. Today, there's no grass just smooth pavement and there's a perimeter fence today, its lower. Over the field is the banner 'Do you have what it takes?' And under that a holo image of the Gand name Gand floating with 'Prince of Physicality' and a flashing space beside it saying 'This Could Be You'.

Nadia makes her way through the crowds with her clawed thumb back behind the thick leather gunbelt she's wearing. Her jacket, patched and worn that it is, flutters a little as she turns a shoulder to press through a group standing at one of the food tents, all the while a smile sits half buried on her heavily scarred lips as she gazes about the collectioin of wares being sold.

She gives a little glance at Asiir and juts her chin out towards the center stage where the image of Gand is visible, "Contest?"

Hex has not adopted a special tunic for festival purposes; he's wearing the same atrocious red-flowered duster as he always is. Overall he seems a little baffled by the hubbub afoot, holding a bead garland like he's not totally sure how that happened. He gives up trying to figure out what's up and settles for just yelling "NAELYN?"'

Coming in from outside, having enjoyed the last round of the competition, is Lorana, wearing a light green outfit, with a chibi Rancor on the front of her top. She looks round, smirking at the posters of Gand, and making her way to a food stall. Once there, she orders some fungus and noodles.

Navi arrives the same way she had the day before; fully armored and armed less like a circus patron and more like a bounty hunter. There is one difference, however... the black sparkly tunic she'd gotten the day before is draped over one shoulder, just to earmark her as already having one, and thus having been in attendance the day before. She waves to Nadia, walking in her general direction, though she spares a look at the new signage and the modifications to the floorspace. "I wonder if there will be as much comedy gold today..." she muses.

Walking in on the heels of Nadia is her brother, Asiir. The male Cathar is a touch broader of shoulder than his sister, his chest a little more pronounced, but still on the slender side as far as the males of his species tend to go. He wears a short length leather spacer jacket that cuts off right at the waiste and a pair of simple enough pants, seemingly dressed casual for the event. He looks toward one of the folks handing out the special tunics and shakes his head firmly before his eyes drift toward Nadia and he shrugs his shoulders in reply to her question. "I suppose we can. Perhaps there is some sort of credit prize," he answers in a lazy voice.

The Volunteers at the Circus all receive 'Hex' training. That means a young girl of about 14 or so with a galaxy painted on her cheek approaches Hex and taps his arm, before pointing to the playing field. Its easier to just point him to Naelyn.

On the playing field there stands a certain slender and fit dancer who was not there a moment ago, but is now, perched on a stool and wearing black and green and silver...no robe for today or boots. Hair and make-up flawless as usual and expression coy as the spotlight starts strobing around the area and he clears his throat. That purring voice pouring over the speakers. "Well look at alllll these beautiful people..."

He is off the stool in a smooth move. "Don't just mill about looking scrumptious, come closer and and toss your hat in the ring, lets see what it is you bring..." Two hands grip the stool as he takes a deep breath and then starts carefully adjusting his weight to hop up into a hand stand, balancing on the stool and taking a deep breath. "Who's willing to compete? To have your names written in the stars?"

"I do love credits..." Nadia mirrors ontop of Asiir's observations of potential rewards for said contest, but is waylayed by the arrival of the armored Navi. She greets the mandalorian woman with a nod, hand extended to clasps wrists, "I certainly do hope so.. I'm in desperate need of a laugh.." Then introductions, "You've met my brother and First Mate, Asiir?" Motioning to him then.

Naelyn's sudden appearance has the smaller cathar's attention and she holds up one finger to step forward towards him, "I will." One hand raised, clawed fingers slightly curled, "Nadia Cuul."

Hex obediently follows the young teen who points him the right direction. He's kinda been trained too. And there is Naelyn, fancied up, with something obviously underway! Thus he settles for blinking at Nae, and the other familiar faces, before he steps closer to Lorana to ask the other Twi'lek, "What kind of contest is he talking about?"

Getting her food, Lorana turns to watch Naelyn. She takes a few steps towards the arena-area, munching on her food. Looking to Hex she smirks. "No idea, though yesterday you missed the wet t-shirt contest I lost," she jokes, before raising a hand and walking toward Naelyn.

Navi accepts Nadia's wristclasp, returning it in kind, along with her nod, then nods to Asiir as well. "Yesterday there was a lot of water involved, and consequently a lot of mud. Glad I didn't play /that/ game. It got pretty wild toward the end. I wonder what they'll be doing today?"

Glancing at Naelyn as he appears, she shrugs, then raises her hand. "So, what are we playing at today?"

Asiir offers a nod of his head toward Navi, looking the woman over before questioning, "You run with the Revivers? I was hanging out with them quite a lot here a little less than a year ago." He rolls his shoulders after hearing Naelyn's words, then steps forward and raises a hand as well, calling out, "And I will be beating her. Asiir Cuul," then cuts a smirk at his sister.

The sephi balancing on the stool slooowly moves his legs up and over, contorting his flexible frame so that his face is temporarily framed by his own shins before he moves back into the handstand and finally lowers his legs so that he's standing back on his feet. Striking a pose as he strides forward.

He sweeps an arm over towards the field where individual stations have been set up. Each station has large buckets of sticks made out of artificial sweetner and starch. Different colors. But it is locked, the lock has a bunch of twist ties that need to be removed in a specific order to unlock the damn bucket.

"Step up to your bucket and unlock it, to create a masterpiece fit for royalty..." A pause. "But are your minds keen enough to unravel the mystery..." He holds up one finger and then another finger, bringing them together to form '2' and then he holds up two fingers on each hand, bringing them together to form 4. There are 5 colors ties. Untie them in the correct sequence and in the end you will have 16. First gold, then silver, then white, then black, and then rainbow...are you ready?" A pause. "And whoever completes their puzzle first, gets to keep their bucket of candy..."

Lorana finishes her food and throws her carton away. She steps to he bucket and looks it over. She listens and watches Naelyn talk. Something clicks in her mind and she unties two gold ties, allowing her to remove the gold row.

"Tcha, I'm sorry to hear that," Hex says to Lorana. "If you needed a dry shirt, Nae always has extra around somewhere!" It's possible that the actual appeal of a wet T shirt contest went right over his head, woosh. "Are you gonna eat that?" She threw the carton away! "Wait!" Hex hesitates, has no self control, steps over to the trash to make sure she didn't throw anything away. Rats. She did finish it, so everyone is saved from Hex dumpster diving, and Naelyn starts the show. "I'm not... this isn't my thing," he protests, before taking a better look. "Oh... szu'tak... there's candy." He is drawn like a moth to the flame toward the bucket. "Look, first or not, no one is taking away my bucket," he issues a general warning. The bucket is studied for an embarrassingly long time, but eventually he reaches for 2 gold ties.

Navi approaches her bucket, studying the collection of twist-ties thoughtfully. Those handsign numbers... what did they mean? The first row appears to be gold... and the first number was... /two/! She begins to untwist two of the gold twist-ties. They come away, and the whole row of gold twist-ties all but falls off into her hands. "One down..." she murmurs. "Now for the silver ones... something about four? Hmm..."

Asiir looks to his box and the ties there, eyes slowly moving from the dancer giving the instructions to the difference color ties. With a thoughtful sort of sigh and a shrug of his shoulders, he goes to work on his own box, starting with the gold ties first.

Knots and colors and all the birds under the sun, Nadia was hoping this was like... like a punching contest or something equally not requiring her to think through a series of interlocking knots. So she takes a look at it from a step back with her hands on her hips and her head tilt slightly to the side. Once she's confident that she's found some sort of answer, or just feels silly staring at it, she starts undoing the ties.

And when the gold ties are slipped free there's a holoprojection that shows 1+1=2. And a green checkmark. Naelyn perches on the stool smiling softly to himself and looking encouragingly from person to person. Even applauding a bit. He does lean down to whisper something softly to a passing volunteer, pointing to Hex's bucket and shaking his head. Probably warning them about taking the bucket, regardless of results.

He clears his throat. "Now my dears, its not that hard...follow the pattern and unlock the world." He holds up two fingers on each hand and brings them together.

Hex pauses to light up a cigarette and study the bucket, and issue a few menacing looks to volunteers who might try to be stealin' his bucket. "Why would I solve a problem by thinking about it when I can clearly solve this problem by hitting it?" he complains at the gameshow host, before twitching his lekku in thought, smoking, and humming something that sounds like a nursery rhyme for counting. He might also be counting on his fingers. Against all odds, he does reach for the correct ties next.

Lorana keeps looking at the bucket, thinking the puzzle over. Remembering Naelyn's words, she settles on untying four silver ties, allowing her to remove the silver row. Once it's out, she poses a little for the audience.

Nadia rubs at her furry chin with her claws making tracks beneath her bottom lip... With a shrug, she kneels down and starts pulling off the appropo number of the silver ties. "Yes, hit it with your head..." She grunts over at Hex, "bang on it until it bends to your will."

Navi studies the row of four silver ties, then untwists four of them, so intent on her puzzle-work that she doesn't even think of posing for the audience. She's still twisting up numbers in her mind. "Okay, that's done..."

Fingers working quickly, Asiir sticks his tongue between his teeth as he moved on to the next color, trying to work out the four silver ties. "Hex has to use what he has at his disposal," he comments aloud with a chuckle. "Brains have never been his strong suit, Sister." A well groomed eyebrow raises at the inquiry from Hex and Naelyn just opens his mouth and closes it. "Because the candy inside will be damaged by the attempt...maybe..."

That holoprojecttion shows the next line with a check mark. So far people seem to be catching up with each other speedwise. 1+/1/=2. 2+/2/=4. Naelyn's voice can be heard again. "All that glitters may be silver and gold, but in shades of white what story needsto be told...."

The gathered crowd cheeeeers and applauds, intent on watching the competition unfold on various screens around the area.

"Nine?" Nadia wonders to herself, pacing back and forth infront of the bucket pulling at her lip, "No, I think it's four again.. yeah. Three plus three is four." She bobs her head, completely miscalculating until she get to four.. and then keeps going. Because as good as she is at adding, she's even better at counting. "It is not wrong! Four plus four is twelve dammit!" Now she's just lost.

"Congrats on getting this far Hex, I didn't know you had it in you!" Lorana says to Hex. She thinks around the problem for a moment, then clicks her fingers! She unoes several ties on the next row and it comes away! Cue more posing on her behalf, playing up to the audience.

"That doesn't make it not edible!" Hex informs Naelyn, as the threat of breaking the candy seems to have tenuous hold on his self control. He unties 6 ties, and there's a little red light flashing to inform him WRONG WRONG WRONG. His lekku twitch in exasperation, and he draws on the cigarette. Was Nadia trying to cheat by encouraging cheating? He's not quick enough to catch it, if so. "I mean... I don't think I'd use my head though... to break it..." Lorana's got it, and the next obvious solution is just to copy her homework. He asks in Ryl, which is not going to fool Naelyn, "Ay, what's the answer?"

Asiir is on a work call, but he totally gets the right answer after taking a little bit to think about it.

Navi blinks at the comments from Naelyn, taking a step back from her bucket. "One plus /one/ is two... two plus /two/ is four..." she murmurs, studying the holo readout. "But what to do with four..." She hastily untwists two ties, then two more to make four... and pauses when nothing happens. "Four plus... four plus... four plus one... and two..." she murmurs, untwisting another tie, then two more, and... "YES!!!" The white row falls off.

There's a glance over to Hex from Naelyn as he blinks a few times and just sighs softly, pinching the bridge of his nose. The crowd 'awwwws' softly as Hex and Nadia's sations beep red showing that they will receive at time penalty but they do get the answer on the holoprojection. The audience is cheering for the others too, and bouncing with excitement. Alllmost there.

1+/1/=2. 2+/2/=4. 4+/3/=7.

"Black is the backdrop to many a star, solve the next line and then victory is not that far." Naelyn offers softly.

"Nope." Nadia holds her hands up when, as she tries to count out the last seven, the buzzer goes read again telling her that she entered the wrong amount. "Nope." The cathar stands up, turns her back on the puzzle, and jumps off the stage with her middle fingers up.

Lorana stares at the bucket, lekku shifting to a new position. After a few moments, a number of ties are undone and the next row comes away. This is followed by some more posing, hamming it up for the audience.

Hex inputs the answer from the last round and reviews the next. "Lia'ra, WHY," he whines at Naelyn. "I just wanted a snack, I didn't realize this was gonna be psychological torture up in here!" He's near Lorana, and maybe the answers are flowing by osmosis from the smarter female Twi'lek to the male who, you know... he has a good personality. "Just hit it!" he advises Nadia as she nopes out, and looks despairingly at the bucket. The cigarette is burning lower and his only audience fans are those who like to pity when they cheer. Eventually he does get it, but it might have been a lucky guess.

Now black... and... geez," Navi murmurs, studying the row of black twist-ties and suddenly drawing a blank. Her hot start seems to be fizzling as she stares and stares. "Seven, maybe... annnnd, no. Frell..." she murmurs, crossing her arms and scowling at the twist-ties from behind her helmet. And then she remembers the number our. "Maybe not seven... but /eleven/?" she whispers, untying four more, then squealing in delight in a most un-Mando'a way as the row falls away.

Asiir is humming his own little theme song as me moves on to the black ties, unwrapping them and sliding them free of the box. "At least I'm beating your dumb ass," he says toward Nadia with a laugh.

"You should hurt him," Hex advises Nadia.

"You're adopted." Nadia says to Asiir from the crowd, shouting over their awwwww he's so precious' for Hex.

And so this is it. The final countdown of ROUND 1 of this mess that is called a Fun Meet competition. The only person's who's black row dows not flash green, is Nadia sadly and her supporters start yelling about 'things are rigged' and chanting 'FINGER KITTEN, FINGER KITTEN, FINGER KITTEN!'. And then Hex's supporters are trying to drown out the chanting with 'FLUFFY SMOKER! FLUFFY SMOKER'. These underdog supporters do also toss food at each other and get worked up.

The holoprojection now shows 1+/1/=2. 2+/2/=4. 4+/3/=7. 7+/4/=11! And the audience is going wilds, its the final round, the rainbow round has tags that seem to shimmer and glow, waiting to be solved.

Naelyn uncurls from his perch to start pacing along the line of competitors. "Who will be the first...to open their bucket and come one step closer to being a living star...a sign that rain has come and gone and left behind a beautiful dawn...can you afford to get this one wrong?"

Fluffy smoker is inspired, by those in the crowd who would food-fight with the fluffy kitten fans on his behalf, by Lorana's nearby success (and copying her?), by dumb luck, maybe. "Hey, I don't understand what the hell are you talking about," he informs Naelyn with all that rain and dawn and whatnot, but he manages to get the next step, and pretty quickly. "Ryma'at, is this where the candy finally happens?"

Navi stares at the last row of twist-ties, pondering the numbers as her brain seems to lock up. "Ten... or is it twenty-one, ten plus eleven?" She slowly begins to untwist the twist ties... and pauses, taking a slow, deep breath. Her helmet seem suffocating, and she hastily pops open the seals and yanks it off, shaking out her pigtails reflexively. "Gods..." she murmurs, panting. "Don't tell me the filters are clogged..." And then she looks around sharply at a squeal and a torrent of Bocce from a human girl, barely into her teens, with pink-dyed hair and a patch over her right eye, who dashes up beside her and finishes untying a total of thirteen twist-ties. Nothing happens. "Um... maybe there are more of them?" Navi suggests. She's out of ideas, and can't understand enough Bocce to make sense of the fangirl's speech.

Asiir is a genius yall. His hands fly over the last of his ties, unworking them as quickly as he can while casting occasional glances at his competitors. Pulling the last one free, he jerks the tie into the air and announces, "Done! Suck it, losers!" then throws the tie on the ground.

AND the CROWD GOES WILD! As somehow...Fluffy Smoker manages to Solve the LAST and Hardest row of all. Asiir and Lorana are neck to neck in their competition of smarts but the cathar is just a tiny bit faster than the Twi'lek and their fans are cheering and bouncing. Nadia's Finger Kitten Crew are also clapping and booooooing with class and charm, stomping on the floor andlooking about ready to fight the Fluffy Smoker Crew. Meanwhile, people are charmed and flocking to Navi as her show of good showmanship and appreciating her fans.

Naelyn raises his hands and as the final number is exposed, flashing up ther 16!!! 16!!! 16!!! And showing the score board with Asiir at the top, Lorana under him and slotted for another day to complete her second task, then Hex, and Navi, with Nadia pulling up the rear and slotted for that second day.

Its serious business now as the buckets are now OPEN and the candy is free. "Now, you have 2 minutes to use these sticks to make something with 3-4 walls that can be used to keep something in....to house a tiny colony of little stars." The timer starts NOW.

"Maybe you can help me build this thing now?" Navi suggests to her new partner, who nods emphatically and giggles, pointing to herself and stating, "Clea!", before the two go to work. Navi picks out several sticks and passes them to Clea, then starts building something like a frame for her... house? Cage? She isn't sure, and Clea isn't helping things by eating more sticks than she puts in place. In the end, the structure is haphazard as can be believed, teetering and verging on collapse as the two struggle to keep it from falling over.

"What is this even?!" Hex asks in tones of complete unhappiness as, just about to bite into a candy stick, he's been told they aren't for eating. He twitches his lekku disagreeably and starts up a new cigarette, then gnaws on the ends of some of the candy sticks anyway. It's part of the process you see, makes them sticky so the structure olds together. Mostly. "You owe me lunch, lia'ra," Fluffy Smoker informs the host.

"And entire side of some roastable beast, I promise..." Naelyn purrs softly to Hex, smiling a bit as people scramble to make their structure. These are the ugliest houses ever but they are small and ready for...

Well, somebody said Lunch and there are those handwalking acrobats who enter the ring walking on their hands and holding boxes with their feet. There are about 4 of them total, all dressed up sparkly and then yes. They dump out tiny frogs. Lots and lots of multi colored little frogs that are hopping about. They are all in different colors and that is why there is a barrier around the playing field today.

"Now my darlings...I need you to home 5 special frogs in your houses. Some are easier to find, and some are harder to find. One gold, one silver, one white, one black, and then the ever elusive rainbow shimmer frog."

"Why... are you...." Hex is just so at a loss to explain to himself or anyone else why Naelyn keeps insisting on using food in improper ways, here. Candy huts are food. Frogs in toxic rainbow colors are also food. He draws on cigarette #2 of this competition, adopts a long-suffering look, and gets to work. He's quick for a guy who needs to lose like 35 lbs, but only manages to scoop up and rehome the silver and rainbow frogs. They do seem pretty stoked to stay inside their sweet crib.

Clea keeps her hands on the sides of the rickety candy cage to keep it more or less together as Navi works on catching the frogs. She winds up running all over the arena, grabbing up frogs wherever she finds them. But they're squirmy and stronger than they look, so she has to hastily dash back to her table to park each frog in the cage. "Rainbow... gold... white... black... where's the silver one?" she murmurs, counting aloud. And just then a candy stick falls off the side of the cage, swiftly followed by a white frog leaping out and landing on Clea's nose. The girl shrieks in surprise, letting go of the cage. Which promptly collapses, and frogs dart around everywhere on the table!" "Oh no, no..!" Navi cries, struggling to prop up the cage and catch the frogs at the same time and failing rather miserably. Clea, insisting on trying to help, catches the black frog in her hands, only to have it spring free and land on Navi's neck, slipping down her collar... Navi shrieks in surpise and dismay, fumbling with the catches of her armor. Clea rushes to help her, and manages to, to a point, but it's a chaotic several minutes of shrieks and squeals and the clatter of armor bits hitting the floor before all Navi's armor is off and the frog is finally retrieved. And all the while the other frogs leap and play about the table and the remains of the cage. While Clea gathers up Navi's armor and gear, the blonde girl, left in her undergarment, darts around the table in spurts and tries to corral the frogs once again, while her fans laugh and cheer her on (even if some of them do so for entirely different reasons than the competition). It's just not her day...

Asiir is pretty much just along for the ride at this point. As the Frogs are turned loose, the Cathar springs into motion, seeing all of the frogs. He drops to his knees, springs out on his belly, rolls around in the dirt, and manages to catch three.

WHO WILL WIN! Nobody knows. Its anybody's game as frogs are hopping and people are chanting and cheering. There's flash space holography as people are catching frogs and Asiir and Hex's catches stay in their new houses. However, Navi is not has fortunate. Her mishap though is show gold, everybody cheering and jumping out of their seats.

Then the final scores are released. Navi coming in Fourth Place . Lorana rolling in Third Place. Fluffy Smoker aka Hex rolling into Second Place. Which makes some people go 'what? Hunh? That one? That one right there?' and there' s tentative applause until the thuggish supporters and fan's of Fluffy Smoker glare and then there's thunderous applause but its the final name that shows up...

Glitter and Confetti falls down on Asiir as his shilouete appears in the holoprojector under the title of 'Master of Mentality!' and children rush up to him to offer him garlands and a wreath/crown made of silver painted wooden stars. Its like a wreath though. That is when the fans swarm onto the playing field for autographs and frogs.