Performance and Dreamcatchers

[pipers_son]

Who: Joker, those working entertainment, and whoever wants to do fun arts and crafts
When: The day after the orientation, and then after the ringmaster's announcement
Where: The Big Tent and one of the side stages, respectively
What: Joker gets his performing ducks all in a row, and then does an arts and crafts corner. As you do. Mingle log!

At around ten in the morning, as he told a few other workers and anyone who'd been listening in on the walkie talkies, Joker starts to radio in those who are working under him to meet up in the big top. Hope you had breakfast and not a hangover! Of course, for anyone who tries not to attend, Joker will cheerfully hunt them down and bother them into going.

Sorry, mandatory, you know how it is.

It's later in the day, after the ringleaders' own announcement, that eventually Joker makes another of himself, this time to the general channel. It's an invitation to one of the side stages to make dreamcatchers together, for anyone who still craves company or simply doesn't know what the hell a dreamcatcher even is. Along with that, Joker has taken it upon himself to make sure signs advertising this are plastered all over the carnival.

He drew them himself. Please appreciate the scribbled stars.

Comments

[coinsforlockerrooms]

[ Yukine looks at Elizabeth in sudden confusion, stopping the weaving of her own dreamcatcher for a moment. That now reaches the limits of fantasy, closer in reach to Kotomi's own isolation in her library and in her house than the fairy tales of her childhood and of her books.

Why had this girl been locked away? Who would do something like that?

She sets her dreamcatcher down on her lap as she looks at her, suddenly looking worried for her, wondering whenever if to make the questions. ]

That is true. [ She replies to the first question. ] There are some things we take for granted, I would have had trouble believing you if you had told me about this carnival. About everything in here.

[ Then, she decides to ask. ]

Is it alright if I ask about your world?

[beunbroken]

[Elizabeth nods.] There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

[She quotes Shakespeare with ease.]

Of course- I can't guarantee I'll have many answers.

[coinsforlockerrooms]

[ Yukine immediately recognizes the quote. She beams at the reference, holding her hands! ]

What do you mean with tower? What kind of world is it where you're from? Has there been a lot of contact with the rest of the world, and Ford-T's? Has Charlie Chaplin come in by then...?

[beunbroken]

Woah, hang on, one at a time! [She laughs, though.]

I mean just that: I lived in a tower. I had no contact with the outside world there, not that I remembered. [She didn't want to know what was those memory spaces, ever since she learned she'd been watched her entire life. Like some sort of specimen and not a teenage girl]

I'm from a world... Well, where I'm from is a floating city that seceded from the United States. I don't think they have much contact with the rest of the world. We don't have automobiles there, but it is a floating city. There's no need for them. Who is Charlie Chaplin?

[coinsforlockerrooms]

[ Yukine comes to understand the lack of contact. She still wonders who would do that, and to be forbidden from even looking outside...

Floating city. Secession from the country. Isolated from the rest of the planet... It all sounded fantastical. And yet behind all of it there seems to be a creeping dread in the reasons behind everything. Elizabeth's captivity, the separation of that city from the world--

She snaps out of her thoughts with the question. ]

He was a very famous actor in my world that used to act in silent black-and-white films. He liked to do physical comedy that might look a little cartoony to our eyes.

... Why were you and your world isolated from things like these?

[beunbroken]

He sounds like a lot of fun, [she says.] Maybe we'll be able to get our hands on some of his films!

[Elizabeth takes a moment.]

I heard it was for my own protection. That I'm supposed to lead Columbia... [She makes a face.] That I'll pass on.

[coinsforlockerrooms]

[ Yukine smiles! She hopes they would get to see them. There was much to show her, what kinds of movies to show, part of their future...

... but this all continues to give her a sense of dread. Elizabeth's story reminds Yukine of the initial isolation of the Buddha from the tales she heard back home. All of her told her this was wrong. ]

If it is alright... I don't believe it was right to do that, Elizabeth. [ She looks worried at her, like a friend trying to divert her from a troubled path. ] Isolating yourself from the world only leaves you unprepared for what's ahead. As much as it hurts, it is necessary to be outside, and know...