The Springtime Fair Event!

[megabond]

WHO: Everyone!
WHERE: Recolle Square
WHEN: May 20-21
WHAT: The Springtime Fair!
WARNINGS: None, but PM if this needs to change

Springtime Fair Begins! The Booths and Rides! (May 20-21)

As Spring continues blossoming around the city, Recolle Square becomes very crowded for some reason; that reason being the annual Springtime Fair!

As most of the residents enter Recolle Square, they notice many kinds of booths and rides scattered around the park as volunteers and booth owners set up to start the fair. And since the theme for this year is the American Style Cultural Festival, they see many classic rides such as the Tilt-A-Whirl, Merry-Go-Around (with Chocobos instead of horses, obviously), the Ferris Wheel, and much more. Not to mention the carnival games and delicious food lined up in most of the booths as well with booths like "Yamazaki's Paris" and "Satellite's Pizza"!

With all of the booths and rides that the fair has to offer, you have a feeling you will have a great time that Spring has to offer in it's remaining time this year!

The Silent Auction (May 20/Morning)

Due to the Recolle Zoo and Aquarium's Endangered Animal Preservation sponsoring this year's fair, they have a plethora of auctions to you to bid on.

One of the auctions is a silent auction being held on one of the stages in the venue where you can bid on blind gift baskets. The contents of the gift baskets is a mystery, but the announcer did explain what you can get such as a month supply of donuts, some cute plush toys, anything you can think of from the sponsors! However, there is a chance you may get something you actually don't need, so if this happens, feel free to give it to someone who does need it, e.g. when you get a week supply of cat food when you're actually a dog person.

You may be tempted to peek in some of the gift baskets backstage, but where's the fun in that? Don't try to peek if you're not one of the volunteers and organizers or security will kick you out.

The Service Auction (May 20/Afternoon)

At 3:00 PM after the silent auction, most of the residents as well business owners and employees gather in front of the stage as the Service Auction is about to start. Once it does, you see that the tables used for the gift baskets are cleared as the announcer declared the Service Auction as well explaining the rules regarding the bids and the fees are given for their services. If you notice the whiteboard before you take your seat, you can see the list of participants available to bid as well the services they will offer as well the order of their appearance to bid on.

>> Dr. Arataka Reigen (Service: A free homeopathic consultation!)
>> Chloe Bouchard (Service: Yard Work/Gardening, professional level)
>> Rin Matsuoka (Service: One-man Personal Training Bootcamp!!! Get Fit Get Swole 100% On the Grind Etc. Also swimming lessons.)
>> Donald Maxwell (Service: Handyman and delivery services)
>> Terra Mason (Service: Hard, manual labor such as moving your furniture, paint your second-floor bathroom, basically anything! He can also teach you about the civil war, or make you somewhat fancy alcoholic beverages.)
>> Nui (Nadine) Harime (Service: Wardrobe consultation, custom tailoring to make your clothes actually look good on you, and/or sewing for one one-of-a-kind spring fashion item.)
>> Eleanor Lamb (Service: Handyman! Fix your gate, your lawnmower, appliances, electrical junk. Eleanor's good at putting stuff back together. Or...taking it apart, if that's your flavor.)
>> Penelope Raban (Service: Photoshop, Computer Repair, Debugging, or writing a simple program/phone app/etc.)

Judging by the services they offer, you can tell how either useful they be and/or how much fun you will have with them. Just make sure you watch your budget during the auction. Otherwise, you might not able to afford their fees!

Regardless, some of the proceedings (with special conditions from some of the participants) will go to Recolle Zoo and Aquarium's Endangered Animal Preservation, so at least you’d give some help to the cause.

[NOTES: To all of the participants listed above, you are free to decide on the fees as well as who won the bid on your character on your service auction prompts!

To everyone else, don't be afraid to make your top levels about how your character is watching the auction. But if you want your character to bid on your intended participant, make sure you go to their top levels as soon they are posted to bid one of them!]

The Pet Show Preparations (May 21/Noon)

The next day, the stage has been redecorated with bone banners around at the top of it along with some bones and ball props placed around the stage for this year's Pet Show. Not only that, a huge mat has been spread in front of the stage along with a obstacle course for all of the participating small and big pets alike while the audience can watch the events in front of them behind the rope line with several seats lined up for some guests who don't like to stand up all day while watching the show.

If you signed up for the Pet Show, you will spend time in the backstage area before the show, as you not only try to groom your pet for the cameras and the judges outside but try to calm them down before the big event begins. Thankfully, you are allowed to bring anyone with you to help you prepare your little (or big) star, from acquaintances to friends to siblings to other family members.

Let the Pet Show Begin!(May 21/Afternoon)

Once it hits 3:00 PM, the announcer then declares in a showman-like manner, "Welcome one and all to our annual Springtime Pet Show!"

As the show begins, the audience cheers in excitement over seeing some cute and cool pets walking down the obstacle course while the three judges wait to watch and decide on which cat, dog, or another animal will win this year.

Of course, as you are called into the field with your furry friend, you will try to help them out in two rounds. For the first round, you will not only have the chance to show off your pet but to also have them show off their talents or any tricks they learned. For the second round, it's just a standard agility round with the only rule is to pass through the obstacle course as fast they can. However, some parts of the course, such as the tunnel and the teeter board, turn out to be defective for some reason, but that's nothing that your pet can handle, right?

The Mishaps (May 21/During the Pet Show)

Of course, just when you think this pet show will go smoothly, you turn out to be wrong. That because just as the talent portion of the pet show starts, you witness some of the Chocobos run the obstacle course and start wreaking havoc such as pecking on some of the participants and guests' heads, running around the field aimlessly, and of course, causing some of their pets to panic and run away.

As the organizers and volunteers are left shocked and confused by this turn of events, one of the volunteers steps up and explained everything, revealing that the Chocobos were supposed to be for the petting zoo for today's event, but one kid got a little too curious with them and accidentally released them from captivity.

Whatever the case, your only two options are to either run away from the Chocobos or help out the volunteers and organizers round them up before most of the stage and booths are destroyed.

Pet Show Winners (After the Mishaps)

After the chaos has been dealt with, the MC returns to the stage unscathed from any animal hijinks. He is still shaken up by those Chocobos, but the show must go on.

With that, he then opens the envelopes that one of the volunteers gave him and reads it before turning his attention to the audience in order to declare which pet managed to impress the judges and the audience enough to win.

"Now then, third place goes to Zaveid Taleb's tuxedo cat, Fred, second place goes to Hitori Togusa and his white miniature schnauzer, Daisuke!

And now for the first place and winner of this year's Pet Show is..."

With a long drumroll that one of the volunteers is doing (How did he get those drums into the stage in 5 minutes anyway?!), the MC then opens the last envelope and reads the contents.

"Mohammed Hefaz with his budgie, Whitney!"

Once the winners are declared, the audience cheered in excitement for the winners while some of them are a little disappointed that their favorites lost.

As for the participants, they were either are happy or disappointed with the results or cheered their pets up. Still, there's always next year!

[NOTES: Just a reminder of the pet show prizes in case you didn't read the replies:

1st Place: $200 gift card to The Towers, $100 gift card to a known pet food brand, and two tickets to Recolle Zoo and Aquarium
2nd Place: $50 gift card to a known pet food brand, 3 new cat or dog toys
3rd Place: 10% discount to selected pizzas from Satellite's Pizza or Yamazaki's Paris.]

Aftermath (May 21/Evening)

Well, other than a little Chocobo mess back there, this year's Springtime Fair ended off with a bang. With most of the guests start to reflect yesterday and today's events, most of them help out the organizers, volunteers, and booth owners on cleaning and packing up everything.

But despite the chaos that has happened earlier, the organizers and volunteers are happy to hear that raised quite a lot of money for the Animal Preservation Program from the auctions and some of the booths, which can be a happy ending to this crazy weekend.

But no matter how you experienced the fair, at least you have fun, right?

With that, thank you for coming and we'll hope to see you in the next Springtime Fair!

Comments

[standalonehuman]

"Some of this will be easy to find, at least criminal codes for weapons, I'd have easy access to." Togusa laughs and shakes his head. "Some of it, I might have to pass over to Ardyn and make him torment some poor paralegal to dig up laws on chocobo ownership within the city limits. Reason number twenty I didn't move on to law school." The more time passes, the harder it gets to imagine Togusa in that spot as he's spent so much time as an officer.

[true_noir]

She let herself laugh, starting to relax a little bit. "You know, it's more work for those of you in the police who didn't think Chocobo are normal, but it probably doesn't hurt to do it. At the very least, you'll notice the changes, so you'll know better how they matter, yes?" Really, the fact that they'd know the laws changed would mean that they could focus, just in case something came up.

[standalonehuman]

"I don't think I'd really change anything that I'm doing, let alone try to change what all the officers are doing? I can't make that kind of call. This would just be," oh, how does he want to put this? "Informational. It would be a huge undertaking to try to do something about the fact that a good chunk of us are running around with weapons now."

"That's going to have to be on everybody's individual consciences." A question that is weighing heavily on his own, that he is going to have to do something about, himself. But it's not something he can or wants to inflict on anyone else.

[true_noir]

She nodded. "It isn't as if owning a few knives requires much in the way of registration, but I'm certain others have more ... serious weapons. Not to mention the powers." Dave's time-controlling bs came to mind, but he was far from the only one. How could the law keep up with that stuff? If it already had, she'd be curious what was done.

"It will, and sometimes it's still obvious, but it would be good to know what has changed that's related."

[standalonehuman]

Togusa tenses up, and he swiftly shakes his head. "Whoa. Uh-unh, that's definitely where to draw the line. I've met somebody who has what you would call powers," oh he has to word this very carefully. "And I would never ask them to reveal to anybody else against permission what they can do."

Why? His own logic is hitting him pretty hard and he has to think this through. He knows that's the right stance to take, but why?

"I can put down my gun at any time. That creature happens to be able to breathe fire or something?" He nods his chin towards the dragon by the stage. "Then its owner can choose not to bring it out in public. But if one of us can certainly shoot fire? Or has superstrength, or all of those things that you see in the movies? They can't help that. However retrospec gave it to them, they can't do anything about it."

So Togusa shakes his head resolutely. "Not a chance."

[true_noir]

She considered before nodding. "No, you're right. In the end, it isn't difficult to handle the law even if someone has powers is it? If you use them to hurt someone else, it's the same as if you used your fists to hurt them. The laws shouldn't need to be complicated, should they?" No, he was right. Laws about things that were in a person's body... they were a dangerous road to walk down.

"If we started asking people to tell everyone what happened to them, it could end very badly, couldn't it? Sorry. There's a lot to think about with this, and I'm not that good at this sort of thing." It's why she didn't write laws, after all.

[standalonehuman]

"Yeah." It's better to have this discussion, think things through, and work out his viewpoint before it becomes a larger issue. Because, like a lot of things they're seeing today, this is only the first time it'll come up.

Togusa sighs and tries to relax again. "Somebody hurts someone else? We prosecute it just like any other assault. And that's as far as it goes. Any kind of preemptive measure?" Togusa shakes his head.

"We're going to keep on venturing into this territory. Where the law hasn't made allowances yet. But I'm going to have to keep relying on my instinct here. Err in this direction rather than being too harsh. If it feels wrong, it probably is."

[true_noir]

"It... probably doesn't hurt to assume that, even if we have a little reason to doubt them, we should probably try to trust those on the app at least a little bit." It seemed a good rule of thumb. "As terrifying, for example, as that creature is... the Professor hasn't ever done anything terrible to anyone, and we're all trapped in the same situation. We should be able to count on each other not to overreact."

"After all, it is a bit us against the world at times, isn't it? Sometimes it's easy to forget... you know, when there's a walking shark dragon smiling at us."

[standalonehuman]

"I wouldn't quite say us against the world." Togusa looks around. "They aren't against us, they just aren't involved. If anything, it's us protecting them, keeping them from getting any of the side effects of what we're experiencing."

As if to prove his point, there is a quiet 'woof' and a white miniature schnauzer is nosing at Togusa's leg. Daisuke has wandered back after running around for a bit. Togusa smiles and kneels down to scoop the puppy up. "Well, if Daisuke has gotten used to the shark dragon..."

[true_noir]

"Outside of the world is, perhaps, a better choice of phrasing, yes. But they're not going to understand our protection, so they might end up struggling if we weren't careful."

She smiled at the little dog and reached over a hand to try and scratch it behind the ear. "If he can, then we can. I might go speak with the Professor in a moment. Just ... to see it closer. It isn't attacking anyone at least, though checking those laws would probably be a good idea still." Kind of like having a pet alligator, eh? Only much taller.

[standalonehuman]

Oh! Skritchies! Daisuke leans his head in to Chloe's hand, and his leg twitches a little in Togusa's arms. He noses up at Chloe's wrist, insistently sniffing at her. Togusa has to laugh lightly. "Daisuke is definitely a good judge of character. I trust him, at least."

"That's probably a good idea. I'll go talk to him, too, but he might be less nervous around someone that's not me." Togusa shrugs. "Even off duty, I set some people on edge." Just a part of the job.

[true_noir]

"I think all dogs are good judges of character. It comes with their nature and instincts," Chloe said. Admittedly, some poor souls were troubled by past owners, but she still felt dogs were good judges in general. And she was happy to bribe with ear skritches to get a good review.

"And is hard to remove the air of being an officer, I think. It's good that we know you are one, but sometimes we get nervous. What if I get a ticket, or what not," she added, smiling to herself. "But I don't find you too nerve wracking. I'm glad to have met you, personally."

[standalonehuman]

Well, that's. Probably one of the nicest compliments Togusa has received. He blinks a few times before smiling. "Thank you." It's what he strives for. Work in service of the law, but it's more important to be in service to the people. Let them know they can come to you.

"I think we're going to start soon." And Daisuke needs a pep talk before they go out there (or maybe Togusa needs the pep talk...)

[true_noir]

"Well well, in that case, good luck to the two of you," she said, grinning more as she looked towards the main event. "I'm going to be rooting for you. I'm sure the two of you will do just fine. Just don't be nervous. No reason to do that."

[standalonehuman]

Togusa holds Daisuke up a little higher. "Thank you. So long as somebody doesn't hurt himself."

Daisuke woofs and licks up at Togusa's face. Maybe he thinks Togusa would be more likely to hurt himself than he would be.

Togusa waves, and he heads towards the competitors' tent.