dualislogs | kitty at my foot and i wanna touch it.

kitty at my foot and i wanna touch it.

WHO: Open to all residents
WHAT: Your regularly scheduled NAPs event for the month
WHERE: The RoCocoa Cat Cafe
WHEN: Aug. 10-14
WARNINGS: Please use these if applicable!

Look at all of these bright, shining new faces! There’s even a few less bright, less shining faces, but hey, this city welcomes all types. Chances are, if you’ve just arrived, you're seeing some pretty crazy things, unless you're used to an eye-blinding amount of neon, robots, weird-ass technology, magic, and an omnipresent police force...and hey, if you are, congrats, you're gonna settle in juuuuust fine. But for the rest of you, the Head knows this has gotta be pretty overwhelming, right?

Well, since your quaint individual processing units are probably having a hard time, why not link up with another one? By which the Head means...

Hello, new citizens of Dualis,
and welcome to your monthly Network Adjacency Protocol~!

NAPs are a monthly community networking event similar to the Earth concept of speed dating! Two citizens (new arrivals and old hands alike) are placed at a table together with a handy cue card of queries to help break the proverbial ice. Ask queries and receive results, or ignore the card and yeet yourself straight into a brand new friendship! But don't be too shy, you've only got ten minutes together, and if you just sit in silence for the whole ten, the Network Admins are likely to come supervise and try to repair the uplink through a mild shock to the ol' central nervous system. You might find yourself saying all sorts of unintended facts about yourself if that happens...probably better to just make friends, right? Who doesn’t like friends?!

This month’s event is held at the brand new RoCocoa Cat Cafe, a sparkly new establishment that caters to children and the young at heart with iced and hot cocoa drinks of all kinds, delicious pastries, age-appropriate live music, and of course many friendly kitties who love to lounge in laps. The cats are of all shapes, sizes, and colors, including some who may look a little different from what you expect, or may look like an ordinary cat but are actually anything but ordinary underneath that adorable fur coat. All cats in the cafe are adoptable, too, if you meet a new furry friend and just can’t bear to go home without them!

So pull up a chair, get to know your new neighbors, and enjoy a sugary treat or two with the resident furbabies. You might just meet your new two- or four-legged best friend!

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"Oh, yeah?" She brightens just to know that she doesn't have to give a full spiel on the city.

"Trust me, you're not missing out. So who's your roommate? I figure I know every Gothamite here."

Alright then. I'm in 401 at the dorms. You should swing by sometime later this month.

"Exactly like that," Steph laughs. 'Delightfully absurd' pretty much sums up their lives.

"Have you had cats before? I heard these are all up for adoption. Even the freaky-deaky ones."

They really don't know much about each other. The downtime offered here (for now) will be interesting to explore but he's prepared to even if it scares him too. If there's anything he learned from his friends during the war, it's to push through his fear of accepting people into his life. Allow someone else to get to know him. And Rinoa already has a place past his defenses.

He senses that pause. Normally he'd just let it slide but it's Rinoa. It's not just about being her knight, he's her boyfriend too. He gets caught by a tentacle when he tries to move his hand, looks momentarily frustrated and resigned before cautiously holding his left hand out to her across the table, palm up. An attempt to be encouraging.

"Julia... right? Laguna used to watch her play every night." He looks miffed after. She knows that. They talked about that, didn't they? Not so much him as Selphie anyway. That girl loves talking about Laguna when she happens to take part in the dream of the past.

He's curious if its worse than Brownsville but, he doesn't ask, nope. This vampire has some manners.

"I assumed. And his name is Jason. Dark hair, a bit taller than I." A tan he will be forever jealous of. He misses his old complication.

It rubs its head against Hank's hand.

"Nobody I know personally. Apparently a few people here know him. I just figured with a backstory like yours you might know the guy."

It doesn't seem right to say all that he knows about Batman when he's not even sure how this works. He scruffs the cat's cheek and it sticks its head against his fingers, flicking its long tail.

"Is there blood at the grocery store for people that drink blood?" he voices that bizarre question, finally, truly curious.

[Wanda's lips part as the cats soon surround her. She's balancing on her toes, crouched to where the cats can reach her. She quickly regrets this decision when a cat jumps up to get to the food, sending her tumbling back and onto her butt. Wanda winces and then laughs as the cats continue to surround her.]

Maybe but I'm not sure these are relaxing.

[They're very energetic.]

You're brave for having so many around you. [She pushes herself up carefully and tucks her leg beneath her.] I don't know if I could do it.

Wanda smiled. "Thank you for saying so." She'd never taken a lot of care in her appearance but she always liked the way she looked. The only time that Wanda had questioned her own self had been shortly after gaining her powers. She tried so hard to help people but failed, over and over again.

She wasn't done failing, that was simply part of living and trying, but she was done questioning her path. She would live, survive and protect those within her influence. She wasn't giving up anymore.

"Under cover as what?" Nida had said he was from a school? Wanda remembered a brief conversation but they hadn't talked about anything really concerning his world. It'd been very superficial and it'd been years ago. She didn't recall the specifics without using her powers to call the memory from her own mind.

Wanda's expression soften around her eyes and in the set of her lips. It was lucky for them both that she was accustomed to bits and pieces she'd learned from Billy and Tommy before arriving to this world.

"I only know a little of her but not much. Billy and Tommy has told me some. From what I do, our powers are all that we share and even that is a little different." Wanda wasn't able to alter reality. Her power came from the Mind Infinity Stone and was greatly influenced by its limits (or lack their of) and function.

"Do you know of either of them?"

So she knows Billy and Tommy, that's interesting. Perhaps from that 'village' place that Tommy had mentioned. Which was a concept David had a hard time processing even when he was in a place not unlike it now. He does pull over a chair, not wanting to shift the feline he'd teased off of her with the newspaper toy. What? He likes cats pretty well, and it's cute there. Once he's got a chair turned generally in her direction he sits down and nods.

"I do. Tommy and I worked at the same place for a little bit. And after I met him I came to work with their team, the Young Avengers for a while. How well I 'know' them is rather up to interpretation of course. As for the Wanda from my world, I've never met her, so I don't really have a point to compare you to her."

Because there was no way he was going to hold what he knew of that woman against this one.

"I can definitely summarize by saying the twins are good people in my experience."

As if realizing the shift in conversation, the teleporting white tabby walked along the armrest of Wanda's chair and sat. It was an intelligent creature, knowing the way to get attention wasn't to sit on Wanda but to meow until her hand came to rest on its back. She was distracted but petting the cat absently at the same time.

She smiled, beaming as if she was a mother. She'd only lived in the village with Tommy and Billy for a little less than a year but it was difficult not to think of them as an extension of her family when they reminded her so much of herself and her late brother. "They are. I feel lucky to have them them." More so now that she's lived through her time with Vision and experienced his death.

"I was told that Billy works for a coffee shop?"

"Trust-fund party animal," he admits with a chuckle. "Which, turns out, I really didn't like. Too many people, strange music, flashing lights, and spreading my gil around like I didn't have a care in the world."

None of it was Nida's scene anymore. Pun intended.

"Now I'm nothing more than a simple mechanic. Speaking of, have you gotten a job here yet?"

Was it wrong that he wanted to turn the conversation back on her? To learn more about the sorta-mother of his friends? Or really it was about the woman he'd been starting tot connect with back in the Village.

Cool! I will, for sure.

[ ... ]

I guess I should probably figure out where I'm spending the night.

"Oh yeah, I know Jason! He's like, my best friend." Given there are a number of people vying for that spot at the moment, Jason at least qualifies as best guy friend.

There's a person that mans the desk on the first floor. I think they should be able to help you. They gave me a welcome package too, so they'll probably have one for you.

[In some ways this place is super helpful. In others... Not so much.]

"Luckily, I must be then, to meet you then, my dear." He spoke almost as if one of those classic movie monsters but he seemed more amused than anything. "He seems quite a nice fellow."

Aleifr looks just about as comically out of place in a cat cafe as someone possibly could. Six feet and eleven inches tall, biceps thicker around than some people's waists, covered in tattoos, dressed in an undertunic, a knife on his hip ...

And yet here he is, seated in an armchair that is entirely too small for him, idly scritching at the head of the orange tabby curled up in his lap, and sipping hot chocolate.

"Yeah," David agrees. Both on the front of being lucky to have them and on Billy working at a coffee shop. "He does, a different one from this one. He makes a mean latte."

Which probably isn't a great compliment, but he's sticking by it anyway. Especially since David sort of, well, lives off of coffee. It's a useful thing to have as a skill. But this place practically runs on coffee, given how many coffee shops David's seen here.

"I could give you the name of it if you want. Not that things are always easy to find here."

She doesn't want to, but she tenses at the mere name. Rinoa, knowing it very well, has never even thought of her mother as simply 'Julia.' And the Julia of Rinoa's memories... Well. It's not something easy for her to talk about. in fact, she's largely tried to avoid discussing it. It wouldn't be the first time she's put on a brave face and while she's often been inclined to be rather transparent with her feelings, avoiding discussion of her mother and how that's impacted her as an individual has been a far more preferable course of action. That Squall is asking...

Rinoa doesn't know what to make of it and she isn't well-versed at hiding her feelings, so even as she's dipping her head and trying to hide, she suspects she's very obvious.

Eying his hand for some moments, Rinoa eventually reaches over and takes it. No, it's not like it's the first time it's come up. It's just that usually Rinoa puts up a pretty firm wall. Julia is kind of... a sacred topic. Or maybe she just hasn't worked through it. "Yeah, she played a lot when I was little. Or maybe she sang more. I... can't really remember as well as I'd like to. I remember her doing both, though. Dad said she could have been famous, but she chose to be with him instead. Maybe he was joking, though."

...A little hard to picture her father having a sense of humour, though.

Rinoa makes a note to ask Nida later about a village. If anyone would know, it would probably be him and right now, it seems like Nida has the answers to pretty much everything. Regardless, she tries not to look too blank at Steph's response, though she suspects that they are likely mirroring one another. As she puts herself back together, she grins.

"Yeah," she replies with a nod. "I actually work here, so it was sort of coincidence that they had this going on. I mean, I'm not working today, but you get it. Not my first time here. Not my last. I love the Cat Things." Because she's still not really sure anyone can call them cats. "But it sure seems like a lot of people aren't that keen on them. Maybe it's because they're kind of weird?"

"Bowling?" Just like that? It's almost like Nida's been trying to make this happen, or at least that he's given it a lot of thought. Rinoa suspects that there aren't many people with the same sway she has over Squall. "Well, if that's what you want. I'm sure I can convince him to make a double date out of it." All she has to do is give him her best pout, right?

Nida continues and her turning thoughts of how to persuade a very standoffish Squall are momentarily put on pause. Her expression softens a bit at his admission. She's not sure she's terribly different. It's nice to sleep with another body, furry or not. Makes her miss Angelo a bit, actually. And she suspects she likes sleeping with Squall when she gets the chance more than he might like sleeping with her. Not... that she's inclined to ask.

"Well... We'll find a way to make it all work out, alrighty? You can come have a sleepover with us anytime."

Honestly? Nida hasn't attempted to connect with Squall at all. The man reminds him of some of his relatively recent history, and it hurts. But for Rinoa? Oh, for her, he's willing to try. Especially since he knows that Billy likes Rinoa. But a double date? Yeah, maybe he wants one of those, mostly because he could stand to have some examples from Rinoa's lead. Six months and he feels like he's missing things, things a boyfriend should do.

"Rin..." Nida says, unable to keep the soft fondness from his voice. She's willing to let him still come over for something like that? Hyne. "I really would like to give you a hug right now. Can I please?"

It sounds like the humans in his world are stupid. Or assholes. Probably a good mix of both, just like her own. The fact they worked so hard to make androids look human only to slap on a few lights to distinguish them from themselves just sounds... wrong. Something easily taken advantage of by the shit heaps of society.

Gross.

"Well, at least you got something to look forward to getting back to." More than she's got at least but she's also a pessimist about her own future. She leans back in her chair, curious but not really sure what she should ask him.

Finally,"So, what kind of android are you?"

He'd mentioned companion models which she honestly doesn't like the sound of. She doesn't want to imagine all the unsavory shit his people have probably gone through.

Heather has spent the last several years of her life on the run, moving from city to city, state to state, using a new alias every time. A life like that isn't made for things like pets. Or friends. Here, it's different. She's gotten a few tips but it's still tough.

A pet used to sound nice but she can barely take care of herself. There's no way she could take care of anyone or anything else.

"Yeah, I don't really know if these things are cats." There's a touch of a laugh when she speaks as she looks to one of the kitty-like cuties. A cat would've been nice. She'd never be able to handle a dog, though. She looks back to Rinoa. The girl seems sweet enough, nice to know she wasn't stuck here alone.

"It must be nice to have your boyfriend here. Shame your dog didn't end up coming with you, though." To know you've left anything behind you love is fucking rough, she knows that much.

Oh, sweet! That'll help a lot.

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kitty at my foot and i wanna touch it.

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