kitty at my foot and i wanna touch it.

[headandhand]

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!

Comments

[salvagedlight]

"He didn't mean it. It's okay." Ven is... not a pushover, but very forgiving. Intentions mean a lot to him, and while he's certainly capable of assuming someone's going to be mean and cruel simply for the sake of being mean and cruel, he knows that most of the time that's not the intention. Just like it isn't with the rose goblin. More and more the thing's reminding him of Experiment 626. The same thing had happened with him, after all, where he'd accidentally hurt Ven.

Lifting his hand to inspect it and make sure he isn't bleeding, he flashes a grin at Nida when he just sees a small red mark and no blood. "See? It's fine. No harm done. How 'bout you try?"

[skyward_eyes]

Nida and animals don't tend to be a positive, but he has to give credit to the fact that Eos, Seifer's croc-dog, looked menacing but was in fact sweet. It's that knowledge that gets Nida to move to the floor where Ven is. Still looks nervous as he reaches a hand out and hesitates.

"Where should I start? I don't want to just put my hand down on a thorn."

[salvagedlight]

Ven nods, giving the older boy a reassuring smile. "You don't need to invite getting hurt. That's not any fun no matter how you look at it. Just start from the point where all the thorns are pointed away and stroke back. See?"

The goblin's head is pretty sleek, for a given value of the word. Mostly it means the thorns are smaller and lie more closely together, in a closer approximation of actual fur. It's kind of a double-edged sword because that also means the thorns are more needle-like and therefore more likely to actually puncture skin than the bigger ones over the creature's main body, but Ven carefully places his first two fingers at the midpoint of its forehead and strokes backwards, along whatever the thing used for a spine, careful not to pull his hand back towards him at all as that would definitely get some jabs. But the goblin clearly likes that, and pushes its body up into Ven's fingers, and it's a bit tricky to avoid being stabbed but still doable even so.

"Just don't go the other way, or you'll start bleeding."

[skyward_eyes]

Well, now he's got an example to work from, and one he was paying a lot of attention to. Which, of course, doesn't mean Nida will get it right. When he reaches out to put a hand on the thing, well, he must come in from a bad angle because his finger catches one of the smaller thorns on the head and he's left wincing in pain as his hand jerks away. No blood drawn, but he looks betrayed.

"Sorry, I guess I just get nervous over animals that can hurt me without even meaning to. Let me try again."

This time he moves slower, comes at the thing from the proper angle, and even manages to stroke the thing all the way without another incident. And he smiles.

"Success."