interstellar5555 | ☆TRACK IIX: BETTER TO PRETEND PT. 1

Who: Famous musicians, hopeful auditioners, and random onlookers.
What: Hit gameshow series “Fairy Trial” is celebrating one of its anniversaries, and it’s invited you onboard. For more deets, check out the OOC post!
When: March 11th.
Where: Sevetop Entertainment’s studio.
Warnings: Mingle log mystery bag.

“It's so much better to pretend
There's something waiting for you here.
Every letter that you wrote
Has found its way to me, my dear.”

☆BETTER TO PRETEND

For musicians in either Pride or Virgo, the job offer is delivered by their managers- a suggestion to accept an invitation from Sevetop to participate in a successful gameshow. (A message that is delivered perhaps a bit more pressingly to some, with the unsaid words of “This is a chance to make it up to us”.) For others, strangers just trying to make a living and wait for their chance to save their loved ones, the message is delivered over their communicators by Gold, with promises that infiltrating this event will aid you in liberating the captives from their label's control. Either way, all roads lead to Sevetop Entertainment.

Sevetop might not have the weight that musical giants Pride Labels and Virgo Entertainment do, but that’s because it’s not into the musical industry. Sevetop is all about television and the big screen. For these purposes, it has its own little area of the city, a bustling kind of Hollywood filled with the more office-like buildings, auditoriums for additions, and even various sets. Whether you’re driven in style via limo, or brought to a regular line of buses, this is where you end up at.

Musicians, of course, end up at the more posh meeting room. A spread of delicate little lunch sandwiches, veggie platters, cupcakes, and assorted beverages are on a table for anyone to snatch up, and regularly refilled. Every celebrity is handed a small folder with papers inside going over both the boring legal things and explaining the purpose of the show. “Royals” are the ones to be “saved”, but they don’t have to make the journey easier on their “Heroes” and are given tools at their disposal to help or hinder. Heroes have one goal to accomplish, ‘rescuing’ their Royal, but it changes depending on the challenge.

Much to your surprise, some of those aspiring Heroes might just look familiar. Don't tell!

☆THE HEROES

In another building, next door, various people picked off the street (some coincidentally, others not so much, thanks to Gold's glamour witchcraft) are being given very much the same kind of presentation… In a room much more cramped, with not nearly enough chairs, on a slideshow. The only refreshments available are small bags of chips (try not to take more than one) and coolers full of bottled water.

After the separate presentations are done with, everyone is allowed to check out the sets for past seasons, which includes what look like giant mushroom tops that are made of very bouncy rubber, climbing walls made of fake vines, pumpkin shaped carriages (horses not included), and other such things.

Of course, it’s not all play. While you’re messing about, you’ve all been given numbers. Once you’ve been called, you’re to stand in front of Fairy Trial’s hosts and commentators: siblings Bella and Maurice Hooks. Both of them are equally friendly, although her more outgoing to his easygoing, but they have plenty of questions for this little audition. Tell them about yourself: hobbies, job, your favorite fairy tale, what you think your best skill is - and then, the most important, you get to display a choice "talent" in front of the audience. It can be whatever you like, as long as it's crowd appropriate.

Be careful, though, because the rock stars you're hoping to work with are watching, too. At the very least, don't make an ass out of yourself. Gold's enchantments are good, but there are some things that even magic can't charm its way through.

After all this, you’ll get a chance to just rest and mingle while your rides come back to take you back to the mall or HQ you were picked up at. Obviously for certain famous names, they’ll probably be the first ones out, but who knows… Maybe there was a traffic delay, and now you have some time to spare waiting around here as well. Just take note that you’re not allowed to wander too far from the Fairy Trial sets. Security is keeping an eye on folks to make sure they don’t steal or wreck anything.

And don’t worry, you’ll be told about the results within a week! They promise.

“You can make believe that what you say
Is what I want to hear.
I'll keep dancing through this
Beautiful delusional career.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I seriously doubt Pride will let us participate without bodyguards on standby. But just to be safe, it won't hurt to note the locations of the fire exits when you enter the studio." Oh hey, it's the guitarist from MANTICORE, Roy Mustang.

"You do have to wonder how we're assigned to our partners though. Would they purposely pair someone up with one of their wild fans in hopes it will get high ratings?"

"I wouldn't put it past 'em," Jamie snorts. "It would make for a pretty good spectacle, some poor dope getting stuck with a rabid fan. It does say the Royals are allowed to make things harder for their Heroes, though. Could be funny."

He pushes a carrot stick through the ranch dressing on his paper plate, idly making little patterns in it. "So, is there a particular wild fan you're hoping to get paired up with for this?" His tone is mostly casual but still carries far more sass than is probably appropriate.

Roy laughs; it's funny Jamie should say that. There is a "fan" of sorts out there he'd like to contact but that's best kept secret from what he's learned about her reasons for being in Vista.

"I don't know very many of my fans personally. I do think it would be more fun to get paired with one though. They'll likely be more enthusiastic and into the role. Acting along with the fairy tale is half the fun of this game after all. Might has well enjoy wearing a crown."

"Yeah? As long as they didn't cross the line from 'enthusiastic' to 'batshit insane,' I guess you'd be okay." Jamie is both amused and sort of worried, and he's not sure quite why he feels that way.

"So you're ready to act excited for whoever you get saddled with? I guess it's not too different from putting on a good face for interviews and stuff."

"We're not actors but acting is a large part of our job," Roy says with a nod.

"I have yet to meet one of my 'batshit insane' fans in person. I know they exist on the internet but if they've come to see me in person I didn't notice them. Have you been less fortunate?" The age group boy bands are aimed at doesn't exactly help with that does it?

Jamie huffs a kind of humorless little laugh. "Our fans are really...hands-on," he says. "If they see a chance to latch onto you, they'll take it. I think the most batshit fan I actually interacted with cornered me backstage and told me her dead great-grandmother came to her in a dream and said we were destined to get married."

He wrinkles his nose in bemusement, clearly still boggled by this.

"Anyway, maybe your fans aren't quite as crazy as that. Or maybe they're just crazy in different ways." He's heard some things about metalheads.

"Ah yes. Some fan letters talk about destined love but luckily none of those people have slipped backstage to bother MANTICORE so far. How in the world did that crazy one get anywhere near you? She'd need VIP access wouldn't she?" he asks.

"In MANTICORE we do get a lot of tattoos and piercings done in our honor. I've seen the entire band's faces put on a girl's back. It was surreal seeing my portrait on someone's skin."

"They always find a way. Never underestimate the resourcefulness of an obsessed fangirl." Jamie shrugs. "She might've bribed someone. Or her parents did. The parents are almost as nuts as their kids, sometimes."

Tattoos, though? He can't blame Roy for being weirded out by something like that. "Uhhh, wow. That's - that's some devotion. Tattoos are pretty much forever, aren't they? Did she like, show it to you in person or was it on tumblr or something?"

"It was in person. She approached our autograph table, threw off her jacket, and turned her back to us to show off the artwork on her. Uh. Most of the band appreciated it, I think. I... might have faked a smile honestly." Yeah...

"We don't get many spoiled brats- our fans are generally older or don't bring their parents along. I've seen a couple incidents though. It's as if these fangirls are villainous partners with their parents. Or their parents' keeper. Do you get that type regularly?"

He laughs a little. "You wouldn't believe how many crazy parents we get. I've heard about some of 'em fighting each other over T-shirts and stuff. Like, actual physical brawls. Some of them pay crazy amounts of money to get scalped tickets or backstage passes. This one guy spent a week in line camping out to get tickets for his daughter. It's...it's pretty weird."

Jamie feels sort of bad about some of it, honestly. Granted there's nothing forcing anyone to do those kinds of things, but the fact that his band is inspiring that kind of lunacy is a little mortifying.

"Bringing your mom to concerts would probably kill the whole metalhead image, though." He pauses. "...do you guys have fans who actually do that?"

"On occasion a child inherits their love of metal from a parent or both parents. Metal fan families are not as rare as one might think." It takes all kinds!

"Oh yeah?" Jamie says curiously. "Where do they fall on the normal-to-batshit scale, compared to the rest of your fans?"

Talking demographics is a lot more interesting when it's couched in terms of swapping crazy fan stories with another musician.

"Up and down the scale just as much as any other fans. Some are frightening and would pierce their three year old's brow, others are clearly happy and healthy family units who just happen to love heavy metal music."

☆TRACK IIX: BETTER TO PRETEND PT. 1

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