👻🎃🤡

[polymods]

✖ THE CARNIVAL

Ⅰ. THE TEMPLES
There's a subtle shift in the music you will hear drifting on the wind this month - gone is the calliope that screams just a little too loud, replaced instead by circus music that sounds cheerful and bright. The thrill rides are still undercut by rock music, but it seems less sinister. Any time you venture out, you'll find the people milling about are smiling, and none of those smiles seem like screams turned upside down.

The Caravan Temple remains - dozens of old wooden circus trailers, arranged in a circle, growing tighter together the closer to the center you walk. The trailers are functional living places, with built in beds - sometimes one, sometimes two - and a small table and an old wood burning stove with a cooking top just big enough to boil a kettle on. There’s a toilet, but if you want a shower you’ll have to go outside and find a tent set up at the outskirts of the makeshift trailer park where there are tent showers set up, locker room style.

The clearing in the middle of the parked caravan is completely empty except for a solitary midway game: a towering high striker. It must be at least twenty feet tall, surmounted by a round, red bell. A wooden mallet is leaned against a sign next to the game that reads, predictably, TEST YOUR STRENGTH.

Access to the High Temple is also available to all Travelers this month.

Notes:
1. Please remember to mark threads appropriately with Content Warnings when necessary.

2. These prompts are a jumping off point - how they affect your character and their development is up to you.

3. Your character will revert to their true age if they were affected by the carousel last month.

4. The Test your Strength game can be played by anyone. How well your character does is entirely up to you, but the game does not necessarily measure physical strength.

5. These residents of the island are normal humans. Killing them is possible and will affect the colour grading of your Scrywatch depending on the situation.

6. Have fun!

---

Ⅱ. CONCERT AND CANDY
CW: alcohol and drug use, sax music.
It wouldn't be a carnival if you didn't eat like a garbage disposal.

There's corndogs, deep fried mars bars, popcorn, donuts, funnel cakes, cheese fries, lemonade, burgers... Go on. Eat like you have a personal vendetta against your gastrointestinal tract. And of course you ought to help yourself to some cotton candy, because what's a fair without cotton candy?

There's pink and there's blue. Whichever colour you choose, you'll find that you start to feel a little funny after you eat it.

The pink cotton candy will fill you with a sense of pleasant euphoria. You'll find it easier to talk to people, and you'll find them just so much more pleasant than usual. You'll be empathetic, and just filled with love for life. You might even want to hug people, even if you're not usually the touchy feely type. You just feel so good.

The blue cotton candy will also make you feel good, but it's more mellow than the pink - you don't want to run around hugging people so much as you want to just chill out somewhere. You'll feel very relaxed, very open to talking to others about deep subjects like whether or not Kubrick really did fake the moon landing, man. Everything seems just a little more amusing, a little easier to handle.

To make things even better, there are outdoor concerts at night. No matter what band is on stage, you find yourself really enjoying it, even if the music isn’t usually your thing. There are kegs of beer set up around the edges of the concert area and you’re free to help yourself.

All that cotton candy and cheap beer might impair your judgement a little. Maybe... enough to get a tattoo? Calm down, they’re temporary. There’s a stand called Pirate Pete’s on the midway not far from the concert where a guy dressed as a pirate - Pete, presumably - will be happy to draw whatever you want on your choice of body part.

Whatever you wind up getting, you’ll find that whenever you or someone else touches it you’ll experience a vision of a memory associated with the imagery of your tattoo. So if you get a snarling wolf, you might experience a memory of a time you treated someone savagely. If you get ‘Mom’ in a heart, maybe you and whoever else happens to brush against it will see a memory of your dear old mother. Gosh, this could get revealing or embarrassing fast!

Fucking Pete.

Notes:
1. Any food found on the midway is consumable by non-human entities. The cotton candy will likewise affect anyone who is not human.

2. I still believe.

3. The memory can be one that your character has repressed or forgotten.

---

Ⅲ. TUNNEL OF LOVE
CW: potentially sexual content
Maybe it's the cotton candy, or maybe you're just really captivated by the swan boats, but you find yourself drawn to one of the cheesiest rides in the place: the Tunnel of Love.

You can't ride alone, of course - this is the sort of thing meant for two! The guy running the ride ushers one of your fellow travelers on with you, then wolf-whistles, imitates a cat noise and a bed squeaking, then purrs, pants, barks, howls, twiddle his lips and says. “Hubba hubba!”

He ignores you when you glare at him.

The inside of the tunnel is surprisingly pleasant - it does not, as a matter of fact, smell of stale water or unmentionable bodily fluids. The water you're floating on is crisp and clear, like a real spring, and alongside either side of it are miniature rolling hills of what looks like real grass. The lights are low and pinkish, casting a soft glow over everything.

And they're playing one of your favourite songs on the speakers! Whatever that may be.

As you ride along, you'll start to think that your companion is just incredibly witty and intelligent and good looking. These feelings may be sexual or romantic, or they may be perfectly platonic - the result either way is that you really, really think this person is just the absolute greatest. You might find yourself telling them things you never would normally. Or doing things you might not otherwise…

Of course, the second you're off the ride you might find all of those fuzzy feelings depart. Better hope you didn't do anything TOO embarrassing.

Notes:
1. Only for characters of age havin the intercourse, please.

2. If your characters want to get naughty, they may discover that these swan boats have a little glove box containing condoms, lube and the like. You could also just fill the former up with water and throw them at that guy running the ride when it's over.

---

Ⅳ. HAUNTED HOUSE
CW: violence, blood
You might be on carnival island, but it’s still October. It’s time to get spooky! And what better way to do that than to take a ride through the haunted house?

A bearded fellow in half-assed clown makeup and an Uncle Sam costume loads you onto a small rail car with at least one other person. It rolls forward along the bumpy tracks into darkness. Not that it stays totally dark for long - sickly lights illuminate animatronics and mannequins posed alongside the track. There are foam cemeteries and giant rubber spiders galore.

As you move further and further into the attraction the better the decorations get. Those rubber spiders now look awfully real, and that bat that just dive bombed the car sure seemed legit.

Suddenly the car jerks to a halt. You peer around in the gloom, and then lights go up.

One bathes a coffin in red. Another illuminates a gravestone in green. The last is a facsimile of the moon itself, pale and silver.

Before you can do more than wonder what the heck is going on, one of these attractions splits open and a monster leaps toward you. A vampire, a ghost, or a werewolf respectively. If you’re quick you can get out of the way and run for the exit.

If you’re not?

The vampire’s teeth sink into your veins. The ghost’s cold hand wraps around your heart. The werewolf’s claws tear your flesh.

You’re lucky in that it doesn’t kill you; somehow you manage to get away and stumble outside, where you swiftly discover that the rest of your month is going to be pretty goddamn strange as you transform right then and there into whatever monster attacked you.

That’s right, for the month of October you may have to figure out a way to deal with cravings for flesh and blood, or how to get anything done when objects just fall right through your glowing hands.

You may be understandably upset about this. If you return to the Haunted House and accost the guy running it, he’ll tell you that the only way to break the curse is to admit to why you see yourself as that monstrous archetype. Now piss off, he ain’t got time for your jackassy questions.

Notes:
1. To return to their natural state, your character must reveal a personality trait or incident that would correspond to the monster they’ve turned into. For example, a person turned vampire might talk about how they feel they drain other people’s energy with their problems, or that they feel drained by other people’s. A ghost might not be able to let go of the past, and a werewolf might have anger issues. Interpret as you will!

2. The monsters can abide by any monster rules that you like. Is your vampire a Twilight vampire or a Dracula? It’s up to you!

3. The horror ride guy is weirdly impervious to harm.

4. All characters will return to normal at the end of October.

The kind of jams that last all night.

Network · Logs · OOC · Memes · Plurk

Comments

David Alleyne | Marvel-616 | OTA

[helpdesk_hero]

I - Pink Cotton Candy CW: Drugs (sorta because cotton candy)

Sweets and junk food and processed sugars were not things that David frequently ate. Unfortunately this island wasn't really letting people make much in the way of healthy life choices, now was it? There probably wasn't even quinoa on this whole island was there? Sooner or later someone had to surrender to things, and while he did his best with fries and lemonade and funnel cakes without sugar or anything else, even David had to admit sometimes you needed some other flavors.

Cotton candy: sweet, not too messy, easy to eat in small batches and save for later, and it was nice looking too. Surely this was safe.

Of course that had been a while ago, and David was now more than half way into his pink confection, and oh was he ever smiling widely. Somehow life just seemed better today. The temperature wasn't too warm or too cold, the sun was pleasant, and the noises weren't so bad. Everything seemed... hopeful.

"Hey!" he called whenever he saw someone with a Scrywatch on. Clearly the natives already knew it was a wonderful day, right? "Isn't it beautiful out?"

II - Music Is The Thing CW: Drugs (sorta because cotton candy), Sax music apparently

If there was one thing that David absolutely did love and would go out of his way for if it was of any quality, it was music. Music that had a brassy undertone like with saxophones? He was so beyond there. There was David, quite happily waying to the music as part of the crowd. There was another plastic bag of pink cotton candy at his side, and he was happy to pull little pieces out between humming along with the music.

And the dancing, oh the dancing. Anyone nearby was bound to get David trying to pull them close to sway and shimmy to the music. Yes, he could properly dance, but who did that at a concert.

"God I could do this every night," he laughed as the band paused between one song to prepare for the next. It was one of those rare moments where someone could truly hear themselves. Or, you know, the cheerful guy next to them in the crowd. "You love the music, right? You know, I know how to play guitar. And the trumpet. I don't know why I can play the trumpet. And the cello. That one's from Kate."


III - Kiss and Don't Tell

There's no harm in going on one ride, right? Sure David knows on some level that a Tunnel of Love is more likely to be broken down and awkward than any other ride in the whole of a carnival or fair, but still, here he was, half bouncing in his excitement to get into the ride. Soon he was at the front of the lie and he let himself down into the boat, happily sitting down.

He hadn't even thought about how there were two people being shoved into each boat. Somehow that had slipped his mind. So he looked up with surprise at the person that was being helped down in beside him.

"Oh, hi! You looking forward to the ride? I bet the music is nice."

He mostly ignored the guy running the ride and all his noises. His attention instead was on the person that would be sharing the ride with him.

"Remember not to splash the water. It's not usually clean in rides like this."

Okay, that's not hte most cheerful thing, but he still is saying it. Even if it's going to prove to be wrong.

IV - Wildcard

[I'm open to other things as well, especially with prior CR. I'm not really looking into the haunted house, but I'm happy to just about anything else, including bumping into people's tattoos or holding hands while other people get tats. So if you've got any ideas or desires, drop them here, message me, or hit me up on plurk churbooseanon so we can think]

III

[unkindled_madness]

Sephiroth is probably one of the last people David would expect to be ushered--willingly even--into the boat with him. He definitely seems more chill than usual. Still careful to arrange his hair so he isn't sitting on it, but otherwise unconcerned about the proximity or the fact that he's about to go into something called the Tunnel of Love. He's not smiling, but his expression is relaxed, the sort that could easily become a smile.

As the ride starts to move, he glances over the side of the boat. "I've seen my share of polluted water. It seems all right."

[helpdesk_hero]

Were he not so caught up in the happiness and excitement for the ride, David might well have seen how Sephiroth handled his hair and ask if he ever considered braiding it. For now, though, he was mostly caught up in how beautiful the man's hair looked, and he smiled.

"Yeah, I guess it's better than I would have expected," David admitted as the ride began to move. "Are you excited? I'm hoping it's not like the ride they have at Disney back home where creepy little dolls sing 'It's A Small World' at people. That would be a serious mood killer."

[unkindled_madness]

"I'll hope to remain unfamiliar with your Disney ride," Sephiroth remarks. "Is a small world meant to be romantic?"

It's a genuine question, since David made the comparison. He's seen some dolls and toys marketed as gifts for loved ones; having them serenade anyone strikes him as odd but it's the title that he really can't make sense of.

He doesn't hear any singing as they float to the tunnel entrance. Maybe some soft piano music?

[helpdesk_hero]

"I'll hope to remain unfamiliar with it too. Never been. But apparently that ride sticks so deeply in people's minds that it just... clings in my own mind. It's horrible."

A song he's never heard, and he can sing it perfectly. Usually that isn't a problem. This is an exception.

"I don't think it's romantic but rather maddening."

But as the ride progressed and the music flowed over them David found himself smiling, his eyes briefly drifting closed.

"This music is nearly as beautiful as the scenery around me. Almost perfect."

[unkindled_madness]

"Hm. It must be strange to have so many things in your head that aren't your own," he says, but right now that doesn't unsettle him. It's just odd.

The relative dark and quiet of the ride are as calming as he anticipated. Pink has never been a favored color, but it isn't garish. The soft sound of water flowing beneath the music.

"Is there such a thing as perfection? We're expected to strive for it, but sometimes... it's enough to be adequate.

"And this... This is perfectly adequate." He glances at David to see if he appreciated that bit of wordplay.

II: Saxy! (For David and Carter)

[kyley_b]

Kyle, for his part, was really more of a rap and hiphop guy. But Carter had more or less dragged him to the concert because Carter's musical tastes were apparently perfectly in tune with 80s sax solos. (Kyle suspected that Carter was also probably the first one to do Journey at any given karaoke night.) So the two Jersey boys wound up in the crowd, nibbling on cotton candy and drinking beers. Kyle was the first to spot David, but thankfully it was Carter who got pulled in to dance. Kyle had all the rhythm and grace of a newborn deer.

"DUDE. We could start a band!" Kyle enthused. "I mean. I think we need a drummer... Carter, David, you BOTH play guitar. I mean, David apparently plays everything. Carter, you probably play the fuckin... recorder or something, too."

Sax man 4 evah

[extrasensory_problems]

Carter doesn't mind getting pulled in to dance with David, the two are more than comfortable with touching one another at this point and the beer and cotton candy have made Carter feel ever more chill than usual. So he just smiles and throws himself into the groove, and it isn't long before the two receive some appreciative glances from some of the people around them. After all, David's not the only one who can properly dance.

He stops though to throw Kyle a confused look, "The recorder?! What the fuck, why would we have that in a band?"

Re: Sax man 4 evah

[helpdesk_hero]

More than comfortable to touch, yep. Just don't ask David to handle even playful flirting without feeling nervous and flustered. Dude was just bad at that. Now though he hummed along with the song as he danced with Carter, sticking his tongue out at Kyle over the psychic's shoulder for being a wet blanket who wasn't dancing.

"I'm made for blues. But even Carter can't have taste that is that good. And yes he probably does. Lots of schools play them. But they sound horrid. Our band deserves better. But yes on a drummer. I would rather play cello than have to upload drumming or something every time."

[kyley_b]

Kyle rolls his eyes. "Oh my god, Carter, you dickshit, I was joking, I meant because you keep pulling extra talents out of your ass. At least David has a reason he's good at literally everything."

Yup, just surrounded by his two stupidly talented and gorgeous buddies. For once, though, Kyle is having too much fun to mentally compare himself to them. Instead he forces his way between them, an arm around each of their necks.

"We'd need a good name," he muses.

[extrasensory_problems]

Carter gives him a slightly offended pout, "I don't keep pulling talents out of my ass."

As for band names he considers it for a moment, "Do you think our name should reflect what type of music we play? Or are we going to transcend expectations and have something that is universal?"

Cotton Candy

[ratcatcher_2]

Cleo didn't need much of an excuse to hug new people; new potential friends - and she has also partaken of the pink cotton candy and it's made her even more optimistic and feeling great. She beams toward the voice. Her own Scrywatch is currently yellow but she looks overall very innocent and her small frame and sweet demeanour gives the basic impression she'd never even hurt a fly.

Especially right now.

"It is soooo beautiful, yes!" She exclaims then giggles; giddy with joy. Bright-eyed, she rushes toward David, arms out. "I think it's hugging time! Yes? Yes!"

Wait we're in a game together again? Joy!

[helpdesk_hero]

He doesn't know who she is. Doesn't care either. She agrees that it is beautiful. She throws out her arms in a clear intent to hug and hopped up on candy he's throwing his own arms open and catching her in a hug. And laughing he embraces her.

"Love concerts. Can change the world with music!"

\o/

[ratcatcher_2]

She's happy that he's willing to hug in return. It's all innocent and friendly and right now doesn't seem at all odd that they're complete strangers just meeting for the first time. A good hug is a good hug.

"Oh, it's so nice, isn't it? The music. The lights. Everything is so pretty and sparkly and ... fun!"

[helpdesk_hero]

A good hug is a very good hug. He welcomes them a lot.

"It's so much better than most things have been so far. It's just happy!"

[ratcatcher_2]

"You've been here a long time? I mean, they said something about other islands? This is my ... first. I just got here a little while ago," she admits, pulling back only to hold out a hand. "I'm Cleo."

II

[detectivemiracle]

"Really? That's super cool!"

Chloe has had some of the blue cotton candy, leaving her - well, high as a kite, and that plus the beer someone handed her earlier means she's lost all her normal inhibitions. Which means she's dancing. Badly. She is a terrible dancer at the best of times.

"I had like three whole years of piano lessons but I'm terrible at it," she adds, giggling like a school girl.

[helpdesk_hero]

Hey, he's seen worse dancers. Maybe. Probably? There's a chance.

"Do you keep practicing? How are your fingers? Long and loose? Because it matters. Piano can be only so good without certain advantages."

[detectivemiracle]

A drunk chimpanzee might be a worse dancer than Chloe Decker, but not much else, to be fair.

"Oh god, no, I haven't played since I was a kid," she says on a giggle. "It was pointless, and my mom decided the acting classes were more useful."

[helpdesk_hero]

She'd never seen young mutant kids trying to show off their moves. That could be a serious thing when not everyone was even humanoid.

"And are you good at that?" he asked, smiling at the question. There was an urge to reach out, to touch her, to know the skill. But he resisted.

[detectivemiracle]

"Mm, probably not!" Chloe laughs, her ponytail bouncing a bit as she moves to the music. "I quit that a long time ago, too. Wasn't what I wanted! So why'd you learn so many instruments? Just for fun? Because you could?"

Wildcard!

[speed_of_snark]

He's not exactly searching for David, more like keeping an eye out for him. Because as much as Jean-Paul would love to just ignore any awkwardness, he is - once again - an adult. He needs to address things in an adult fashion.

Ugh.

So when he spots David on the midway he walks over, no quite smiling but at least not looking entirely like he just ate a lemon.

"David."

[helpdesk_hero]

Adult fashion of addressing things sucks. That much is very clear on David's face when he sees Jean-Paul coming. He wants to run. Perhaps he should. He doesn't want to receive his well earned trouncing.

Even if he didn't think Jean-Paul was the sort to beat him up for decisions that were mutually made between consenting adults. Which was silly because he should because David at least had known what he was doing.

And there he was, going and having the argument in his head without letting Jean-Paul get a word in edgewise.

"Jean-Paul. Enjoying the carnival?"

[speed_of_snark]

"I kicked that test your strength thing's ass," he says mildly. "And I've bene informed I shouldn't eat the cotton candy. Yourself?"

[helpdesk_hero]

"So they got a new bell up did they? Molly broke it off last month and took it as her prize. It was impressive," David noted. Okay, civil. They were going for civil. Or maybe he was lucky and Jean-Paul, unlike Carter, didn't remember all that had happened.

"And as someone who has eaten the cotton candy I say the warning is fair. Also, avoid the Tunnel of Love ride. Seems to have some suggestion powers. It's horrible."

The kisses has been nice. The weirdness not. Just like this.