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š»šš¤”
ā THE CARNIVAL
ā
. 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. Thereās a toilet, but if you want a shower youāll 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.
ā ”. 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 isnāt usually your thing. There are kegs of beer set up around the edges of the concert area and youāre 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, theyāre temporary. Thereās a stand called Pirate Peteās 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, youāll find that whenever you or someone else touches it youāll 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 āMomā 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.
ā ¢. 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. āHubba hubba!ā
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 otherwiseā¦
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.
ā £. HAUNTED HOUSE
CW: violence, blood
You might be on carnival island, but itās still October. Itās 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 youāre quick you can get out of the way and run for the exit.
If youāre not?
The vampireās teeth sink into your veins. The ghostās cold hand wraps around your heart. The werewolfās claws tear your flesh.
Youāre lucky in that it doesnāt 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.
Thatās 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, heāll 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 aināt got time for your jackassy questions.
The kind of jams that last all night.
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. Thereās a toilet, but if you want a shower youāll 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!
ā ”. 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 isnāt usually your thing. There are kegs of beer set up around the edges of the concert area and youāre 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, theyāre temporary. Thereās a stand called Pirate Peteās 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, youāll find that whenever you or someone else touches it youāll 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 āMomā 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.
ā ¢. 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. āHubba hubba!āHe 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 otherwiseā¦
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.
ā £. HAUNTED HOUSE
CW: violence, blood
You might be on carnival island, but itās still October. Itās 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 youāre quick you can get out of the way and run for the exit.
If youāre not?
The vampireās teeth sink into your veins. The ghostās cold hand wraps around your heart. The werewolfās claws tear your flesh.
Youāre lucky in that it doesnāt 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.Thatās 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, heāll 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 aināt 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 theyāve turned into. For example, a person turned vampire might talk about how they feel they drain other peopleās energy with their problems, or that they feel drained by other peopleās. 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? Itās 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.
Logan | Marvel 616
As cramped and close quarter as a caravan town can be, itās the kind of living heās comfortable with. Just outside the steps of his own wagon heās kept fire burning for days. Long enough that the embers are low and hot and perfect for cooking. The smell of coffee brewing is a welcome change from the sweet, greasy scents across the fair ground.
drink, drink, ink - otaHeās parked himself on the step of his vardo and watches that high striker game. As people have come and go from it for days and heās watched to see who succeeds and who fails. It feels a bit like working over a koan. More than actually solving it, he begins to suspect the act of thinking about it is what it means to impress upon like him.
āGive it a try,ā he says encouragingly to the next person who wanders up to consider it.
Sweets have never really spoken to him. Beer on the other hand is a word he knows in just about every earthly language and a few unearthly ones too.
wildcard - otaHeās still nursing a drink as he looks at the parlour walls decked out in flash sheets. Heās had his share of tattoos in his lifetime. Like most things in his life, they never last. For Logan, getting inked has proven little more than a parlour trick. A good way to impress someone long enough to get into their bed. The ink is always gone by morning and so is he.
Watching people come and go with their own personalized art he canāt help but think heās never been decisive enough to know what heād want if one were ever to stay put.
āHow long did that take yuh?ā he asks, nodding at another fresh tattoo.
[ooc: Still very much down for any of the Sept. prompts or a wildcard too! Get at me here if you prefer either of these
Ink
"It was almost an hour," she replies. "He did a good job, didn't he?" She peers down at her arm, pleased, then back to Logan. "Are you thinking of getting something?"
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"It's good work," he agrees easily. However strange a fellow Pirate Pete is, no one can deny his talent with a needle. "You born in the Year of the Rat of you just an incredible piper?" he asks with a smirk.
He shakes his head at the question. "Nah, they never take well to my thick hide. And even if they did, I ain't ever been decisive enough to know what I'd pick."
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"It's my friend Sebastian."
She then laughs lightly. "I guess you could say I'm a sort of Pied Piper. I have a lot of affinity with the rats. It was an easy choice for me."
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"How did you come to figure that out?" he asks, "I dunno about you, but where I come from a penchant for rats might raise more than a few eyebrows. Maybe you know all about that though," he smiles.
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With a sad smile, she touches the tattoo - and there's a flash around them of two people being covered in rats - but they look cozy and comfortable.
She blinks and looks around at the vision. "What's this...?"
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"On the streets ofā" but before he can finish the question the scenery shifts around them. He startles like an animal interrupted by a loud noise. The jolt puts him on edge and with a quick snikt sound the claws come out on one hand. Or maybe he's been on edge since he got hereā hard to say.
"Beats the hell outta me," he admits, but the presence of rats makes him think it has to be more about her than him. "You recognize this?"
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She takes a moment. "It was my father and me. We... The rats would keep us warm in the cold winter nights." She then looks up, bewildered. "I don't know how that... appeared. You saw it too?"
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"I did," he blinks. "Sure you're not a telepath or something, darlin." he says with a curious sort of smile. "Just when you touched yourā" when he gestures towards her and nudges her tattoo with the back of his hand the vision reoccurs and leaves him forgetting his words.
"Ah shit, sorry. Sorry 'bout that..." he says pull his touch away, more than a little chagrin.
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High Striker
"You fit right in. Next thing we know you'll be helping raise tentpoles."
Re: High Striker
"Coffee?" he offers up tin cup in case Jean-Paul has any interest in the bitter brew he's keeping warm over the fire.
"No. No prizes. I don't think it's about that."
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Jean-Paul nods. "Please." He sighs deeply and looks at the game, frowning. "And just what DO you suppose it's about?"
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The coffee he hands him is dark and bitter, but it's a nice departure from all things sugared and fried.
"Knowing something about your strengths," he says. "And maybe actually believing it to boot."
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He sips his coffee and closes his eyes for a moment, blissful.
"Hn. So I should try it, is what I'm hearing."
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That unchecked confidence always makes him smile. "I'd love to see it," he says, nodding towards the game. Truthfully, he imagines it could go either way with Jean-Paul. He's honest and forthcoming enough that maybe he does know exactly where his own strengths lie. And if he doesn'tā well, that will be enlightening too.
no subject
Jean-Paul swings, the business ends of the mallet crashing against the target. The weighted indicator flies up and the bell rings out through the night.
"Nothing to it."
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"Never let it be said you don't know yourself, Johnny," he smiles.
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ink
"Less than an hour," she comments with a faint smile. "It's our initials, the C is me - Chloe. The L is for Lucifer. My boyfriend."
She is very high.
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"Lucifer?" he asks. "That's a bold name. The one and only, or is someone's parents just a big fan of rebels?"
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"Does he know that?" he asks. Maybe sort of just to see how committed she is to this idea. Hell, maybe she knows something he doesn't. "That you're in a relationship I mean."
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So, all she can manage is a bit of sputtering in surprise. And then:
"What's your super power? Being a dick?"
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He shrugs and offers little more explanation than a smug smile. "Depends who you ask," he says innocently. "I'm just sayin' most people I've come across makin' claims like that tend to be a little... confused about things."
He puts his hands up in mock surrender. "But hey, I've been to hell and back mysef, Ma'am. Far be it from me t'assume yer situation."
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Chloe does laugh, then. "That is the most normal reaction I've had since I got here, how weird is that! I mean, you still shouldn't go around asking random strangers if their relationships are real, word of advice, not a great way to make friends or whatever. But still! Do you think I have like, a creepy attic with an effigy in it, maybe a pentagram on the floor or something? We had a case like that once, I mean the vics were weird Satanists. Lucifer hated it."
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"Real means a lotta different things, darlin'. No shortage of people claim they got a real relationship with Christ. I'm just tryin' decide if you meant it in a spiritual sorta way or a we-go-to-couples-counselling sorta way."
As if to complicate matters she mixes effigies and opinions and professions all at once. Logan rubs the bridge of his nose a moment. "Hang on. Back up. You and the Morning Star got a thing, plus you work crime scenes or something together? Is that the picture you're paintin' me? Since when is he in the law-abiding business?"
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