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✖ 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

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i. concert & candy

[ There's no good reason for Joel to feel good about any of this - not about where he is, or what's going on, or the looming specter of guilt, always so perilously close, for what he's unwillingly been made to leave behind. He hasn't, either, not for a moment he's been here.

Until, of course, now. The cotton candy is another uncomfortable (painful) pang of nostalgia - until it isn't. Until he stops caring so much about, really, anything except the beer in his hand and the loud, relaxing cadence of music he feels like he can only ever almost recognize, as he wanders the fairgrounds.

Eventually, he winds up at Pirate Pete's, though he isn't high enough to think of getting any ink (temp or otherwise), himself. No, he's more inclined to post up across from the whole affair, barely propped up on a ratty, overstuffed couch someone's dragged out of a trailer. He only glances over when someone sits down beside him, raising his beer toward the latest tattoo he's spectating. ]

You're just in time. Think this one's supposed to be some kind of... uh, flaming eagle playin' guitar?

ii. haunted house [ cw: violence, blood, gore ]

(a) - [ Don't get scratched. Don't get bit. Words to live by, that he has, somehow, for two decades, now - only for that deeply ingrained mantra to fail him.

In Joel's defense, though, he never had to fight off a fucking werewolf. Definitely wasn't expecting one to pop out of a goddamn carnival ride.

He stumbles out the exit to the haunted house panting and clutching his arm, blood pouring hot between his fingers. Shit. The gash burns like nothing else, like venom seeping into his veins, and the lights and motion of the carnival blur as he huffs out a rough breath, shaking his head as if that'll clear it. He thinks he catches a glimpse of someone approaching, in the corner of his eye, and snarls a short, ] Get back. I'm—

[ Infected, but that's not right, is it? Close enough, though, maybe - and it's all he manages to grit out before his bones start to crack and his skin starts to split and then it's all nothing but howling pain. ]

(b) - [ He doesn't know exactly where he's been or what he's done, but maybe that's not such an unfamiliar feeling. Covered in blood (and other, unacknowledged things), wearing the tatters of his clothes, he staggers through the closely circled wagons, searching for the obvious solution to the one problem he can solve, in all this— But where are those damn showers? ]

( always open to wildcard options & further plotting, hmu at

gravejuice or by pm if you'd like something else! )

[Thus far, Jean-Paul's time on the islands has actually been fairly easy. Sure, there's been some psychological hardships, but overall things have been much less violent than he's used to.

So when he sees a man drenched in blood stalking by his wagon he does a proper double take. Then he's out the door and only a few feet away from the man in a literal second.]

Is all of that blood yours?

[ Joel would say the same, if asked. But his days before the islands were filled with little else but violence, when the silence of his ruined Earth did break.

Here it's almost as bad a shock as someone literally appearing in a flash beside him. ]

Shit&dmash; [ He jumps, reaching for - something that isn't there, the gun that should be on his hip, on reflex, as a bolt of painful awareness shocks through him. He might've changed back, but there's still something wrong with him, senses overburdened, too bright and too sharp.

He looks down at his hand, blood still streaking his palm. ]

I don't know.

[Jean-Paul knows what reaching for a gun looks like, and his eyebrows raise at the gesture.]

I'm not going to hurt you. [His voice is mild. He peers at Joel's hand curiously.] Alright, we should definitely get you cleaned up and find out. Because if it's not, I can only assume you hurt someone. You have no memory of what happened?

[ It's nothing personal, though that assurance does nothing to take the edge off Joel's demeanor. He drops his arm, but his hand clenches and unclenches at his side, empty but not at ease. ]

I can handle that myself. [ Beyond some directions, he's clearly not eager to accept any help. But that might have more to do with him than how rattled he is by - this.

He shrugs, shaking his head. ]

Some. Just blurs, though. [ Carnival lights and the sound of screaming - but that could be any memory over the past month here. It doesn't mean anything. ]

Don't worry, I have no intention of scrubbing your back.

C'mon, tall dark and scruffy. Showers are this way. [He steers Joel toward the caravan park.]

Do you hurt anywhere?

[ Joel huffs, not exactly amused but given the situation? As close as he's likely to get. ]

Good to know.

[ He's already taking stock of himself again, now, given the luxury of it, and he shakes his head at the question quickly enough. ] No.

[ What he doesn't say is that, conversely, he actually feels sort of... good. Worn out, maybe, but sore in a satisfied way. As if whatever he's done was somehow - cathartic, a relief, getting the poison out—

That thought shakes something loose, and Joel lifts his arm, pulling back the torn remnants of his sleeve and smoothing his palm over bloody but unbroken skin, as he slows to a stop. ] I was, though. I was bit.

Bit? Bit by who? Or what?

[The fact that Joel is unharmed is a relief in that it means Jean-Paul has to see if the island has a first aid kit stashed somewhere, but disturbing in its implications. It's a LOT of blood.

The communal shower tents are thankfully empty, and Jean-Paul makes shooing gestures at Joel.]

You had best tell me all you remember leading up to your blackout.

...I don't know.

[ Flat, insistent. He doesn't want to know, in truth, because that means admitting to more of all this weird goddamn magic shit being real, and not just some delusion he can brush off later. (This blood doesn't feel like an illusion, already drying, tacky on his skin and clothes, and that's bad enough.)

The deserted showers are a relief, as much as the running water that starts without trouble when he steps into a stall (it'll take him another two decades to get used to that again). Cold or not, he doesn't care, scrubbing at his hands and face. It's not Infected blood, but he washes it off with the same fervor.

Though with some reprieve from his dazed wandering (the cold water's a nice wakeup), his back is up again. ]

What's any of this matter to you?

[Jean-Paul looks severely unimpressed. Then again, he always does. He stays nearby, looking out at what can be seen of the fairgrounds, frowning.]

If you killed someone it is very much everyone's business, particularly if it is one of us and not some carny local. And if you did not, that means something else poses a danger to all of us.

Edited 2021-10-16 21:17 (UTC)

[ Joel scoffs, swiping a hand over his face again and looking down at his no longer injured arm, still unnerved. He's a fast healer, but he's not that fast. ]

If I killed someone, it wasn't because they were tryin' to lend me a hand.

[ And they wouldn't be a first, by far, either. But he's starting to get the feeling letting that slip isn't going to ease relations, here. ]

And I already told you there's something out there. Whatever jumped me on that ride wasn't lookin' to make friends, either.

And I know that becaaaaaaaaaaaause...? [He sounds extra snotty because of the Quebec accent, really.]

Hn. And you've no memory or what it may have been?

[ Ellie's definitely raised his tolerance for that tone, because it only barely gets under his skin, despite the brusque response it earns. ]

You don't.

[ And there's no use in arguing the point - no way to prove he isn't just some wayward psychopath, prone to killing for sport. (Enough people probably think that of him, already, anyway. No way to help that, either.)

There's a pause as the water shuts off. He'll have to find new clothes before he can clean up proper, but at least he doesn't look like a walking massacre, anymore. Or feel like one. ]

It looked like... It looked like a wolf. [ He won't say werewolf. He just doesn't have it in him. And maybe it was just a wolf, anyway. The memories really are just a series of adrenaline-fueled blurs, vague and uneasy, as if he was dosed with something right before it happened. Maybe he was. (That'd almost be a relief.) ]

[Jean-Paul's eyebrows lift.] A wolf bit you, you blacked out, and now you're covered in blood with no visible wounds.

...you know what this sounds like, right?

I know what it sounds like.

[ He yanks down a towel hung over the door of the stall, scrubbing his hands and hair roughly dry. Jesus. Of course he knows what it sounds like. He's just doing his best not to connect those dots. ]

So you got bit by a werewolf.

[Yeah, he's just going to say it.]

How do they fix that in the movies?

Kill it, I'm guessing.

[ Not a big horror movie guy. Or he wasn't, anyway, back when going to the movies was still a thing. And he hasn't had the opportunity or the occasion to watch one in years. (Who knows, maybe now he'd find a sort of gruesome humor in the genre.

The kind he definitely doesn't find in this, perhaps.)

He crosses his arms as he steps back out of the stall, looking almost vaguely human again. ]

But this ain't a goddamn movie, and I did not get bitten by a werewolf.

You completely got bitten by a werewolf. [He sounds so sure of himself.] I don't know if you've noticed, but this island isn't exactly operating on the rules of normal reality. Chrisse, most of us aren't even from the same universes.

Yeah, that's pretty clear.

[ If that agreement sounds particularly dismissive and vaguely insulting, that's because it's definitely intended to. Brusque as ever, Joel brushes past him, headed back toward the trailers. ]

Appreciate the directions, but I can handle myself from here.

[Jean-Paul watches him go, frowning lightly.]

Alright. But if I see you running around trying to eat people at night, I am going to put you in a kennel.

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joel | the last of us | ota

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