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đ»đđ€Ą
â THE CARNIVAL
â
. 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. Thereâs a toilet, but if you want a shower youâll 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.
â Ą. 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 isnât usually your thing. There are kegs of beer set up around the edges of the concert area and youâre 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, theyâre temporary. Thereâs a stand called Pirate Peteâs 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, youâll find that whenever you or someone else touches it youâll 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 âMomâ 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.
â ą. 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. âHubba hubba!â
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 otherwiseâŠ
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.
â Ł. HAUNTED HOUSE
CW: violence, blood
You might be on carnival island, but itâs still October. Itâs 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 youâre quick you can get out of the way and run for the exit.
If youâre not?
The vampireâs teeth sink into your veins. The ghostâs cold hand wraps around your heart. The werewolfâs claws tear your flesh.
Youâre lucky in that it doesnât 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.
Thatâs 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, heâll 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 ainât 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. Thereâs a toilet, but if you want a shower youâll 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!
â Ą. 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 isnât usually your thing. There are kegs of beer set up around the edges of the concert area and youâre 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, theyâre temporary. Thereâs a stand called Pirate Peteâs 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, youâll find that whenever you or someone else touches it youâll 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 âMomâ 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.
â ą. 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. âHubba hubba!âHe 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 otherwiseâŠ
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.
â Ł. HAUNTED HOUSE
CW: violence, blood
You might be on carnival island, but itâs still October. Itâs 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 youâre quick you can get out of the way and run for the exit.
If youâre not?
The vampireâs teeth sink into your veins. The ghostâs cold hand wraps around your heart. The werewolfâs claws tear your flesh.
Youâre lucky in that it doesnât 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.Thatâs 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, heâll 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 ainât 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 theyâve turned into. For example, a person turned vampire might talk about how they feel they drain other peopleâs energy with their problems, or that they feel drained by other peopleâs. 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? Itâs 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.
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"But yeah let's sit for a bit." He says and points at a pair of random milk crates someone has dragged over near the fire pit to serve as stools. He pulls them a little closer to one another and sits down, wanting to stay close to her. They sit in silence for a little bit and then finally he starts to talk.
"I feel awful. I did the one thing that scares me the most, I lost control. To the point where I broke the damn ferris wheel....If Quentin hadn't been around I might have done worse." He looks up at her, his eyes terrified.
"I could have hurt you, I could have hurt a bunch of people."
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"You can't blame yourself for losing control. That's why it's called 'losing control' and not 'conscious choice'," she points out gently. If only guilt was that easy to wash away. "And you were a scared and hurt child at the time." How much of that may remain in Carter is another question entirely.
cw: grief, mental instability
He leans forward, holding his head in his hands, his hair flopping forward into his face. "I can't have that happen again." He says quietly, his voice shaking with emotion. "It almost made me go insane the last time."
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She scoots in a bit closer on her milk crate. âOkay. Then weâll find ways to help prevent it happening again. Youâve already done remarkably well with it. If it happened before at that age, youâve gone many years without something happening. Donât forget that, okay?â The islands of exploring inner pain were bound to have triggers.
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"But on these islands, it's getting harder and harder to do that. Random stuff can just....set it off."
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"There are others with similar powers, right? Do you think they might be able to help?" Or at least better understand what he was going through. "And if I can do anything, I will. I was told that my mind sounds like krkrkr so if you'd ever like your own personal white noise machine..." She gives him a tiny smile.
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He isn't going to mention that Quentin had to hit him in the head with a psionic baseball bat to do so, Quentin already seems to rub people the wrong way and he doesn't want to give anyone more ammo against him by telling people how he hit a 13 year old child.
When she mentions using her as a personal white noise machine he smiles a little, leaning his head against her shoulder.
"I appreciate you just listening to me and offering to help. You're very kind Chloe." He looks up at her, "How have you been by the way? You seem...different."
no subject
At the head on her shoulder, she reaches up to soothingly stroke his hair, if a bit tentatively. While he doesn't seem like the type to mind, she isn't entirely certain about this whole being tactile with people thing yet. It's all a learning curve.
"We're friends. It goes without saying that your friend would be there for you," she states softly but plainly. She smiles down at him, reluctant to get into it too much as it's... a lot and probably not what he needs right now. "A good kind of different or a bad kind of different?"
no subject
When she starts to stroke his hair he smiles more fully, he finds it comforting and answers her question.
"Good kind, you seem more....confident? At ease."
no subject
For a moment she just continues stroking his hair in silence. "I do feel more at ease. I managed to break the remainder of my programming so I'm no longer bound by... certain notions. Though it's a long and complicated matter that you shouldn't really concern yourself with."
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He moves his head off her shoulder to look at her face, a tentative smile on his face. "You broke it? That's good right? Like it means you can do stuff that you want and feel what you want to feel?"
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She nods and smiles back at him. "That's essentially it, yes. I just am what I am now, I guess." She isn't certain what that might be yet, but she'll figure it out.
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He smiles back at her, "I'm glad. Who you are is great. Did it...hurt at all? Is that a dumb question?"
no subject
Nose wrinkling a little, she shakes her head. âThere are no dumb questions. But no. Androids donât feel pain.â This⊠is not completely true. She just doesnât have the heart to go into the unsavoury details.
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He looks at her for a moment, thinking that he may have seen a flicker of something when she said that but then smiles and dismisses it. "Well I'm glad. Have you done anything special to celebrate breaking through the rest of your programming?"
no subject
No.
"I really hope you will be." Then she tacks on a slightly lighter, "If not, I might have to insist upon some self-care time." Though her smile says she's proud of him for being able to go back to the scene to lend a helping hand. If he needs any evidence as to his character, that's a big dose right there.
"Oh, no, not really." Sure, she's enjoyed the music and done some dancing and had a grand old time with it but celebrating hasn't felt... quite right. Despite the relief it's brought, it's also a loss. It's also heavier than she'd like to admit, at the moment. "But why don't we change that? What do you think would be something fun to do?"
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"Also it's your event to celebrate, so really we should be picking something that you find fun."
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She gives it a little bit of thought, reaching a decision she doesn't look entirely certain about. "We could go to the outdoor concert? Though I will humbly request that we can only use our cheesiest dance moves. See who can do their worst." It seems like a lighthearted sort of thing. Maybe they could both do with a bit of silliness.
no subject
He offers Chloe his arm so he can lead them towards the concert area, motioning at her waffle cone. "Don't forget to finish that, you can't let such good ice cream go to waste."
no subject
Taking his arm, she does indeed finish the cone as they stroll along (and also offers him a try because it is excellent and he should get to experience it). She grabs a napkin as they pass a food stall so she can be sure to wipe any chocolate remnants from her face. Not an elegant look.
She finds a space for them in the crowd where they can move freely and pose minimal risk of accidentally knocking into anyone. âOkay. Should we do this is a dance off, like in the movies, or would you like to dance together?â
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"Let's dance together." He says with a smile, "Do you want to lead or shall I?"
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Already sheâs placing one of his hands on her waist and taking the other, her free hand resting on his shoulder. Itâs far too formal a stance for the atmosphere and the music but thatâs sort of the point. She leads him in a box step that culminates with her dipping him. All daft and a tad dramatic but she did say itâd be cheesy. If thereâs a chance itâll make Carter smile, Chloe is willing to be ridiculous.
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To make it more dramatic as they gain the attention of those around them, Chloe holds out her arms and leans back slightly (being mindful of not upsetting Carter's centre of balance). The touch of flourish gets some whistles and whoops added into the cheers, and she looks down at him with a smile.
"Is the manly ego soaring yet?"
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"It's not soaring but I feel a lot better." He says and impulsively wraps his arms around her in a warm hug.
"Thank you Chloe."
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ooc: omg please forgive my spelling errors/missing words in my last few posts....wtf brain
no worries at all!
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