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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.
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.
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.
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.
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. 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.
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"Fuck, you are the hottest bitch on this island. C'mon, you wanna ride the rollercoaster and I'll give you a handy? Livin' dangerously, am I right?"
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"Sick gains? Who the fuck are you and what did you do with my boyfriend? What is in your hair," he squawks when when he finds himself clinging to Kyle to stay up right and grabs hold of a handful of the crispiest locks. "I mean, yes, I do want a handy on the rollercoaster but also what the fuck Kyle? What the fuck happened to you? Did another clown have something to do with this??"
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"I got bit by a big fuckin werewolf in the Haunted House, so what? What the fuck YOU been up to, you get ink or somethin?" As he tries to peer at Quentin's chest. "Lemme see."
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He bats those hands away in an impatient little fit and folds his arms petulantly over his chest. He is unsettled by this change in Kyle, but he also knows better than to pass up a perfect opportunity to overshadow something he'd rather not expose so readily.
"Nevermind that! Don't so what me! Was it an Italian werewolf? This is not good Kyle! Oh God, I can already hear the Wolverine comparisons— how could you let this happen!" he whines.
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"Since when do you care what other people think anyways?"
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At that he heaves a big breath and with it the most of his complaints seem neatly stored away somewhere he's not being actively irritated by them. He closes his eyes a long moment and resets himself.
"Back to the beginning please. Tell me. How this happened. BOTH things. The lycanthropy and the... Jersification."
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Kyle scowls. "What, you got somethin against Jersey?" he asks. "My mother's from Jersey. I was conceived in Jersey. What, you talkin shit about my family?" From zero to a hundred. But then he gets distracted by Quentin's neck, which he's intent on nuzzling.
"I went on the Haunted House ride. Some fuckin werewolf popped out and attacked me. Then, I dunno, it's all a little fuzzy." He grins. "Get it? Fuck, I'm funny. Now what's this you're hiding?"
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"I've got something against the residents of Seaside Heights, yes," he grumbles, but doesn't stop to pitch a fight so long as he's getting answers.
"Hilarious. So there's a werewolf around here. Ok. Maybe the freakshow got loose. Fine. I get it. But I'm still going to need you to please explain this whole goldchains and guinea-tee vibe you're putting out here because I don't think there's a silver bullet for that and that might be more difficult to get use to than like shedding or whatever."
"It's a tattoo ok!? I'm told it's not permanent. Which is good because I don't really remember asking for it. They've done something to the cotton candy FYI. Now come here," he says taking Kyle by the sides of his face and looking him in the eye. "I need to know just how you you still are ok? So tell me. What are your feelings on like— I dunno gerrymandering? Unions? A less-than-cost-of-living minimum wage? Socialized medicine? Gimmie something."
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"What, this?" He gestures to his ensemble. "I look great!" He looks... hilarious, really. Although there is a definite confidence there that Kyle normally lacks.
Kyle's eyes light up. "You got ink? Duuuuuuuuuuude that's sick as fuck, lemme see..." He starts trying to peer at Quentin's chest and nevermind if that means tugging his shirt down. Still, when Quentin takes his face in his hands he stops, smiling.
"Gerrymandering is a fuckin archaic ass practice designed to manipulate votes and keep the rich rich and the poor poor and fuckin ignorant. Unions are pretty much fuckin essential to protect the rights of workers. Every living person deserves to have the cost of living fuckin paid for - minimum wage in this country is a fuckin joke and basically forcing people to be fuckin slave labour. Socialized medicine is fuckin dope and the only reason the dumbfuck You-Ess of Ay doesn't go for it is years and years of fuckin brainwashing." His eyelids lower to half mast.
"God, you're fuckin sexy. C'mon, make out with me and show me your tits."
no subject
At least until that bleedingheart he's come to expect is right there below the surface. Maybe a little over tanned, a little over gelled, but there nevertheless. At least he can be sure he hasn't lost Kyle. Quentin smiles and kisses him with his head still trapped between his palms. "There's my little South Park boy," he smiles.
"Show me your tits?? Kyyyyyle. Gross," he sighs like he's disappointed that Jersey-Kyle's idea of humor is more shock-jock than how cuttingly intellectual he knows he can be. But oh well, Quentin shrugs and unbuttons his shirt, mumbling "it's a good thing you're cute..."
That tattoo is out of control. It spans most of Quentin's chest from the collar bone down and it's so elaborate, so detailed, so unnecessarily intense that the only way any sane person would describe it is extra. A banner that stretches along the top reads alternately on the left and right sides, HOT HEADED COLD HEARTED, below that a fiery rising phoenix enveloping an anatomically accurate heart and underscoring all of it another banner that reads KYLE 4 LITERALLY EVER. It's a lot to take in in one viewing.
no subject
Then he laughs and spreads his arms wide. "Whaaaaaat?! Fuckin A, I'm cute." He leers appreciatively as Quentin unbuttons his shirt. Then he stares, jaw hanging open.
"Dude," he says in tones of awe. "Dude." Softly, he was presses his fingers to the 'KYLE 4 LITERALLY EVER.'
no subject
At least it's nice to see Kyle so confident, he thinks.
"Don't dude me!" he mutters, but before he can excuse his choices on a sugar high Kyle's contact with that tattoo inspires an influx of thoughts and memories as muddles at the artwork itself.
There's fire and a bird a some whispered secret just out of reach of his ears. And there's a feeling of peace— not like silent but the kind of piece a lion feels on the savannah knowing there is nothing bigger and more powerful than itself for miles. There's an explosion and house blown apart and feeling of being small and fragile. And of course, there's Kyle. Recent memories as they are, there's a million pictures of Kyle frozen in time like someone has been following them around snapping candid photos while he sleeps, while he laughs, while he turns red in the face, while he gives Quentin serious cut eye.
no subject
But then he's back, nuzzling into Quentin's neck, kissing and nipping.
"I oughtta get one to match!" he says.
no subject
"Whoa, hey, what was that?" he asks, closing his hand around Kyle's wrist, but by then Kyle's already righted himself and buried his face against Quentin's neck again. "Are you toothier than before?" he asks as a blush creeps into his cheeks.
Kyle's idea seems laughable at first. Matching tattoos? That's got to be a surefire way to seal the fate of a relationship right? On then other hand, if Kyle's got something equally as over the top, it might take the heat off him a bit. "Yeaaah, you should!"
no subject
He howls with laughter- quite literally - and tugs at Quentin's hands. "Show me where! I know what I'm gettin."
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"Like right now?" he's left blinking when Kyle redirects them. "You don't wanna hunt down this werewolf first? Wait, how do we fix you? Is that even how werewolves work? Please don't make me ask Logan..." He's staggered at first, uncertain that the current state of his parter should go ignored, but without knowing the best course of action for that he lets his feet lead them across the grounds to the tattoo parlour. For now.
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"I dunno, don't you just kill werewolves with a silver bullet or somethin?" Kyle all but crashes into the tattoo parlour, grinning. "Yo, Pirate Pete," he says as he starts undoing his pants.
"I want you to tattoo my boyfriend's name on my ass!"
Pirate Pete looks, shrugs, and Kyle hops up on the table with his butt out. He looks at Quentin as poor Pete shaves his unusually fuzzy asscheek.
"This is gonna be so dope. You want your full name or just the Omega symbol or what?"
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"I don't know! I'm not a lycanthopist! Can you cure people of it by killing the main one like with vamps?" he asks, but suspects he's getting no answers when Kyle is already taken with their tattooist.
"Your ass?" Quentin seems less than satisfied that it won't be in such a publicly visible place as his own. "I guess it doesn't matter if you're this hairy anyway... Let's just start with the Omega symbol how about?"
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"Hell if I know."
He looks up at Quentin and grins, well. Wolfishly. "You want I should get it on my cock instead? Nah, the ass! That's where I've thought it should go before."
no subject
"The fact that you'd willfully hand your dick over to a stranger with a needle makes me worried about your better judgement like this." He leans in to look Kyle in the eye while he's laid out on his stomach "I can barely be my own conscience Kyle, I can't be trusted to be yours too."
no subject
Kyle cackles. "Didn't you say it was temporary?" he asks. Then he looks up at Quentin with genuine warmth and affection. "Relax, babe. I won't make you into the good guy if you don't wanna be."
Pirate Pete sets to work, drawing the omega symbol on Kyle's right ass cheek. It will be covered with hair again the next time he changes, but come morning a hungover feeling Kyle will be able to see it just fine.
no subject
He sighs and plunks himself into a seat across from Kyle while the needle buzzes along his bare ass. "It's not that... or maybe it's kind of that. I'm just saying, I don't want you be like why did you let me do that? because the answer is always going to be 'cause you wanted to. Get me?" Truly he just doubts his capacity to look after someone who's feeling out of sorts, but that would be admitting to some kind of failing.
At least Kyle's butt looks cute from here.
"So like. What else do wolf boys need that I should know about?"
no subject
He reaches over and drags a claw up Quentin's arm. "Pink haired bitches," he purrs. "Well. One."
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"That's not anything!" he whines. "I meant like RABBITS or whatever disgusting things dogs like!"
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His grin reappears. "Oh, I can SHOW you all the disgusting things I like," he leers.
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cw: animal death
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