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Got the morbs.

✖ VICTORIA'S SECRET

Ⅰ. ARRIVAL & THE TEMPLE
You can read all about your character's arrival in the game lore.
The ferry pulls into port in the evening, when shadows are long and gas lamps burn through a veil of mist. Dozens of other ships are docked as well, with men unloading crates and boxes from their holds. Beyond the wet wood and lapping sound of the ocean, a city looms like a charcoal smudge on a purple sky. The air is smoggy and thick, and the river that flows from the sea into the city smells foul. Walk the cobbled streets and you will find that the city is crowded and filthy, but full of merchants, pubs, and theatres. Vast wealth and extreme poverty exist side by side.

In the center of the sprawling city is a temple with towering gothic spires and huge stained glass windows depicting all manner of beings that might be gods or angels or monsters. You could look for hours and still be finding new figures plucked straight from books of myth and religion. Inside, the main chamber has a grand vaulted ceiling, and dozens of pews line the aisle up to the altar, which is oddly anticlimactic compared to the lavish surroundings: just a plain stone table with a lit oil lamp in the centre. Two hallways branch off on either side of the room: one leads to private baths and a communal kitchen, the other to monastic style chambers with thin beds. Not the most comfortable place to stay, but it’ll do in a pinch!

Alternatively you can venture into the city and find yourself some other lodging - every Traveler has been supplied with some pocket money. Just be careful that it isn’t stolen by some street urchin. Travelers can also find an era-appropriate outfit that will fit them perfectly laid in the first sleeping chamber they visit.

Notes:
1. Unless this is your character’s first island, the High Temple and anything you may have stored there is off-limits this month.

2. Please remember to mark threads appropriately with Content Warnings when necessary.

3. The city greatly resembles Victorian London, and the technology and general way of life is all of that era. Feel free to explore the city! These prompts are a jumping off point - how they affect your character and their development is up to you.

4. Most food is safe to eat, and is consumable by non-human entities. Most. Some of it’s going to be pretty gross or cooked improperly, so be careful.

5. The people in the city are normal humans unless otherwise indicated. Killing them is possible and will affect the colour grading of your Scrywatch depending on the situation.

6. Have fun!

Ⅱ. SEANCE
CW: grief, past trauma.
Perhaps you overhear talk of it at a pub, or maybe you’re handed a small card as you push your way through the crowded city streets. Maybe you just wander in by accident. However it happens, you find yourself being ushered into the parlour of one Miss Mary Price: Spiritualist.

You and several other people are instructed to sit at a round table in a very dark and musty room. The walls are covered in thick black curtains, and maybe you’re the type to suspect that there’s someone hiding behind them somewhere. Once everyone is seated, Mary Price herself enters the room. The lights are all extinguished save for a single candle.

Mary calls out to the spirits. They communicate through a series of knocks, or the movement of a Ouija board. Someone at the table is put in contact with a deceased aunt who reveals the location of a family heirloom. Someone else is able to say goodbye to a son.

Mary Price looks at you with eyes so dark they look black, and asks, “What haunts you?”

Maybe you answer honestly. Maybe you don’t answer at all, but that doesn’t matter because the spirit tapping around the room is more than happy to narc on you and tell the whole room what or who it is that you cannot forget.

You can deny it all you like, but the spirits don’t have a reason to lie. And if you try to mess up the seance, you will spend a month being hounded by an angry poltergeist.

Notes:
1. The spirit can communicate through knocks, the Ouija, actually vocalising through the medium, or via ectoplasm.

2. What haunts your character does not have to be the memory of a dead person. It can be an event - maybe they’ve never gotten over losing that science fair in grade three. It is the feeling of being haunted that is important.

3. If you choose to trash the seance, the spirit will follow you for the rest of the month. It can range from annoying to actually dangerous.

Ⅲ. THE RIPPER
CW: murder, gore, violence.
You’re lost at night. Maybe you were in the pub too late, or maybe you were searching for more illicit fun - weren’t there opium dens around this time? - or maybe you just weren’t keeping an eye on the time. However it happened, you’re on the streets in the dark.

It’s very foggy; you can barely see a foot in front of you. The streetlamps look like dimly burning ghosts and when the odd person passes you they are felt more than seen, just a darker shadow in a world of shifting shades.

Very suddenly you hear a scream - short, and swallowed up quickly by the fog. Still, it’s enough to get you to turn and hurry down a narrow alleyway.

Sprawled on the ground amid a lake of blood is a body. It’s immediately apparent that this person is probably beyond help - their throat has been slashed ear to ear. Your appearance was not expected, however, and you can see that you’ve startled the killer: they’re running down the alley in the opposite direction.

You have a few choices: you can chase the killer and attempt to catch them, you can try to help the victim, you can get the authorities, or you can just walk away.

What will you do?

Notes:
1. The inspiration for this prompt is Jack the Ripper but you do not have to use that case as a basis for your killer.

2. You can get as involved with this as you would like. You can have your character catch the killer in a chase, or form your very own detective squad and hunt them down that way.

3. Naturally, walking away from a potential serial killer might not be great for your Scrywatch grading!

Ⅳ. RESURRECTION MEN
CW: dead bodies, grave robbing.
You’re not entirely clear on how you agreed to this. Maybe it was a barroom bet gone wrong. Maybe you’re broke enough that you need money fast. Or maybe you want to help some wannabe medical students. However it happened, you’re in the cemetery.

And you’ve got a shovel.

Time to rob some graves! You’ve convinced yourself somehow that this isn’t morally reprehensible, and so you and your partner are just going to get down to business! What corpse should you unearth? You feel like a kid in a candy store!

The problem comes once you’ve unearthed the body because it seems terribly familiar. Which is… creepy. Creepier still when it starts talking.

Maybe it’s a family member, or an old friend. Maybe an ex partner. Whoever it is, they immediately start telling your fellow grave robber about some incident from your past that you just. Can’t. Let. Go. Of. And even if you whack it with a shovel it won’t stop. Bad corpse! BAD Corpse!

Which of course is exactly what you have to try and do if you want this chatty Cathy of a corpse to shut the hell up.

Notes:
1. If you do NOT let go of this past event, the corpse will follow you the rest of the night singing Henry the Eighth I am, I am.

Sometimes I can still hear his voice...

Network · Logs · OOC · Memes · Plurk

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A; ARRIVAL/TEMPLE

All in all, Hawks isn't too thrilled about this one. The last time there was fog, way back when he'd gotten off the boat for the first time, there had been some undead nightmare creatures in it. It makes him wary. But nothing creeps out of the fog here near the temple so that's good, right? Maybe?

Catch Hawks in the kitchen, predictably, always in search of some kind of snack. Endless appetite, this one.

"Man, when do we get some cool futuristic tech island, y'know?" he says to anyone who comes within earshot.

Or maybe he opens with, "I think I preferred the mall to this."

You might also catch him outside as he lands, coming back from a fairly routine flight, feathers wet with drops from the misty air. "Even I'm having a hard time seeing through this," he says.

B; SEANCE TW: mentions of child abuse

Hawks gets the card on his way out of a pub. He's entirely sober, having only gone in there to eat and eavesdrop on the locals' conversation. Is there something they're meant to do here, something to fight?

He doesn't believe in things like seances and whatnot, but what else is he doing? He knows better than to do this. He knows that the islands have their own rules, that things that can't and don't and shouldn't happen can and do and will happen here. He goes anyway.

Mostly it seems like hocus pocus to him, this whole seance affair, but he goes along, acts impressed, whatever he feels is required in the moment as the other patrons have their chats with their dead grannies or whatever. Hawks doesn't have any dead relatives, so he figures he's pretty safe here. There's nothing in his past to dig up, right?

Haha, he thought.

What haunts you?

Hawks acts like nothing is wrong in his past, but he doesn't have a clean slate. That light on his wrist is yellow for a reason, right? But this haunting thing, it has nothing to do with the ScryWatch colour. Instead, the voice he hears, the voice the whole room hears, says his actual name, something he himself sure hasn't said to anyone. That was always part of the condition of saving his mom from the streets, of becoming a hero.

His dad's disgraceful name couldn't be part of it.

"Takami Keigo," the voice says.

Hawks's eyes go wide and his face pales a little. Ah, shit. His name isn't a secret, not really. It's his name, after all. But that family name, Takami, does haunt him. His dad was a piece of shit, after all.

"Did you actually grow up to be useful or are you just playing pretend?" The voice continues. Hawks can't decide if it sounds more like his mom or one of the Hero Commission.

"Cute trick," he says. He's a hero, but save him?

C; THE RIPPER TW: MURDER, BLOOD

Hawks is out later than he ought to be, maybe still shaken up by that stupid seance thing that happened earlier in the month (luckily he isn't being haunted all month, but man, that wasn't a fun time he's looking to repeat ever). Maybe he's just feeling reckless.

He's walking, not flying, since the fog is thick here, and even he can't see through it well enough to risk flying into a building or something stupid like that. When he hears that scream, though, he takes off after it. He's not far off the ground, but he just moves faster if he's flying.

You can catch him at the murder scene.

"Holy shit," he says. It's obviously too late for the victim, bleeding out in the street. Hawks realises he's not alone, that someone else has followed the scream. Hawks knows his own strengths, so he responds immediately.

"See if you can help them," he says. "Call for police or something, I dunno. I'm gonna chase down this bastard." He's fast, so this makes sense.

Your move, temporary hero partner!

D; WILDCARD

[ Got something else in mind? Cool, drop me a starter here or find me on plurk at boywonder and we'll do it! ]

At least Hawks isn't alone in being unthrilled. Fog was frustrating, and David associated it with certain dimensions he'd been through, and he didn't like it at all. And add in the creatures and it's too much like Utopia's early days and he'd like to pass, thanks.

But hey, food is always good. Though he wasn't expecting to approach it and hear a familiar voice sharing his own opinions. David had to huff in amusement at that.

"See, I'd expected it in about another two islands, but the whole thing decided to change paths from advancing through Earth history, so no clue. Which frustrates me. At least with a more tech island I might be able to learn some new things for all our sakes by interfacing with the tech."

Hawks nods his agreement, glad to have some commiseration.

"That's kinda what I was thinkin' too, but we had the jazz age before the carnival thing, so I dunno. You missed that one, I think. But the tech level there was on par with the carnival. So I didn't think we'd go backwards, I guess? I was really hoping after the mall we'd get, I dunno. Computers? At least?"

He sighs, overdramatic just for the sake of it. He's not that put out about it, but he's still definitely not a fan of this whole place just yet.

"Your quirk, uh...power...is by touching stuff, right?" He's still not entirely sure he understands what David's power set is. Much more involved than his own. He just wants tech because he's tired of going without.

"I missed jazz age?" David asked, his voice forlorn at that. HE wished he had known. He loved Jazz so much, and he'd been reaching for what hints of it he could find here and there. TO think there had been an island of that age... Ouch.

But the overdramatic sigh makes him smile. He actually thought it was an appropriate level of reaction.

"Not quite, not inherently. Back home I have only one power, which is the psychomimetry, a telepathic gift. But I've been changed by the adventures I've gone on. So there's the energy projection you saw and then there's the touch stuff. There's my original power, changed to be something like a touch based power and it's way weaker now, and psychometry, which is a whole other thing. And, of course, there's the touch-based technopathy now. Which is why I really want to get to another world."

But he supposed it was about time for them to have less fun.

"Can you imagine what that was like when I lacked control? Here's me, a guy that always expressed affection and support and kindness through touch, and it was at a point where touch itself was a sort of suffering to me, because there was just too much."

IT had been brutal, and heartbreaking at the sort of isolation it served to be.

Hawks can't help chuckle a bit. "You a jazz guy, huh? Well, you also missed beach zombies, so you know. Win some, lose some." Hawks isn't really a jazz guy or a fan of zombies. That wasn't his favourite island, to say the least.

He remembers hearing some about the psychomimetry thing, and that David got other powers the last place he was, but some of this is new information for Hawks, too. He's glad to have it, because he likes to know about his friends, and because despite his kind of lazy dude attitude, Hawks is always paying attention. He keeps tabs on things like this out of habit. He's always hated being a spy, and he's only ever done that because he had to. He's not duplicitous by nature; he hates lying and all of that crap. But he's inquisitive and observant by nature, sure.

"I can't imagine, man. That sounds horrific, actually. But you seen okay with the touch thing now, right?"

Mostly he's just double-checking, largely because he's touched David quite a bit up to now. He'll back off if that's going to cause some terrible feelings somehow.

"What can I say, I'm a sucker for smooth stylings and a music that aches for improv and emotion," David answered. "But... Well, I tend not to like zombies any time I run into them, so there is that."

Now that David was thinking about his other powers he definitely was going to use one, generating a glowing orb of psionic energy, knowing it would cast a little light in their circumstances.

"Yeah, pretty okay with it. I got better at control. It used to be I couldn't touch another person without accidentally invading their mind, and if I had more than ten different skin-to-skin touches in an hour, the worst migraines ever. You can imagine how much that would hamper a guy who shows affection through contact's life. Hell, my boyfriend and I, we had a really awkward time being affectionate when we had to be careful with counting."

"I gotta say I hope that's the only time I run into zombies, like, ever!" Hawks answers. He's got that smile on his face, but he does mean it. He's fast, of course, so he'd gotten away from them. But there was the weirdness with the skull on the beach, too. That was pretty nasty to deal with, the whole spill your messy shit thing. Hawks doesn't like talking about himself in meaningful ways, revealing a lot of things without meaning to. Secrets are secret for a reason, after all. Besides, talk about an awkward first meeting!

His gaze drifts to the sphere of energy, giving them more light in the fog.

"Guess there's downsides to all powers," he says. He has weaknesses of his own, of course. He's incredibly susceptible to fire, which is ironic considering how often he teams up with a man whose power is entirely about fire. His feathers don't grow back instantaneously, either, though he's only had to use a couple on the islands, so he's not really the worse for wear.

"You seemed to do okay about it back on that carnival ride, at least," he goes on, offering David a familiar lopsided grin. They haven't talked about that. Hawks is a talker, but not a talker. It just kind of comes out.

"Zombies are miserable, no matter whether they run or shamble or turn you or not," he answered. Yeah, he had too much experience with them. Still, he knows things can be a bit messed up in general and this? Still better than more Zombies.

With the orb of light in hand David tilts his head toward the direction the temple is in, offering a walk back in company. He hadn't had a chance to explore in that direction yet and he could use the clothes. Not that he wanted to abandon his turtle neck and leather coat mind.

"Tons of downsides to all powers. Psychometry nearly drove me mad when I acquired it."

But then there's the other thing. Carter's voice was there in David's head, telling him he shouldn't assume that a tunnel of love compulsion had meant there was nothing behind it. So that's... That's something he needs to do.

"Yeah, I did. I have control these days. It's part training, and it may also be part that my powers are stabilized away from the original source," he started, a bit softer, offering a tentative smile. "But, uh, about that ride... I just wanted to make sure you were okay after it. I realized I never checked in on it. I know the other person that I rode with, the ride was more... compelling their behavior toward me. It was awkward with them for a bit after until I made it clear that I really respect that they are aro and I'm not going to chase something a ride forced on them. I just wanted to make sure you weren't, you know, upset with me over what happened that night. I know it probably wasn't something you would have wanted, even if you can joke about it."

Hawks gestures with a hand for David to lead with his glowing orb, falling into step beside him. He's more at the mercy of the fog than he'd like to be, even with his enhanced eyesight. And despite his outgoing nature, Hawks doesn't really make friends easily, so David is welcome company.

He's surprised by David's answer, the frankness of it, the concern. Hawks hadn't really been concerned about it, which now that he thinks about it, does that make him an asshole? He's so good with people on a superficial level, but his actual social skills are questionable at best. He didn't actually spend much time with people as a kid, having a childhood in literal isolation, then nothing but Commission approved training. He learned to read people and adapt to them, but…that's not exactly the same thing.

"Aro? I don't think I know that one."

He knows asexual, but not aro.

He fluffs his feathers out and considers. "There's no complications, man. I mean, it was a terrible pick up line, but I refuse to apologise for that." He grins a little, because he knows it's true. But he's serious enough when he continues, "But what is there to be upset about? I wouldn't have jumped right into make out land without the whole under the influence thing, but I'm not sorry it happened, and I'd do it again on my own terms. If you wanted. Or not, if you didn't. We're cool."

I'd do it again on my own terms. If you wanted.

If there was ever a statement better suited to make David trip while walking through a foggy night and stepping onto an uneven bit of pavement, it hadn't been spoken under those exact circumstances. The whole circumstance indeed made David trip and it distracted him enough that the orb flickered out as he worked to balance himself. Shit.

Lack of focus meant a lack of sustained projections for him. Still sucked.

Once he balanced himself he looked to Hawks with the same bewilderment that he had given Carter when the other had suggested Hawks might feel that way.

"W-why? I mean, not why not apologize or why not be upset. Just, why would you want to do that again? I'm literally just a hot mess. And you're this hot guy that actually has real valuable skills and a calming presence and all that stuff and could absolutely get someone who wasn't a mess to kiss you with no effort because, well, you're you."

As David already knows, Hawks is fast, so he's there to offer a hand when David stumbles. He doesn't catch him, though he could, but he feels like this isn't that kind of fall. The light goes out, but he figures that's a surprise thing. Whoops?

Hawks looks just as surprised as David does, listening to that rambling.

"Dude, do you not look in mirrors or something? This isn't deep. You're a hot guy, too."

He rubs the back of his neck, slightly embarrassed. For all of his cool guy persona, this isn't actually something he does. He spends all his time being a hero or a spy, letting people do that weird parasocial relationship thing via social media, make whatever conclusions they want. He's never had an actual boyfriend or girlfriend or any of that.

"You're too hard on yourself, David. I like being around you. You get what the hero gig is like. You're funny, you're smart. Like I said, it's not deep. It's just kissing. What happens after that, I guess I dunno. I'm kinda new at that part."

Hawks | BNHA | OTA

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