polylogs | Got the morbs.

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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

"Cartman's mom was... in a porno??" Quentin asks like he thinks he's misunderstood something here. "Actually, you know what. Based on some of the things I know about this guy maybe that's not surprising. My parents were just trailer trash and I came this close to supervillainy so. That's probably a factor in his origin story."

It seems to bode well that Kyle can laugh now about whatever Quentin probably said, but nevertheless he hopes nothing stuck. "Did I say something terrible? I don't actually remember a lot of it after the open bar."

The more of this story Kyle tells the more Quentin squints at him like he's forming theories in his head and filing all these details away to build some greater case for his understanding of Kyle the world from which he hails.

"You... Kyle. Are you a superhero?" he asks.

Kyle nods, chewing his lower lip. "Yeeeeah. Uhm. She was kinda... I guess a sex worker. At the time none of us REALLY understood what it all meant, but... yeah. You're definitely right."

He shakes his head. "Nothing I hadn't heard before, don't worry. I don't even remember specifics." It's clear he's plastered over any insults with new, more pleasant memories.

Kyle blinks. "What? No. No, I just had a chainsaw."

"It's almost enough to feel bad for the kid," he muses. "But now that I've heard his voice with my own functioning ears I'm not sure I can."

"Good," Quentin smiles. "I say a lot of things I don't always mean. Or change my mind about later. But if I say something that actually bugs you, I'm fully expecting you'll tell me."

"I don't mean that time specifically. I just mean at large. Are there superheroes where you come from? And are you sure you weren't one?"

Edited 2022-01-17 05:41 (UTC)

"Yeah. I do, sometimes, but then I remember some other stupid bullshit he pulled."

Kyle laughs again. "No! Well, Captain Hindsight, but he was just a guy who pointed stuff out after the fact.

"I pretended to be one as a kid? That's the closest we came to superheroes, sorry." He can't begin to imagine why Quentin would ask such a thing.

"You don't owe him shit," he says. Kyle knows this he suspects, but nevertheless protecting his boyfriend from his own do-goodery is always high on Quentin's to do list.

It's hard not to remark on the existence of Captain Hindsight and Quentin opens his mouth to do so before soon shutting it again with a shake of his head. One thing at a time.

"You say so many things that require their own specific line of intense questioning," he sighs. "I'm just saying what might be normal for where you come from— it's not normal Kyle. And you're always like I'm just a normal guy! but the more I know you the less I buy it. So I have to wonder. Are you running towards normalcy because you've literally never had that? Like a real Prince and the Pauper situation. Or are you just oblivious because normal in South Park is waaaay out of whack with most incarnations of Earth."

Around back of the medical school is a dimly lit entrance where the maintenance workers come and go. There, a shifty looking fellow in a white coat slinks out of the shadows nervously.

"You're Quire, right?" he looks at Kyle when he asks. "Is, is that... how many is that?"

Kyle raises his eyebrows. "Aren't you host to a bird god? And you live on a sentient island? That's not normal either! And okay, the zombies were strange, but MOST of the time it was just typical small town stuff. People being dumb, for the most part. I really am just some guy, Quentin."

In the seedy alley, Kyle shakes his head and points at Quentin. "He's Quire. I'm the help. And it's an even dozen. Way more than you were expecting, I'm sure."

"Once and future host —technically. And I know I'm not normal! That's like, the first thing I tell people! But you're always trying to tell people you are normal when you're definitely not and I just don't understand why!"

The already skittish buyer of their ill-gotten gains looks like much more unnerved by the conversation that Quentin has so shamelessly in front of him.

"Uh, should I—"

"You should pay up, that's what you should do," he says.

"They didn't give me enough to cover— what did you say? A dozen? That's..."

"I know, I know. More than you were expecting. It's fine. Give me what you have. I'll come back in the morning for the outstanding balance. I'll even spare you interest if you're here with it before noon."

Nervously the young man leafs through a pocket full of bills counting it up as he turns the whole handful over to Quentin. "I'm not sure there's presently enough staff to ahm, collect. In a timely manner, that is."

"What are you an intern? Where's the head of surgery? He told me all the bodies I could carry. This is roughly that. Where you put them now? That's on you."

Edited 2022-01-17 07:52 (UTC)

Kyle laughs. "Dude, I am. I'm not the only one this sort of stuff happens to! Like... okay, the aliens. A whole bunch of us have met a bunch of aliens. So it can't be THAT weird."

He shakes his head, happy to let Quentin dicker. He supposes that there really was no way anybody would be expecting a dozen corpses. Maybe they should have staggered it.

Kyle tries not to laugh, muffling the sound with his forearm as if he's got a tickle in his throat. "Uh. Yeah. So, we'll be back tomorrow, dude. And we expect to be paid." He glances at Quentin, smiling.

"Babe, most incarnations of earth where humans become the dominant species actual alien intervention is not hella normal. You're weird or your dimension is weird. Maybe both. Consider it."

After some shuffling of bodies and medical students they collect what cash their liaison has on hand. If he looks disappointed it's something of a put on. As soon as they're alone again. Quentin flips through his cash and smiles. "You're good muscle," he winks. "We make a pretty good team."

Kyle can't really argue that. Even on his earth it's not COMMON, it's just happened to him a lot.

Maybe Quentin has a point.

He looks over and grins. "Hey, I know we do. So is it enough to avoid sleeping on a bench with a bunch of other people?"

"I think so. Or at least, it's getting close," he drums his fingers thoughtfully on his chin. "I should find some public records or something for a better idea of how much the good property sells for this in this day and age. Most of it just gets passed down in rich families so good luck digging up an accurate assessment."

"If we need more to get something with indoor plumbing, I've already found a way to increase profits. It's all very Dickensian."

Kyle laughs. "You're gonna buy a house? Quentin, you're nuts." He sounds so fond.

"...how is that? You say Dickensian and I get worried."

"Well, how else are we gonna get the perks short of a little mind control which some people like to tell me is so terribly unethical," he sulks a little but not for long.

"I gave some kids some shovels," he says. "They're very stealthy."

"Did I say that?" Kyle says, eye huge and innocent. Then he's snorting laughter.

"Oh, god. Quentin. Quentin, NO, that's..." he starts cackling. "Just tell me they're getting a fair cut."

"Maybe. It sounds like something you'd say," admittedly he's stopped keeping track of the people who warn him off of such casual mind-altering.

"Of course they are! Not to mention the protection of me, Victorian London's most auspicious new Fagin— except without all the beatings and anti-Semitic stereotypes," he waves that tangent away to get back to his point. "Hey, I was Oliver Twist once too, you know. And now I'm just the kind of guy a kid like me could have used."

"I mean... okay I probably have at some point," he admits.

Kyle's laughter fades and he looks at Quentin with such obvious love that it might make people puke. "Dude," he says softly. "That's actually super sweet."

"Yeah?" he smiles back. The kind of smile that gives him away as someone who actually does enjoy positive attention, despite his insistence to the contrary.

"Good. I was a little uncertain where that would net out— ethically speaking— but this thing seems to be holding ground so," he waggles the orange ScryWatch on his wrist.

"Yeah." He can't help himself; he leans in and kisses Quentin's cheek.

Kyle nods, quickly sneaking a look at his own. Still green. "I stil don't think it's just ethics."

"What else do you think factors in then?" he asks tucking his hand into Kyle's as they make the trek from the medical college back across town to the temple. At least now with money in their pockets.

"Psychological growth," he replies.

"The times mine has changed seems to either be ethical OR based on my ability to deal with certain traumas or move on from events and shit. That's my own observation of myself though."

Quentin's face cops that slightly pinched look he gets when he's strictly thinking something over. It seems a viable theory and his face relaxes again when he's satisfied with that possibility.

"So what do you think would happen if I committed some atrocities in the name of a totally new belief system?"

"I'd say the word 'atrocities' already indicates that you know it would be morally wrong," Kyle says dryly.

"I also think doing it out of spite for the invisible forces here would be a little immature."

"Oh c'mon I'm just being glib. Obviously if my perspective shifted I wouldn't think of them as atrocities. No one thinks they're committing atrocities when they believe they're doing the right thing." He smiles when he argues. At least for arguments like this. With people like Kyle.

"I don't mean spite related reasons either! What if I have an epiphany tomorrow? My whole world-view shifts! Suddenly I'm, I dunno, justifying eugenics or something. But for a noble cause. Where does the wrist band put me then? You know?"

He doesn't really care if there's a clear answer. Or he does, but doesn't expect Kyle to be the one to deliver it.

"Speaking of... have you ever seen anyone wearing a red one?"

Kyle looks at Quentin, brows raised, lips pursed. "I can't say this is an example I'm super stoked on, dude. For a few reasons."

He sighs and readjusts his hat. "I think if you fervently believed in eugenics all of a sudden, you'd wind up in the irredeemable colour zone, because personal ethics aside you'd be like... essentially you treat certain people as if they're subhuman. You take away rights to keep them from breeding, all of that. I think no matter what personal beliefs you hold something like that really is objectively fucked up. It's not like holding onto childhood trauma or not forgiving your mom's ex boyfriend or something."

He nods. "Deadpool's is red, or was the last time I saw him."

Quentin opens his mouth for rebuttal but something tells him not to. Something that does not originate in his id for once.

"Ok maybe that errs to close to objective evil to make a case for it. But like, some things don't, right? Some things are bad things that can be done for good reasons and other things are total grey area. You don't think?"

"Is it? And it has been? This whole time?" he asks, lighting up with curiosity.

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