fandomtownies | The Park, All Day Friday

Entry tags:

The Park, All Day Friday

On Friday morning, a strange mist rolled out from the park. It smelled sweetly of cotton candy, much like the scent of the night before. When the mist ebbed, it left something in its wake: tents and booths and rides, spread somewhat haphazardly around the park.

A moment later, the lights went on. At the front, an arch that bore a sign: Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show.

A tall man with a dark mustache stepped through the arch. He took momentary notice of the carnival's surroundings. Then he clasped his hands together and turned around, disappearing into a small tent just off the carnival grounds proper.

As the attractions turned on one by one, music drifted from each ride like the mist that had come before it. It could be heard everywhere on the island, inviting anyone with the time and the wish for merriment to approach and try its many delights...

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Come in, come in! Buy tickets for the rides, don't mind the crooked smile on your salesperson's face!

A stand in the middle of the carnival's clearing holds innumerable treats. Above all, there is the cotton candy, which seems glossy and full and inviting.

Surely taking a bite won't hurt. Or another. Or a third. The kind woman with the beard manning the booth will be happy to keep serving you... for as long as you want.

[[ the cotton candy is addictive, and eating more of it will make the addiction worse. ]]

A beautiful carousel sits just to the left. It's an antique and intricate work. Each seat is a horse, stretching out majestically, hooves polished and face nearly lifelike. The carousel makes wonderful music as it turns, and turns, and turns...

[[ the carousel will age you up or down, depending on its whims. ]]

It's a hall of mirrors, bent in a hundred different ways. The light bounces off each one, back and forth - can you find your way out? Or will you be distracted by what you see?

[[ can show you your own memories, distorted versions of yourself, images of people who've been co-opted into joining the show and scenes of how it happened; the maze will drive you mad if you stay too long ]]

The man who staffs this gallery has a crooked smile and plenty of rifles to hand out. Behind him is a row of targets, moving back and forth: little wooden ducks and tigers and snakes and lions dance back and forth, waiting for your attention. Or... did one of those just hiss?

[[ the targets will come to life if you try to shoot them, growing larger and attacking you. they might be wood, but they have sharp claws and teeth ]]

Hidden in a tent of her own, the fortune teller awaits. She may look like any charlatan you meet on the street, but nothing is less true. What she sees in her crystal ball may well come true...

[[ the fortune teller actually sees the future - but the futures she sees will inevitably be negative alternatives. if you want to see something specific, please designate this in the npc post or mail us. ]]

This ferris wheel is somewhat old-fashioned, and not nearly as grand as the likes of it built today. But it reaches high in the sky, and it keeps rolling, rolling, waiting for more to enter and get a good view of the island and its surroundings.

[[ the ferris wheel will come loose or spin out of control periodically, killing or hurting those inside. ]]

A man stands in one corner of the carnival, flipping knives. Ahead sits a wooden target, at which he sometimes throws his knives. Just a harmless attraction - unless you'd like to join it.

[[ the knife-thrower can and will throw knives at you, whether you decide to stand in front of the target or not. ]]

There's nothing terrible about these - it's just a place to sit.

Or maybe you'd just like to look around and not engage.

The NPC request post is here. You're also free to mod your attractions!

Anyone affected by the carnival - up to and including dying on the ferris wheel - will return as a carnival attraction.

Edited 2014-08-08 07:09 (UTC)

Question! (And apologies if this has been answered elsewhere.)

Define "affected"? Can someone go into the mirror maze, see bad things, and freak out and leave before the carnival takes hold? Or does engaging in any of the attractions mean you'd be affected?

As per here, yep, you can see/experience bad things and bail just before the carnival gets its claws in you!

See, I knew it was somewhere.... :) Thanks!

Raven had a bad feeling about this. She'd been to the Homecoming carnivals, of course, but they hadn't appeared out of a strange mist. Still, something about it drew her in, and she told herself she was just going to investigate to see that nothing was amiss.

But that cotton candy sure looked tempting.

The entire psychic scent of this place was off. It reeked of wrongness.

So of course Surreal was going to go. Her stiletto was openly strapped to her thigh, and she had a dozen other blades hidden about her person. She was going to get some food, scope it out, and, if she decided it was dangerous instead of just shady as Hell, find the best place to burn it to the ground.

But first, a ticket.

Jono had come back to the island a day early to do some paperwork, but there was a general feeling of... of wrong that had pounded at his skull as he sat down at his office desk, and apparently it wasn't going to let up until he came to investigate.

So... here he was, a grim look on his face as he bought a handful of tickets. No sense actually instigating something until he got a good look around to see what was causing that... crawling feeling in his head, after all.

Jono had no use for the concessions, and the carousel seemed straightforward enough. It was the mirror maze that drew his attention, that seemed to scream wrong at him.

And so of course he went inside. That was what he did, after all. Went where the danger seemed the thickest, took it apart, left again with a job well done behind him.

He wasn't terribly surprised when, after a few minutes of wandering, he turned around to come face-to-face with one of the shadows in his head- a burning effigy of everything he'd ever hated about himself, a skeleton with flesh hanging from bone, fire and raw power and something bigger and stronger and crueler than he ever was lurking around the corners. He stared it down, and it grinned back at him, all hard edges and malice. It was a face he saw every time he managed to catch a minute of sleep, every little betrayal of his mind and body all wrapped into one. That face, he could manage.

The other faces that stepped up around it, on the other hand... the screaming, pleading faces of the mutants of Neverland, of the soldiers lost in Yllestad, of Mira and Vin and Ev, of everyone he'd failed to save...

He'd never been able to handle those.

And when he tried to back away and his shoulders pressed against cold, solid glass, he was certain that there was a pair of solid grey hands pressing on his shoulders. He couldn't see them when he looked, but he knew they were there as they threw him forward to watch as the writhing, pleading crowd tore his reflection to shreds.

On the floor of the hall of mirrors, Jonothon silently screamed as he writhed in agony, his mind ravaged by invisible shadows in the dark.

It was what he deserved.

Edited 2014-08-08 15:18 (UTC)

"You appear to have the same sense of this place as I do," Raven said, picking up on his unease as she approached. It really didn't take a sixth sense to come to that conclusion; random happy fun things rarely appeared out of nowhere in Fandom. Quite the opposite.

The mirror maze was tempting, but Raven was more drawn to the fortune teller's tent. Maybe speaking to her would give her a better idea of just what this strange carnival was all about.

She hesitated a moment at the entrance to the tent, not entirely sure this was a wise idea, but her curiosity got the better of her. "Hello," she said pleasantly. "May I have my fortune told?"

Raven ~~you know, the other one~~ was getting actually zero weird feelings about this carnival. This was because she was actually zero percent psychic. Sure, it was a little dingy, but most carnivals in her experience were a little dingy. And if the salesperson looked shifty, that was because most carnival people looked shifty.

So when classes were done for a week, she was perfectly happy to head out to the carnival and see what was on offer. If it wasn't any good, she'd just leave. Right?

Right?

//Couldn't focus around it,// Jono replied with a little nod, one hand in his pocket, and the other one sitting at his side, twitching toward his bandages every time a burst of wrong flared through his psionic senses. //I can't put a finger on it, but it's... heavy. Oppressive.//

A beat.

//Hungry?//

Ravenous.

Did someone say "carnival"? Carnivals were for fun.

Pinkie loved fun!

That pink streak that just went through, flinging a flutter of paper bills -- precisely the cost of the tickets it managed to suck into its tail wind -- after it? That'd be Pinkie Pie. At least she'd remembered to pay.

"Ooo, cotton candy!" Pinkie cried, somehow surprised at finding the cotton candy stand even though she'd been smelling it since sundown the night before. "I love cotton candy!" She bought herself a nice big fluffy bundle -- and sucked it down in a single go. Then she bought another. And another. And another, until she was starting to expand in a manner not entirely unlike a blimp.

". . . So gooooooood. . . ." she drooled, as she slurped down her twenty-sixth candy bundle. "Soo o o o o o . . . goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood."

Celia almost couldn't help herself. The draw of the carnival was nearly compulsory -- she initially credited it to the lights and fanfare offering a nostalgic glimpse of the world she called home.

But once she'd passed the first tent, Celia caught herself nervously drumming her fingers against her skirts, crossing her arms around herself -- fidgeting. The whole of the place made her practically itch with magic, and while it wasn't unpleasant, it was...distracting.

Something was off, here. Something was strange. But she couldn't keep away, all the same.

Edited 2014-08-08 17:20 (UTC)

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 8

The Park, All Day Friday

Enter the Carnival

Concessions

Carousel

Mirror Maze

Shooting Gallery

Fortune Teller

Ferris Wheel

Knife Thrower

Picnic Tables

Stroll Around The Carnival

OOC

Re: OOC

Re: OOC

Re: OOC

Re: Enter the Carnival

Re: Enter the Carnival

Re: Enter the Carnival

Re: Mirror Maze

Re: Enter the Carnival

Re: Fortune Teller

Re: Enter the Carnival

Re: Enter the Carnival

Re: Enter the Carnival

Re: Concessions

Re: Enter the Carnival