Night circus mme

[madreen_rua]

The Night Circus Meme



"The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night." - Erin Morgenstern

As you wander the grounds of Le Cirque des Rêves, black and white striped tents on all sides try to catch your attention. Which tent will you choose? Who will you meet in the tent? Or maybe you're a performer, ready to dazzle your audience as they walk in.

How does this meme work?
1 - Post a comment with your character's name and canon in subject.
2 - Set a scene or give some preferences.
3 - Tag others.


The Choices (expanded!)


1 - Isobel - The fortune teller. The tent is dark and silent. As you walk in, the noise and laughter of the rest of the circus falls away. As you feel blindly along the velvet tent walls, you encounter a beaded curtain. Will the fortune-teller tell your future? Are you the one seated behind the table? Have you stumbled into someone else's session and now must apologize or commiserate? Or maybe the fortune teller has left for a few moments, leaving behind nothing on the table but a set of black and white Tarot cards.

2 - Tsukiko - The contortionist. The contortionist does not have a tent. Round a corner, follow the path that circles the tents and you are likely to find the contortionist performing feats of extraordinary dexterity and flexibility, slowly stuffing herself (or himself!) into a small glass box on the ground. Perhaps you're watching in awe with your friend, or you're trying to speak to the contortionist. Or you and your fellow visitors are trading gasps of wonder.

3 - Widget and Poppet - The animal trainers. The trainers perform outside of the tents, coaxing a multitude of black and white kittens to dance, to leap through hoops and run up and down curious and delighted audience members. Or maybe slip into the tent behind them, where two other animal trainers do similar tricks with leopards and panthers. Or perhaps you are the performer, and you and your partner have some unexpected tricks for the audience.

4 - The Illusionist - The illusionist performs in a small, black and white striped tent that holds no more than twenty. With theatrical gestures, the illusionist transforms a gentleman's scarf into a half-dozen white doves, produces flames that dance but do not burn, and even causes a tree to grow from an empty seat, pure white and silver blossoms blooming before the audience's eyes. Is it magic?

5 - Celia and Marco - The lovers. The fantastic circus and all its wonders are nothing but a backdrop for the forbidden love that has blossomed between the two of you. How will you keep your love a secret? Kisses stolen between striped tents? Bittersweet goodbyes as the sun rises and the wrought iron gates of the Night Circus close for another day?

6 - Cloud Maze - This tent is one of the tallest in the circus, and once you slip between the black and white striped flaps, you see a tower of fluffy white mist. As you touch the mist, it is soft and warm against your hand. The more you explore, the more you see hanging platforms, ropes, and ribbons hidden among the white clouds. Through them you can climb to the top of the tower of white cloud. Do not be afraid of falling or jumping off the tower or the platforms, for the white misty clouds will support your weight, catch and envelop you in white.

7 - Bedtime Stories - This tent is small, almost hidden among the rest of the circus. Within is a room filled with shelves and tables, and bottles and jars litter every flat surface. Open a bottle, and a scent escapes. Breathe deep, and a story unfurls for you, so real that you can feel every touch. Will you share the stories with your companion? Or dare each other to try ever stranger experiences?

8 - The Wishing Tree - There is nothing in this tent except a sprawling tree that bears candles instead of leaves. Many of the candles are lit, their flames flickering in the slight breeze that permeates the tent. A card on the tree instructs you to take a candle from the tree and make a wish on it, lighting it with the flame from another wish. What will you wish for? It's said that wishes lit on the Wishing Tree come true...

9 - The Ice Garden - Everything inside this tent is white, and it takes only a moment to notice that the sprawling garden within the tent is created entirely of ice. Every posy petal, every delicate branch of a tree. The 'grass' beneath your feet is pure white snow, and brushing by a tree will send another sprinkle of white onto your head. How will you and your companion explore this place?

10 - The Labyrinth - This tent is just like any other from the outside, but as you walk in, it changes. Perhaps you'll find yourself in a library that smells of leather and is lit by flickering candles. Or a valley full of fine white sand flanked by rolling hills. Or maybe you find yourself in a giant silver birdcage. The possibilities within the Labyrinth are endless, but there are always two constants:
1 - the way into each new part of the labyrinth is not the way out.
2 - there is always a way out.

11 - The Living Statues - Scattered throughout the circus are statues. Statues so real that they seem to be human, but so still that they cannot be anything but an illusion. The lovers. The angel. The ballerina. All of them seem to stand without moving, but by the end of the night, the lovers are embracing, the angel has offered someone a flawless white rose, the ballerina has pirouetted her evening away. Do you stand and try to catch the statues moving? Or do you try to provoke them into moving? Or perhaps just stand and speak with one of the others also doing the same.

12 - A Drop of Moonlight - The Circus' refreshments are as varied as its entertainment. Warm Viennese coffee keeps patrons awake through the night. Crackly, cinnamon sugar dusted pastries shower fingers with fine sugar and spice. Chocolate mice squeak in their bags when they are bought and melt away into nothing but the memory of chocolate on the tongue. Every visitor to the circus should try at least one delight, share a bite with a friend or a friendly stranger.

13 - Wild Card - There are more wonders at the Night Circus than the list above. Watching the acrobats or trapeze artists? Run through a Hall of Mirrors that shows uncannny insights? Eat delicious circus treats until dawn? All are possible!

How much of Le Cirque des Rêves can you explore before dawn?(Source - Funvee)

Comments

Ziggy Stardust |The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust | OTA

[ziggyplayedguitar]

[Yes please! I am here for the circus things. Prophet, half alien, performer.. could be music, sideshow, fortune teller, etc.]

[forcefullyawkward]

[Circus things! Perhaps a thread with two alien (well, non-earthling, at least) performers? Working on their acts? Kylo is probably using telekinesis in his. Maybe some dance? The more experienced Ziggy showing a younger Kylo the ropes? Getting ready to go on? An after party after a particularly intense show? Any preferences?]

[ziggyplayedguitar]

[Ooo these are all good. Ziggy is very compassionate and kind, could see him taking a new young performer under the wing and involving any of that other stuff. He might well be shunned because he's an extremely strong empath with no control (Kylo might even be-able to help him?) Maybe a contortionist/part time mind reader type.]

[forcefullyawkward]

[throws out an intro to get us started. Let me know if this is okay.]

They say the circus attracts outcasts like a light attracts moths. It’s a haven, of sorts, for freaks and runaways alike. Kylo was both of those things.

Genetically, he was human, so he could pass for an Earthling. But Kylo was born on Chandrilla, the son of a Corellian and an Alderaanian. He had his father’s spunk, but his mother’s lithe build, making the lanky teenager often look like he’d been deprived of nourishment. (After fleeing his uncle’s Academy that fateful night and taking off into the outer-rim, it was more than just a look.) Add in some stripes, and he could definitely turn a few heads - for better or worse.

The circus was made for people like him.

While his act, if it could even be called that at this point, was nothing more than a set of Force-assisted parlor tricks, the ringmaster had seen enough raw potential to take him in off the streets. After all, it wasn’t every day you found someone who can seemingly lift things with no strings attached and juggle balls without even touching them, all while moving with an otherwordly sense of balance and grace. The rest could be taught.

Unbeknownst to Kylo, there was already someone in the troupe who could empathize with his situation, someone who would make the perfect teacher.

[ziggyplayedguitar]

Ziggy had come to the circus almost ten years ago as a safety net. His mother couldn't come to Earth and his father afraid he would soon die from old age this was the perfect place to hide the boy. Though he was over a hundred years old, to his own type.. of one it seemed, he was still very much a teenage. He'd caught on quickly to circus life.

Over the past few years he had developed several acts; contortion, animal taming which came easily to an empath, and various forms of fortune telling and mind reading. Occasionally, they even let him play music accompaniment for other acts. Though still a boy himself, he tended to check in on any new youths that joined. Many in the upper parts of the circus management knew he was an alien, or at the very least a scary freak, and it gave him clout to protect others. He always made sure the youth got their pay and proper treatment.

That's what has the extraordinarily tall, fire haired, half-alien looking for the newest boy to join the 'family'. He's just come off an act, still in his golden and red face paint and loud clothing. However, it's better he meet people on his own terms than in the sham clothes they put him in to tone him down sometimes. Truth is, he's also curious to see if this boy is really a telekinetic.

[forcefullyawkward]

Kylo wouldn’t be too difficult to spot. At the moment, he was probably the only one wandering the back of the grounds pretending not to be as lost as he actually was. His main job, at least for this first run of shows, was to watch, learn and do menial labor. (The Force made heavy lifting a lot easier... and he was pretty good at hiding it, most of the time.)

When Ziggy stepped out of the tent, Kylo looked up immediately. The other man had an aura about him that had nothing to do with the flashy clothes and makeup. It wasn’t Force sensitivity, per se. Or maybe it was. There weren’t a lot of Jedi left alive after the Galactic Civil War for Kylo to compare it against. But at the very least, he got the immediate sense that there was common ground between them that simply didn’t exist with anyone else here.

[ziggyplayedguitar]

He made a beeline for the boy. It was easy to find someone new because it was an emotional pattern he didn't yet know. He's calm and comforting, it isn't just his demeanor but also what he projected of his own emotions.

"You're new?" He knew but he asked anyway to be polite. "I'm Ziggy Stardust."

To someone force sensitive things might feel vary off. The projected emotions, the very non-human presence, but if he were a force user Ziggy would definitely be firmly in the lightside.

[forcefullyawkward]

It wasn’t a Jedi mind trick, or at least not an overt one. But just like his uncle seemed to always project a purposefully blunt, unapproachable aura, Ziggy was calm and open. He was very inviting. Any guard Kylo might have had up came down almost immediately,

“Yeah. I’m B... Kylo.” He quickly corrected himself, “I go by Kylo.”

In contrast, Kylo’s presence was probably all over the place - a mix of raw power, inferiority, betrayal, confusion, anger, hope... He wasn’t very good at shielding his mind.

Nor was he very good about hiding the first thing that came to it. Because this man felt the way he always thought his uncle should have felt.

“Are you a Jedi?”

[ziggyplayedguitar]

Ziggy nods to the stumbled names. Stage names were very common, especially for the children or younger performers. There's no problem with the other youth being stormy. None of it was particularly violent which could cause issues.

"I don't know that word." There were a lot of languages and performers came from all over. It was easy to find a culture specific word he might not know. "What's a jedi?"

Edmund Deyncourt | Vampire: The Masquerade | OTA

[plaguedoc]

[Assumed CR is fine! Character is an elder Malkavian influenced heavily by A Beautiful Mind. He would definitely be a fortune teller in this place, but I am open to any prompt except 5.]

Pure Vessel/The Hollow Knight ↓ Hollow Knight ↑ OTA

[impure_void]

[The mute performer, the shy visitor--anything goes!]

rose tyler | doctor who | ota

[baddestwolf]

( ooc: definitely a visitor, probably here courtesy of the Tardis! )

Ishaani | Dungeons & Dragons OC | OTA

[trustinme]

[ Snake lady, fortune teller, dreamworker, potions vendor. More info in the journal. ]

Kreia / Darth Traya | Knights of the Old Republic II | OTA

[apathy_is_death]

[The ghostliest, darkest fortune teller you're ever going to meet, hidden away amongst the statues.]

Ren Amamiya|Persona 5|ota

[joke_is_on_you]

Dean Winchester | Supernatural

[righteously]

The Phantom | The Phantom of the Opera

[yearnsforheaven]

[Two options: he's either a sideshow attraction in a cage (sans mask) or he's the (masked) guest who hates it here. Take your pick.]

I shouldn't be so intrigued by Erik in a cage. And yet...

[sopranosongbird]

Christine has never been to the circus before. Fairs and festivals, yes, but the enormous black and white tents are foreign to her. There's something eerie about them, the lack of bright colors and brighter music making everything feel slightly out of place, a hint of the dark and ominous hanging in the warm night air.

That would deter many people, had, in fact, been enough to make Meg and several of the other girls from the corps de ballet beg off of attending. Not Christine, though. She has always had a certain fondness for the magical, the mysterious, and the dark.

There is much to be seen but she finds herself pausing in front of one of the smaller tents, the barker promising a sight never before seen, a demon cast to the surface of the earth and captured by men brave and true. She hesitates briefly, curiosity getting the better of her, and then steps through the flap, blinking as her eyes adjust to the dim lighting. There is only the one cage, situated in the middle of the tent, the light arranged so that it is only partially lit.

And inside is a figure, shrouded in shadow, forcing her to step closer and closer if she wants to see the face of this demon. The figure sits in profile and as she draws near she can start to make out details, sparse hair sticking up at odd angles, a gleaming patch of white at the skull and then its face...Its face. It is little more than a mass of gnarled flesh, twisted and scarred, and she gasps sofly, unsure as to whether to step back or move closer still.



[Hopefully this works?]

obviously I am too

[yearnsforheaven]

He hardly notices when another visitor comes into the tent. They all starting blurring into each other long ago. He just stays seated in the back of the cage, leaning against the bars, his once-fine clothes now tattered and dirty. One knee is bent, allowing him to rest his arm on it, with the other leg straight out in front of him. The arm not resting on his knee rests at his side. What can be seen of his hands look like human hands, with no hint of the deformity that mars his face.

He had also learned long ago that making a spectacle is what his captors want, and he won't give them the pleasure. His face is spectacle enough, with the story they've concocted. His posture is one of defeat. He hasn't accepted his situation, but he won't rage against it and play into their story even more.

It takes him a moment to acknowledge that someone has entered his tent, and he turns his head to look directly at her. She can see now what she couldn't before: only one side of his face is scarred. The other half is human, and the human half has what nothing else does: a hint of defiance.

I mean, it is canon. It's not like *we* put him there.

[sopranosongbird]

For a moment, there is no reaction from the thing in the cage. She's able to see now that the shape is very much that of a human, a man, and that it's dressed as such, too. His clothes are only a few steps above those she has seen on beggars in the street, but they seem to have been quite nice at one point.

Her gaze moves over his form, her brow furrowed as she takes him in, but it snaps back to his face as she senses movement. He is looking at her now and she is surprised to see that only half of his face bears that horrible scarring. The other is that of a man, and the expression it wears seems out of place in such dreary surroundings. His gaze is intense and though a part of her wants to shy away from it, something else urges her another step closer.

"Do...do you speak?" she asks, softly, her gaze still on his.

we're just playing around with things that already exist

[yearnsforheaven]

There's no change in the expression on his face, and he doesn't reply right away. She hadn't run screaming from the tent, which he appreciates, but her question hasn't done much to improve his mood. Not that anything short of gaining his freedom could do that.

He manages not to sound angry when he does reply, though he doesn't seem to have much patience for this whole situation.

"In several languages."

Including in perfect French, which is what he had used for this reply, since they're in France and she had spoken it first.

exactly. Leroux is at fault here. Him and ALW.

[sopranosongbird]

His stare is unnerving but she doesn't look away. The challenge in those dark eyes doesn't falter but she can sense that he understood her question. He does not respond, though, not immediately, and she doubts he even will when suddenly his voice breaks the silence.

She is surprised. It is a pleasant voice, refined and cultured, which she had not been expecting based on those worn, dirty clothes. It's disconcerting and, oddly, intriguing. She shifts on her feet, nodding at his reply. He has not said much, but she thinks she hears a faint rasp to the words and wonders whether he has much cause to speak in any language.

"They...they said you are a demon," she says, her gaze flickering briefly to the right side of his face, where the lift of his lip gives the appearance of a snarl. With the scars and that unwavering dark stare, she cannot deny that he does look the part. Yet something does not feel right and she narrows her eyes at him, shaking her head. "You must not be very powerful, then, to allow yourself to be held captive by simple iron bars."

[yearnsforheaven]

"They say a lot of things." Most of what's to be seen at this circus is just that, stories and trickery and sleight of hand. For him it's all story though. Just a deformed man in a cage and a lie about where he came from. A simple lie, played up for entertainment.

Not even a complete lie. He's as human as everyone who comes in to gawk at him, but it had taken two men to subdue him once he realized what they had in mind.

"Locks are no obstacle for me, when I have the proper tools." Which he doesn't, or he wouldn't still be in this cage.

[sopranosongbird]

His mention of tools is interesting but she ignores it for now, focusing instead on the first half of his response. "So you deny it?" It's not really a question. His words had been dismissive of the idea. Of course, man or demon, he would deny it either way, wouldn't he?

She edges closer to the cage, her gaze finally moving from his as she takes him in again. Really, aside from his face, there is nothing that implies he's not of this world. Surely, an actual demon would not appear so...ordinary.

"How long have you been kept here?" she asks, again eyeing the obvious wear of his clothes. If this is all for show, no more real than the illusions she had watched a magician perform earlier, they could be a costume. Cleverly ruined and designed to make him look haggard to further sell the illusion. But then wouldn't he also be putting more into the act, if it were one? He has barely moved and the few words he's said to her have been measured and even. In fact, there is very little about him that is at all harrowing. Except, of course, that face.

[yearnsforheaven]

"Like you said. A few steel bars would be nothing to a demon." He assumes, of course, if demons were real. From all the stories he's heard of the djinn in the East, if they'd been captured in the first place, there wouldn't have been much that could hold them long, between their wiliness and their magic. Demons in the Western tradition would at the least be able to influence someone to give them their freedom.

All of which is a moot point because demons don't exist, and he isn't one.

How long has he been here? He can't say. "What day is it?" Seasons have passed, and he knows they've spent weeks or even a month at most of the places they've stopped in, but he doesn't know how much time that adds up to be.