let's go to the carnival!

[shelliemay]

the carnival meme

WHAT TO DO: 1. Post with your character! 2. Pick a scenario and reply to people! 3. Have fun and try not to get sick on the roller coaster! OPTIONS: 1. Games: From classic ring toss to the shooting gallery, here's your chance to win a prize for yourself or for that special someone. Some say the games at a carnival are rigged, but maybe, just maybe, you'll get lucky! 2. Food and Drink: The sweet smell of funnel cake and the familiar briny aroma of popcorn draw you over to the food and drink tent. There's cotton candy, candied nuts, and cheep booze, all here for your enjoyment. 3. Classic Rides: The carousel, the ferris wheel. All carnivals need these classic rides for kids and adults who aren't looking for the excitement of the faster-paced rides. Snuggle close to your partner and see if you can see your house from the top of the wheel. 4. Something More Exciting: This is for thrill-seekers. Here you'll find the Tilt-a-Whirl, the Gravitron, the Screamin' Swing--all the rides designed to make you lose your lunch. Hope you didn't have too much cotton candy! 5. Freakshow: Do they really have a bearded lady in that tent? It's time to find out. Buy a ticket and see the greatest oddities the world has to offer. 6. Tunnel of Love: Or perhaps tunnel of mild boredom. The red-tinted lights and quasi-romantic music are meant to make this ride a great makeout spot, if the chemistry is there. 7. Hall of Mirrors: You and your partner entered, thinking it would be easy to get out again, but dead ends abound in this wacky mirror-maze, and each mirror seems to show a more and more distorted image of each of you. 8. Fortune Teller: Whether one of the creepy machines or the even creepier women dressed up in a culturally insensitive costume, you cross someone's palms with silver and get your future told. Will it be happiness forever with your partner, or will ill tidings be bound your way? (Feel free to use this online tarot spread for extra fun!) 9. Wildcard: Any situation of your choosing happens in a carnival today! Go with the flow.

Comments

[batgirl_babs]

"Well, chalk this up to my weirdest nail polish adventure ever," she replied.

She pulled back piece by piece, still looking warily at the mirror.

[not_yet_screaming]

Lydia handed her the bottle. "I said I don't need obvious equalizers. Not that I don't carry equalizers. This is one of them and far from my most dangerous bottle of nail polish. But I think you're not the first person that mirror's tried to suck in."

[batgirl_babs]

She stepped back, looking over the bottle. Which looked normal and harmless. Then again, so did the mirror.

"Which would lead back to your 'placed here deliberately' thinking," she said, with a sigh. "Great. Means we have a magical villain about town, targeting a carnival."

[not_yet_screaming]

The polish itself was a dark red, but otherwise looked innocuous. "The question is whether they will come looking for us immediately because we've disturbed the mirror. And whether we should wait for them, bug the place, or make like a tree."

[batgirl_babs]

She says nothing for a moment, but reaches into her purse and pulls out her cowl.

"I'm not a runner. But this is your wheelhouse, so you're running point here."

[not_yet_screaming]

Lydia frowned then hummed a couple of notes, then shook her head. "It's the full moon tonight. Do you have anyone on your speed dial like Jason Blood or Zatanna Zatara who could get here before moonrise?"

If you know either to bring into this thread... :P

[batgirl_babs]

"I don't, but Batman does. I'll send him a message, but either way, I think it's go-time on getting suited up."

Because while this is about a million miles outside of Barbara Gordon's wheelhouse, it's only about half a million outside of Batgirl's.

Afraid not

[not_yet_screaming]

"Seventy five percent chance that that thing's been swallowing people. Seventy five percent they're still alive. Sixty percent that that thing closes at moonrise and it will be some time before we can find it again."

She frowned. "And ninety eight if OI try and force it open we'll be neck deep in poltergeists which are very obnoxious but not normally lethal although there will probably be broken bones and most of these mirrors will shatter. While if we go in the quiet way there's a chance it's a one way trip. Your call as to the risk."

Drat! If either of them by chance see this, or a Dr. Fate or soooomeone awesome and magic... :P

[batgirl_babs]

She huffed briefly, then nodded.

"If we can save people, let's do it. Gimme a second, I'd rather nobody walked in here."

She moved behind another mirror, taking one last look around before working her sweater off, and starting to strip down to underwear level. Time to suit up.

[not_yet_screaming]

"Go in or let them out? Letting them out is more reliable for a rescue but might get bystanders hurt." Lydia shrugged. "Also does that cowl of yours have ear protectors?"

[batgirl_babs]

She peered back around the corner of the mirror, low down, shoving her skirt and sweater into her bag.

"I'm following your lead on the percentages, so let's go with the guarantee of rescue. And you better believe it does."

A leg pokes out as she hops into the costume.

[not_yet_screaming]

"Good. Even so." Lydia adjusted her position before screaming straight at the mirror, which didn't so much break as disintegrated into a black open doorway, the door wide open from both sides. Barbara wouldn't hear so much as feel the effect until Lydia dropped to her knees panting, and there was a scream of outrage from outside the hall of mirrors.

[batgirl_babs]

She'd just had time to pull the mask on when Lydia screamed, and rushed out to make sure she was ok, hands on her upper arms to help steady her.

"Not bad, Little Canary," she said, in a manner meant to be a fond reassurance. Then there was the scream.

"Here's where the fun begins." She stood up, stretching quickly, and cracking her knuckles. Time to mess someone up who had it coming.

[not_yet_screaming]

Lydia stood up shakily, the door gaping like a black hole in reality and something hazily coming into focus. "I'll be all right in a minute."

Which of course she might not have given the biting wind whipping through the hall of mirrors followed by the tentacles appearing in multiple mirrors.

[batgirl_babs]

"Catch your breath, I've got your back."

And she had no idea how she was going to do that, but she was going to manage it. And a good first step was pulling out and holding two batarangs like carving knives. Thank goodness for kevlar gloves, really.

The first tentacle to get close got very neatly sliced off, was the point.

[not_yet_screaming]

And Lydia was, with the practiced deep breathing of someone who knew exactly what the effects were and how to catch her breath as fast as possible.

"Don't cut them." Lydia's breathing might be controlled, but it was taking priority. "Stab things through them."

The very scared face of a white and shaggy haired fourteen year old was poking through the hole Lydia had made of the mirror. "Is that ... home?"

[batgirl_babs]

"Right, ok, stabbing." Batarangs are good for that, too. Thank goodness she always carried a number of them.

She paused long enough at the girl.

"It is, just give me your hand, sweetie." Said while giving another tentacle one hell of a vigorous stabbing.

[not_yet_screaming]

The tentacle pulled back and there was a clink as the batarang hit the mirror, the tentacle stopping. Meanwhile the girl took Barbara's hand and called back. "I think it's the real world! Let's try!" When she stepped out of the mirror her clothes were painfully 80s.

Lydia seemed to be painting the caught tip of the tentacle with something in a clear nail polish bottle. And when she did it stopped moving, as did the other tentacles.

[batgirl_babs]

She got her through. "There's more?" she asked, making sure to toss a couple of her spare Batarangs at Lydia's feet so she'd have them. Because they were stopped for now, but you definitely played it safe.

[not_yet_screaming]

"There are a dozen of us? One of us every seven years outside time, one a day inside time?" The girl stuck her head back in and called something as a white wisp flew over her head.

Lydia remained crouching, still panting for breath and the batarangs disappeared as she was looking exactly in the direction the person objecting was coming from. Her panting right now, however, was more noise than effectiveness; to Barbara's expert eye she was only pretending to have not recovered.

"How dare you!" Whoever the new arrival was they were large and looming, and Lydia took a deep breath, eyes wide as a twelve year old boy also with white hair just emerging from the mirror cowered.

[batgirl_babs]

She couldn't quite make out where the voice was coming from, which was difficult enough when you're her - voice throwing being something of an art.

"Who are you?" she called, moving closer to the others in order to defend them.

[not_yet_screaming]

"I don't have to answer to you. Human." That last word was spat with contempt. "I save them and they owe me their worship." The woman who stepped into line of sight was painfully beautiful; more beautiful than any human could ever be.

[batgirl_babs]

Her first balled a little tighter. Magic or not, she was going to wreck that pretty face before the night was out. See how arrogant it was with its nose spread out flat.

"Tough," she replied, "because you're done. This is your one chance. Leave now, let them go, or it'll go badly for you."

Gotham girls didn't take any shit from anything, supernatural or not.

[not_yet_screaming]

"I'm a goddess. And you are in my way. How long do you think you are going to last, little human?"

"A goddess with what? A score of worshippers, most of whom hate you?" Lydia's smile promised destruction as her half-step forward blocked the direct view of the hole where the mirror had been. "This is Gotham. She is a Bat. Feel free to try faith based magic in her city, and a city of iron and glass, Small God."

"But you don't have any such protection do you, banshee? Or even any god to protect you. Now kneel before your Goddess." Lydia gasped and swayed on her feet as the fifth kid climbed out of the hole behind her.

[batgirl_babs]

"Harm her and I'll kick your ass so hard you taste boot for the rest of your miserable existence," she replied.

They had other faiths in Gotham. Namely, in Gotham itself. That the next day would, against all reason and evidence, be better. It was not a faith that lent itself to false gods or fear. It survived, it thrived, and it rose with concrete, glass and steel.

And it also meant that she picked a few items from her utility belt without hesitation, knowing that the standard stuff wouldn't do it. But let her think it was just a smoke bomb. The miniaturized explosive she was sticking onto it would make for a nasty, nasty surprise right in her face.

There were people to protect. And that meant you did everything you had to.

"Last chance. Go away. Far, far away."