The Bear and Barnacle

This month, everyone comes down with a case of any disease of your choice, from hiccups to the common cold to the Black Death.

It's a temporary, nonfatal, noncommunicable affliction. Fantasy ailments (spattergroit, temporal dislocation) are acceptable, provided they are from somewhere (i.e., a disease from an existing canon though not necessarily your own).

Margate is united in self-pity.

The tag is "diseases." Have fun. Or, y'know, something.

Ed sits at a table in the pub, peering out the nearest window every so often, then turning back to his writing. It takes him a while to finish the letter as he keeps having to stop and rethink what he's putting down so he doesn't end up sounding completely crazy.

Tane-san,

Hi there. I know I don't write very often, but the last time I talked to Riu-nii-san he said I should. I don't know why he did, but it seemed like a good idea because there's some really weird stuff going on here right now. Margate's pretty weird anyway - I mean you already know that - but it's really really REALLY weird right now and not the kind of freaky stuff I'm used to.

There's all these crazy weirdos around, like I saw this big green guy the other day? He was huge and at first I thought he might have automail because it looked like there were these big bolts in his neck? But he was really stupid and he couldn't really talk and then he kind of tried to smash me. I transmuted a wall and got away, but there were these other things too. I think they're still outside. They're all gross and rotty and they smell REAL bad. I got away from them too. One of them ripped my coat because it was trying to bite me. It was my right arm, though, so it was OK, but how weird is that? Biting me? They kind of reminded me of the dolls at the Anyway, I fixed my coat and I'm OK and everything, but what I wanted to know was, do you have weird guys like that in London too? I mean, like biting people? Just wondering.

Anyway, I should probably go. There's a guy outside all in bandages now and I should see if he needs any help. Maybe the biting things tried to eat him too or something. OK. So say hi to Riu-nii-san and stuff.

Bye

ED.


He looks out the window again as he seals up the letter, then tucks it in his coat pocket, intending to send it off by owl as soon as he can scare one up. Sighing, Ed pulls on his gloves and makes sure his braid is tight before heading for the door.

"No," Jack says firmly as he pursues Val to drag him back from the dining room window.

"Wanna see!" Val protests with a hint of whine.

"You can see from back here."

"Phbbt," says Val.

They sit at the table -- well, Jacks sits at it, Val sits on it -- and watch over the hedge as the bodies shamble past, stiff-kneed, arms out straight and wrists limp.

"Zoooooombies."

"Put it in a sentence," Jack tells him automatically, as one of the stiff figures trips over a bottle in the street, goes down like a sack of rocks with no attempt to catch itself, and rolls out of view.

Val sighs dramatically. "They are zoooooombies."

"You think so?" Now that he thinks of it, he supposes they are a bit like that terrible Bela Lugosi picture Danny loved so much when they were in their twenties ... the blank stares, the directionless gait.

"Yup. Like berserkers only more rotten."

"They sure look rotten." Val scrambles off the table; Jack catches him and puts him back on it. "And just where do you think you're going?"

"To the roof to throw things at them."

"Fat chance," Jack says firmly, and redoubles his grip, avoiding a bash from Val's wing. They sit and stare through the window as the odd, morbid parade continues past.

Val says he will answer the door for alive people if anyone wishes to brave the zombie pub crawl.

At some point this month, your character will be encountering a classic horror-movie monster.

Let it be an Alien, a Vampire, a Horde of Zombies, a Pod Person, a Crawling Mutant, whatever you like.

Remember that you can't affect other characters without permission. This doesn't have to be something your character is familiar with, but it absolutely can be! And you don't need to be pursued through a cemetery by it, but you certainly may.

Tag is "movie monsters."

You wake up on the morning of June 15th to a town convinced that Christmas is only days away.

Ornaments and tinsel in every window, Christmas music on every radio station, people can't understand why it's so uncomfortably warm in their bulky Christmas sweaters and reindeer scarves. Everyone seems terribly festive and are discussing when they'll get their shopping done and what their plans are for Boxing Day. The schools have gone on holiday. It's true at home too. Acquaintances are sending you cards. Perhaps you have a tree.

It's still June. But it's also Christmas. If you point this out to one of Margate's normals, they'll understand both facts -- and look at you like you're perhaps a bit slow for thinking this is a problem.

Use the occasion to laugh at people in sweaters, to talk about your character's holiday traditions (since we've forced everyone to do the Pub exchange the last two years), to make obscene gingerbread men, whatever you like.

Tag is "christmas in july." We know it's June, but it's traditional.

Also, we are very sorry for disappearing of late; we were recently suddenly informed that we were going to have to make a cross-country move very soon. Everyone congratulate preraphaelite1 on her awesome new lectureship on the East Coast, while we return to our irregularly unscheduled running about like beheaded chickens!

On the doorstep of every household of the less mundane residents of Margate, on the morning of the fifteenth, there is a wicker basket.

Inside the basket is a baby.

The baby is small, vaguely shimmery and ethereal-looking. The baby cannot die. However, it must be taken care of or it will cry. Piercingly. Endlessly. And no throwing the baby out with the bathwater or leaving it for someone else to deal with, either; it'll just show up again when you least expect it. And cry. Piercingly. Endlessly.

[Insert your own bad meme joke here. Suggestion: "In Soviet Russia, baby makes you!"]

Inspired by high school health classes everywhere.

As always, participation is optional -- hence, since we have a lot of multi-player households, unless it's cleared with the other residents in advance, whoever chooses to find the baby is responsible for its care.

Tag is "changelings," though this mod held out for "enforced parenthood."

Spike has felt a bit off all day, so sitting at the bar once he’s off work and drinking seems like a good idea. It’s been a weird night, where he finds he’s been telling patrons exactly what he thinks of their orders (“Why would you want to eat something so disgusting? Do you know what we put in that?”) to telling them exactly what he’d like to do with them (“God, your skin looks like dark chocolate and I’d love to taste it.”). He’s pretty sure, based on some of the responses he’s gotten, that there is some sort of truthy-weirdness going on in town.

Since his other option is to lock himself in his house till it passes, which sounds boring in the extreme, he’s decided that drinking is the best way to handle anything potentially embarrassing to tumble out of his mouth. And so, he’s sitting at the bar, deep in his whiskey, as he continues to blather on to whatever poor soul had asked him about being a vampire with a soul. “Angel had it wrong. Having a soul doesn’t bury the monster within. The monster is always there. Always part of you. You can’t ignore it. Maybe Angel’s soul works different, curse and all. And yeah, there’s guilt. I had lots of guilt at the beginning. But only for the innocents. But some people…they deserve to die. Not gonna waste any shame on them. Don’t feel sorry for them, don’t regret ending their lives. But I don’t go around looking to murder anyone. And yeah, I mostly stick to animal blood. Tolerable, at best. But, anyway, I won’t feel guilt, not anymore, for being what I am. And if that means that occasionally, I want to participate in some consensual drinking of human blood, then who the fuck cares? Angel can sod off and fuck himself, wherever he is.”

Victoire hangs up the phone, frowning. That certainly didn't go as planned. She fully had intended on telling the supplier that his product was disappointed for the cost. Instead, she told him outright that wasn't worth a third of what he was charging and unless he made a dramatic improvement in price or quality (perhaps making it in silicone) she would not be purchasing the Slithering Snake Sleeve again and would be cautioning her customers away from the two in the store.

Definitely not a Slytherin moment for Victoire. Or a profitable one. Words are a means to an end and when the words seem to come regardless of intention, Victoire is at a loss.

When she answers a customer's query about a vaginal pump by telling her that they don't really make them large enough suit someone over the 15 stone she must be instead of tactfully and sensitively commiserating on the product's limitations, Victoire promptly closes shop after giving the woman an apology in the form of a very expensive vibrator.

She notes the date and decides to make a few phone calls to other Margate imports to find out if this is a wider problem or isolated to her.

This month, your character can only speak the truth.

Yup.

There's a general compulsion to answer any question or remark with the complete truth. They will work out eventually that there are ways to stop it - keeping one's mouth shut will do it, usually - but it works a bit like the classic truth serum, sodium pentothal, is usually depicted in films, in that "verbal tap turned on full blast until you've spilled the beans" sense: Chatty, cooperative and not quite grasping the necessary complexities of lying.

So on the morning of the fifteenth, if asked "How are you today?", your character might open their mouth to say "fine" and come out with "Tired but cheerful because I stayed up all night having sex with inappropriate people."

Fun, right?

Iago will be the one in the corner not talking.

Tag is "truth."

Gaav has come into the pub, leaving two bikers on the street throwing punches at one another for something even they aren't sure about in his wake. His smile is as satisfied and wicked as a cat's with a struggling mouse in its paws. Out of his pocket he pulls out a large tankard and sets it on the bar counter with an order to fill it before he takes up a chair and plunks his booted feet onto another across from him.

His fingers tap idly on the table top as he waits for his drink to be brought to him and has he drinks in the rage from the streetfight, its a small snack but appealing for its burning violence. After a moment he looks down at the table top and there, singed into the table top is something very familiar.



Its part of the tribal style tattoo that covers the entire back of his body from nape of his neck to bottom of his calfs, this from just over his left shoulder, one of the three heads of the dragon that sweeps up his back. The rest of it is a network of flames and weapons that shimmer black to red like living hot embers. Each of his generals had carried similar flame tattoos somewhere on their body: Rigo along his left thigh and hip, Tulizi circling out from her always bare navel, others on upper arms, wrapped around shins, spanning their shoulders. Even his priest before Valgaav had one, ironically around his neck where Gaav's sword would later cut through ending Jorlis's service and life when he could not longer serve his master well enough to be allowed to live.

He huffs in amusement at the table's new decoration and wonders just what the pub owner will say about this. At least it wasn't pub owner or one of his patrons who found themselsves abruptly decorated.

Each of Margate's less mundane residents wakes up, one otherwise normal morning (which should be a warning in itself), and finds themselves possessed of a craving, an addiction even, that overpowers all else. They wake with a sudden, sinisterly irresistible urge ... to doodle.

This month, your character will be idly drawing on the nearest flat surface whenever there's an implement in reach. Describe to us (or show us!) what they produce. The tag is, of course, "doodling."

Lucius could feel Mr. Gibbons eyes on him as he moved quill over parchment. The irritating weasel of a man was a good campaign manager, but still a Muggle, and entirely too nosy of late. Finally, Lucius lowered the quill and glanced up. "Is there something you needed, Mr. Gibbons?"

The man shuffled slightly, eyes darting to the spot where Lucius' cane rested against the side of the desk, before darting back to Lucius face. However, he quickly lowered his eyes, faced with the steely gaze of the man behind the desk. "Well, sir, Mr. Malfoy...I mean...you're using a quill."

Lucius arched an elegant eyebrow. "Yes. I always do."

Mr. Gibbons continued. "An actual feather quill, and an inkwell."

Lucius sighed. "Yes. Your point?"

"It's a bit odd, isn't it, using a quill? There's not even a computer in here, I've noticed. You write all your correspondence." Lucius just continued staring at him, so he coughed and continued, "And you have an owl. I know rich people have exotic pets sometimes, but an owl seems an odd choice. And not many men your age still wear their hair long."

Lucius began to drum his fingers along the wood of the desk. "You've become quite observant, haven't you Mr. Gibbons? Do tell me, what is the point of all this?"

"People like you, and seem to trust you, but there's just something...that is...it's all a bit..." Mr. Gibbons eyes darted to the cane again, very quickly, but Lucius did not miss it, and reached for it.

"Do you like my walking stick, Mr. Gibbons? Or is that also one of the odd things you've suddenly taken notice of, when you've been blind to everything for months now, you narrow-minded fool..." He slowly pulled the snake head away from the cane, revealing the wand within. Mr. Gibbons started to open his mouth to make a comment, but Lucius continued, "It's a pity, really, that you didn't stay blind. Do your job, line your pockets with my generous supply of money. Now it will be that much more effort on my part...though it will save my accounts." Pointing the wand at the wide-eyed, open mouthed, and confused face of Mr. Gibbons, he said one word.

"Imperio!"

Jack is on very good terms with the neighbors … even after Val's thieving of their post, Val's inventive torment of the little dog belonging to the Fitzwilliams in the next house on the right, and the time they let Val give Moira Brown, the girl from the family that lives on the other side, the flu.

The Fitzwilliams are an older couple and Jack doesn't know if they've caught on, or if they, like some of his older customers, have somehow gotten the idea that he and Zel are brothers – but the Browns definitely know that Zel and Jack are … together (he's never quite sure what their shared adjective should be, though he's pretty much settled on “partner” for a noun). They don't seem to mind, as Jack still tends to half-expect. Zel is still tutoring Thomas in maths, anyway, though that might be less a matter of tolerance and more a matter of the difficulty of finding someone else who can do parabolic equations in his head.

More strange is the fact that none of the neighbors have ever asked which one of them Val belongs to, ( but today ... )

One of the conveniences of Margate – perhaps in order to balance out the minor inconveniences like being trapped in a random tourist city far from home and family for an indefinite period – is that the natives don't notice anything out of the ordinary. Let the imports walk down the street in period dress or flasher raincoats or drag, let them have horns and tails and a suspicious lack of birth certificate – somehow the ordinary townspeople just fail to realize that something massively strange is going on.

This month, someone's going to notice “something odd about you.”

Choose any one “normal” your character associates with and have them detect something odd about your character. The degree and kind of oddity they detect are entirely up to you, as is, naturally, your character's response thereto. Is thereto a word?

The tag is “noticing" and this brings us back to our regular posting schedule. Have fun!

It was Dora's insistence that returns them to Margate with such a specific deadline. She's not going to miss spending Valentine's Day with Val, but not in the way most people would expect, unless they saw the two children last year, dressed in black and passing out black paper hearts labeled "Death".

She doesn't know when they got in, having fallen asleep draped over Iago's shoulder on the train from France and barely stirring as Iago hefted her and their backpacks, Teddy securely fastened to Dora's. She slept on through the car ride and even through Iago and Jack's hushed exchange at the door of the latter's house.

But she wakes up hot, and tangled with Val and his wings. Probably deafening Val with her squeal of joy, she latched onto him, heedless at first of the unseasonable heat.

Breakfast at the very full Harkness-Grayweir house on Valentine's Day was filled with Jack's pancakes and Dora rambling, and rambling, and rambling at length about all the places they visited, the lack of being arrested or put into a brothel in Morocco, the sisters they met in the Alps but the lack of goats to chase there, and the weeks spent in Venice where Dora talked Paulo the gondolier into letting her steer, resulting-- unsurprisingly-- in a fall into a canal and a subsequent-- potentially unrelated-- illness.

She's still babbling when Zel is volunteered to take Val and her-- both matching and dressed in black, Dora with fake black wings-- out into the sweltering heat of Margate to pass out their "anti-valentines"-- upgraded to include "agony", "putrescence", "sorrow", and "loneliness" this year-- to the unsuspecting populace. And she only stops talking when her voice gives out.

With a sigh, Albus regards the surprisingly crowded shore. Well, it's not surprising with the current weather, but it is surprising for the time of year, as is the heat itself. It's entirely too hot for any of his robes, so he has instead resorted to wearing the tie-die t-shirt and khaki shorts he had bought on a whim shortly after arriving.

Trudging through the sand and rocks along the shore, he continues his hunt for shells and interesting stones, adding them as he finds them to the large canvas bag slung over his shoulder. He hasn't a care in the world, and though part of him itches to solve the mysteries of this place, he can push that urge down and just enjoy it for now. He smiles as Fawkes lands nearby, regarding him (and all the other people) with a tilted head, before rising again to the sky to continue making lazy circles over their heads, much to the delight of a small group of children.

All in all, retirement is going well.

Now this is the way it should be, Dynast be damned. This is his weather, his heat, even if it's not his normal locale. Val told him of the darkness last year, the heavy rain, and now this. Balance in Her world, he supposes, and he expects this means next their will be blankets of snow. Or perhaps an eruption of flowers everywhere.

But now it's his and he's going to glory in it. So he's changed out of his normal yellow trench coat and trousers and heavy boots. Instead he's wearing a yellow Hawaiian print shirt, tan shorts, and leather sandals, his long red hair caught on a summer wind, as he walks down the beach front road.

Rodolphus normally paid about as much attention to the weather as he did to the state of his fingernails. But now, finished with the young man snatched because of his resemblance to Harry Potter (he had dark hair and green eyes. Close enough), he realised it was stifling in the little shack on the beach he’d appropriated for his own. There weren’t any windows and the only door was shut and sealed so he wouldn’t be interrupted. Of course, there was a silencing charm on the place. It wouldn’t do for the screams of his victims to be heard. He surveyed the blood-soaked room, extremely pleased with himself. But Merlin it was hot! Normally, dismembering didn’t work up nearly this much of a sweat. He ran his arm across his forehead, leaving a red smear behind. He decided to go for a swim, just as soon as he put the crowning touch on the afternoon. Rodolphus picked up the skull at set it almost reverently on the shelf he’d prepared. It was the first of many he planned to decorate the shack with, and his only regret was that it wasn't the real thing. Rodolphus smiled into the green eyes he’d preserved in the skull, settling a pair of glasses procured for the occasion precariously on the face. It was hard to balance them properly as there wasn't any nose. “Don’t worry Harry,” he crooned, patting the bony, bloody cheek. “You won’t be alone for long.” Bugger all but this heat was murder! Rodolphus opened the door, squinting into the blazing sun. It was lower than he’d expected. He’d spent more time with Harry than he’d realised. He also realised that it was far hotter than it ought to be for January. Not his problem. He’d earned a respite and the water would cool him off as well as wash away all the blood. Amazing how far the stuff sprayed. Rodolphus stripped down and headed for the surf. He'd tidy up later. Maybe.

At sunrise on the morning of the fifteenth, those who turn on the television or radio for the morning news are greeted first by the cheery chatter of weather reporters saying that it is unexpectedly warm already. Those who are already awake, making deliveries or readying classrooms or heading home from a long night of work, shrug off their coats and look at one another amazed.

As the sun climbs the sky, astonishment prevails. At noon, the snow is all melted. The beach is bright and balmy.

It's about thirty degrees Celsius, ninety Fahrenheit -- hot summer weather, though the length of the days doesn't change.

And it doesn't get cold again.

Make a post to tell us how your character responds to, copes with, or makes use of a month of summer in January. The tag is "heat wave." We will refrain from pointing out that this would be a great opportunity to post pictures of everyone in swimwear, because we're just that classy. Have fun!

All those who left a gift may now begin claiming theirs from the lovely selection arranged on the bar:



The Rules:

1. Comment to claim your gift (i.e. "Character B wants that purple one third from the left.") First come, first served, so please check whether the gift is still available! The contents range from silly gag gifts to very, very special items, and I don't even know what's in them all, so this should be awesome.

2. We'll tell you what's in your package. We encourage the giver to identify themselves to their receiver, but by no means is that required for you shy folk. In many cases it will be ... er, blindingly obvious.

3. In the best White Elephant tradition, gifts may be stolen! Each gift can be stolen only once, and then it's dead in the water and can no longer be stolen. The stealee gets to choose a new gift or steal from someone else. However, anyone still giftless may steal from the same person who has already been stolen from.

4. However! This being the crazy Pub, characters who like the gift they have may defend it from theft. Their method of defense is up to them. Physical combat, bargaining, pleas to the thief's better nature ... whatever.

5. While gifts can only be stolen once, if you'd like to organize a friendly swap that's fine by us.


Have fun!


ETA for convenience, since the threads are wrapping:
The remaining gifts are the blue one in brown ribbon on the left, the gift bag with the yellow star, the gift bag with stripes, and the big black one on the right with the shipping stickers.