JUMP TO MONTHLY PROMPT ↓
A TRAIN COMES INTO THE STATION.
You wake up on a train.
Your phone is buzzing. It's in your pocket, in your hand, on the seat next to you. It's a normal phone, and you're on a normal train car. One of the lights flickers, a little further down. The world is very quiet. It feels like you're right where you're meant to be. On the phone's surface is a white screen and the words—
WELCOME TO THE CITY. BEGIN ORIENTATION?
▶ NO
Please take a moment to complete your orientation.
Once you're finished, the subway doors slide open to let you out onto the train platform. To your right, the platform continues on and eventually ends; to the left is a set of stairs that will lead you up into the station itself. The platform is quiet, clean, empty—there's no one else around, and the only sounds you can hear are your own footsteps, your own breaths, and the occasional faraway sound of a creaking pipe or rush of air. The train you disembarked will stay there as long as you do, its doors still open, until you finally decide to venture up into this new locale.
As you make your way up the stairs to your left, you find yourself in the belly of City Hall station. The station is large, a sprawling underground mini-metropolis of corridors and storefronts. Here, you may find others like you, freshly-arrived city residents from other realms (or even your own). There is also a subway map, which will give you an idea of the layout of the neighborhood, and ticketing machines, which can currently only be used to buy tickets to a handful of stations located on lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 9.
If you're hungry or in need of any kind of supplies, there are plenty of storefronts inside the subway station as well—snack stands, convenience stores, restaurants, clothing stores, a pharmacy, and a variety of empty shops that may or may not have ever been in use. Everything is unlocked, and you can take whatever you need.
Characters may stay on the train platform indefinitely, and may re-board and re-disembark from the subway as many times as they like, but the train will not depart nor will the doors close. Once they go up the stairs into the train station, they may hear the train doors closing and the train departing. Another train will not arrive, no matter how long the character waits. Only once they come up the stairs into the station itself may characters encounter their fellow newly-arrived residents and take advantage of what the city has to offer.
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WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
The station is located in the city center. It has three major exits that lead to areas of interest in the district, but there are several other smaller exits that lead in other directions around the neighborhood. You are welcome to use any of them, but may find the north, southwest, and east exits to be the most welcoming.
TO THE NORTH
The northern entrance to the station leads up into the sunlight and puts you out in a brickwork plaza. There's a modest building in front of you, three or four stories of stone with a welcoming facade. There's a sign above the entryway—it says City Hall. You may be tempted to explore, if you're interested in learning more about the city and how it functions, but prepare to find yourself disappointed—the folders in the records rooms are full of empty, blank sheets of paper, and the logbooks and balance sheets are similarly devoid of information.
Immediately to the southwest of City Hall, you will find a small building that houses the tourist information center. It looks welcoming, with an inviting glass facade and a sign above the entryway announcing it as the "TOURIST CENTER." It's a humble building with a receptionist's desk on the back wall opposite the entrance, empty magazine shelves lining the side walls, and a few spinning brochure racks full of blank pamphlets. Anyone is welcome to peruse the tourist literature, though they won't offer much information, being primarily filled with pictures of the surrounding area—City Hall, the park, a statue garden, and the surprisingly heavily-featured cemetery. There are a few sentences sprinkled throughout about basic offerings of the city, such as apartment complexes and office buildings, as well as a few maps with the same limited scope as the larger version on the wall behind the receptionist's desk.
TO THE SOUTHWEST
The western exit of the station takes you up into a city park, lush and green with a very light fog still hanging about the trees. There are lampposts on the walkways and benches where you could rest, and plenty of flora, although you can neither see nor hear any signs of animal life. You walk the paths that meander idly through the verdant grass and you feel a sense of peace, some of your unease about this place easing into a pleasant calm. The air smells fresh, like it's recently rained, and you'll find the grass ever so slightly damp should you decide to take a seat.
As you make your way deeper into the park, the trees grow denser and the smell of soil and plant life grows stronger. This is the older part of the park, very nearly a forest, with ivy climbing the trunks of the trees and plants and shrubs growing riotously around their bases. As you turn a corner, you find yourself first in the statue garden, although the statues are harder to see now, choked as they are with ivy. There are many statues, some partially obscured, some fully—very few of them still stand free of the vines and clinging roots. (It doesn't feel quite as peaceful here.) If a statue's face looks a little bit familiar, you may not want to look at it too long.
Continue down the path and you will find yourself in a graveyard, one that seems centuries old. Most of the headstones are worn away by time and covered in moss, rendering them impossible to read. The few that are free of moss are blank, or bear only suggestions of names too faint to be understood. (Was that the name of—no, it couldn't have been. Could it?) Many of the headstones stand at an angle or are toppled over completely, having been subjected to either strong winds or the roots of the trees that grow up from some of the graves, spreading branches toward the sky.
TO THE EAST
The final exit of the station, to the east, puts you out on a quiet surface street. Are you hungry? Or are you paralyzed by choice? There are plenty of restaurants, offering options of almost any food you can imagine. You could try a convenience store—it's well stocked, and the items there seem free for the taking. How about a restaurant? There's no one to take your order, but when you look in the kitchen, there's something on the stove, and it's just what you've been craving. Imagine that.
A few blocks down, you come in through the lobby of a tall building and find yourself in a corporate office. The fluorescent lights are steady and unforgiving, and the cubicles and offices are empty. There are a few pieces of paper on desks, a few folders left in organizers, but everything is perfectly blank. Despite how empty and quiet the office is, it nonetheless gives you the feeling that just a few minutes ago, this place was bustling with workers going about their daily business.
You enter another building and find yourself in the lobby of an apartment complex—finally, a place to rest. The first door you try opens easily into a completely empty living room, freshly vacuumed but without a single piece of furniture. It's a nice apartment, quiet, but with a little too much echo for your taste, maybe. Still, and perhaps oddly, you have no trouble envisioning what life here would be like.
The second door you open leads to an apartment that feels lived-in. Why does it feel lived-in? It's fully furnished with items that seem to go together perfectly, true, but the feeling is more than that—the room feels like someone was just here, maybe standing right in the kitchen only moments before you swung the door open. The air is a perfectly comfortable temperature, and it somehow smells like home despite that you've never once set foot here before. The refrigerator is stocked, and the cabinets are full of spices and flatware and kitchen utensils.
As you look around the living room, you find that there are pictures in frames on the walls and some of the flat surfaces—a seascape, a field, a shot of a city park bench. In each of the photos there's something just slightly wrong with the angle, as though the photographer were aiming for a subject that can no longer be seen.
Characters are welcome to explore the district around the City Hall subway station to their heart's content. The City Hall building itself contains several floors of offices and file rooms, but none of them contain any particularly interesting information. Nonetheless, characters may wish to team up with other newcomers and try to find some hints about the nature of the city. They can also spend a while in the park, the statue garden, or the graveyard. In the blocks surrounding the station there are plenty of options for food and housing, as well as office buildings, storefronts, and alleyways to look around. There are no workers in any of the buildings, and there does not seem to be an honor system for payment, nor any consequences for taking food from the stores or setting up camp in an apartment or office building.
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I WANT TO BE SEEN CLEARLY, OR NOT AT ALL.
» DAY AFTER DAY IN THE ARTIST'S STUDIO…
When you step into the lobby of the museum, you find yourself faced with several options. Ahead of you, as well as to the right, are long hallways full of blank canvases, faceless statues, and pieces of art of varying skill levels created by fellow City residents. The hallways seem endless, but the lighting is warm and inviting, encouraging you to walk along their lengths and explore each of the canvases in search of some invisible treasure.
As you walk along the hallways lined by these empty frames, you begin to notice podiums standing at even intervals. They look like docent podiums, the kind where a museum guide might stand and store their guidebooks and informational materials. You decide to open one of the podiums, and are surprised to find that instead of a map of the museum and an explanation of the art, the podium is overflowing with various art supplies. There are watercolors and oil paints, acrylics and pastels, brushes and turpentine and palettes on which you can mix your shades.
Maybe you leave them there, or maybe you decide to create some art for yourself. These canvases just look so empty, after all, and deeply in need of a little color to brighten up the place. It doesn't seem all that likely that anyone will come around to punish you, either—and with that, you grab a handful of art supplies and make your way down to claim a canvas for your very own.
» …I DRAW A SECOND BODY, THEN A THIRD, AND SO ON.
Down the hallway to your left, however, is an exhibition room full of masterfully painted canvases, sculptures with faces, and even more abstract pieces of contemporary art. The walls are painted a warm, dark brown and the overhead lights draw attention to each of the pieces of artwork, leading your eyes around the room and encouraging you to gaze at each piece in turn. There are benches in the center of the room as well, cushioned ones that allow museumgoers to have a seat and spend a while contemplating the art they're observing.
As you continue around the room, examining each piece one by one, you begin to realize that some of these works of art look… familiar. Not familiar like you know who painted them, but familiar like you recognize the contents, or at least you recognize something about the setting or the circumstances depicted in the painting or sculpture. In fact, upon closer inspection, the common theme uniting all of the pieces of art becomes even clearer: these are all works of art that have to do with you.
There's a painting of the house where you spent your childhood, maybe, or a portrait of the woman who raised you. A sculpture depicting the person you've regarded as your rival for most of your life. There's the building where you went to school, or the jail where you were falsely imprisoned, or the ship that you spent months aboard before you ran aground. Each piece of art depicts some important moment in your life, whether positive or otherwise. Some are rendered in brilliant detail, while others are in an impressionist style, but it's clear that everything is somehow connected to you, in one way or another.
You look closely at each of the cards affixed to the walls next to the works of art. While each of the pieces has a title, the artist and year fields are blank—there's no way for you to know who created these pieces, but it must have been someone who knew you very, very well.
Before you know it, another museumgoer has entered the room. Maybe this is a little bit awkward now, letting someone else look so intently at all the most intimate moments of your life. Or maybe you find it exciting to finally be able to explain all of the happenings that made you who you are today. Either way, you find yourself compelled to give the newcomer a tour of the exhibit of you, and to explain to them the subject of each painting so that they might better understand how it ties in to the greater theme.
The art museum has been open since District 4 opened in November, but until now, the exhibit in the left wing of the museum has been closed to the public. It's open now, and full of beautiful works of art—paintings in different styles, sculptures, even more experimental and conceptual pieces—that all have to do with the theme of you. That's right, your character is the subject of this exhibition, and every piece of artwork in it features something that makes them who they are. They could depict landscapes of places that are significant to them, portraits of people who have influenced them throughout their lives, photographs of the worst things that have ever happened to them, or conceptual art depicting their mental state.
Upon entering the left wing, characters will feel the urge to stay there in the exhibition room and act as docent for their own exhibit. They will feel oddly compelled to explain at least two of the works of art in depth to any museum patrons who come through the exhibit, and only once they've given those two detailed explanations will they be able to leave the exhibit hall. The works of art can depict anything that was significant to the character, not only negative things but positive as well, and can be any style of art that the player wants to explore. Please feel free to be as creative as you want!
For characters who don't want to enter the exhibit hall at all, there is also the option to create art of their own. In the main and right wings, there are plenty of blank canvases all over the museum walls, and interspersed throughout the hallways are podiums containing various art supplies: watercolors, oil and acrylic paints, pastels, etc. Characters can make use of these mediums (or bring their own from home) to create works of art on the available blank canvases. These works of art will not be reset, unless a player chooses not to app, and starting the following day will have a museum card on the wall next to it indicating the title, artist, and medium of the artwork.
The title for this month's monthly prompt comes from "Bluest Nude," a poem by Ama Codjoe.
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WILDCARD.
The city is by no means small, and there are plenty of things for you to see. There are even some places that other residents have created! There's no rush in exploring, so feel free to take your time looking around and peering into various nooks and crannies and alleyways—and don't worry, you're not very likely to find anything peering back.
If none of the above prompts appeal, feel free to check out the Locations and Maps pages and write your own freestyle prompt using one or many of the available locations. We highly recommend checking out the Character-Run Locations as well - they might be great places for new characters to get started!
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citylogs2023-12-01 09:00 pm
john constantine | dc comics / vertigo | ota.
cw:drugs { wildcard for maximum noir
The shovel—previously propped next to her—has fallen atop the half-zipped leather duffel bag just beside. Her black coat is draped over the gravestone's crumbling side where she leans with ankles crossed and one arm propping up her elbow, finishing off one of her few remaining joints. God help this city when she runs out, if only He had any power here.
Having no animals or insects about leaves an uncanny silence that makes it too easy to discern when anyone is nearby. If nothing else, her senses are more heightened than ever before, and she’s shifted to face the stranger before he can become more than a silhouette.
She wears no jewelry, although the laced blouse and silk skirt might keep as expensive if money mattered around here. The sleeves have been rolled up to her elbows, but they’re still stained from the damp dirt almost as well as the bottom of her skirt. With one eye kept on the shovel, Vanessa's posture remains seemingly amicable if partially removed. The only reason she isn’t more on edge is because something familiar strikes at her curiosity, and that is often enough to trump anything else.
Has he already been trying to discern what the gravestones say? They always do. She’ll even cast a down glance to the one that belongs to her half-dug grave.
“Looking for a name?”
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John wonders if he's the only Constantine here. It would certainly answer the question of whether the pocket dimension he's slipped into is a British isle.
"What if I was? You point me in the right direction?"
wildcard: a trip down to the shops
Answer: Mad dogs, Englishmen, and tired exorcists who are seriously considering taking up smoking again if they can find any cartons in the picked-over shops. That's who. The last couple weeks have been bloody murder on Johanna's nerves, and her other bad coping mechanisms are losing their savor. Doesn't seem likely that there'll be cigarettes until the next restock (or respawn, if you please), probably already snapped up by the heavier smokers in the City. But god helps those, et cetera.
Ugh, this rain, though. When she left her apartment, she misjudged the weather -- thought that it was going to be just a depressing drizzle, and here it's properly wet. She pulls the collar of her coat up around her neck.
(Her poor much-abused white trench coat is currently hanging in her closet, covered in brown stains the hydrogen peroxide couldn't get out, and until she can track down a replacement she's making do with something in a more traditional colorway that's less likely to show blood.)
Just ahead of her, she spots a similarly-clad figure heading into one of the corner shops and picks up her pace after him, eager to get out of the rain. "Oi, hold the door for us--?"
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In, inside, away from the water before he grows scales. Is it raining? It feels like it ought to be. It was raining, or it's on the horizon. He wants to be inside, in the warm embrace of Guinness, or maybe some gin. He would like to be lightly soused. But the door opens into a kitschy hell. He realizes too late that it's one of those shops that looks from the outside to be a respectable (he refuses to think of them as 'old-timey') pub, but actually sells tea cozies and upmarket jumpers.
So John turns, and comes face-to-face with a kitten-eyed woman with a smile that could cut glass. He exhales tobacco in a barely-audible wheeze. He thinks he can see his breath enter her nostril. Is she young or is he old? Don't think about it.
"In the market for a decorative mug?"
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"Me? I'm full up." Johanna shakes her water off her collar and gives him a once-over. Fellow Brit; smells like a pub; shabby tie; not any of the faces she's come to recognize around the City. So, a newcomer? Something oddly familiar in his eyes nevertheless.
You know what it is? He looks like the kind of guy who sits at the end of the bar in your local and complains to his mates about how they've put vegetarian Wellington on the Sunday roast menu and microbrews on tap. Yeah. Familiar.
"If you're hoping for an 'I HEART CONVENIENTLY-LABELLED-PLACE-NAME' sort of thing, don't." She moves past him, beelining for the counter. If there's anything worth scrounging, it's likely to be tucked away somewhere.
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"Keep calm and carry on, more like," he murmurs. "Not advice-- I advise having at least one mental breakdown before lunch. But they love that shite, they do."
Who's they? Well, he's from Earth. There's always a they over there.
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Nothing back here but a box of pens -- and a crumpled bit of cellophane that looks like it did once hold a pack of cigarettes. Maybe a pack of cards, but knowing her luck ... Johanna groans. "Ugh, fuck me."
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(He remembers a fortune teller out on the heath, the dark-eyed grin and flashing teeth. A lifetime ago, or maybe a dream? His memories congeal like runny eggs.)
"Were you looking for something in particular?" He strings that last word out. Per-tick-yoo-lar.
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"Peace of mind. They're fresh out. Have been for fucking months." Leaning her elbows on the counter, she pokes at the till and sighs. "And what'll you have, squire?"
NICE ITALICS GRANPA.
Did he just wink. Pretend he didn't. Smoke gets in your eye.
the scourge of html
"Well, some of the bars down the street probably still have working taps, as long as you're not picky." Another critical once-over. "Lager and a pack of crisps?"
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If he had to make a guess, he'd say she were a succubus. That lot are always a bit odd. He'll have to get closer, see if he can catch a whiff of sulfur. It means he has to put his cig out, so he crushes it under heel before walking over to the counter. Rather than sly, his elbows collapse, folded, onto the faux-mahogany like they fell out of a lorry. One may get the sense that the only thing keeping him upright is momentum.
"No gin? This is gin weather, can't you tell?" He gestures to the gloomy world out the window.
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No sulfur. The delicate scents of nice lotion and shampoo, yes, but no other noticeable perfume. And if she's a succubus, she might not be one who's into men: they're at a comfortable flirting distance, now, and yet the look she's giving him is far from seductive. More the look you give someone who you don't trust with your credit card.
(All right, fine, it's far from seductive but it's not entirely uninterested. It's not just that deja vu feeling like she recognizes him from somewhere. He could be handsome if he wasn't so broken-down.)
"Did you used to be on TV or something?"
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No dice. He tries the other eye, and while it's an odd performance, he carries it with such natural ease one could think he's just bored. Maybe he has a crick in his neck. You never know with men like him, the type fueled entirely of cigarette filters, bad news and sausage rolls.
"Nightly news. Local Scouse predicts future." He puts one hand up, moving it over the bottom of the imaginary TV set like a news feed. "Rees... Mogg... Prime... Minister."
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"Bite your tongue."
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"If you can't remember my name, luv-- and it is a memorable one-- I can't owe you any dosh. That's the rules." Why else would someone find him familiar? (Because he got their loved ones killed. He's not going to bring that up, either.)
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"Look at the state of you, la." A touch of her own Scouse coming out. "I'd be better off waiting for Irish reunification than money you owed me."
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"What?" No way. "Who's your father?"
She has a suspicion.
(It's close to correct, but not quite there.)
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"Tom. Died in the eighties. You didn't know him." It's arguable whether or not John ever really did-- but there he is, getting morbid.
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Wait, okay. That would put paid to the idea of long-lost half-brother from a secret other family Thomas Constantine had before he had her and Cheryl. That did feel extremely plausible for ten seconds, though.
"Thomas Constantine? He's not dead."
(Though, would she even know if he died? Not here, certainly. And back home -- no, Cheryl would call her for that, regardless of Tony's objections. That's the kind of thing that, regrettably, you talk to your family for.)
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cw: homophobia
mind the gap!
The object in question is a small spiral-bound notebook, and if Constantine decides to have a snoop through it, he'll find that the pages are covered in notes, with headings like 'HUMAN IDIOMS: ('Red Herring - not actually about fish, it's meant to convey that something is intentionally misleading') and 'NEW FLAVOURS:' ('Pepper mint: hopefully doesn't taste like the spice' ).
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"What are you?" He tilts his head to the side, squints. "Did you kill them before or after you took to wearing their skin?"
I almost did a spittake, holy shit
"I... beg your pardon?" they sound equal parts confused and horrified, now. Surely they must have misheard him, and... and he's not giving the notebook back, he's looking through it! Rude!! "Um, I... I think you've got the wrong idea entirely, I promise it's nothing like that! That would be horrible! Can I have the notebook back, please?"