
Love Always Leaves a Tally Mark
Basics:
Who: Everyone who has ever felt love, for anyone.
When: Starting October until ???
Summary: For every time love has touched a person's soul, it leaves a mark. So what if those marks were visible to everyone?
Details:
There it is again, that feeling of something happening across the Station. The sensors go off - the ones outside of the Station signalling first (oddly, very specifically over Section 2, almost over Section 1) followed by the internal ones - alerting everyone's comms.
Yet... at first, nothing seems to have happened. No one is a pony, no new comms on the map. So what is going on? People who are wearing short sleeves (or no sleeves at all) will be the first to figure it out, as soon as they look on their wrists.
There, across the skin, visible through glamours and furs, are marks. Tally marks, to be specific. They might be black like a permanent marker, crimson like a scratch, white of an old scar, or even worse, an open slice. They're in neat rows with a slash across for every five, just like tally marks on a page.
...What are they?The marks of love. For every time you have loved, there is a tally. Family love, romantic love, old loves, current loves... but how do you know? Because when you touch your fingertips over a mark, there's something very subtle that reminds you of that person. Maybe it's a faint whiff of their perfume, but when you breathe in again, you smell nothing. A breath of their laughter, but when you stop to listen, you hear nothing. A glimpse of their eyes in your mind's eyes, but then it drifts away.
...But why are the tally marks different?Because they stand for different things.
Black: A past love. One that you have loved and it is in your past. You both went on your own ways, or you haven't spoken to a family member you were once very close to and the love has faded.
Red: A current love. Someone you currently love, close bonds. Someone you deeply love. Anyone could fall into this category - and it will not fall into the next category if you don't know if they love you, yet.
Open: A love that was never returned. Not a crush, nothing so simple. Someone you truly felt love for that wasn't returned. A family member or a partner or someone who never even knew you loved them could easily be this.
Scar: A dead love. The person who you loved has died. Again, family or partner.
...Will they come off?Nope. ...Well, not all of them. There is one way to remove... most of them. Attempting to slice them off, burn them off, etc, will only result in them returning over now-scarred skin.
...Can the open ones become--Staving that off. The open ones don't become infected, they don't bleed, and strangely enough, don't even seem to get dirty.
...Can the marks change?Oh, they certainly can. A black mark could turn into a scar if somewhere back home, a loved one has passed on. You will gain a red mark if you fall in love with someone now.
...Can other people see them?They certainly can.