polylogs | 🤡🤡🤡

Entry tags:

🤡🤡🤡

✖ THE CARNIVAL

Ⅰ. ARRIVAL & THE TEMPLE
You can read all about your character's arrival in the game lore.
You can see the lights of the Ferris wheel from the water, and by the time you pull into port you can smell popcorn, cotton candy, grease, sawdust. Music drifts on the air, interspersed with screams from the rides.

The carnival is in town.

Not just any carnival, either - the carnival. The one to end all others. Every circus you ever read about or saw in a movie, with striped tents filled with acrobats and sideshows, midway games complete with carnival barkers in straw boater hats. But it's also every shitty fair that ever rolled through your hometown, with unreliable looking men with greasy mullets smoking as they jockey the Wild Mouse, the Gravitron, the Zipper, the Corkscrew. There's a constant stream of 80s hair metal playing underneath the roar of the rollercoaster tracks, blending somehow with the traditional piping organ of the carousel.

Experienced Travelers will know by now that every island has its own temple, and this one is no exception. It’s not in the carnival proper, though; if you step away from the lights of the midway and tents, you’ll notice dozens of old wooden circus trailers, arranged in a circle, growing tighter together the closer to the center you walk. The trailers are functional living places, with built in beds - sometimes one, sometimes two - and a small table and an old wood burning stove with a cooking top just big enough to boil a kettle on. There’s a toilet, but if you want a shower you’ll have to go outside and find a tent set up at the outskirts of the makeshift trailer park where there are tent showers set up, locker room style.

The clearing in the middle of the parked caravan is completely empty except for a solitary midway game: a towering high striker. It must be at least twenty feet tall, surmounted by a round, red bell. A wooden mallet is leaned against a sign next to the game that reads, predictably, TEST YOUR STRENGTH.

Step right up.

Notes:
1. Please remember to mark threads appropriately with Content Warnings when necessary.

2. These prompts are a jumping off point - how they affect your character and their development is up to you.

3. The island temple is accessible to all. The High Temple is only accessible to new characters this month - it will re-open to all others next month.

4. The Test your Strength game can be played by anyone. How well your character does is entirely up to you, but the game does not necessarily measure physical strength.

5. These residents of the island are normal humans. Killing them is possible and will affect the colour grading of your Scrywatch depending on the situation.

6. Any food found on the midway is safe to eat, and is consumable by non-human entities.

7. Have fun!

Ⅱ. HALL OF MIRRORS
When it comes to amusements, the Hall of Mirrors has always been second-fiddle to the Haunted House. But the line for the former was shorter, so here you are. The guy working the door has weasel eyes and is smoking. He gestures for you and whoever is behind you to enter together; "No singles. For safety."

The lights are a dull neon, cycling from deep blue to cyan to purple and back again. You find that your outstretched fingers will bump against smooth, clear glass as often as not. The mirrors reflect the maze back into itself over and over, disorienting and strange.

Some of the mirrors are convex, some concave, and as you pass them your reflection warps and bends alongside that of whoever you're stuck inside the maze with.

At some point you will realise that the reflection looking back at you isn't quite right. It's still you, sure, but it's not how you really look, not on the outside.

Looking back at you from the cold glass is how you perceive yourself. Perhaps that's stronger, perhaps uglier, perhaps as a sniveling child or an ancient hag. And this reflection is going to follow you from mirror to mirror as you desperately try to find your way out.

One of you spots an exit sign, bleeding red light. Only catch is that it's behind a pane of glass. And another. And another. You could break your way through all of them, certainly, but it's not as if there's anything laying around for you to use to do so. Just yourself, which might work in action movies but tends to cause a lot of physical damage in the real world.

Above the glass someone has placed a sticker that reads, “who are you really?” in black sharpie. Answer it, and the glass will swing open. Don't, and well...

Guess you'll have several years worth of bad luck.

Notes:
1. Yes, characters can bash their way out of the maze, but it is real glass and will cut anyone who isn’t invulnerable. There is a first aid station run by extremely unreliable carneys on the premises, so hopefully they can patch themselves up enough there.

Ⅲ. THE CAROUSEL
CW: childhood trauma
Old fashioned organ music and a million flashing lights draws you to the carousel. It's a vintage delight: huge, with ornate animals carved out of wood and lovingly hand painted. There are horses, of course, but also lions and leopards and birds and rabbits and wolves... any animal you could want! In fact, you'll see an animal that looks perfectly YOU. You just have to climb up on it for a ride.

Settled on your mount, the ride begins to move. To your surprise, it begins to move backwards. You can't seem to ungrip the pole you're hanging on to, so you're helpless to escape as the ride spins again and again.

When it stops and you step off, you will be younger. You will in fact be the same age you were when a formative event happened to you.

You're a kid at a carnival! How fun! Well, maybe you're not that young, and it's probably not very fun at all considering that now your trauma is fresh.

The only way to become your proper age again is to get on the carousel and get it to run forward. Depending on your age, you might not be able to figure any of that out, but surely one of the other Travelers can help you. You'll definitely need someone to man the carousel controls. Oh, and be careful not to knock it into overdrive...

Notes:
1. If your character does not get back on the carousel and ride it in reverse, they will revert to their actual ages at the end of the month.

2. Please be especially mindful of content warnings with underage characters. A reminder that the game does not allow explicit sexual content with minors.

3. You do not have to regress your character to childhood - if a very formative event happened at age 20 for example, you can choose that route instead.

4. Speeding up the carousel while it is moving forward will result in, you guessed it, aging your character UP. Obviously you can ride it backwards again to fix this, or again the aging will be reversed at the end of the month.

Ⅳ. COULROPHOBIA
CW: clowns, suffocation
Who can possibly resist the big top? Not you! You're ushered into the tent and you take a seat in the stands, where you have an excellent view of the huge ring before you. The excitement in the air is palpable, and even if you're the grouchy type you'll find yourself a little bit thrilled.

It's a little surprising when the lights go up to the sound of screaming guitars. Mist belches from hidden foggers, and flames shoot from near the center of the ring. The lights stutter red, blue, green. The whole thing is a lot more rock show than it is Ringling Brother's.

At any rate, even if the ringmaster looks like a reject from a trailer park metal band and the music is liable to burst some eardrums, it's still a circus. There are trained horses and riders, contortionists, and a score of talented trapeze artists. It's all sparkling and impressive and terrific fun.

The trapeze artists take their bows, clearly ready for a break. And if a break is needed at the circus? You know what happens next, don't you?

SEND IN THE CLOWNS!

The clowns spill into the ring, all sorts of them! There's Harlequin and Pierrot, Auguste and Tramp. There's Bozos and Ronalds and Clarabelles and Krustys. Hopefully no Gacys, but there's so many of them that it's hard to know for sure.

One of these clowns - the one you hate the most, of course - approaches you in the stands. With comically exaggerated movements, it leans close to you and whispers...

Well. It whispers horrible things to you, really. It recounts to you some instance in your life where you delighted in the suffering of another, a moment where you really and truly were happy that somebody else was hurt. It's not a moment to be proud of, for sure, but as the clown tells your own secret shameful joy to you, you start to laugh. Really laugh - soon you're bent over double, tears running down your face, absolutely howling with laughter.

Your stomach hurts, and you're running out of breath. Very soon you won't be able to breathe at all.

Eventually, one of your fellow travelers won't be able to resist asking you, "What's so funny?"

The only way to stop laughing is to tell them. Otherwise you're going to pass out right where you sit, a creepy clown leering over you the whole time. Maybe your fellow traveler will be nice enough to drag you out of there if that happens, because if you're left alone? Everybody knows clowns get so much scarier alone in the dark.

Notes:
1. What happens if you really do get ditched with the clowns? Great question. Maybe they make you one of them. Maybe they eat you. Maybe you just wake up in the Big Top dressing room and see all the clowns smoking cigars and taking their floppy shoes off to film Clown Foot Erotica.

It wouldn't be a party without some jams.

Network · Logs · OOC · Memes · Plurk

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

⭕ ARRIVAL

( Is it possible to go back to the flower island? Because landing here is quite the shock after the relative peace of natural splendour. The carnival is too noisy, too bright with artificial light, too full of the sickly blend of candied and mechanical scents. Chloe has never visited a fairground, circus or anything of the sort before. If this is anything to go by, it's not an experience she's sad she's missed out on.

Slowly drifting along, she pauses at a game or two. Mostly because she finds the way the stuffed animal prizes are strung up within the booth, their eyes all staring out from where they hang in formation, deeply unsettling. She declines the barking offers to step on up and try her luck with a shake of her head.

She does like the idea of the Ferris wheel - it's more sedate and offers the chance to get away from the carnival throng for a little while. Except it doesn't look like... the most stable structure she's seen. So yes, that would be Chloe quizzing the ride controller on when the last safety and maintenance checks were carried out and if there's any form of log to evidence said checks. )

⭕ TEMPLE

( In the small hours, Chloe sits in the doorway of a trailer. It's a behaviour she's repeated each night since arriving on this new island. When she should be in rest mode, she's awake and just sitting quietly. There may be buzz from the carnival still but she doesn't want to risk disturbing any sleeping Travelers. That, and she's tired. The circular LED at her temple blinks a steady scarlet in the dark.

It isn't that she doesn't want to rest. It's that every time she does, the garden that functions as an equivalent to human dreaming isn't the relaxing, rejuvenating place it should be. The impossibly friendly animals that populate it are all in hiding. The trees are bare. Most stark of all is the blanket of snow that covers everything. It's a scene that's appeared before. Once. But she managed to make it go away.

Another troubling development is the red encroaching on the edges of her vision. It's happened when she's awake and now it invades her respite from the world. It's taunting. Beckoning. And she can't manage to make it go away forever. )

⭕ HALL OF MIRRORS ( cw: potential mentions of emotional abuse )

( To get into the fairground spirit, Chloe's going into what she assumes will be a tamer experience than some of the other attractions. It's not like she can keep moping around the midway like a lost little lamb. It's not very becoming, and she doesn't appreciate such an attitude in herself. Maybe figuring out the route will be fun. It's something to keep the mind occupied, anyway. She gives her companion a cheery 'we can do this' smile and starts off on the path into the maze.

For a start she's more focused on working out which direction to go, and whether her companion has gotten themselves lost, than the reflections. Turning to round a corner, she comes face to face with a mirror instead. Staring back at her is the white plastic form that's underneath her synthetic skin. It's entirely bound in what looks like a ribbon of glitching red light littered with cracks.

Chloe almost falls over herself as she backs off. There are plenty of mumbled apologies as she isn't sure if what she bumps into is another mirror or the person navigating the maze with her. Either way, she doesn't look like she plans on wasting time in finding the exit. )

⭕ COULROPHOBIA ( cw: potential mentions of emotional abuse )

( The horses lure Chloe in. Majestic and elegant, she can't resist the chance to watch them. The trapeze artists put on an excellent show too, graceful and daring. All in all, it's a good time. The bombardment of sound and sparkle isn't so jarring.

Then there are the clowns. Their faces are reminiscent of Carcosa's mask. They're boisterous and loud and painfully unfunny. No doubt they are doing their best to be entertaining and so she watches out of politeness, making herself smile along.

She recoils back in her seat when the Pierrot bumbles on up to her, hoping her reluctance to engage will make the clown move along. She should know better by now. The clown cups a hand around her painted mouth and whispers to the android: liar, liar, pants on fire! You said you miss your home but that's just for show! Lyin', lyin', think he's cryin'? Boo hoo, so sad! And you're so glad! Stay and let him cry a river, right? A cosy thought to hold you tight. Maybe you can sleep tonight.

Dancing backwards away from her, the clown alternates between wild wailing and manic laughter. Laughter Chloe joins her in. It rises up and forces its way out of her mouth. Her head tilts back and she's almost bouncing in her seat. )

⭕ WILDCARD

[ Feel like something different with Chloe? Catch me at

another_thoughts_hat or via PM and we can do a thing! ]

[ loki had been eyeing his own reflection, blue-skinned and red-eyed and had raised his hand to destroy the visage until he's bumped into. he spins around, a snarl in his throat but it gets caught in the arresting sight of a . . . white robot figure.

he lowers his hand, the magic dissipating. ]

Well. That is unusual.

( Chloe turns round to face him, lacking her usual apologies. It's more to avoid the reflection than anything else. A futile effort, since they're surrounded by mirrors. )

It's the standard form for an android.

( Her voice is flat. What's the point of saying anything else when the fact is quite literally in front of him? Besides, what she can see of him in the mirror isn't exactly usual, either. )

[ loki lifts his hand to blur his image into obscurity subtly. ]

I see. I suppose that makes sense.

[ he's not terribly familiar with artificial intelligences but the universe is vast, so his understanding is not minute. ]

Does it bother you?

( That's a neat trick with his reflection. It gets a curious look but no comment, as of yet. )

Are you asking if being an android bothers me or if the image being on display bothers me?

Chloe | Detroit: Become Human

( hall of mirrors )

no subject

no subject

no subject

arrival

no subject

no subject

no subject

TEMPLE

no subject

no subject

no subject