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✖ 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

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i. the midway

[ As if he needed any further proof this whole place is a damn nightmare. Or hell, maybe. Not what he was expecting, he's got to admit, but then, he isn't exactly the imaginative type. Outside a few specialties, anyway.

Joel ignores the rides and the music and most of the rest of the noise - as best he can, at any rate. After a couple decades of gunfire and explosions and... other unpleasant things being the loudest it ever gets, and silence a matter of survival more often than not, he's markedly uncomfortable in the thick of the midway. Just maybe not quite enough so to forgo the food. Greasy, fried junk - how long has it been since this kind of stuff was commonplace? Or anywhere?

He's carrying around a carton of popcorn, eating it in mild disbelief, when a row of rifles catches his eye. Not real ones, of course - but the kind fired at wooden ducks that drop back on hinges and fall behind their little wooden waves when they're hit. He picks one of the toy guns up, setting aside the popcorn for the moment, and gives it a once-over. Heavy for a carnival game, definitely unsafe (the thought's almost funny).

Before he can properly consider why he'd bother, he's shot down two rows of ducks, and one of those suspect barkers is offering him an enormous stuffed something. Joel pays it no mind, waving them off. ] Give it to the next one.

ii. test your strength

[ It's quieter out by the trailers. Darker. Easier on his nerves. He's gone rooting through a few, scrounging for supplies. The everyday normal, now.

The only decent weapon he finds is a hammer, old and work but decent enough. But that's only half his find, and not the better one. The coffee's gritty and bitter, real campfire stuff, and it's the best thing he's tasted in ages. Even beats the junk food they're hawking on the midway.

He's sitting outside one of those trailers in the center, propped up in its shadow as he drinks. Easy to miss, with the brighter lights of the one out of place attraction set up there, its paint peeling as clearly as the trailers surrounding it. Test Your Strength. Even Joel thinks that a bit cliche. But maybe someone'll come along and give it a try. ]

iii. send in the clowns [ cw: mentions of torture, murder ]

[ Avoiding the big top entirely is more what Joel had in mind. But this place is a maze, and most turns are wrong ones.

Especially this last. There's no turning around without battering his way through the crowd, but the show looks like it's almost over, anyway. Might as well wait it out.
A concession he almost immediately comes to regret, when the biggest and ugliest of the clowns makes a beeline for him. Before he can shove the guy off, though, he's whispering something, something far more mesmerizing than his act.

The laughter comes as the clown fades back into his troupe, greasepaint the color of blood sweating down his cheeks. The sound is rusty and badly disused, alien to him even as he recognizes it as his own. And it just keeps coming, unbidden, as he remembers it, warm blood on his hands in the biting cold. The color of that greasepaint. He grabs hold of the bleachers beside him, nearly doubled over now as it starts to hurt. ]

[ hmu @

gravejuice or by pm if you want to plot and/or wildcard. also feel free to switch to prose, i'll follow suit. cool with keeping tdm cr where applicable as well! ]

( Chloe hovers at the booth, transfixed by the gun. It isn't a real gun, but this island is pushing buttons regardless. Her feet don't seem to want to comply with her telling herself to move on along and so she watches duck after duck fall. They aren't real either, and yet each one knocked down makes her thirium pump jump. )

...You're very good at that.

( A large, fuzzy something wobbles at the edge of her vision. Head turning to it, she sees the barker waving a huge stuffed dog at her. Chloe takes it automatically as it's been offered and holds it to her. It's soft. And cute. That's nice.

Manners. Where are her manners? The man has donated his winnings, even if she just happened to be standing there and then thoughtlessly claimed it. )

Thank you. For the prize. I mean, are you sure you don't want it?

Had some practice.

[ There's an odd edge of humor in the words, not precisely kind, as he sets the toy rifle aside. It's not at all the same as its deadlier counterpart, but looking down the sights is no harder. Least of all when his targets are brightly colored and only move in line - no zigzagging or trying to fight back.

Now there's a happy thought. Still, his grimace is probably meant to pass for something vaguely like a smile, polite and strained as it is. ]

Keep it. I wouldn't have much use for that thing.

( Could he be military? Law enforcement? Or perhaps just a man who likes firearms? Whatever the case may be, his tone suggests that she probably shouldn't pry. Which is fine by Chloe. She'd rather not focus on the topic.

In recognition of his effort and his generosity, she smiles a little smile back. And one good turn deserves another. )

May I get you something in return? Something to eat, perhaps? There's fried, there's sugary, there's fried and sugary.

( Hopefully it's actually up to 'being consumed by humans' standard. Though she has a few doubts about that. )

Wasn't lookin' for a favor.

[ But he knows he's not doing himself any by cutting her off. Maybe she knows something - maybe she's been here longer. Either way, information might be worth the trouble.

And it's not like he's tired of there being food here that wasn't freshly killed or pried out of a dangerously out of date can, yet. ]

But, uh, I could go for somethin' fried.

Oh, no, I didn't think that you were. I just like to offer.

( It's not the first time someone has found what she regards as basic niceties to be bizarre or suspicious. Hasn't stopped her yet, though.

With a smile and a nod, she gestures for them to set off in their venture to find whatever fried creation he'd like. She moves the stuffed dog so it's cradled under her arm instead of clutched to her. )

My name's Chloe. And you?

[ Bizarre, yes, but only because niceties aren't really a part of his world, anymore. But suspicious is a tag he's having a harder time pinning on her. Which is probably why he relents to follow along, eyeing the stalls around them, still uneasy with all this sound.

He doesn't flinch when the gunshot sound of someone playing some exceptionally loud game goes off, but a part of him wants to, hardwired to duck for cover. ]

Joel. You don't look too bothered by any of this.

( Chloe's head cocks towards the sharp sound. She knows there's no reason for such sensitivity. Most likely. They're just games. Just people playing games. The way people do.

She smiles, but it has a slightly wry edge due to the misplaced flicker of pride at the thought of someone thinking she's doing well with it all. Isn't that illusion what she strives for, though? )

Lovely to meet you, Joel. This is the third island I've been to now so you get used to it, as much as one can, I suppose. You're new, I take it?

[ He almost laughs at that, though it's subdued to just the briefly bewildered flash of a look. Lovely. Christ. ]

You could call it that. [ But hopefully not for long. This isn't his idea of a vacation. ]

Listen, this is gonna sound weird but, uh, what year is it? Can you tell me where you're from?

( The look is dutifully ignored. Until they prove otherwise, everyone is lovely. Or has the potential to be. More people should think of themselves as such in Chloe's eyes.

Her smile is kind of tight. She doesn't expect anyone to embrace their arrival with aplomb but she doesn't have the heart to mention she hasn't heard of anyone who's made enough 'progress' to warrant a return home. Would they be made aware if anyone had? It's yet another question.

Right now, it's time to answer his. As much as they can be. )

It doesn't sound weird at all. I can't say for certain what year it is here as time seems to be... a little uncertain. But I can tell you that my where and when is Detroit, 2038. How about you?

[ A little uncertain is putting things far too lightly. Nothing here seems to make any sense, and the longer he's stuck here screwing around, the worse it gets.

Her answer gives him pause again, though by now he should be expecting it. ]

Few years off. 2033. ...Or maybe '34. Been a long winter.

( He isn't sure of the year he's from? Curious. To save delving into the questions she has right away, she stops at one of the cleaner looking food stands. )

Is this alright for you? They seem to have fried... everything.

( After a moment or two of casually looking over the questionable carnival cuisine, she caves. )

What's your version of 2033 like, if you don't mind me asking?

Sure.

[ He only gives the food a glance, really, suddenly even less interested in the draw of fried things he'll never see or smell or taste again, once this fever dream of a reality is over. ]

A whole lot different than... this. And yours, I'm guessin'. There was no outbreak, was there? Not in your - version of things. People never started goin' crazy and killing each other in the streets.

joel | ota

The Midway

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test your strength

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