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🤡🤡🤡
âś– THE CARNIVAL
â… . 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.
â…ˇ. 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.
â…˘. 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.
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...
â…Ł. 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.
It wouldn't be a party without some jams.
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!
â…ˇ. 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.
â…˘. 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.
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.
â…Ł. 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.
Wrench | Fargo TV | OTA
ii:
Just gotta beat the maze I guess. Stay there, I'll come to you.
Two heads, he figures, are better than one.
As he makes his way over - bumping into a pane of clear glass hard enough to make him curse along the way - he notices that whenever he spots his reflection it seems a little... off. His hair, always the bane of his existence, looks bigger and frizzier than ever. He looks skinnier and his face seems to be warping by degrees.
By the time he reaches Wrench he's cutting wary glances at the mirrors, wondering if it's really the glass or if something else is going on.
"Hey."
no subject
When the Kyles that surround him converge, he reaches out and pokes the young man on the shoulder. Sorry, just testing, he explains. There's a visible softening of his shoulders, though. He'd take a pitch-black forest and a hundred identical trees to someone's constructed idea of what's eerie.
Maybe it's the circumstance making him angry, but it's hard to deny that something about the man is transforming as well. His shoulders broadening, lips thinning, scars deepening, green eyes darkening. You ever been in one of these before?
no subject
He taps his ScryWatch. "I'm glad this thing works. I think I only know like, three things in sign language. Okay, uh, lemme see, we came from that way, so we just keep going forward. Carefully."
Kyle has never had a problem wandering into the unknown. Just moving forward into stupid situations was sort of the hallmark of his childhood. As they make slow progress further into the maze, however, he finds every time he glimpses their reflections they seem both more grotesque and more clear.
They take a turn and there in front of them is a mirror with no visible distortion - no physical warp to create an illusion of tallness or shortness, no wobbly doppelganger designed to evoke laughter. It looks just like a normal mirror, framed in cycling colours.
Kyle's reflection is a cruel caricature made flesh. Clown hair, huge nose, beady eyes, limbs that look like pulled taffy.
"O, fuck," he whispers, still loud enough for the ScryWatch to translate to text.
no subject
Under Kyle's direction, Wrench spares no hesitation in leading the way. The tall, broad-shouldered man seems ready to face anything that might jump up from behind one of those mirrors and attack, but his effort to be the first to blaze the trail disguises on the fact he's keeping Kyle open if they should get sneaked up on. At least he can see both of their bobbing, twisting reflections in front of him with every step forward he takes.
And then out of nowhere, there's a mirror before them that seems larger than the rest. Maybe it's just the lights that make it appear prominent, but despite the jolly and encouraging twisting of lights, the reflection Wrench sees staring back at him makes him scowl. His shoulders are inches wider than his reality, his hair is a coiled mess of dirty brown, and his thin lips wear an angry sneer. There are scars on his face and hands that aren't nearly so prominent in real life. The man standing before him seems wicked, unloveable. It nearly sends a shudder down his own back.
His ScryWatch buzzes before Wrench can go on staring, and he looks between it, Kyle, and the reflection of the young man in its absurdist, living color. What's happening to us?
no subject
By the time they reach that cruel mirror, any good humour has long departed.
"I don't know," he admits by way of an answer to Wrench's question. Slowly, he extends a hand and touches his fingers to the mirror. he's half expecting them to slip through as if the surface were merely water, but they just bump against smooth glass.
"It's not real," he says. He looks to Wrench. "Like, you don't look like that. Not to me, anyway." His eyes widen and he tips his head back and groans.
"Oh for... seriously? Dude. Dude, I think this is like... the insecurity mirror or some bullshit. Like do you seriously think you look that scary?"
no subject
In the grand scheme of what he's encountered thus far, the twisted reflection may be more annoying than concerning, but eventually the sight of his own bloated image is too much for him to ignore. It doesn't help, of course, that it follows them everywhere, transforming mockingly at every turn. Wrench scowls.
Do you seriously think you look like that? he challenges right back, indicating between Kyle and the reflection of the young man that's been shaped into a gross caricature. What's this supposed to prove?
no subject
He's taken aback by Wrench's question. He cuts his eyes to his reflection and then quickly casts his gaze down to the floor.
"...kinda, yeah," he admits. He looks up, pointedly at Wrench and not at the mirrors. Well, at least as much as is possible. "So. I guess it proves that I'm right - this is totally like, the bad shit we see or something. You look hella mean in the mirror, but not here in front of me. So like... ARE you mean?" It's such a simple, naive question and Kyle asks it with absolutely no indication that he thinks its stupid.
no subject
The question is so forthright, so innocent and earnest that Wrench doesn't know what to make about it. Is he mean?
He knows that he's brutal. That he's efficient and thorough and destructive. But mean? Even in all their disagreements, he can't remember a time he was ever willfully mean to Grady. Petulant, of course. Demanding, retaliative, and petty? Those too. But mean?
Wrench shakes his head a fraction. I do what I have to do. That's not mean. That's life.
no subject
His forehead creases, but he nods. Every sign points to Wrench being the sort of man he was never likely to meet unless it was as his attorney. But his answer feels honest: he's not mean. He has good in him.
For good or for ill, Kyle believes everyone has good in them.
"Yeah," he agrees. "It is. So. These mirrors suck. I'd break em if we had rocks."
no subject
I intimidate people, he adds after a time, almost unsure of why. I always have, even as a kid. Eventually, it just became an asset.
What about you? This is how you see yourself? he gestures to the tall pane of glass. Like a clown? A racist cartoon?
no subject
He glances at the mirror, then back fown at the ground. He can't make eye contact right now - he feels too much shame.
"Sometimes," he admits. He swallows hard, glad Wrench can't hear how wobbly his voice is. "I know what I look like. And I know what some people say about guys like me. It's fine. Like... whatever, who cares. At least I'm smart."
iii / wildcardish!
Camilla Hect has never, in her entire life, seen anything like a carnival, and so she barely knows what to do with herself here — but the games are something of a puzzle, and she likes puzzles. So she's been methodically working her way through each of the stalls, without a care about the prizes, only about understanding how each trial works. She's been weighing the strange and unfamiliar words on her tongue like vocabulary from another language: claw machine, duck pond, whack-a-mole, ring-toss. She lingers and watches other people play just long enough to learn how it works, and then plays by herself, just long enough until she can eventually demolish each game.
At the shooting gallery, she's still in recon mode this time, balanced on the balls of her feet and head tilted like a watchful bird. There's a whole row of stuffed animals hanging above their heads, over the shooting targets— and she eventually becomes aware of a bright-eyed boy leaning in beside her, his attention riveted on the animals. She glances down.
"You want a shot?" she asks.
Inexcusably late reply is inexcusable. </3
Except they're just so massive. The soft tufts of fur look impossibly pristine to have been dragged and hung out here in the middle of all of this, and the dark brown bear with the single-sided smile kind of reminds him of his best friend Grady. It wouldn't be the first time someone's put a gun in his hands, but the booth worker keeps ignoring him in favor of a more boisterous set of patrons. He's about ready to consider an alternative means of securing that beloved bear when the watch on his wrist buzzes, and he looks between the text and up at the woman looking at him.
Yes, he signs, knowing by now the strange device will translate it somehow. Only I don't have any money or tokens or anything.
no worries, 99% of the time i am a snail incarnate
Oh, that's useful, she marvels.
It does mean that she initially doesn't know whether to look at the watch or at the boy, but after a moment she makes up her mind. Camilla's mindful to enunciate clearly, facing him while she fishes out a few chipped tokens and holds them out in a palm: "I've won plenty. Here, use these."
She hasn't spent much time with children since she aged out of the creche herself, but something in her still softens in the presence of one (even if he is tall enough that she has to look at him straight on, or even tilt her head up; where the boy's growth spurt has him stretched out like taffy, Camilla is built small and compact and muscled). Wrench is the youngest person she's seen in months — not since the gaggles of kids back at the space station of the Sixth back home, or the pair of fourteen-year-olds at Canaan House — and there's an unexpected, terrible twinge in her chest at the realisation.
ii. hall of mirrors
"Is that all you're worried about? Getting out of here?" he asks, examining one of the other man's reflections. "It's a house of glass. If we have to blow it up I will."
Meanwhile, do you think it's trying to tell us something? Like everything else on these islands?"
no subject
The image of the young man is dizzying, but it provides a little bit of hope in navigating the maze. Every Quentin is shades different from the one adjacent, but only one of them resembles anything truly like the man with whom he walked through that garden. Wrench, on the other hand, has a reflection that transforms steadily and uniformly. It broadens, snarls, and seems to insist others keep their distance from it.
I'm getting kind of sick of these coded messages. It's not like we're coming to our own realization if they're dragging us to the only outcome they want to see.
no subject
He studies presses up close to each of those reflections, comparing himself to them one at a time. Some are easier to write off than others. Some seem to make him look a little pleased with himself. And then he does the same of Wrench.
That's a good point though," he says waggling a finger. "Just like most education systems, they're not really conducive to learning so much as regurgitating what someone else thinks you need to learn. So maybe that's the easiest way out. You don't have to believe shit. You just have to tell it what it wants to hear."
He turns to Wrench and folds his arms over his chest.
"So crack the code for me what's this one about?" he asks of some snarling image of the man Quentin wouldn't have taken as quite so foreboding.
no subject
The whole premise of regurgitating without independent thought may seem antithetical to whatever the man on the boat was trying to tell them all. But then again, what's religion anyway, Wrench thinks to himself? It's always seemed like the main thesis statement is to do what you're told and just believe. Maybe he's coming to find out that all the believers have been right all along, and the practice is just a disappointment.
Something about the way other people see us? he ventures, truly not knowing Quentin may have no faith in or association with the reflection that scowls at him through Wrench's own internal lens.
no subject
His fingers make a squeaking noise as he drags his hand across the glass until his hand drops through where the next hallway opens up. He steps into the open space and invites Wrench to follow.
"Maybe," he looks at a much butcher version of himself in the mirror and flexes. "What do you see?" he asks.