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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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THE MIDWAY

It's not exactly remniscent of home, but Matt will take the stench of a knock-off Luna Park over the sickly bouquet of the previous island any day. He's no more pleased to find himself once again herded like a strange, amoral bit of livestock, but it's all starting to become par for the course.

And for a man who's known to treat the streets of New York as his own personal jungle gym, there are plenty worse things than being stuck in the midst of a 24/7 carnival.
ACROBATICS

Under the big top is a veritable playground for the agile, and it's not long at all before Matt is helping himself to the unattended equipment. The trapeze, the still rings, and the tightrope are all favorites of the man who's been yearning to stretch and push himself. Late at night one might even catch him on the wheel of death, testing his skill in tandom with one of the carnival's trapeze artists. Matt's not trying to get caught in the act. He's not eager to explain just how a blind man can twist and contort and fling himself through midair quite so well. But if he happens to get caught? Well, he'll try to spin a tale as impressive as his tumbling.

BOOTHS

Of course the games are rigged, but that's not going to stop Matt. With no particular need for currency, what does he have to lose anyway? The game jockeys don't hassle him too much when they see him with the cane, but he doesn't need coercing anyhow. He's happy to wander up to any booth he passes by and play ignorant to hear a fumbling explanation of the objective. Rings, baseballs, squirt guns, or darts... just stand back and watch him take aim.

STRENGTH

While the other games may be the answer to his bored amusement, this one calls to Matt like a siren's song. It's as irresistable as the speed bag in the corner of his father's old gym, and he lingers nearby and listens as others take their turn hefting the mallet and trying their luck. Matt bounces on the heels of his shoes and tries not to seem overly-eager. When the wooden bludgeon is offered out to him, he spreads his hands in a shrug. "Oh, me? I'm not so sure..."

THE CAROUSEL

Not unlike the city itself, it seems the carnival never sleeps.

All hours of the day and night, the air is layered with a bright tune of calliope madness, the gyration of steel against a wooden track, the screams and jeers of the chumps, and the shifting of hooves in the dirt. It's not difficult to find a way up above it all, but even on the top of the carousel Matt's struggling to get his bearings. It shouldn't be that difficult to find the end of the tent city, but even up here the boundaries of the island seem to stretch on endlessly.

If nothing else, it's at least a bit of a reprieve from the shoving and the insisting and the chaos. He kicks his feet over the edge of bunted cresting and lets it all wash over him. When the ride jerks and comes to life, Matt can only hang on as the twirling reaches a crescendo.

It's not an easy thing to pitch Matt Murdock off his equilibrium, but the longer the ride spins the more rattled he finds himself becoming. When it finally churns to a halt, he somersaults from the upper frame and lands on both feet just in front of someone else stumbling off the ride.

Only Matt isn't himself. Rather, he's a different form of himself: a slight boy of no more than nine, with bright red hair and glassy eyes, looking startled and fearful.

THE WILDCARD

Don't see anything here that interests you? Please feel free to hit me with anything! I'll gladly play along. You can catch me at stickyholograms for plotting, or just dive right in.

[ When Bucky gets off the the carousel, he's a couple months past sixteen and holding his jaw too tight. ]

What are you looking at, kid?

[ Of course, he isn't really paying attention. He just wants to say something so his mind doesn't twist back around to the place it's always trying to go. ]

Edited (added a subject, also i can switch to prose if you'd prefer that) 2021-09-05 00:54 (UTC)

[The part of Matt that seems to recollect he ought to be a whole lot sturdier than he feels is fading quickly. Then again, it's not easy to think beyond the dizzying cacophony of smells and sounds that hammer against the young boy's brain entirely unfiltered.]

Why are you being so loud?

[He whines petulantly, covering his ears with his hands.]

Edited (Happy to use whichever format suits you!) 2021-09-05 01:35 (UTC)

[ He responds without really thinking about it, accent slightly old-fashioned, like a ruffian on a nickel-theater screen begging for a fight. ]

I'm not bein'—

[ It takes about that long before he actually clues into the conversation. It isn't going how he thought it would. He swallows before finishing the sentence. ]

Loud?

Yes you are!

[Matt's protestation might as well be delivered with a stamp of his feet, but even the sound of his small voice in his head is practically more than he can stand. He's learning how to block it all out. To neatly compartmentalize what's useless and sort through what could help him. Only it's still hard to tell one from the other, and still nigh impossible when everything around him is unfamiliar.

Stick wouldn't be happy.]

Everything is. I don't even want to be here.

You and me both, pal.

[ Well, at least this is a new kind of problem. He knows there's something not right about all of this, even though he was just at a carnival. It wasn't this one, though, or was it? Scanning the fairgrounds, he tries to find a better spot for thinking.

Also, he decides that he oughta be taller. ]

Look, let's go over there. There aren't so many people, and maybe we can find your parents.

[ He has a sinking feeling as soon as he says so that they're not going to find his parents. ]

[The stranger's response is plainly unexpected. What kind of person doesn't want to be at a circus? And how does Matt know that's where he is? It takes longer to pick apart the pieces of evidence contributing to his surroundings than it does to draw the conclusion. He can smell horses somewhere in the distance and hear the gentle trumpeting of elephants. Beyond the screams from the wood-track roller coaster and the jeers of the patrons at the rigged games, he hears the telltale melody of Entrance of the Gladiators.

Matt recoils before he can be touched.]

My dad's not here. [He insists as if he already knows it. And then:] I can't see. Where are you taking me?

I'm not taking you anywhere. I'm escortin' you, if you'll have me.

[ No point telling a stubborn kid what to do. ]

I wasn't the one who put you in this place, neither, but maybe you put that much together already. I think it might be quieter over there, that's all.

[The clarification is not so different from his original inquiry that Matt knows what to make of the pedantic response, but it does soothe something in the boy's addled mind. He shrugs his shoulders as if to prove how nonplussed he's trying to be and reaches out to take the older boy by the sleeve of his shirt.]

I don't really remember. I'm supposed to be waiting for my dad. [He's supposed to be practicing his braille for his father and practicing his tolerance of the city for Stick.]

Did someone put you here?

No. I mean, I went to the fair, cause those were orders, but—

[ He doesn't want to talk about what happened next, especially with a little kid. ]

I think it might've been a different fair. I don't remember that tent being there, anyway. Or the carousel.

Orders? [The young boy latches onto the conspicuous choice of words immediately. He's willing to follow the stranger. Whether it's the distance they put between themselves and the carousel or the chance to focus his attentions in a single direction, it seems as though his agitation is fading.]

You make it sound like someone told you, you had to. Why didn't you want to come yourself?

'Cause I'm in the service. I don't get to do anything on my say-so. [ He sounds too young to be in the Army, and he isn't wearing a uniform, but that's his explanation. ] I think. Not that I can tell you about none of it.

[ Loose lips sink ships, after all.

But then again, maybe he doesn't need to be so secretive. The kid's just a kid, and something feels funny about all of this. ]

When all else fails, Malcolm takes to people watching. It can be one of the best ways to learn things about an unfamiliar environment. Like Matt, he ends up lingering near the Test Your Strength game. Even if it's rigged, like most carnival games, it's interesting to see how people react to it.

He ends up watching Matt, mostly because he can tell by the man's body language that he's eager to try out the game for himself, yet still seems to be held back by something. When the mallet is passed to him and Matt demurs, Malcolm sighs. He doth protest too much, methinks.

"Just do it," Malcolm says. He's not trying to be an ass, but really? "You've been wanting to for about..." He checks his watch. "Fifteen minutes."

It's certainly not comforting to be of a mind that everything that surrounds them may be meant to trick or to deceive. At the very least of all, Matt assumes, the games are surely meant to force them to reveal something about themselves either to one another or to whatever forces are here to pass judgment.

He knows he's being watched. It'd be a lie to say that he's not canvassing the place as well. Listening and observing the passers-by gives him the opportunity to experience aspects of it all through what he can glean from all of them. But eventually he's drawn from the fringes and into the center of the ring. The offer may be hard to resist, but the heckling? Now that's nigh impossible.

"Is that how long you've been watching me for?" Matt volleys back. "Let's hope the show is worth your while." He doesn't just take the mallet, but the carnie's arm as well. After letting the worker square him up with the lever, he swings with what looks like all his might. The puck rises up and up, but stops well short of the bell. It's a modestly impressive effort, and Matt shrugs and holds the mallet by its handle.

"You going to give it a spin?"

"Just about," Malcolm replies with a shrug. He was one of the only interesting people in the crowd, and it drew Malcolm's attention. When the carnie helps Matt find the lever, it confirms Malcolm's thought that the other man is blind. That only makes him more curious.

"You got it about two-thirds of the way up," Malcolm tells him, since he probably can't tell how far he got it from the top. After watching Matt test his strength, Malcolm can't really say no, can he? "Sure."

He takes the mallet, rears it back over his head, and gives the lever a whack. The puck goes about as high as Matt's and Malcolm nods. "Better than I thought I would do."

It's just chance that brings Hawks to the same tent as Matt one night. Well, chance, insomnia, restlessness, nosiness. Some combination of all of that. Hawks has to get into everything to try to figure it out, so here he is. Inside the tents don't give him much room to stretch his wings and fly around, so he's not planning on lingering, but…

But he's pretty sure that dude had a cane and sunglasses the last time he saw him. He hasn't seen a blind acrobat before. He wonders if there's some kind of power or if the guy was just an acrobat before losing his sight and it's muscle memory or if he's just pretending to be blind for some weird ass reason or what. Maybe he's just super into the whole sunglasses at night thing. Who knows?

Hawks decides to stick around and just straight up ask. That's the kind of person he is. He figures that as far as allies are concerned (and anyone stuck on these islands is an ally until they prove they aren't), it can't hurt to know more about them. So he catches Matt when he's back on the ground again.

"That was some pretty fancy trapeze stuff. Not that I'm an expert or anything, but damn."

It's not like it's surprising that someone would be performing in the middle of the carnival, but there's something familiar about the motion. Jennifer, of course, knows a wild number of people who are obnoxiously acrobatic, so that's not exactly a way to narrow down the list. It comes to her in flash of red hair and sunglasses.

"Show off!" She yells, because that is the correct way to reintroduce yourself to a friend in the middle of a weird carnival island after being kidnapped and no one can tell her otherwise.

No matter where the hell the universe drops him. He always end up a baby sitter again.

When the kid who stumbles off that ride looks only faintly like the man who embarked upon it, Logan plucks a smouldering cigar from between his teeth. He considers the boy with narrow eyes and holds up his out stretched hand. "How many fingers am I holding up? he asks.

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Matt Murdock | Marvel 616 | OTA

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THE CAROUSEL