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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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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!
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.
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.
Molly Hayes | Marvel 616 | OTA
"STEP RIGHT UP, FOLKS, STEP RIGHT UP AND TEST YOUR STRENGTH!!"
The ferry ride here had been nice, although Molly did feel like she was just getting further and further away from her friends as she went down this rabbit hole. Still, something her mom had once said to her stuck with her now, "Sometimes, Molly, there's no way out but through." That seemed to be the case here. She couldn't go backwards, because these were islands with lots of ocean around them, so she had to keep moving forward to each new adventure. She'd been told she could keep one thing from the last island, so she'd kept a little mini-pumpkin from the pumpkin patch. Somewhere along the way, she'd gotten a Sharpee and had drawn her closest approximation to Karolina's face on one side, and Old Lace on the other. After all, it wasn't a good pumpkin unless it had fangs.
Now she wandered the Carnival, her eyes wide as saucers, taking in all of the sights. Unlike Pumpkin Patches, Molly had been to a few carnivals in her time. They weren't this level of, well, classic but she still knew what they were about. Here she'd already played a few games and gotten a few snacks, and now was looking for something else to do.
"HEY KIDDO!" Molly turned to glance at a portly man in a striped tank top. She couldn't help but giggle, as he also had a moustache twisted up into curls like a cartoon villain. The ensemble was capped off by his shiny bald head. "YEAH, YOU! STEP RIGHT UP AND TEST YER STRENGTH, WHADDAYA SAY?" Everything he said seemed to be in all caps. "JUST FIVE DOLLARS, AND YOU COULD WIN A PRIZE."
"Okay!" The Temple had furnished her with spending money, and she wasn't exactly trying to budget it.
The big man grinned and hefted the mallet, handing it to her. "JUST DO YER BEST, LITTLE KIDDO. SEE HOW STRONG YOU REALLY ARE!"
Molly's eyes flared pink, and she brought the mallet down. The little bullet rocketed up and slammed into the bell with a satisfying clang. She turned to the shocked carny barker. He took a moment to regain his composure, and then smiled a mischievous smile at her.
"DOUBLE OR NOTHING, CAN THE LITTLE GIRL DO IT AGAIN???"
"Well duh," she retorted, lifting the hammer.
"JUST REMEMBER, SOMETIMES THIS TESTS A DIFFERENT KIND OF STRENGTH, A STRENGTH OF SPIRIT. THINK YOU'VE GOT WHAT IT TA-"
CLANG!!! And then, THUNK. The bell had flown from the top of the game and landed beside them, making a dent in the ground as it wobbled and fell over.
The barker just stares at this little girl in shock as she sticks her hand out, ready for her prize.
IV Well, she wasn't scared of clowns before... (CW: violence, abuse, sadism)
Molly sat in the Big Top, watching the show. It wasn't what she'd expected, but it was still pretty freaking cool. In one hand, she held a cone with a giant swirl of cotton candy attached to it. So far, the carnival had been really fun, if a bit lonely. Even now, she was very much enjoying a show, but by herself.
So when the clowns start rolling out, Molly's nose wrinkles up but she's kind of excited as they start actually talking to people. Sure, they're kinda creepy, like a doll collection in a horror movie, but who cares! It's all part of the show, right?
"Hey kid," says one greasy looking one. It honestly looks like some asshole who's doing this as a side gig and doesn't enjoy clowning at all. Molly isn't really scared of clowns, nor does she hate them, but she isn't a fan of stranger danger and that's what this particular clown oozes. "Betcha like punching people, don'tcha?"
"I mean, I punch the bad guys...?"
"Just punching them over and over, it's gotta feel good."
"Well, I'm a super hero..."
"Feeling that flesh start to buckle under your hard knuckles. Feeling bones start to crack. Knowing you're stronger than this loser, that you're the strongest one of all. Feels pretty good, don't it? Being better than a slob like me?"
Molly starts to giggle nervously, and then with a shock realizes that she can't stop. What this clown is saying isn't funny at all, but she's laughing. And the giggle does start to become a laugh, at that.
"Knock them down, hurt them bad. Cause them pain, because you can. That's what super heroes do, isn't it. Might makes right, and they love finding socially acceptable reasons to hurt people, people they decide deserve it. You love finding those reasons. Better than a video game, because it's real. Hurt them like you hurt your parents, because your parents hurt you. Show them you're strong. Punch, punch, punch. Crack, squish, crack. It's okay because nobody bleeds, at least not on the outside."
Molly's laughing, but she's also crying now, and she screams "SHUT UP!!!" when the clown starts talking about how she killed her parents. And then, missing the irony that she's proving the clown right, she leaps at him and starts punching him over and over, knocking him to the ground and trying to make him stop saying these awful things.
"Yes, punch me! You like it!! Harder!!! HARDER!!!! IT FEELS GOOD TO BE A HERO, DOESN'T IT??? THIS IS WHAT A HERO LOOKS LIKE!!!"
I - David Just Amused By Bells
"I'd give her the prize she won," he said as he stepped forward, grinning. "She won it fair and square. And if you don't, I guess you might be out of even having a game. She's clearly strong."
I love that David jumped in on the polar opposite bell stories of my characters!!! :D
Molly beamed and flexed her thin little arms in response to David's appreciation. That, and the Barker's taking control of the situation again, had the crowd cheering in applause. After all, people went to Carnivals for a good time and a good show, right? And Molly had contributed to a good show!
"Um...I want..." What did she want? She put a finger to her lips as she seriously considered the question. What could join the little pumpkin in her pocket as a souvenir of this island? "Can I have that?" She pointed at the bell she'd shot out of its casing at the top of the strength test game.
"THAT...that is...an unusual request..." The barker was thrown off again as he considered.
And while he was, Molly turned and fully recognized David. "OMG!!! You're Prodigy!!! So cool!!!" She frowns. "I wish I had a cool knowledge for you to absorb, but I'm just a kid. Do you wanna know what they're teaching in social studies?"
Then, "OH OH!!! What's it like being on a team with Northstar?!? I have a poster of him on my wall!! He's better than Wolverine because I haven't had to throw him across any cities."
Yep. He just watching all these bells
"Molly Hayes," he greeted her with a nod. "You've definitely identified me correctly, but Tommy tends to insist I'm a nerd, and who am I to argue?"
Wait, she's aware of X-Factor? Wow, he's definitely going to laugh.
"Jean-Paul is haughty, which isn't shocking. But he takes care of us all. Though he keeps butting heads with Logan's son, which isn't shocking at all. And sometimes Logan needs thrown across cities."
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"THE LITTLE GIRL OF THE AMAZING STRENGTH HAS WON THE PRIZE SHE MOST DESIRES - THE BELL THAT IS THE SYMBOL OF HER GREAT STRENGTH! IF YOU WISH TO SEE MORE OF THE CURIOUS, THE BREATHTAKING, THE FASCINATING, AND THE WEIRD, DON'T MISS THE FREAK SHOW!!!"
"Hey!!! I'm not a freak! You take that back!! I'm a mutant, like Northstar, and one day I'm gonna be an X-Man too!!!" She pauses. "X-Person, I mean." She nods decisively. The voice of Gert in her head railing against things like sexist naming schemes never lead her astray.
She pouts as she picks up the bell. It's pretty big, but she has no problem slinging it on her back like Captain America's shield.
"I'm a nerd too. I know all of your names better than I know Social Studies. What does haughty mean?" She grins as Prodigy approves of her throwing Wolverine around.
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"No, while my psychomimetry would possibly give me that, it's... limited here. No, someone told me there was a girl named Molly here, and then seeing you quite strong and recognizing me specifically made me realize you're the Molly that Tommy told me about."
Because if there was one thing Tommy did, it was talk. A lot like Molly. Which meant at length. And David had always adored listening to him.
"Haughty means... Well, sorta like snobbish but it's less to do with money? Even though he has a ton of money. And yes, you could totally grow up to be an X-Person. Though I suggest a better team, like maybe Marauders as they are now."
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Okay, so she was a nerd for the mutants, but her vocabulary was pretty much what you'd expect of a 12-13 year old. Worse, actually, since her schooling had been extremely intermittent.
Case in point. "Ooooooh. Haughty is a fancy word for snob! I get it!" She blinks. "Tommy...Tommy...OH! You mean the Tommy! Your boyfriend!!" She giggles, because of course she does. Talking about romance inspired giggles.
"Wait, how does he know I'm here?? I didn't know he was here! That's so cool!!! I bet this island doesn't have a super hero team. Maybe we could form one! One of the better ones, of course."
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"It's not an actual tree. Psychomimetry. One word. Means my mind gets knowledge and skills from others. It's different from real telepathy."
The Tommy indeed. He... Oh god. His smile faltered at having Tommy called his boyfriend. They weren't though. He'd never had that term applied to them and it hurt.
"He doesn't know you're here. He's... He's not here. But a woman named Clarice told me there was a girl named Molly, and I just put it all together when you saw me."
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Molly might not be the most well educated kid, and next to David she was damn near an imbecile (but so were most people, tbh), but she was pretty good at being emotionally intelligent. When David's mood faltered, she was suddenly there, reaching out to pat him on the back. They weren't exactly friends so she wasn't about to hug him, but he seemed like he needed a friend right in that moment and she wanted to help. She didn't understand why, and she certainly didn't know that he and Tommy weren't actually together (her knowledge wasn't perfect, and in fact was pretty fragmented), but she knew a sad face when she saw one. More, she knew that face when she saw it, because more than one Runaway had worn that expression over the years. Karolina, Nico, Xavin, Chase, Gert, Victor...all of them at some point had looked exactly like that when the person they wanted to kiss had come up.
So maybe, at that look, she did know that he and Tommy might not be boyfriends. And she knew enough not to press the issue.
"Clarice?" She screws up her face in thought. Now it's her turn to put two and two together. "Do you mean...Miss Chloe?"
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Still, emotional intelligence was a valuable thing, and her touch made him smile at her. That was comforting. Thanks, Molly. Even if he won't say it out loud.
"Right. Chloe, that was her name. She just gave me this 'Silence of the Lambs' vibe I guess."
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"Silent lambs?" Careful there David. She's about to make you feel a little old. It seems to be her other super power.
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Look I am terrible and I own it.
Are you though?
You doubt this after I invoke the pigs??? XD
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IV
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She must have made quite the site, reminiscent of a victim of the Joker in the cartoons about the Batman, when she felt a hand on her shoulder and heard a familiar voice. It was enough to cut through the temper tantrum, and she realized what she was doing and what it must look like and fell back. The clown, not hurt at all really because she hadn't been using her super strength, scrambled away and melded into the shadows, disappearing, his job done. All that remained of him was a creepy laugh hanging in the air
"I can't," she cried, laughing so hard it hurt, as she flung her arms around Chloe's midsection.
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She shakes it off, and pats Molly's back.
"Shh. It's okay," she murmurs. "He won't hurt you. He's gone now."
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"H..he s..s..said...m-m-mean th-things!!" It seems like such a stupid accusation, and Molly can't seem to convey past the laughter just how awful it really was.
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“He’s not saying the mean things anymore, Molly,” she reassures, quietly but firmly. “He won’t say them again.”
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"Nuh..not...funny," she laughs and laughs, "C..can't...stop..."
Unfortunately, it doesn't even occur to her to tell Chloe what he said to stop the laughter. She doesn't understand the magic or the rules. All she knows is the clown told her terrible things, things she hasn't even considered but lay deep within her as concerns for what she is and what she likes and what she did. And now she's laughing and she can't stop. These are the things she knows in the moment.
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“I’m sure it wasn’t,” she says, soothingly. “Try to take a breath, okay? Do you want to tell me about it?” Because that’s what she does with Trixie - talking about the bad dream helps it fade away.
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"I..I...I..."
It was getting harder and harder to talk. But she felt a powerful need to tell Chloe what was wrong, because she could see the worry in her friend's eyes. Chloe might not be her mom, but in that moment Molly felt an attachment to her as all she had here.
"HE SAID I LIKE TO PUNCH PEOPLE AND THAT I LIKED KILLING MY PARENTS!!" She spat it out really fast and in a rush. Then the gasped a few times, and the urge to laugh started to subside. It wasn't completely gone, but clearly she'd done something right in getting that much out, anyway.
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And then she says that. And Chloe feels a bubble of anger in her chest - not at the child, but at the clown.
"That was a cruel thing to say," she says after taking a breath. She'd have stronger words with the clown, if she thought she could find him. "He shouldn't have said that to you."
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IV.
"You know if you kill him I think you'll get recolored." He shrugs. "Maybe it'll be worth it though, I dunno what you have against clowns."
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The words don't entirely make sense to her in her hysteria. Of course, she'd only barely paid attention to any of the intro communications, and to her the Scrywatch was just a nifty piece of jewelry she'd woken up here with. Look, she hadn't been to school in forever and as such was entirely unused to paying attention to the teacher or doing the homework, okay?
But also. There's the small matter that the clown's ugly words had burrowed deep into her mind like an awful little parasite, and she was overwhelmed with feelings of guilt and being upset, and on top of that she couldn't stop laughing.
"HE'S SO MEAN AND HE NEEDS TO STOP BEING MEAN!!!"
As if on cue, the clown's head jerks towards Quire, too unnaturally fast and creepy as fuck. Heads should not move like that - not that fast and not turning that far. It's messy red lips spread into a widening grin, and the teeth almost appear to be sharp. Hellooooooo Pennywise.
"Oh look at little Quintin. So boring. So average. And you know it, don't you? That's why you dress up so much. You're just a knockoff of Xavier and you always have been. But you sure do love to play pretend, just like a clown!!!"
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When he clown leans into him, Quentin sneers in disgust at the figures proximity and leans away synchronously. He slurps on his drink with disinterest as he goads him. To his credit, he might actually have walked away from this without a fight if not for the unexpected magical interference.
"Listen Pagliacci, maybe stay away from kids before someone starts wondering why you got into this line of work," he smirks to say it. "Second, the only thing funny about that is the fact that heh, you seem to think I've haven't been told that before. Heh heh. By like everyone who's ever met me." He snickers, unaware for the moment that the giddiness rising up in him isn't just all the sugar. "In fact, a fucking 13 year old tried to tell me that like an hour an ago and just like him you clearly have zero idea who the fuck you're talking to!" His stomach starts to cramp up and soon he can't control his laughter. "Your whole stupid act is literally less original than teen angst!" he cries thoroughly caught up in his own curse by now.
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But for now, she's pretty wrapped up in the clown trauma. Although with its attention split between them, the effect was not quite as intense as it was before. It was still awful, but she had a little more focus than she had a minute ago.
But for Quintin...the clown seemed to not react at all to his attempts to cut back at it. If this clown even existed as anything regular on this plane - it did not - it certainly was not any kind of creature that cared what others thought of it. But Quintin did. Whether or not it had had any idea who it was talking to, it was getting a better idea now as it got a firmer grip on Quintin's mind, digging in, searching for pain, and whispering awful nothings in his ear that made sense only to him.
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It's a bit like an out of body experience being able to hear and feeling himself laughing to the point of breathlessness while feeling nothing but irritation, but the more that thing has to go looking, snooping through his head for the right thing to say the more Quentin can deduce what it's looking for.
"A secret," he cackles, wheezing through his words. "It's looking for your secrets. Tell it. Tell it some embarrassing secret."