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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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"Why wouldn't it?"

Of course David was here. Of course David was weighing in. Of course David was leaning against the side of the caravan now, covered with a mess of stuffed animals which came out of his pockets, his bag, and were tied around him like a bandolier. Yep, he needed to find Wade soon.

"These islands aren't exactly normal."

Kyle looks over and grins. "Dude," he says. "You look like a beanie baby bounty hunter or something." He scoots over - he's skinny, there's probably room for David to sit if he wants to.

"C'mere, tell me why you're determined to win all that crap. And HOW. I thought all these games were rigged."

Of course he will sit by his friend. He perched lightly and tries not to let the nose of an alligator toy poke Kyle in the hip.

"I am really bad at resisting when carnival barkers question my ability. And then it just got to be a thrill to beat them all. I'm giving them away. Pick any you might want as a gift."

But his eyes sparkled with mischief over the idea that things were rigged. Like that would stop him.

"When Cyclops and Gambit are teachers at your school, not to mention Iceman, you pick up a ton of physics, ability to do force vectors in your head, and the most insane accuracy in throwing. Add in having been in a room with both Hawkeyes for a wedding and you have a person that will kick ass at all accuracy based carnival games. And don't get me started on the other ones. Seriously. I am made to win prizes."

Kyle cackled at that. As a competitive person himself, he could respect David's motivations entirely. Especially when he was beating the corrupt.

"I dunno who all those people are," Kyle pointed out, smiling. "But what I'm hearing is that you're smart and badass." He studied David's amazing stuffed bounty and pointed at a stuffed bumblebee. "Can I have that one?" he asked with genuine excitement.

When David handed it over, he faux-swooned. "My hero," he said. "So what've you been up to, dude? Kind lost track of you on flower island there for a bit."

"It's expected that you don't know who they are. But... Well, it feels less like I'm stranded so far away from home if I say their names like they have meaning and weight," he admitted. So yeah, it's more a mental health thing anyway. But the comment about being a smart badass earned a brief flush of embarrassment before he started to tease the bumblebee free and offered it over.

What a swoon though. He rolled his eyes at the drama. This dude gave off Tommy vibes, but less so. It's nice, to remember shit like that.

"I mostly grumped at flower island, had a really awkward talk with my boss, and learned that my memories of my sister can be regained, but with no clues for how."

Kyle's face softened at once. "Well, then you say their names all you like," he said gently. At David's blush he grinned a little wider.

"Awkward huh? How come? And dude, if there's a way, we'll figure it out. I promise. Maybe somebody with brain powers can unlock it, and if they can't I'd be willing to bet we'll find more magic bullshit that could."

Well enjoy that appreciative smile over understanding, Kyle. It is earned.

"There's stuff going on at home that got rather... complicated lately that I don't know is really the most polite thing to discuss," David offered as a non-answer answer to Kyle's question. He wasn't sure how to broach the topic of what happened to him around anyone except for Jean-Paul. It was a secret he was holding very closely.

Though something told him that no matter how closely he held it, Wade knew.

"I've known telepaths since I lost them. They aren't in my mind to unlock. The Oracle was able to give me one, though. I think maybe it had to do with my blood."

There were theories that memories could be encoded in DNA itself, but even he didn't know where to stand on those.

"Though the telepath I did know back in the last place, he compiled what he could of my sister from the minds of others and gave it to me in a way to make me feel like they were my memories. I know her face, though memory doesn't hold voices as well, not and recall them."

Kyle's thick brows knit together. "You don't have to be polite with me," he pointed out. "Like, I think we're friends, right? So you can say whatever. I'm not going to judge you unless it's something SUPER sick. Like reddit-legendary sick."

Kyle nodded, stroking his chin absently. "Yeah," he said. "I mean, it makes no sense, but a magic flower doesn't make sense either, so."

He threw an arm around David's shoulders and gave him a squeeze. "I'll help you," he promised.

"I didn't do anything sick, Kyle. It's more about what was done-" how to put it delicately, "-in circumstances involving me."

There. Tact.

"Magical flowers make perfect sense. There are some in my world too. They can help you see the future. They don't look anything like the Oracle did, though."

Wow, arm around the shoulders, that's not normal. But he does smile at it. Smiles a lot.

"Jean-Paul offered to help me too. Helps that he's got some detective background. But you just radiate some of that same 'not going to accept an answer of no' energy."

Kyle's brow creased at once. Softly, he said, "Then that wasn't your fault. I dunno what happened exactly - I won't make you tell me, but you can if you want to - but I do know that sometimes... Sometimes bad stuff happens to you. And it hurts a lot, and it's not great to remember. But that doesn't mean YOU did anything to deserve it."

Kyle beamed right back. He's so used to physical affection with his guy friends it doesn't occur to him it might be too familiar. "I'm sure he has skills, but I'm surprisingly resourceful for a normie." A term he'd picked up from Quentin.

"That was... oddly insightful. And a conversation that Jean-Paul and I had a length," David admitted, looking a bit shocked. He might need to rethink his evaluation of Kyle. Less like Tommy than he'd thought. Because Tommy would never get the words to come out in a shape like that. "And I think I might be happier not quite sharing my traumas. I think people might look at me differently."

Still, David went very still at the term 'normie'. What the fuck was that about?

"Don't call yourself that. No person is normal, and calling someone a 'normie' sounds a little too much like something that people back home might use as a slur," he answered, his voice a touch sharper. At least Kyle hadn't called himself 'flatscan'. David had been called that before, and he'd have actually found who taught Kyle that word and kick their ass.

Kyle lifted an eyebrow at him. "I'm not completely stupid," he said lightly. "And that's your choice, and I respect it. But I honestly don't think I'd look at you any differently, David. I'm not particularly easy to shock."

Kyle's smiled faltered at that reaction. He hadn't thought anything of it. "Dude, it's okay," he said. "Quentin calls me normie all the time. It's not serious, it doesn't bug me."

Kyle, of course, is a bit too used to accepting nicknames that he probably shouldn't.

"Not saying you are. Hell, man, it takes a special kind of sharp to leap to the conclusion you did and be right," David answered. Because he wasn't wrong. At all. And that was what caught him off guard, nothing else. David did blame himself, he was having trouble not doing that. But to have someone he didn't know read that so easily...

Damn.

"You're super smart," he offered with a smile. "But I think I could probably shock you, even if you have met other mutants than me."

Quentin calls him... Nope. David stops and offers a dark look. That was not acceptable.

"Seems Quire and I need to have a talk about that then. He knows better. Friends don't call friends normies."

Kyle shook his head. "You guys really seem to think you own the market on weird-ass trauma, huh? Okay, well. Even if you did shock me, I wouldn't hold it against you. You're a good guy, and nothing will change my mind on that one."

Kyle's expression went from gently amused to panicked very quickly at that. "Whoa, whoa, nononono. No, please, for seriously." he waves his hands back and forth in negation. "Do NOT go telling him not to call me normie. He'd be so annoyed at me."

"Own the market? Hell no. Like, there's Spider-Man back home. I literally don't think anyone could out weird-ass trauma him, ever. And plenty of other people have it weird too. Or hard."

He had met so many in the ImPort world that he's realized that while mutants had a lot of shit to deal with when it came to racism, his life wasn't nearly so weird as it could be.

"Thanks for the believing I'm a good guy, though. I work really hard to be. To stay good. Because I had this weird thing growing up where I was pretty certain I might go evil genius."

But he had to be stern on this matter.

"Kyle, I'd get on his ass for calling you anything offensive. Normie is... it's a not nice thing mutants call humans. It's not the worst some trot out, but it's there anyway. And Quentin isn't exactly friendly to humans most of the time, so yeah, I kinda want to break his nose for it. Not that I could."

Stupid fucking telekinetics.

Kyle's smile was a little indulgent, because of course David brings up another superhero. "Right," he says simply.

His eyebrows raised at that. "You? No offense but you don't seem the type. Unless it was like, one of those 'I am smarter than everyone else so I will take over the world for YOUR OWN GOOD' type situations."

Kyle scowled. "Not that I'd LET you," he said. "For one thing, I am perfectly capable of beating his ass myself. For another thing, he's not serious, he's just ripping on me. I'm not upset about it, so why are you?"

Dude, he doesn't know a lot of non-heroes, okay? His life is really fucked up.

But damn he was wincing at how on the nose Kyle was about the whole 'what type of super villain David would have been' question. He was not mentioning the nukes part of it at all. He'd comment but, well, there was a more important question to address.

"I... There was a thing that happened in our world, it stripped a lot of mutants from what we were. Some of us died. I woke up one morning and suddenly I didn't belong. I was baseline, I was a flat-scan, a normie. I got a lot of grief for it. A lot of bile. A lot of people like Quire that we went to school with throwing that word in my face because they knew it hurt. That is why I care. It's like... It's like if some British person made monkey jokes around me. It gets my blood up."

That wince told Kyle a lot more about the situation than words would. "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh," he said, grimacing. "Dude. Sorry."

But then there was this other thing, and he felt a little guilty that David would feel bad at all. But on the other hand... "Dude, if ANYBODY made jokes like that around you I'd help you kick their ass," he said. "But like... It's not directed at you, okay? I won't call myself a normie around you, I promise, because now I know why it bugs you. But you are one hundred and twenty percent not going to go play knight in shining armour trying to protect my honour or something, okay? I'm not bothered by it, it's kinda our thing. He calls me a normie, and I call him an insufferable image obsessed twat."

Yeah, sorry. Sorry people that he theoretically would have hurt.

"I'm not out to protect your honor, Kyle," David answered, rolling his eyes. Dude clearly could take care of himself. "My parents are human. My sister that I can't even remember is human. Some of my best friends are human. I'm offended because of how it hurt me, and I'm pissed off that people think that just because other people are racist toward us, we should do it right back. Your honor has nothing to do with it."

Besides, he has to crack a smile. "He is an insufferable image obsessed twat. Always has been. He's asked to have his DNA changed to make his hair that color. Dude so beyond obsessed with his image. Like, I've heard horror stories."

That at least relaxed him a little. He just really, REALLY did not want David running off and antagonizing Quire for something he still felt was pretty much none of his business. "Okay then," he said. "Just like... if he says it on front of you, fine, yell at him. But don't go yell at him because of what I said. Please. As a favour to me, if nothing else. I don't want the headache."

Kyle started giggling. "I know! And no body hair anywhere!"

...Kyle, how would you know that.

"Alright, as a favor to you. But if he tries it in front of me, I promise nothing. Just because we get treated like shit by bigots doesn't mean we should do it to. That's true no matter who you are or what you believe and all that," David said, his voice a little tense still.

He's been part of too many minority and 'not family friendly' groups to not be angry at this sort of behavior.

Still, he has to pause. Because David knew that detail too because that was special order as well. Josh had talked about how it sucked going in to do that job.

"And you've, what, been showering with him? Because I know how I know that he's just this side of a naked mole rat, but I don't know why you know that."

"That's totally fine and totally fair," Kyle agreed happily. "Bitch him out all you like then."

Kyle's face went pink, but he scowled. "He's not a naked mole rat," he protested. "I mean, it's hilarious that he cared enough to ask someone to do that, but it's not like he looks bad, jeez." Then he shrugged and suddenly found his stuffed bee VERY interesting.

Oh, nothing will stop him from bitching out his new 'teacher' and sorta kinda teammate. But now he's looking at Kyle and his pink face. Oh dear.

No. Fucking. Way.

"You call it hilarious that he cared to ask. I'm the one that gets to listen to Josh Foley bitch over having to fiddle around with Quentin's genetics. So I've got to know, are you sleeping with him, or is it just a crush on one of the largest superior assholes mutant kind has turned out?"

One of was an important distinction. There were plenty of other superior asshole mutants, but Quire had carried a fragment of the Phoenix Force that that ALWAYS bumped someone up several slots. Not to mention being an Omega level.

Kyle froze. Completely and utterly. His face, hitherto only pink, flushed bright scarlet.

"...he's not THAT much of an asshole," Kyle muttered before he covered his face with his hands.

"And I don't see why it matters which!"

"Out of respect for you and our friendship, I won't give him a shovel talk," David assured Kyle, smiling softly at his friend. "I will quietly and internally, after this moment, judge you for it, but not enough to do anything. And I'll extra respect you not wanting me to comment on things he calls you."

He pat Kyle on the shoulder and then shook his head.

"And I am going to be triple certain never to touch your mind because the relief of Quire being a telepath has always been that I never needed to know what he liked in bed, and I imagine you'll have a bit more hands-on knowledge of it and I really don't want to carry that around."

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