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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.
no subject
He smiles up at Kyle with a licorice whip stuffed in his cheek. "I feel like there's a chance you might be patronizing me. But I'll take it. Thanks for the help. You're a good rower. We could crush a lotta these games I bet. Can you have Redvines? Even like one?"
no subject
"I'm really not. And thanks. Yeah, I can have a couple." He leans over to kiss Quentin's cheek. "If you can bring yourself to share."
no subject
"That reminds me... I don't really know anything about diabetics. So like. What should I do if you have too much sugar or don't get insulin or whatever? What's the protocol for, you know, keeping you alive?"
no subject
"Oh, well. Hopefully that won't ever be an issue - the High Temple stocks me up with insulin and shit every other month. But, okay, uhm, if my sugars get too low and I get dizzy or start shaking just feed me something sweet. Juice or candy or whatever. If I pass out, I've got a glucagon shot in my bag." He hefts his bag as he speaks.
"If I have too much sugar I'll be like, wicked thirsty and get a headache. So get me water and don't let me sit down, make me move around. And my blood sugar monitor is in my bag, too. Ditto insulin." He smiles and shrugs. "I'm pretty on top of it, though."
no subject
"Got it. Ok. I can do that. I know you've got all your stuff and whatever but like. I dunno. I still don't trust this place to take care of us like all the time. Do you?"
no subject
"You worried I'm gonna croak on you? 'Cause I'm a delicate normie?"
no subject
"Or maybe it's a perfectly justified concern because basically every relationship involving a mutant and a human being goes sideways for one party at some point," he points out.
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"Are there even that many? I thought you guys all lived on mutant fuck island."
no subject
"Yeah now. But we didn't like a year ago. And while they all end up dating each other anyway a handful of humans often end up in the mix," he shrugs. "Some of them do OK. I'm pretty sure Mister Beaubier's marriage is normal and boring. Carter's mom was a normie and that didn't end well. Wolverine almost exclusively dates normies and I hear most of them end up dead. The odds just aren't great."
It takes him a moment of rambling to catch himself.
"Not that you have anything to worry about. It'll be fine, I'll look out for you."
no subject
He nods, eyebrows knitting together for a moment before his forehead smooths out. "You're really bad at reassuranced, Quentin," he says dryly.
"But I trust you. Besides. I'm a lucky normie." He laughs suddenly. "Oh, god, never call me that in front of David, okay? He threw a fit when I said it, I guess it's basically a slur. But whatever, I've had worse."
no subject
"What? No, I meant it!" he says and pulls Kyle closer by the arm. "I won't let you die. Not of giant mantises or killer clowns or diabetic ketoacidosis," he promises.
"You are kind of... the least normal normie I've ever met," he thinks to add. Because it's true. He's never met a human being with quite as many strange experiences as Kyle. "Calling you a normie? Pftf. No way." his face scrunches up and he maws another Redvine. "He did tolerate me longer than usual the other day though. I assume that has more to do with you than me. Maybe he figures you'll be a good influence on me."
no subject
Kyle blinks, startled, and then melts against Quentin. "I believe you," he says.
Then he grins again. "You mean I'm NOT? Heh."
no subject
He could have applied a little extra persuasiveness to that, but the fact that Kyle seems a little touched without the interference of his powers comes as an unexpected ego boost.
"You tell me!" he says, nudging Kyle's shoulder with his own. "Certainly not in terms of competitiveness as we've just demonstrated! What sort of positive influence do you think you're bound to have on me?"
no subject
Kyle thinks about that as they walk. "I dunno," he admits. "I don't really think you need much of one, really. Maybe I'll like... just make you a fraction more polite."
no subject
"Polite!" he barks. "I'm plenty fucking polite! Politeness is over rated anyway! When I have ever not been polite enough for the situation?" You can almost see the evolution towards his acceptance of his criticism with every changing question.
no subject
Kyle tips his head back and cackles. "Dude. Dude, you're a riot. C'mon, let's get your candy put away and maybe we can cuddle before Roxy shows up."
no subject
After meandering through the caravans with their haul Quentin lights up at the prospect. That wagon he drags— or however it follows him— changes shape on a whim. It's a big pink steamer trunk when Quentin lobs it into their vardo and stuffs it under the bed where it dissolves entirely from existence and its contents— so many buckets of Redvines— go thumping to the floor.
"Come get some," he declares flinging his shirt and shoes off as he tromps into their temporary home.
no subject
For other people, anyway.
Kyle tromps up after Quentin, grinning. He shuts the door and toes his shoes off before he starts undressing. "Come get some? Seriously?"
no subject
"What? It's an invite!" he says hobbling around as he pulls his socks and pants off. Flopping onto the bed to shuffle the latter over his hips and stretch out in his shorts. As bizarre as this island is, at least the locals are mostly sporting accoutrement from the last couple of centuries and he's found more things he's comfortable to wear.
"C'mere," he smiles patting the bed next to him. "I was promised snugs." It's not so much a come hither look as it is kind of foolishly optimistic and undeservedly innocent.
no subject
He climbs into the bed, looking a bit like a weird pale spider in his briefs. He cuddles into Quentin at once.
"I keep my promises."
no subject
Strangely though he manages to feel even more at home out of his newfound clothes now that they are all items he's chosen wilfully.
He wraps himself around Kyle until their limbs are still thoroughly tangled it's hard to tell which lanky arm and leg belongs to who. "You're a good fucking cuddler," he murmurs into Kyle's shoulder.
no subject
"It helps that you're like, REALLY fun to cuddle."
no subject
"I don't think you'll find a lot of support for that opinion but maybe you're immune to my boniness." Or maybe Quentin just hasn't had a lot of practice. For now, he fascinates over any part of his partner he can reach. Stretching his palm against Kyle's just to see how much further the his fingers reach.
no subject
"I don't need support, I have evidence right here." He smiles softly as he stretches his own long fingers before folding them between Quentin's for a moment.
no subject
Kyle's sweet talk never fails to make Quentin snuffle with laughter. Not because he doesn't enjoy it. The stupid grin on his face suggests he very much does. But because he's never known someone so shamelessly sappy. Least of all towards him. He squeezes Kyle's hand in turn when he doesn't quite know how else not to be a little embarrassed by a thing he so plainly enjoys.
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