⇨ WISMUTH

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: S2:D6-D11
Where: Wismuth and the Carnival Grounds
What: The carnival enjoys a few days in Wismuth, a coastal city on this planet's version of the American east. However, there are a few things very unique about this version of the planet...
Warnings: The usual, wholesome fun.

PILLAR OF CREATION↴ Upon arriving, things in Wismuth will seem pretty peaceful. It's a massive city, with no shortage of things going on, but things like violent crime and homelessness are at an all time low. You can wander the streets without much scrutiny, presumed to just be tourists, and most people here come across as helpful and friendly. ► VIBRANCY: The main thing that sets this planet apart is its vibrancy - AKA, the raw creative energy its filled with, flowing from its status as a Pillar of Creation. There is no literal pillar, but Wismuth and its planet is a place where Creation's energy comes through strongest. As a result, everything here feels somehow more real, more intense in a way that's hard to put a finger on. Life is abundant, and its bleeds through in every sensation. ► ATTRACTIONS: There are plenty of things to see while going around the city. First and foremost, there is a lovely beach area bordering the ocean, and a number of tourist aimed attractions built around it. There are giant malls, movie theaters, live stage performances, museums and all kinds of other points of cultural interest. Anything you can do in a big city you can do here, but better. ► ALLOWANCES: The Ringmaster will be giving everyone a reasonable amount of local currency for a few days on the town. You can't make any massive acquisitions with it, but it's more than enough to eat out, see some shows, go to the beach, and whatever you like. You can feel free to pick up some casual supplies, like mundane clothing and souvenirs. There will be more given out later, after the performance week. ► PERFORMANCE: Performance week is starting early this time, after only a couple days of exploration. When the carnival has already been on vacation for a month, the Ringmaster figures they may as well get right to it, and then do more touring afterwards. Members of the local populace will find themselves in the carnival once performances begin, dazzled by the other worldly sights. Magic doesn't seem to exist here, despite the fact that it will flow easier for people bringing it from other worlds.

Comments

[hippocarnival]

Yuya makes a valiant attempt to stop in time, twisting his skates sideways. But it doesn't work, and instead when he hits Lambert's tail he trips over his skates and falls face forward to the ground with an agonized cry.

He rolls over, clutching his nose as he looks up sullenly at Lambert. "Not really... sorry." He grumbles under his breath, sitting up so he can slowly get to his feet. That's when he notices the camera and the little photo sticking out of it. "You're taking pictures?"

[whattaprick]

"Nightrunner reconnaissance. I can't draw, so it's as good a way of recording the worlds we visit as any."

Yuya doesn't seem seriously hurt, but Lambert offers him a hand up anyway, then tugs the picture free of the camera, waving it slightly as it develops more for something to do with his hands than any real hope it'll develop it faster or anything useful like that. The colors resolve on the paper -- more intense just by virtue of being here -- and he turns it around to show Yuya a really unflattering picture of him a split second away from eating dirt.

[hippocarnival]

Yuya gladly takes the hand up, stabilizing himself. He wrinkles his face in some sort of assurance he didn't just break his nose, and is about to thank Lambert... but the words die on his tongue as he looks up and gapes at the picture. He's right, it is unflattering.

Yuya pouts and immediately tries to snatch the photo from Lambert. "So you probably don't need that one!"

[whattaprick]

And because Lambert is a big old bully and significantly taller than Yuya, he has zero problems holding the photo out of reach as he laughs at the look on his face.

"I don't know, it looks like important evidence on the dangers of modern pavement construction to me."

[hippocarnival]

Lambert has more than a foot on Yuya, keeping it out of reach is child's play.

"Lambeeeert!" He whines, dramatically. Yuya starts hopping up and down, arms outstretched and flailing to try and catch the picture. Mostly, his hands just flap against Lambert's arm. "Come on, I didn't even get hurt!" Mostly, there's a small scratch on his face. "Nobody needs evidence for that."

[whattaprick]

He'll let Yuya continue to struggle for a few more minutes (because again: Lambert is an asshole) before he laughs and relents, letting Yuya snatch away the photograph. He's in a pretty relaxed mood, since as far as he can tell there isn't anything to worry about here for now. Of course, that could change in a moment, but for now, he's happy to take it at face value.

"How were you getting around that fast to begin with?" He looks down, like that might spontaneously offer an explanation.

[hippocarnival]

Yuya snatches the card, folding it up and stuffing it in his back pocket. He'll dispose of that later. He's grouchy for a moment, but Lambert quickly distracts him from his own ire with his question. Oh, right.

"With skates!" He explains, leaning back and holding a foot up so Lambert can get a better look at the rollerskates attached to his feet. They're bulky, designed to be worn over shoes instead of replacing them with the arm for the wheel retracted.

"I came to the carnival with them, but I haven't really had a chance to use them until now." Sure, they were multi-terrain enough to use around the carnival but there were too many obstacles. And they didn't have a place in acrobat shows the way they did in a duel.

[whattaprick]

That gets Lambert to raise his brows, but that checks out, more or less. None of the other worlds they've been to have exactly been known for smooth pavement and sidewalks, and it's not hard to guess those work better on smoother surfaces.

"Do you usually almost run over people back home too?" Arguably Yuya was still the one worse off between them here so Lambert's not exactly suffering, but he'll make fun of him all the same! "Must make looking around a lot easier. Have you seen most of the city already?"

[hippocarnival]

Yuya huffs at that accusation. "No."

Granted that's in part because he only got then recenty back home. He had them like, a day before everything went upside down and then he arrived in the carnival.

But he'd rather talk about the city than his maneuverability on these skates. "Yeah, I've seen a lot of it. It's all pretty normal to me, except how colorful it is. But it's not a bad thing."

[whattaprick]

Huh. So he's picked up on that. Lambert thought that was just witcher senses fucking with him again, but it looks like there's more to it than that.

"Yeah, I noticed that too. Haven't been able to find anything about it, though." No real good way to ask 'hey, why is your world so much brighter than anywhere else I've been before?'

[hippocarnival]

Yuya hasn't been looking, but Lambert's business reminds him a little that appearances can be deceiving, and a stop could be much worse than expected. He frowns, furrowing his brow.

"It seems like it's safe here, right?" Yuya's felt safe until now, but given all their prior experiences he'd like a little validation. And Lambert's supposed to be looking out for that stuff.

[whattaprick]

"As far as we can tell," Lambert confirms, though he'll also shrug. "That could change."

Sorry, Yuya. He can't offer much reassurance on that front. 'It's safe for now' is the best he can do. Nothing about leaping from world to world is really 'safe,' anyway.

"Feels like magic's a little easier here, for whatever that's worth. Might be a good place to practice."

[hippocarnival]

It's going to be all the reassurance he's going to get, and that's fine. He'd rather know the truth than be blindsided with ignorance anyway.

"Is it?" He perks up, however. "I don't think I've seen anyone use any magic yet. Not like you or Mr. Strange."

Is it just less obvious? Maybe, or maybe practicing magic in the middle of the park is too obvious.

[whattaprick]

"Neither have I. I've been walking around the city and I haven't felt even a hint of magic anywhere." Which is odd, he thinks. But then, people don't seem aware of the vibrancy of this world, either. Still, a world without much magic to it feels more like a relief than anything else. Portland was choked with magic, and look how that turned out.

His glamour is visible to Yuya because he's not consciously willing it to be unseen by Carnival members, and it's laughably ordinary compared to the ostentatious figure the gold horns and tail make him. If Yuya focuses on seeing past it, he can see Lambert's tail switching back and forth, ticking back and forth curiously.

[hippocarnival]

Yuya glances around thoughtfully. "Maybe it's like my dimension? If people can't really use it, they wouldn't know about it."

At least, he assumes they don't know about it if they haven't found ways to use that magic. It seems like everywhere else there's magic, people develop entire professions around it. Maybe his earth has more in common with this one than he thought.

"What else have you taken pictures of?" He turns back to Lambert. He's obviously been experiencing the city a little differently, so Yuya wonders what Lambert's seen that he missed.

[whattaprick]

"Oh, now you're interested in seeing pictures?" Lambert smirks, but he fishes out a stack of polaroids from his pocket anyway, handing them over to Yuya. As far as photos of actual people go, they leave something to be desired. Most of them are of places -- museums, libraries, other major landmarks and places where people gather. Most are taken either from the front of the building or angled at a view that suggests Lambert was standing somewhere higher, trying to get capture the lay of the land.

In between whatever isn't a place are random pictures of life around Wismuth, weird little details that probably seem ordinary to someone like Yuya but which Lambert wanted to capture for some reason. There's a picture of a swarm of pigeons descending around a bucket of spilled popcorn. The window display of a shop selling used retro game consoles. A cat hissing at the camera, back arched and tail puffed out. An empty playground.

What the pictures do have in common is that they've been shot with a clumsy, amateurish hand. It's the sort of disconnect from someone trying to get the camera to show what they can see with their naked eye, and failing to account that a camera's depth of vision is so much more limited.

[hippocarnival]

"They're not pictures of me." Not that Yuya's usually camera shy. But he takes the polaroids and flips through them one by one. He's not looking at them critically, so much, although the subject matter sure does seem odd for a few of these. He assumes Lambert was just having fun with the picture taking itself, if he's taking photos of pigeons and cats. He does notice the weird cropping, though, and the way some of them are blurred. He's never asked, but it'd make sense if Lambert was from the 'past' like Strange, right?

"You bought the really old camera, right?" He glances up to confirm, even though he's already seen it. And yep, that's a polaroid. "Is it your first one?"

[whattaprick]

"It is," Lambert confirms. He has a vague memory of using smartphones in Portland, but his life there hadn't really been focused around taking pictures. "Back home, you want a picture of something that actually looks like something, you pay someone a small fortune to paint it. This just makes it easier."

[hippocarnival]

Yuya can't really imagine going to someone to get a painting done of every little thing. Definitely not for the candid moments he's more likely to take a picture of in the first place. How would you remember all the details by that point?

"I can show you how to use it if you want." He offers the photos back to Lambert. "Digital cameras are more common now, but it's not much different."

[whattaprick]

"What's wrong with these?" Lambert asks, clearly puzzled as he accepts the photos and tucks them away back in his pocket. Whatever shortcomings Yuya sees in them, he clearly doesn't -- it's far better than anything he could draw, and that's really all that matters, isn't it?

[hippocarnival]

"They're not that bad, just kind of..." Yuya makes a picture frame with his fingers and turns it diagonally, like that's supposed to explain it. "Are you looking through the lens when you're taking them?"

He's no photography expert, but if Lambert's doing this for work there's supposed to be... quality, right? Or at least the subject a little clearer, or the detail. He's gotten around blurry, at least.

[whattaprick]

Lambert's blank stare probably says it all, but it still probably explains a lot when he answers:

"Aren't you just supposed to point it at things and press the button?"

[hippocarnival]

"Yeah, but... that camera doesn't have a screen, so you have to look through the window so you know what you're taking a picture of."

He stands... as straight as he can seeing as he can't bend his feet in these skates, trying to point out the eye window on the Polaroid from his 'more than a foot shorter' vantage point from below.

[whattaprick]

Obligingly, Lambert looks through, but frowns as he switches between peering into the window and at their surroundings. He can see what it's meant for, but he's still not seeing what Yuya's getting at here, really, so he settles on just thrusting the camera at him instead.

"Why don't you just take some pictures and show me?"

[hippocarnival]

Yuya fumbles with the camera as it's thrust upon him.

"Uh--okay." He turns it in his hands with a little frown, but his expression smooths out quickly as he lifts the camera up and peeks through the window. Aiming it right at Lambert.

"Say cheese!" He waits just one second before he clicks the button, grinning as the polaroid slowly rolls out.