⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME: HEARTSTONE MANOR

[ringleaders]

WELCOME TO THE SHOW!↴ CHECK OUT THIS MONTH'S FOURTH WALL EVENT! MORE INFORMATION BENEATH THE CUT. In the meantime, this is an opportunity to try out your characters in the setting before you apply, or to put together samples for characters you've never played before. There are going to be options for both new arrivals and veteran characters. Before we get started, let's lay down some details: You can (and should) read the full premise here. Reserves and Applications are currently OPEN. You can apply as a newcomer or as a "veteran" character who has been in the carnival for up to three years. In the case of veteran characters, you will need to come up with an explanation of why they haven't been around the carnival recently. TDM threads can be used as game canon after the fact if both characters are accepted, the players agree to it, and it makes any sense contextually. If you are interested in additional IC and OOC plot responsibilities, consider applying for a Supervisor position. Head Cook, Treasurer, and Doctor are currently open. Otherwise, we're pretty much down for anything, roles wise. NEW RECRUITS↴ You gotta start somewhere, right? These prompts are for characters who are arriving in the carnival for the first time, and who are destined to sign a contract. How they go about that is up to you, but in the meantime they can enjoy the sights and sounds of something truly out of this world. Will you become her most recent hire? ► ADMISSION FEES: After crossing into the carnival's realm and passing through the trees, most visitors will find themselves at the front gate - though not all choose to enter that way. If they enter legitimately, however, they will have to pass by a clerk who will trade admission and tickets for various attractions and rides in exchange for "anything of value." What is of value may seem highly subjective, and so some may struggle to produce payment at first, though in actuality the carnival will take anything from mundane currency to items of purely sentimental value. ► MIRROR MAZE: The mirror maze is a big attraction in the carnival, and stretches much further on the inside than it looks like it will on the outside. It's hard to get through, and what's more, after you've been in there for a while your reflections will start gaining a mind of their own - mostly in order to taunt and distract you with personal information. They don't know everything you know, but they know more than they should, and their mind games can be pretty hit or miss. ► GAMER'S CIRCLE: Almost all of the game booths are organized in a large ring around the Cookhouse, called Gamer's Circle. Your can play just about any carnival game you can imagine here, for a variety of prizes sometimes traditional, exotic, or outright magical. Dart tossing? Got it. That game with the water guns? Got it. Most of these booths are currently manned by humanoid spirits who look like they are made of smoke. If they can trick you into earning debt, they will. ► TUNNEL OF "LOVE": A brand new attraction in the carnival, the Tunnel of Love is mostly what you'd expect from such a ride - two people sit in a boat together which journeys through some glitter filled caves, complete with mood music. Unfortunately, there is also something else in there with you... in the form a moody kraken living in the waters, who has very particular opinions about shipping, and may either stubbornly interfere with any attempted intimacy, or may politely encourage it. Or they may just generally be a dick if they're in no mood for either. The Ringmaster insists it is a romance expert. ► TRYING TO LEAF: No matter where you came from, you seemingly emerged from a forest. Obviously, to get back home you should be able to go back in the same direction, right? It turns out you can't. Worse, trying too hard to get through the wood will result in you getting lost, or turned back to the carnival. The trees here are not normal, and are varying levels of alien, including things like trees with glowing fruit or orange flowers that constantly burn like candles. ► WILD CARD: Anything else you can imagine in this setting! There are a lot of possibilities and you're free to explore them. Check out the rest of the game info or the locations page for additional inspiration. Want to make a starter with your character experiencing their first theoretical change? Go for it! VETERAN WORKERS↴ These prompts are tailored to the carnival's existing employees, the veterans. Odds are they've been here from somewhere between a few months and three years already, and know their way around the block. For them, this is just business as usual - and depending on their attitude towards their job, they may or may not contribute to a few people accidentally getting themselves a contract. Whatever you do, though, don't warn visitors away from the carnival - the ringmaster hates losing business like that. ► DO YOUR WORK: This one's pretty simple - just have your character doing whatever you'd like to have their job be! There is a big list of ideas over here, and you could use this to try things out with a character you intend to be a new arrival, as well. ► BREAK TIME: Whatever you were doing, it's break time! It's time for you to relax however you see fit. Do you enjoy some of the carnival attractions yourself, or is that old by now? Do you hang out in the Cookhouse to get a snack? Do you take a nap? Yolo, baby! ► DUNK TANK: Sometimes acting like a dick will earn you the gentle reprimand of being sent to work in the Dunk Tank for the afternoon - you know that game where people throw balls at a target, and if they hit it you get dropped into the water? It's like that, only sometimes there are daunting (but harmless) critters in the water, or some other strange magical affects to spice things up. Hopefully, the visitors will have bad aim. ► WILD CARD: Anything else you can imagine in this setting! There are a lot of possibilities and you're free to explore them. Check out the rest of the game info or the locations page for additional inspiration. Want to do a performance? Hang out in the Backyard? Choose whatever appeals!

Comments

I'm sorry, he's useless

[hypsilophodon]

[A small green-and-pink creature on two legs books it, running very fast not far above knee level. It's something like a lizard, something like a bird, and it's screaming with two voices. The one you hear with your ears is just emitting some panicked shrieks and whistles, but it's saving most of its breath for running. The one you don't hear with your ears doesn't have to worry about breathing and sounds like a man wailing in terror.

As he goes past it sounds like this.]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[Eventually he's gonna duck into a tent, a building, a stall, anything more enclosed, and while panting look back along his own length with his flexible semi-birdlike neck, only to become distracted with by his own quilled tail. And start turning in place like a dog chasing its tail as he's trying to get a better look, while muttering.]

Ohhh, nononno, oh, no, oh, how is this happening?! What's going on? What am I??

[If he sees you he's yelping something about TOO BIG and trying to bolt but he's made himself dizzy and will probably stumble or outright collide with something. It's not a good day to be a little dinosaur.]

Nicole the Holo-Lynx | Archie Sonic the Hedgehog (Reboot) | Trying out a Veteran Here

[sparkoflife]

Do Your Job

"Oh, gosh, I disappear for a little bit and everything goes to pot. I hated to do it, but problems at home needed me a lot more than here..."

In the now-occupied Treasurer office, there's a possible familiar face. "Possible", seeing as it's very certain many people never saw this figure before. About 4 feet tall in height, wearing an interesting purple and black ensemble.

Oh, and she also appears to be an animal. A lynx, in fact. Poking away on a handheld computer that she's holding with her tail. Horns protruding from her forehead and plenty of her clothing hiding away some of the gems and metal that cover her body.

"...ah, someone's here." she quickly turns around in her chair, taking the computer in her hand. "Hello, need something from Nicole? I'm a little busy, but I can certainly take the time to help out."

...oh, and she flickers just a bit, but that one's quite normal, being practically a living AI hologram.

Break Time

Trying to keep the finances of the Carnival is rough work, even for an AI! So much money, so many types of currency, the works! And having to keep an eye on them for so long can take it out on them. Thus, while there's a bit of down time, Nicole is fast at work, taking a nap.

Though, to make sure people still needed her, she opted to stay materialized and just swapped out her normal outfit for a pair of PJs. Don't worry, she won't bite. Maybe.

eleanor shellstrop | the good place (new arrival)

[whatthefork]

[ OOC: eleanor is from early season 2 and so some PRETTY BIG HONKIN SPOILERS will probably come up in threads, if you spoilers for the good place are a thing you care about ]

a. arrival
[ eleanor doesn't remember getting here. at first she thinks it's gotta be some weird afterlife thing, but after she hears herself say what the fuck out loud and janet doesn't answer any of her calls, she starts to seriously consider the possibility that this has nothing to do with michael. and this doesn't seem really...bad place-y to her. honestly, very little is outside the realm of too weird to consider at this point.

she definitely doesn't have any cash, but for some reason the people at the front gate take a sock stuffed in her back pocket that she forgot to sneak into chidi's laundry pile as payment.

she walks into the carnival and just comes to a standstill, looking around with her hands on her hips. she draws in a breath and mutters to herself. ]

And I thought the clown paintings were bad. What the fuck do I do now? Fuck, I missed being able to say fuck.

[ at least she hasn't actually seen any clowns. yet. ]

b. gamer's circle
[ well, if she's here, she might as well attempt to have fun? her parents used to take her to the really shitty two-bit carnivals set up in the high school football field over the summer when she was a kid, and she got pretty good at cheating. which she isn't, yet, but she's clearly considering it, because she's pretty sure these are just as rigged as the ones back home. and oh look, now she's arguing with the spirit manning the water guns. keepin it classy, shellstrop style. ]

I once won a game of beer pong with actual beer goggles on, and I did in one shot. Well, I had two shots before that. My point is, I have great aim, and I'm not even drunk right now. Your game is rigged, Smokey.

c. wildcard

drift | transformers idw (new arrival)

[auramatic]

a. admission/front gates
[ at first, drift is alarmed at how big the humans he's seeing are, until he realizes it's not that they're big, it's that he's small -- shrunk down to a height of only about 6', though everything else seems to be the same. he's even still got his swords, all three of them.

he finds it pretty odd that they're willing to take shanix for his admission fee, but he decides not to question it too hard.

he'll just be wandering around, questioning everything else, like: is he here for a reason? he has to be. it's true he's been feeling a little lost and desperate lately in his exile, drifting in both the physical and spiritual void of space in search of...something. not this. definitely not this. but maybe this is all part of a bigger picture, and he's just not standing far back enough to see it.

so have a very confused robot man with way too many swords looking lost and a little confused. he's spent some time on earth, but this is...decidedly not the same. ]

b. mirror maze
[ the mirror maze was definitely a mistake.

drift thought he'd try out some of the entertainment here, and he really should have just gone with the tunnel of love. that sounds...fun. this is just disorienting, and as he gets further into the maze, increasingly unnerving. he catches a glimpse of himself in one of the mirrors and his reflection shimmers -- still his old face, but not the one he wears now. deadlock. he blinks and it's gone, but then he starts hearing the voices, his own voice, sneering and cruel: you know, i thought i'd hit my lowest in rodion, but i never thought i'd be this pathetic... ]

Who's there? Show yourself!

[ drift's hands go to his swords and he spins around, looking for the source of the voice, but this...doesn't feel right. his old face appears in every mirror face around him -- some deadlock, some the face of the street junkie he'd been millions of years ago, all giving voice to an internal monologue he's done his best to smother: you hung yourself out to dry for your buddy rodimus, and now you don't have a home or a purpose. how many more lives do you think you have to save to make up for overlord? ]

That's enough!

[ but his protests do nothing. this must be some kind of test. primus must be testing him. but drift has no idea what he's supposed to do here. he looks like he expects his reflections to jump out at him, his usual cool starting to fall away. ]

c. wildcard

Solas | Dragon Age | New Arrival

[lonesomewanderer]

[Gamer’s Circle/Around]

[ He felt as if he was walking in a dream. Not that the action in and of itself was unusual for him. He may appear as if he’s walked out of a dream himself with his already pointed ears and wolf pelt attached to gilded armor. Normally he would have preferred to travel more inconspicuously, but stumbling upon this place had not afforded him such luxury.

The smoke-like appearance of the booth runners didn’t seem to bother him. In fact, he appears used to it in a strange way as he observes them. Spirits of the Fade of some sort? Though he’s never seen a gathering such as this if that was what he had stumbled upon.

The question he had was did this look the same for everyone around him. The Fade often shifted to suit those that were standing in it, meeting perceptions and expectations with ease. When someone who appears to be more ‘solid’ like him is near, he watches them out of the corner of his eyes and asks, ] What do you see, when you gaze at our surroundings?

[Mirror maze]

[ Curiosity led him here. He stepped through into the maze to see where it might lead in his attempt to learn more about this place and finds himself having more difficulty leaving it than he would care to admit.

It doesn’t help that there’s something amiss. Spirits, magic, some combination of the two were at play here. There’s a distant howl of a wolf and he can see the flickering movements of one in the mirrors, just out sight as if they were stalking him. It has been a long time since he’s been made to feel like prey and his jaw sets tight and firm as he glares at the mirror before him. ]

I am not here to play your games, spirit. [ Because it must be a spirit of some kind. He’s still trying to fit this strange carnival into his view of the world, of what he knows. Something was here that needed to be dealt with, for whatever reason it had chosen to hold this place under its power. ]

Chise Hatori | The Ancient Magus Bride | New Arrival

[unwantedgirl]

[Front Gates]

[Chise frowned gently as she stood before the gates, staring at the clerk that had just informed her what admission was like. To enter one had to give something of value. If that wasn't the most Fae thing that Chise had heard before, she wasn't sure what was.

She had half a mind to turn around and leave, unable to shake the feeling that this just wasn't going to end well but a much larger part of her was curious.

What was this place? Did Elias know about it's existence? Was anyone that she knew here?

A soft sigh escaped her as she came to her design and she reached into the pocket of her jacket to pull out the crystal rose she had created when she first met Angelica. She smooth a thumb over one of the leaves before holding it out, focusing on the clerk again.]

Will this be enough?

[This was such a bad idea.]


[Gamer's Circle]

[This place was definitely a haven for Fae creatures. Chise could feel it in the air when she first approached the gates but now that she was inside? Seeing all of the odd creatures and changed individuals wandering about was definitely all the proof she needed.

The young girl ended up wandering through all the stalls of games, pausing here and there to watch some other patrons try their luck and politely declining whenever one of the attendants tried to get her to play.

She may have willingly come into this circus but she wasn't going to play a game with a Fae creature.

Her wandering brought Chise to a booth that had close to a fifty bottles set out and a basket of rings for people to try their luck at. It was amusing to watch others try and she lingered close, hands tucked behind her back as she watched people try over and over again.

What prize were they even trying to get?]


[Wildcard.]