livinglot | ⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME #1

WELCOME TO THE SHOW!↴

Or, more specifically, Lost Carnival's first test drive meme! 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 read the full premise here.
Reserves open October 5th at 12:01AM EST.
Applications open October 7th at 12:01AM EST.
You can apply as a newcomer or as a "veteran" character who has been in the carnival for up to three years.
TDM threads can be used as game canon after the fact if both characters are accepted and the players agree to it.
If you are interested in additional IC and OOC plot responsibilities, consider applying for a Supervisor position.
Supervisor applications will start being processed a few days after apps open, and will be selected on a competitive basis. If you want a supervisor position, it is best to submit your application as close to the beginning of the application cycle as possible. If you don't get chosen for your desired supervisor position, you will be given time to rework your application to be a regular veteran, or to apply for a supervisor position that is not yet taken.
Lost Carnival could use some additional moderation assistance! If you are interested, please let us know here.

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. Visitors to the carnival comes from many different worlds today, as the ringmaster casts out her recruitment lures. 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 (pictured above) 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.

► 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.

► NOT YOUR WHEELHOUSE (NEW): Sometimes, even magical ferris wheels get stuck. The carnival's particular wheel is enchanted to create a particular out of this world experience - as you pass along the top, you feel as if they are so close to the sky that you can interact with the stars like baubles hanging above your head. Of course, the novelty probably wears off when the wheel is broken and you've been stuck enjoying the light show with some stranger for the last half hour. How are you going to pass the time?

► 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.

► WILL O' WISPS: The ringmaster's will o' wisps have gotten free, and she's asked that everyone keep and eye out and help her reclaim them regardless of their official jobs. Wisps are small creatures that burn both hot and cold and comes in a few different variations of the same basic theme. Handling them physically (or psionically, or magically, for that matter) is difficult due to their near intangible nature. Touching and being around them can result in confusion and a sensation similar to being comfortably drunk.

► 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!

► RIDDLE GAME: For a bit of fun, the ringmaster has left a variety of locked chests around the worker areas of the carnival, each with instructions and a riddle written on their lids. The chest will accept three guesses from each worker before refusing to respond to them any further. If you guess the right answer, the chest will open and you will be rewarded with some manner of fun magical knick knack. If you've run out of guesses, maybe you can conspire with someone else and promise to split the prize?

► 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!

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I can't find my brother...

_{[Thankfully (?) his appearance is strange enough that it distracts her from how bad she feels. Wow. What a costume. Tears on hold for a moment she sniffs, staring up at him.]}

I like your costume...your horns look like candy corn!

[The Ψiioniic nods, picking his cat up off his shoulder before placing her on the ground at their feet. She moves forward to smell at Susan's boots instantly, and promptly sneezes.]

Bored? I can't imagine a kid with a talking cat doesn't have better things to do than come here.

Aren't these usually rigged?

He doesn't say it out loud -- even Keith can spare a little grace now and then, if grace means standing two steps back for an extra moment or two, arms folded, silent, avoiding messing up her shot. His eye follows the curve of water across the cooling shadows, the hole like a pinpoint from their distance. Pidge's second attempt lasts, it feels, longer than her first, but no better. The gun's stream tapers; off to the side, the booth's mechanical clown cackles, jangles its creaky arms in offensive glee as a siren swoops through the wannabe-comical notes of a loss: wah. wah. waaah.

Keith crosses over as the tune eddies away, quick and sure, to check out the gun from over her shoulder. A little too quick, maybe, when they're in strange territory, and he hasn't actually announced himself.

"Which one?"

Well, I've already seen everything in the forest, and my brother was busy doing things. And I didn't want to blow anything up on accident, so I was bored.

Heh.

[He hopes this kid looks out for herself. He grins.]

Looks can be deceiving.

[But in which direction?]

"I'm Goku!" he said, taking the gun in his hand. He knew guns, being around Sanzo's quite a bit, but never one that squirted water instead of bullets.

"I've never played either, but I guess we can figure it out together. Uh...I think we're supposed to aim at the round thing, there." He pointed to the targets that each gun had, a few meters away. On the backdrop, there were rows of horses lined up with colors that were matching the different colored guns each of them held.

He wasn't sure exactly how the whole machine worked, but he was pretty sure that if your aim was good, your little horse went faster.

[The Psionic just laughs.]

Everyone's got experience with riddles after working here long enough.

[He walks closer, making a show of peering at the chest. He's wondering if the peacock will actually ask him for help at all. Or if he'll just try to order it.]

[Ψii just shakes his head.]

Hey, I don't know what kind of weird fetishes someone like you is into.

[Eyeball's though, are definitely going to turn a lot of people off visiting. Well, the more normal people at least. He uses his powers to shoot the thing back her way.]

Don't make me tell Rini you're harassing the guests.

[Ψii smiles, it really just makes him want to show off more, but the kid wanted to play a game, so might as well oblige him for now.]

Let's see what you got.

Do you have a habit of blowing things up on accident?

[The Ψiioniic begins to look concerned.]

Well... Sometimes. Not too much though!

She lifted the small mechanism, observing the gun, the target to hit, and her own horse on the rows. Both of them in the same sandy color as her hair, in what Yukine attributed as a cute coincidence.

"I think so," Yukine nodded to herself as she put a finger beneath her chin, before turning back to Goku with a smile, "my name is Yukine Miyazawa. It is a pleasure to meet you. I don't believe I have seen you around here, and in fact much of this doesn't seem to be from around here..."

It was all weird, and in some way fascinating. Even her companion Son Goku himself looked different from most people in her town.

Deciding to focus on the present, and instead embrace that sense of strangeness and wonder of this carnival, Yukine rose her gun with one hand, trying to look as playful as in movies, anime, and manga.

"Are you ready?"

[He just smiles at her, his short antennae relaxing as she seems to be calming down for now at least. His freckles shift from a soft indigo to pinker shade.]

Thanks kid, but it's not a costume. I really look this way, see.

[He leans over, letting her feel his horns if she wants to. It's sort of a weird thing to let someone do, but he's the only troll here and she's just a kid.]

The same thought is undoubtedly circling Pidge's brain, too. She's beginning to doubt that anyone can win this stupid game and after her second attempt and she's strongly considering going over to try out the lucky ducks or even the ring toss. As the clown jeers at her in its insistent mechanical tone, she sets the gun down to glare at the target, as it might aid her in a third attempt. As she ponders over whether to go or to give it another shot, a familiar voice is suddenly in her ear.

"What do you mean, which one--?" The response comes automatically before she has a chance to process, then she whirls around. "Keith! Oh, man! I--I thought I'd lost all of you guys when the castle--!" She's babbling a little, a huge smile splitting her face.

"I can't believe you're here!"

MIRROR MAZE

By the time she stumbles into the mirror maze, Nala is frankly already pretty disoriented. She'd been travelling for days when she stopped -- ostensibly to hunt but also to despair of her chances -- and that was when the so-called 'carnival' had appeared, shimmering in the evening desert like a mirage. Everything since then has been kind of a blur, and the mirror maze isn't a great deal less overwhelming and confusing than the carnival's lights and sounds and crowds.

Or at least, it isn't until her reflections start telling her she's abandoned her sisters to suffer under Scar's rule and that she has no hope of finding help. Anyone else in the maze (or near the entrance or exit) will hear the echoing roar of a lioness as she uselessly swipes a paw at what she knows must logically be an illusion...

GAMER'S CIRCLE

Okay, she doesn't understand this either. She lives in a cave and doesn't know what money is. She's already lost her tickets because she doesn't have pockets or hands. There are so many unnatural lights and colours and constructions the like of which she's never seen before...

Curious, Nala puts her paws up on the edge of one of the game booths so she can peer at it. No answers are forthcoming. Rubber ducks are involved, but Nala has never seen a rubber duck before, and she can only just about work out that these are supposed to be representations of ducks. She tilts her head.

"What's all this for?"

She might be asking a passerby, or the person manning the booth -- her puzzled attention is still on the ducks.

TRYING TO LEAF

At first she thinks the forest might be her best bet. Coming from the savannah, Nala is definitely more familiar and comfortable with open spaces, but trees still seem less confusing and incomprehensible than the tents and buildings that make up the carnival proper. But it turns out that these trees aren't much like any trees she's used to, either, and it quickly becomes clear that she's not going to be able to find her way back to the desert she came from this way. She prowls through the forest with mounting frustration, head low, tail switching behind her. To anyone not used to encountering lions on an everyday basis she might almost seem like she belongs here...

Deceiving?

_{[What's that supposed to mean???]}

admission

He's never seen a travelling circus before. Heard of them - maybe in a book about the time before the war, but seeing one all lit up and full of people like it's always been there? That's new. That's very new. Preston is confused, and more than a little bit wary but he's up, trying to work out some kind of admission with the clerk. The least he can do is look into it, and he'd be lying if he said that there wasn't a part of him that wasn't slightly curious.

Something of value. Hard to give up something of value when everything in pack is junk, weapon mods... He shrugs. "I have caps, if you'll take those..."

mirror maze

Roped into trying a few games doesn't detract him from trying to remain on guard, or gather any information about this if he can. The mirror maze seems like it could be worth checking out, if not be kind of fun.

It's not.

Preston swears, doubling back, feeling the dreads of panic as he walks past his own reflection that he swears is taunting him. He's lost.

Half an hour here, now and no sign an exit. Now he knows he hadn't imagined his reflection earlier, it's talking to him, gesturing. "You're gonna fail everyone else, you know that? Why are you even trying? Give up, man." and another "You should have never made it out of there, should've died with the rest of them..." It's nothing that he's never heard before, but it leaves him rattled, none the less.

It's hard to ignore, yet that is what he tries, and it leaves him tense - his jaw clenched tight, hurrying from hall to hall.

trying to leaf

If he were in the mind to explore more, he would. But as it is, he's spent enough time there as it is - Preston makes for the exit and into the bordering forest. He's no expert on prewar floral life, but if he had to hazard a guess, he'd say trees didn't look much like this. Everything is so green, but not only that - it's glowing.

Holy shit.

He's lost, though. Even though he knows for a fact this is the way he came, and he hasn't been turned around, it's a shock when the front gate once again looms in front of his path. Preston turns, and begins back for a second time.

And for the third time, he's standing right at the carnival gate. "What the hell?" He whirls around to the nearest person. "Hey, 'scuse me! Can you tell me if there's another exit, or something? I'm a bit lost, I think."

wildcard

[ Games, rides, food! Anything you wanna throw at him. Just not in the literal sense of throwing. ]

Edited 2016-10-03 01:54 (UTC)

Uh, alien, yeah.

[He fidgets, just a bit uncomfortable as the conversation continues.]

I mean, some of these features are new, but mostly I still look the same.

[Which is more than he assumes he can say for Gilgamesh, judging by his dragon-like appearance.]

_{[There is no way that Bonnie is going to pass up an opportunity to cop a feel of a candy corn colored horn. Gingerly she reaches out to touch them, squealing in excitement as her fingers run over the surface gently.]}

W-Woah! Cool! That's so cool!

_{[Dedenne squeaks, equally curious, hopping out of her pochette to clamber up atop her head instead to sniff at the horns. They didn't smell like candy (that would be weird...) but they were interesting enough.]}

"A vampire?" Pidge's voice takes on an air of disbelief again as she eyes Gottleib. Then again, he is... kind of ashen. Her weight shifts a little and she leans back on her elbows.

"So you're a creature of the night who sucks blood from the living?" No sarcasm here, no sir.

[ Childermass straightens at the voice, so unlike that of the mirror images, and looks around. It's useless to, but impossible to not, by sheer instinct, try to locate this other person lurking around the maze. He won't move from his spot, though.

He's sure he'd only get more lost. ]

Not of much use yet, I will give you that. [ There's a tightness to his own words that he wishes would go away. He expected strange and dangerous. Actually dealing with it is quite different. ] I was not aware asking for proper directions called for an additional fee.

Reflex: the flex of his fingers as she spins around, ready for a mistake, to catch her if she's stumbling -- but no, it's Pidge after all, talking in her usual sharp tumult, quick as anything.

The castle. There's still a thousand-thousand questions jostling for priority: how'd they even land? where'd their lions go? (how could anyone miss a lion in this mess of lights and trees?) why do so many booths look deserted, crawling with shadows that stir and sway at the corner of his eye like nothing human?

Luckily, Keith's a boy for focus.

"Yeah." His gaze cuts briefly groundwards, drags back again to Pidge's familiar beaming. It's no time for misplaced guilt. "I'm guessing you haven't seen any of the others around."

[ Now that was an act. Kerubim had been enjoying the performances so far well enough, but that display of skill was simply inspiring. Amongst all this training as an adventurer, working with knives had never been high on his list, but after watching Shen work he was starting to reconsider. There was no doubt in his mind he'd be good at it. This was his chance to meet a true master of his craft. Maybe he could convince him to share some of his knowledge.

At the call for volunteers Kerubim did nothing to hide his enthusiasm, leaning out of his seat with his arms raised. He glanced around at the number of other people vying for the opportunity nervously. Was he going to let this chance pas him by?

You bet not. Taking matters into his own hands, he climbed onto the dividing wall and leapt onto the stage and showing off his most charming smile.]

A volunteer? Look no further than Kerubim Crepin, master adventurer!

Hey, like I said, I don’t need the mallet. And I’m gonna say we can just negotiate the prizes after I beat this thing.

[Seriously, how does this woman even expect him to hold that thing? Sheesh.

The dragonfly hovering next to him zips forward and forks over two tickets. Spyro himself steps up to bat and paws the ground a few times, getting his game face on.

Without another word, he springs into the air, does a forward somersault, and comes crashing down hard on the target with surprising strength, head-first. He might even have hit it hard enough to ring the bell at the top, if the thing isn’t too rigged.]

What I mean... is that just because someone doesn't seem scary, doesn't mean they're not.

[He could site a number of individuals that confirm this observation.]

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⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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gamer's circle

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Keeeith! <3

Nala | The Lion King | Newbie

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preston garvey / fallout 4 / newb

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piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiidge. ♥

Do Your Work

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