livinglot | ⇨ 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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Pidge waved a hand towards the direction she thought she'd left the lion parked, for lack of a better word.

"Over there, through the trees. I mean, I was sure it was right over there and now every time I try to make my way back, I seem to end up back here..." She runs a hand through her hair with an annoyed noise.

"It doesn't make any sense."

A ship. On land. 'Is that where the space part comes in?' he wondered. A million different questions whizzed through his mind, but he knew he couldn't spend too long looking totally confused. He decided to say something before she clued in on how perplexed he was.

"Ah... I walked here. It wasn't very far from the outskirts of Maplesweet. I don't usually even leave town but curiosity overwhelmed me! The forest seems much more dense than when I came in."

A beat passed and suddenly he exclaimed, "Demons! Do you suppose it's demons? They are capable of all sorts of trickery. I have run afoul of them before."

The poor guy looked confused, but Pidge wasn't going to embarrass him by asking why. Instead, she just nodded as he began to explain how he'd come to be there himself.

"Maplesweet? Is that a town near here or something?" She asked, then blinked as he launched into the possible explanation of demonic influence.

"Um, I'm pretty sure demons aren't real."

"Maplesweet is the town where I reside. It was only a little over one kilometer from this place... or was it two?"

Gottlieb didn't have very long to ponder the math involved before Pidge responded to his demon suggestion. Her words caused him to shake his head while planting his hands on his hips.

"Dear girl, I assure you they are as real as you or I! Why, the only other time I wandered from the town was thanks to the dark, handsome charms of a demon. I ended up stuck in a cornfield until the dawn! It was frightful and itchy."

"I didn't see any towns when I was landing, but maybe I just missed it," Pidge mused half to herself before Gottlieb was explaining about demons being very, very real.

"Wait, so a demon lured you out to a cornfiled and all you did was spend the night there feeling uncomfortable?" Pidge seems a little unimpressed by all this.

"That seems a little low key for a demon."

"It's the truth!" he huffed, furrowing his brow, "And aside from that, the horrid creature stole my personal music device! That was a gift from a very dear friend. They may be devastatingly gorgeous but they also have no sense of--"

He turned to look back at the carnival, a low growl forming in his throat.

"At any rate, whatever is afoot is not something explained by rational means. You saw no town. I came here by my own two feet. I have witnessed many strange things in my time, but this is by far the strangest."

"Yeah, this is definitely strange and my last few weeks were already crazy. This is just getting crazier." Pidge ran a hand through her hair.

"I mean, I was in my Lion, was tumbling through space. Landed it--" She paused, waved a hand towards the trees, the carnival, the sounds of the rides and the games.

"--here. And now I can't find my way back."

A large sigh was heaved as he slipped onto his butt on the grass. Once he got there, he cradled his head in his hands.

"Oh Gottlieb, you've gotten yourself into a real mess now."

Looking back up at Pidge he gave her a mopey frown, "Do you think... others will come looking for us?"

Names! Oh, she should introduce herself shouldn't she. Pidge plopped down to sit next to Gottlieb. She hesitated, then offered her hand out to Gottlieb.

"I'm Pidge. And I hope so. I got split up from my friends right before this, though. Hopefully they'll come and find me if I can't get ou tthere to find them..."

Gottlieb took the hand daintily, giving it a polite shake.

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Pidge, in spite of the circumstances. I am sure my friends in town will be worried sick. They do tend to dote on me. I suppose it's not without reason, considering my past foibles."

He looked up to the sky, "... although, if they did come, would they be stuck as well? That would be frightful. They haven't the time to spare that I do."

"My friends are probably worried about me, too," Pidge replied quietly. The thought of the rest of her friends being stuck with her is both comforting and distressing.

"Yeah, same here. I mean, I don't have time to spare either, but here I am."

"My apologies. When you're a vampire, you have nothing but time on your hands," he shook his head, "It's certainly more cruel to trap someone without such a boon."

"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.

The sarcasm soared right over Gottlieb's powdered wig covered head, "For the most part. If it's a cloudy day, I can go outside then! It really is a bother. My town has a very lovely tavern, but otherwise not much going on once the sun goes down."

He opened his mouth to casually point out his fangs, as if he was sharing something mundane, "I luckily have friends in town who help me out when it comes to the whole blood situation ... oh no! That is a problem, isn't it?"

His expression darkened, "I am glad I had a late lunch, but that can only possibly last me a day or so... oh dear."

Pidge doesn't want to come off as unsympathetic but there's something distinctly uncomfortable about sitting next to someone who might regard her as a snack. She scoots away slightly, trying not to make her move too obvious.

"Ah. That might be troublesome, yeah. I mean, I can just go by concessions but don't you need to, uh, find someone to chew on?"

Luckily, no offense seems to be taken and he continues to be as oblivious as he has been since the conversation started.

"Quite right! It's unbelievably bad form to simply take such a thing from someone." he taps his chin thoughtfully, "Animals can also be a solution. Deceased, of course, I wouldn't dream of scaring the poor things. I quite like animals."

Turning to Pidge, he offers her a bright grin, "Although that concession food did look quite decadent. Even if it does not sustain me, I'll confess I have a bit of a sweet tooth anyway."

⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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I am so sorry I keep messing up tenses. Oops.