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

[ Byakuran doesn't even flinch as she lunges towards him, not planning on making any sort of rash move that could result in actually getting injured, because as far as he's concerned, the probability of her actually taking a stab at him (literally) is less likely than one would generally expect. What does she have to gain out of stabbing him out here in the open after all!! Maybe someone with less common sense and the ability to think things through would react in fear or jump away, but Byakuran stays calm and grounded. This must be a shocking sight to anyone watching.

As the knife stops just short of his skin, he tilts his head up a bit, his sweet smile melting into something more akin to a smirk.]

Ah? What would be in it for me? Something other than a gaping chest wound, I would hope.

[ There's a small twitch in her features, so slight it might be hard for the ordinary person to catch it. She might even taste a little bile, if she overreacts hard enough. She decides that Byakuran is getting on her nerves today. Even if he doesn't know whether he's doing it or not, just the word 'hope' makes her mumble obscenities under her breath. ]

You know what's annoying? [ She raises her brows. ] When people don't know how to accept a good offer even if it's right in front of their face.

[ She throws the knife behind her casually, striking yet another hole through the tent with the sheer force. ]

Even worse? When they waste my time.

Ack!!!!!! You're in a bad mood today.

[ He overreacts childishly, his eyes going wide in mock surprise--he doesn't seem to actually take her comments personally. In fact, all he does is tilt his head to the side a bit in order to study her more closely, even as the knife rips through the backside of the tent. ]

[ Ah. He remembers now! ]

I was only kidding with the whole 'hope' thing. C'mon, you were on edge before I even came in here, so don't go pretending it's all my fault!!

What's the big deal?

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..

[ She's going to pretend to think about it, only because she thinks humoring the other is as good of a decision as any. She wants to put off doing this stupid set as long as she can. She continues humming for a solid forty seconds before she rushes out her response. ]

I'm tired. [ Among other things. ] Doing something as menial as this every time we go somewhere new isn't even Despair-inducing, it's just boring. It's labor that's meant for ordinary people! Ordinary, ugly, smelly people who can't even get off on the shit their mama gives them. I should've gone with something like your job....Maybe.

Someone like Junko-chan going out on the expeditions with me? Hmmmmm... [ Yeah, he's gonna mimic the prolonged humming. ] I really wouldn't have it any other way! But. You're stuck here tearing holes in the tents. It's really too bad.

[ It's one of the things that they've been able to bond over. You know, being horrifically bored with the type of work that they had to do here. It's not exactly easy to go from ruler of the world to more-than-amateur knife thrower!!!!! But Byakuran is just the person to understand her sentiment. ]

I'm actually surprised you weren't more interested in seeing the other things the universe had to offer initially.

[ They're both creatures who rose to power through the influence of boredom. So it's easy for him to understand why someone like Junko (and by proxy, almost like himself) would find repetitive work dreadfully boring. ]

[ He has a point.. Junko picks at her ear with her pinky, looking off with disinterest. ]

I 'unno! Don't they like, pick stuff out for you or somethin'? [ She kicks the dirt, eyes positively sparkling. ] I mean......don't get me wrooooong, I totally do wanna see the stuff aaaaallll these places have to offer! Who wouldn't right?

Buuuuuut..... [ There definitely is a level of power to it all, but frankly, if she wants to do anything Nefariously Despairful (she needs to find a new writer), there needs to be some sort of element of surprise! Right? ] The me right now wouldn't suit that. [ It's said with such a dramatic shift in tone, so blankly, it might catch any normal person off guard.

And then she's back to giggling, that little high-pitched tune of hers, before moving to wiggle her finger at Byakuran. ]

That's why I can count on you though, right! You'll be my eyes, AND ears (sorta)!

Oh? You're counting on me? You really lay it out there!!

[ Chuckling, he waves his hand in front of him, as if brushing off this idea that given the right resources, they could work together perfectly like a well oiled machine. Well, as perfectly as two egotistical power-hungry people could work together. There was only so much joking they could do about their own histories without looking suspicious to everyone else around them. ]

When you say it like that, it really sounds like we could be a team. You know, the inside man and the outside man. Just like the movies.

WOW! [ Way to make this awkward, yuck. ] Don't make this weird....... It's not like I WANT to depend on you or anything!! Gosh!

[ She crosses her arms, turning her back to him as she stares the hole in the tent down. Outburst aside, that it exactly what she's saying. But he knows that he can't really depend on her, and she can't really depend on him. If she had to out him for personal gain (or boredom), there'd be no hesitation. ]

Just like the movies....huh.

[ She thinks about it, maybe mulls it over.. She even sighs a little bit as she realizes she's only putting off the inevitable. ]

Huh.

I think our budget is bigger than that.. Like one of those video games that has the most linear path, making all your decisions entirely useless in the end.

[ Yeah.......that sounds about right. ]

Wait, why are you distracting me anyway? Didn't we go over this path already? I'm supposed to be brainstorming right now.

[ Although, to be fair, all the shit she does during her performance is entirely made up on the spot or bullshitted seconds before. Not that many people know or can tell with how nonchalant she is about everything. ]

I'm not gonna keep ominously talking about our Mysterious Pasts for the next five minutes, we already milked that as much as we could. That's boring.

⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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