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

[It's been a long busy day- and with this place, who knows, maybe it's actually been a couple and none of them have simply caught on. Still, Joker prefers days like this: entertaining guests, trying to go after easy marks, chatting it up with other workers. It keeps his mind busy. Their recent little, ah, "take of leave"? A nightmare for him on some level. Now, he's back in action, and it feels good.]

[Still, even someone with his absurd amounts of energy needs a break sometimes. Joker's starting to feel it, he thinks, wings drooped a bit after dealing with the latest recruit. That familiar voice is just in time, and he twists around to grin at the acrobat.]

Maybe it is, ha ha! Lord knows I could use one. [Stretching his good arm over his head (and trying to avoid the antlers), he saunters over.] Wotcha gonna do with that, win a game with it?

[His head nods to Gáe Dearg, even as a teasing smile curves along his face.]

[It's not too hard to see the weariness in the set of those wings, or the way the man still seems to consciously mind the position of his antlers. They must take some getting used to; both are more dramatic physical transformations than Lancer has experienced.

Perhaps there isn't much to change in a man whose entire life was swathed in similar magic. Like the heavy charm crystallized in a single grain of colour on his cheek, most of Diarmuid's new affectations have been subtler marks of beauty meant to draw others to him. He's tall and handsome, soft and sparkling, poisonous in a way that drives people to self-destruction.

It makes him very, very good at his job. Which means he can get away with encouraging an extra moment of rest here or there.]

Wouldn't be the first time. [And he grins broadly, full of warm and infectious pride, before twirling the spear over his arm and presenting it toward Joker in a move so fluid and casually graceful that it can't be anything but a playful response to that teasing.] Is that your challenge?

['Cause buddy, it's a losing bet.]

[Playing innocent, Joker splays his fingers out and grins.]

If I made that my challenge, one of the stalls would probably get destroyed, and the Ringleader would chew me out until I was mush.

[Especially after all the renovations they've just had to do in the last year. Yeesh. Letting his arm swing down, he whistles idly and lets his eyes roam the Gamer's Circle. It's not like he really needs to. Being with the Carnival long enough has gotten him pretty familiar with just about everything here. Still, it's nice to look at his options now and again.]

Lessee, what game are we both bleedin' atrocious at? Just ta put things fair.

[Legendary weapons and excitable, competitive heroes do not a gentle combination make, when it comes to potential property damage. It's a painful truth and a fair cop out - he won't point out that it hasn't applied to the last few times he's made that bet.]

What have I done to make you want to embarrass me, Joker? [He offers a game in good faith and the first thing the man's mind jumps to is their shortcomings. Vengeance, surely.] I always give kin a fair advantage.

Though it's not wrong to say you'd stand a better chance if we weren't playing against one another.

[Confidence. Or a quiet plea for truce before the stage manager realizes he can capitalize on the greatest weakness of all: Lancer luck. It's not exactly a secret by now that he's almost as good at losing games of chance as he is at conquering tests of skill; the question is whether you're cruel enough to take advantage of it.]

Now, if that ain't a baseless accusation! I'm puttin' myself on the table for embarrassment too, ain't I?

[That is to say, Joker can absolutely be that cruel, or at least a bit of a shit, and anyone who's dealt with him long enough knows it.]

[Fortunately, his energy is a bit too low for more than verbal trolling, so he just clasps his hand against Lancer's shoulder and laughs]

Don't they have that one fish scoopin' game or some such?

[Only the fish in their ponds tend to nibble through their nets which, he's been told, is not how things are supposed to happen in... Japan? He thinks it's a Japanese thing.]

[Please, Joker, take a moment to appreciate the form of the muscle under your hand there. Lancer's shoulders are a work of art.]

Hm. Is it here again?

[Jests aside, his expression falls into one of genuinely thoughtful innocence as he considers when he last actually played that one. It must have been a while ago, too, since he goes so far as to catch his chin with the hand that...had been holding Gáe Dearg.

Vanishing polearms. Great parlour trick, until you have to explain that you're a ghost and it only works because the weapon is quite literally a part of you.]

Very well. [The smile he breaks into when he looks to Joker again suggests his next words aren't born of inexperience.] We can see if they haven't filled the pond with fighting fish this time.

[The mysteries of strangely vanishing weaponry is something Joker has learned to accept while in the carnival. Sort of like whatever weird bodily changes people go through while working here, or hopping from world to world, or how no one actually knows what's in the Carnival Surprise meals.]

[With that decided, he gives another couple claps to Lancer's shoulder and laughs as he takes off.]

With our luck, they'll be flyin'! I think the Ringleader's been gettin' antsy for things bein' quiet so long.

["Appearances can be deceiving" is one of the first lessons anyone can learn among the fae. For the better, usually. Surely no one wants to know what's in the Carnival Surprise meals anyway.]

If you think that would give you the advantage, you're mistaken. [A taunt to chase the supervisor, where Diarmuid Ua Duibhne gives him a head start; one doesn't need a majestic pair of wings to fly - or at least a near enough approximation of it to dazzle spectators. Perhaps it's better to say that with their luck, the fish will be the sort to burrow instead.

Regardless, Lancer will keep an easy pace with Joker, breaking aside only to greet the spirit keeping the booth companionably when they've arrived. Another lesson worth learning: always be polite to your hosts.]

[Joker isn't polite, exactly, but he is amiable and friendly as he is to just about anyone who works in the carnival as he comes to a landing. You never know, after all, when it's good to know even the low level workers. Leaning over to observe the little artificial pond that's always deeper than it logically should be, he whistles.]

Ah, think it's the fighty ones... Ah well, at least they don't eat wood, ha.

[His saving race- he'll always have a hand now, apparently.]

[Lancer leans over the water as well while Joker speaks, though he goes so far as to dip his fingers in and try to stroke the fish along their trailing fins as they dart by.]

Foh. So luck does favor us this day. [What is a game between friends without a few theatrics?] Will you do us the honor of gathering the tools of our hunt?

[His expression is injected with all the dignified humility a knight can muster, but there is an element of selfishness to his request - smoke tends to cling to Lancer, and on the off chance that it actually is what the gamekeeper is made of, he'd rather not risk spending the next few hours smelling like a dying brush fire.]

Well, if yer makin' me feel so special, I suppose I'll take that little bit a honor for myself.

[Being... well, sometimes a gentleman, a little bit, he doesn't mention the whole smoke thing. Instead, he just nabs some tiny little hand nets from the gamekeeper. A few pointlessly flashy fingers tricks later, and he holds one out to Lancer from between his digits.]

So, how should we compete, eh? First ta get a fish, or gettin' a bunch of fish?

⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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