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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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?"

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!"

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."

Pidge's happy excitement at seeing one of her friends fades a little, her face flattening into a more serious line. She's been doing her best to ignore all the weirdness here, the strange carnival attendants and weird shadows that she can't seem to shake from her vision. She takes a little breath, then lowers her gaze.

"No. I haven't seen anyone since we tried to wormhole away from Zarkon. I just--I dunno, I landed and thought I'd at least look around. Glad I did--I found you, didn't I?" That gets another little grin before she shrugs.

"I hope they're all okay."

That's Shiro's cue, rung clear as a bell: a moment for reassurance, leadership, team trust. Unfortunately, they're two paladins out of five, and what Pidge's actually landed today is the castle nominee for Most Likely Not To Notice A Bonding Moment Because He's Still On The Training Deck.

"I'm sure they're fine." One beat passes in silence, and two, five, six. Don't fail here. Keith shifts his weight, palms the back of his head; the mullet, offended, springs back up after his hand falls away. As if to shake off the awkwardness of it, he shrugs hard. "But we'll probably be hearing about it from Hunk for the next year."

Hunk, who's found a lot of footing since they careened headlong into a space war, but is still liable to dwell on little things like we fell through a wormhole into crazy distant parts of the universe! we're probably still being hunted by Zarkon's entire empire! you wouldn't believe what i had to eat before we all got back together! how's nobody else freaking out about this? Now there's something to look forward to at the reunion.

Keith grimaces.

That Shiro isn't there to step in and reassure everyone, to bring together the little team (the little family) that had sprung out of their short time as Voltron just seems to punctuate the awkward beats that follow as the conversation hangs up. Pidge isn't anymore sure than Keith on what to say here, so she settles for giving a sharp little nervous beat of laughter at Keith's words about Hunk.

"Yeah. And he'll go right back to complaining about the goop, too." It's a comforting thought. Most people wouldn't consider being recruited into a war for the fate of the universe a 'small thing' but hey. She notices Keith's expression. Hesitates. She's not really a touchy person and she knows Keith isn't either, but she does stand a little closer.

"We'll make it okay. I'm still trying to figure out this weird carnival, though."

It's a remark to stir a real look. He'd skimmed the edge of the woods for the paths that had lured him forward, rounded the perimeter of the lurid little fair (twice!) -- but for the first time since he'd woken to a strange, bristling forest at his back, Keith looks at the actual carnival. Here a reeling shadow, there a prize hazy beneath a stagelight, but -

". . . not a lot of people, is there." And then, because some thoughts roll from mind to tongue in an unbroken circuit -- his brows twitch. "And they look pretty -- human."

"The people I've met look... kinda human? There were a couple that definitely weren't, though. I think one was a giant panda?" She shrugs.

"Not any weirder than the aliens we've met, though." She settles back, rocks on her heels for a brief moment. "The weird part is I don't really remember coming through the woods to get here? I feel like I remember landing the lion--I must have, to have gotten here. But I don't remember actually arriving, you know?"

It says something about their lives that remarks about a giant panda only gets Pidge one (1) sweeping, dark-eyed glance, like Keith's had any medical training aside the obligatory medpro boot camp into which the garrison'd sunk all its pilots. ("If you believe that you are suffering a head injury," their instructor had drawled, and Keith'd instantly drifted back to reviewing a flight diagram on his desktop screen.)

". . . yeah." It's the only thing he can say, slow as it comes, reluctant as it comes. There's a fog where the memory should be -- of a crash, a staggering walk, the Red Lion's eyes like beacons across his shadow. Anything.

This isn't good.

"Do you remember what time it was?"

Pidge remembers quite well how that class went. Mostly. At the least she can put a bandage on someone, stop the bleeding and then freak out about the blood. She raises an eyebrow right back at Keith in a pitch-perfect, almost sarcastic imitation of the glance he's just given her. At his question, though, her face drops a little and she shakes her head.

"No, I just remember spinning off into the wormhole and then... Here." She frowns, then rubs her head. "I don't feel like I hit my head or anything."

"Well," Keith says, "I'm pretty sure you'd remember that."

It's only a little deadpan -- but the truth of the matter's that Pidge doesn't look like someone who struck her head and crawled out of the woods. She'd had to have been deep, to leave her lion where no amount of treading and retreading could find it. A bulb flickers, red and black and red again -- and Keith's eye snaps back to the booth, over the guns drooping forlorn, the bone-dry targets.

". . . is this the first game you've tried?"

"I'm pretty sure I would, too."

Her reply is not quit deadpan. More concerned. But then again, Keith has always been a bit more restrained when it comes to this kind of thing. She follows his gaze towards the booth, nose scrunching a little as she considers the game.

"Yeah, first one I've tried so far. I'm pretty sure they're all rigged, though."

"Let's take a look around."

He gestures ... down the path. There's an array of other booths, after all -- hoops and hammers flashing challenges and promises alike, fortunes beyond your wildest dreams!, carnival rides under domes like painted porcelain. Nothing, Keith thinks, that's really supposed to interest anybody over twelve years old. More importantly --

"It's a pretty hard setup to miss."

If anyone's going to come looking for them, surely they'll start here.

"It really is. Which is why I'm not sure how I missed getting here," Pidge replies with an uncertain shift of her shoulders. She nods, then moves to move off next to Keith, eyes glancing up and down the line of tents and games and rides.

"It gives me the willies."

"You held off a Galran platoon on your own. I don't think a ferris wheel's gonna be worse than that."

Never mind that these are completely different circumstances and that, whatever else the place entails, the booths look distinctly run down and low-tech. Now's not the time to be uncomfortable -- and so Keith shrugs it off, practical, heading for the main path with his usual careless stride. Booth and tents teeter above forlorn shadows on every side: business, it appears, has not been good.

"You've clearly never been on a carnival ride with Hunk," Pidge retorts as she follows Keith along the row of booths and games. She's doing her best not to glance nervously at things as they pass. The whole palce gives her a distinctly creepy, crawly feeling up and down her spine.

"...I wonder where our Lions are."

"They're probably both still in the woods." By reflex, Keith looks over his shoulder, narrowly missing a shadow that whirls and wheels and waves from a nearby booth, all limbs and a suggestion of teeth; it drops out of sight just as he faces forward. Helpful. "They can't be that far."

Even with a loss of memory, they're only human; there's no twinge in tendon or muscle to suggest that they've traveled for longer than a mile. Five at most.

"We'll find them," he adds -- but voicing that comes as an afterthought. It isn't usually, after all, Keith's place to be reassuring.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME #1

gamer's circle

Keeeith! <3

piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiidge. ♥

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