livinglot | ⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME: WISMUTH

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test drive meme

⇨ TEST DRIVE MEME: WISMUTH

WELCOME TO THE SHOW!↴

Or, more specifically, Lost Carnival's 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 (and should) read the full premise here.
Reserves and Applications are currently OPEN.
Recruits can be either willing or tricked this month.
You can apply as a newcomer or as a "veteran" character who has been in the carnival for up to three years. In the case of veteran characters, you will need to come up with an explanation of why they haven't been around the carnival recently.
TDM threads can be used as game canon after the fact if both characters are accepted, the players agree to it, and it makes any sense contextually.
If you are interested in additional IC and OOC plot responsibilities, consider applying for a Supervisor position. Head Cook and Treasurer are currently open. Otherwise, we're pretty much down for anything, roles wise.

CURRENT STOP↴

⇨ WISMUTH ⇦
Wismuth is a large coastal city on the east shore of what would usually be the United States. The world it's part of is an Earth variant, meaning that while some aspects may be different, overall it will contain a similar look and feel to Earth many are accustomed to, including some overlapping celebrities, corporations, and technologies. Its most notable feature is that this planet is a part of what is called a 'Pillar of Creation' - a focal point of Creation's energies in the multiverse. The effects of this feature are the only aspect of the setting that will be relevant for this testdrive, as recruits will be entirely within the carnival as opposed to out in the city.

► VIBRANCY OF CREATION: The immediate effects of this trait are that everything in Wismuth, and in the carnival because of its connection to Wismuth, is filled with an unusual sort of vibrancy - colours seem brighter, sounds seems to resonate more deeply, and all other physical sensations will strike visitors as oddly intense, including their own emotions. It's a subtle effect rather than anything that will be overtly disorientating, but it's almost as if everything is more "real" here than it is anywhere else. Obviously, the locals, whom are mostly just ordinary looking humans, have had plenty of time to grow accustomed to this. On the bright side, as a tourist, you have the opportunity to experiment with this sensation as a form of recreation.

Recruits from this month will be signing on with the carnival between Day 8 and Day 11 on the season calendar.

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. 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 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.

► TUNNEL OF "LOVE": A brand new attraction in the carnival, the Tunnel of Love is mostly what you'd expect from such a ride - two people sit in a boat together which journeys through some glitter filled caves, complete with mood music. Unfortunately, there is also something else in there with you... in the form a moody kraken living in the waters, who has very particular opinions about shipping, and may either stubbornly interfere with any attempted intimacy, or may politely encourage it. Or they may just generally be a dick if they're in no mood for either. The Ringmaster insists it is a romance expert.

► 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.

► 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.

► 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!

► DUNK TANK: Sometimes acting like a dick will earn you the gentle reprimand of being sent to work in the Dunk Tank for the afternoon - you know that game where people throw balls at a target, and if they hit it you get dropped into the water? It's like that, only sometimes there are daunting (but harmless) critters in the water, or some other strange magical affects to spice things up. Hopefully, the visitors will have bad aim.

► 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

[Patience is not a virtue Shura naturally possessed. It's something that's taken practice, years to hone a skill that went against her impulsive nature. And it's taking all of her patience to hold back as he thinks, as he processes whatever's going through his mind. After everything that's happened, it's nearly impossible for her not to suspect whatever might come from his mouth. If he said anything. He had, after all, refused to speak to her not long before.

But back there, he seemed to possess and frightening sort of acceptance of his eyes. Like it was perfectly normal that his eye was that glowing blue. Now he was shaking and having to hold on to himself to keep together. Her fingers twitch at her side. She wants to reach out and touch him, do something, but sentimentality is neither a virtue of hers as well nor did she think it would do much to get through to him, so she just brings her hand to rest on her hip.

As he stammers out a response, her eyes narrow. Was this better? If she thought talking to him could change things, she had hope. But she had told him since they had met again--repressing his true feelings would make him weak to demons, and here he was, Satan in his left eye. They were long past the point of prevention]

I'll summarize it for you then. Mephisto was was about to make a speech on national television, but he was shot before he could say much. You're the primary suspect.

[Honestly, she couldn't fault him for wanting to shoot Mephisto; it wasn't as if she hadn't threatened the damn demon herself. But he could have used some sense and pointed the gun when there weren't cameras around.]

It wasn't you. They're idiots and won't listen to me about it, but you were right off stage pointing a gun at him.

[So why did he do it right in that moment and what was he doing there to begin with? She doesn't understand, and she doubts he'll explain himself.]

Why do you think I didn't do it? [Yukio tends to shoot a lot. If Mephisto hadn't given him the answers he needed, he might have. Things probably happened quickly, too quickly for him to wait or to be subtle. But... what? What happened? What could have happened?

He doesn't know. He can't stop shaking. There's a cold, heavy weight somewhere inside him.]

[Had he been planning it? She has to wonder. For how long had he thought about drawing a weapon against Mephisto? Was it just a poor impulse, or was it premeditated?]

I know you didn't do it cause the point of entry was wrong. If you gad shot him, there woulda been a hole in the side of that guy's head.

[She motions with her hands as she speaks, first tapping her finger to her temple, then to the center of her forehead.]

The bullet went in his face. I don't know why you were there in the wing with a gun pointed at Mephisto, but whoever pulled the trigger got away.

[Even if Yukio was the best trick shot in Japan, the tests on his gun came up clean. Yukio didn't shoot Mephisto.]

[The visual helps, somehow. There's something he has to look at, something outside of himself he has to keep track of.]

I need answers. He probably refused to give them to me.

Answers?

[She wants to shake him. He wanted Mephisto to answer some questions he had, but Mephisto probably refused. Because Mephisto never answered questions, especially not direct questions that the asker thought were important. This wasn't new. What was shooting him going to do, force his hand?]

If he won't tell me, Lucifer will. [He says, after a breath. His voice is steady and determined, despite the way his shoulders still shake and how he isn't looking up at Shura, his eyes fixed on some vague point near the ground.]

[Something in the pit of her stomach drops on hearing Lucifer's name. Kyoto, Todo, and all those missed checkups. It clicks together all too late, and there's still so much she doesn't know.]

Lucifer--

[She repeats, taking a step towards Yukio. No, that was insane. Stupid insane. Just what kind of questions could make him even consider going to the Illuminati? He had a plan surely, but if it was anything like his plan with Hachiro, then it was bound to be something hasty and hinging on everything going exactly as he wanted.

You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. Shura knows this. But this isn't someone, it's Yukio, and she was prepared to throw it all away to protect Yukio and Rin from whatever fate Mephisto and the other bastards had planned for them.]

They're going to kill you. They're not going to be any better than Mephisto or the Order, Yukio.

[Shima. Was this why he was so spooked earlier?]

[Shura steps forward and Yukio's hand goes to his left eye, hiding it like an animal hiding an injury. It's a unconscious action, and while he doesn't actually step back he does flinch slightly, shoulders going up reflexively.]

They aren't going to be worse.

[They aren't going to be worse??]

Just what kinda information is that guy promising you, huh? You're puttin' a whole lot of trust in that group, you know.

[ He's flinching away from her. What did he think she was going to do? She's not afraid of taking a hit from him if he lashes out, but if he tried to bolt, he might get away from her. He had the advantage of knowing this place better than she did. ]

Trust?! [He snaps, stepping back with his one hand to his eye and the other curled into a fist. Here it is, all that desperate anger boiling up to the surface.]

I can't trust anyone! You knew, didn't you? You knew about Section 13! You kept me in the dark, just like everyone else!

[Shura follows. She isn't afraid of getting struck by him in his anger. She would welcome it if it meant he was being honest with himself for once. She wasn't going to lose him now that he was talking. ]

Section 13? What are you talking about?

[The name draws a blank. Asylum was only a name with vague connotations to her, mostly only that Shiro didn't want her to take her there. And when had she kept secrets from him??

Well, besides Hachiro. But that hadn't involved him!]

[She doesn't know. Of course she doesn't. He lowers his hand away from his face, forces his clenched fist to open. He tries to gather himself together, bowing his head and taking a deep breath, then another. There goes the anger, shoved down and locked away again, barely.

He's tired.]

Did you know that Mephisto was experimenting with human cloning?

[Of course she doesn't, she was kid when it all happened. Just what Yukio expects her to know when she's been kept in the dark about plenty of things is a mystery to her. All she knows if that Mephisto had Plans and she didn't care for just how the twins were involved in those plans.]

Cloning? What did he need clones for?

[Was it better or worse that he forced his temper down? Shura hated it when he locked it away--right now, if he wanted to lash out, she'd take it, even it is meant getting physical with him for a bit. It was better than dealing with that stupid facade he kept up.]

For possession. [For better or for worse, Yukio's locked down. He doesn't have all the pieces, Shura has even less, but he knows enough.]

Father Fujimoto was able to survive Satan's attempt at possession for more than a few seconds because he was designed to do so.

[This plan is bigger than just the twins, and goes back far longer.]

[Her brow knits together as she considers the information he's given her. Possession? Just why did he need clones in the first place?]

Wait--wait, just what are you getting at? Why would that guy need a group of clones for so they could be possessed? And Shiro--

[How long had Mephisto been planning this? She can feel a throb building in her temple as she tries to rack her brain, trying to find some way to make sense of this from what she knew.]

How did you get this information?

[It isn't that she doesn't believe him, but who told him this was important, especially if the Illuminati were trying to recruit him.]

Mephisto was making clones for the Demon Kings to inhabit. Father Fujimoto was one of them.

So was the man Satan possessed to father my brother and me.

[That's what he was able to figure out from the jump drive Lightning had given him. He needs to know more.]

Arc Knight Lewin Light passed the information on to me. [And he trusts that source. He trusts Lightning even if... even if there's one fewer person in Yukio's old family now.]

Edited 2018-01-16 00:17 (UTC)

[For a second, Shura goes quiet. The first part is easy enough to understand. She had never considered it before, but humans just weren't designed to contain the power of the Ba'al--if Mephisto was keeping a small army of clones prepared just in case from himself and the other Demon Kings... Well, it was morally reprehensible, but Mephisto wasn't known for his sense of morality.]

That guy...

[And if there was a place for Satan to suddenly appear, that would be it. It still left a lot of questions regarding just how the twins were conceived, especially if even Shiro could only withstand it for a few minutes. And just how was Yukio's eye able to maintain even just a shred of his power without melting?

She has so many more questions, but the only one who would know wasn't there. Shura doesn't trust Lucifer to know all of the information, no matter what Yukio was told.]

If Lightning knew... no wonder he was talking about trying to hide.

[Lightning was chaotic and at times just as bad as a demon, but Shura trusted that cunning of his. If he gave the information to Yukio, there was probably a good reason.]

I need answers. [He says, and he just sounds... tired. That anger's buried, and there's not much left.]

Mephisto knows something, so I'll ask him first. If he won't give me answers, I already know that Lucifer will.

[She doesn't blame him for wanting answers. She can't blame him for pointing a gun at Mephisto, especially if he had just tried confronting him just before he went on stage. But seriously, this was his strategy?]

You can't pin Mephisto like that. It isn't like I haven't tried before. He's not going to be intimidated by a show of force.

[Lightning... damn it, where was he? He had more information, and he was the one who could think of plan that could corner even someone like Mephisto.]

And that Lucifer probably has information, but there's no guarantee he has everything you want. He won't give you the whole truth if it doesn't suit his needs.

He'll tell me more than Mephisto will. [Yukio will get what he wants, and then he'll get out]

Do you think they'll just let you walk out after they tell you?

[yukio do you even have a plan for this??]

I'll get out eventually. I know what I'm doing.

[of course he doesn't have a plan.

yet.]

Edited 2018-01-16 01:31 (UTC)

[yukio

That is quite possibly the dumbest damn thing she has ever heard. Shura works with Arthur A. Angel and has been training your little brother for the last year, so that's a real feat right there.]

Don't tell me... you're planning on doing this all on your own.

[please yukio help her hold on to her one last shred of sanity before she puts you in a headlock...]

[He's angry again, snapping like she just drove her elbow into broken ribs.]

I don't have a choice! I have to do this on my own, there's no one else! I don't have anyone!

[you little shit

He really shouldn't be surprised that Shura's lunging forward to put him in headlock.]

Oi, Four-eyes! What kinda crap are you spoutin' off?!

[she mad]

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