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

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]

Get off me!

[no shura, he mad.

Like, the sort of angry that has him actually fighting her, instead of the almost good-natured flailing and resignation that usually accompanies his face that close to her bikini top.]

You little--

[She doesn't know whether or not she appreciates him struggling against her. Either way, she's not going to back off just because he demanded it. When had she listened to him, anyway? If he's not going to submit to her like he normally would, then she'll try to take him down to the floor, swinging her leg behind his to see if she can't just trip him.

This is probably not a good place to fight, but it could probably be worse??]

[He's down, tripped and knocked flat on his back and fighting her like he's fighting for his life. Like this, kicking and punching and trying to break her grip, it's obvious that "angry" isn't the right word. He's out of control, furious and trapped, teeth gritted and bared and eyes wide and desperate.]

[If she wasn't so furious, she'd be frightened by the way he's fighting back, more like a desperate animal than anything else. She's fought bigger than him, but she hasn't had to restrain anyone with only physical while trying not to actually hurt them in a while. Though he's swinging wildly, his fist connects with her jaw, and she lets out a groan. But it's not enough to throw her off. She's exhausted from everything, from fighting the cyclops the night before, from the debacle that was the press conference, and then there was Yukio, playing on all of her buttons and driving her insane.

No, she's not letting up on him, even as she tastes blood from biting her tongue when he punched her or even with he lands another hit on her shoulder. She means to pin him down and keep him there until he's calmed down enough to talk again. Preferably calm enough to listen to her.]

[He's down, pinned under her and gasping for air in a way that he shouldn't be after a fight this short.

His eyes close and he tilts his head back against the ground. A breath. Calm down, shove it away, pretend that nothing ever happened. It takes longer than he wants to lock down on his emotions, to school his face into bland control.]

[Not that kind of calm, Yukio

But at least he's not trying to punch her in the face again for the moment. Her jaw is sore--that probably wasn't just adrenaline. She can feel it rushing through her, though. After this, she had to find somewhere to pass out for a while.]

Yukio. Are you gonna talk to me?

[No, probably not. Whatever she was wanted to say would just go in one ear and out the other. But she wasn't going to just leave him without saying anything after he said he was alone.]

Edited 2018-01-16 05:22 (UTC)

[No, no he's not. He shoves down on the emotion, wipes it off his face and out of his voice. When his eyes open, they're as human as always, but the expression is cold. His lips curl slightly, a hint of a sneer.]

Do I have a choice?

[That face, that stupid damn smirk. This was the way he had looked at her earlier while in confinement, when all she knew was that Yukio was in deep shit and wouldn't give her anything to help him. It hurts, makes her heart sink into the pit of her stomach, and she doesn't know how to deal with this.]

You do, actually.

[Slowly, she'll shift, moving to sit up, first straddling his stomach, then almost grudgingly moving off of him and kneeling beside him. Could he run? Maybe. She doesn't know if she could let him go without trying to pursue him.]

[She offers him a choice, and he's angry at it. It would be easier if she didn't, if she put her fang to his neck and told him he had to explain. He doesn't sit up, raises a hand and knocks his glasses out of the way as he rubs at his eyes. Calm, but that dark amusement still twists his mouth.]

The tests all say I didn't inherit the flames, but there's something in my eyes that... wakes up whenever my life is in danger. [He laughs, uncontrolled and overwhelmed for a long moment, like this is all some stupid joke.] I can't die.

[He's so damn difficult. Was this how Shiro felt with her? But at least he's talking to her, even if she doesn't feel any sort of relief. There's something too foreboding about all of this, as if it's still too late and they were already standing on the precipice of something terrible.

No. It's not. It's not too late, and he was talking now. No matter what, she wasn't giving up on him. There are so many questions burning in her mind, but Shura remembers her patience, asking one at a time as he'll allow.]

Did it start back in Kyoto?

[Todo, who devoured Karura. Was his fight with him the catalyst for it?]

[An interrogation, and if he lets himself think of it as that he'll be able to answer the questions. One at a time, impersonal.

He nods.]

[She could kick herself, but she had seen everything that she could have seen, and she had done everything she could have done. She was neither psychic nor omnipotent, so how could she guess that the tests failed to catch the emergence of Satan's power in him? Everything else had either made sense in context or she had tried to talk to him about.]

That training Rin mentioned--was it about this? Seeing what might actually kill you?

[She doesn't like the way he's responding. If he didn't want to answer, then he shouldn't. Even when Rin was calling her a hag, he wasn't nearly as worrisome as Yukio was on a good day.]

I [He laughs again, because his life is a joke.]

I jumped off of a building. I should have died, but I didn't get a scratch.

I don't know what this power is, but Lucifer said he does.

[Shura listens with a sober expression. Did Rin know? She told him about his brother's eye, but how much had he known about Yukio's training before that? There was no way he would have just sat back and let Yukio risk himself like that. She wouldn't, either. Not if he's laughing like that.

She shifts, scooting closer to him. Likely Yukio had spent plenty of time looking at his eye, but now she wanted to take a look. That is, if he would let her.]

Can I?

[Her hand is raised, motioning towards his glasses. But she won't force him.]

You won't see anything. [Yukio says, sliding his glasses off and not looking at Shura.

And he's right. Besides the blue of his newly acquired fae mark covering his skin like a birthmark, there's nothing inhuman about him. It would be easier if there was, if he'd been marked since birth with something that proclaimed his demonic heritage. But he was always so weak. ]

[There are no signs, of course. Even the smallest indication would have been caught at one of his exams. But she wants to look anyway, leaning in and invading Yukio's personal space. But her focus is more on what damage his eye might have taken since Satan decided to make his appearance. That Hojo girl lost her sight in her eye after taking in the the eye of the Impure King, so shouldn't there be some kind of strain on Yukio's eyes?

But there's nothing that she can see like this. Shura pulls away, sitting back with an agitated huff.]

You'd think your eye would be damaged just a little by using that power. I don't get it.

I don't know. [This is why he needs answers. What is he?] I need to know.

[His hand covers his eye again, and he doesn't sit up. He doesn't want to be here.]

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cw: suicide mention???

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