THE GRAND BALL↴
Heartstone Manor is a giant, spooky castle floating in the middle of a twilight filled void. It is the home of a Wyld Fae calling himself The Prince - and despite his name, he is a bestial creature crammed into a gentleman's clothing, completely obsessed with replicating the ideals of old timey human society, much like the 1800's. The Prince and his many servants all dress in a manner appropriate to to the 1500's - 1800's, and decorum and beauty are held sacred above all else. All the workers of the carnival are currently staying there, in the hope of enabling a successful diplomatic venture between the Ringmaster and the Prince. The Grand Ball is being thrown by the Prince to honour these guests, but his manner of doing this is going to come as a bit of a surprise.
THE RULES↴
- Powers are all partially nerfed for 4th Wallers. They can be used in small to moderate ways for the sake of RP and narrative flavour, but 4th Wallers shouldn’t generally be using any powers in a super disruptive manner. No using powers for fighting with NPCs (yet), causing general chaos, or otherwise making your character a burden to the Prince. If they try, they’ll find themselves unable to do so.
- Your character isn’t sure how they got here but they think they’re okay with it. Your character won’t remember how they were captured by the Prince at the start of the ball. They’re just kind of here and in formal wear, and something tells them it’s probably fine to just enjoy the ball. They are wrong.
- In-game characters won’t initially remember how they all ended up at the ball either thanks to a temporary amnesia effect, but they will be able to be concerned about the fact that other people (possibly people they know) have shown up, and the fact that those other people are probably the Prince’s captives. Weren’t they doing something else at the castle before this, though? It’s hard to remember. This is all very confusing.
- 4th Wall character who aren’t apping in were possibly never the real deal in the first place. There are a mixture of genuine captives and spooky replications created with magic – this is to provide some flexibility regarding 4th wall character’s states in game, as well to allow more than one of each character to be played. If there are multiple people playing the same character, then whichever one has an app accepted will have been the real one.
- No doubles of in game characters. (Taken list here.) No AUs, no CRAUs, and nothing else besides characters that have full source canons or are original characters/fandom OCs with no bearing on the canon plot. If you tag in with a character who breaks these rules we reserve the right to remove them.
THE SETUP: 4TH WALLERS↴
- With incredibly foggy memories of their recent past, your character will find themselves at a grand ballroom dance, filled with a mixture of normal humans and odd looking humanoids that have strange features like wings, horns, tails, fur, and the like. They have vague memories of being dressed for the occasion, but are not sure by who or why. Most disturbingly, they will find that, at first at least, they don’t really care about the details. It seems like a pleasant event, doesn’t it? Why not enjoy it.
- This effect is definitely some kind of mind control, so you can feel free to have your characters be a bit confused and conflicted about it. Ultimately, they have been charmed to participate in the dance, so they will feel like riding the wave is the best thing to do even if that wouldn’t normally be their cup of tea. If your character has resistances to some forms of mind control, they are still overruled in this circumstance.
- They may discover people they recognize (castmates) or even duplicates of themselves (somehow?), and these can all be treated as canonly occurring and played out as such. This event is canon for Lost Carnival, so it should be played seriously and respectfully – not that silly shenanigans aren’t also bound to happen.
- All characters are required to dress in formal attire appropriate to a period area – specifically anywhere from the 1500s to 1800s. The Prince prefers if people are heteronormative in their clothing choices, but if you want you can probably get away with your ladies wearing suits or men wearing dresses as long as they look presentable otherwise.
THE SETUP: MANOR GUESTS↴
- You find yourself at the Grand Ball without really remembering how you got here. The last few days are a foggy blur, and though you can remember some of the important stuff you were dealing with, it will feel less important right at the start. Of course, as the night goes on, memories of how the carnival reached this event will become more and more clear – as well as the inevitable worry and stress that comes with it.
- For most people, there will have absolutely no memory of anything that happened after the morning of Day 175. Did the boating trip ever happen? Possibly not. Even as the night progresses, they will still have no recollection of how most of Day 175 went, which is probably disturbing. The Mod has contacted those that are exceptions to this privately to tell them what they will remember.
- The people lost to the Manor’s security earlier in the week will be here too, but not as guests. In fact, all of them will be dressed in the black attire of a Heartstone Manor servant and will seem pretty okay with that fact. There are parts of them that look changed – and their dispositions are definitely one of them. How else could they possibly be working for the Prince now?
- Updates to the event situation will be posted down in this section below. People can react to these posts as the circumstances change, and may new top levels based on them. It is possible to try to sneak away from the ball, but Manor Security will be trying to hunt you down. There is no mandatory outcome planed to this event, so character decisions can and will have a major effect in where the plot goes from here.
THE ACCOMODATIONS↴
- MUSIC AND DANCING: There will be music playing the whole night, and most of it is so good you feel practically compelled to dance to it. It's possible to resist, but why would you want to do that, you party pooper?
- FOOD AND DRINK: There are circle tables set up with fine silverware, and upon sitting down you will soon have a waiter come back to ask for an order. You can request basically any European cusine and it will be made for you. You will also be given drinks, most of which are alcohol, no matter your age. Fae don't care about children.
- BALCONY STARGAZING: There are balconies that are connected to the ballroom in multiple locations that you can step out onto to get some fresh air. You'll see the courtyard of the Manor down below you, but everything beyond that is black, as if the castle is floating within a twilight void. (Because it is.) One small change is that there are stars out tonight, probably added to the sky for the occasion.
- ALL NIGHT LONG: The ball will go on far into the early morning. Or, at least, until everyone fucks it up.
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ringleaders) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
lostcarnival2017-10-13 06:00 pm
no subject
[And his lyrics fade out here, too, as Julien's other half bursts into song, no doubt so that the singer can pause and listen in return. It really is a much different song- a much sadder song than Cohen's worn out hope. It says something painful in it, something that hurts his own self in a way. Oh, Joker knows this feeling. That Julien himself is locked up in a cage brings up more memories of Celebration, of Hell, of being convinced that he was nothing and could only hurt others....]
[There'd been no magic, there. Joker doesn't need that to hate himself, or despair at others.]
[For a little while, Julien will have quiet, save for his own singing. Perhaps Joker has give up, stopped?]
Love, I've been waiting, I've been waiting night and day...
[Nope. Of course not. It's Cohen, again, but different, now. A different melody wafting through the crowds, going to rest on Julien's shoulders.]
I know you really loved me, but you see, my hands were tied. I know it must have hurt you...
[Joker isn't sure why it's Cohen of all people who's sticking out in his mind. He's dealt with at least a few karaoke nights in his time, so, surely, he could choose other songs, couldn't he? Lord knows that he has plenty of them memorized, from the childish to the cheerful. Yet perhaps this is for the best. Perhaps Cohen is the best and only choice he could make right now.]
[At least, until he can think of other songs.]
Ah, I don't believe you'd like it, you wouldn't like it here. There is no entertainment, and the judgments are severe...
[Which isn't to say that this song is particularly bright and cheerful, either. There's a heaviness to it, somber and old, but that suits Heaven's words as well, doesn't it? Joker remembers. He remembers all too well. Of course, some things have to be changed, with how formal the tongue is, but Joker is good at improvisation.]
Nothing left to do, when you know you've been taken. Nothing left to do, when you're begging for a crumb. Nothing left to do when you've got to go on waiting, waiting for a miracle to come.
no subject
The cage is on a plinth against a wall, a fairly clear and therefore very open and exposed place. When Joker's song ends Julien opens his beak and his throat starts belling, but he's singing much more quietly.
At a glance he seems to be wearing a hat. There are plumes off the top and straps in the back and decorative eye spots on the side, and it's made up to flow with his markings, so it's not immediately obvious that what he's got is actually an elaborate hood. It's bulky and massive to accommodate his big, un-falconlike head, of course, but this is still clearly supposed to be the same thing.
In fact everything he's wearing resembles something you'd put on a hunting hawk, save for the collar. Those poor servants who had to whip this up, it's all leather and all custom made for something much, much bigger than the animals usually strapped up in this way.
Right now he's only really manifesting eyes around his human body. If Joker gets close enough to hear the song he'll find it's very different, much more clearly not period-appropriate. It has a bouncy, happy tune and is brightly, sharply sarcastic. Julien's bent formal, archaic angel words into the song where they sit strangely and have all kinds of disquieting connotations.]
Ain't it fun, living in the real world? Ain't it good, being all alone?
[Like, that phrase could be taken as the real world, as in not hypothetical, but it's also the world without God. And sometimes he's using a word that's more literally 'enjoyable' or 'pleasant' for 'fun', but sometimes it's 'proper' or 'righteous'.]
no subject
[Still, he catches bits of it, as he ghosts after Julien, a route that takes him all throughout the ballroom. Well now, isn't that a change in tune? Both literally and on a more personal level. The things that must have been done to everyone...]
[Well. That's fine. He's not leaving here until their own are gotten again.]
[...But it's becoming fairly obvious to Joker that song might not be the route to go with, or, at the very least, he needs to try harder with it. Licking his lips, he goes through all of Cohen that he knows before giving up. It might be time to put the man, good as he is, to rest. Another route is to be taken.]
[Joker can't remember where he's heard all the songs that he's picked up along the way. Some in different worlds, some in different trailers as he's chatted with people playing old melodies on different machines, a backdrop to their conversations. Either way, he remembers liking the one that draws out nice and slow from his throat now.]
I heard you telling lies, I heard you saying you weren't born of our blood. I know we're the crooked kind, but you're crooked too, boy, and it shows.
[Very few changes have to be made to it, when all is said and done. Oh, a few, of course, because that's simply how the angelic tongue curls. "Crooked", or "flawed", or "weak". There are a lot of ways to go with it, and Joker doesn't bother to stick to only one whenever he replaces the word.]
[...It's later on in the song that he switches things on purpose in a way that has nothing to do with simply making the song work in angelic.]
But I smell your blood... My fingers trace your faces in the wood. I hear your voice somewhere in my bones, I feel you singing when I'm alone.
When I'm not too frightened, that is when I know that I'm here with everyone, you're never truly gone.
no subject
He swings his head. While hooded like this he can't really triangulate sound properly though, the leather muffles sound. Joker's closer to this body than the other one and not right up close to it, that's all he can be confident of.
By now he's not completely sure what exactly they're telling each other. That Joker doesn't like that he's here, absolutely! But it's too late for him, isn't he getting that? Julien would like to let him down easy-ish. If he could just find the words, the music, maybe he could.
How about more Paramore. Again, his translation kind of suffers. The song limps and stumbles, unlovely, though his voice is very good when he chooses to make it so.]
You struggled so long just to plead. Something I won't ever understand! Aren't you tired of always fighting the way of things? Can't you just admit you don't really care? And lovely, I don't want your pity. Don't feel sad for me. I got a cause I would die for and a song to sing. Maybe we're both just living out our dream.
Some of us have to move on sometimes! And so, if I'm called to, I'm gonna leave you behind.
[And he shouldn't sing this part, really, but he's already here starting, might as well follow through. It's easier to sing it, somehow.]
And we get along for the most part. Me and reality, the light and the dark. And we live alone in two different worlds. Me in a fantasy, you in your memories.
no subject
[A fitting song to fit, if it were someone genuine whose lips were singing it. Yet if Joker wasn't sure before about the sincerity, he'd be sure now. No one genuine stumbles in the scathing part of a song only to get a little gentler in another.]
[It could just be the stiffness of angelic. Joker doesn't think so. He doesn't want to believe so, at least.]
[Let's try something else, this time. Joker thinks he can make it work.]
Just give me a second, love, to clear your head. Just put down that knife, beloved, on this single bed...
[Changing, changing, he's going to be changing the song quite a bit in some places, and not at all. But what kind of performer would he be if he couldn't do that much on the fly?]
[It's one particular part that he switches the words around the most.]
We looked in the mirror, but something was wrong. You saw me behind, but your reflection was gone. There was smoke in the fireplace white as snow. A voice beckoned harshly, "Now it's time to go."
"Don't touch me," you screamed, but we've got unfinished business.
[And, of course, a similar kind of switch of "you" and "I" for the chorus.... Because Joker will take responsibility for this.]
[Even if they weren't part of his own directly, he should have watched out for everyone.]
no subject
It's got short, punchy lyrics that don't go so great with classical, formal divine speech like what works beautifully with Cohen, but the shorter, more informal words that might be used on the battlefield or in moments of crisis fit okay. Also, his body has some songbird elements. He can sing two thing at once from this beak and make an approximation of the strings section, because the lyrics by themselves just don't sound quite right.]
Your grace is wasted on my person. Your boldness stands alone in the wreckage. Now learn from your mother or spend your days biting your own neck.
But it was not your fault but mine. And it was your heart on the line. I really fucked it up this time. Didn't I my dear?
['Fucked' doesn't have the teeth it has in English. Sex and biological functions aren't profane to angels; most who hang around humans for long start picking up their ways of swearing, but they swear by these things in human languages. It's as if Julien used 'loved' for the line, that's how defanged it is.
He also really uses the word for 'grace' that means 'divine grace', not anything about agile movement or attractiveness, but Grace, the unearned love and favor that imparts moral strength and inspiration. The amazing Grace that comes to the most terrible sinners and allows the chance for redemption.]
no subject
[...Well. Turnabout is fair play.]
And if you're listening, I miss you, and if you hear me now, we need you...
Where did you go? Because you're not gone. Everyone knows that something is wrong. There was a cut, and we're alone.
[The chorus isn't entirely right, but Joker doesn't give it up. I know that you left before goodbye is too relevant to leave out. Just as relevant is the next part right after.]
Your voice comes in and now it's fading. I can't believe this is so frustrating, because you never seem to understand. And he let you slip through my hand. You hate how it feels to be alone.
no subject
There's nothing he can explain and he's already figured out that trying gets unpleasant and nonsensical. He's only got one thing he can think to say in song form, and then he thinks he'll have covered pretty much everything. This one is mostly about the tone than any specific lyrics. He can do nothing. Joker, God love his persistence, can do nothing.]
I look at the trouble and see that it's raging, while my guitar gently weeps. As I'm sitting here, doing nothing but ageing. Still, my guitar gently weeps.
I don't know why nobody told one how to unfold your love. I don't know how someone controlled one. They bought and so-old one.
I look at the world and I notice it's turning while my guitar gently weeps. With every mistake we must surely be learning. Still my guitar gently weeps...
[Fold wings. Sigh. Speak, though not loudly.]
That's about all I've got for you, man.
no subject
Midnight hour is almost over. Time is running out for the magic pair. I know you gave the best you have, but one more chance couldn't be all that hard.
Wait for me, please.
["Magic", but "divine", and it's not only for Julien that he's speaking of. Whatever must be done, Joker knows that it has to be done soon. There's a reason, there must be, that his memory is so foggy, and that their own have been taken in such a cruel mocking way. It's like Cinderella, of that he doesn't doubt: all this magic will wear off sooner or later, and they need to be out by then.]
[Julien might be right in that he can't do anything... at least here, just singing. It was worth the good old college try, but he doesn't have what it takes for this.]
[But outside? If he can just slip away? Joker isn't sure how well it might work, but there's no telling until he tries...]
Please forgive all the disturbance I'm creating, but you've got a lot to learn if you think I'm not waiting for you.
[Only he's going to do more than wait. Joker's decided on that now. Even if the Ringmaster doesn't want to do anything- and he feels that she has to, it's one of the things that they share in common that theirs are theirs- he sure as hell will. What? Well, he's not sure yet. But they have a lot of interesting folks at the carnival... and he's pretty sure the Prince is far too smug and boring to realize what they can really do.]
[So he'll finish up his song, letting the notes carry, before he goes off in search of quite a few different people... before, eventually in the night.... just vanishing.]