⇨ THE LUNAR SOLSTICE

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Winter Breaks: Day 6 - Day 25
Where: THE MOON
What: The carnival journeys to one of its moons to celebrate the Lunar Solstice. More information here.
Warnings: Winter fun.

MOON WALKING↴ The journey to the moon only takes a blink of an eye, but it leaves the carnival far away beneath you. The second moon can be seen on the peripheral, massive compared to its usual view. At least when the holidays start out, there will be no notable wildlife on the moon, though this is something you can talk to the Ringmaster about if you think it needs a change. It sounds like this is the first time she's used it in quite a while - it probably needs some dusting off! Claim your cabins, and proceed to... well, do whatever you want! There is no rush and little obligation, besides to enjoy yourself. For real, this time. She promises there will be no vampires. Or, at least, none that don't already work for the carnival. ► CABINS: Living arrangements are character choice for this event, and there are a variety of cabins of various sizes, mostly built to house 2-6 people, though you can fit more in if you squish. They are all made of wood and of a rustic design - no fancy modern furniture, here! Each building is housed with a fireplace and the needed amenities. You can pick up materials to cook with the private kitchens if you like. Theoretically, you could spend the whole holiday sequestered away, watching the snow fall. Some of them also have outdoor hot tubs available! ► ACTIVITIES: Activities are mostly going to be character driven, though there will be some large group games like bingo and maybe a poker tournament happening at some point in one of the festival halls. Otherwise, there is a lot to offer: skiing, snowboarding, hiking, ice sculpting, snowball fights - it goes on! If you'd like to run a winter activity, just let the mods know, and we will get the word out there for you. ► FEASTING: Every day isn't a full-out feast because that would get a bit unhealthy, but there will be a number of specific feast events over the holidays where everyone is encouraged to let out their inner hedonist and stuff themselves. There will be one big feast per week, with smaller but also delicious meals offered in between. The feast dates will be B12, B18, and B24. There's also plenty of alcohol available for anyone who wants it. ► SHOPPING: As mentioned in the planning post, there is a massive market being run by the World Walker Caravan! The Ringmaster has given everyone 1250 credits to spend on items, but there is a caveat - must spend at least 500 of those credits on gifts for other people. And it better be a good one, if you only buy one! (She will ask that you do not buy her presents, however. She appreciates the sentiment, but it seems sort of silly buying her things with her own money! If you'd like to gift her, please have it be something more personal or handmade, but you are not obligated to get her anything at all.) ► TREATMENTS: The beginning of the holidays will also be about the time that the emergency Medical Team will have finalized their treatments for the Prince's poisoning. Watch out for further information on that - and make sure to get treated if you are suffering from petrification or poison induced illness! The holidays will be a lot more fun that way.

Comments

[fourthscribe]

Disgust curls up in Tanyuu's throat, but she doesn't let it show. She won't let it show, not when she knows that it will just feed into his twisted ego.

"Amazing that you remembered. I assumed it would have fallen out of your mind just like any morals you once had." She turns back to Ginko, expression shifting to concern. "Is he causing you any trouble?"

[criticallyfucked]

Of course you did.

[Foster doesn't even look cold, just incredibly done Dismissive, bored, callous--his tone and expression are somewhere in there.]

[dontpokethat]

...Foster, I thought he was going to turn me down.

[His tone isn't defensive, or argumentative. It's just a quiet, matter-of-fact statement.

Foster hadn't known that. Now he does.]

[dontpokethat]

Ginko winces. This is... a disaster, frankly. This conversation has been going on for ten seconds and it's a disaster.

"No, he's not," he replies quickly. "We were just looking at the..."

...

"...the knives."

That's... probably fine.

[criticallyfucked]

You acted, but believed it would fail?

[Is it passion? Disgust? Anger? Delight? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter!]

No--

Claiming justification in the pretense of false belief--the belief that he'd turn you down... that's just lying to yourself. Using a lie as the shield between your reality and your truth because you were afraid of your own potential--the potential to take what you wanted, to make your desire real.

Now it is.

[He smiles.

He smiles at the end of it all.]

[chronosynthesis]

Aha! Syrlya snaps back up, reeling his arm back to throw the snowball with a lot of force just as soon as Doll is over the drift. He doesn't actually bother to dodge her snowball at all after he throws his, shoulders tense just before it hits--

And then his visage seems to warp strangely just long enough for the snowball to pass straight through him before he appears just as normal again. Well, if perhaps standing in a way that's far too serious for a snowball fight.

[chronosynthesis]

I mean a mirage. [He's too focused on trying to make sense of the mirage to begin with to really explain it to 9S, who is now forgotten on the floor.

He leans forward, squinting at the wall across the room in an attempt to focus on it--oh.

Oh.] Hallucinations?

[chronosynthesis]

"Perhaps it's implied," He answers, although his expression is wry just saying it. Honestly, it really only comes into question when one considers that the fae may not have a linear sense of time, and a 'year' could be a very arbitrary decision. That affirmation that he would be returned right where he left off was what convinced him to try, but...

Well, it's still not the worst decision he's ever made. "I have not asked around, but does anyone in the carnival stay longer than their year? For other contracts, maybe?"

That would definitely be the best source of some sort of concrete sense of time for this.

[dontpokethat]

...What makes you think you know me better than I do?

[There's a lot Ginko isn't sure of about himself. Half the time when someone asks him what he wants from a situation, he can't even tell them.

Maybe that's why, when he does know why he did something and what he expected from it, he doesn't appreciate other people trying to tell him that he's wrong.

But there's no point to trying to correct him. Because it's Foster. Ginko rests his chin on his arms, his ears drooping, and stares into the green slime-water.]

I screwed up. [He's already said that, he's pretty sure.] Whatever I had intended. So, now, I'm asking you what I'm supposed to do. Because even if--

[God, he hates saying this right now, it makes him feel like such a piece of shit, but it's the closest he can get to helping Foster--] Even if you're obnoxious and your ideas are generally pretty awful, you seem to have a better idea of what I'm supposed to do here than I do. And I don't know if you're saying I should... just go ahead and sleep with him, or talk to him about this, or what.

[espigeon]

They say it like 'monster' has a capital M. Maybe it does, he doesn't know what it's like where Frisk comes from. Julien nods agreeably.

"In my experience everyone's 'normal' is different. As a wise woman once said, what's normal to the spider is chaos to the fly. Anyway, I got these a couple months ago, after the previous really dramatic stop."

A series of faint white lines appear in the air around him, no further away than wing-length, and open into blue birdlike eyes ringed in faint white light. Eyes not pointed in the viewer's general direction aren't visible, only the rings holding in the air. "A lot of people had bad things happen to them in Portland, but it wasn't that bad to me. Just weird as all get out."

[scientificist]

"Yeees," says Herbert, on a roll now. He didn't come into this thinking of this at all, but he knows he's right, now, he doesn't even need Foster's input. It's irrelevant right now, before he's been made into what Herbert requires through his own science, still unfinished.

"The serum will not only, in its new form, rejuvenate your brain, but in addition will sharpen your mind like my own diluted formula." An ideal assistant: one raised forcibly to be closer to his own level. "With you at a level you could never have achieved on your own: what advancements in necromantic science might we make? What new discoveries?--I will shape you, your course." It's strange, he realises, he'd thought before that to work with someone properly he'd need to respect them. It turns out all he needs is an assurance they can be controlled enough to trust.

If he manages this correctly, he'll have an colleague he never needs to worry about.

[dontpokethat]

Ginko is absolutely just going to assume it was Joker. That seems like a safe bet.

"Of course you were, because your source worries too much." He sighs and tilts his head back, staring at the sky. "I'm tired, yeah. But everyone else is, too. We're doing what we have to; that's not being a workaholic, that's just taking the necessary steps."

This is one of the only things he's good at, after all. He can't let that go to waste.

[anti_nonsense]

"Forty-eight? That's too long," Rita replies with a shake of her head. "This is just a test, right? So let's make it short and sweet." A magic contract that lasts too long is essentially a curse, after all. Rita doesn't want that hanging over their heads for any longer than necessary.

"How about this: for a period of one hour, any questions I ask you have to be answered truthfully, with no lying or evading. Once an hour's up, the contract is complete." Since he won't know what the questions will be until they're asked, there could be some he'd be reluctant to answer, which would hypothetically allow them to test the magical component of the agreement.

That's only if he agrees to such a one-sided contract, however.

[prazerbutterfly]

He's sure at some point Ginko has to wait to progress on that cure which is why he wasn't working right now, "Ah, you're one of those workaholics." Still using that word just to mess with him.

"Well, if you want to take a nap right now I promise not to harvest your organs while you're sleeping," he says far too casually as if that is a thing. It's not but he could technically do it. "Or any of your blood."

[dressedtothe]

[9S stays lying down.]

You mean the snakes?

[Which he's totally seeing again.]

Oh, they're not real.

[Except this time, Rita isn't here to blow them up if they are real. So... he can't be sure they're not real. That should be more troubling than it is.]

[dressedtothe]

Somehow, this seems like exactly the sort of thing that Lambert would do. Is it really okay for him to be wearing a shirt like this, though? A shirt that's proclaiming him to be something he's not? A shirt that's declaring he's human? He'll have to think about this.

And...

...There's a small part of him that's disappointed that his first T-Shirt isn't one he's bought together with 2B.

"No," he replies flatly. "That's why I'm here." 9S' gaze slides away, fingers curling in the shirt's fabric. His useless, useless contract. There's no point to it, now. "Us androids don't get to interact with humans much."

Sometimes, he wonders if the humans on the moon even care.

it's fine tag at the length your heart desires :>

[dressedtothe]

Well, about that...

9S kicks at the snow. "We're working on it, alright?"

It's only been a few thousand years since the first of the machine wars began.

"Now that us YoRHa are deployed, we'll be able to make some real progress." He grins, pride blooming in his voice. "My partner and I took out several goliath class machines on our first mission together."

[kingsroads]

Sorry Rita, Strange notices that it's a one-sided contract and can't help but raise an eyebrow. He sets the quill down on the table as he looks over at her. "I accept. However, it's only fair that you answer any questions truthfully as well."

Strange is annoyingly open. Him trying to answer any questions without lying wouldn't really have as much of an effect as someone who's a bit more closed off would. Besides, a part of him wants to see how Rita would react and push against the bonds of a contract.

[nevergained]

A few people. Friends.

[Or, they'd like to think of them as friends. The actual answer is a lot more complicated, however.]

They're Monsters and really nice.

[dirthena]

Lavellan has enough presence of mind to keep from saying but you are a machine, and instead considers this. "I don't think anyone would argue that suffering through pain and emotional turmoil is a welcome part of being alive and real," and she knows a man who'd have argued that even if they were, if it wasn't the right kind of people doing the suffering it wasn't real. At least he'd changed that opinion, a little.

"But nor do I think we would be the same without it." So they made him as real as they could, and then asked him to fight. Lavellan is not sure that's fair -- he doesn't have the choice to pick, but they made him to be as human as any shemlen. In fact, she's certain that makes it worse.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita tenses slightly at having her terms turned around on her... but she relents. "Fine. But if you ask anything stupid, you better be ready for the consequences."

Despite the threat, Rita generally considers herself an honest person. She never really lies about anything. If Strange is hoping for something juicy, he'll probably be disappointed.

With that settled, she sits in one of the chairs by the table and leans over the surface to watch Strange write the contract.

[kingsroads]

It takes about five minutes for Strange to write the contract before he pushes it over to Rita. This is an exercise as much for himself as it is to figure out the magic. It's no secret that Strange found himself on the end of a few losing contracts, what with Portland and Frost and canon and okay, pretty much every fae contract he's dealt with. He might as well practice writing something out now.

The contract itself is fairly defined and wordy, even if it's just for a simple agreement. For an hour starting at the signature of the contract, both Jonathan Strange and Rita Mordio must answer any question asked by either Jonathan Strange or Rita Mordio in an honest and truthful manner. This contract does not apply to other people asking either of the signed parties questions and after the period of an hour has passed, the two may lie and refuse to answer each other's questions to their hearts content. And hey, Strange's handwriting is legible! What a shock!

There are two spaces at the bottom for them to sign. Strange hasn't signed yet, instead giving Rita a chance to look it over before she signs. "You don't need ink to sign it or make any changes," Strange explains. "Just write and the magic will provide the ink itself."

From blood. Bit creepy.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita pulls the contract closer to herself, reading it over twice to confirm that any potential loopholes have been closed. It seems to be in order, so she grabs the quill and signs her full name in one of the provided spaces.

There's a faint feeling of magic at work as she signs, but it's not clear what it is. It's only when she's already put her name down that she notices a familiar smell from the paper. Rita wrinkles her nose, then turns sharply to face Strange.

"Is that blood!?"

[kingsroads]

Strange doesn't say anything. Instead, he takes the paper from Rita and signs his name on it. There we go, the contract is made. And, now that he's signed it, he starts to feel an odd little compulsion at the back of his mind, something which he can only assume is the contract taking shape. He delays for another second before he finds himself answering, without even thinking,

"It is," he admits in a matter of fact tone. "The quill magically writes using the blood of whoever's holding it."

Something which doesn't seem to rattle Strange all that much. Okay, so it uses blood. Plenty of magic does the same! That's his justification and he's sticking to it! "Does that bother you?"

[anti_nonsense]

The moment he signs, Rita also feels something weird, but the feeling quickly fades as her focus shifts to Strange's answer.

"Yeah, it bothers me," Rita blurts out in response. "It's creepy. Don't you think you could've warned me first?"