⇨ 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

[espigeon]

His palps move away from his face, showing his smile. "You can try to touch one if you want? Gently."

The eyes, should they try, have a quality to them like soap bubbles, like a very tiny amount of liquid stretched around a lot of air to make something that appears solid. They're a bit sturdier than soap bubbles, but all but the lightest contact makes them close back into lines and then disappear. This doesn't distress Julien, though.

"Yeah, that was a stop that went very sideways! See, the whole world was sealed off from the rest of the multiverse, but our dear leader either didn't know or decided to visit anyway, I really don't know how it works. Somehow that meant that when we managed to get in we were all changed to be beings that would fit in that world. I think. I'll level with you, kid, it was weird."

[nevergained]

Frisk is remarkably gentle when they touch one of the eyes. They know better then most about the fragility of certain things, be it magical eyes and Monsters that can break from malicious intent.

"It does sound a little weird, but I think weird is okay sometimes." Or at least in their experiences. Monsters were really weird at times and it sounds like that world was pretty darn weird, if the eyes came from it.

But like they said, they're also pretty cool. So it works out in a way.

[espigeon]

"Well I don't mean just physically changed. From what I hear some people didn't... I mean, a lot of us thought we'd always been there, on that world, and only started realizing maybe we hadn't gradually. A few did wake up, new selves new bodies. It was all, hah, pretty confusing."

His bird head is inscrutable, always seeming to be faintly amused, but his other face is distant. The spectral eyes give away nothing. "I mean, I was something many thousands of years old with my own deal going on. Some of the memories went and faded, but not everything."

It feels sometimes like the others just left those identities behind when they left Portland. Which, all right, that's fair, in a lot of cases nothing good happened to those other people. Plenty of bad had happened to that angel, too, and he'd been very different from Julien in a lot of ways. But.

[nevergained]

Oddly enough, this is something Frisk can relate to, even if they can't really put it into words. Not so much the waking up thinking they were very old, but feeling like another person. Sometimes, in those darker timelines, 'Frisk' faded back and becomes...something else. They don't know. Can't tell. Can't feel anything.

* Name the Fallen Human.

They blink, realizing they may have blanked out for a second or a minute. "...um, sorry. How long did it last for?"

[espigeon]

He shrugs a wing. This seems to be troubling Frisk, too, but he's certainly not going to probe.

"I'm not sure. My sense of time was really screwed up! My deal was weird, I couldn't think in quite the same ways I can now. But I've heard people say it was something like a month before we got out of there." It had seemed longer, if you asked him, but the line between the backstory and the time when he'd actually definitely been there isn't one he can make out. Even when he'd had a lot of memories of Julien, he hadn't been Julien, he'd been afraid that becoming Julien would be killing who-he-was.

[nevergained]

It's okay now. It's fine.

Frisk's listening again.

"...did it feel longer?" Because they have experience with that. A lot of experience with that. Frisk's life had become a groundhog loop day from hell, even if a lot of good came from it. And a lot of bad.

There's a lot of good and bad 'things' that went along with all the 'maybes', now that Frisk thinks about it.

[espigeon]

Readily he admits, "Oh, yes, it did! It's like, I've forgot a lot of stuff, and that's good, because Iuliael was several thousand years old. But I still remember a lot of stuff, even if the clearest parts are the ones closest to the end of my time there."

"I really don't know how it is for everyone, but a lot of people really don't like their Portland-sonas and rejected them, so please be careful if you go poking around about it. Anyway, the biggest thing that left me with is still doing the eyes thing! It doesn't feel weird at all." Showing off a little, Julien stretches out his hand and manifests an eye cupped in it.

[nevergained]

Yeah, there's a lot in there that Frisk understands. Not so much the forgetting part - they weren't allowed to forget - but feeling like you've done all of this before. Being on the other side of a SAVE.

They need to see if those still work here.

Frisk nods seriously. "I'll remember that." But Julien's demonstration of his eye trick has them smiling a little bit again. "It's still pretty cool though."