Test Drive Meme #30

[hadrielmods]

Welcome to Hadriel's test drive, and thank you again for your interest in the game! As always, our reserves page is here, and our applications page is here! Reserves open March 25th, and apps are open April 1st. Please remember that there is an app cap of 20 apps.

Two quick points here as well:

1. Any thread made in Hadriel's test drive will be accepted as the sole Action Log sample in the application.
2. All threads made in the test drive can be considered game canon, either through handwaving or through a shared mental experience while coming through the Door!

Test drives will be broken up into specific god mini-events, during which your characters can see how well they fare under the watchful eye of one of the gods. Choose wisely or just simply pick 'em all, and have fun!

F E A R

SCENARIO ONE: CHOMP CHOMP
[The Door brings in all that is chaotic and evil in the world. This may include you, may include the person next to you... and may include the monster behind you.

Or sticking out of that pipe, even. Yes, that's right, the Door seems to have brought in an infestation of piranha plants, which may be familiar to you, since they've been in nearly every Mario game.

Piranha plants are large orb-shaped plants with big ol' teeth, all the better for biting you with. They can't walk around, but their stalks can stretch pretty far, so they'll be perfectly happy to stretch out and bite the heck out of you if you get too close - and some of them are good at hiding. You might not see them until it's too late. Luckily, while the biting is pretty bad, it's just about all they can do. You'll be fine, as long as you keep your distance.]

SCENARIO TWO: THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU
[You've got a scratchy throat, a little cough, a general feeling of awfulness. It sucks being sick, doesn't it? Maybe you can find someone to get you some juice, or hold your hand, or just be sympathetic to how crappy you feel. After all, no one likes being sick. But how can you know that person is actually trying to help you? They have an untrustworthy look in their eye, and you're pretty sure you just heard them mutter something about leaving your body in a ditch.

Or maybe you're the one trying to take care of a sick friend. You have only the best intentions, but they don't seem interested in cooperating at all. In fact, it seems like they think you're trying to hurt them! What the hell? And here you were trying to be a good person for once. Oh shit - did you just sneeze? This isn't going to end well.

This is a mini version of our Flu Season event this month.]

H O P E

SCENARIO THREE: FONDLY YOURS
[When you stepped out of the house this morning, you found a small bouquet of flowers on the doorstep, just waiting for you. They're just the sort you like - your favorite kind, in fact - so they must be meant for you. But who could they be from?

Of course, there must be someone you wish they were from. A lover, a long-term flirtation, your best friend thinking of you. Or maybe you're hoping for something else: an apology from someone who hurt you, or an olive branch from and enemy. Whoever you're hoping they're from, well - the only way to know is ask, right?

Unless you'd rather leave a secret bouquet for them, instead.]

Comments

[a_shadow]

Tex's eyebrows go up a little. She wouldn't have expected to hear those words, those names, out of Carolina's mouth. She tilts her head slightly, looking at Carolina a bit more directly than she had been.

Tex herself knows how unlikely this conversation happening is. Carolina had never given Tex much of a chance after her arrival in the Project, and over time Tex had come to a point where she doesn't really blame her for that. Tex hadn't really taken the rivalry seriously until the training room, and she hadn't understood it well until finding Connie's evidence. She'd blown her chance at anything like this during the break-in of the Mother of Invention. And then Carolina had died, and that had been that.

"There were a lot of Reds and Blues," she responds. Wash and Epsilon, though, there's only one of them. Tex's expression changes a little, her brow drawing closer together, and she frowns slightly. "So Wash died, too, then," she adds. "Not long ago, I guess."

[uptightness]

Subtle changes, maybe. Older, but not by that much. The weight of the world still on her shoulders, but it was a different weight now. She's found a place for herself again, although she's still a soldier, a killer- she just tries not to be unless she absolutely has to. It's a stain that can never be washed clean. That much she knows.

"There are, but you know the ones. Caboose. Tucker. Sarge. Grif..." She could go on, go down the list, but she lets that sink in. "No. We've been close a few times, but Wash is still alive."

Although his actual status isn't something that Carolina knows. Being shot could mean any number of things. That he's made it through it what matters. They had stopped Temple, stopped his plan, and they hadn't lost anyone in the process. Not that she's not kicking herself over Wash, knowing that she should have kept a better eye on him, that he had been worse off than her.

"It was my grappling hook." She supplies that, letting Tex fill in the blanks. The cliff had been her death, but it hadn't killed her. She's smart enough to put all the pieces together, that Carolina is still alive, that she'd ended up with the same group of people that Tex had.

[a_shadow]

Tex lets that sink in, angling her head away again, looking back into the street. Carolina had lived. Carolina had lived and had done everything she could to evade Tex afterward. She can't blame Carolina for that, can't blame Carolina for playing dead all that time. Even when Tex had been absorbed into the Meta, no one among them had had any idea Carolina had still been alive.

Nothing in Carolina's tone implies she's got any kind of ill will toward the Reds and Blues; to the contrary, she seems to imply that they had helped her. Tex licks her lips.

"I get the feeling there's a history there," she says. "I'd like to hear more about it, if you're willing to explain."

But if not...

"I thought this was some kind of afterlife," she adds. "Where I came from, I was in the middle of dying. Me and the AIs in the Meta, all of us. Wash was wiping us out with an Emp."

[uptightness]

Texas isn't the only one on that list. Carolina had avoided everyone that she had ever known. The only reason that she had made herself known was because she had been ready to move against the Director. Even then, she hadn't gone looking for anyone that she had known, anyone that might have known the truth like Tex had, or even York. Things might have been different if she had. A lot of people might still be alive.

Yet she also knows that there is a possibility that she might not have met everyone that she has met, that she might not have been there to help on Chorus. One doesn't outweigh the other, but the past isn't something you can change. You have to live with it, as well as you can, every single day.

There might be a hint of emotion that plays across her lips. There's quite a bit now. She can recall first meeting them, and how much it has changed now. Then, she would have killed them if they had gotten in her way, and now she'd die for them. "It's... a long story."

Although her tone doesn't say that she's opposed to it. She's just laying it all out there. She could give the cliff notes version, although even that might take some time. She nods, hands shoving in to her pockets, her mind turning to Epsilon and his passing... "I heard about that."