dankmemes | test drive meme # 37

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!test drive

test drive meme # 37

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 October 25th, and apps are open November 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: PICK ON HIM
[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.

And this one is seasonally appropriate (wait, what time of the year is it in Hadriel? Oh well, who cares). Roaming the streets of the city is the pumpkin-headed ghost from the 1989 video game Monster Party.

This ghost is... actually kind of cute, with that white body and spinning pumpkin head. Besides, all it wants is to not be picked on! Maybe you guys can be friends? Or maybe not, since upon seeing you it will begin throwing pumpkin-shaped projectiles that hurt, like, a lot. If you don't get away fast enough, it'll be perfectly happy to kill you, too. All tricks and no treats - who decided that?!]

D O O R

SCENARIO TWO: UNEXPECTED GIFTS
[You didn't think you'd ever see it again. Your teddy bear from childhood, the necklace your best friend gave you - or maybe something more prosaic. Your favorite flavor of soda, a brand new pair of those headphones you like. Whatever it is, you didn't expect to find it here, of all places.

Or maybe you're not the one who found it. Maybe you see it in the hands of someone else, someone you don't know. Or someone you do know - but can't stand. What the hell are they doing? That's your jacket, and you haven't see it in months. Better get it back... somehow.

This is a mini version of our Gifts from the Door event this month.]

C O N F U S I O N

SCENARIO THREE: THAT'S TOO CORNY
[You're not entirely sure how you ended up in this corn maze. Maybe going in seemed like a good idea at the time, but your memories are a little fuzzy about specifics, like where the hell you are and, oh right, how to get out of this maze.

You can see the sky above you - gray and looking like it might rain - but the corn is much too tall to see over. So what's the plan here? You don't remember how you got in, so you can't backtrack. Pick a path at random? Take every right turn? Say fuck it and push your way straight through the corn?

Don't worry, though - you're not the only one in here. There are plenty of others just as lost as you, and hopefully you'll run into each other. Maybe together you can find the way out!]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

• fear

[ This really doesn't seem like a place the Pattern would take her. For one thing, it's not her happy place—it's cloudy; how is she supposed to see the night sky? For another, there are... things with jack-o-lanterns for heads, and that's... what could she even call this? ]

This is wrong. This is all wrong.

[ Kate keeps murmuring that to herself as she gets to her feet and looks around.

She doesn't quite notice the ghost taking aim at her. Please help her. ]

• door

[ Her UEC hoodie lies on a rock on the beach, dry somehow despite the way the weather is here. Kate picks it up and feels the soft fabric, which shows barely any wear thanks to good laundry habits, and smells faintly of the wood her office bookshelf is made of. Is that where she left it last?

Congratulations, Kate, you look like you're in a laundry commercial right now, standing on the beach smelling your swearshirt with the waves crashing just yards from her feet and the ocean spray getting all over her as the wind blows. ]

• confusion

All right, look. If you're gonna do the haunter corn maze thing, it has to be darker. You know, nighttime? I wouldn't even begrudge it being overcast, because at least that gives all of this a good ambience.

[ She knows what you're up to, Fear. Or Confusion. Or Rage, who seems to always get power from every event. But no, this is annoying. How'd she get here? She can't navigate, not that these alien stars could lead her out anywaj. But at least that would've helped! This is just a Yaughton kind of creepy, ugh.

But okay, fine. She'll make it out. A straight line is the quickest way out, so she follows this path and goes through the corn and so on. She'll probably hit someone in the face with a corn stalk eventually. ]

• wildcard

[ /waggles eyebrows, winks with both eyes ]

[Matron is moving slowly through the corn maze, not sure how she got here and she's also not sure that she cares how she arrived. She's traumatized, she's in a new world and the children have been taken from her. They're gone. And she's gone. And she's not sure if she's really here or not. Or how to get home. Or if she's able to get home at all.

What is home, to the dead? She's not sure she knows.

Did the children exist at all? Did she ever really exist?

She can't remember.

So she wanders. Occasionally shifting through the maze by cheating and just slipping through. She is a ghost, after all. What's the point of being dead if she can't use it to her advantage? Those who come across her might notice that her skirts and hair are moving, wispy white cloth pulling about as if the wind was blowing about her. Strands of red moving as if pulled by the same breeze.

Which is fine, except the wind isn't strong enough now to do such a thing. And even if it was, the maze would be blocking it.]

Lost, lost. My poor darlings, what will they do without me? [Her voice is low, and it has the sound of many speaking as one.]

[Sal would never dream of cheating at a corn maze. That's all the fun - getting lost and not knowing your way out! And it seems like an actual, non-monster-infested, maze. However, it's been quite a while since he entered, and the tall stalks compared to his 5 ft 4-ish stature makes him feel incredibly dwarfed.

He considers just running through them at this point but...nah, he would feel bad about it if he cheated. Maybe if it becomes truly impossible.

Either way, he's walking down a path he's only half certain he's seen before, coming up on a literal and metaphorical fork in the road when someone is coming through one side of the stalks like he had just considered doing, causing him to start a bit. She's all wispy...and surreal — he sure knew a ghost when he saw one. The living didn't tend to have clothes and hair that moved when there was no wind.]

Oh, hello! I guess you found a way to get through this maze, huh?

[Pun...really not intended. He's just trying to make conversation.]

Do you need help looking for someone?

[For a moment she jerks violently, eyes wide and wild and her face thin and fearful. And then she flies back into the row, unsure of what to do. She's in her calmest mood possible with the situation at hand, strange worlds and missing wards, but finding herself with someone when she was certain she was alone is a still quite a surprise for her.

She doesn't come back out at first, instead getting a good look at the young man before deciding that he's not bad. Eyes glowing from the maze slowly cease their sickly haze as she calms, pondering him and his words. No, it's not a monster doll or magic beast. Just a mask. Nothing frightening there. He's a just barely a man at all, young and sweet still. A child, nearly. So she settles back through the corn and smooths out her skirt.

He seems like a nice young man. Worth talking to. Older than the children she usually finds, but still in need none the less.]

Forgive me, please. You frightened me. Silly, isn't it? A grown woman startling like that. [Her expression softens considerably, and she plumps up a bit. Not looking quite as feral and sick, a feeling of warmth spreading out from her in a gentle aura.] I've lost my children. Every one of them. How can I call myself their matron, if I can't even keep track of them? I've looked here, there, everywhere. Through this maze five times over. But they're gone. [She wrings her hands a bit, and sighs.] I'm nowhere near home, I'm afraid. And I can't remember what's happened to them.

[Unfortunately, there's something awfully familiar about this - finding yourself in another dimension and under attack from weird eldritch creatures. At least this place doesn't appear to be an Earth that an alternate version of Noh transformed into the capital of the new Kree empire? Silver linings.

Luckily, his gauntlets still shift easily into plasma pistols, and when he sees Kate in the line of the pumpkin-headed creature's attack, he moves quickly, breaking into a hard run while shooting wildly at the thing.]

Just because it's wrong doesn't mean it's not still dangerous!

( Water. Home, or something like it anyway. She's starving, and days of maintaining this form has left Haenyo shaking and pale as she stumbles towards the familiar environment, the scent of the sea pulling her towards the rocks — and Kate.

She should have come here much earlier and tried to sink back into her world, but there were so many new things here and curiosity won her over until this very moment, when her lungs feel so tight in her chest that it could just burst at any second.

The pull of the sea is so strong that she doesn't notice the presence of an obstacle, the change in the air around her, until she walks directly into it. Into... a warm body? Something like the form she currently wears.

Human, she thinks they're called. )

E-Excuse me.

( She doesn't stop for much more than that, unseeing eyes looking directly past Kate as she stutters her way around the person on trembling legs, waves licking her toes and drawing a sigh of contentment out of her.

Finally. )

— pick on him;

( For a split second, the thing on the floor is very definitely not human - a slimy, writhing mass of scales and fins, dark as the floor of the Colosseum itself, all sharp teeth and webbed extremities.

A scream — a high-pitched shriek which grates on bones and chills blood — erupts from it before its body contorts and curls in on itself, as though it's trying to hide from everything around it, as though the air itself is poison to its body.

And, in the span of a blink, those webbed extremities become hands and feet, sharp teeth recede and round out, hiding behind lips and scales give way to flesh and hair as a young woman all but materialises where the creature was before. Her head rises, eyes blank as she stumbles to her feet, pale and naked and shivering.

This doesn't feel right. The ground under her feet is unfamiliar and the scent of the ocean is all wrong, the tang lingering in this strange form's nose in a way that makes it twitch and Haenyo sneezes, seemingly unaware of the giant pumpkin ghost which slowly turns its head towards the noise. )

— that's too corny;

( There are walls all around her, she knows that feeling, the pressure and flow changes when you're surrounded. Wind isn't like water, but its similar enough that even this fleshy body can pick it out. But these walls aren't solid either, and a curious hand reaches out to touch, pushing aside cool, crunchy... somethings Haenyo has no word for.

Can she get through this way? Well, she's going to try. It must be like the weeds growing in the sea, and she and push her way through. Bare feet step cautiously, like a child still unsure of how to walk, as she picks her way through this strange vegetation.

Is it a hunt? A contest of some sorts? This isn't the kind of hunting games they play in the deep, but she understands the concept. Whoever catches the most wins, right?

So she moves slowly, stopping every so often and tilting her head, testing the air, listening to what's around her. Footsteps, rustling—

She follows it, swift and lightfooted despite shaky steps, her ears pricked and leading the charge, hands like claws as she reaches for the warmth of a living body...

This is a hunting game, isn't it? Time to catch some prey. )

— wildcard;

( You know how this goes. Her info is in her journal but still not finished, and as a final note, Haenyo is blind so, there's that. )

Edited 2018-10-31 13:20 (UTC)

[Dangerous things often come through the door. Nightmare shapes that Poison can give no name to and she learned long before Hadriel to be wary, to carry a weapon and to not rely on anyone else to save her. Leaning on other people so heavily can be fatal, and Poison is not going to be a damsel in need of rescue each time things get difficult.

She doesn't enter the coliseum when the Door opens. The young woman is small and quick but fragile, lacking the strength about her to directly confront the monsters that pour in with the newcomers. Instead, she lingers at the fringes, ready to pick off any stragglers and to direct any injured towards the nearest clinic.

Poison has seen a good number of strange things come out of that place, but an entirely naked woman is perhaps one of the strangest. She steps towards her immediately, but hesitates, noting something... odd in the way she holds herself and the way she reaches out.

... This woman reminds her of something.]

Hello? [She calls out, a hand lightly positioned against the large knife on her belt.] Are you all right..?

( This form is strange, it fits her all sorts of incorrectly. When the sounds of land-dweller's words — a language that had been incomprehensible back home but connects together into something coherent here — break the silence, Haenyo's head jerks towards the noise, ears pricked and following it. Her eyes don't move at all, still staring blankly towards the monster nearby.

It tosses a projectile and she ducks out of the way in sharp, stuttering movements, not quite fast enough to avoid being skimmed on the head by a pumpkin. Too slow, too uncertain in this form, even if she picks up the same changes in sound and environment she would usually. A few, stumbling steps back get her closer to where the land-dweller's sound came from, and further from the attacker, Haenyo's mind tripping over a million ways to get out of this situation.

Her nose twitches again, that saltwater tang drifting along the air. The place she's strongest, and — she's guessing — where this thing can't follow. )

Can... ( Oh wow it sounds strange to hear her words come out like this. ) Can you show me to the sea?

[What can she do about that thing following the woman? It looks ghost-like, and that's enough for Poison to reason that she won't be able to harm it (and nor does she want to waste away energy in trying). She has realised that once creatures leave the coliseum they become less organised, tending more towards drifting away towards whatever they can attack next, and though she watches it carefully and flinches when the pumpkin is thrown she doesn't feel too concerned just yet.

Poison is just as surprised as the woman to hear that voice come from her, and to hear such an innocent-sounding question. She bites her lip for a moment, lingering in the uncertainty that she only allows to show knowing that it can't be seen - she knows what blindness looks like - then quickly shrugs her coat off.]

I can. Here, you must be cold. [The coat is a warm, winter-lined affair that she feels the lack of as soon as it's off. She approaches with caution still threaded through every movement and covers the woman's shoulders.] It's this way. You can hold onto my arm.

( Sea. Seaseaseasea— This form is keeping her alive, but it's bulky and wrong, all gangly limbs and odd features. Breathing through her nostrils is a heavy, cumbersome affair and she ends up exhaling through her mouth loudly instead. Even the ears, external as they are, feel... less. As though all sound is dampened.

Land-dwellers are a strange bunch. As well evidenced by the item dropped onto her shoulders. )

Eh? ( It's a heavy, weighty thing, impeding her movement and uncomfortably warm. It's stifling in a way that Haenyo has nothing to compare it to — there are currents of boiling water down in the deep but they exert an entirely different kind of pressure than this.

It's awful. Awful and wrong and Haenyo tosses wildly, pushing off this— this— what in the ocean's depths is that? Some land-dwelling method of capture? A low hiss slips out from between flat and ineffectual teeth as she feels the weight leave her shoulders and fall to the ground. Better, but still— )

No.

( No, she isn't cold. And no, she doesn't want to be captured by this soft-spoken stranger. )

[Sal is quite used to similar reactions so he doesn't move or try to say anything right away, simply withdrawing a little bit — a step or two back to give her more room, while he waits to see if she'll calm down.]

Don't worry about it. You're never too old to be afraid.

[He reassures her, though hearing that she lost her children and couldn't find them...oh no.]

Hey...it's not your fault. People just kind of end up in this place through no control of their own. I'm sure they're safe wherever they are...I'm really sorry you can't get to them, though.

fear

[Alright, a pumpkin-headed thing isn't something he's used to seeing every day. But there's a lot he's not used to seeing every day. Besides, it's kind of cute. He's not sure what to do exactly other than follow first contact protocols — that applies here, right?]

...Because that worked out so well last time. [he mutters to himself, his arms raised as he approaches the...ghost-looking...thing. He clears his throat.]

Hey — nice pumpkin by the way — I don't mean any har—

[Aaaand then there's something flying at his head. Luckily he turned in time for it to only hit him in the back, and with his armor on it...well, it still hurts like hell.]

Ah, shit! Not friendly, got it! [He'd been knocked to the ground but he's quick to get up, running past whoever just happens upon the scene to duck behind some cover as projectiles continue to be flung at him.]

Not friendly, not friendly!

gifts

[Something Scott hadn't been expecting to find out here was the small trap he housed his little pet mouse it...just sitting here on the floor, empty. He lifts the trap, looks under it, looks around.

Okay, everything else aside, he needs to find that mouse. It's now mission priority. Which is why he approaches whoever's nearby with an urgency about him.]

—Hey, I have an important question. [Deep breath.] Have you seen a mouse running around here?

too corny

Okay, now I know I've turned this corner before.

[He's not even sure what the hell he's doing in a maze. The moment he realized he had no idea where he's going he tried to use his jump jets to get out...unfortunately the stalks were just tall enough that he couldn't even see over them. Eventually he tries just marching through them but he still can't seem to find his way out.

At some point he stops and sighs, hands on his hips as he tries to asses his situation further.]

Even cheating doesn't work. I'm officially out of ideas.

[Tyki has had a lot of odd things said to him before. But he's not once in his life been asked about mice, at least not with this sense of urgency and importance. It'd be almost comical, but there's that feeling that this is actually a serious issue. To his new companion, if nothing else.] No, sorry. You're looking for one?

[The heavy sigh and slumping of his shoulders indeed makes this seem like a serious issue to him.]

Damn it.

[He gestures to the glass mouse trap a few feet away, releasing an exasperated sigh.]

How does a mouse get out of a mouse trap anyway? I should get a refund. I funded the research for that trap myself—

[It's now when he realizes he's rambling at a perfect stranger. His hands go up as he offers an apologetic half-smile.]

Sorry, uh. It's been a long day. And now my pet is missing.

[Tyki sighs, and wishes that he hadn't stayed around to get interested. But he did, and now he's stuck at least talking to Scott. Who funds research for a mouse trap anyway?

This guy, apparently.]

It's fine. It can't be easy to have a missing friend, animal or otherwise. [Tyki pauses, thinking.] Mice are survivors. They go to warmth and food, right? You might want to search near the shops that carry food.

[Look, it's dangerous to have a rodent running around on a ship. It needed to be done! He didn't know he was going to fall in love with the guy, though.

At any rate, he agrees wholeheartedly with everything Tyki just said.]

Right. After I was done panicking I was totally going to check that out. [He walks over to the trap and lifts it up — somewhere in the back of his mind he notices that the trap is closed and would have been impossible for the mouse to escape, but he has to be here, so he ignores that fact. It's possible he's hyper focusing on this little problem to get his mind off of other things, but it's also possible he just really loves that mouse.

He turns back to Tyki with a sheepish look about him.]

...Uh, where are the stores? I'm new here. And by new here I mean I have no idea where the hell anything is.

[Tyki wouldn't know anything about that, honestly. But a pet is a pet, and company that's not obnoxious is company that's not obnoxious. Tyki has been lacking as of late for more people to talk to that don't make him want to gouge his own eyes out. And so far, Scott fits the bill.

Unfortunately.] I've got a little time for that. We're not too far off, anyway. [Tyki turns, and points in the direction of the shop district.] That's the way. Keep hold of that trap, and let's make haste. [Sorry, Scott. You got stuck with a dapper Victorian villain in a top hat. It's going to be a weird trip for both of them.]

Yes...haste. Let's make that.

[It's fine, he'll just casually make fun of you along the way. Hope you don't mind.

Either way, trap held in his arms, he begins to head off in the direction indicated. He takes that time to have a look around, in general. Considering the places he's seen so far, Hadriel wasn't half bad. Though, that did beg the question...]

There aren't any...giant creatures randomly roaming about, are there? You know, the kind that might eat a poor defenseless mouse?

[Tyki tolerates mild ribbing rather well, thankfully. He's good natured when he's not in murder mode. So his new 'friend' is alright, for now at least.]

This place is teeming with monsters. But there are plenty of humans for them to desire, I can't imagine one wasting time on a tiny mouse when a whole man is easily available. I think you're in luck, the tiny beast is probably fine.

[Tyki doesn't really rush, allowing him to keep the pace he desires as they move closer towards the shops. However, he really hopes the little thing isn't chewing on anything in his shop.]

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test drive meme # 37

Katherine Collins | Everybody's Gone to the Rapture

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YOU RANG???? (fear.)

door!

haenyo; original | nudity warning?

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Scott Ryder | Mass Effect Andromeda

GIFTS BECAUSE MOUSE HUNT?!

MOUSE HUNT!!!

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