test drive meme # 39

[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 December 25th, and apps are open January 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: HE MADE HIS LIST
[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.

You were hoping for something seasonally appropriate, right? Well, the Door doesn't know it's December, so this must be a coincidence - because this time, it's brought in the Krampus.

This creature is the opposite of Santa, and if you've been bad (and let's be real, who in Hadriel hasn't), it'll be all too happy to punish. Maybe you'll get lucky and it'll just scare the crap out of you and give you some coal... or maybe it'll decide your punishment needs to be much, much worse. Don't you wish you'd been good this year?]

R A G E

SCENARIO TWO: HADRIELITE VANDAL
[Last night everything was fine. You went to bed happy and content - well, as happy and content as you ever are. But this morning, as you stepped out of your house, something was wrong. Maybe you didn't notice it at first - maybe someone had to point it out to you. But there it was, in big bold letters: someone had painted an insult across the front of your house.

Maybe it's a rude name. Maybe an insulting comment. Maybe just a picture of a dick with an arrow pointing to it that says your name. Whatever it is, someone did it specifically to fuck with you. But who? And why? Maybe you already think you know who, and all you need to do is hunt them down. Or maybe it's time for an investigation. Or... maybe all you want to do is clean it off before someone sees.

Good luck. That paint is already dry.]

C O N F U S I O N

SCENARIO THREE: ALL FLIPPY-FLOPPY
[You didn't realize there was anything wrong, not until you saw that person you've always thought was your best friend. They seem the same as ever, it's just - you really don't understand what you saw in them anymore. They're kind of whiny, they're way less cool than you remember, and that hair? Ew.

It's not just that. You ran into your worst enemy earlier, and maybe... you were wrong about them? It really seems like they have some good points, and that annoying expression they always make actually seems kind of cute now. Maybe it's time to kiss and make up, possibly literally!

This is a mini version of our Your Best Enemy event this month.]

Comments

[omegalomaniac]

[It is perceptible, that cast of someone who has lived for some time. Racto would like to think they're good at recognizing it, from one old soul to another.]

[It's not really that simple. That kind of thing tends to only work when you've had, for lack of a better term, practice.]

And so polite.

[The wry twist of amusement crinkles the edges of their eyes, creased as they are with the aftermarks of stress and laughter lines and simple age. But they see no reason to refuse. Dogs ought to be pet, and if Racto finds it particularly discomfiting to be holding a conversation with such an animal while scratching her behind her ears, they don't show it.]

[standformyself]

No point in starting off on the wrong foot.

[Rather hard to make friends if one starts with snapping, growling, and biting. Plus, the Dog does like meeting new people, and this one is most certainly new to her. She hasn't run across them before, and they don't seem evil. Heck, they're even petting her, which she does thoroughly enjoy.]

You've recently arrived, or?

[omegalomaniac]

You could say that.

[Yes, but heaven forbid Racto give a straight answer once in their life. It's an instinct that has served them far better than it has knifed them in the back, though it has, certainly, managed both in good time. Statistically, there's simply no avoiding it.]

Arrived is one word for what happens to those who come here.

[standformyself]

I don't think anyone has any recollection of actually coming here. Just waking up.

[It had been a very strange experience for the Dog. While there are parts of her history that she doesn't recall anymore, she typically has a sense of herself. Sleep, perhaps as it could be described, and then Lirael's spell. A lot had changed in the world since she had last graced it.

But here? Completely new. Completely unexpected.]

Not all remain, although I've no idea how they walk free.

[omegalomaniac]

Or if they choose to?

[Being mnemonically blinded - that's not new. There are periods of their life that are not available to them, for whatever reason. They can no longer tell if such memories were purposefully repressed or if they were simply suctioned away with the pieces of their soul that were detached from the whole.]

[That being said, the transition from one world to another is a rather drastic leap.]

[standformyself]

Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?

[It is not a question that the Dog actually expects an answer to. An answer could be given, mind, but there is no one answer to that statement. But she gives a little woof.]

Of course it may well be something that we never know.

[omegalomaniac]

And a philosopher on top of it.

[Their features into their resting expression - a vague, tired thing approximating amusement, a faint smile that threatens to break into something almost sincere.]

A canine with talent.

[standformyself]

[And her butt might be wiggling with how much her tail is waggling.]

I enjoy being useful.

[omegalomaniac]

And that's why you're here?

[Their eyes flick up, calmly, to take in the clinic. Not much it could do for someone like them, they'd wager. Chronic pain is a motherfucker, but it's the price of living the way they do. Being what they are.]

[standformyself]

Here, at this very moment?

[Unless the Dog is being asked why she is here, as in this place. Personally, she doesn't actually have any real qualms about being here. The time with her mistress had come to an end, and the Dog had known that. Of course she hadn't actually passed, rather just that form that she had born, even though she knew that she could take it again. It was time for Lirael to stretch her so called wings and go out on her own.]

[omegalomaniac]

Sure. Or in general. Whichever.

[They're nothing if not easygoing. Adaptable. They've adapted to a whole hell of a lot, semi-recently, ending up here like they have. Whether they like it or not, they've more or less been forced to become as such.]

[standformyself]

I've no idea. It is as good a place as any. A bit drier than where I was, although also more limited.

[She can't pop in and spy to see how her mistress is doing, although the Dog has a general idea of what is to come. It's not her time yet anyway. Plus, if time does somehow magically cease while one is here, then it certainly is just a little adventure on the side.]

[omegalomaniac]

"Limited." Yeah. I'm getting that.

[They scratch at the curve of their jaw with their free hand, the rasp of nails over skin scarred and unshaven. Limited is one way of putting it. Limited. Untenable. Worse, maybe.]

[standformyself]

[Some that the Dog has spoken to do not seem to have traveled too much, while others appear to have crossed the stars. There are those who speak of a wasteland that is their home, and those who come from something more stable. It is deeply varied.]

Are you a traveler then?

[Whether something as simple as from one place to another, or something far more of a wanderlust nature.]

[omegalomaniac]

I'm not sure anyone here can really be called a "traveler" once they end up stuck somewhere.

[That isn't actually an answer. They are, in a sense, but recent events, even before being interdimensionally displaced, simply...claimed otherwise.]

[standformyself]

Being stuck doesn't make one not a traveler. Just a stuck one.

[Although she is good with the art of misdirection and not providing straight forward answers, and doesn't seem put out in the least.]

[omegalomaniac]

[One side of their mouth quirks upward slightly, unveiling an amused cast over the texture of their words.] Displaced traveler, then. Though you could make the argument that every traveler seeks to become displaced. This certainly wasn't any kind of destination I had in mind.

But I'm getting the impression that most everyone feels more or less the same.

[standformyself]

For the most part, many do simply seem to endure, at least until they are able to return.

[Some may well count the days until that happens, although the Dog has no qualms. Then again, being as old as she is, and having just finished what she had, that explains it. Had it been before the Destroyer was broken again, she may well be barking a different story.]

[omegalomaniac]

That's the idea, is it?

[Racto closes their eyes. The temptation to let their mental exhaustion pervade into the physical is...there, as present as always, but with immense effort, they pull their eyes open again. There's a heaviness to the motion, though that may have more to do with the live knot of contracted, confused muscle that comprises the area around their spine.]

Just outlast the phenomenon?

[standformyself]

It is one approach.

[Not the one that the Dog is taking, but the Dog is the Dog. She never does anything in a simple or normal way. No, she is more than happy to take the winding path and see what else is there, at least if afforded the opportunity to do so. Sometimes time is not on one's side.]

I suppose each individual shall need to explore what it is that they desire while here. Sulking hardly seems to be productive, but. [The Dog is not going to bite everyone that sulks.]

[omegalomaniac]

No, [Racto murmurs, thoughtfully.] No, it never is.

[The word on the wall drags at the back of their mind. The effort necessary to redirect their thoughts isn't presenting itself easily, so they'll have to...torque it. Shift it, in some comprehensible manner, toward something constructive.]

So. People like dogs in their clinics?

[standformyself]

I suppose as long as I am not up to any trouble.

[She hasn't found anywhere that she has been denied to go, although there may well be places she isn't supposed to go. Then again, she may be disreputable, and a menace at times, but she isn't evil or cruel.]

[omegalomaniac]

That depends on how one defines "trouble."

[Something about this seems to be...amusing to them. One side of their mouth twists upward in a grim half-smile, dark and vague. In times past, they have been easily grouped into that category of - trouble.]

You've been here a while?

[standformyself]

There are many definitions, aren't there.

[Although somehow her tone seems to state that she may well cover quite a few of them. Nothing too bad though. She enjoys walking the line, but she is always on the nicer side of trouble.

There is a shake of her head at the question, a rather human gesture.]

A few months, no more. Others have been here for quite longer, although I don't know who has been here the longest.

[omegalomaniac]

And how do you...mark months, exactly?

[One eye squints shut slightly. Something about the question seems to strain them, coming up against the barrier of how they've measured time and how others do - the sun was an adjustment. The sun, the day interspersing with the night instead of just a continuous dark.]

[It's unfamiliar.]