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uploadedmeme2018-08-18 12:01 am
uploadedmods) wrote in uploadedmeme2018-08-18 12:01 am
Entry tags:
Test Drive
TEST DRIVE 001
-TDM threads can be considered game canon if players involved agree & if it suits any roles you may decide to choose for the current plot.
-Any reserving player that does not submit an app by Saturday morning will be subject to challenging applicants.
-Participation in the Test Drive is worth a flat 10 points per month rather than per thread, and you must have a minimum of 5 comments in that month to qualify for it.
-This TDM is good for the duration of the Mist setting. A new TDM will go up before the next setting.
The NETWORK for this setting is a voice-only walkie talkie system that can be used to communicate between all locations. The default channel will be open to all walkie talkies, but characters can change to an unused channel for private conversation.
of note: There seems to be something strange about these walkie talkies, in that there is no static. The quality is disturbingly crystal clear, like the person you're speaking to is right next to you instead of miles away.
CONTENT WARNING: Some prompts contain gore, character death, and substance abuse.
Applications will open Saturday, September 15 until Saturday, September 22
The lights above you are a blindingly, pristine white. The walls around you curve up into the ceiling like the inside of an MRI machine. Your hands, feet, and midsection are strapped to a clinical table, and minutes seem to tick by, with no clear course for escape presenting itself to you.
The curved white space above you flickers with color, and a perfect square like a television screen expands before your eyes. It pans over what appears to be a town, something small and simply populated.
“Hello, and welcome to your first setting,” a neutrally cadenced feminine sounding voice begins, riding the line between human and machine. As she speaks, captions of the text type themselves in neat and perfect Arial font. “The location is loosely based off Bridgton, Maine, United States of America, Earth. The year is 2007. You have been selected to participate. Obedience ensures an enjoyable and immersive experience for our audience. If you have been granted a role, instructions will follow. Do not talk about the role. Do not attempt disobedience. If you have not been granted a role, your objective for this round is simple: survive.”
After that, the shackles may release promptly and allow your character to roam free. Or perhaps not — perhaps they've been given a role to play, and if so, further instructions will play out upon the screen. Once suitably briefed, characters will be released to their own devices. Beware the mist.
learn from the mistakes of others
A pair of unperturbed mall inhabitants decide to chance the mist. They're the first of a handful to trickle out the front doors, and they seem to get by just fine. About a minute ticks by, and they disappear completely into the dense fog that presses in from every direction. It's so anticlimactic that for a moment it almost seems stupid to feel uncomfortable by the sight of it.
Until precisely one half of a body is hurled abruptly and with great force from an indeterminate point in the obscurity. It's not a top half or a bottom half; no, it's a cleanly sliced left half, head to toe as though a neat line were cut down the middle. It slams into the transparent glass doors and crumples before them, still and obviously unmoving, slowly leaking.
After a few seconds, a dark tendril of something reaches out, curls around the jutting left ankle, and drags it with painstaking slowness back into the fog.
At least the rest of them probably made it, right?
Right?
Hopefully you weren't one of the others to follow their lead. If you were, that dark shape seems to be closing in awfully quick.
eff this, let's bounce
A pair of car keys can be found discarded or perhaps dropped in their owners' haste. Braving the mist when it's at its lightest and pressing the key fob will cause a car to beep politely, flashing lights to indicate its location in the fog. Take anyone willing to go with you and pile in. Try to get the hell out of dodge!
An excellent idea....
Within five miles of the car's journey the battery will die and the engine will stall. Consider yourselves effectively stranded and with no one but yourselves to blame. Perhaps help will come if you wait long enough? Hours, surely no more than a few days... Maybe you should consider braving the fog to get back? Five miles can feel like a hundred in conditions like these.
Either way, it seems like you're trapped in the car for about as long as R. Kelly got trapped in the closet during that one unfortunate CD.
radio chatter
Characters in the library and the church will be able to communicate via walkie talkie radio chatter immediately! Characters in the mall will not have this ability until later in the month, so any network style threads with a mall character will take place during Week Two of the October plot or later, after most people have already been fully introduced to the setting and given time to adapt.
Employee of the Month (Multiple)
Some characters will be printed wearing a designated kiosk uniform, their name sloppily stickered in slightly crooked letters onto a Dippin' Dots badge, or whatever store they may happen to be assigned to. The cool voice that introduces them to the mist will carry on to tell them that they'll be playing employee # _____ in this month's immersive experience. Their motivations and objectives are simple: go to work.
Except the role seems to be bugged, because they can never not go to work. If they leave the five or six foot radius of their designated post they'll begin to experience consequences, which worsen in severity based on distance and duration. The role doesn't end at mall closing, it doesn't end on Saturdays, it simply doesn't end. Hopefully next month's code push will have a bug fix; we apologize for the inconvenience.
(If choosing to keep these threads as game canon, the role will wear off within the first in-game week)
Aggravated Assault
Congratulations, participant! You will be playing the role of a CONVICTED FELON having recently been released on parole. Your motivation for this month's immersive experience is frustration. Having undergone hard time, you'll find that we have increased your aggression and temper characteristics, and lowered your inhibitions. Your objective is to find and begin an altercation with Snuff the Rooster, who will be playing the role of the person who turned you in, NARK. Your altercation must take place in a public space with witnesses, and may not stop until Snuff the Rooster is unconscious, evicted from the mall, or someone intervenes.
Thank you for your participation!
Consequences for not completing the objective in this role can be moderate to severe.
Snuff the Rooster
Congratulations, participant! You will be playing the role of NARK. Formerly a close friend and ally of CONVICTED FELON from Aggravated Assault, you were quick to roll on them during police questioning in exchange for your freedom. Your motivation is to turn over a new leaf, and get your shit together. Your objective is to survive the altercation.
Thank you for your participation!
The Lovers (Duo Role)
Congratulations, participant! You will be playing one half of a partnership role! Please seek out (character 2). Your motivation this round is love, and the need to protect your partner from threats both inside and outside of the mall. Your objectives is to greet your lover with a kiss and place them above all others. Do not act like strangers.
Consequences for not completing the objective in this role or failing to present a convincing couple can be mild to moderate.
Pathological
Congratulations, participant! You will be playing a background character in our current setting. Your motivation is to tell lies; at least one third of what you say must be unarguably untrue. Your objective is to keep these lies from being discovered as false.
Consequences for not complying with this role can vary from mild to severe, with the compulsion to tell larger and larger lies growing as time goes on.
Scared Speechless
Congratulations, participant! You will be playing a background character in our current setting. You may choose one person, stranger or otherwise. This is the only person you may communicate with, either verbally or through writing.
Consequences for not complying with this role are severe.
potency error
Someone seems to have miscalculated the relative strength of intoxicants; all inhibition-altering substances seem to have been cranked up to eleven. One shot has the strength of three, though the taste seems to stay exactly the same. One or two drinks will quickly creep up on you. One of the joints found discarded in the bathroom trashcans will easily green you out. God forbid you've got anything stronger.
greatest movie of all time
Settling in to the relatively nice theater found at the far end of the mall is a decent way to make the time go by. The projectors are automated, and there are six different theaters that show flicks at scheduled times.
Except that every single one of them is showing Spider-Man 3. Every single one, every single showing, no matter what is advertised, becomes Spider-Man 3. That's how you know this is a horror game. Hope you didn't wander in by mistake because the doors will shut behind you and leave you to watch the entire showing. Please keep your feet off of the seats.
please replace toner cartridge
It seems there was an error in printing someone this first time around; everything came through but the visuals somehow. Your character is flesh and blood, fully formed, wearing tangible clothes even, but are completely invisible. Donning additional clothing causes it to clip out and then promptly disappear. Taking clothes off will cause them to reappear. Hopefully this gets fixed in the next lite patch.
(If choosing to keep these threads as game canon, the glitch will wear off within the first in-game week)
[ the mistakes of others, or: you definitely want your little brother to see this, right? ]
Tatsuya's definitely seen dead bodies before— he's caused a few, though none with this sort of horrific precision. He's instantly on alert, eyeing that mist and trying to figure out what kind of risks there are, if anything will come surging from it to attack them all. He's ignoring the body— and the panicking knot of people around it— right until he hears some authoritative words:
And the world drops out from beneath him. It's a voice he'd never expected to hear again, once he'd left to rejoin the Other Side. It's— ]
Nii-san?
rubs my face all over this like a weird cat
But this time, when he glances offhand at the source--Tatsuya is there.
Katsuya goes numb. Dimly, he can still hear the cacophony of the chattering crowd, he's aware of the sensation of blood draining from his face, his jaw hanging open. His body is moving without him telling it to: mechanically, he grabs Tatsuya by the arm and drags him to the side, out of the spotlight, to the confusion of the people he was addressing--all forgotten just that quickly.
When they're out of sight, Katsuya grips Tatsuya by the shoulders and just stares at him, still not quite processing what he's seeing; all his previous momentum is gone and he's frozen. There are so many things he wants to say, what the hell are you doing here chief among them, but his mouth isn't working.
And then, finally, he pulls Tatsuya into a desperate hug, burying his face in Tatsuya's shoulder, and he doesn't have enough pride or energy to keep from crying.
It's been months. He'd long since given up hope of ever seeing his little brother again.]
no subject
It's not that he hadn't missed Katsuya: He had, fiercely so. But it had only been a day by his own measurement, and his brother had the Other Tatsuya (his Tatsuya) to keep him company in the new world, and again.... It had been a day.
But he's not blind to the pain his brother is in, and the grip of his return hug steadily grows firmer. ]
Are you... okay?
no subject
He hopes Tatsuya doesn't glimpse their strange color beneath his (black, unusually) sunglasses, hopes he didn't feel Katsuya's claws beneath the gloves.
He remembers, from Baofu's brief visit, that it's likely Tatsuya had no idea he was missing, and may even be from the future from Katsuya's perspective. Katsuya will need to tread carefully so as not to alarm him.]
Y-Yes, of course. It's just... surprising to see you here.
no subject
I... wasn't expecting to see you either.
[ He pulls his zippo from his pocket and flicks it open and shut as he considers how much of an understatement that was.
He doesn't usually confront Katsuya, doesn't usually push him. But there's something wrong, something he can't put his finger on, and despite the strained relationship they'd had in the past, he still cares. ]
Are you sure you're okay?
no subject
[The old snap comes back into his voice, and internally Katsuya winces, but maybe in this case pissing Tatsuya off is better than the alternative. It's normal, and familiar, and maybe it'll get him not to ask questions.
He lets out another slow breath, and runs a hand through his hair. It's messier than normal, too; he'd stopped caring so much about appearances once it became impossible to pass for human anymore, but now he can again and he's only now realizing how unkempt it's become.
Suddenly self-conscious, he crosses his arms for some illusion of togetherness.]
I'd ask how you're here, but I assume it's the same answer as everyone else. [He pauses, then says, warningly:] You haven't been into the mist, have you?
no subject
It shouldn't be a surprise, really, that Katsuya is still singularly capable of making Tatsuya go from zero to pissed in less than five second, but here they are. The scowl he levels at his brother is fierce and annoyed and probably nothing Katsuya isn't long-since used to out of him. ]
Of course I haven't. I've got better sense than that.
[ Even if a small, spiteful part of him was tempted to charge into it just to see Katsuya's reaction— but it's not worth dying over. ]
no subject
[And it's my responsibility to keep you from harm, he doesn't say.]
You should find somewhere safe to stay until we can figure out what's going on here.
no subject
You don't seriously think I'm going to do that, do you?
[ He was more than willing to fight Katsuya on this— there's no way he's going to just stand back while something strange is going on. Even if this wasn't the same problems he'd faced before... He just didn't have it in him to hunker down and wait it out. ]
no subject
You'll do it because it's the sensible thing to do. I can't be looking after you and investigating this at the same time. I can trust you to behave responsibly on your own, can't I?
no subject
I don't need you to look after me. I'll stay out of your hair— and I'll investigate on my own.
[ There's a challenging note to his voice— daring Katsuya to try and stop him. ]
no subject
Tatsuya, this isn't a game! Whatever's out there could get you seriously hurt or worse. What good do you think you could possibly do?
no subject
It takes him a moment to recover from the shock, to hide the hurt from his face. When he speaks again, his tone is icy. ]
I'd say "you'll find out," but I already said I'd stay out of your hair. So you won't find out— not until I've figured everything out. On my own.
no subject
[It bursts out of him without warning; just as suddenly, he grips Tatsuya by the shoulders, giving him a small shake, his desperation becoming something impossible to articulate.
He's only just gotten his brother back, and there's already danger--Katsuya absolutely cannot lose him again, and suddenly he doesn't care about keeping his composure about it.]
I need you to stay safe.
[He's breathing hard, he realizes distantly.]
Please.
no subject
Are you sure you're okay?
[ His tone is still guarded, closed-off. But he is concerned. ]
no subject
He's going to have to give Tatsuya something eventually.
Finally, he lets go of his shoulders.]
Not now. Later, I promise.
[If he's lucky, that's a conversation they'll never get around to having.]
But you have to stay out of trouble. Do you understand me?
no subject
For now. ]
I won't make that promise to you.
[ Tatsuya stuffs his hands into his pockets and glances away. He's not going to lie. ]
I'm not looking for your approval. I'm telling you my intentions, and that's the most you're getting from me.
no subject
Well, if Tatsuya truly won't listen to him, then...]
Fine. Then we'll stick together. [So I can keep an eye on you, he doesn't say.]
no subject
Fine. [ And then he adds: ] --For now.
[ Because he won't rule out needing to go it alone if he has to. ]