aftr_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME ( 014 )

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TEST DRIVE MEME ( 014 )

Test Drive Meme #14

Hello, and welcome to LifeAftr! We’re pleased that you’re expressing an interest in the game. Here, you can test the waters, gauge how your character may fare in the world of LifeAftr, and even gain some in-game incentives, if you so choose.

Remember that Reserves will open on August 17th, and Applications on August 24th!

Two important notes:

1. LifeAftr's test drives take place on the island of Mu, which exists apart from the real world and possesses a dream-like quality that characters are innately aware of from the moment they appear on its shores. No need to panic or fret. Dreams are odd things, after all - and anything can happen in them. Why would anyone question where their mind chooses to wander in its sleep?

2. Due to the nature of Mu, threads in our test drive can not only be accepted as thread samples in your application, but can be accepted as game canon as well. In fact, certain choices your character makes in Mu have the potential to bear in-game consequences, largely in the form of test drive reward items.

One Magic Night
The waves are aglow. That might not be the first thing you notice when you wake, but it will probably draw your attention at some point: the way the sea foam glistens with an effervescent light as it rinses the beach in a crystalline, deep blue shimmer. Further out, lurid explosions of color ripple soundlessly beneath the waves - an underwater fireworks show. The atmosphere is peaceful, a blissed-out calm to suit the lazy lap of the surf-spray against the sand.

Maybe turning around will shed a little more light on the situation. What this is, in fact, is the echo of a celebration that was held on Ensō back in June. Torches and campfires crackle with a merry, companionable blaze, and there is food and drink in abundance - including some of the alcoholic persuasion, for those of you who are over the age of twenty-one.

There is, naturally, all sorts to do in a celebration like this. Friendly sparring matches have sprung up along the shoreline; beach cushions and blankets decorate the party site; coconut shells laden with bioluminscent body paint can be dipped into at will, if you fancy shining like a glowstick throughout the artificial night.

Just because you've got no idea how you got here doesn't mean you can't enjoy a good party while it lasts, right?

Growing Pains
The island you've ended up on today is very, very beautiful, particularly if you're a botanist: it's covered in flowers of all sorts. They grow in rich clumps, seemingly at odds with any sense of convention. Here, you can find common dandelions flowering alongside tropical strelitzias, snowdrops spangled beside water lilies. No matter the impossibility of it, despite the discrepancies of seasons and temperatures in which these specimens should be blooming, you'll find that nearly every species can be found represented, flowering in tandem. It's gorgeous. Breathtaking, even.

There's only one problem.

That problem being that the flowers are growing out of you as well.

As might be obvious, this is not exactly a pleasant sensation. There is, in fact, a full list of rather painful symptoms that has been very well-documented of late. All you have to worry about in particular, however, is what has caused these flowers to take root in you in the first place:

Lies.

Is there something you need to get off your chest? Some confession that's aching to be made? Some guilt or regret that you've repressed, that's been dragging you down for years?

Then you'd better get to it. Those flowers aren't leaving unless you spill. And if you'd rather not, well...they're more than happy to fertilize the earth with what's left of you.

Hoo Ha Ha
Stop us if you've heard this one: you and some stranger wake up on a boat. There are no landmasses in sight, and nothing as far as the eye can see but lapping waves and a peaceful, periwinkle, cloudless sky. It's good weather for sailing. Perfect, in fact. There's even a tight breeze that might helpfully guide you along.

The punchline, of course, is the fact that you're surrounded by sharks.

Sorry, did we say sharks? We meant tigersharks, of the most literal sort possible. Part fish and part feline, these dual-headed beasts are summarily more naturally carnivorous and more aggressive than your bog standard tigers or sharks. They're wickedly fast in the water, and just as lethal on land.

And they're currently trying to climb aboard; armed with four sharp-clawed legs, they're more than capable of doing exactly that unless you can fend them off.

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[She just rolls her eyes at him, giving him a look like so are you gonna do it or not. It's nice that it's this... normal. That they can be this normal when they're both utterly and completely fucked.]

Yeah, well, flowers don't normally grow on meat, either, so here we are.

[Beau leans back on her good arm, twisting her hip to look over at him and only wincing a little as it moves one of the flowers there, the growth taking a stab into her side as a result.]

This is literally some novel level torture shit. Like, yeah, you're gonna die, but instead of using a sword or something you have to talk about yourself. How does that even work?

[She's frustrated, but slowly accepting this. She just doesn't like it, and is going to complain a bit.]

Like, it doesn't even make any sense.

Well, living meat. [He wrinkles his nose.] Ugh, I'm banning the word "meat" from this conversation from here on out. Let me see it. [He doesn't wait for her to actually give him her arm before he takes it in his hands, though at least he's gentle about it... For as bunch as one can be gentle pinching at the tendrils under the skin with sharp fingernails.]

So if your options are "die and become the angriest flower garden in the world" or "talk about yourself," you're gonna go with the flowers?

[Said Molly who is also clearly not starting a sharing circle to deal with his budding problem. Hah.]

[She finds it in herself to snicker just a little bit. Meat. It's better if it's funny. Her giggles are cut off by a little hiss as he tries to remove the plant, though, feeling the stem much much deeper than she'd like.]

I mean, when you put it like that, I kinda sound, uh, really stupid. It's not like that. I mean, it's kind of like that. Shit.

[Surprise, she's being, uh, really goddamn stupid right now.]

Look, I just-- I can't say it's bullshit when it is? I don't even know what to talk about. Like, what, these flowers really want me to go into the issues I have with my father or something? If somebody had a knife to your throat and told you to reveal an emotional secret could you think of anything?

Well, I'd just lie. If someone has a knife to my throat, they don't fucking know if I'm bullshitting. I've got stories for all knife-wielding secret-lusting weirdos.

[And not the fun kind of weirdos either. Molly pulls his hand away from her arm and adjusts his shirt a bit to inspect the tendrils and buds turning the floral tattoo into a literal floral piece with a look of utter disdain, but when he speaks again, it borders on casual.] I had a feeling you had daddy issues. Nice to see that hunch was right.

[She's ready with another quip, but he immediately slams her, which makes her want to do this even less. Beau squints at him with a look like she's trying not to glare and it's only 20% working.]

Okay when you phrase it like that it gets horrible and I never want to hear you say words again.

[She sighs, trying to do a gesture and stopping as her left arm feels another jolt of pain, dropping it.]

Alright, alright, fine! My dad was a dickhead, I was a little shit, and I still hate him, is that what you want?

[Beau tilts her head back towards him, quickly adding--]

Also, I better not be the only one out here doing this, like, you can try lying to these things but I'm not gonna spill my guts, get better, and let you be in a grave again alright? So uh, back and forth or something, like ripping off this shit and getting it done.

That's fair. [He actually looks like he regrets it a bit himself, like some wires got crossed in his head and then spelled out "nope" in dancing lights. He grits his teeth and holds his hand over the buds in his shoulder, like he'd done for Fjord and Beau and it doesn't do anything. Whatever it is, it's not a poison.

So it's for the best that Beau starts talking so he can focus on something other than his disappointment, though he'd rather focus on anything than being back in a grave. Even the truth. Not even Beau's confession can break the frustration about his death, even if he thought it was worth it at the time. The funny thing about dying is if you come back, then you don't have to automatically accept things. You can be pissed about it.]

How many secrets d'you think a person can even have in two bloody years? [Lies are one thing. Lies fill space where there isn't any. He feels like this is dealing him a losing hand already. As if to prove this, the flowers he just tried to blood maledict begin trying to grow around the top of his palm, as if spurred on by the blood. He cringes.]

Sometimes it actually pisses me off that I don't have certain experiences. [He grits his teeth as he says it. He did sort of reveal this one to Beau once, but he'd been high and slap-happy. Saying you've never told anyone you never had a childhood and laughing isn't the same as admitting you hate that you don't have one.] I didn't get a childhood. I didn't get to be a kid. I have no context for what that's like. It's the one thing I really love to pretend I actually had.

Edited 2018-08-28 22:58 (UTC)

[Man, why can't she not have to accept things. Unfair. She never wants to accept fuck all. But even a little confession is enough to bend her arm enough to balance her head on her fist, curled sideways so her elbow digs into a crossed knee as she waits and listens.]

Yeah, that... never kinda thought about how much that would suck. Like, you know how to do shit you'd learn as a kid, like walking and talking and not sticking your hands in fire or whatever. But you don't know how you figured that out.

[She still doesn't know how to be comforting. But maybe she can be understanding? Or however close she brushes to understanding at a point of ever.]

Besides, it's... it's not all it's cracked up to be. I didn't get to run around and like, I dunno, play with other kids and run into trees or whatever when I was little either. I had to work. Being a kid half the time is just like being a smaller adult except you can't reach shit and you're dumb as rocks.

Your family sounds terrible. [It's that same baffled tone he'd used when she had tried to verbalize her home life back in Zadash while they were both high. He doesn't have a point of reference for how those things are, but he's seen enough people with their families to think he has a handle on the idea. Enough that he knows that dads are stern but fair and moms are kind and compassionate, and he fills in his blanks with those ideas.

Beau's version doesn't sound like the norm.]

Did your dad ever hug you? Like even once? [Maybe it's easier if they asked questions. It had been easier with the Zone of Truth...]

[She scoffs, her natural reaction here to be defensive and make some sort of joke, even when the whole point of this is to be getting to the core of her shit.]

Why does that matter?

[Instantly, Beau hisses in pain, as the roots inside her clench, and she mutters a string of increasingly colorful curses under her breath.]

Okay, okay, fuck! I don't know! I don't remember every little thing, he-- look, it's like I said before. He was a pretty good businessman. He just was... like that, all the time. If it didn't make him money or advance his status he didn't do it.

[It's simple, when she says it like that, but it didn't feel simple. It never did.]

I was supposed to be, like... an heir, you know? A dude kid he could 'teach the ropes' and be his personal mini-me. But I guess I fucked that up for him by not having a dick right out of the gate.

[Unwanted. Imperfect. That string of wrong wrong wrong that carried through her life.]

So I dunno. Guess I figured if I was gonna be the family disappointment I was gonna go for the gold, y'know? No point in being a half assed failure. Gotta, uh. Full ass that.

[Molly takes that in silence, not really knowing what to say, because under normal circumstances these are exactly the things he tries not to care about, even though he's asked twice now.

He opens his mouth to say something to the effect of no, you're right, having a family like that is worse than not having one at all, and it wouldn't be a lie and the thought doesn't tighten the roots around him. It may be that it's less a lie than it is so hard for him to conceptualize. There's so much about himself that wouldn't be true had he actually grown up properly. Was he born with those freaky blood powers or was that a choice made by Lucien? Would he have ever found the circus? Would he be this ostentatious?

No. She's right. It's not worth being annoyed by.

Rather than admit that out loud, because he's sure it's not going to make the situation better or worse, he reaches out to yank a small tendril that's starting to poke it's way out of her skin out of her and dangles it in front of her face.] That's one.

[Well, and a few wilting buds too. She's doing better than he is.] Ask me something. Truth or dare without the dare, like Jester says.

Edited 2018-09-08 17:41 (UTC)

[She doesn't know if it would've been worse to never have known him. She doesn't think she's far enough away from the problem to have really said either way yet. Maybe if, by some miracle, her life turns out grand thanks to being a little turd as a child, she'll track him down and tell him to go fuck himself to his face. But that still doesn't feel right. Thanking him for what she's endured, the person she became...

Well, she doesn't want to thank him for anything.

All of this is cut off as Molly wrenches a piece out of her and she hisses, but... it's working. Something's working, at least.

Beau settles back, rolling a shoulder with more mobility than she had before.]

Uhh... I dunno. It's usually easier to ask when people are being cagey about shit.

[She tilts her head up as she thinks, eventually speaking towards the sky.]

You said you found your voice at the carnival. Did you like, not speak because you didn't remember? Or you were just... stuck? Like, you woke up but did you have to re-learn how to read and stuff, or did it just all click back one day?

It is, isn't it?

[Molly absently brushes a hand over the buds on his shoulder, not trying to yank, but trying to disrupt them somehow. They feel as soft as real buds, and that disturbs him. They should be ugly and gnarled and disgusting, not turning people into pretty topiary.

He stops, sucking in a breath, and it's clear she hit on something dark and worthwhile to speak about.] No... Everything I already knew how to do came back within a month after the shock wore off. Not the talking. That came back after a few months, and I just started speaking again like I was never mute at all.

You've gotta understand, I wasn't all there. I could go through the motions to survive- I'd eat if food was put in front of me and all that. But there was no one home. I don't remember those days very well, but I do know that I was probably way more trouble than I was worth. The circus had no reason to keep me on. I was another mouth to feed who wasn't contributing and might not ever contribute. They could have left me on the side of the road a week or two in, and I wouldn't be aware enough to know what happened.

[Slowly the buds on his shoulder begin to wither.]

[It sucks, that something so deadly can be so beautiful. It's one of those paradoxes that happens all over nature, but doesn't stop it from being annoying and uncomfortable. Then again, that's where she seems to thrive, so maybe she should get used to it.

But for once, Beau shuts her mouth and listens, leaning forward and quiet while he speaks. It's... a lot. She knew it was going to be a lot, but wow, it's a lot. Her personhood and self is one of the few things she ever had- going through life without it seems like it would be a lot.

But she's watching the new growths die. They're getting somewhere. She can't stop.]

That's kinda crazy. I mean, I guess dying or like, getting born? Made? Not dying? Is pretty fucked up. It's uh, kind of something most people don't ever have to do, so...

[Wow, she's bad at this at a truly unseen level. Maybe she shouldn't think so hard about what she's saying.]

Look, what I mean is, it kinda makes sense you were so messed. And you made it, even if you weren't like, useful. That's worth something. I'd say it got you here but we're almost dying again, so maybe here kind of sucks right now. But it's somewhere.

I don't think this has to come with mutual understanding, but... Thank you. It's still very weird that you're trying to be gentle, and might be scaring me more than the imminent death.

[Well, less imminent now. They're starting to die and the vines shrivel and pierce the skin so they can be removed, leaving little welts of blood but little else. There's a lot to go.]

We're going to be at this all day until we're crying into each others' shoulders and wishing we were dead. There's torture to this no matter where you look.

[This touchy feely nonsense with Beau was getting suffocating. He had to pause for a brief bitching intermission.]

[She rolls her eyes at him with a grumble.]

Hey, you think I'm enjoying this? This is a literal fucking nightmare. I know it is because I have to be nice to you.

[See, here we go, a pause in the emotions to yell at the sky and tell it to fuck off. This is what they're good at.]

Also, why couldn't it have been like, fun stuff growing out of us, y'know? What am I gonna do with flowers? What if we could, uh, provide our own drugs? That would be great.

Edited (i cant proofread for fuck) 2018-09-19 18:40 (UTC)

I'm trying to think of whether or not I have personal issues with smoking anything that's growing out of my pores, and I can't come up with a damn thing.

[Well, it would take the edge off. And then reality sinks back in and he swats at Beau.] No, no. Enough of that. We're not going to become somebody's fucking garden decorations today. It's your turn. What about your mum? Was she a persnickety rich socialite? Wanted you to wear dresses and keep your hair long? I promise I'm not going to give enough of a fuck to remember any of this when it's all over.

[She goes to laugh, but he swats at her and she slaps back like a five year old.]

Augh, fuck, you can't let me have one thing-- fine, fine. I dunno, she was like... fine, I guess? Just kind of absent. Dad ran the whole household. She just did her thing.

[Honestly, Beau hasn't thought about her in some time. When she gets fixated, she gets... fixated.]

I mean, guess she didn't step in when I got fucking kidnapped, so. Some mom, right? She must've been tired of me too.

Edited 2018-09-24 05:59 (UTC)

[He whistles, a low sound that says everything his words count. She's right. Parents suck ass.]

You have officially turned me off the idea of parents. I hope you're proud of yourself. Eh, it's probably for the best. I don't think anything would've compared to Gustav and the rest of them. Family steps in for you and they don't get tired of you, so what's blood compared to those that'll actually be decent to you, anyway?

[She snorts.]

See, now you can't miss 'em. But jeez, that guy was like your dad? And you left him in prison?

[Great place to just GO for there, Beau. Jeez.]

Look, family's not all that it's cracked up to be. Nobody has to care about you. Not one. What does it matter that they don't.

[But she grits her teeth as she feels something seize, something tight in her throat. Goddamnit, don't make her talk about that. She doesn't even know how she would.]

It's just-- it's bullshit, let's go with that.

[Molly's blood boils for a hot moment, but he's very good at reserving his temper for pettiness and not outbursts. Seeing another tendril working its way out of her shoulder, he reaches over and yanks again.] I didn't have the fucking gold to get him out, for one thing. I planned on making my way and coming back for him, which is what people do for each other when they give a shit.

[He tosses the tendril away. Beau doesn't have to elaborate. He knows what she's trying to say- it isn't a feeling he can truly commiserate with, but having been around assholes, he knows that the people who are lured to carnivals are the people who have alienated themselves everywhere else.] You find people who do care about you and that you care about and you take care of each other, warts and all. You're not the worst thing ever, but you're close, and I still like you.

[He deserves his entire left side shriveling up and wilting at that admission. He gets a few petals falling to the ground, instead. Picky plant diseases.]

[She hisses as he just goes ripping shit out of there, the sound immediately becoming words.]

Sssshit! Can you SAY something when you do that, fuck.

[But it's just to fill the air, and he words make her fall silent. He doesn't have to say that. He doesn't have to fucking lie. If she's going to be bad she's going to be the worst damnit, what right does he have saying shit like that?

Instead she reaches over and pulls a whole bloom out from the back of his neck, crushing it in her hand when it comes loose.]

You just piss me off sometimes, you know that? Coming in and saying all that wise bullshit like you know everything about the world better than I do even though you're like two fucking years old. You've just got it all figured out, huh? Be nice to people and it just works out?

[Her voice is rougher now, as she drops the crushed flower to the ground.]

I know stuff, alright? I've seen enough of the world to know how it works. But you just... keep winning over me anyway.

[Molly hisses in response, despite knowing that he had that coming. and swats at her hand ineffectively.] Oh fuck you, it doesn't take more than two years to figure out how people work. Ow. [He gives his neck a good crack and scratches loose another bit of a tendril and tosses it away.]

When did figuring out which of us is less of a shit person become a bloody competition, anyway?

[She squints at him with a face that says it's obvious, but she also hates to admit it.]

When you started winning.

[It's said through gritted teeth, her jaw tight.]

Look I know it's stupid, alright? It feels stupid when I just have to like, say it like this. I just think it should be effort to be better than me, alright? Not just have you waltz in on it with your dumb face and cards looking like a rainbow threw up on your coat.

[It takes a second for him to react, and when he does... Well, of course he laughs, though not for the reason she might think. The flowers are wilting slowly, and there's a bit more hope they're not gonna die as ornamental plants, so it's not the fearlessness of impending death that causes him to reach over, throw an arm around her neck and pull her into a sideways hug.]

You are such an idiot. It used to be so much fun disliking you and now you're taking all the joy out of it by being a jealous little shit, envious of the one thing that isn't special or unique to me. I don't even know how to react to this. It's adorable.

Edited 2018-10-11 04:05 (UTC)

[She immediately emits a gurgling sound like she's being melted by acid or something when he pulls her in, that ends up melting into an uuuuuuugh sort of noise fairly quickly.]

I mean, yeah, I think we've established I don't give a shit about you.

[She's kind of laughing about that sentence, though, like it's all meant to be a joke.

She won't push him off, either. Don't read into it, Molly, she'll knock out a tooth.]

I almost already regret saying that, even if I'm being held on a death threat.

TEST DRIVE MEME ( 014 )

Y E S BRING ME HELL

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