TEST DRIVE MEME ( 014 )

[lifeaftr_mods]

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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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

Comments

[mollymocked]

I am very good at make-up. I messed up my junk what fierce that one time. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to make your own nethers look unpleasant.

[There's some weird implication that naturally his dick is a fucking Elizabethan painting or something, but that's classic Molly. He and Jester are nothing without their dick jokes.

He picks a spot on her cheek just beside her right ear and begins a design that is not entirely simple. It starts with a curly vine that snakes down to her chin and then works it's way to her cheekbone, terminating into a little bouquet of flowers. They're not complicated like his own floral tattoos and by the third petal, it becomes clear that these are just tiny daisies blooming on her cheek, but he was mysterious for a few moments anyway.]

[technicallytechnically]

[Jester giggles instantly at his description of his horrible junk.]

I'll keep you in mind next time I need a dick to look super nasty!

[Even so, she tries her best to stay still as he paints on her. A couple times, she gets distracted by something and turns, only to be reminded she has to keep trying to guess what's going on her face.]

A really curly octopus. Some shoelaces? Spaghetti and meatballs. [Gasp!] A profile of your head. A profile of Yasha's head!

[Eventually, though, he starts working on the petals of the daisies, and she looks at him, somehow managing without moving her head, a smug grin creeping up her face like the vines on her cheek.]

Molly, you didn't have to get me flowers.

[mollymocked]

[He's just letting her guess with little more than a one-sided shrug and a chuckle, until she finally gets it right, and he finishes the last little flourishing vine that snakes across the bridge of her nose and ends on one of her freckles like a period. Boop.]

Oh, but I did, dear. They bring out your... everything. I can't pick one specific thing. Did you know that daisies mean "cheerfulness?" [He only picked this up because Yasha liked to know and because one of the people who did his tattoos was very well versed in flower language. The ones on his back were chosen specifically for their meanings.]

[technicallytechnically]

[When he finishes, she beams at him, glowing flowers on her face really bringing out her cheerfulness, just as he thought they would.]

I did not! I like daisies. I wish I had a mirror, I bet I look really good.

[She pauses for a moment, considering something.]

Do all the tattoos you have on you have meanings too, or are they just like whatever thing you thought would look pretty? Because if you know about daisies I think you probably thought about it before you got stuff drawn on you permanently.

[mollymocked]

This one was actually to piss off Ornna. [He points to the peacock snaking up his cheek.] Gustav almost bought one for the circus and it was a little arsehole to her. She was not best pleased with me the day I sauntered back with it. [He neglects to mention the more emotional instance of that moment. How he and Toya had both been watching the whole thing and that both of them had started laughing- Toya first with her hands over her mouth like she was worried she would get in trouble, and then mute Molly who scared them all when he doubled over the fence cackling.

It's not that he doesn't think Jester deserves that bit of truth- it's a cute story and she'd love it, but they're on a beach somewhere strange and their faces are glowing in the moonlight and why would you ruin that by reminding someone that you used to be catatonic?]

The flowers I asked about. I had some... things I wanted to express without words, and I told them to surprise me, so that was what they came up with. And the snakes... [He turns his hand this way and that.] Those were Mona and Yuli's idea. I needed to cover up the eyes and that was their suggestion. They had their act on the brain. The others just came to me. I'd get an idea, and some coin, and I'd find whoever could find a little time to ink me up.

[technicallytechnically]

I bet that peacock is very pleased with itself that it gets to be immortalized on you forever.

[Animals have that kind of ability to comprehend very humanoid concepts as long as it suits Jester's narrative for the world, and not a moment before. Jester, meanwhile, can't really see the flowers while he's got his clothes on, or the moon and sun she remembers from when she saw him naked that one time, or that second time, but she can at least inspect the head of the snake reaching out over his palm as he shows it off.]

Right, you had to get them all done by different artists, that makes sense. Because you were all traveling with your carnival. For some reason I had the thought you got them all done at once, but that would probably be like, a lot of sitting there getting drawn on with tiny little details.

[But that does bring up another question...]

So the flowers on you, the ones on your shoulder, what do they mean?

[mollymocked]

Y'know... I bet it is.

[It's probably somewhere nice, existing on spite... And he knows that because nobody eats peacocks. Normally he'd be the first to think "that thing was someone's Embertide dinner," but nope. That little shit is making someone else miserable and looking fabulous doing it and that is a respectable animal who has earned a long and happy life.]

Mmhmm. Remarkable that they're all uniform. I think they saw it as a challenge. [You can't even tell where one artist's work begins and another ends and Molly can't either. He wanted them to connect and a few silver got him what he wanted.

Not one to explain something like this without a clear demonstration, he sheds his coat and pulls down the sleeve of his shirt so that the flowers are more clearly visible working their way around both the peacock and the tail-end of the snakes.

It's hard to tell when you're not paying attention but there's several different flowers, taking up a good chunk of his shoulder and most of the right side of his back- a red carnation, a pinkish Protea, scattered dandelions in between some of the larger flowers, and two lilies that the snakes seem to be winding out from behind.] If I'm remembering right [and he is because he set a lot of his personal set of ethics and beliefs by these flowers], the carnation is for love, the protea is for transformation, dandelions for survival, and lilies for new life and acceptance of an end to one.

[All chosen because he wanted to separate himself from whoever that was. He buried some of his tattoos in that pattern to spite a past life.]