aftr_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME ( 021 )

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*test drive meme

TEST DRIVE MEME ( 021 )

Test Drive Meme #21

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.

In conjunction with our monthly Test Drive Meme, Reserves are now open! Applications will open on March 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.

Come to Ink Of It
Mu is a strange land, and one that seems to take a conscious interest in the activities conducted upon the waking world. This month, its fixation takes an almost childish delight in emulating the ink-spattered wars and hazing that have occured on Ensō's shores - which is to say, Mu would absolutely enjoy a charming little game of Splatoon.

When you wake, it's in a labyrinth of soft, stonelike material that manages to be the rough consistency of foam. If you take the time to inspect it, you'll discover that it's as good at cushioning blows as it is serving as adequate cover...and it appears to have been shaped into plenty of buildings and barricades, threaded throughout the cavernous room in which you've found yourself. In fact, the whole place looks very much like a battlefield of some kind.

In case you didn't get the picture, the paint gun in your hands should give you an inkling. Colors may be up to personal preference, but the rules are simple - solo, in a team, or as a double agent, your goal is to paint the town red, or blue, or purple, until victory is tasted in the form of aesthetic domination.

Do keep in mind, however, that battle cries may be a double-edged sword in this scenario. Unless you wanted green teeth.

I AM THE SHADOW, THE TRUE

-looks at smudged writing on hand-

...SHELF

What's more trouble than the true manifestation of all your darkest fears, desires, and secrets? The manifestation of all of the above that's just - not very well-made. In order for a shadow, a true self, to appear, one really should know themself somewhat consciously. Of course, this also applies true to the world in which they're standing; an effort Mu is willing to make, but not quite hitting the mark.

And by "not quite hitting the mark," we mean egregiously.

"Shadows" are an off-brand simulation of what one might expect during a typical shadow event, though their attempts at acting like the character they should be are closer to emulating the opposite. Whether based upon a looser definition of canon, a fanon-style iteration of what your character might have been in worse hands, or simply going in a direction that veers into the territory of edgy Harry Potter OCs, your "Shadow" is here, and ready to be a nuisance.

Unlike ordinary Shadows, a "Shadow" cannot be accepted and dissipate as one would hope. Respite from these garish versions of who you really are will come only upon waking. So until then, enjoy attempting to explain just what, precisely, is dogging your every step, and probably refusing to shut up all the while. Though granted, if they share any of your powers - grossly magnified or otherwise - you might be grappling with them in far more ways than one.

A Bug's Eye View
The lush, verdant shores and the peaceful population of newly-arrived island of Cahypdo have been noticeably present on the minds of the islanders lately. Mu has shifted to reflect those thoughts, but as with many things Mu reflects, things have become a little...skewed. For, you see, the native inhabitants of Cahypdo are the Roaka, and as tree-people, they tower over much of the current inhabitants. They range from six to twelve feet in height, generally, but it seems that their heights have left a....very marked impression.

The Roaka certainly tower over you now, even more than before - but so does everything else. Wherever you find yourself in the verdant, fertile valley that houses much of Cahypdo's plantlife - whether it's rich jungles or well-tended farmland - you'll be met with the same undeniable height difference.

Trees are dizzying heights to be scaled the same way a mountain might. Blades of grass and colourful flowers you might once have trodden on without a second thought are like a forest unto themselves. And the fields of crops you might have known from the waking world, like sweetcorn, peas, and tomatoes? Even a single ear of corn or a solitary tomato is now a much, much larger obstacle.

Just pray you don't run into any of the native creatures here, as even ordinary beasts can become potential dangers when they're all the size of giants relative to you, and can stamp you to jelly without so much as a second glance. Snaplings might regard you as a tasty little snack, tigerlilies might think you make for a fun little toy, and worst of all, the native Cahypdo entities known as hydrac, warped hybrids of sharks and dragons, might very well decide that you'd be a fine addition to their hoards.

There's a lot to look out for, when you're this small and the world is this big.

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He smiles at that. He likes this story.]

That sounds fun. I could almost believe it's a history lesson about my dad... I mean, our Kingdom. [Some of the details are eerily similar to his own story, in fact.]

Your friend Yuugi... he sounds like a really kind person. He reminds me a lot of somebody I know.

[[There is a very fond, slightly wistful smile as Bakura nods]] He really is. No matter how many times people tried to kill him, he was always willing to try and reach out to them and be friends. Really, a lot of that game was based on all the things that had happened, between the Ring Spirit and Malik-kun and everything about the Nameless Pharaoh, so really, I'd expected that he would figure it out! Especially how everything went the first time they all came over to play...

[[There's a slight embarrassed note there as he rubs the back of his neck. That his friends had seen through the Ring Spirit's attempts to pretend to be him and reached out to free him from the Spirit's control...

He smiles with wistful fondness before shaking off the memories and focusing on his new friend in front of him.]]

What happened in your Kingdom? Did your king get possessed too?

[Asriel beams.] Yeah, that sounds just like my friend Frisk.

[He shakes his head.] Oh, no, no, he wasn't possessed. But a long time ago, humans thought all monsters were evil and dangerous. So humans sealed them underground with a magic spell, with a barrier that could only be broken with the power of seven human souls. Our King declared war on humanity, and collected six of the seven souls from humans who fell into the Underground.

Until Frisk, a human, came along. Even though monsters were trying to kill them... even though they had every reason to fight... they saw the inherent goodness in everyone, even the King. They saved him. They saved everyone.

[A fond expression crosses Asriel's face.] Even me.

[[Bakura listens attentively, nodding]]

Heeeh... that really is similar! And really great they were able to do it!

With us... there were the seven Millenium Items, that were the key to where the Darkness had been sealed away when the Nameless Pharaoh sacrificed his name and place in the afterlife. Only a lot of people really wanted to get to that power, to do things like bring the dead back to life, or get revenge and become a god or things like that, and because Yuugi-kun had the Nameless Pharaoh's soul with him, they all tried to kill him to get that final key.

[[A pause]] Except for Kaiba-kun. Never did find out why he was trying to kill Yuugi-kun... it was before I'd transferred in, so I only saw him after Yuugi-kun had made friends with him. As much as Kaiba-kun made friends, anyway...

[Huh, the similarities are really something, Asriel thinks.]

Seven Millenium Items, seven human souls... and they both give you godlike powers. Wow.

The Surface - I mean, the place you live - it sounds so interesting. I never would have guessed that - Chara acted like the place humans lived was really boring.

Aaa-- I think for most people, it kinda is! If you're not all tangled up in Duel Monsters and the Items, things are pretty normal!

Though Duel Monsters is pretty big now, thanks to Kaiba-kun. He made this really amazing holographic technology so that when people played, you could actually see the Duel Monsters projected there as if they were real! So when he rented all of Domino City to make it Battle City, everybody got to see the duels as if they were real!

Oh, I see. I guess Chara must not have been involved in that kind of thing.

[He still seems confused by something.] Duel Monsters... so you're saying, in this game, humans made fake monsters to battle each other? That's... um. Kind of messed up.

[[A small awkward moment as he scratches at his cheek]] It's not actually fake monsters-- or at least the first set of cards weren't-- but it's kind of complicated.

See, back when everything was going on when the Items were first made, there were these creatures called Kaa that were born of people's souls. Only sometimes they got really out of control and they had to be taken out of those people so they'd stop driving them to destroy things, and they got sealed into tablets. So when Pegasus-san found the tablets 2000 years later, he made the card game based off of those, recreating how the Pharaoh and his priests would do battle to protect the kingdom.

[[Another awkward pause]]

...that probably doesn't seem much better, does it?

[Asriel is... so lost. So very lost. The Surface was exciting, but it also sounded... very weird.]

I don't remember reading about any of this.

[He still hasn't figured out the whole "other worlds" thing.]

[[Don't worry Asriel. Most places aren't quite as weird as where Bakura's from. ~~Or written by a creator who's in the hospital on a morphine drip.]]~~

It's not anything that would be in any history book or anything! Most people don't know about it and I don't think anyone other than the people who've encountered the Items or the tablets even believe is real!

[[Bakura at this point is so used to other worlds that he... forgets that not everyone else is.]]

[He nods.] That makes sense. I guess humans would have strange magical artifacts - you used to be mages, after all.

Eh? [[Bakura blinks a few times. His Monster World character was a White Mage, but he was pretty sure that wasn't what Asriel was talking about....]]

Humans in your world were mages? [[There's a very strong curiosity that borders eager fascination behind that question.]]

[Asriel feels somewhat put on the spot. He hadn't been the most studious boy, even before... everything that had happened to him.]

Um, yeah, that's right. That was how the war between humans and monsters ended - the most powerful mages among humans sealing monsters underground using their magic.

But you probably haven't heard of that. Chara - my best friend - they were a human, but they had no magic powers. They weren't even aware humans could perform magic.

Heeeeeh, like how the Pharaohs' priests were, back then!

They had enough magic in them to be able to use the Items without being consumed by them, which was pretty rare even then! And even more rare now, since most people don't even know that any of it exists.

[[Something that made him very very pleased that he had been able to wear the Ring with no troubles.

...well. No troubles from the Ring itself. The spirit that had been in it was something else entirely. That didn't count.]]

Your world might not be that far of a jump from mine, with how many similarities there are! That's really cool!

[He frowns. He's beginning to think they have different definitions of "world."]

Um, are you... an alien?

[He really hopes Bakura isn't offended by that question.]

[[Bakura shook his head, still all smiles]]

Nope! Pretty sure I'm a regular human being! Despite everything! [[He laughs with a small touch of embarrassment there, but really. Between the whole having his soul in a figure, dying, coming back to life, possibly dying a second time and coming back again before winding up Traveling... plus just his hair in general, he can totally understand the question!]]

[Bakura seems to be telling the truth, as least as far as Asriel can tell. But that only confuses poor Asriel further.]

Then what do you mean by "other worlds"?

Parallel universes! Alternate realities, like stuff you get in sci-fi!

Oh, like alternate timelines?

[He's very familiar with those.]

I guess those could be called "other worlds"...

Edited 2019-03-23 03:08 (UTC)

Un! Sort of like those! Like the one we went to where there was the magic school, it was only a few years ahead of when it was when I left Domino, but that world had magic in it aaaaall over the place! I think almost everybody there had at least a little bit of magic, and it was all linked to doing art stuff, which was really cool! And then there was the other one that I think was a few years more ahead than that, were we were up on this ski resort in the Alps!

[[a slight pause]] Though I'm not sure when the pogemon world was, time wise... it was a lot more different than back home... That was the world Rappy had come from, where humans and pogemon formed bonds and did battle side by side, which was really cool! Only they had just bridged the two worlds when we were there... which was after Rappy and Dakki became partners, so I think there may have been time travel involved too...

You've kind of lost me... but I think I get it. Your "world" is something like an alternate timeline from mine, and you've been through alternate timelines before?

Well, I, um, definitely have no experience with those. I've just heard theories. [He lies. Rather blatantly.] Guess those were right, huh?

A few, yeah! [[Bakura nods not even picking up on that obvious lie]]

There's a group of us that all got sort of sucked into this in between space and get to go between different worlds doing neat stuff! And the best part is finding out that all the stories and games and stuff that you liked back home are all real in other worlds! I even made a friend who lived in the Final Fantasy world! She'd ridden chocobos and everything! She was the one who healed my hand up too!

So... [He hates himself for saying this.] anime is real?

And what's "Final Fantasy"? Is that a video game? It sounds like a dating sim... [And a rather... adult one.]

Probably! I didn't meet anyone from any anime I knew, but if video game worlds are real, I'm sure anime worlds are real too!

And Final Fantasy is a series of RPGs! Turn based combat ones that use a world that's like a futuristic fantasy realm, where they have knights and magic and stuff, but also airships and interplanetary travel and stuff like that!

Oh, that makes sense. It's called "Final Fantasy" because it's futuristic fantasy, right?

[He would have loved that when he was younger, he's sure of that. He never got to play any video games, but he liked fantasy and sci-fi, and this "Final Fantasy" sounded exciting. And also... a lot like something Alphys would like. Because she's a nerd.]

TEST DRIVE MEME ( 021 )

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Amusingly, I know nothing about UT past just general cultural osmosis....

i know nothing about yu-gi-oh so i just thought you were making something undertale-y up lol

Nice :D

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want to start wrapping up?

Sure! They kinda forgot there's a game going on because oh hello new friend! :D

LOL yeah

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and wrap! thanks for the thread!