aftr_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME ( 003 )

Test Drive Meme #3

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 September 17th and that Applications will open on September 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.

Don't Go into the Light
Night has fallen, so to speak - or the appearance of night has - and with it has come a curious phenomenon. All throughout the land of Mu, the odd flickering light has started to lick at your periphery. It looks almost like someone bearing a torch or a lantern, and if you listen hard enough, if you really squint...it almost feels like it must be someone familiar, calling you to their aid. Maybe it's a loved one, or a friend. Maybe it's just someone who's liable to spark your curiosity, or for those who are particularly tender of heart, the crying of a child in need of help.

Either way, it's undeniable: someone out there needs you. And the only solution is to follow the light until you find them, because surely that must be the origin of that voice and that disturbance, right..?

The phenomenon of ghost lights, of ignis fatuus, may or may not be familiar to those falling prey to the siren call of these mysterious, hovering lights. But their end purpose is very similar. They intend to lead you gently along, calling to you with memories of those you love or remember, until you reach an inevitable, potentially fatal roadblock.

The island of Mu enjoys mimicking the dangers and pitfalls of LifeAftr, and your journey is liable to end in a variety of equally unpleasant ways if someone does not see fit to stop you and pull you free from your trance. Perils such as quicksand, drowning, walking off the edges of cliffs, or simply being led directly into the nest of some great predator, are more than abundant.

Better hope that someone finds you before they do.

No Swiping!
Enjoying your time on Mu? Succeeded in amassing some meager resources, retrieving some food or supplies?

Not for long you haven't!

Mu has done its best to mimic a creature found on the mainland, complete with all its annoying, scavenging tendencies. Slypers are almost foxlike in appearance, orange-red with a white-tipped tail and a long, triangular snout, and are notorious thieves. Anything that isn't bolted to the floor has the potential to be snatched should you turn your back for a second, thus rendering all your hard-earned work in hunting and gathering utterly pointless when your food or water ends up in a slyper's belly instead of your own.

They're not easy to trap or snare by any means, but if you're fast enough, you might be able to keep your belongings from being the crowning achievement in a dirty little thief's den.

Which might be easier said than done. On Mu, slypers work in packs.

What the Cluck!?
Someone on the island embarked on some well-advised exploration, but discovered, in the process, something decidedly less pleasant than what they were no doubt hoping to discover. And now Mu has taken the example of its more reality-based counterpart, and elected for devise a threat of its own, modeled after the threat in question.

The trees will tremble and the ground will shake. And drawing ever closer approaches...the fustercluck.

Initially, one might mistake the fustercluck as a hillock of some kind. A moving hillock. With talons and wings and fins and claws and teeth protruding out of it? Come to think of it, it's not a hillock at all.

(While the Fustercluck doesn't look anything like this, we still thought this gif was both topically relevant and too good not to include.)
It instead appears to be a vaguely gelatinous mass of appropriated limbs and body parts, tangled and gelled together. Thick with moss, grass, and accumulated body parts, this creature functions more or less like a katamari: propelling itself along, devouring and appropriating any living thing unfortunate enough to cross its path. Once ensnared by its many clawing, grabbing appendages, it will reel you into itself until you're thoroughly embedded in the mass, organs dissolved and digested, leaving nothing more than a collection of limbs that it will then use to carry itself across the island.

There is no known manner with which to destroy this creature. Only the foolish will engage; everyone else should run.

Though of course, on Mu, you could always try fighting it...

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[Yeah no, not what they were expecting. Instead of a voice calling them back, they get a spear in the shoulder- which, no offense to you, Max, but aside from the point jabbing their shoulder on impact, simply clatters to the ground as they come to a halt.]

I see.

[They turn their head slowly- and they smile. Turning around entirely as they pull their knife from it's sheath, holding it up at the ready.]

If you'd rather a fight to the death, you should have simply said so.

[Said knife immediately goes up in flames. Thanks, Henry.]

[Looking down at his sad excuse of a... no... no, it doesn't deserve to be called a spear. He looks down at the fucking stick. What a letdown.] Goddammit. [The knife doesn't... shock him all that much, really. He has one on him often enough. He stays at a camp with Nurf, for crying out loud.]

Hey, I said I wouldn't miss. And I didn't miss! I could've put this thing somewhere else, but I wouldn't make the stick already up your ass jealous--

[...Did that knife just catch fire.

Is that fucking knife.

On.

FIRE.]

...What the fuck! HOW.

[Not from a world where magic is a thing, is he? That suits them just fine. The smile on their face goes ever wider, well past the point of being 'creepy', as people on the Surface would put it.]

Want to see how good my aim is?

[Because what do you know? It's pretty damn good.]

[Well, this took a turn right into fucking nightmare town somewhere, didn't it.]

No, I want to know how you're getting this fucking pyrotechnics display going! And maybe get the number of whoever sold that to you!

...I guess you not stabbing me is like third on the list at this point.

[what the fuck is self preservation that sounds like a fake thing]

You know this is a shitty death battle when one party has a fiery murder knife and the other just threw their one weapon away, which was made of fucking flammable wood anyway!

[Honestly, it's good for him that his lack of self-preservation is amusing.

And that he's a child.]

How about I tell you how my knife works if you stop throwing sticks around, like they're actually capable of doing anything.

[Eyes narrowing, their smile fades, if only slightly.]

Surely that isn't the best weapon on your person.

Jesus, fine. You told me to throw it.

[They never actually specified at what. It was just implied.]

Yeah, I had an actual knife. A regular one. And then it got stolen and I was shit out of luck. So it was pick something off the ground or nothing.

Gonna be honest, starting to suspect nothing was the better option.

[Oh, that is woefully inadequate. They shake their head at him, ignoring the barb for the moment as, with a careful twist of their wrist, the flame on their knife goes out.

Then they're flipping it over, offering it to him handle first.]

Then I take it you know how to use one.

[It's only a dream, so they hardly have to worry that he'll keep it.

But never let it be said that he won't owe them, for this.]

Whoa, wait, seriously? I mean... yeah, obviously I do.

[Consider him skeptical, even if he does take the knife. Because, hey, still a knife.]

...This isn't gonna suddenly activate and set me on fire, is it?

Just because I'm giving it to you doesn't mean I'm telling you how that works.

[Excuse them for being a bit of a pessimist, but they have no doubt he'd eventually give into the urge to set them on fire.

In the meantime? They'll pulling another knife from their sleeve. Excuse them for also not trusting him armed, point blank.]

There's a trick to lighting it- you're not going to activate it accidentally, I assure you.

I'll figure it out somehow, I'm resourceful. [And for the first time in this weird dreamscape, he actually smiles.] Fucking. Sweet.

[He's not gonna worry about them pulling the knife out unless they go to stab him. Really, he did try to impale them a little, so. This is fair.]

Guess you might not be completely terrible.

[Based entirely on them giving him a knife. Real high standards here.]

I can see that.

[He's about their age, they assume. Maybe a year older or younger- around their height, as well. For all his uppity nature, he's certainly not prepared to be competent in such an environment- and whilst he seems pleased with the weapon, they have their doubts that he knows how to use it.

It's uncomfortable, how many of the children drawn here are actually children.]

Though you are entirely mistaken. I am terrible; horrendous, even. A horrible, very bad, unpleasant being.

[Said airily, practically a song. And then Chara grins.]

But you may call me Kidwun.

So. Like most people, then.

[Or like all people. Including himself.]

...What, seriously? Wow, your parents must really hate you. [Who names their child that. Sheesh.] I'm Max.

Precisely.

[Oh, but they like his attitude. They shrug at the comment, having received it...too many times already.]

I'm sure you can guess as to my twin's name, Max.

At least it's original.

So's what crazy celebrities name their kids. Doesn't mean we don't still judge the crap out of them when they name their kid some bullshit like "Apple".

But could be worse, I guess. Kidwun it is.

TEST DRIVE MEME ( 003 )

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i can't believe you got me with my own muse

9u9 <3 his gifts were invaluable.

why do I always play myself like this

you just have a gift for these things

it's a terrible gift

better make the best of it

did you mean regift it immediately and saddle someone else with it

in the two+ years I've known you, you've never been capable of doing that

wow ......i mean you're not wrong but wow. called out.

no escape dude this is your burden to bear.

sob

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