TEST DRIVE MEME

[rysligmods]

TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to Ryslig's test drive meme! If you're considering apping here, this is where you can try your characters out in the game's setting. A few things to note: The State of the Game Discussion produced a lot of great suggestions and we now have a post for Plot Suggestions and Monster Questions. The NETWORK VOTE results are in and PRIVATE MESSAGING will be added some time in November. Lots of people have asked good questions on the FAQ, so do take a look. You can only app ONE character per round so choose wisely. Reserve and application dates have been announced. Test drive meme threads can be used for your roleplay sample! Sample scenarios: SCENARIO ONE: You've just been released from the hospital in Vandare and no one really seems to know what to do with you. The locals offer polite advice but don't seem to want to spend a lot of time with you. You and the other new arrivals stick out like sore thumbs, so perhaps one will spot you wandering about town. SCENARIO TWO: You've become hopelessly lost in Lager Woods. Paths don't seem to lead where you remember them leading, and you feel as if you're going around in circles. Childlike giggling can be heard from no direction in particular. Suddenly, you stumble upon another character, who seems to be just as lost as you! Perhaps you can find a way out together. SCENARIO THREE: The time has come and you've found yourself becoming a monster. Is the change instant, or gradual? Are you familiar enough with monsters to know what's happening, or is it a complete shock? NOTE: Feel free to pick any monster type for this prompt, but note that you may not get the same one in game.

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[2]

[chartthestars]

[Unlike Jim, however, Silver had intended to enter the wood, for reasons that are is own, even if he doesn't completely understand it. Sometimes you don't understand feelings and where they lead you. But he feels drawn towards the wilds now—towards the untamed lands and the cleaner water sources than the cities can provide. It soothes his skin, which seems to dry out quicker than it should now, and helps ease the dull pain in is leg. And though he'd like to be in denial about these sort of things—of the changes that seem to be overtaking the visitors to this world—he's not the sort to be so, but he is the type to handle such things on his own and away from prying eyes.

But the forest, at least, for all its strange noises, helps him somewhat settle his thoughts. At least, until he feels a body collide with his own as he emerges out of a tangle of brush. He step is staggered as his body is forced to renegotiate his sense of balance, and were this a normal run in with an unlucky stranger, now would be the moment where he'd turn and give his most heartfelt of pardons, but this moment is clearly not one of those cases. Though his prosthetics may not be working the way they should, his hearing most assuredly is, and it takes him mere seconds to recognize the voice.

Well, he'll be drawn and quartered and mistaken for a saint.

Jim will have to excuse him for joining the chuckling voices that seem to be laughing at his cruel misfortunes as Silver turns to better face the boy.]

Perhaps I could, lad. And perhaps I would, if I hadn't trusted you to keep your legs out of trouble.

[believeslegends]

[Jim instantly steps back, not sure if he's hearing things right. He is, isn't he? That-- that's the cook's voice he's hearing? Jim gives a lop-sided smile and relaxes, shoulders slumping because thank god. He was hopelessly lost and frantic and he feels marginally safer knowing Silver is here and--

Wait.

Two steps back, no wait, this is the same cook who turned out to be a pirate that mutiny'd the hell out of the entire crew, what the hell. The smile is gone while Jim schools his face into something more indifferent.

Okay, he's gotta say something cool here, Silver's being cordial which means either he doesn't know Jim knows or he knows Jim knows and he's trying to be calm about it.

He hates these mind games.]

You sure this wasn't your plan before? Because I get the feeling this wasn't it.

[Smooth.]

[chartthestars]

[Silver's grin flickers into something that's almost, but not quite, a frown. But it's of the evanescent sort—like most—gone before it has the chance to give its full say, and the easy grin stays visible. He does take a moment, however, to look the boy over. Odd, how he doesn't look much different from when SIlver had last saw him. And there's no parroting rascal popping out of the boy's pocket to greet him neither.

He'll get a better grasp on things as time passes, try to read between the lines like the silence here is morse code, but for now, he rolls his shoulders in a unrefined shrug. He can deal with indifference, or however Jim wants to treat him if that's his prerogative. He can't take back the past, or else he'd have a body more willing to function by now. And attitudes change overnight once you let your thoughts settle. But he'll have to do a bit more digging first.

But until then, he can give the boy a bit of transparency, though these woods do enough to darken one's mood without Silver having to add more weight to their tangled branches.]

...If any o'this was a part of my own design, lad, I'd've been writing a pretty apology t'your mother by now.

[believeslegends]

[Jim manages to catch the barest hint of his change in expression, stores it away for future consideration. He'll figure it out once he's alone and out of these woods. That is the thing though, getting out of the woods. He's hesitant to take his eyes off the cyborg but needs to make sure where he just blindly stumbled into has at least some pathway out.

He isn't sure what Silver's playing at, but talking about his mother now? Oh, that's just low and Jim narrows his eyes at him for all of a second before taking a walk around their little clearing, trying to get some distance between them.]

Okay, then do you at least know a way out of here? The... Forest, I mean.

[chartthestars]

Aye, when these woods aren't havin' their way.

[But he takes his cue from Jim's body language and gives him space. The distance stings a little—did before, when Silver had been very adamant about ignoring the guilt for the sake of the dreams he was at the cusp of achieving—but Silver it off as he always has. He thought they had parted on somewhat better terms than this, but well—

The teenage years were rocky, and were rarely kind to the headstrong young who couldn't tell one emotion from another before it became something else.

And perhaps his old reputation had finally caught up with him. So he'll let it be. Indifference was a better emotion than most, if that was what he was going to be stuck with for this journey, until he could see Jim safely cityward, where he could keep a distant eye on the boy without them having to share breathing space.]

You shouldn't be a-walkin' in these woods alone to begin with. It'd be best we didn't linger. Not when the fog might come about.

[believeslegends]

I wasn't trying to, it just happened, okay?

[But the second part of what Silver said hits him, slams into him with all the force in the world and Jim snaps his head around to look at him warily (from. y'know. a good four or five feet away). So why would the woods be having their way? Silver talks about them like they're alive or something. Which, okay alien flora and fauna studies in school have told him that yeah, it's totally possible for places like this to be sentient but this didn't exhibit any tells like that. And what fog is he talking about?

Of course.

Of course Silver knows what's going on. Just like everything else, some part of his big plan, right? Jim feels his fists trembling at his sides with frustration and the fresh wave of betrayal washing over him.]

How do you know what's going on? Is this-- Is this just another part of your big scheme? Tell me what's happening.

[chartthestars]

[He tilts his head, staring at Jim for a moment, his cybernetic eye flickering at the abrupt stimulus as his brows dip inward. He raises his hands in a pacifying gesture, though his cybernetic side is slower than the rest, fingers uncurling only halfway with effort.]

I believe you, lad.

[Schemes, eh? Is that what he thinks? That all this is perhaps all of his design? Well, he'd be flattered if he could be. But now is not the time for either, and has no incentive to joke much about it when the boy looks like he expects Silver to chase him into a corner. Now that'd be the day, with this bum leg of his.]

No need to get frustrated now. You can blame me for all your troubles if you like, and I'll take what's fault's rightfully mine as easy as anything I've done and be on my way, but it won't do ye any good in a place that cares for neither of us. Only reason I know more than you 'tis simply because I've been on this here planet longer, no more. ...Two months near by my count. If this were one of my schemes, an' I was moored here by me own doing, you can be as sure as stars I'd be off this planet by now.

[believeslegends]

T-two months?

[Ah, there were the blatant lies Jim was expected to believe in blindly. He'd smile but this forest is just so damn creepy. But two months... No, that doesn't add up. Even for Silver's lies, this one is stretching way too far. But he's not sure why Silver would expect him to believe it either.]

That can't be right. I-- We just...

[He looks back to Silver, confused and honestly a little helpless trying to make sense of this in his head, and the hurt recalling what happened just moments ago for him.]

We just had that, uh. Discussion in the galley. You haven't been here two months.

[chartthestars]

Ah. That.

[...how awkward.

Well, that answers a few things, even if it dregs up a dozen more concerning questions. Explains why Jim's acting the way he is. That moment in the galley hadn't been a particularly kind one. It was a confrontation Silver had been hoping to avoid at the time, but he can't change what's passed, and his capacity for regret is limited to a few very specific factors rather than the whole mutiny business in and of itself. But that moment was many months ago. Now it's little more than distant memory closer to his conscience than most.]

That moment could've gone a bit better, aye. Sorry about that.

[But Jim's lack of memory brings up more prominent concerns. Just what had the lad hit his head on to rattle his brains so traumatically that he's stuck remembering the most inconvenient of moments? Couldn't his mind settle on a happy memory to come ashore with? Surely that wasn't too much to ask.

Though now that he thinks of it, Jim really does look like he came straight out of that galley. Which couldn't be possible, really. Memory-loss, certainly. Time travel, not so much.

...Maybe he's the one seeing things. If so, his mind certainly has a funny sense of humor. He's not that eager for moody, teenage company, is he?

...Is he?

And that thought earns Jim another perplexed, if almost comical, look as he weighs the options. He'd rather treat Jimbo as real for the moment, quite frankly, even if he's soon proven wrong. He's not sure if that marks him as off the starboard bow or not, but gunning for complete sanity can't be a bad thing, surely.

Oh well, truth will make itself known, and he can feel smarter or stupider about his current plan of action on the morrow.]

Be that as it may, that whole mutiny business is over and done with now. Don't know what I can say t'convince you other than to let your mind figure things out for itself, but time is what it is, and it seems to be favorin' us differently.