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graveyardsmash2018-11-08 04:03 pm
ryslighelpers) wrote in graveyardsmash2018-11-08 04:03 pm
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Test drive meme: November
Welcome to the Ryslig Test Drive Meme! Below are a few prompts to get you started, but you may make up any prompt you desire! Please take a look at the navigation page for rules, setting information, and links to reserves and apps. Have fun!
SCENARIO ONE
You wake up on the beach thoroughly drenched, with your mouth full of sand. The salt water is making all the cuts and scrapes on your skin sting and the sand isn't helping. The air is slightly humid, ruining any feeling of refreshment you might have gotten from your dip in the ocean.There are lights in the distance, but the unfriendly scent of gunpowder fills the air. If you're lucky, you're alone. If not - you might find yourself staring up into a pair of monstrous eyes or down the barrel of a local's shotgun.
SCENARIO TWO
So you've just arrived, and already some of the natives are trying to get on your good side with offers of food, shelter and other luxuries in return for hoping you don't eat them. They even have some helpful pamphlets to share with you. "How To Deal With Changes", "Alternatives to Human Flesh", "What to Expect When You're Expecting (to turn into a monster)" are all on the more informative end of the scale. There's even some detailing certain monsters, and the changes they go through. Some of these seem to have been passed down from one monster to the next.Among these however, are some... not so helpful ones. "Bunnyipyips And You", "Axe Thief Axehounds," and "So you're becoming a Fur Bearing Trout" among others. Sometimes they have marks on them from previous readers saying they're lies, or pointing out good "jokes."
Then there are the people who aren't happy to see you at all. Glares and silent, judging stares if you're lucky, torches and pitchforks attempting to drive you out of the town if you're not. You may need a friend to help you.
SCENARIO THREE
"Seek us out," the voice whispers in your head, and before you have time to question it you've found yourself in someplace entirely alien. Maybe it's the Fog God's ghostly town of Dyster, where exultant followers dance around bonfires and sing their praises to the skies above. Maybe it's the Fourth God's arcade, with small robots wheeling about amidst the lights and colors of old pinball machines.
Only one thing is certain: you are not alone, in this sacred place.
SCENARIO FOUR
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? Feel free to pick any monster type for this prompt, but note that you may not get the same one in game.
Timothy Lawrence (Jack's Doppelganger) | Borderlands
Tim wakes up to a mouth full of sand and something kinda sharp and painful-- is that a rock, maybe? A seashell?-- digging right into his back. He hurts all over, which is really more just the background radiation of his life these days, so it rates pretty low on the scale of Shit Tim's Going To Care About Right Now. He rolls over, hacking and waterlogged, his hair flopping into his face because there's no amount of Jack's hair gel that could have saved it from this oceanic abuse. And, yeah, this is not a great situation to be waking up in, he's seriously confused as to how he went from getting the H-source for Jack to being on the universe's shittiest beach, but like... it could be worse? He could be on fire?
His first thought is that Jack is going to be so pissed that he ruined all his clothes with seawater. Then he hears the very familiar sound of a gun being cocked, and, okay. Yeah, his life has now returned to its normal levels of fucked up.
Tim looks up. His concerns about the aforementioned gun noises are confirmed.
"Oh." Great. Wonderful. This is fine. "That sure is a shotgun. Have you, uh, considered the possibility of not doing this right now? I would really appreciate not doing this right now."
2.
So this sure is some reading material that Tim's collected.
If everybody didn't seem so earnest about it, Tim would've thought that he's getting pranked or something with all of this monster stuff. And he's supposed to believe that he's going to turn into one of these horrible things? It's just so... out there. Really, really out there, and sure, he showed up on the beach a little roughed up, and he's seen his fair share of horror movies--
Okay. He's seen, like, the first ten minutes of his fair share of horror movies, until they started to get a little too tense and he kept having to pause them and eventually just gave up. The point is, his life is a bad sci-fi B movie, not a bad horror B-movie. He runs around on the moon and fights horrible tentacle monsters and has a psychopath for a boss, how's he really supposed to believe that he's going to turn into a furry or whatever on the night of the full moon?
Tim found himself a place to sit that's out of the way, so he won't keep getting bothered, and starts sorting through all the pamphlets. Some of them are definitely jokes, and he sorts those into their own little pile. Some of them aren't, probably? Those get sorted into another stack, information that he'll need to look over more carefully. One pamphlet gets his hopes up for about five seconds-- bunyipyips sound adorable until he gets to the pictures.
A gust of wind takes all of his carefully sorted papers, though, and starts scattering them down the street.
"Shit," Tim sort of lurches out of his seat and starts trying to reclaim his pamphlets before they blow away. "Oh, come on, no, get back here!"
[wildcard]
[Hit me up at
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She peels herself off the sandy ground, vision tunneling as she makes a b-line for the house her and Jack were residing in, determined to do...something. She doesn't know what yet, her mind not yet totally clear, only knows it will involve destruction. He'll hurt like she hurts.
Unluckily for Tim, he's who Angel will be running into first. She see's him from the back on route to the bungalow, speeding up her pace as she zeroes in on his meandering silhouette, the vines along her body emitting a soft but threatening red glow.
She knows what she wants to do is physical, a chance she was denied when stopping him on Pandora, but as she approaches she doesn't know if that urge comes in the form of a throttle or a hug. For a moment she hesitates, but anger clouds judgement and in the end she settles for as hard a push as her arms can manage. ]
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[He's pretty deep in considering whether vampires would really be weak against garlic when there's a shove at him from behind. It's not terribly strong, so he only stumbles a little, just because he wasn't expecting it.]
Uh? [He turns, and, wow, this girl looks pissed. Did he do something? Violate some weird monster social norm? Step on her foot in his distraction?] Sorry? Did I bump into you? I wasn't really paying attention.
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You-
[ But she stops before she can finish whatever accusation she was about to yell at him, because the voice is right, but the cadence of it is all wrong, and as she gets a proper look at his face, she realizes it's all wrong too. ]
You're not Jack...who are you?
[ Though as she asks she realizes she likely has the answer already. Only one man other than her father himself would have an unblemished version of that face. ]
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[And then she has to just ruin everything even more by mentioning Jack. Goddammit, how is it that he can get spirited away to an actual alternate universe and still not escape him? And out of all the people in this stupid place, he had to just wander into the path of the one person who knows Jack? God, Tim has the worst luck.]
[Tim tries to slap that patented Handsome JackTM smile onto his face, but it's probably not very convincing.]
What are you talking about? That's me, I'm Jack, you can tell because I'm just so...
[Much of a fucking asshole that it makes Tim want to scream eternally into the uncaring void?]
...attractive.
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She takes a firm step back, giving Tim a wide birth as she assesses him, her face finally settling on a sardonic smile. ]
It's okay...you can drop the act around me, I know who you are. Or at least who you were.
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[Who he was? Jesus, way to lay it on thick there. If Tim knew that this was Jack's kid, he'd say that clearly a sense of melodrama is an inherited trait. Who he was, like that's anything more impressive than 'ugly, poor, and naive'. But, hey, at least now he's only one of those things.]
So, you're Hyperion, then? [beat] Don't answer that, it's a stupid question, you've gotta be Hyperion. Did Jack get a new secretary or something? That sucks, I kinda liked Meg?
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[ She raises a hand to pick awkwardly at on of the flowers sprouting from the vines along the opposite arm, the red glow now faded completely to a cool light blue. ]
I suppose this is pretty unfair, my knowing who you are while I remain a complete stranger. I'm Angel, and I'm...really sorry you've ended up in this place with us.
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[Tim's voice is so flat that you could put a rug on it and call it a floor. God-fucking-dammit. He really can't catch a break, ever.]
Well, uh, I guess it's nice to meet you? [She seems nice enough, at least. A lot nicer than the other vault hunters that he had to run around with, or Jack himself, but that's a pretty low bar to pass.] And, um. So, like, I don't mean to be rude? But am I not supposed to ask about why you're all...
[He makes a vague, wavy sort of gesture at just... everything that Angel is right now.]
Vine-y?
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Jack's first body double was different than the others...he didn't like Jack or glorify them the way the rest did, and he's the only one who made it out of there alive, as far as she knows. Though his face itself hadn't been so lucky.
...which makes the state of his face now extremely curious, but they'll have time to talk about that later. She hopes.
She blinks at his question, realizing she had been bringing attention (more attention) to her strange appearance (more strange) ]
Oh, that. I'm sorry for that as well. It is an...unfortunate side effect of residing in this place.
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[Granted, he also was digitized and went inside Claptrap's unconscious mind, so like... maybe this isn't where he should be drawing the line. He's done and seen a lot of impossible things, what's a few more?]
[And he's having a really hard time imagining that he'll actually turn into something terrible himself. He feels fine, after all, and he'd only had a few bumps and bruises after waking up on the beach. He would've noticed if he'd been bitten by a vampire or something, right?]
[Oh, but... this also happened to her. He probably shouldn't be so insensitive.]
Not that... I mean, I'm not trying to like make light of this or anything.
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[ She gives him a small, lopsided but sympathetic smile. ]
But, yes...It is no prank, though it is not nearly as bad as it looks? There are worse fates.
[ And she looks away from him then, implication not completely clear but hopefully understood. ]
I have an the beginnings of a solid archive of information on this place and the changes that take place, if you're interested.
2 - I Am So Sorry
He's thinking about texting Rick and seeing if the guy wants to go hit the bars or tinker with one of their various projects when a bit of commotion catches his attention. Sounds of someone in distress? That's the sound of free entertainment!
When he turns his eerily glowing gaze in the direction...he stops dead. That...is that...holy shit, it is! It's...uh...Jack Number 2! It's not like he remembers what the dude's name was originally, not off the top of his head. Well look at that...okay, things are starting to turn in Jack's favor!
"They're not sentient, you know, they're not actually gonna come back to ya."
That sure is Handsome Jack standing on the sidewalk. Looking...in many ways the same, in others very different. His mask looks less like synthetic skin and more like plastic. It's rigid and the mouth doesn't move when Jack talks, simply stays frozen in a smug smirk. He's dressed in the familiar fashion, but his right hand is yellow and black and robotic. A blueish glow seeps out from the edges of his mask and out of his eyes. There's a socket like mechanic at each of his temples.
"Hey there, buddy!"
Re: 2 - I Am So Sorry
Handsome goddamn Jack.
Tim turns towards his boss, already trying to gauge his mood because determining whether Jack's calm or in Hair Trigger Space Vent mode is a major part of his health plan. And Jack's moods are volatile at best, he could flip from genial to strangulation at the drop of a hat. Tim doesn't want to get strangled today? That is not on his to-do list?
"Hey, Ja-- aack..." he sort of trails off awkwardly when he actually sees Jack, because... well, holy fuck. It's like someone took Jack, made a weird robot copy of him, and then slapped that right down in front of him. This is Weird. Not just regular weird, Tim is used to regular weird, but capital W Weird. Maybe Tim is dead and this is Hell and the Devil is flashlight-eyed Robo Jack forever. Whatever he did to deserve this, Tim is so sorry. It was probably all the murder, if he's being honest.
"Um."
The pamphlets are completely forgotten in the face of what in the actual fuck.
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Jack advances a few steps, eyes locked on Tim. With his now immobile face plate, his moods are even harder to determine. His expression is eternally set in a smug smirk.
Holy shit, look at him! Look at that face! That unblemished, young, handsome face. It was even better than he'd remembered. He's missed that face. Despite the fact that it's currently gaping at him like he's got two heads. Jack could show him some actual monsters with two heads - a robot is essentially normal.
"It's the robot parts, isn't it?" Since he does look like he got really drunk and wandered into the cybernetics labs. "Wow, nice manners there. Way to make a guy feel self conscious! Give it a few weeks, cupcake, we'll see how you're looking. There's way worse things to end up as than what I am."
He wishes he could narrow his eyes and give a good knowing-tinged-with-threat look at his double, but he figures his tone conveys it well enough.
"Now get your shit together, I'm already late for my after-work batteries and it's a hell of a walk to my place - I don't have a car yet."
It doesn't matter that they're in an alternate dimension full of monsters, Jack's body double is his employee and basically his property. What's he gonna do, just leave the guy on his own, not being useful?
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Tim's been doing what Jack's told him to for so long that he moves to get his things before he even thinks about the order-- it's probably mostly self-preservation, because Jack sounds annoyed and an annoyed Jack is about a hundred times more likely to hurt someone within arm's reach. Not that he has very much to grab, especially since half of the papers he'd collected have been scattered across the street, but he keeps a couple of things that he wants to read up on a little more and falls into step with Jack. What the hell else is he going to do? He's stuck in this brave new world with no clue and no cash, and even if there's probably (probably?) no way for Jack to actually enforce his debt in a universe where Hyperion doesn't exist, Tim also doesn't want to risk his temper.
"Um," he says, because cut him some slack, Jack, this shit is all nuts, "I didn't really... I thought this whole movie monster thing was, like, a prank or something?"
He did until he saw Jack's horror movie face, anyway. Or more horror movie than it already was, why did Jack think that stapling a mask of his own face on his face was a totally normal response to a facial scar again? And not like a half step down from Norman Bates levels of fucked up?
"I don't think anything's different about me. I mean... nothing's really happened?"
Other than waking up on the beach with a few bumps and bruises and a shotgun in his face, but that's like Tuesday for him.
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"There's no way to know what the hell you'll end up. You could be a Sim like me, you could be a plant person, could be a werewolf, vampire, walking corpse, giant spider... I wasn't kidding when I said I'm lucky. My best friend's a literal demon. Horns and tail and everything. He's a fun guy!"
As they walk, Jack tries to think of important information that Other Jack should know.
"Oh, okay, so I'm working at Liewen Labs. Department head, it's a pretty nice gig. I mean, I've only been here a few months and I'm already right under the big boss! Literally walked right in and came out with a job.
Oh, there's a monster strip club. Some of it's freaky in the good way, some of it's freaky in the scarred for life way, but you gotta check it out. Oh, oh, oh! Yeah, big thing there...your little pamphlets? Most of it's bullshit, but you are gonna eat people. A lot of people."
All the important information, right there.
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Equally terrifying? Jack clawing his way back into positions of power. Tim's seen what happens when his boss gets his hands on any little shred of power-- he fights and he schemes and he accumulates more until he can wrestle his way to the top. And Tim doesn't at all doubt that Jack's goal is to get to the very top of whatever hierarchy there is in this place.
And there's a lot of exposition coming hard and fast at Tim right now, so it's a little tough to keep up. But that bit about eating people? Yeah, that's a big ol' pill for Timtams to swallow.
"Wait, wait wait wait," he says. "I'm not even touching the strip club thing. But... they eat people here? Jack, I'm not going to eat anyone!"
Tim's moral compunctions... aren't great these days, mostly out of necessity because there's that little bomb-in-the-face thing that he has to worry about, but cannibalism is a hard line. Tim doesn't feel like that's unreasonable? He feels like he's being very reasonable.
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But currently he's still in the process of changing into a robot, so he's taking his time. Besides, if he sticks with the labs another month, he gets another raise.
"Nah, you don't touch, it's not that kind of strip club. It's classy. But oh, you will eat people! Once a week, probably. It's a monster thing, we all do it. I mean...again, I am a lucky guy. I don't actually eat meat or flesh or people parts, just energy. So I'm not really a filthy cannibal, I'm just a dude with special dietary needs. You...there's a lotta shit that flat out eats people. And you can try and be all 'oh, I will resist!' but then you just go nuts and kill a bunch of people if you don't eat for too long. So get used to the idea now, before you're a bloody mess sprouting fur and wings and shit and all of a sudden that cute little blond on the corner looks more appetizing as dinner than someone to have sex with and you snap and go on a murder spree. They....aren't as cool about that stuff here as they are back home."
Which is a bitch. Human authorities don't seem to mess with monsters, but there's that weird bitchy dude who tries to come off as smart and his stupid monster jail. He doesn't want to have to bail Number Two out of monster jail.
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And no one really cares about the bandits' opinions, because they're crazy and talk about poop trains. Moral of the story is, Tim's not okay with the idea of hiding in the woods, being Actual Cannibal Timothy Lawrence. That is just really not his jam, he doesn't even really like having to kill bandits, and they're trying to kill him first. He at least has the comfort of knowing that everyone he puts a bullet into has it coming. Some random asshole on the street doesn't deserve to get mauled to death because his bullshit dietary requirements put long pork on the menu.
"And, and I mean not everyone here is a monster, right? There are plenty of regular people. Maybe everyone doesn't change."
That's the tiny sliver of hope that Tim's going to hold on to, okay. He's going to hold onto the minuscule possibility that whatever stupid bullshit turns everyone into boogities just sort of missed him on the way in. Miss him with that spooky shit.
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Jack does understand the sentiment, he'd had it himself. He was brilliant and resourceful and he'd figure something out...ha. Nope. This was some serious other worldly bullshit and there's nothing they can do.
"Now there's a bunch of different ways you might have to eat people. Like I said, I just drain energy. Some monsters like werewolves and shit, they just straight up eat people. Meat and guts and everything. Some monsters like I guess merpeople? Now they eat souls... oh, and there's some blood drinking ones, too. So. Some options are better than others - and way less messy! The funny thing is...plenty of people here don't care. I mean the local human people. Hell, in Bavan town they love the monster breed! Literally, in some cases, there's...there's some clubs I'll take you to when you start changing. Now matter how messed up you look, there's somebody creaming themselves over it."
See, bright sides! Monster fetishists are a huge part of the subculture around here, with clubs and everything.
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"Jack, I don't think I can adequately say how super not helpful this is."
Thanks, he hates it.
"There is just no part of what you just told me that makes me feel better about anything? At all? Not that I really want to feel better about having to eat people, even if it's just energy or whatever. And even if some people are okay with, I don't know, getting bitten by a vampire, I'm pretty sure no amount of fetishism justifies murder?"
And then there's the whole soul thing, which, actually, now that he takes a second to properly digest that particular little factoid, what the whole and entire fuck.
"Or eating souls? Oh, my god, that's really horrible? Like, the implications of that are deeply existentially terrifying?"
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And the implications there are pretty horrifying on their own. Jack feeds regularly, probably more than he strictly has to. He likes it, to be honest Plus, robot strength means he can easily strangle his victim one handed at the same time.
"No I just mean like...people know we kill people all the time. And still don't care. They treat us like bad weather, just something shitty that happens if you're not prepared." At least in Bavan. For the most part.
Other places...we-ell, there's a reason Jack got himself a place in Bavan now.
"Ha, right? I mean I dunno if it's actually a soul, but...there's a bunch that feed like that."
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"God, this is messed up."
He's going to get over his freak out, Jack, just give him like five minutes before you dump the next load of awful exposition on him. He needs to digest this stuff and, he doesn't know, enjoy however much time he has left as a normal human. Make peace with the inevitable loss of body number two, god he just can't look the same for longer than a few years, apparently.
"Does everyone here have a soul? Do I?" Tim isn't really a religious sort of person (definitely not since he burned that church down, it was an accident), but that question is now very relevant and concerning. And since he's thinking about this topic...
"...Do you?"
Because... robot.
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Jack's not gonna argue. Sure, he's adapting, but he knows it sucks. He went through this.
Then Number Two has to drop that little bomb and Jack just turns to look at him. What the hell kind of question is that?
"I dunno." He shrugs, trying to shrug it off. He doesn't like thinking about that. Back home, he never believed in any of that stuff. It was stupid. Here...things are a lot different here.
"I mean, I think it just means like life force. And monsters can feed on other monsters, so...whatever it is they eat...I guess...yeah. You got one, I got one..."
Huh. He's never made this particular connection before. Fuck. Now he really needs his batteries.
Thanks a lot, Inferior Jack.
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