graveyardsmash | Test drive meme: November

Entry tags:

test drive

Test drive meme: November

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Another day, another long grind in Monster Land. This whole nine to five thing...Jack did not miss it. Sure, sure, it's not exactly nine to five, he can make his own hours. And he's head of his own department, but... There's just something about heading home from work, hitting the pavement like every other freaky joe shmoe, back to his dumb little house with it's crappy furniture... the whole thing just sits like a rotting carcass in his gut. Turns his stomach. Or would, if he still had one. Frazzles his wiring? He really needs to sit down and convert common sayings and phrases into robot-friendly ones.

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!"

Edited 2018-11-13 00:28 (UTC)

Tim had taken a couple of steps after his wayward papers when he hears it-- the voice that he'd been dreading ever since he set foot in this weird new universe or whatever. The voice that had been on the other end of all those ECHO calls, gleefully directing him to the latest thing that he was supposed to retrieve and/or murder.

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.

"That's it? 'Um'? That's all you've got?"

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?

Yeah, this is The Worst. Jack's face is just this frozen mechanical rictus sneer and he's aggressively being Jack at him and Tim hates everything that's happening right now, he doesn't like this ride and he wants to get off. He doesn't dare not make eye contact, or at least what he's like 99% sure is eye contact, even though he'd really rather be looking anywhere but into Jack's headlight eyeballs right now.

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.

"Nope. It takes a month. Fog'll come in, then shit gets really weird." Which says a lot.

"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.

Okay, aside from the fact that Jack calling anyone a best friend is, like, terrifying? Jack would be friends with a demon. The fact that Jack enjoys the company of literal Satanic beings is zero percent surprising, what's really surprising here is that Jack hasn't had demon friends before now.

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.

Tim's suspicions are right on the money. Jack has plans. He has ambitions.

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.

"Uh, I don't think people were exactly cool with it back home, either? At least, not people who weren't crazy bandits yelling about meat bicycles."

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.

"Don't be That Guy, Other Me. Don't be friggin stupid. Those are locals. Everybody who comes here from somewhere else, we all get zapped with the old change-o. Can't avoid it, can't stop it, can't even delay it."

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.

Jack lists off apparently every single way he can think for a monster to eat a human being, and it's... it's a thing? Like everything that he just said is its own particular brand of Horrifying, a nice little verbal stroll through the Wonderful World of Fucked Up Shit, coming soon to a Timothy near you.

"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?"

"I'm not gonna sugar coat anything for you. Come on, you got balls. And you've killed like hundreds and hundreds of people already. Have your little freak out, then start dealing with the cold hard facts. You. Are. Gonna. Eat people. You get used to it."

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."

Tim could try to point out the nuance in this argument, the fact that those hundreds and hundreds of people that he'd killed were trying to kill him first, not just some randos trying to get their grocery shopping done or whatever. But Jack probably knows that this nuance exists and just isn't acknowledging it because it's way easier to justify that way, so Tim might as well just save everybody's breath.

"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.

"...Yeah. Yeah it is."

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.

It's a legitimate and pressing question, that's what it is. If Tim has to stand here and have this existential crisis, Jack, you get to have it right along with him. Because fuck you, that's why.

But, general consensus: they both have souls. He's got a soul, Jack's got a soul, and that should probably be way more concerning for Jack than for him, because Jack's objectively an awful person. Tim hopes this question keeps him up at night, except that Jack probably doesn't sleep anymore. He hopes it... takes up a lot of his RAM or whatever.

"...Huh." The revelation that they both have souls is... weird. "That got really heavy. Sorry, I guess?"

He's not exactly sorry, but this was kind of a bomb that he dropped on the both of them.

"Yeah it did! 'Do we have souls'..."

Life force. Jack's gonna go with life force. 'Soul'...no, that implies way too much in the realm of an immortal self that's gonna face judgement in the afterlife. It's bad enough there's 'gods' - not that he thinks they're actual gods. Just powerful beings. But they're called gods and there's plenty of people who treat them like that. It...brings up questions.

"Look, we're almost to my place, I got some booze left in the fridge I can't drink anymore. You can relax, have a drink... you're not turning into a monster yet. You really need to chill out, I know a pretty good cathouse."

Anything to shut up this soul talk, basically. Ugh.

A drink honestly sounds like the best thing that Tim's heard all day. He could use so many drinks, he really kind of wants to just get a bottle of whiskey and lay face-down on the floor somewhere and drink until he passes out and wakes up back where he's supposed to be. Getting absolutely shitfaced has never solved any of his problems before, and probably won't now, but it's worth a shot, right?

And then there's that last part, where Tim's like 99% sure that Jack just offered to buy him a prostitute. Like, 'can I offer you a nice hooker in these trying times?' Which is... what the fuck, Jack?

"What? No! I mean, yeah, I'll have a drink, but no, I don't want to get a prostitute."

He definitely doesn't want to get a prostitute with Jack. That would be weird and Jack has made comments in the past that make Tim deeply uncomfortable with and he's not entirely sure that Jack wouldn't want to like... watch. Or something.

"Hey, suit yourself! It always calms me down, but whatever. Word of advice, though, do as much wild oat sowing as you can this month, buddy! Cause once you start changing...I mean, you could wake up a giant spider with tentacles in a few weeks, so..."

Jack shrugs. It happens. Not everybody is as lucky as him, with all his parts basically the same shape and where they've always been. Honestly, he doesn't even know if Number Two has a sex life to speak of. He should considering he's Handsome Jack #2, but Handsome Jack would never turn down a free hooker.

Maybe somebody needs some occupational training.

"But help yourself to whatever booze I got. I can't do drinks or food or anything like that anymore. But electricity does the trick - grabbed some lithium batteries from work, those should mess me up real good!"

Tim's sex life didn't really improve with the addition of Jack's face-- sure, women were way more interested in him post-surgery than when he had red hair and freckles, but he's also contractually obligated to act like Jack, too. And apparently there are women who are into that, but it had felt... weird and disingenuous and it's probably because Tim is sentimental and all that bullshit. Jack would make fun of him for it, undoubtedly.

And, anyway, once he started doing the whole body-double thing and running around on Elpis, there wasn't any time for dating. Eyes on the prize or whatever, he had been too busy to try to pick up women. And even if he probably would have the time now, he wants exactly zero help from Jack in that department. Jack is the worst wingman, Tim knows this deep in his soul.

"Uh, yeah, thanks?"

Tim's not really entirely sure that he likes the idea of getting shitfaced with his boss, because hanging with Jack is like the bottom of the list of ways he likes to spend his evenings, but. He also kind of doesn't know anyone else here? So sticking with Jack may be his best bet for surviving, too, at least until he knows how this place works a little better.

"So, um. Where do you live, exactly?"

"Just a couple blocks from here. I got a place in Bavan and a place in Vandare." Since he realized it was pretty easy to just find someone who lives alone, kill them, and take over their house.

"Vandare's more my kinda place, but...ehhhh. Not as cool with monster types. Plus there's work commute - I can go and go without getting tired, which is pretty sweet, but if I wanna get to work on time I gotta take the friggin bus and...I'm just not a public transit kinda guy. But I got a guestroom, so that's good news for you. It's kinda crappy, I haven't done anything with it yet, but do what you want."

The houses he has now are just places to stay while he gets his feet under himself and gathers his plans.

"Oh, and stay outta the garage. That's my little...projects space."

Tim honestly can't imagine Jack ever taking a bus. It's just... wrong, a square peg in a round hole. Jack's all about the conspicuous consumption, having the fanciest things and the newest tech, so having to get around by public transit or on foot must be a blow to his ego.

And just about every fiber of Tim's being is telling him not to accept Jack's so generous offer of a guest bedroom-- not just because he doesn't want to live with Jack, even if only temporarily, but also because everything he knows about Jack is telling him that this is some kind of trap. He's not sure how, but Jack doesn't just like... do nice things out of the goodness of his heart. There's always an angle.

But he also doesn't have anywhere else to go, which sucks.

"Uh, yeah, okay?" He honestly probably wouldn't have even thought to look in the garage if Jack hadn't mentioned it. "I'll try not to be a bother for too long."

Basically, get his own damn place ASAP.

"A bother? What, you think I'm just gonna let you mooch off me? You're working for your keep, I'm still your boss."

Different dimension or no, a contract was signed. The exact details aren't important. Besides, every inch of Other Jack's perfectly sculpted body belongs to Jack - he'd paid for it all.

"You can keep the house clean - I've got way too much other stuff to do to keep up with that." And he can't hire a housekeeper yet - humans want a lot of money to work for a monster. He's gotta save up, you don't make money by spending a ton of it. "And you're responsible for food and shit like that, I don't eat or drink or anything anymore. Here, we're turning right. The house is down here. I haven't had time to redecorate it yet."

God, of course. Of course he's going to have to be Jack's housekeeper, because he can't go around killing people for him anymore. Is it weird that he'd rather be running around on Elpis or Pandora? At least then he wouldn't have to actually pick up after his boss and could just ignore his ECHOs and play it off as being busy. Sure, getting shot at sucks, but so does this.

And there's this little question, too-- if Tim made a contract through Hyperion, and Hyperion doesn't exist anymore, does the contract still exist too?

"Yeah... sure."

Does he sound less than thrilled? Yeah, no shit he does. God, he's getting a real job as soon as he can so that he can get enough cash to be literally anywhere else but right under Jack's thumb.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Test drive meme: November

2 - I Am So Sorry

Re: 2 - I Am So Sorry

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject