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3.0 Test Drive Meme
3.0 Test Drive Meme
Premise & Arrival ֍ FAQ ֍ Apply ֍ Navigation
Welcome to Well! Characters arrive a little differently this month (see the first prompt). Your character arrives this month in the middle of the formless desert with only a handful of memories, clad in old west style clothes of your choosing, with no items from home.
Anyone is free to play on the TDM, but you need an invite to apply. Feel free to use these prompts, and interact with the arrival or locations. NPCs are around, but only say a certain set of phrases. TDMs can be considered game canon.
This TDM takes place from the first week of August onward, and can happen concurrently with other events during August and September. This will be the only TDM for August, September, and October.
Applications are open July 26th until August 1st, and August 27th until September 1st. Invites are available for friends of current players.
A Little Lost
Content warnings: heat exhaustion, feelings of unreality
You wake up in a sea of sand. It’s hot, and dry, and it seems to go on forever. You don’t remember much about yourself except your name and a handful of memories that most likely aren’t useful right now.
The sand slip-slides under your feet with every step. Sun beats down heavy and hot on your neck and your head. You’re so thirsty. How did you get here? How long have you been walking? Where are you headed? You can’t know. You feel like you’ve been walking forever, but the sun stays high above you, like it’s always noon. It may have been hours, it may have been mere minutes. What are those things circling in the sky above you? Vultures? That can't mean anything good.
Eventually, you find someone else, another new arrival, maybe, or a resident of the town who may have wandered a little too far into the desert. Maybe they have some water on them? Either way, company is exactly what you need right now, because there sure isn’t anything else in this desolate place. Not a cactus, not an animal, not even hints of a town.
Once you’re together, it seems a little easier to move forward. Time starts to move, too. The sun dips in the sky, your feet tread through the sand, and together, eventually you find the town.
If you take too long after you find one another, and the sun sets, be careful. Cacti sprout up closer to town, and after the sun sets, the cacti start to move, and they seem hungry for blood.
tl;dr:
You wake up in a sea of sand. It’s hot, and dry, and it seems to go on forever. You don’t remember much about yourself except your name and a handful of memories that most likely aren’t useful right now.
The sand slip-slides under your feet with every step. Sun beats down heavy and hot on your neck and your head. You’re so thirsty. How did you get here? How long have you been walking? Where are you headed? You can’t know. You feel like you’ve been walking forever, but the sun stays high above you, like it’s always noon. It may have been hours, it may have been mere minutes. What are those things circling in the sky above you? Vultures? That can't mean anything good.
Eventually, you find someone else, another new arrival, maybe, or a resident of the town who may have wandered a little too far into the desert. Maybe they have some water on them? Either way, company is exactly what you need right now, because there sure isn’t anything else in this desolate place. Not a cactus, not an animal, not even hints of a town.
Once you’re together, it seems a little easier to move forward. Time starts to move, too. The sun dips in the sky, your feet tread through the sand, and together, eventually you find the town.
If you take too long after you find one another, and the sun sets, be careful. Cacti sprout up closer to town, and after the sun sets, the cacti start to move, and they seem hungry for blood.
tl;dr:
- This time, new arrivals wake up lost in the middle of a vast desert.
- There's too much sun, too much sand, vultures circling and too little water.
- Finding each other makes time start again, and lets you find the town.
- If you don't make it back to town before nightfall, vicious living cacti appear to attack you.
Face Your Fears
Content warnings: hallucinations, reality shifts
In this town, fear soaks the hot, dry air. It lurks in shadows and the corners of rooms, waiting for their moment. What is it that you fear? Monsters? Disappointing your parents? Maybe you’re afraid that everyone you love will leave you, or that you’ll end up alone. Whatever it is, right now, there’s a chance of becoming very real.
It happens suddenly. Your mind drifts. You lose focus on what you were doing, and when you look up again, the world around you has shifted. What was a nice lunch with a new friend or a fun visit to the saloon becomes a nightmare. What fear manifests is totally up to you, and it can be different every time. The person beside you could become a monster you think is trying to attack you, or you could be suddenly alone in a cold dark space, desolate and empty.
Whatever horror your mind conjures up for you, it will feel real in all ways and with all senses including, of course, your perception of pain. As far as you know, you’re trapped in a nightmare with no way out.
Except, of course, there is a way out: you just need to figure out that it isn’t real. Maybe you’re strong enough to do that on your own; maybe you’ll need help from a friend or a new pal, reaching through the illusion to pull you back. After all, these hallucinations are entirely in the mind of the beholder: to everyone around you, it sure just looks like you’re yelling at your pancakes!
tl;dr:
In this town, fear soaks the hot, dry air. It lurks in shadows and the corners of rooms, waiting for their moment. What is it that you fear? Monsters? Disappointing your parents? Maybe you’re afraid that everyone you love will leave you, or that you’ll end up alone. Whatever it is, right now, there’s a chance of becoming very real.
It happens suddenly. Your mind drifts. You lose focus on what you were doing, and when you look up again, the world around you has shifted. What was a nice lunch with a new friend or a fun visit to the saloon becomes a nightmare. What fear manifests is totally up to you, and it can be different every time. The person beside you could become a monster you think is trying to attack you, or you could be suddenly alone in a cold dark space, desolate and empty.
Whatever horror your mind conjures up for you, it will feel real in all ways and with all senses including, of course, your perception of pain. As far as you know, you’re trapped in a nightmare with no way out.
Except, of course, there is a way out: you just need to figure out that it isn’t real. Maybe you’re strong enough to do that on your own; maybe you’ll need help from a friend or a new pal, reaching through the illusion to pull you back. After all, these hallucinations are entirely in the mind of the beholder: to everyone around you, it sure just looks like you’re yelling at your pancakes!
tl;dr:
- You start hallucinating that the things you fear most are actually happening to you.
- These fears feel like real, concrete sensory experiences, even though they're only happening in your head.
- You can escape by recognizing that what's happening isn't real, either on your own or with help.
Bullrider
Content warnings: mild bovine coercion, alcohol
Come on, hot stuff. You know you want to.
Bet you can’t stay on for more than half a minute.
You don’t look too tough.
You think you can tame me?
In the saloon, you hear a voice in your head. It calls to you, the words seductive and enticing: you want to prove it wrong, you want to find out what it’s promising, you hate to lose. Whatever the motivation, you find yourself abandoning your drink and making your way to the new attraction at the back of the saloon: the bull.
It’s a big boy: a massive mechanical bull. Covered in spotted cowhide, with a bull head and big horns, this thing sits on a massive pedestal like a challenge. Around it is spread... relatively thin padding and a flimsy rope to keep the audience back an appropriate distance.
The compulsion keeps a hold on you until you’re on the bull. Maybe you’re on it with a friend, or a stranger, and it starts up with a mechanical buzzing. It starts to sway under you, and now you have just one job: stay on.
It starts easy, but gets harder as it goes along. It’s incredibly difficult to stay on for more than a minute. But during that minute, you feel amazing. You feel hot as hell, in whatever way that works for you: sexy, powerful, bold, in control.
Until he throws you off onto the padding or into the crowd! When you get thrown, there's a good chance you'll go flying into the crowd. Hopefully they're ready to catch you!
If by some miracle you manage to stay on for more than a minute and a half, the bartender slides you a bullrider special: a spicy whiskey cocktail with a hint of lime. Feel free to leave it up to pure chance, and have the mods roll a die for you to see whether you manage to stay on or not.
tl;dr:
Come on, hot stuff. You know you want to.
Bet you can’t stay on for more than half a minute.
You don’t look too tough.
You think you can tame me?
In the saloon, you hear a voice in your head. It calls to you, the words seductive and enticing: you want to prove it wrong, you want to find out what it’s promising, you hate to lose. Whatever the motivation, you find yourself abandoning your drink and making your way to the new attraction at the back of the saloon: the bull.
It’s a big boy: a massive mechanical bull. Covered in spotted cowhide, with a bull head and big horns, this thing sits on a massive pedestal like a challenge. Around it is spread... relatively thin padding and a flimsy rope to keep the audience back an appropriate distance.
The compulsion keeps a hold on you until you’re on the bull. Maybe you’re on it with a friend, or a stranger, and it starts up with a mechanical buzzing. It starts to sway under you, and now you have just one job: stay on.
It starts easy, but gets harder as it goes along. It’s incredibly difficult to stay on for more than a minute. But during that minute, you feel amazing. You feel hot as hell, in whatever way that works for you: sexy, powerful, bold, in control.
Until he throws you off onto the padding or into the crowd! When you get thrown, there's a good chance you'll go flying into the crowd. Hopefully they're ready to catch you!
If by some miracle you manage to stay on for more than a minute and a half, the bartender slides you a bullrider special: a spicy whiskey cocktail with a hint of lime. Feel free to leave it up to pure chance, and have the mods roll a die for you to see whether you manage to stay on or not.
tl;dr:
- There's a mechanical bull in the back of the saloon!
- There's a strange deep voice in your head, coercing you into giving it a shot.
- It's hard to stay on, but when you're on it, you feel powerful, bold and in control.
- The padding's pretty thin and you'll get thrown hard when you do. You might hit someone!
- If you stay on for more than a minute and a half, you'll get a fun little drink as a reward.
no subject
"My notes, I suppose. I never really thought to name it." But maybe she should? Something to think about for later. She angles the paper so that Alec can actually see a little, and starts flipping through the pages. Most of the drawings are of the town's landscapes or buildings, but there's a few of a dark-haired woman wearing an orange chestplate, and another of a green-haired girl standing next to a blonde man. They're both smiling. She lands on a picture of the hotel.
"The town destroys itself and then resets, after about every three months or so. There's a lot of people here who take written notes, and they can explain their theories better than I can. But I think the pictures are important. You can't remember something just with words."
no subject
"Sounds fun," he says, "Love listening to people make things up like they know what they're talking about. Why don't you have any pictures of the evil cacti in here? Or the zombies? Punch up the portfolio with some blood and guts?"
no subject
"If you mean these, I don't think they're...evil? Just spiky plants. Don't touch them, I suppose." Meanwhile, Ariane isn't even close to being able to work out what a zombie is, but blood and guts she knows well enough.
"I guess I haven't had the opportunity to run into a lot of blood. There were the skin-eating bugs, if that's what you mean by zombie, but by the time they showed up, things were getting...busy." To put it delicately. "You're right, though. I should document those. Or you can, if you really like drawing that sort of thing."
no subject
The point is, it's gross.
"Those, but they tried to chase us down and touch us." He taps the cacti. "And a zombie is a rotting corpse that shuffles around trying to get at the sweet, sweet brains of the living teeth first."
"And..." Alec stares at the lines on paper.
Does he like drawing that kind of thing? Does he draw? Does it mean something that he looks at the lines and imagines them differently? He almost reaches for Ariane's pencil to pluck it from her hand wordlessly, before he realizes that might be rude.
"I dunno. Gimme." He wiggles his fingers at the pencil.
no subject
That is gross. Ariane frowns a little, but honestly, she doesn't seem that bothered by it. As long as she doesn't ever have to meet any zombies, she's fine.
How can she say no to those...wiggling? Fingers? Maybe Ariane just doesn't have that much experience with teenagers, or maybe this is the first person here she's ever met who Ariane actually thinks is a bit strange, but either way, she's happy to let him have a shot. She hands over the pencil, and slides the notebook over in his direction. Then she'll watch, and wait, and see what he comes up with.
cw: zombie, body horror, decay
When he starts to draw, the vacuousness of his expression shifts. After he sketches out the first few angular lines his disinterest recedes as focus wells up. He curls his arm around the notebook and hunches over it as he works, pausing only to tuck loose hair behind his ears. After he's done, he sits back, tapping the end of the pencil on the table.
"Huh," he says, softly. He puts the pencil down on the top of the notebook and slides it back across the table to Ariane, looking across at her with his chin tilted down and his eyes half-shaded by their lashes.
"That's a zombie."
It's a quick pencil sketch, sharply stylized, of a drooling, half-rotten zombie from the waist up. The zombie's arms are raised in a classic lurching pose, and Alec took the time to strip the meat from one forearm to reveal the bones underneath. One side of the zombie's face is sloughing off, its eye bulging grotesquely in its denuded socket.
cw: body/eye horror
She picks up the notebook and holds it up beside her face. "It looks kind of like me," she jokes, before setting it down again. Fortunately, Ariane's eyeballs aren't falling out, which she is genuinely grateful for.
Then, more seriously, she adds, "You're pretty good. You should keep at it."
no subject
The joke makes him grin, a tiny, close-lipped thing. He lifts his chin and sinks back a bit precariously on the stool he's perched on.
"Yeah?" He says, light and quiet. "Thanks. You can keep it, if you want."
It is, technically, already in her notebook, but whatever.
no subject
"Thank you. I will."
Art is one of the most precious gifts you can give a person, Ariane thinks, even if this art in question is a grotesque cartoon zombie. She likes what he did with the limbs.
"I'm Ariane, by the way." Since they're exchanging drawings, Ariane might as well offer her name.
no subject
He's pleased with how this is going. Coming over here was a good idea. Ariane does have taste, and a name that doesn't suck. She also helped him figure out the art thing, which is an interesting new development in the saga of figuring out what his deal is.
"I probably should fuck off and get back to sight seeing the locals, but - you know. I'll be seeing you, considering we're all stuck in this shithole. Maybe I'll draw you a better zombie."
Well, that's stupid. She was indulgent about one shitty zombie drawing, but two is pushing his luck. Alec flicks his attention away from him and out to the crowd, uninterested in watching her try to act like it's not a weird suggestion.
no subject
She doesn't think it's a weird suggestion at all. The zombie was well-done, and in a style that Ariane is especially familiar with, and it'd be fun to see more of Alec's work. And, if she's being honest, there's something she recognizes in the way he turns to look at the crowd, instead of looking at her. Offering to draw something for someone is a tremendously frightening thing to do, and Ariane thinks this teenager's bravery ought to be rewarded.
"And I'd like to see it. Maybe with a bunch of blood oozing down its face, yeah?" That seems to be an appropriate thing for a zombie to have, and red always does look nice and striking. It'll go well with his style, Ariane figures.
no subject
She has an interesting face. He starts thinking about how he'd shade the bruised undersides of her eyes. There's nothing to capture a reference with, so he guesses he'll just have to remember what they look like.
"Obviously," he says, nodding, "Extra gross."
He slides off his stool with a little rock when he hits the ground, abandoning his prize drink thoughtlessly behind him. He gives Ariane a two fingered wave and slips off towards the back of the bar, thinking about the colour red.