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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
Me? Yuri Lowell. Which probably doesn't mean much to you. You don't remember much, right? It's pretty weird.
no subject
Which is another point he's addressing, huh. But even though the girl doesn't try to move further away from Yuri - if not just since she's practically cornered anyway - her eyes still grow wide with surprise when she listens to him speak. ]
.. how do you know I don't remember much?
[ Even though she knows that reading thoughts shouldn't be possible, that people can't do that, her hand still subconsciously rises to cover the side of her head, as if she thinks she might be able to block an ability to read thoughts that way.. ]
no subject
He holds out a hand for her. ]
Happens to all of us. You wake up here with barely a clue about who you are. But we usually don't wake up... here. [ He shrugs at the desert around them ] C'mon, I'll take you into town. There are other people there. Less sand.
no subject
For a moment she's not even thinking about what Yuri is saying, really - she's just thinking about that hand, and about the one thing she can remember. It feels important that that's the one memory she has, for some reason. It's got to be a warning. Maybe it's telling her to careful, to not touch a stranger's hand right away, unless she wants the same thing to happen all over again.
It means Olympia awkwardly lets his hand hang in the air as she gets up to her feet herself, brushing some sand off her clothes as she does so. It's also only then that she truly contemplates anything Yuri was actually saying, before giving the other a worried look. ]
You're not planning on doing something bad to me, are you..?
[ It's only when the words already left her mouth that the girl realises how dumb that question was - it's not like someone with bad intentions is just going to tell her that.
But it's too late to take back instinctive words, even if she looks very embarrassed about it. ]
no subject
No, but I get if you don't believe me.
[ He is carrying a sword, after all. ]
I can walk in front of you, or you can carry my sword, if you want to.
[ He doesn't really want to let go of the sword, but she reminds him so much of Estelle that somehow he immediately trusts her. Maybe that's dumb, but he doesn't mind. It takes his mind off of other things. ]
no subject
Maybe it's that thought that makes her shake her head, despite her question from a moment ago. ]
No, you-- you can keep it. [ Maybe it's naive to trust someone with their weapon. Olympia kind of feels like someone would scold her for it, if there were a third party present here.
But this feels like the right decision in the moment, and the girl finally does take a few steps closer to Yuri, no longer acting like she'll get radiation poisoning just from being close to him. ]
.. I'm sorry. [ She suddenly says - pretty much unprompted, some guilt reflected in her eyes to match the words. ] I don't want to seem like I don't trust you.
[ She doesn't want him to feel bad. ]
But all of this, it's just.. [ She pauses, like she's looking for the right word, before Olympia adds: ] .. very confusing.
no subject
[ Not that he's really helping his case, but she reminds him so much of Estelle that it hurts. It aches in his chest, and he realizes in that moment that he can't recall Estelle's face. He has no idea what she looks like, and that leaves him reeling.
His smile drops and he looks away from her, taking a shaking breath. Get it together, Lowell ]
But, I don't want you to be stuck out here. So if you're down to trust, for a little while, I'll take you into town.
no subject
[ Despite the slight stammer, it seems like Olympia has made up her mind about that relatively easily at this point. She does want to trust him, regardless of whether it's a good or a bad idea to trust the first person you see after waking up in some place and not remembering even a single moment of anything that came before the present.
Besides.. it's not like she's going to be able to get to this town on her own when she doesn't even know where it is. Or how dangerous it is to get there. Surely he's not carrying a sword for no reason.
So Olympia is already moving over to Yuri's side, looking like she's ready to follow him. Like a little duckling.
Still, there's something else sticking out in her mind as well. Maybe it even partially convinced her to go along with him, because for a moment just now, Yuri looked.. sad?
She's not sure if it's sad exactly, but it was something like that. Like he was experiencing an emotion, no matter how briefly, that wasn't Great, at least.
The girl is a little torn as to whether pointing it out or ignoring it would be more rude, but a natural inclination drives her towards speaking up about it all the same. Even though she tries to keep her voice gentle, like she doesn't want to be too insistent here. ]
Are you alright though..?
[ See, she's not even specifically pointing out the moment he looked away just now. Tactful! Nailing it!!
(She is, however, looking over at him with wide, worried eyes, which may kind of take away from her trying to be subtle and tactful over here.) ]