3.0 Test Drive Meme

[wellie]

3.0 Test Drive Meme

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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:

• 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:

• 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:

• 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.

Comments

[forgeabettertomorrow]

Oh, I'm starting to see why you tolerate me now~

[He stretches very, very obviously, showing off his powerful arms and pecs.]

Alright, so it's a tie. The plants aren't as loud and obnoxious but they don't talk much but we're both nice to look at.

[sighsheavily]

[she lifts a hand to cover her mouth.] I wonder if they're as humble...!

[forgeabettertomorrow]

Hmmm, you raise another good point. Sounds like the flowers have one up on me now~

What could I offer you that flowers can't...

[He posits the question thoughtfully to no one in particular. Musing playfully out loud.]

Well, I can promise to shower you with as much affection as you shower me with. Flowers have a hard time reciprocating.

[sighsheavily]

[her face reddens.]

Or flustering me so, I'd say...

[forgeabettertomorrow]

[He sits up again and scoots up closer to her.]

Then...I think that puts me one up on the flowers now...

[sighsheavily]

[her eyes get big and ears more alert to her heartrate jumping. is she always going to feel so excitable? it's both thrilling and rather embarrassing.

after a quiet gulp, she moves her hand away.]

A, a notch or two, I think. Yes.

[forgeabettertomorrow]

[He sidles up right next to her up against the headboard. And then, he lifts an arm to drape it around behind her. It's an opening. An offer. He knows how skittish she can be.]

You know, you still haven't told me how you've been feeling. How you're holding up...your thoughts.

[sighsheavily]

Thoughts?

[what thoughts? how's he expect her to be anything but brainless when he's sidled up and gotten so close?

her own fault, really. she sat down, didn't she?]

I...I suppose they must be in there, somewhere. Certainly. I'm a bit preoccupied, though.

[forgeabettertomorrow]

[Okay, that draws a bit of a playful look from him.]

Preoccupied how, hm?

[He leans in a bit closer now. Any closer and he'd be resting his forehead to hers.]

[sighsheavily]

[she almost pouts.]

Just-- kiss me already, will you?

[forgeabettertomorrow]

[He can't help but laugh at that. He had no idea Cecelia could be so distracted by something like this. But he's certainly not going to pass up such an earnest demand.]

[But neither is he going to just mash his face into hers. He reaches up and places a hand on her cheek tenderly. A calloused thumb brushes at one of the freckles affectionately before he leans in and presses his lips to hers. It's gentle and warm and has every intention to make her melt where she sits.]

[And when he breaks the kiss to breathe, he gives her a pause so she can do the same before kissing her again.]

[sighsheavily]

[she was readying some complaint about being a tease, but that thought, too, is eradicated with a touch and any followup evaporated with a kiss. again the weightless, thrilling feeling overtakes and leaves her aflutter.

with the chance to breathe again, she almost manages a thought or some start of a quip before she's captured by another kiss. hardly worth fighting, and in not contemplating too much at all she finds it easy to reciprocate.

breathless again, turns her head away just enough to catch it.]

Oh, I... I think I'm a bit addicted to this--

[forgeabettertomorrow]

I'd say you are. Ever since that day you've been a lot more affectionate.

...And before you say anything, I don't mind. It makes me happy. It makes me happy because you're happy.

[The arm that was around her draws her close so she can kiss and cuddle to her heart's desire.]

But since we're being so honest...I think I'm addicted too.

['To you' is heavily implied.]

[sighsheavily]

[on cue, being called out does make her shrink a bit, but there's nowhere to hide away save against him. the balm to that is the calling of himself out, which keeps her from squirming too much.]

Well. Well, good, then-- [sound lamer, Ardenbury. she ducks her head.] It may as well be...mutual. Or I'd be rather mortified.

[forgeabettertomorrow]

...It is. I don't know how or when it started but...you've been such a constant in my life here. Maybe I was used to going it alone where I come from because every time you'd come to see me and check on me I just felt so...

Elated.

I felt important. Like I matter. You make me feel like I matter. And since I started to feel that way I realized...

Just how much you meant to me. As a person.

[sighsheavily]

[her chest tightens, ears burning with those words. they make her want to cry, but she'll fight that to the last hiccuping breath to avoid - she's so exhausted of crying, be it out of misery or otherwise. her head tilts in against his shoulder, under the chin, her hand curling against his clavicle at the hem of his tank top.]

I, I-I don't think I'd...be doing even half as well without you, Darin. And I know that--somehow, you mattered before. Because it'll hurt, sometimes...in that way something out of reach hurts. And because you were the one who appeared... That dance, right? Other people saw figments of people they missed...

[quietly:] I saw you.

[forgeabettertomorrow]

[Amazingly, it's Darin's turn to blush. It's so intense, she can feel the heat from his cheeks from where she's resting her head. And her keen ears can pick up the strong thumpthumps of his heart as it beats out of his chest.]

[She saw me?]

[There's a million jumbled thoughts knocking around in his brain but above all else he's soaring. She really cared about him that much? Was it...more than just caring?]

...You won't have to miss me anymore. Because I'm going to be here for you and with you. And if something happens like last loop, I'll come back. And when this is all over...I won't leave.

...I'm yours forever.

[sighsheavily]

[there's no way she can stand to look him in the eye at that; she'll burst right into tears, she knows it. instead, she snakes her arm around his shoulders and hides her face. the terrifying elation of his words and knowing they're true is only undercut by the echo of her own voice in her head.]

Even if...the past you find is horrible. Right?

[forgeabettertomorrow]

If the past is horrible then that's where we'll leave it. Because right now, the only thing I have eyes for are the future...

[Sorry, Cecelia. But he's going to shift enough to tilt her head up by her chin; just enough for her eyes to meet him.]

...And you.

[He's not going to give her the chance to chide him on such earnest and powerful promises. He's going to kiss her again and this time it's stronger. A reassurance. Sealing a promise. If she can find the words to rebuke him after a kiss like that, then she'll have her chance.]

[sighsheavily]

[he'll find her eyes wide and wet and her face as ruddy as before, and her expression starts to crumble with emotion before she's saved by a kiss. there's a desperation in the whimpering way she reciprocates, her arm hugging him tighter, as if doing so made it more true and real.

if she can impress herself more prominently here, it keeps the fear of being forgotten a bit further away. and closer, she can recognize that it's not just her heart that's drumming out of control; she's grateful for that on top of everything else.]

Then I mean to keep you. [she nuzzles her cheek against his in lieu of having a free hand to wipe stray tears away.

thickly:] Dragons and hording and...and whatnot. [gah.]

[forgeabettertomorrow]

Does that make me your treasure, then...?

[He's holding her against him with no intention of letting go. At this distance, he keeps his voice just a notch above a whisper; a rumbling baritone right in her ear to drown out their combined heartbeats.]

Because I like the idea of you being so protective of me...

[sighsheavily]

[she exhales lightly, mouth twitching into a secret smile; she matches move for move to keep from being properly looked at. her punishment for that is the tickle against her ear that gives her an incredible shiver.]

Treasure. Hmh. Yes. That sounds right. I treasure you very much, Darin.

[forgeabettertomorrow]

Do you now...

[She can feel the smile spreading into that smirk of his. A smirk that has no right being as confident or attractive as it portrays him as.]

Then...I treasure you too, Cecelia.

[There's no question what word he's substituting 'treasure' for.]

[sighsheavily]

[she may just perish and float away for how giddy she feels; there's going to be a loud bang and she'll suddenly wake up on the floor, having fallen out of bed, right?

maybe?]

Oh-- [not again! she sniffles.] I, I believe you, just--just don't...say it so much, or all I'll do is cry, and you hate that anyway, so-!

[forgeabettertomorrow]

[He laughs softly, a gentle rumble in his chest.]

I’ll do my best. But…I treasure you so much it’s hard to contain.

So, we’ll just have to work on it. Little by little until you can stand it. Because you’re definitely someone who deserves to feel treasured.