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Well Mod ([personal profile] wellie) wrote in [community profile] wellcome2023-07-19 04:51 pm
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3.0 Test Drive Meme

3.0 Test Drive Meme

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.



guidemyway: (3769888 (18))

[personal profile] guidemyway 2023-08-24 02:41 am (UTC)(link)
[It was fairly two faced of Ruby. But she wasn't about to unpack which side was her actual opinion. There was a reason she had been trying to keep people away from her and it wasn't her fault they kept ignoring her or getting into trouble around her.

She's not exactly sure why the other girl is breathing harder either. ...Had she been exerting herself that hard before Ruby picked her up? Someone might want to get some cardio into their routine. The fact that she might have caused this flies completely over her head for the moment.]


I am, I am.

Just like- Don't like squirm around or make this any harder than it already is.
paleradiance: (but then one day you'll go away)

[personal profile] paleradiance 2023-08-27 01:46 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm trying..

[ It's a weak answer though. Olympia is pretty sure that controlling her power and making sure it doesn't get out of hand is a little bit more important here than answering, hence why the two words sound so soft and tiny.

But she is telling the truth here. Despite the struggle, and despite her breathing still being a little harder than earlier, the girl is doing her best to stay as still as possible while Ruby is carrying her, not wanting to attract even more attention from the cacti than Ruby already might be as she runs. ]
guidemyway: (To be aimless?)

[personal profile] guidemyway 2023-09-02 01:17 am (UTC)(link)
[Don't be concerned. Don't worry about her. Don't start to care. Avoid starting to care more than anything.

Ruby keeps thinking that over and over. And maybe if she keeps doing it then she'll actually be able to manage it. As it stands concern keeps slipping through the cracks of her defenses. She can hear the cacti push through the sand closer to them and she pushes on a little harder.]


Well just- keep trying.

And don't worry. I guess- As long as I don't trip up or anything. I think you'll get there just fine.
paleradiance: (but i will too)

[personal profile] paleradiance 2023-09-03 10:02 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Wow, Ruby. Did a reassurance just slip through there? Through your perfectly created walls?

Don't worry, Olympia won't tell anyone. Mostly because she's already got enough to think about here. Keeping her power under control, for one, but by the time that's getting a little easier, she's trying to do what she can to help Ruby here. By not moving too much, and also by looking around in Ruby's blind spots for the cacti, so the other can focus on running rather than having to glance around.

Even though that makes the white-haired girl spot something incredibly alarming, letting out a gasp of shock. ]


T-There's one right behind you..! It's on our heels!

[ It's not exactly the best news, but Olympia figures it's better if Ruby knows than if the girl gets caught from the back by surprise. Even if she's not sure what can be done about it. ]
guidemyway: (A beat)

[personal profile] guidemyway 2023-09-04 04:45 pm (UTC)(link)
[Don't look into things like that. It's nothing. It's clearly nothing to worry about what so ever.

Ruby thinks she's got a good a grasp on Olympia and the situation in general that is until she hears the call out about the one being behind them.

Something clicks in Ruby's head. What if she messes this up? What if she fails like she was told she always had in her memories. Those thoughts grip her for just a second and it's enough to make her stumble and slip up in her step.

Which is what the cacti needs to get just close enough to her ankle to latch on. She lets out a sudden yelp and moves to fall flat on her face. The only grace being that she manages to toss Olympia out of her arms a few feet ahead before she comes crashing to the ground.]
paleradiance: (when the moon breaks up)

[personal profile] paleradiance 2023-09-05 09:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Is the experience of being thrown and dropping straight into the sand a pleasant experience?

Of course not. Sure, the sand does break her fall enough that she doesn't break anything, nor is there anything to scratch her pale skin on, but it still very much feels like she's a sack of potatoes hitting the ground hard. It gets a little 'oof' from Olympia, and for a moment she doesn't move, like she needs that moment to process the force of the fall.

But when that moment is over, she looks up from where she's lying on the ground, her cheeks and hair covered in sand.

And she doesn't look just anywhere. No, the girl looks over at Ruby, and the sight she finds draws a gasp from her lips. ]


No..!

[ Something about the sight of the cactus holding onto the girl, trying to drag Ruby closer to itself, is absolutely horrifying. Especially given what Ruby had said about these plants.

But despite the fact that Olympia would love to do nothing more than running away from these terrifying plants, she knows she can't just abandon Ruby. Not like this.

So without hesitation, Olympia doesn't move further away from Ruby and the plants, even though Ruby would be the ideal distraction to allow Olympia a safe passage into town. Instead she moves closer towards the dark-haired girl, her hands latching onto one of Ruby's wrists and starting to pull, like she's trying to tug the girl straight out of the plants' grasp.

It's not easy to even use enough strength here to maintain Ruby's position, keeping her from getting closer to the plants, but Olympia looks like she's giving it all the strength her thin chicken arms got, her face twisted with concentration and effort. ]