wellie: (Default)
Well Mod ([personal profile] wellie) wrote in [community profile] wellcome2023-07-19 04:51 pm
Entry tags:

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.



sus_pended: (36)

[personal profile] sus_pended 2023-08-24 08:27 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Julie presses the tines of the fork against the table, releasing her grip on it to press her palm against the end of the handle. She rocks the tarnished silverware idly back and forth and ignores the shitty construct walking off to play fetch, focused instead on Alex: his posture, his hands. She likes that he didn’t accept their invitation right away, likes the apathetic pushing. If this is what the population of Wellstone is like, she can get used to it.

When Frank speaks, though, Julie watches him with half-lidded eyes, and for a moment it’s as if Alec isn’t there at all. When he meets her gaze, her expression melts into something little colder.
]

We don’t know the buildings are empty. [ She looks at Alec again to ask the question, gaze sliding almost reluctantly away from her friend. ] Are they?

( [ When the waiter comes back to deliver his food, Julie will flip the fork up and hold it by the tip of one tine in a sinister offering to Alec. ] )
Edited 2023-08-24 20:44 (UTC)
anglophone: (003 | a little victimless crime)

cw: body control, muscle spasming, cruelty

[personal profile] anglophone 2023-08-24 09:20 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Alec thinks he probably should feel something about this. The hot reek of blood, the opaque looks being traded across the table that might have something to do with him, the near certainty that this is going to get even messier in the very immediate future.

He doesn't. There's nothing but a still, observational readiness inside of him. No emotion, no particularly acute thought, no busywork of predicting and deciding. ]


Most of them. The people stay in the hotel, the puppets just sort of stand around at their pretend bullshit jobs.

[ No reason not to tell them that. The waiter returns to set down a plate of onion rings and fries, his pants stained with errant streaks of blood. The girl offers Alec the fork. He takes it, of course. It'd be rude not to. He examines it, idly, and then spins it over his fingers as the waiter puts down Alec's coffee mug. There are slick fingerprints all over it, the liquid inside wobbling more than usual thanks to the waiter's slightly less deft, damaged hand. ]

Hey. [ Alec says, a thin, mean curl at one corner of his mouth. ] Watch this.

[ He raises his empty hand and flicks. The waiter's arm spasms from shoulder to fingertips, and Alec's strawberry milkshake falls to the floor with a shattering crash, spewing sticky pink and broken glass to mingle with the pooled blood. The waiter's face contorts with a ripple of something almost like fear. ]

Oops. [ He flips the fork over again and reaches out to dimple the waiter's twitching wrist, the lightest of teasing scratches. ] You fucked it, dipshit. Go get me another one.
drop_out: (pic#16676289)

[personal profile] drop_out 2023-08-25 02:16 am (UTC)(link)
[Frank's easy smirk turns that edge sharper, a cold fire burning to a chill in sync with Julie's own cooling grin. Alec taking the fork is a good sign; maybe some of the people here are something other than ugly, boring, empty.

Then Alec breaks step in this little routine, and oh, Frank can feel his eyes widening in delight at the same time as his stomach churns with revulsion. At the same time as Julie's gaze turns into wicked satisfaction and her mouth purses into a thin and dangerous line.

Suddenly, in that moment, Alec has become something as beautiful as it is sickening. Wide blue eyes and thin brown slits stare at Alec with enough intensity that they're like icicles and stalactites threatening to pierce him; literally shining like twin sets of two moons, the sort of gaze that belongs in the skull of a wild animal and not a human being. Looking at those eyes, in this moment, they flash and shine with all the predatory focus of a wolfpack, and just as hungry. Wicked gemstones twinkling in the dark of the diner.]


Hey, Jules? [His eyes are as cold as hers, but his voice is burning with something. Thick with more than just the scars left by smoke's passage.] Have I ever told you that you have the best ideas?
Edited 2023-08-25 02:16 (UTC)
sus_pended: (52)

[personal profile] sus_pended 2023-08-25 02:57 am (UTC)(link)
[ When their eyes lock onto Alec's face in unison, time slows, and a few seconds stretch into an agonizing eternity. Alec's heart thunders suddenly in his chest. He hears it in the blood rushing in his ears, in the hearts in unison with his own. Alec is prey caught in their sights, and he'll feel it in the way the air curls like a thick smog in his lungs.

And then Jules closes her eyes, and the spell breaks. The room feels just as it had.
]

He looked interesting. [ Said with such passive disinterest it must be true. ]
Edited 2023-08-25 02:58 (UTC)
anglophone: (004 | let gravity win)

cw: dissociation, blood consumption

[personal profile] anglophone 2023-08-25 04:11 am (UTC)(link)
[ Under the twinned, flashing predator's fascination, Alec stops moving. It's not a freeze. A freeze is a locking up, a rigid stillness of holding everything fixed in place.

This is an absence. Alec is there, pinned between two lancing gazes, their hearts crowded next to his in his mouth, in the hollow of his throat, in his chest and his gut and the crooks of his lax limbs, and Alec is somewhere else. Somewhere lightless and empty, gravity zeroed, a drop before the spike -

Then whatever they're doing stops, and the world snaps back into colour and motion. Alec blinks, a tiny shudder rippling through him like a small animal discharging stress from its fuzzy, fragile body.

The handle of the fork is held very tightly in his palm. The waiter is halfway across the diner again. ]


Thanks. [ He meets passivity with passivity, slipping the fork back into a less fixed grip so he can wave it vaguely in the girl's direction. ] 'Jules', and...?

[ He doesn't wait for the boy to introduce himself before he carries on. He pierces a few fries and brings them to his mouth, popping them and the bloody tines they're stuck on past his chipped front teeth. The taste makes his stomach twitch, queasy and loose. He pulls the fork free and chews methodically, eyes half-lidded. ]

'M Alec.
Edited (word repetition ) 2023-08-25 05:39 (UTC)
sus_pended: (3)

[personal profile] sus_pended 2023-08-26 02:02 am (UTC)(link)
[ Her exhale is something like satisfaction. ] Frank.
drop_out: (pic#16669560)

[personal profile] drop_out 2023-08-26 02:17 am (UTC)(link)
[The now named Frank throws up a peace sign.]

Yo, Alec. Welcome to the short list of people in this stupid town who're worth our time.

[The peace sign is balled up into a fist, that nudges against Alec's shoulder.]

So, what's your secret?
sus_pended: (Default)

[personal profile] sus_pended 2023-08-27 06:29 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, Alec. [ The twin flames flickering in their eyes haven't extinguished, but the way Jules inclines her head, the slow smile curling on her face: fires can be inviting, too. ] Inquiring minds need to know.
Edited 2023-08-27 06:30 (UTC)
anglophone: (002 | those wooden boys)

[personal profile] anglophone 2023-08-27 04:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Alec rocks with the nudge, a tiny tilt of a smile ghosting over his mouth. He's made it on the list. That's a start.

A start to exactly what, he's not completely sure yet, but that's details. The point is that he's passed their evaluation. He's a person, not a thing, which doesn't make him less likely to get fucked up, but does give him a negotiating position. ]


I'm the long lost heir to the throne. [ He deadpans, spinning the fork through his fingers. ] My subjects naturally obey my every whim.

That, and a paranatural capacity for jerking people around. You know how it is.

So. What about you? Travelling food critics?
drop_out: (pic#16669548)

[personal profile] drop_out 2023-08-28 02:21 am (UTC)(link)
[Twin flames light up, amusement dancing in Frank's eyes. He leans forward on the table, elbow planted firmly on the wood, and head resting in his hand. With a wide grin, he begins to intone.]

And he asked him, What is thy name?
sus_pended: (Default)

[personal profile] sus_pended 2023-08-28 02:39 am (UTC)(link)
And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.

[ Her cadence follows his smoothly, simmering with an air of you've heard of us. Julie turns into the table, crossing her legs as she sits up. ]

There are more of us. They'll meet us here.

[ There's no question in the way she says it: the other half of their band will stumble out of the desert. They're waiting up for them. ]
anglophone: (010 | little dogs like you)

cw: blood, body control

[personal profile] anglophone 2023-08-28 03:36 pm (UTC)(link)
[ The first definable prickle of sensation Alec's had: a stir of envy at the ready back and forth of their exchange. It opens up into something else at the bottom, a diffuse low pang - that might just be lingering unrelated nausea, when he thinks about it. ]

Nice bit. [ He tells them, more or less sincerely. ] And this is making sure they don't have to go looking too far.

[ It's a question, even if he doesn't say it like one. The waiter is returning with a new milkshake. His bleeding looks like it's slowing down when he sets the glass on the table, muted pink and vivid red. ]

How many more people are we expecting? I'd hate to be taking somebody's seat.

[ There's a little crunch of glass under sole, and Alec files that away resignedly. ]

Get me a new bottle of ketchup. [ The waiter starts to speak, and Alec flicks his fingers at him again, turning it into a mushy unintelligible slur. ] And shut the fuck up.