3.0 Test Drive Meme

[wellie]

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:

• 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

ii; cw: eye gore

[toteninsel]

[ It's a bright and sunny Wellstone morning when Ariane makes her way down to breakfast. She's dressed for the weather in a lightweight yellow dress, which she has nonetheless paired with some bedazzled brown boots. Her plan, initially, is to grab a pasty and then go back on her room to work on her painting. But things in Wellstone never go according to plan.

It's the sound, initially, that leads Ariane to believe something is off. A mechanical click and whirr, totally unfamiliar to her. And yet.

There's a tall, dark-haired woman sitting at the table. Right now, Ariane can only see her from behind. She steps forward, guessing that somehow, for some reason, this woman is the source of the sound. The woman's face comes into view. There is a seam running across the bridge of her nose; there is a flare in her artificial lens; there is -

- a desert, cold, lifeless, littered with bodies, you left them behind you are left behind this is all that's left

- a song, a warmth, a touch, a heart

- REMEMBER OUR PROMISE.

Ariane is crying. She touches the underside of her eye, and her fingers come away stained with red. She blinks. The whirring continues. There is someone else, here and now (whatever that means), and Ariane will not leave her like this.

She sits beside the other woman, and lays a thin, gentle, trembling hand over the other's. She forces a smile, and it comes out weak and watery and all wrong. ]

Hey. [ Ariane whispers, her rasp close to breaking. ] Come back here. Wherever you are, there's nothing left for you out there.

same warnings

[lstr]

[ that voice. she could be worlds, lifetimes, countless iterations away and she would recognize that voice. alina?—no, different, quieter—

the substance that looks so much like blood but smells wrong keeps flowing from elster's nose, and starts to trickle from her own right eye as well. but the cathode shine in her eyes flickers back on, as elster meets ariane's eyes.

and she knows her, she's one of the only things she still knows— ]

Ariane. [ it's quiet, coming out as a nearly broken rasp of her own. she grabs napkins almost mindlessly with one hand, starting to tend to her own bleeding face. ]

You're here?

[ she manages to say it in a way that almost sounds like is this a dream. ]

cw: blood

[toteninsel]

[ The woman knows Ariane's name. She pronounces it beautifully, in a way that no one else in Wellstone can. The right cadence, the right melody. If Ariane were less overcome by her own memories - or lack thereof - she'd note this woman's naming of her as a good sign. It means she's present, or at least more present than she was before.

But that's not what Ariane focuses on. The woman said Ariane's name, but Ariane can't say hers back. She tries to search for it, and her head aches in return. She can't remember the promise name, no matter how hard she tries. ]

I'm here.

[ At least there's that. As the woman begins to dab her face with napkins, Ariane picks up a cluster as well, still keeping one hand atop the other woman's, with that same gentle pressure. She wipes away under the woman's eye, under her nose, wherever there's blood.

She swallows, like an idiot, guilty child. ]

I'm sorry. [ At last. It's not enough. ] I don't remember.

[lstr]

[ for the moment, elster lets ariane help to clean her up. she relaxes somewhat and feels her hydraulics slow, the whirring mechanical components settling back to normal. she almost leans into the touch, really, but turns her hand over to grasp at ariane's. nearly on instinct.

the apology doesn't hit as hard as elster might have expected. she just swallows, nodding once. ]

... I understand. [ how could she not, with ariane looking so guilty, with her being so kind? part of her wants to draw her close, but finds the notion ridiculous in equal measure. her voice is still quiet, and she feels like she ought to be desperately sad right now, but... she accepts it. if these are their circumstances, so be it. ]

... Elster, I think. LSTR-512. There's another, but it's... [ it's not something that she thinks ariane ever would have called her. then again, trying to think too hard on that might make the bleeding start up again. ] Not what I was called when I knew you, I think.

[toteninsel]

[ The woman turns her hand over, and Ariane slides her flesh fingers in between the metallic ones. They fit perfectly into place. Ariane doesn't question it, like she doesn't question helping the other woman clean up, or approaching her in the first place. She's just here, in the present moment, as her headache begins to subside. ]

Elster. [ Ariane repeats. The name feels nice to say. ] Like a little magpie.

[ Ariane smiles at her own joke, small and a little lopsided. The little magpie is, obviously, taller than she is, and probably able to easily take Ariane in any kind of physical fight.

The numerical designation, on the other hand, rings differently. It takes Ariane a moment to place, but once she realizes, her eyes grow wide. ]

Before this, I was on a ship. The Penrose-512. A scout vessel of the Eusan People's Navy. Do you know it?

[lstr]

[ that tugs at something... familiar. meine liebste elster, words that should be spoken with such love, instead scratch at her mind.

but elster squeezes her hand gently, regardless. ]

We were sent out there together. Right? That's... right, I think... I remember one night, that's all. It was... [ the damning words on dot matrix paper, maddeningly cheerful despite the death sentence—

Ｇｌüｃｋｗｕｎｓｃｈ， Ｇｅｎｏｓｓｅ!

elster winces, averting eye contact for a moment, before taking a breath and meeting those kind red eyes again. ]

It was good, I think. Despite everything. Until it wasn't.

cw: blood, eye gore

[toteninsel]

[ There was another person on the ship with her. The engineer. Her name was -

- someone squeezes Ariane's hand. There is a sound, ringing in her ears, so loud that it must be real. Except it isn't, Ariane knows it isn't, it's just taking up space where the memories should be. Ariane starts crying again, red tears from red eyes, with a trickle of blood underneath her nose.

It was good Elster, LSTR-512, the engineer says. Ariane has one good memory of that place, and she focuses on that, instead. Music replaces the noise.

At long last, Ariane squeezes back, albeit not especially strong. ]

We danced. Do you remember? I remember that.

blood cw continues

[lstr]

[ she hears the music, of course. whatever ariane's doing, elster finds herself... receptive to it. drawn to it, like a magpie to the gleam of metal. the music settles across her mind, and she almost feels as if she's melting into it—

but she reaches out with a wad of napkins herself, wiping gently—meticulously—at the blood on ariane's face. some part of her knows the contours well already.

elster nods, voice quiet as she speaks up again. ]

You said it was our 3000 cycle anniversary. I finished my checklist, and came to [ our— ] your quarters. We kissed. You put on Schubert, one of your favorites. We danced... and we fell asleep watching some propaganda drama we must have already watched a hundred times.

[ it almost feels like she's describing one of those films. like reciting the story of someone else's life. but still, having ariane here in front of her, something stirs regardless. ]

We should get our food and find somewhere else to talk. It looks like people are starting to get concerned, don't you think?

[toteninsel]

[ The gesture does not feel familiar to Ariane at all, except for the fact that she cleans her own face and changes her own bandages. It still feels nice, though, even coming from someone Ariane knows, but doesn't remember.

And if she doesn't remember, does she really know her?

3,000 cycles is a long time - at least eight years, Ariane figures. It took them that long to find the desert planet? But other than that, the night sounds perfect. Music, dancing, dramas. (Kissing, but Ariane doesn't let herself linger on that too long. She doesn't think about Elster's hand on her cheek, the cool gentleness of it, the graceful and delicately constructed beauty of her mechanical joints. She doesn't think about any of that at all.)

Whatever Ariane is or isn't thinking about, one thing is for certain - she's definitely not paying attention to other people. She blinks, clearly a little flustered, and finally blushes. ]

Oh! Um. Yes. Sorry if that was - a lot. [ A little quieter, gaze lingering on those blue eyes. ] I'd like to keep talking, though. It does sound good.

[lstr]

[ she finally manages a small smile, even as her throat feels suddenly dry. ]

I didn't mind it. You're all right? [ elster looks her over, a little carefully, brow creased. those bright blue eyes with that electronic iridescence meet ariane's own red, red ones.

ariane is... cute, like this. she huffs out a breath, smile widening ever so slightly. ]

All right. [ she sips at her own near-forgotten coffee, rising to her feet and extending a hand to her. ]

I'd like that, too. It's not light breakfast conversation.

[toteninsel]

[ Ariane takes the hand without even thinking. It's probably for the best that she doesn't think, because then she'd become all self-conscious, and then her palms would start sweating, and the whole thing would be a horrific nightmare from which Ariane could not awake.

That doesn't happen. There are no horrific nightmares here. Ariane stands, and she likes to think her knees don't hurt as much when she does. ]

Oh, yeah, I'm fine. I bleed all the time.

[ And then she immediately bites her lip, because what the hell? Was that? Oh, she'll never live that down.

(Besides, if she focuses on how embarrassed she is, Ariane doesn't have to worry about what is surely impending bad news.) ]

My room's on the first floor, not far from here.

[ If that plan works for Elster, Ariane will lead her towards room 512, which is inexplicably on the first floor. Inside, the room is light and airy, with the curtains pulled open to brighten the place up. The bed is barely made, with pillows everywhere, and art supplies and paintings litter the floor. The trash can is halfway full with used bandages, some of them bloodier than others. Ariane takes a seat on the edge of her bed; there's a chair across from her, tucked into the desk. ]

Sorry about the mess, but please sit wherever you like.

[lstr]

[ the initial comment gets a quiet laugh, elster's eyes lowering as she smiles. oh, she thinks she already understands some of what she must have seen in her, before. she goes along with ariane's direction without complaint, following her in. the number on the door doesn't escape her, either. the word pareidolia murmurs in the back of her mind, unbidden.

the room is lived in, but... charming as a result, even with the bloodied bandages in the bin. elster nods and murmurs thanks, but doesn't pull out the chair. she sits on another side of the bed, facing away from ariane. somehow, she can't bear to face her and say what comes next. ]

... We... received our updated mission parameters, while we were asleep that night. [ a deep breath, in a vain effort to steady herself. there's really no sense in dancing around it. ] They were leaving us to die out there.