wellie: (Default)
Well Mod ([personal profile] wellie) wrote in [community profile] wellcome2023-04-20 02:05 pm
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2.0 Test Drive Meme

2.0 Test Drive Meme

Welcome to Well! Characters arrive the same way every month. Your character arrives with only a handful of memories, clad in old west style clothes of your choosing, with no items from home. This month, there is a strong possibility that those old west style clothes include a pair of jorts or daisy dukes.

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 May onward, and can happen concurrently with other events during May and June. This will be the only TDM for April, May, and June.

Applications are open April 26th until May 1st, and May 27th until June 1st. Invites are available for friends of current players.

All-Night Diner
Content warnings: feelings of euphoria and mild intoxication, exhaustion

There’s banner over the diner's doorway reading Welcome!, with colorful flags drooping in the heat. Inside, the waiter greets you with a wide smile and an announcement:

“Welcome to the Stardust Diner! Pie’s on the house today. Have a seat.”

During the day, the diner is just that: a diner. You can get anything on the very extensive menu, including prickly pear lemonade. The pie is free, and everything else is put on the tab for your room that will never come due, probably. It seems like a shame to eat that pie all alone! Accepting a piece of pie makes you feel like you should share this moment with someone. Luckily all the booths are plush and open, and it’s easy to plop down with a stranger to share this special moment.

At night, the mood shifts. The diner’s neon sign is a beacon against the thick darkness, beckoning you in with blinking lights and a line of text reading FORGET YOUR WORRIES. Inside, country-swing music rolls in time with throbbing red lights. The tables have been pushed aside to make room for a makeshift sticky dance floor, and the atmosphere is intoxicating.

It’s as easy as anything to be swept along with the vibes, the dancing, the intensity of it all. When you start dancing, you really do forget your worries. You forget that you don’t know how you got here and that you don’t may not even know the person beside you; you forget that you’re supposed to be anywhere else except here. Everything feels briefly perfect and beautiful, meant to be, no matter what else is happening to you.

When you stumble outside, it will be dawn, no matter how long you think you’ve been there, and you’ll be exhausted enough to simply curl up right there in the sand and fall asleep. Hope you made a friend kind enough to drag you home, or that someone wakes you up!

tl;dr:
  • The diner is open and the pie is free.
  • If you get a slice of pie, you feel compelled to share it with someone.
  • At night, the diner transforms into essentially a nightclub. The vibes are intoxicating and you can forget all your worries and dance the night away.
  • You can only leave at dawn, and your body will be exhausted. Better get help getting back to your room!

Something’s Coming
Content warnings: blood, blood-sucking, monsters

A few hours after dusk, strange creatures begin to scurry from shadow to shadow, chasing after anything that moves: chupacabras. Large ones. They’re big creatures, the size of large dogs with spikes down their spines and tails, dark and hairless with fearsome teeth. They are everywhere, and they are hungry.

They are indiscriminate in who they try to bite: the biggest among you is just as at risk as the smallest, but the bigger you are, the more of them might come for the fight. No matter where you are, there’s a risk: they seem adept at making their way into buildings. You might find one looming over your bed, resting on your chest, getting ready to bite; one might slip into the diner while you’re dancing and latch on when you’ve forgotten to be concerned.

If a chupacabra manages to bite you, it will suck your blood, and it won’t stop until you’re completely drained unless you do something about it. Having your blood sucked by one is not a pleasant experience, it’s excruciatingly painful and the creatures will do their best to keep you prone while eating their fill. The more they drink, the more exhausted you’ll get, until it’s very difficult to fight them off.

They can be killed or scared off, but the further they are into a fight or into their meal, the harder they are to get rid of. If a chupacabra has latched on to you, you’ll need help escaping!

tl;dr:
  • Chupacabras strike the town at dusk.
  • They want to suck your blood, and are indiscriminate in who they attack. They will try and drain you completely.
  • They can be fought or scared off. It's easier to get rid of them if you have a pal.



The Walls Have Eyes
Content warnings: eyes, trypophobia

There are eyes everywhere. They peer out of cracks in walls, the floor, the grout in your shower, an open cut in your skin. There are even eyes in the craters on the moon, staring down at you unblinking.

These eyes seem familiar, even if you don’t remember them. You feel like you do. You feel a heavy weight settle over you when you look at them, guilt curdling in the pit of your gut.

The eyes belong to someone, or someones, who you’ve hurt or let down. They belong to your greatest mistake, to someone who you left behind, to someone who you regret. The same eyes over and over again, or the eyes of many who you’ve hurt, watching you, judging you, pleading for you to save them or apologize or make up for the mistakes you may not even remember making. You just know that you made them. They eyes don't lie.

The more you ignore these eyes, the more they seem to encroach on you: appearing in the walls, following you around corners, in the creases of your knuckles, the fold of your sheets. They replace the eyes of the people around you, the same eyes staring at you from everywhere you look.

Your skin itches with the constant feeling of being watched. Your head feels tight, and your own eyes feel too full, like there’s too much of you inside your skin. You’d do anything to get away from this feeling.

Soon enough, the mounting pressure explodes: you have to confront them and your guilt and your mistakes, and beg for the forgiveness they’re asking of you. Even if you don’t remember what those mistakes were, or why you should feel guilty, you have to tell someone. If you don't, the feeling will only mount, until all you can see are eyes. Eyes, just eyes.

tl;dr:
  • The eyes of someone(s) who embodies your regret appear in the cracks of the world around you.
  • The more you ignore the eyes, the more of them appear, and the more you feel an intense, heavy sense of guilt.
  • The guilt you feel can be based on things you remember, or things you don't. If it's based on things you don't know, your head will also hurt.
  • The eyes will ease if you admit your guilt, to the best of your ability. Tell someone your guilt, and the eyes will recede.
  • If you don't, your whole world will become eyes.



victim: (pic#6563337)

[personal profile] victim 2023-06-02 11:28 pm (UTC)(link)
[ and his stomach drops. it's exactly what he didn't want to hear... that if this place was real, the western prison they were all trapped in would be their home for an extended period of time.

but... there was also some hope, and makoto clings to it immediately ]


You said that before... that memories can come back. Is it random? Do you know if regaining everything could be what lets people leave? [ normally he'd feel a little embarrassed being so forward to someone he'd just met, but the situation was different from Normal, Everyday Life... fear was a big motivator of change ]
thinkfirst: (stare | caught | unsure)

[personal profile] thinkfirst 2023-06-04 11:42 pm (UTC)(link)
If our being here had anything to do with how good we are or were, then you certainly wouldn't be here, and nor would probably half this town. What would Diluc and Yuri have done?

[ That, at least, Flynn feels sure about. He has no idea how good he is, specifically: those posters and his memories so far seem to point to not as good as you should be. Maybe that's why he's here: to become some better version of himself, work on all those things he got wrong, before.

But Cecelia—careful Cecelia with her healing and her sharp eyes—cannot have done anything to deserve this. It's a pillar, practically, that he clings to, wrongly or no.
]
searingwing: (I can take it if you need to)

[personal profile] searingwing 2023-06-05 03:42 pm (UTC)(link)
[He takes a sip of his drink. It’s that or remember the storm. The blood. The sharp burn of his double’s eyes as the sound of rain filled his mind.

And the agony of it all.]
I would advise caution on considering that an exit. What took our memories and is giving them back has an agenda. For all we know this may not be the first time we’ve met.

Memories come back at random. That I know of. It could be they come back at the worst possible time. This is how little we know.
sighsheavily: (pic#16416825)

[personal profile] sighsheavily 2023-06-05 10:55 pm (UTC)(link)
It's really just...a matter of perspective, isn't it. [she sinks back against the couch.] If that moment we shared holds any weight...then different people have very different opinions of you.

[before they turned into werewolves, that is. then the opinions changed again.]
thinkfirst: (glare | uncertain | worry)

[personal profile] thinkfirst 2023-06-09 12:36 am (UTC)(link)
[ Flynn wrinkles his nose at the reminder, glancing out into the brightening morning past the doors. Fodder for his questions about himself, and not nourishing fodder, either. ]

Well, there has to be a reason for that laundry list of crimes, doesn't there? I find it hard to believe I had a spotless record before coming here. If anything, I... wonder if we're being given a chance to be better. Or if this is some sort of punishment. Why destroy the town and then bring it back, otherwise?
sighsheavily: (pic#14667796)

[personal profile] sighsheavily 2023-06-09 01:48 am (UTC)(link)
That reason better be just to agitate - there were some dreadful things written in tandem with my image! [the very notion of being some kind of...of adulteress...!!!

she grimaces at that.]


And it seems rather silly to be given some avenue to atone when...when one can't remember what for. Relying on magically manifesting parchment doesn't make up for it.
victim: (pic#7539352)

[personal profile] victim 2023-06-11 02:37 am (UTC)(link)
[ makoto feels a moment of intense nausea at the idea that he may have already been here before–talked to the man before—gone through these motions before, but didn't know it. or maybe he even knew the other from their actual lives and just forgot he lived in a magical world. it was... an incredibly disturbing sensation, not feeling grounded in reality. it was dizzying, and makoto breathes out shakily as he tries to stave off the feeling of needing to vomit or giving in to a panic attack. ]

...what...are we supposed to do, then? [ without his memories of the hope he's supposed to become, news like this was overwhelming. believing that it all is just a dream seemed like the only thing he could do to not completely lose it. ]
thinkfirst: (thinking | wondering | unsure)

[personal profile] thinkfirst 2023-06-14 01:01 am (UTC)(link)
And, of course, we have no reason to actually believe those things, but... still. I know that at least one of the things on that list was accurate. I believe it to be, anyway, because I certainly remember spending a night behind bars, and everything those people were saying to us in that city...

[ Cecelia's indignant expression is something of a balm against the strange mood trying to creep through the morning sunlight. Flynn drags the pads of his fingers along the couch cushion he's sitting on. It's rough under his fingers, and Cecelia warm and solid, real. He breathes out, and lets a bit of mounting tension go. ]

... I suppose, regardless of the reason, we're lucky to be given a second chance. That's what this is, isn't it?
sighsheavily: (pic#14281460)

[personal profile] sighsheavily 2023-06-14 02:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Hmn. [who's to say they've not done this times before? who's to say the things they believe to be true are indeed false?

it's all too much to force herself to speculate on right now; she's so tired. she wants to sleep, to cry...

but she needs to sit upright so Flynn may slump. that he can be here at all is miraculous, and she can't simply sleep through that.]


...Yes. It must be. [whatever keeps them alive.]
rustedknight: (rusted - 005)

[personal profile] rustedknight 2023-06-25 11:32 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Jaune is visibly buoyed up by Emerald's smile and verbal commitment to taking care of others. If it's corny, Jaune is apparently quite the fan of corn. ]

That's a great attitude. I think you're going to fit in here.

[ What a relief, meeting a like-minded person. Someone who steps up to take responsibility for other people, even if she couches it in a little joke at the end that makes his own smile slant sideways and widen. Despite some scurrilous rumours yet to be spread, Jaune does appreciate a joke or two. ]

And if you're sure you don't want the problem children, I guess I can hang onto them...some of them are pretty endearing, but, well, all the more reason for me to keep them.

[ Even the really annoying, silver-eyed ones. ]
hallucinogem: (and the joke's on you)

[personal profile] hallucinogem 2023-06-26 04:27 am (UTC)(link)
[he might have the wrong idea of exactly how noble and upstanding emerald can be, but she still thinks... she still thinks that this is something she can do. help out others. make sure everyone gets by okay. it's a community, right? that's how communities survive. how does she know that? don't worry about it!]

I'm just doing my best. Glad that you could be my introduction to this place, Jaune. I can't wait to meet some of the other people around here and see what we're all dealing with.
rustedknight: (rusted - 005)

[personal profile] rustedknight 2023-06-27 05:50 am (UTC)(link)
[ Jaune is a fantastic judge of character. Just ask any reputable source, like his best friend, the Curious Cat. ]

That's great. Really great.

[ He beams at her, then glances around the diner, looking out for any other new people...no such luck yet, but hope springs eternal. He'd love to see Emerald get introduced to a few other of the nice folks around town. ]

I'll tell you what. I'm going to see if I can track down a few others and send them your way - just to get you integrated. [ He starts edging out of the booth with the bouncy energy of someone much younger, or perhaps more dog-like. ] How does that sound?
hallucinogem: (too hard to find)

[personal profile] hallucinogem 2023-06-27 03:37 pm (UTC)(link)
[emerald, without even thinking about it, moves herself out of the way so jaune can get through easier. it's honestly really great to see something like this, and she's thrilled to get such a warm welcome. he's a good guy.]

That sounds awesome, actually. I'll probably be hanging out around here all night, and then... well, I guess there's not many other places to go, really. But just tell 'em to look for the girl with green hair and I'll be glad to strike up a conversation.

[she reaches out to shake jaune's hand. this seems a little more awkward of a gesture for her, but she's doing it anyway.]

I appreciate it. Thanks, Jaune.
rustedknight: (Default)

[personal profile] rustedknight 2023-06-30 11:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Always happy to help.

[ Jaune demurs, a touch bashfully. His interactions (that he can recall) don't always go nearly this well. He's already getting ahead of himself imagining strategy meetings and battle practice.

He clasps her hand firmly and gladly, his callouses not rough enough to make the contact uncomfortable, or so he hopes. Any awkwardness on her part is easy for him to overlook in the depths of his own, but - this did go pretty well. ]


It's been good meeting you. Really. Really, really good. [ That's too many 'really's. ] So - I'll be seeing you around.
necrolord: <user name="thebutt"> (i can feel it on my tongue)

John Gaius | The Locked Tomb | will keep canon for next TDM

[personal profile] necrolord 2023-07-09 04:45 pm (UTC)(link)
one. diner nights
There's a new guy in the Diner. That's normal, and so is the guy, mostly: he's profoundly average-looking, brown-skinned and skinny, probably thirty-something. The outfit is a little much, but that's probably not his fault.

It's the eyes that stand out, when he turns to look at you. Black-on-black with a luminous ring, burning like an event horizon. He's been scanning the crowd as though looking for someone, frowning faintly, but now he rallies to a smile and raises his beer in greeting.

"Having fun?"
two. horses
The new guy is trying, with painful earnestness, to befriend every horse in town. Someone's deigned to hand him a fistful of sugar cubes, and he's outside the hotel with the tied-up steeds, cooing and petting their big soft noses.

Then he stops. He turns, as though drawn by a magnet, to stare out into the desert. There, a skeleton horse walks among the scrub, its bones gleaming bare under the sun.

"Who is she," he whispers, faux-reverent or maybe real-reverent, and he wheels on you. "Can you introduce me?"
three. graveyard
There is a man standing silent among the graves, eyes unfocused, staring out into the middle distance. As you approach, he rocks back and forth on his heels, chews his lip.

"Okay," says the guy, real slow, like he's building to something. "Let's pretend this is a normal question. Can you feel the skeletons?"
hellonspectacles: (The greatest necromancer of a generation)

graveyard smash

[personal profile] hellonspectacles 2023-07-09 05:13 pm (UTC)(link)
By sheer coincidence, Palamedes has slowly been making his way towards the man over the past twenty minutes or so. Every few plots he pauses, crouching down to look at the gravestone; sometimes he takes a notebook out of his pocket and writes in it, sometimes he briefly rests his hands on the rock. Sometimes, he just seems to look at it for a moment, and then move on.

Pal has been in Wellstone five months now, and it hasn’t escaped his notice that sometimes the graves change. There’s a pattern to it, he’s sure—if only he can find it.

He doesn’t even notice the newcomer until they’re nearly on top of each other, and when he speaks, Pal looks up sharply from where he’s crouched at a grave nearby and blinks his luminous grey eyes at the man.

“Not precisely how I would put it…but yes. More or less.”
necrolord: =+ (a million years away)

[personal profile] necrolord 2023-07-09 05:45 pm (UTC)(link)
At this, some tension goes out of the man's shoulders, and he exhales a long breath.

"Well, cheers for that," he says, and turns to face Palamades; his smile is faintly wry, under the horrible eyes. "I was beginning to worry it was just me. How would you put it?"
hellonspectacles: (his eyes were a perfectly lambent grey)

[personal profile] hellonspectacles 2023-07-09 06:14 pm (UTC)(link)
To be entirely fair to John, Palamedes once called the graveyard death-y; in comparison can you feel the skeletons is a lot more precise.

Pal begins to smile as well, though his expression falters slightly as the man's eclipse-like eyes suddenly bore into him. It's almost enough to make him hesitate--but it's not like anyone can help what their eyes look like, right?

He brushes himself off as he stands. "I would say that I can sense the presence of buried organic material consisting of a mix of protein, collagen, calcium, and phosphorus. But that's just a fancy way of saying 'bones.'" This time he does smile, awed and hopeful. Nearly everyone in town can tap into some ability or other, but none of them have described anything so familiar as this. "You really can sense it?"
necrolord: <user name="thebutt"> (i can feel it on my tongue)

[personal profile] necrolord 2023-07-09 06:32 pm (UTC)(link)
John catches the hesitation, and his smile goes a little lopsided, awkward; he knows how he looks. But this is more interesting, so he seizes on the question.

"I really can. Except it's," and here he waves a hand, vague, "less collagen and phosphorus and more a dead body. I can see you," he tips a hand to Palamedes, "and that headstone, and the fellow six feet under the dirt. A bit like looking into a pond and seeing the fish under the water, except it's not really looking. Hell of a thing to put into words."
hellonspectacles: (Fiat lux!)

[personal profile] hellonspectacles 2023-07-09 08:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Palamedes nods eagerly, excitedly. Whatever discomfort had briefly made him hesitate has fully evaporated. What the man describes isn't precisely the same, but it's remarkably close to his own experience. "No, no, I know what you mean--only, Emperor's bones, it took me weeks to figure it out. For me, it's like the pond has lots of muck in it, and I can only see one bit of the fish at a time. So I have to piece what I'm seeing together from its disparate parts."

He offers his hand. "Palamedes Sextus. Would you mind if I tried something?"
necrolord: <user name="thebutt"> (brick and mortar thick as scripture)

[personal profile] necrolord 2023-07-09 09:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Emperor's bones, he says, and that's— that's almost something. It itches in the back of his head, another little migraine-burst of familiarity. But digging at those has only given him dizzy spells and nosebleeds, so John shoulders right past it.

"Palamedes Sextus," he repeats, which is another almost-something, "I'm John."

He reaches out to clasp the man's hand.

"Be my guest."
d9x: (Default)

[personal profile] d9x 2023-07-11 02:04 am (UTC)(link)
Hi! So I'm interested in bringing a joined Trill from Star Trek. TLDR in vague terms, the character has nine lifetimes of memories... for each cycle, do characters maintain the same set of memories? Is there any flexibility with the set changing each cycle?

I thought it might be fun to have a different set of host-specific memories each cycle as the character is pretty easily influenced by past-life memories.
hellonspectacles: (his eyes were a perfectly lambent grey)

[personal profile] hellonspectacles 2023-07-11 02:50 am (UTC)(link)
“Pal, if you prefer.” There is something odd about the feel of the man’s hand in his own. It isn’t lifeless, exactly, but it’s missing a certain spark. The word inert floats up through Palamedes mind.

But he can’t make sense of it, and so he lets it go. It may even be his imagination.

With a sly sort of smile, Palamedes takes something out of his pocket that resembles a white oblong pebble. Once it had been a cow’s rib bone, discarded in the desert, but Pal has practiced with it so much that there’s nothing rib-shaped about it anymore.

He places it in John’s palm. “What do you make of this?”
necrolord: <user name="thebutt"> (laying borders as tall as towers)

[personal profile] necrolord 2023-07-11 03:34 am (UTC)(link)
John says, with open delight: "I could use a pal." Then Palamedes places the bit of cow's bone in his palm, and his expression crumples like he's been punched.

It's just a bit of cow's bone. He rolls it between the creases of his palm, frowning down at it with the bewildered alarm of a man holding a live hornet. The migraine behind his eyes is doing backflips. He can't help but probe at the gap in his mind, like worrying a loose tooth. It makes his eyes water.

He gives up and holds the bone back out, a little too eager to be rid of it.

"What did you do to that cow?"
sacrilegiousact: (n9iMAB0)

graveyard

[personal profile] sacrilegiousact 2023-07-11 10:23 am (UTC)(link)
[It's an odd question. At least, he thinks it's an odd question, with how little he remembers about what's normal, but he doesn't really think he's normal, and he certainly doesn't think having pitch black eyes is particularly normal.

So instead of acting particularly shocked, he glances towards the graves. Does he? He feels something, but he can't say it's tied to the graveyard. Certainly not skeleton related. Probably.]


The skeletons buried here specifically?

[His tone is remarkably deadpan. This might as well just happen.]

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