Test Drive Meme 2.

[awashmods]

These are the mem’ries that last. These are the mem’ries that will never pass. And time waits for no one. It’s gone in a flash. And only the mem’ries will last.

Prompt 1: he forest looms, uninviting and full of menace, an unwelcoming place for sure. Time to go explore! It isn't as though there's anywhere else to go, now that you've looked around the Town. The trees whack at you with branches that have far too much mobility for normal trees, strange and mutated animals watch from the shadows and boughs, and there’s the constant, constant sense of being watched -- But eventually, nonetheless, you’ll come across a small house in the forest. It sticks out like a sore thumb, bright and colorful, which is probably the first warning that something is way off, and it’s...covered in candy. It’s a candy house! It looks delicious. (It’s empty, too, not a single soul in it, without even furniture, but everything is otherwise edible and utterly delicious.) But if you eat the candy? You’re going to have a terrible, overwhelming urge to do one of two things: Fight the first person you see Kiss the first person you see Unfortunate. Prompt 2: he problem with a Town like this is that now that color is starting to return, bit by bit? You never really know when color’s going to come back -- or disappear. Maybe you’ve made a delightful, delicious sandwich from handmade bread and tomatoes and deer meat, all of which have color now… and then suddenly, when taking a bite, you get only the taste of ash and bread and tomato as the deer meat loses color. Also, someone probably died for that color to fade away. Alarming! Or maybe you’re walking along when suddenly your makeshift clothing is a hideous mix-match of colors; it had seemed fine when it was all grey and colorless! Or perhaps, even worse, you’re walking out of a house when suddenly, the flowerbed in front of it has full color, bright and maybe a little blinding after so much monochrome. Damn those color mechanics. Prompt 3: he quest seems simple, on the Quest Post: Quest 33: Feed the Cockatrice. Requirements: 2 of any color Key word, of course, is seems. First, you have to find the cockatrice. Maybe grab someone to drag into the woods with you, since there needs to be at least two of you. Time to stomp through the woods in search of the elusive cockatrice. Of course, once you find it, the quest...looks a bit harder. The monster hisses, ready to turn anyone who approaches to stone, as cockatrice tend to do. What do you even feed that thing? How will you get it to take it without getting stoned up? There are so many questions. At least the stone will wear off...eventually… if you’re unlucky enough to get petrified. Prompt 4: ut hey, you did it! You fed the cockatrice, it seemed satisfied, and now you can go fetch your reward from your home. It must be something amazing, with the work that you put in. The only change in your home, though, is what looks like a...picture book. It's got a colorful cover (in your character's color shade), and has their name on the cover, so it definitely belongs to them. And when they flip it open, it's clearly full of pictures scribbled in, as if drawn in scribbly crayon. Unlike the rest of the Town, this book is fully colorful, every shade of the rainbow in those crayon strokes... which depict, page by page, your character's worst moments in their life. Every single last horrific experience or tragic moment -- it's all there, in colorful, cute children's drawings. Congratulations! Extra: Got something in mind? Want to play with the setting more? The sky's the limit, so feel free and make up your own prompts to play with! Welcome to Awash's second Test Drive Meme! Please check out the FAQ and rules as you test your characters out. The setting is yours to play with, so be creative and have a good time with it! Important dates to remember are May 1st, 9 PM EST, when Reserves will open, and May 7th, 9 PM EST when Applications will open. Keep an eye out for it! As a side note, TDM threads are not canon, so please feel free to assume established CR for the sake of the TDM if it will make threading or showing off your character's voice easier. If you have any questions about the TDM, feel free to ask us here. If there are any other questions, you can catch us via PM, the FAQ or the contact page. Thank you for your interest in Awash!

Comments

3

[swordfucker]

[That's the most disturbing children's book he's ever seen? Guren is here, by the way, standing behind her and staring over her shoulder like he's trying to figure out. He expects... a normal reaction, you know? Upset. He doesn't doubt that the scenes are real, and that they're personal and—

Oh. She's just excited.]

Seriously? That's your reaction to this?

[buncho]

Yes?

[ It is what it is... And Mafuyu doesn't see the problem, turning the book around and shoving the childish scrawls in Guren's face. It's a picture of her, maybe four years old, getting lifted off the ground by somebody grabbing her hair. The next page is her getting flung across the street. ]

[swordfucker]

What the hell is wrong with you?

[He pushes the book back after catching enough of all of it. He doesn't want to see more people with fucked up lives, it's upsetting!!]

No one wants to see something like this!

[buncho]

[ What's wrong with her? What's wrong with him? Mafuyu pouts a little, taking the book back and clutching it to her chest. ]

It's like a photo album. I've never had one of those, you know? These are all my precious memories!

[ They're... happy memories..... somewhat. ]

[swordfucker]

[That makes it sound cute, and it's enough to get Guren to pause, placing a hand on his hip. But... She was just getting beat up all over?]

Those were precious memories to you? They didn't look all that pleasant.

[buncho]

[ Maybe at the time they were unpleasant, but Mafuyu's never been put down for very long and this is evident by the way she flips the book right open and holds it out for Guren to see, as if the last five seconds didn't just happen.

This page is her and two boys falling out of a three story window. ]

Yeah! This book is full of all my friends and family! See this one? These are my best friends!

[swordfucker]

[Of course she's pure... Just his luck. How is he supposed to respond to this? Tell her that she can't have special memories like this? That they're not good? It depends, entirely, on the context. On her feelings. Ugh.]

Want to explain what's happening here? Why were you falling like that?

[buncho]

[ Haha Ryoji might cry at a drop of a hat, but good luck bringing Mafuyu down. ]

Glasses and I were fighting 'cause he betrayed us, and Hayasaka-kun tackled him and they fell out the window, and I was trying to catch them but I didn't make it!

[ And then they fell to their deaths!! just kidding. ]

[swordfucker]

...So you fell and... made up?

[He's missing so much context, he's never going to understand this!! He thinks he won't no matter what she explains, anyway, from that cheery disposition of hers.]

[buncho]

Yep, we made up! It's the same with all of these, you know? If you fight with your friends, you make up! Problem solved!

[ It's just that easy, apparently, even though these were the sorts of things that stung deep enough to be dredged out of her heart and imprinted into a book. ]

[swordfucker]

Problem solved.

[Hm... Well, he's concerned, but he won't say anything else on it for now.] I guess you're happy with your reward, then. You might be the only one who liked it.

[buncho]

[ Yeah, she likes it. It's really too bad this tdm isn't canon, because a reminder of her friends would be the best thing for her, before she starts crying two days into being here without them out of sheer loneliness.

For now, though, she's happy. ]

I bet lots of people do. Did you get one too? Let me see it!

[swordfucker]

You can't. It has things in it that people shouldn't see.

[That's so ominous... But he looks a little tired just hearing it requested like that.] Like I said, you're the only one who liked yours. Going around and asking for everyone else's is like asking them to reveal all their darkest secrets. Pasts are personal, especially when they're dark moments like these.

[buncho]

[ There's a glance down at the book, but Mafuyu can't see them as particularly dark moments— pictures of her walking down a hallway with everybody's backs turned away from her, pictures of her standing on a hill while dozens of people bloody themselves in a fight down below- they're dark, personal moments, but at the same time, they're moments she's gotten tired of hiding. She's tried that, and couldn't keep up with pretending they weren't part of her. ]

I guess it's fine if you don't wanna share, but they can't all be deep, personal secrets, right? A book's got a lot of pages, I bet there's something in there that got better, and it's a good memory at the same time it's bad one.

[swordfucker]

[Guren glances down and to the side while he thinks. Those bad memories are what made them all close, but they're not good memories at all. They could have gotten close without them. They could have lived peacefully, without everything ruining their lives.

People dying, that he was responsible for. The world ending. His friends, dead in his arms. His own subordinates being slaughtered. None of them were good.]

Nope. There's nothing like that.

[buncho]

Nothing at all? No friends or family in there?

[ Dead friends... She doesn't know, okay, and is just basing things off her own book, surrounded by friends and teachers and classmates because as a student, her life revolves around school. ]

I guess being surrounded by strangers is the saddest thing there can be, though. Was it like that for you? Lonely?

[swordfucker]

Most of the world died with the apocalypse. It's just how things are.

[He decides to dodge the question. He has friends, he wasn't lonely, they're in the book— but they died, and they came back, and he doesn't want to mention the cost that took, or any of it.]

I'm used to it.

[buncho]

[ Okay, the world dying with the apocalypse is something she doesn't understand and therefore is going to ignore and pretend she didn't hear that. The rest of it is something she's got a problem with. ]

Are you stupid? Being lonely isn't something you get used to.

[swordfucker]

[She's smart... but he's sticking to his lie!!]

I didn't say I was lonely. I just said I was used to how the world was.

[buncho]

You said there's a bunch of dead people everywhere! That sounds really lonely!

[ Don't get used to that sort of thing either? Anyways, she's gesturing around her ]

But anyway, you can get un-used to it now! The world's not like that!

[swordfucker]

Are you kidding? This place is empty. There are few enough people here that I can remember everyone's faces.

[But, it is very nice. He's just refusing to admit that right now because he's being tsundere about it.]

[buncho]

[ There's few people, yes, but there are also not dead bodies piling the streets aside from maybe the skeleton Dave had decided would be a better thing to live with than other actual living human beings. ]

There's plenty of people here. Like, twenty. [ Double that, maybe. ] Did you come from a large city or something? You're used to a lot of people?

[swordfucker]

Where do you live that twenty people is a lot? There's at least twice that here, anyway.

[Twenty... he's baffled. He's not even answering if he's from a large city!!]

[buncho]

Nah, it's sort of a small town out in the countryside, but the school's got a lot more people! But I don't have twenty friends— you have a lot more than I do.

[ assuming knowing their faces = being friends ]

[swordfucker]

[...Well, they are all his friends, practically, but he just brings his hand to his face in exasperation.]

Right. [He quits] Well, I do have plenty of friends. That book is just full of shitty memories. That's all.