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

Prompto Argentum | FFXV

[photoshooter]

1. While visions of sugarplums get their skinny butts kicked

[While the house isn't sporting any conspicuously missing pieces of roof or windowpane, something is off about it. Besides the general off-ness of its being a candy house, of course.

What's wrong is obvious after a second: The door's been left ajar. And inside, curled up on the bare floor, looking far more battered than one can rightly attribute even to the punishment of the forest trees, lies a fitfully dozing young man. Seriously, he looks like a truck hit him, his bare arms are more bruise and scrape than they are freckles. Poor kid.

Prompto groans, rolls over, opens his eyes, and freezes as he catches sight of whoever's in the doorway.]

3. My hair does NOT look like a cockatrice butt!

Why would you want to feed a cockatrice?

[Well, someone's incredulous.]

Those guys are nasty! And they're not even cute like the babies are. Look, I'll show you a picture, you do not want to tangle with these things.

[Already, he's hopping forward from where he was standing, pulling a camera from his side and scrolling through the gallery.]

I'm sure I've got a photo saved somewhere...

4. Everything is butts

[BAM. Prompto bursts out of his house looking ash-white, book tucked tightly under his arm, and casts around nervously. Oh--there's someone. He gulps and approaches, looking like nothing so much as a skittish, squeamish colt.]

Hey, um, do you have a lighter I could borrow? Or a matchbook? I gotta--I gotta take care of something real fast.

3

[parodeity]

[ honestly dave doesn't expect logic from the quests. they're obviously rpg bullshit and that's mostly video game busywork, so Whatever at least they're not cleaning talking furniture that is antisleep (again).

however whatever he was about to say on the topic completely falls out of his mind when prompto says "picture" and then produces a camera.

the only camera dave's seen since arriving is the captcharoid camera, which Doesn't Really Count except for irl shitposting purposes. ]

Holy fuck you have a camera?? How much of a charge do you have left? [ how long until it DIES like dave's phone with music on it fuck you lack of electricity this is not the era he was meant to live in probably. ] Also why do you have a picture of baby cockatrices? Are you some kinda weird animal zoologist. I forget the word for like weird animal zoologists - exoticzoologist? That can't be right. Xenozoologist? Wait that's like...aliens. Magizoologist is Harry Potter. Uh...

[photoshooter]

What? Uhhh.

[slllLLLOOOW DOWN, PARDNER. Prompto opens his mouth a couple time to try to answer at least one of the slew of questions, but then ends up mostly laughing a little, bewildered but charmed. He thinks he's charmed? Sure, he'll be charmed.]

Nah, I'm not a... whatever you said? None of those things. I'm just a guy! A guy with a camera. My buddies and I run into wild animals a lot for hunts and stuff. Oh, here we go!

[He leans over to show Dave the camera screen. Hello, baby!]

With a chocobo for size comparison. Aaaand me, I guess. Man, I wonder who took this picture...

[parodeity]

Oh, a chocobo. Tel has one of those.

[ maybe someday dave will learn ignis's actual name but that day has yet to come and he doesn't care enough to call someone on a fake name if they're decent company... ]

So that baby there is a cockatrice and not a chocobo? Do you actually happen to know what they eat because I feel like it's not a horse and apple situation...

1 | you'll get the most interesting man on eos in a minute

[occultigen]

[Beat-up blond cinnamon roll, meet beat-up blond cinnamon roll. Evidently these trees just seem to have it out for adorable people with flaxen locks, or something.

Still, the fact that he's visibly wounded isn't something that Meridiana can easily ignore, and even though she's still terribly apprehensive about all this, she goes creeping in through the open door, trying to sneak close enough to figure out just how bad his injuries are, and whether or not there's perhaps something she can do about them —

Except that all of a sudden the young man rolls over and looks up, and suddenly it's two identical sets of deer-in-the-headlights expressions facing each other, frozen in time.

Prompto Argentum, meet Goldilocks, except that this isn't that story at all.]

I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...to wake you, I only — a-are you all right...?

[photoshooter]

[Oh. Okay. It's just a girl. Holy shit, it's a girl. Prompto pushes himself up a little too quickly, grunts, but then raises his hand in an O.K. sign.]

Uh, I'm fine! I'm fine, Miss... um, hi!

[Smooth.]

Iiiis this your house? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to trespass. I just wanted to get out of the, uh. The trees.

[occultigen]

[It is indeed a girl, and a nervous one at that, and evidently we're both going to be stammering messes here for a while, it's almost like we're twins or something.]

Oh...no, not at all, I was...coming here for the same reason, actually.

[She rubs at her arms a little awkwardly, palm skimming over the tatters her sleeves are in from being snagged on the branches. The fabric is dark, thankfully, which is hiding some of the grass stains from getting knocked down, but it's not doing much for the mud, alas.]

Every time I get near one, it knocks me down. It's...that way for you, as well?

3

[nipzips]

[ Forget about cockatrices ... He's far more interested in the camera that Prompto just pulled out. ]

Dude! Is that digital? Those things are expensive. [ But he's only saying that because he was a broke-ass teen who can't afford anything. ] Hard to believe you'd actually have a picture of a cockatrice lying around. Show me already!

[photoshooter]

Okay, okay, have a little patience, dude! You can't rush these things.

[Still, he's kind of flattered. He saved up big time for this camera. Apparently, he has a lot of photos to scroll through, but eventually, ha-ha! Success.]

There you go. See? That's gotta be, like, twelve feet tall.

[nipzips]

Isn't that basically a giant rooster? It doesn't even look that cool. It's fucking huge, though.

[ But he wasn't really expecting anything cool, given that this creature has 'cock' in its name. Real mature, Josuke. Anyway, while they should focus on their mission, he's now distracted by the pictures that Prompto has in his camera. ]

Who's that guy? A friend of yours? [ The big one with the dark hair. ]

4.

[batteredhat]

[Gandalf pauses in his walking to blink at the rather troubled young man. He glances but once at the book, guessing what this is about.]

Burning the images will do little to burn what troubles you, my dear boy.

[His tone is gentle and without judgement; he'll certainly lend a match or offer to light it himself if Prompto really wants but he wishes to be sure the boy isn't expecting that to be the end of it first.]

[photoshooter]

Oh, umm, yes, I know that, sir.

[Dude is old. So old. Older than King Regis. He's gotta be respectful.]

But it'll at least get rid of the book, right? I'm kinda more worried about the book right now.

[batteredhat]

[That's right, young whippersnapper!

Now that he thinks about it, he wonders...]

Hmm. Perhaps. I suppose we can always find out. [He lifts his eyebrows a bit.

Books are generally flammable but he does not yet understand how this place works or where the book came from, so who knows? Might as well experiment. He glances around and then gestures to an empty spot on the street away from anything else flammable.]

Put it there.

1

[swordfucker]

[This house is made of candy...?? But he can't focus on that for very long when he sees someone sprawled in the center of it. Guren doesn't care if it might be a trap. He's on guard as he enters, but he still crouches beside him, reaching out to touch the stranger's arm.]

What happened? [First step, since he's clearly not really Okay.]

[photoshooter]

[Prompto draws in a pained breath and flinches away from the touch. And also from Guren, generally. He's old enough to have a healthy wariness of strangers, and it shows as, gingerly, he sits himself up, watching Guren with care.]

I... it's nothing. I'm fine.

[It is most definitely not nothing, as he holds his arm to cover some of the bruising.]

The, uh, local flora's pretty feisty, is all.

[The trees have so little to do with this.]

4

[queenofminiskirts]

[Kaoru stares at him for a long moment.]

Mister, [Sounds patient and gentle.] if you've been trying to quit smoking all your hard work will go to waste if you give in to temptation now.

[She isn't even being sarcastic. She 100% wants to help you quit smoking (?).]

[photoshooter]

Uhhh, what?

[dot dot dot]

No, no, it's for--I just want to burn something!

[PROMPTO, THAT SOUNDS WORSE.]

1

[robosmith]

[ it's really not what he expected to find when he decided to go investigate the candy house. he'd been (sort of) expecting some old hag with a hankering for children's flesh or some kids locked up somewhere. you know, something cheery like that to fit the image of the story this house no doubt took inspiration from.

what he finds instead is some roughed-up guy waking up on the floor. ]

Uh, you alright there, dude?

[ obviously not, but what else are you gonna ask? ]

That doesn't look like a good spot to be taking a nap. [ just saying. ]

[photoshooter]

[When Dirk doesn't immediately, like, move to chop Prompto's head off or turn him into Prompto stew, he relaxes somewhat and flops back, groaning.]

I dunno, dude, it's better than outside? At least the trees aren't trying to kill me in here, even if it's a blood sugar nightmare.

4

[unfatalist]

[The bizarre thing is, at first he doesn't actually believe his eyes. He's become so used to seeing phantoms of the people he knows in the ones here that he's never met, of thinking there's a familiar face where there's really not, that when he does finally come across one, it almost doesn't register. He's so used to reminding himself he's wrong that the one time he's right, he still tells himself no, that isn't Prompto, it's a trick of the light, it's an illusion.

Except that it is Prompto, and he's got some sort of book in his arms, and he's running up to some hapless passerby begging them for the means to make a fire, and before Ignis can think better of it he's striding over to interrupt at a pace that, unthinkingly, is getting slightly quicker with every step, slightly more desperate to confirm that he might not be wrong this time, after all.]

I can offer you a Firaga, if you really want to see a resolution to your...burning questions.

[THANKS, IGNIS.]

[photoshooter]

[Prickling skin. That's a warning, Prompto senses the approach before he sees it--he's always been like that, nervous little punk boy, can't keep his eyes on the road. The same distraction that makes him so terrifying behind the wheel of the Regalia makes him turn now, catching sight of Ignis just as the man opens his mouth.

Prompto opens his mouth, too, though no noise comes out at first. The picture book tumbles out of his grip in an open heap, but he doesn't even notice. His eyes are open wide, the corners of his mouth rising in a smile, and when he remembers how to speak, what comes out only barely comes under the limit of an outside voice. If there were a next town to speak of, they might be able to hear him there.]

Ignis!

[He dashes to him in a flash, though he stops short of plowing into him like he might do Noctis, instead pulling up in front of him and laughing in equal parts disbelief and relief. He bats Ignis's arm, as if to prove to himself he's real, then bounces--literally bounces--when the results indicate yes.]

Iggy, you're--oh, man, I didn't know you were--is Gladio here, too? Is--how are you? How long have you been here?

[In the middle of circling Ignis as if to really, really make sure all parts of him are present and accounted for, Prompto halts and holds his arm again, remembering the most important question of all.]

Are you okay? You're not hurt?

[Wait. Something's... weird?

...]

4.

[nascere]

[ Now there's a familiar voice. More strained than he remembers, skittish but very much him, and Noctis can't believe his ears when he hears it -- it's not a trick of the imagination, not the words of some belligerently uncleaned furniture or another; but it's him.

It's his best friend -- he would know that voice anywhere, and Noctis straightens up from where he'd been half-hidden in the shrubbery when he'd heard him, having been retrieving a glove he'd dropped. Incredulously, he responds, not quite believing his eyes. ]

Prompto?

[ Is his mind fucking with him? ]

[photoshooter]

[The world stops, kinda.

That is to say, the world doesn't stop, but Prompto's understanding of it screeches to a shuddering halt. He's been very much not thinking about Noct, which means, really, he's been thinking about Noct all the time. How sick with worry he is. How awful he feels about how Ardyn used him like that. How hopelessly he misses him. How he doesn't know how he can survive like this, torn from Noct's side.

Prompto turns, and no sound comes out as he mouths Noct's name.]

...

[And then he sucks in a breath and barrels at him full tilt, book dropping out forgotten somewhere on the road.]

NOCT!

[WHAMMO]

four

[underworldpianist]

[ Oh-- this guy. He isn't alright. Fear's a pretty unfamiliar sensation anymore, but he can still recognize it in others. He shakes his head, opening his cape a bit to show the underside. ]

Sorry, I haven't got much of anything on me. You don't look like you're in a state to be handling something like fire. Here, you should find a place to sit down, okay?

[ Humans are fragile little things, after all. ]

[photoshooter]

What? N-no, I'm fine, I just reeeeeeally, really need to get rid of this, like, right now.

[Yikes, does he really look that bad? He wipes the cool sweat from his brow and shakes his head.]