TEST DRIVE #9

[spoofer]

Test Drive Meme #9

Desires and dreams and powers

INTRODUCTION ⇄ FAQ ⇄ APPLICATIONS

CRASH LANDING

Exit one dimension, enter the next. It was chaos: pressure against your ears, light bending in an impossible, unimaginable way. The very molecules of your body vibrating against one another. If you have windows, the view outside makes no sense. Even if not, your hands, your face, your feet seem like an uncertain thing. It's the feel of reality itself tearing apart, reshaping, reconnecting, thread by thread.

And suddenly, there's a beach— or ocean, whichever you land in. Smoke. Fire. Salt water churning up, fizzing around, almost at odds with the thinning layer of snowmelt over everything.


Maybe you crash, in a ship wrecking into sand. Maybe you merely stumble out of a portal, a ragged wormhole in space. Or maybe you fall off the back of an incredible steed, some creature that carried you into this place. Either way, there's pandemonium around you. Incredibly, severe injuries are far and few between— nobody's screaming about the dead. But you might have to help pull someone free of wreckage, or move quickly to salvage burning belongings from the landing craft. Maybe it's the crafts themselves, that you're trying to salvage.

Likely, you don't know them, these other strangers who arrived here^[1]. Maybe you don't trust them— you just came out of a dying world, after all. But you all have one thing in common: you're here now.

When you get a second to breathe, maybe you'll see it. The winter-browned forest across the sand. Beyond that, the glint of a faraway city.

Power Problems

Your first week in Xistentia^[2] is punctuated by power outages. It seems ironic, considering the city's street lights gather emotional energy and nothing bugs people out like electrical blackouts! But there you go. Fortunately, your daemons don't completely stop functioning; however, they do get oddly slow and sleepy.

Maybe you'll be in the streets, handing out candles and flashlights. Or maybe you revel in the darkness, curled up around someone you care for. Sometimes, the other senses seem to get stronger in the dark; you could hear a lover's heartbeat going like a drum, or speak stories through the walls with your neighbors.

But the next moment, your powers go on the fritz, absurd and unexpected. One moment, you might be carrying a cup of coffee brewed at a cafe that utilizes a pyrokinesis in these dark times; the next moment, the cup is floating out of your hand with newfound telekinesis, and snow is blowing out of the coffee shop doorway. Powers might be reversed or nullified, or even amplified.

But maybe once you recover from the shock, you can have some fun with it.



Just watch out for accidental animal telepaths and their Disney Princess squirrel trains.

NETWORK

Xistentia now has its own 'friending app.' You can use it to make connections with new people! But beware, your daemon may well post without your permission, and things could get pretty embarrassing.

F.A.T.E.S. thought it was a pretty good pun: Synchr. Get it? Like sinker? Hook, line, and?


TEMPLATE
Select and copy the code below, paste into your comment. Please also keep in mind that this comment code is different to the entry code should you join the game! (The font is tiny for ease of copying!)

<raw-code><center><div style="background: url('https://i.imgur.com/LMmsp9R.jpg'); margin: auto; width: 300px; height: 500px; padding: 30px; border-radius: 20px;"><div style="font-family: Arial Narrow, sans serif; text-transform: uppercase; font-size: 28px; text-align: center; letter-spacing: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; border-bottom-style: groove; border-bottom-color: #999; border-bottom-width: 1px; line-height: 16px" align="center"><i><b>synchr</b></i></div>

<div style="width: 275px; height: 275px; border: 5px solid #b7d1ae; border-radius: 170px; padding: 0px; margin: 15px auto"><div style="background: url('http://i.imgur.com/i0hSO7K.gif'); background-size: cover; width: 225px; height: 225px; border-radius: 180px; padding: 25px; background-position: center;"><div style="background: url('** YOUR PROFILE PICTURE URL HERE **'); background-size: auto 220px; border-radius: 130px; width: 223px; height: 223px; padding-top: 223px; border: 1px dotted #000"></div></div></div>
<div style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial Narrow, sans serif; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: -10px; text-align: center; color: #000;"><b>NAME</b> ▐ AGE</div>

<div style="height: 120px; background: url('https://i.imgur.com/m5GzmXX.png'); overflow-y: auto; margin: 5px auto; border-radius: 6px; padding: 10px">
</raw-code>** INSERT YOUR PROFILE CODE HERE **

<raw-code></div></div>

<div style="clear: both"></div></div>
<br />
<center><table><tr><td style="text-align: center"><span style="font-family: times; font-size:40px; color:#2EB82E;">✓</span> </td><td style="text-align: center"><span style="font-family: times; font-size:40px; color:#CC0000;">✕</span></div></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align: center"><big><big><big><b>YES</big></big></big></b><br />
<textarea><span style="font-family: times; font-size:40px; color:#2EB82E;">✓</span></textarea></td><td style="text-align: center"><big><big><big><b>NO</big></big></big></b><br />
<textarea><span style="font-family: times; font-size:40px; color:#CC0000;">✕</span></textarea></td></tr></table></center></center></raw-code>

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

hells yeah

Footnotes

1. Some of these can be nameless, plot-device NPCs to facilitate interactions! But even in this case, please avoid gore in describing their current state of being. Anyone dead or catastrophically injured will have disappeared by the time your characters make it to Xistentia. There are no corpses or dying here.
   
   
2. If you decide to join the game, this prompt may be patched over into the upcoming event, which may result in new powers for your character. Please keep an eye out for a mod announcement soon!

Comments

Kevin Keller | Riverdale

[thekevinthwonder]

A. Crash

Kevin had been busy running through the woods and keeping to his usual routine. There was always a danger to that, he knew, but it'd rarely deterred him since there weren't all that many options in Riverdale for him.

This night, there is apparently some danger, something starts to go wrong and he's suddenly being ripped from his reality. He wasn't sure what could possibly be happening, his mind running a mile a minute of worst case scenarios but he feels no less clear when he finds himself on a beach, smelling salt air because of the nearby water and smoke that burns his nostrils and eyes with it's acridity.

"What in the world?" Kevin said and not particularly that quietly as he turns in a slow circle and takes in the wreckage around him. He's still in running shorts and a tank top but maybe he'd run into a tree somehow and hit his head and was currently in an injury induced nightmare.

B. Synchr

synchr

Kevin Keller ▐ 16

Well this isn't all that new. I like going on runs in the woods, a good drink and various other interesting activities, all of which are better discussed in person as most things.

✓	✕
YES <span style="font-family: times; font-size:40px; color:#2EB82E;">✓</span>	NO <span style="font-family: times; font-size:40px; color:#CC0000;">✕</span>

C. Wildcard

( Hit me with whatever else you might be interested in! Will switch up tenses/styles to your preference! )

b

[shadowblends]

✓

how often do you run?

[thekevinthwonder]

✓

I try to run at least once a day.

[shadowblends]

that's a good habit to have.
do you track time or miles or do you just run?

[thekevinthwonder]

I do both. What about you? Do you as well?

[shadowblends]

usually, i just run, but i've started timing myself. [for reasons.]
would you like to go together sometime?

daemon: crowned

[novelizes]

✓
you're in for a wild ride, keller.

[thekevinthwonder]

✓

I'm starting to realize that. Care to elaborate, though?

[novelizes]

well, aside from battles and wars?
different timelines...
veronica and betty were married for a while
same with me and archie.
it was weird.

[thekevinthwonder]

Now, I would have paid to see that.

daemon : mapled

[cheerleadings]

✕

Sorry, we've already reached our limit on charity cases, you'll have to find another multiverse.

And why don't you tell them what you're really doing on those runs, hm?

[thekevinthwonder]

✕

Literally, no one asked you Cheryl.

[cheerleadings]

but the lovely ladies and gentlemen here have a right to the truth don't they?

it would be such a shame to start off a relationship with anything other than 100% honesty.

[thekevinthwonder]

I fail to see what the importance of it would be.

b.

[cryfrustration]

✓

Not all that new--so there's something like this Synchr thing where you come from?

[thekevinthwonder]

✓

Quite a few versions of something similar actually.

[cryfrustration]

Wow. Guess people can find just what they're looking for, huh? Pretty clever. So what about these daemon things, you have them too?

[thekevinthwonder]

Sometimes. Most of the time people just end up messing around and things never go anywhere. Not daemons, cell phones.

[cryfrustration]

Well that's a shame. And straight up, I got no idea what a cell phone is, but I'm willing to bet it doesn't mean having a bird deliver your mail.

What about the rest of this place? It anything like your world? Cause I gotta say it's all weird as hell for me.

[ssbardock]

[After being violently ripped from his reality, Bardock gritted his teeth and pulled himself up from a soft beach of some sort and blinked, most likely checking around for something or someone.

His scouter began to read off symbols and frowned "A human?"

But oddly, something was different. The scouter was actually stating more than that, words of some sort as if the computer device was ... talking to him? What the heck?!"

Bardock frowned as he walked forward with some strange foreign alien armor and eyed the other man with a grunt "You know where this place is?"

Vrenille | Guild Wars 2 (OC)

[cryfrustration]

Crash Landing
It's easy to celebrate to soon. That's the lesson Vrenille is going to take from this mess: don't celebrate too soon. Because less than two days ago he was listening to a certain Commander declare victory in the fight against Balthazar before the people of Amnoon, touting success in killing the rogue God of War. Not two days ago, the city Vrenille had been in was one big open air party, which was definitely not the apocalypse.

Then the brandstorm came. (Turns out there are some consequences when you hand an elder dragon the power of a god.)

It wouldn't really be possible to talk about a normal brandstorm nor to differentiate it from an "abnormal" one. Not amidst all the chaos and the wyverns, the dragon lieutenants and the rain of purple crystals hurling through the sky. Certainly red didn't really fit in with the general color scheme though.

All Vrenille really knows for sure is that one moment he was scrambling along with a group of refugees, trying to point them to safety and to smash as many branding crystals as he could manage along the way. He had allies with him, a sense of their places in the battle. And then he dodged the strike of an elemental, saw the shimmer of a strange red glow, felt his body contort impossibly as if someone had just turned him inside out like a glove...and now has stumbled, reeling, onto the beach.

Dizzy, he staggers, knees hitting the sand. He's dressed for the heat of the desert and the water here is cold enough to sting like needles as it laps up over his legs. He can't think about that now though, because even through the shock of his arrival there's still the inevitable panic: Where the hell are his comrades?? Are they safe? Are they here? Are they dead? ...Is he dead?

"Kyinnlen?" He pushes himself up, ignoring how he's shivering as he spins round to try and find his friends. Pretty soon he's just shouting their names. "Sesyria! Hakkyuu?!"

Power Problems
A few days in, Vrenille is adjusting. He's not doing great but he's adjusting, trying to refocus all his worried energy into the idea that what he does here should--will, he resolutely tells himself--ultimately save the people he loves. He can work with that. Things are (kind of) ok.

Or so he thinks right up to the point where everything's going a bit wonky: he wanders bleary-eyed into the kitchen one morning, makes himself a nice cup of tea, and then accidentally knocks the milk over because he can't see his own hand.

He does know how to cast invisibility spells. The invisibility part itself isn't the problem (under regular circumstances, that is, when he knows that it's coming and can usually see through his own illusion so as not to lose track of where he's putting his limbs). The fact that he didn't intend to do it is the problem. A few seconds later, it passes though, and he chalks it up to an odd glitch, has his breakfast, and goes out to start his day.

Unfortunately, he hasn't noticed that it's happened again as he's stepping out the door and rounding the corner. He doesn't notice anything at all, in fact, until someone walking the other way runs unceremoniously smack into him with a solid thud. Can't really blame them though, since no part of him is visible, not even his clothes or his shoes.

Wild Card
[[Hit me up with whatevs. Happy to switch from prose to brackets if you'd like.]]

power problems;

[servomotor]

[It's kind of funny. Well, it's probably funny if you aren't Tony Stark, who was walking around the green-treed boulevards, preoccupied with a wireless audio conversation with his daemon, which is currently trying to record notes about his latest hovercraft design. He's being rather serious, actually, talking about equilibrium and output and waste heat ventilation, when suddenly

whumpf

and he ends up dropping his coffee all over the pavement. His eyebrows go way up. He wheels around, comically, his eyes snapping up down, left right. And then automatically, he reaches up at about the height of the average human's face, and tries to crabclaw his hand shut around it.]

[cryfrustration]

Shit. [Vrenille staggers a step back with the impact. By a chance of small luck (hey, everyone is due a little), the majority of that coffee does not end up splashing on him. This is a fact that Vrenille has to appreciate by feel though, because it's when he looks down at himself that he realizes there's nothing there of him to see. Again. That's actually more upsetting than running into some poor guy on the street like a clumsy ass.] Shit!

Sor-- [Well, he was going to apologize, but considering there's a hand reaching out to grab his face, he's just going to put that on the back burner in favor of dodging out of its way. Trying to at least. He doesn't really manage it, but he does duck to the side just enough that Tony will end up grabbing his ear and a handful of hair instead of his nose or (worse) sticking a finger in his eye. Still,] Fucking ow!

[servomotor]

[Tony has experienced a great many peculiar things in his forty-odd years of life. He's flown in a man-shaped tin can. He's fallen in love. He's carried a nuclear bomb through a hole in the fabric of space, and fought a veritable Norse god and survived.

But he's never grasped an invisible ear that started yelling vulgarities at him. Possibly at the situation, rather than he himself. One sympathizes. It's a very strange situation, and Tony is (remarkably, problematically) good at not taking things personally.]

Hey. Quick question-- [smithing-callused fingers pinched around Vrenille's earlobe grind together. Not with strenuous force, not really trying to hurt him, just trying to figure out what it is he really has ahold of here.] Why do you feel cartliginous? Theories welcome.

[cryfrustration]

[Tony pinches, Vrenille twists and pulls as he swats at Tony's hand.]

Man, would you [whap] let go [whap] of my damn ear! [whap whap. The words tumble out in a quick stream, and then he huffs.]

I'm not cartilaginous, I'm invisible! [Which, of course, doesn't also preclude his also being cartilaginous, but shhh.]