xistentiaooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #3

Test Drive Meme #3

I walk around with all my violent decisions.

Prison World Prequel: Spidermarvel

D.E.S.T.I.N.Y. has learned a new trick to stop characters from defying the end of the multiverse. These are prison worlds, alternative universes, where prisoners are brainwashed into native conflicts so that they will kill each other.

NEW CHARACTERS: BRAINWASH

One minute, you're escaping your dying homeworld. Perhaps through a wormhole, perhaps with some incredible leap of technology, sorcery, or on a magic steed— regardless of the how, the why was clear. Everything you once knew tearing apart at the seams, facing utter destruction at the mercy of an apocalypse no one had predicted.

The next instant, you topple into a street covered in rubble. The Battle of New York (spoilers in the link) rages around you.

Armored humanoid aliens, the Chitauri, run amok in the streets, armed with staffs that blast powerful energy bolts. A hundred times larger, fish-like "Leviathans" are gliding through the air, with fangs as tall as people, damaging skyscrapers with their massive flippers, and ejecting yet more of the Chitauri from their sides. Around you, fires burn and humans are running in every direction in panic, barely taking a second to notice anything outlandish about your appearance. In the distance, there's a blue, glowing portal hundreds of feet in the air.

Maybe you stand and fight. Perhaps you find a citizen or a fellow world-hopper bleeding and hurt and you try to help. Maybe it's the faraway portal you're going for, assuming this is just that damn apocalypse again— but that's when something feels ever so slightly wrong.

This is the sensation of your memories starting to warp, your very identity shaping to fit this world. Your powers starting to flicker, gutter, not operating quite right. Glance down, and for a split-second, it's like your hands are-- pixellated? But blink again, and it's over. Hell, there are more important things to take care of right now...

EXISTING CHARACTER: WRAITH MODE

Technology lights up in the Citadel, the defense systems coming online abruptly, dozens of screens and interfaces crawling with unrecognizable code— and special instructions. Using a visor at the Citadel, brief journeys to the prison world are possible. When you appear in the Battle of New York, the visitors appear like ghosts displaced from space and time. You are now in wraith mode, incorporeal, intangible, and invisible to most of the inhabitants of the Prison World. However, you can be seen and heard by the new prisoners, all the while retaining their personalities and identities. Simulation or transportation? It's hard to tell.

The Temple lights up too, revealing a new chamber filled with dozens of strange stone beds, dimly aglow. But the technology or magic there refuses to reveal anything else.

HEATWAVE IN THE CITY

A week after you arrive in Xistentia, you are still trying to get a grip with life in the city, your new apartment, still trying to understand exactly what's needed of you. The inhabited parts of the urban development have wide boulevards and beautiful facades, well-groomed trees on every street. The further you go from the growing colony, the more overgrown and wild the buildings look, small flocks of birds singing at you from the bridges.

Beyond the streets, the natural environment around you-- wherever you choose to explore— is supposed to be perfect; the weather in Xistentia is designed to be temperate in the city, hotter on the beach, cooler in the forest. But in recent days, the temperature has been climbing. It's a steady thing, but it's felt throughout the whole of Xistentia, and it's not long before it becomes unpleasant, humid and heavy heat that sticks your shirt to your skin.

Your daemon trills, requiring your attention. You've noticed that it now looks different now than it did back in the Prison World, no longer a simple cellphone. When you touch the hologram popup, the message reads:

F.A.T.E.S. WARNING SYSTEM
Threat Assessment: Mild
Phenomenon Type: Weather System Compromised
Predicted Duration: 72 hours

Due to massive energy discharge from D.E.S.T.I.N.Y.'s Prison World program, a heat wave has come. Residents are advised to remain cool indoors or hydrated outside. F.A.T.E.S. requests your assistance offsetting repair power costs by temporarily increasing physical contact, including intimacy. Remember, safezone protocol will prevent combat within the city excepting sparring at gyms.

With expected assistance, the weather system will be corrected in 72 hours.

Fate is your hands. Or possibly your arms, if you're more of a hugger. As characters initiate physical intimacy within the city, they may notice the nearest lamps in the streets brightening.

NETWORK

Chances are pretty good that your daemon is not a phone or a computer or a wax-sealed piece of parchment or a Howler, nothing with a convenient camera or a keyboard; it probably isn't even a pocket sized. Likelier, it stares at you with eyes that contain the lenses-- or powers-- of a camera, and some part of its body projects a holographic keyboard into the air. For those of us who are not accustomed to manipulating intangible light prisms, it's not very intuitive to type on.

But here's your network access. Accessible to all your fellow travelers in XISTENTIA.

Misfires, typos, and blurry video footage are likely. Time to feel like a Luddite!

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

sUPER FUN!

Footnotes

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.
But like OOCly ask permission ofc.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[janus is more careful after that-- not in any overstated obvious way, but they're committed to not bobbing their head around too much lest something bad happen to their tiny passenger.] The Tooth Fairy, [janus repeats, with due admiration in their voice.] It's nice to meet you. I didn't know about your other title, though.

Is there some literal fact to that? You guard memories? [janus finally steps over to the refrigerator doors. they open it up, and take a somewhat longer pause than is strictly necessary to enjoy the whuff of cool air coming out. a little reluctantly, they then move to take one container of ice cream, their long fingers carefully skipping over the small, brilliantly-colored bodies of the little fairies still nested among the desserts.] Does that have something to do with the teeth?

In my world, these things are stored separately, [they explain, shutting the door again carefully.]

[ The mini-fairy seems to appreciate that. One of her sisters flutters up to join her atop Janus' head. It gives a small yawn and rests its head on its sibling, exhaustion from the heat finally catching up with her. The tiny fairies, much like Toothiana herself, don't often get much downtime to rest. They might be a little lost in the coming weeks with significantly less to do. ]

It's nice to meet you as well! You can call me Toothiana, if you'd like. [ A little less formal than 'Miss Tooth Fairy' anyway. ] And it does! The teeth I collect hold the most precious memories of childhood. It's my responsibility to safeguard those memories, in case people need to be reminded of what was once important to them as they get older.

[ In case they lose their way. It isn't' a full-proof system, of course. Sometimes the good has a tough time shining through the bad and people still forget themselves, but... She does her very best to ensure that doesn't happen, as they all do. ]

[automatically, janus thinks of their own childhood. it occurs to them abruptly that they don't usually get reminded of what was once important to them. as they've gotten older, they've really tried to push that away, to replace the childish fantasies of their youth with mature and reasonable expectations. goals. life lessons.]

That does sound important, [they say cautiously. intellectually, they know that anything you fight to push away that hard probably isn't wise, really. at some point they probably made a mistake. it's just that childhood was so embarrassing for them. embarrassing and painful and sad by turns. they keep their face carefully neutral, though, and smile at her, still careful not to move their head too much. (vaguely, they remember watching fantasia, seeing the centaurs with their pretty birds and flowers arrangements in their hair.) (greedily, for an instant, they fancy that they look pretty too.)] And probably true in my world too, though I'm not sure we have someone to serve your purpose.

I suppose there are some children here. You'll have a bit of work. Can I ask what happens, if a grown person gets into a fight or something, and they get a tooth knocked out? [they gesture with the ice cream to get her to accompany them toward the checkout.] Is that your business?

It's good to know I'm not entirely out of a job, yes, [ she returns. Honestly, if left with nothing to do she'd probably go absolutely stir-crazy.

The mini-fairies that had been nestled in the refrigerator start to zip towards the two now as they make their way towards the exit. Janus, if they were to ask, does look very pretty in Toothiana's opinion. She's happy too to see her girls take such a shine to them. ]

As for what happens with an adult loses a tooth, that isn't really my domain. [ In which the player is making sensible assumptions because lmfao thanks canon for not actually explaining anything about this. ] Those teeth don't have any memories in them, only the first set that you eventually grow out of.

[ A revelation, though- ]

Not that I would be opposed to holding onto them just in case it might be different here.

[could it be different? might something so fundamental about them become so different in xistentia? janus looks at the woman thoughtfully. it seems like something that might have implications later, and they're not sure they like it, as comfortable as they are in the boring assumptions of hunter existence.

but their attention swings back around when they reach the checkout and a baby starts crying in his mother's arms there in the queues. they smile a little.]

That would be valuable, [they say.] I know I tend to dwell on sad endings more often than happy beginnings. I suppose it would be nice for there to be some kind of indication that the important experiences of life don't all end with childhood. [they grin at her, then settle the ice cream container on the belt.]

[ Toothian might be a bit set in her ways, but as Jack (and the others!) had shown her she can adapt to what is necessary for her job. If this place treats the teeth differently, then she'll adjust as necessary. It doesn't unsettle her as much as it probably should... but that's likely due to the unique nature of her job to begin with. No one else but her could do it. At least, not in her reality. So she was prepared to do almost anything to keep it running efficiently. ]

They definitely don't, [ she's happy to say. ] But the defining moments of childhood can definitely influence and enhance those good ones as adults.

TEST DRIVE MEME #3

is killed by how cute lil fairies are

makes it cuter

nooooo

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