TDM #1

[glencolans]

TEST DRIVE MEME #1

Welcome to Glencola Reef's first Test Drive Meme! This is a place where anyone interested in applying a character - or just curious to see how their characters might interact with the setting and others in the game - can mingle with one another. General prompts are provided below for inspiration.

TDM GUIDELINES

• Please read the rules before posting to the TDM. These still apply here and will be enforced, up to and including deleting tags/toplevels and prebanning.
• Posts from a TDM are required to apply. At least three tags across any number of threads within a TDM, posted within the last 6 months, must be provided in every application.
• TDM threads can be used for AC. Note that new characters only need to check in for their first AC cycle, but established characters can use TDM tags for their AC.
• TDMs are not considered game canon by default. This is mostly for logistics reasons - due to how characters travel on the map, it's unlikely that non-network threads that take place here will actually happen in-game. However, I won't stop anyone from working out how to make parts of threads game canon if they really want to.
• New TDMs will be posted every three months. Keep checking back into the current TDM for new toplevels!

I. ARRIVAL

You awaken on a tropical island beach, soaking wet, powerless, and without any idea how you got here. Were you carrying something important, or wearing powerful armor? How unfortunate - it looks like only the most basic clothes, items in your pockets, and simple weapons managed to make the trip with you. Are you even physically the same as you remember? If you had superhuman abilities tied to your physiology, you might be stuck in a completely different body that lacks your usual senses. You might've been whisked away from a tense battle or a near-death experience and wake up delirious, or even injured.

Thankfully, against overwhelming odds, you're not the only one to wake up on this particular stretch of beach. You and your companion have a lot of puzzling out to do.

II. NETWORK

Even if you weren't lucky enough to wake up near someone else, at least you've arrived with a military-grade radio transceiver gripped tightly in your hand (or mouth, or other vaguely opposable appendage of choice). The clunky walkie-talkie will start buzzing and crackling for every public message that starts coming your way. Answering them back is as easy as pressing the "talk" button on the side of the device and either speaking into the receiver, or using the keypad to type into the message box that appears on the screen, then pressing the button again to send. A list of ongoing conversations with responses that are less than 24 hours old can be found by scrolling through the menu, identified by the callsigns that are participating in them. It seems that you've been assigned a callsign, too - it shows up in the top right side of the screen, format AB123C. The letters and numbers picked are...probably random.

This is your easiest avenue to communicating, or coordinating with, or complaining at the other people stuck on this island; how you decide to use this tool is up to you.

III. EXPLORING

For a place that appears, by all signs, to be an equatorial island in the middle of a tropical ocean, the local environments are surprisingly diverse. Beaches range from idyllic white sand to storm-swept pebble crags to cliffs with waterfalls cascading off the edges; the interior forests can be thinned from sandy soil or dense jungles full of prickly underbrush and with towering canopies; and the central mountain peaks, perilous enough to climb on their own, terminate in ravines and sinkholes that are hidden by thick foliage until you already have one foot over the edge.

The animals that make their homes here are equally as varied, and sometimes just as dangerous. The standard Earth fare of tropical fish swim right up to most shores, especially where reefs have grown, and a multitude of seafaring and jungle birds make their homes in ocean-facing cliffs and trees. Any one of these creatures would make for an easy snack. But you're not the only opportunistic hunters here; sharks prowl the waters, big cats stalk the jungles, and feral boars raid any camps that smell enticing. And that's just the stuff that looks like it came from modern Earth. Your improvised fishing rod might have captured a trilobite, or maybe that deer you were stalking has rounded on you with a set of alien mandibles full of sharp teeth. Or maybe, among the plants and animals completely foreign to you, you've stumbled across one that's strangely familiar to your home and no one else's.

There's a lot to figure out about this place. At least, in this instance, you aren't doing it alone.

NAVIGATION

Comments

Kokichi Ouma | Danganronpa v3

[trialbyliar]

arrival (contains drv3 spoilers)

[He was supposed to be dead.

Sprawled on the ground, Kokichi just lays there for a while, processing. He's no longer laying on the cold metal of the hydraulic press, but on...sand? No longer inside at all, and not even anywhere outside he recognized from the school – insofar as any of that really counted as "outside" anyway. The sky is real. There's an actual breeze and the sound of waves. He's soaking wet for some reason.

But he's pretty sure he did, in fact, die. It's been quick, but he remembers that split second of intense pain before everything went dark. Could that have been faked somehow? After all the inconsistencies and fuckery he'd noticed in the killing game, "real" seems a lot less obvious than it should be. And more bullshit is way more likely than just being in heaven, at least for him.

He should be moving. Figuring out what fresh new hell this is. But given the circumstances, he can probably be forgiven for just...laying there on his back for a while, staring at a sky he didn't think he'd ever see again and unsure how he should feel about being alive. He licks his lips, and grimaces at the taste on them.]

Ugh, salty...

[Saltwater?? Why is he soaked with saltwater???]


network

[None of the voices he's heard are familiar. That's wild enough on its own. Kokichi spends a while just listening to the messages coming through, trying to get a clearer picture of the situation. When he finally decides to make contact, though, of fucking course he can't be normal about it.]

Mayday, mayday! SOS!! There's a huuuge snake trying to eat me!

[His screaming is pretty dramatic for someone just sitting peacefully under a tree at the edge of the beach.]


exploring

[This is his own fault. He manifested this.

He's only delved a short way into the jungle when he practically trips over it – a thick rope of a scaly body sticking out from beneath the undergrowth. Kokichi goes down with a yelp. And as he's pushing himself up, he freezes as he hears the hissing sound only a few feet away.

Oh no.]

network

[lonelynotforsaken]

[Oh, god!]

Okay! Okay, don't panic. It's like some sort of python, right? Can you- you need to protect your neck.

[trialbyliar]

Agh, i-it's too late...it's got me...

[This is followed by several theatrical strangled noises. It gets progressively less believable as it goes on.]

[lonelynotforsaken]

[The first cries are met with alarm. What can he even do? Is this person being swallowed? But the sounds keep going, and he's pretty sure it doesn't take that long to be eaten by a snake if it's going for your head, or something. He frowns at the device in his hand. His tone is mildly annoyed when he asks:]

Are you dead, yet? Over.

[trialbyliar]

[The response is perfectly cheery.]

Yup, super dead! Over.

[For once, he's not sure if he's lying.]

[lonelynotforsaken]

Okay, so... was there a reason for that? We've got actual dangers here. Worrying about made up ones is just going to put people in a worse spot. Over.

network

[confirms]

[ girl. ]

You're under attack, yet you have time to play around on the network?

[trialbyliar]

I-I'm....good at multitasking...

[His gasping is interspersed with dramatic pained groans. Give the boy an Oscar.]

[confirms]

[ i'm so sorry for my rust it's been like two years since i last played kirigiri

She's not at all impressed by his theatrics, giving that one a 2/5 stars, and it's clear in her tone. ]

If you were being attacked by a snake you wouldn't be speaking right now, especially not if you were multitasking. Do you really think now's the time to be playing pranks on people? What if someone believes you and gets hurt rushing over to "save" you?

[ Everyone's a critic. ]

[trialbyliar]

[ me too, mmmm delicious rust ]

Wow, you must be a genius to figure that out.

[Oh, the sarcasm.]

I wouldn't wanna be saved by someone dumb enough to fall for that anyway. It'd totally ruin my street cred, y'know?

[He does not actually have street cred.]

[confirms]

[ stop our rust!! it's fine we got this, as long as they sound like petulant teenagers we're doing it right ]

And you must be an fool to treat this like a joke. We're stranded on an unknown island, we have to cooperate if we want to survive.

[ So forget about your non-existent street cred!! It's unfortunate, but his sarcasm and blase attitude is matched by Kirigiri's stern and rigid approach - which is to say, she's a few years too young to show her concern and handle certain personality types tactfully.

But she is concerned. ]

Are you alone?

Exploring

[desperate_times_right]

It's totally fine, this happens all the time. Of course, it would be nice if Nadine were here, since she had been the one who had researched all the animals that live in this area before they'd set out (and therefore actually knows what the poisonous snakes look like), but beggars can't be choosers and all that.

"Hey," Chloe calls from over the kid's head. Yes she's in a tree, don't worry about it. "You good down there?"

[trialbyliar]

Awesome! I've always wanted to be eaten by a giant snake!

[The cheery response is belied by a slight waver in his voice and his stiff, frozen form. He hasn't taken his eyes off the snake, because he's not an idiot, so he's kinda just left to assume by the voice that there's a woman in a tree above him for some reason.

The snake hasn't broken his stare, but its moving slowly to better face him. That's probably not good.]

[desperate_times_right]

[Okay yeah, maybe that was a dumb question.]

If I throw you my rope, can you climb it?

[He's kind of got noodle arms but adrenaline can overcome a lot]

[trialbyliar]

Physical effort? Ew, not even to save my life.

[He gives a shaky little hysterical snicker, but abruptly goes quiet as the snake hisses and begins arching up.]

That was a lie. Just throw it already.

[desperate_times_right]

[Chloe snickers too. At least the kid's got a bit of fight in him]

One sec...

[Probably easier to hook the grapple to the tree rather than trying to pull him up herself. Once that's done, she tosses the rope end down]

Get ready to climb!

arrival so I can dump even more v3 spoilers on here

[pianobaka]

[There's someone else on the shore with him, but it's someone Ouma might recognize, for better or worse.

Because she isn't supposed to be here, either.

Akamatsu sputters when the water gets in her mouth as well, scrambling up into a sitting position and trying to shake herself free of both the taste and sensation of her sleeve sticking to her arm... How shaking it off is supposed to help is anybody's guess.]

Ew, ew, ew!! Why is this so...

[She trails off, because Akamatsu has opened her eyes and... Okay, that's really not where she's supposed to be. For at least three different reasons!

It's not the school.

But then again... She shouldn't be there either, anymore, should she? Akamatsu shouldn't be anywhere, feeling anything, or seeing-]

...Ouma-kun? [Her voice sounds small amongst the push and pull of waves.] You're... really Ouma-kun, aren't you?

devours this tag

[trialbyliar]

[He'd have been content to just lay there a while longer, but then there's a voice – a familiar voice, and one he definitely wasn't expecting to hear ever again. He turns his head, still laying in the sand, and just stares at her for a long few moments.]

...Huh.

[It's probably a pretty underwhelming response given the situation. Both of them supposedly dead, and him looking pretty odd right now – shirtless except for Kaito's jacket, and his regular white pants semi-transparent due to their soaked state, which makes his colorful boxers unfortunately very visible through them, oops–

Another beat, and Kokichi drops his head back again, a slightly manic laugh escaping him.]

Jeez, now it's even more confusing. This has to be heaven if a goodie two-shoes like Akamatsu-chan is here, right? Or does the whole murder thing mean you ended up in hell with me?

feeds u more before I slip into bed

[pianobaka]

H-hey, quit that! It isn't funny! You shouldn't-

[You shouldn't be in heaven or hell!

That's what she's going to say, right?

It's all that it takes for the cold realization to hit her. She can't even notice that jacket is not his, or be embarrassed over having her DR protagonist rights reinstated by seeing Ouma's underwear, because-]

No... Don't tell me you also...

[Akamatsu is silent as she looks at him with suddenly pained eyes. It doesn't take much for her to connect the dots, after all.

Finally, she drops her head.]

I'm sorry... If my plan hadn't failed, none of this would've happened.

[Instead, she killed a friend that did nothing wrong, and doomed another to death too.]

i am FEASTING

[trialbyliar]

[The pity party just drags an exasperated groan out of him and Kokichi finally sits up, rolling his eyes at he grandly as he tries to brush off the sand sticking to his soaked form.]

Ugh, quit martyring yourself. It's not like you forced anyone else to kill people! They're big kids, y'know? They made their own bad decisions. And for the record, there've been four other murders since you bit it, so it's not like you're the only one.

[He pauses for a moment, thoughtful, and then a terrible, bitter smile crosses his face.]

Oh wait, it's actually five. I forgot Shinguuji-chan went for a double kill. Whoopsie.

is for us!!!!!!!!!!

[pianobaka]

[There's a huff that slips out of her, something along the lines of I'm not martyring myself! building up behind her lips - except, that's kind of exactly what she's doing, isn't it - but it's forgotten quick enough.

Her throat is too busy closing up in horror.]

Five...? Shinguuji-kun also...

[It's a rare thing to find Akamatsu so quiet. But she can't bring herself to say it, or much else for that matter.

How did things go so wrong? How did they get so out of control?

She desperately wants to ask about Saihara, and yet she can't bring herself to. Doesn't know if she could handle it if- if he's-]

Ouma-kun, tell me. What happened after I- [Can't say that, either, it turns out, nausea knotting up her stomach instantly just from the memory of her own execution. She can't even bear the thought of touching her own neck.] How long has it even been since the first murder?

[Easier, to say it like that. Just a little bit, even if it makes her feel ever so slightly guilty, like she's separating herself from Amami's death when she's the sole one responsible for it.]

network: B4T6R7

[ichoosefight]

[ The only snakes that try to eat their prey without biting are constrictors, and constrictors kill slowly. But they don't usually try to eat something larger than their stomach can stretch, so if there's a snake attempting to eat a human it's gotta be pretty big. ]

How big a snake are we talking, exactly?

[ This is important for not getting eaten. But also yikes. ]

[trialbyliar]

[For all his theatrics, his response is a total 180, a thoughtful humming before he answers cheerily.]

Hmm, maybe ten feet? Sorryyy, I didn't bring my measuring tape.

[ichoosefight]

[ 10 feet... that's pretty big, but not cartoonishly so. Probably pretty heavy, but... Well, he sure doesn't sound like someone being squeezed or bitten to death. ]

...Okay, well... What's happening exactly? Because that doesn't really make sense.

[trialbyliar]

Ugh, weren't you listening? I'm being eaten by a giant snake. God, you're slow.

[...Yeah, he definitely doesn't sound like he's currently dying.]