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TDM #1

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

--1. Arrival

[ He's not sure if he remembers the explosion. That thunderspear was about to blow up in his face, he tried to put some distance between them -- and then nothing. And then he was here, in the sand, soaked to the bone as if he swam here but he knows for a fact that he didn't (another in the long list of downsides of spending over three quarters of your life in a hole in the ground: not exactly many lakes to learn swimming down there. It just wasn't needed). It's way too bright. It's just like -- ]

[ The seaside? ]

[ He coughs out some water and pushes himself to his feet, taking in his surroundings. He doesn't think he's injured, however lucky and unlikely that is, but his gear is gone. He's just got his clothes and whatever he happened to have in his pockets -- a knife, at least, should come in hand -- and there's something new. A device similar to that "radio" thing, but much smaller. Why? What was going on? ]

[ He spots another silhouette and after a moment of hesitation makes his way toward them, though keeping what he deems a safe distance. If it's Zeke bloody Jaeger -- well, he's finishing his job with a fucking knife if need be. ]

[ Doesn't seem to be him, though, and his grip on the blade inside his pocket relaxes. ]

...Where are we?

[ He sounds kind of soft in a tired way, if low, and he's fairly short for a guy. He definitely doesn't look too intimidating to anyone who doesn't know him. ]

--2. Network

[ He's seen tech sort of like this, but his world is still quite behind modern times, so it'll take a while for him to figure it out. He at least understands that the noises coming from the device means someone is trying to communicate, so he tries to get to higher ground, poking at the thing and pressing buttons on the way. As soon as he hears anything remotely similar to words, he's pressing it to his ear to listen. ]

--3. Exploration

[ Despite not technically having experience in a place like this, he seems to be taking to the predicament fairly well. He's leaning against a tree, peeling a fruit that he knows from seeing once or twice on the market is safe to eat, and giving grumpy glances to whatever (un)lucky(?) person ended up in his company. ]

We need to find a source of clean water first. [ He's still talking in that quiet monotone, though he'll raise his voice a little if he thinks the other person is not listening. ] See anything useful on your way here?

Edited 2023-05-02 19:06 (UTC)

There's a waterfall, about a quarter of an hour back the way I came. The river flows east.

[Much of Randvi’s earlier excitement has faded due to the realities of wearing clothing designed to weather harsh Norwegian winters in a tropical climate. Even stripped down to the fewest layers possible she might not have survived the trip without finding water]

I have a unicorn horn if you wish to purify it first.

[ He'd offer her something lighter, but it's not like he's got many layers of clothes to begin with. It'd probably be too small for her anyway. ]

[ He nods, because that's actually way more helpful than he expected. He would have been glad just to hear there's a high ground nearby or something else they could set a goal on. ]

We'll head there, then.

[ If there's anything resembling a civilization around here, they should find it if they follow the river. Probably. It's not like he's ever been on a tropical island, but most settlements tended to follow that trend. And if there's none, well, maybe they'd at least find something they can hunt. Animals tended to veer toward water, too. ]

[ He stills for a moment when she mentions a unicorn horn. He's familiar with the concept of a unicorn, the blasted MPs had the creature on their emblem and all, but he's never heard it to be anything but myth from storybooks (let alone have it harvested for parts). Then again, once upon a time, so was the outside world, and look how that turned out. ]

[ He decides to give her the benefit of doubt just in case. ]

How does that work?

At the very least, we can cool down a bit. I have never been in a place this hot.

[She knows they exist, thanks to conversations with Azar and the Hidden Ones, but had never imagined seeing such a place herself. How had Sigurd managed all of this in his travels? It's hard to picture him without a backdrop of snow. It's getting harder to picture him at all. Randvi frowns, shakes her head]

There may be fish as well, I hadn't thought to check.

Unicorn horn can do many things, including cleaning wounds and detection of poisons. I get it from our clan’s seer, so I’d imagine that it works as herbs do.

[Early in her marriage she had feared poison, unsure whether the peace treaty would hold, but she hasn't thought seriously about it in a long time.]

...It's new to me, too.

[ Honestly, some summer days got pretty close to this, but he's definitely getting the impression that this here is a year-round phenomenon, especially considering the vegetation. ]

[ He nods. Fish are a decent source of food, if they can catch any, so it's definitely worth checking. They could also be poisonous, he supposes. Just like anything else around here-- ]

[ Did she just say her magical thingamagig detected poisons? ]

[ He still has his reservations about whether or not it actually works, but landing on an uninhabited island after a potential death blow wasn't exactly realistic either. ]

[ So he stares at her for a long moment, then holds out his fruit to her. ]

[ It doesn't just work on water, right? ]

[Randvi glances at the proffered fruit, then up at the man’s face. She knows well enough how difficult it can be to trust anyone, alone in a strange land.

She takes the fruit in her right hand, and with her left reaches into a pouch at her belt and withdraws a segment of twisted horn about half the length of her thumb. She presses the horn against a bitten portion of the fruit and waits.]

This will take a moment.

My name is Randvi. I'm Chief Strategist for the Raven Clan in England.

[There isn't exactly a protocol for this situation but it seems polite to name yourself to the person whose food you're handling.]

[ His face is pretty expressionless, but trust definitely does not come easy to him. He was planning to share the food anyway, though, since if they were going to be a team, they both needed to be able to keep moving, and he'd rather not accidentally poison someone else. ]

[ (It's probably just a regular mango, but it's not like he knows tropical fruits.) ]

[ He shrugs, apparently unconcerned that it could take some time. ]

That's fine. If I shit myself to death before then, you'll know to stay away from this all the same.

[ Oh look, a joke!.. Sort of. Kind of a shitty (heh) one, but that's just how he is. ]

[ "England". He doesn't think he's heard the name. It's not "Marley", though, so it's already a plus as far as he's concerned. ]

Levi.

[ He just offers his name back, since that seems to be how these things go, but he doesn't see the point of mentioning his occupation. It's not like Survey Corps existed here, and he certainly wasn't going to advertise his career before that. ]

Hm. I'll keep that in mind.

[She does appreciate the levity, as it were, but she's got a very serious expression still as she watches the horn for signs of sweating]

Levi. Well met, despite the circumstances.

[Randvi would prefer to be known as a warrior straight away. There's no need for anyone to know that in Ravensthorpe the Chief Strategist’s work mostly consists of the dull everyday work of running a settlement that Sigurd and Eivor don't want to do.]

[ It's a serious enough situation. Granted, Levi had delivered all of that without deviating from his signature deadpan expression, either. His face can be a bit hard to read sometimes. ]

[ He's not good at pleasantries. He just nods and doesn't return it. ]

[ He absolutely respects strategists, though, alright? They have an important job, one he knows he's not particularly suited for. Perhaps counterintuitive considering his small stature, but he tended to be the brawn of the operation most of the time. ]

I'm going to take a look around.

[ How hard can climbing a palm tree be, right? At least it should give him some idea of the topography in the area. ]

TEST DRIVE MEME #1

TDM GUIDELINES

I. ARRIVAL

II. NETWORK

III. EXPLORING

Levi Ackerman // Attack On Titan

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