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

[salamanca]

"Ohhhh, kitty, kitty, kitty," Lalo continues to coo in Spanish as he reaches out to keep trying to get just that right spot.

Putting up with the indignity of being cooed at by a grown man does pay off though! Lalo stops petting long enough to get up and go over to his supplies.

He comes back with a tab-open can of tuna, which he opens white saying, "Here you go, little one..." and setting it down in front of the Cat.

Kindness to humans is risky and always comes with the possibility for you or them to become a liability. Animals, who lack the socio-political savvy to plot to betray you, pose no such problem.

[absentconstellation]

It's a strange container, but it smells like concentrated heaven. Whatever mysterious method was used to prepare the fish has surely only made it more delicious. He devours the meal as if he's been starved for weeks and not eating his fill of wild forest game. He pauses only when his tongue brushes against a sharp edge to take a closer look at the container and make sure he doesn't cut himself on it.

Having eaten, he licks his lips and stretches luxuriously, then lets out a brief meow that inexplicably sounds exactly like "thank you."

[salamanca]

What a good stretch!! "No problema," Lalo tells his new companion, before he shakes his head and blinks. Talking to a cat? Maybe the island is making him crazy after all. He reaches up to scratch the little kitty's ears.

"What should I name you, eh?" He withdraws a hand to stroke his own chin while he thinks. "Are you a boy kitty or a girl kitty?" He tilts his head, trying to see if he can see the cat's balls, although that might not mean anything if the little guy or girl is neutered.

[absentconstellation]

The Cat glares daggers at Lalo, silently daring him to challenge his dignity. The man can certainly figure it out without stooping to lifting the Cat's tail or any other such nonsense. If he tries, he'll bleed for it.

That doesn't mean he'll go out of the way to make it any easier, though. He doesn't particularly care what he's called, and he's of the opinion that humans overvalue gender anyway.