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

ren amamiya | persona 5

[1797]

1 | EXPLORING —

A: [There's a boy inland and uphill, hand wrapped in a vine as he peers over the edge of a sinkhole. His face is bruised; more run dark circles around his wrists and knuckles. His school uniform—jacket tied around his waist, sleeves rolled up—is crusted with salt.

The pit he's standing over is wide, enough to make for a dangerous jump; he misses his grappling hook, though he knows he doesn't have the same level of acrobatic ability in the real world.

(If this is the real world.)

He slides his glasses further up his nose and takes a few steps back.]

Only way across is to jump. [It's alarmingly casual.]

B: [The bay glitters and Ren hunches over a bundle of thin vines he's torn off trees, hoping it isn't anything that will give him a rash. He threads it together, knotting it once and then twice, before attaching it to a makeshift fishing pole.

It isn't survival knowledge—he hasn't a lick of that—rather, it's dogged determination fueled by hunger. Also, he likes to fish.

He ties the other end around a clumsy excuse for a hook, before he moves back into the forest, pole and vines looped loosely through his fingers. When he notices someone else standing in the shade, he pauses, eyes flicking to their feet before up to their face. It's a little conflicted.]

You're standing on a pretty nice rock. [Medium-sized. Liftable.]

2 | NETWORK —

[Callsign: JR005X.]

   _\\_  o o
\\/   c \ o
//\_____o

network | callsign: HE412T

[timaeus]

Is that supposed to be a fish or a submarine?

[1797]

     ||
 ,---''---..._,-
(  o o o o   --+
 '--------''' '-

a submarine would be more like this wouldnt it?

[timaeus]

There's more than one way to portray a submarine.
Though that's certainly one of them.
So, fish?

[1797]

i caught a few

[yes]

[timaeus]

Was this an attempt to illustrate them for the sake of identification, or more like an ASCII version of those guys that post pics of of themselves with fish they caught on dating apps?

[1797]

[more like a teenager being a dumbass while also being curious about who else is out there]

why cant it be both?
can we switch from texting btw i need a hand free

[timaeus]

Ew.
Don't announce that shit to the whole network.

[He is maybe deflecting with humor because he prefers text.]

[1797]

[how dare he make ren slowly type out the most eloquent of one-handed insults:]

wow
prude

[timaeus]

That ain't prudishness.
It's basic fucking decorum.

[1797]

how do i @ everyone to tell them he412t is a prude

[timaeus]

You can just tack it on to my announcement that JR005X jacks it to fish.

[1797]

cool
so using a radio as a radio
y/n

[timaeus]

That eager for some auditory stimulation, huh?
I'm not really into providing ASMR for random radio strangers. Particularly not ones using it for such lewd purposes.
I'm a prude, remember?

[1797]

[avoidant. shy, maybe? ren smiles a little, before he switches to audio anyway. his voice is calm, even gentle, if it weren't for the fact he's still being a rude little shit.]

Ok, Prude-san. [he is absolutely tacking on the honorific for an extra layer of facetiousness] I promise I won't ask for any heavy breathing without compensation.

[timaeus]

[It's the "-san" that gets him in the end. He's a goddamn weeb after all, even if mostly ironically. The voice that responds after a few moments has a Texan twang, which really only makes this more ridiculous.]

Hope you got some fat stacks ready for me. I'm no cheap date, Pervert-kun.

[1797]

[if the translator has a sense of humor, maybe ren just thinks dirk is from osaka]

Only if you take yumushi as payment.

[timaeus]

[Ren would be in for a surprise someday if Dirk wasn't such a recluse.]

You're in luck. That is in fact the only form of payment I take.

[1797]

Hell yeah. Then I have an entire beach for you.

[...]

Well, not an entire beach. I need some for fishing.

[timaeus]

[An entire beach of penis fish??? Gosh, what kind of a guy do you think he is?]

I think this metaphor-slash-innuendo is getting away from us.

[1797]

It escaped a while ago, yeah. The beach isn't a metaphor, though. Do you think I could use a tide pool as a bucket until the tide comes in?

[the penis fish... they're real]

1A

[myimmersion]

[ The man in black ambles to the lip of the hole, peering into its depths with unflinching curiosity. The only mark of concern the hand he clamps to his hat. Up close, his clothes have that same washed-in-with-the-tide look—a crust of salt along the collar of his jacket, the seams of his trousers. His black boots discolored by ridges of white.

He seems, for a while at least, to lose track of the boy and everything else around him. Hunkering down—a groan escaping him—for a closer look, sending a leaf pirouetting into the blackness. ]

Well. [ He says at last, dragging his gaze out of the hole in the earth. Unsmiling but amused: ] Think light thoughts.

[1797]

Will you be able to make it, old man?

[He has a soft, even voice that's friendly despite the kinda rude epithet. But his slight smile comes with a flash of something dangerous, daring around the edges.]

[myimmersion]

[ His gaze skims the surface of the sinkhole, that yawning maw—cutting one way, then back to the boy. He straightens up, dusting off the front of his trousers with black-gloved hands. Taking his sweet time. ] Who says that's where I'm headed?

[ He widens his eyes—almost to the point of exaggeration. Not quite. The creases around his mouth deepening. ]

[1797]

[He grins and stretches, hands linked over his head, and drops into a crouch.]

Seems like a waste to come all this way just to walk back, [is all he offers, before he takes a running start.

It's a close thing when he lands, heels catching on the narrow ledge. He windmills, pitches forward, and trips over the roots erupting from the earth in front of him, before he finally catches his balance.]

Not so bad! [he calls back across the sinkhole.]