baby you can drive my car

[rapturemod]

It's anticipated. It's expected. We're all about expectations, aren't we? Sort of? Maybe? Regardless, it's the first official

TEST DRIVE MEME

 

You probably know the drill by now. If you don't, here's a quick rundown: test drive memes are a game's way of gauging interest and such. It's a way to play around in the environment without the commitment of apping, maybe see how well that character you're considering gels with the setting. This one will be open indefinitely, or at least until further notice. You don't need to be apped to the game to test drive a character, or even reserved, or even want to reserve. However, if your interest is indeed piqued, reserves are thisaway, applications thataway.

As of this writing, we don't consider anything that happens in the TDM canon unless you'd like to transfer any threads that happen here to the main comms (provided they don't interfere with pre-established game events, of course). TDM threads are just a way to get a feel for a game, or in case you need that pesky writing sample for an app in progress. We don't recommend you do a standard intro post, however - save that for the game proper!

We don't have a set entry date for the game proper just yet. Once we accumulate some interest, we'll be sure to let you know!

Some resources we recommend that you check out if interest continues to abound:

Cast | Setting | Rules & FAQ | Locations

PROMPTS:

i. do you hear the people sing?
You've heard the rumors circulating about Atlas and his bandits for months. Even the upper echelons of Rapture's high society were having trouble burying their concern under the careful veneer of professionalism. What you didn't expect was an open attack. You'd just been passing by, but the poor souls who lived and shopped and made their living on this street have just found their entire livelihood set aflame. People are saying it's a bombing, while others protest that it must have been something down in maintenance.

Right now, it doesn't really matter one way or the other. The homes and storefronts have been reduced to sheeting flame as hairline cracks go cobwebbing up the glass, the only thing separating the city from a watery grave. Whether you choose to get the hell out of dodge or help the wailing survivors is up to you, but regardless of what you choose to do, this section of Rapture is rapidly coming apart at the seams.
 

ii. who's your daddy?
You've no clue whose bright idea it was to tail the Little Sister. It might have been some gang of spliced-up nobodies thirsty for some extra ADAM. It might have been your best friend's idiot plan. Hell, it might have even been yours. All you know is that no matter how appealing the thought seemed at the time, you and yours are in for a world of hurt. The Little Sister just had to shriek once and her armored protector came barreling into the scene, drill humming to life with a sinister whine. Guilty as charged or caught in the crossfire, you're in for the fight of your life with a Big Daddy, one of the most dangerous things in Rapture. Good luck.
 

iii. a part of the masterpiece

Fort Frolic, they say, is the hub for creative artistry. Sander Cohen is either a wildly inspired artistic genius or a madman depending on who you ask, but the alcohol runs the same no matter how you slice it. For tonight, the Fort is yours to enjoy at your leisure. Take a gander, gamble everything you've got, have a drink, maybe sit in for a show. The only thing Cohen loves more than his exclusivity is rampant attention, and tonight he's on full display. He's even torturing - er, entertaining a lucky pair of dancers in Fleet Hall! Don't mind the wires threaded in and out of their clothing, doubtless unspooled over all those important parts of the nervous system and ready to unleash a burst of fatal electricity at a moment's notice. They've got to be just for show.

One thing is certain about the possibly-deranged Sander Cohen, after all: he certainly keeps you on your toes!
 

iv. wild card! make up your own scenario

We prefer third-person, present tense prose, but if you're just in it for the fun you can write in whatever floats your pontoon. Have fun!
 

Comments

flashbacking and suicide ideation and moooore drowning

[postictal]

The city groans under the duress of the immense pressure from above as water rushes in, sweeping him and the smoking wreckage into its unrelenting pull. The cresting white-tipped waves suck him away, spinning helplessly in the undertow, silver streams of bubbles flurrying from parted lips as he screams.

It held him down. It held him down beneath the water, choking him, and he thrashed and clawed at it and it wouldn't let him go. It held him until he was tired enough to go shuddering and limp, tired enough to die, and then, and then it released him, let him haul himself out of the laughably shallow stretch of muddy water, sopping and gasping and wanting nothing more than to have had been held down just a little bit longer.

The temptation to cede to that old instinct is still guttering and there and beyond his capacity to ignore, but it's the presence of the other poor bastard caught in this alongside him that forces him to push forward, both hands scything through the water as he tries to break the surface.

He never learned to swim. He never even learned to tread water.

With an almighty crash of water, Tim slams into the ashen remains of what used to be the building's rafters. He glimpses something sodden just beneath, but he can't breathe and he needs to kick out, lashing out desperately to breach the surface and gulp down a relieved gasp of air and breathe.

claustrophobia warn! dissociation, panic attacks, drowning, hand/nail horror a lil

[paran01d_andr01d]

If he does not move, he will die. Eliot knows this. He knows this as he watches the shapes at the surface of the water grow distant and dim, like they're powering down. He knocks into the rising bilge, bits of broken furniture, chairs, splintered doors, his body tossed and pinned and still slipping.

It's never felt less like it belonged to him, his body. Always needing and rotting and breaking down, showing critical failure points when it's least convenient.

He fights to keep sight of surface. How horribly easy it would be to just forget which way is out, again. No milemarkers here. Just nothing, nothing and wreckage and him. The tightness in his chest twists one tighter, a spike of pain wrings a gasp out of him and he's sucking water, sucking water and he feels hands at his throat, at his mouth. They're his hands.

They're his hands and he can move them. He hauls himself toward surface. Every motion burns, slow and dragging and his head reels. And he's coughing and he's sucking more water and he thrashes, clawing at the water until he feels wood, splinters coming up under his nails. Then air.

emetophobia warning

[postictal]

Breathing comes with a storm of coughing, his heart juddering in his chest as he spits up water, his throat parched, the insides of his teeth and the roof of his mouth crusted with salt and brine.

It doesn't take more than a cursory sweep of his surroundings to conclude that this part of Rapture is as good as lost. The fires are out, the crowds no longer spilling for the bulkheads, the fierce rushing current having scattered them.

He kicks out clumsily, shoulders still shuddering with each racking cough, and hooks one hand around a charred husk of wood that's managed to stay afloat. All he has to do is steer himself for one of the bulkheads. All he has to do. All he has to do. All he has to do all he has

Tim propels himself forward numbly, mechanically, riding the current where he can. The abrupt shift from hot to freezing leaves him shivering. God, but don't let that mean convulsions. Please don't.

emetophobia warn, hand trauma, self-loathing

[paran01d_andr01d]

He chokes and chokes until he feels scrubbed out, bringing up water so cold it burns, nails digging into whatever's keeping him afloat. Wet charred wood peels away in streaks under his handholds, comes up like nothing. He claws at the debris with hands hooked and blunted with stiffness, buzzing with pain. Something works, keeps him from slipping and it’s a gift.

It feels like too much to keep in his head at once. Keep hold of this, keep your head above water, keep breathing, keep moving. Aching lungs can’t take in enough air to keep everything from lurching around him, to keep the dark from creeping in at the corners. The current pulls at his legs, wreckage flows around him, constant, dizzying motion.

He needs something to focus on, a fixed point.

Scanning for Tim makes his eyes ache, but it’s not hard to pick out the splashes of water kicking up around him as he cuts a jagged path through the floating debris. He follows, big messy kicks that move him forward in short jerks and leave his trembling legs numb. He counts kicks, it helps until he loses track, but he hasn’t lost sight of Tim. Just ahead of him now, the spray from his strokes stinging his face.

He’s so fucking tired. Tim looks tired too, shoulders shaking with coughs. He wonders if what he’s hanging on to would hold them both. It’d be easier for both of them if it would. Or he could end up drowning both of them. Deadweight. All this for nothing. He keeps kicking. Chickenshit. There’s no winning like this.

[postictal]

The water's crashing into the metal of the bulkheads as it funnels in steadily from the weeping gash in the glass. He hooks fingers around the metal of the wheel that's icy to the touch, anchors himself to it even as the current threatens to tear him away.

Not out of the woods yet. Not ever, not really. He'll always be snarled in one thing or another. He braces his feet against the floor with the water sloshing up to his chest and pulls, throwing all of his weight onto the wheel that groans and shrills as it resists his attempts to turn it.

"C'mon," says Tim, whispered desperately from between clenched teeth. "Come on, come on, come on - "

But it won't give and he can't keep straining to crack the damn thing open. He casts about wildly for something, any kind of tool, anything, and with a sick lurch of guilt to his gut his eyes land on Elliot.

He left him behind.

He didn't mean to, really, he didn't, he just assumed he hadn't made it or that they'd been separated but instead of stopping to look he'd just forged mindlessly ahead and he left him. No better than Jay. No better than any of the self-interested bastards here under the sea.

He tightens his grip on the wheel and reaches out, fingers outstretched as far as they can go.

"Grab," he calls. "Come on."