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rapturefree2015-09-15 09:36 pm
rapturemod) wrote in rapturefree2015-09-15 09:36 pm
Entry tags:
baby you can drive my car
It's anticipated. It's expected. We're all about expectations, aren't we? Sort of? Maybe? Regardless, it's the first official
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:
PROMPTS:
TEST DRIVE MEME
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:
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.
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.
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!
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!
no subject
"We'll keep moving," he resolves, his voice audibly unsteady. "We'll, we'll come out somewhere, somewhere far away." He twists to look over his shoulder. This is too familiar, too much like those tunnels where he found Tim's files. "Somone else'll go for the kid and, and we won't be its problem anymore."
no subject
He looks away. He has to, he can't look at Jay right now, this shivering, muttering idiot who's probably doomed them both now.
"You actually did it, didn't you," says Tim, the words hard. "You went and spliced. You think that's not gonna cost you?"
no subject
He turns away and starts crawling deeper into the passage. "You're welcome to stay here and starve but I'm gonna find where this goes."
no subject
He crawls after, elbows and knees jammed at an awkward angle in the narrow space, the metal clunking beneath him with every movement.
"You keep it up, that'll be you getting hounded by a Big Daddy 'cause the ADAM was just too good to resist," he snaps in vicious undertone.
no subject
He comes to a fork in the path. Left or right. How the hell should he know? Does it matter, in the end?
He chooses left.
"I think I see a way out up ahead," he grunts.
no subject
He didn't even know human beings could look that way. He never wanted to know, either. Even less does he want to know if Jay will end up the same.
Begrudgingly, he shuffles after him. The space seems to be getting brighter as they head toward whatever unknown source of light Jay's led them toward. Hopefully there won't be a Big Daddy waiting for them on the other side - though Tim never had much faith in Jay's navigation skills, and for good goddamn reason.
"What, I need a reason to not wanna watch you die?" Again, he doesn't add. They don't need to get into that. Jay's made his life messy enough without digging up how truly and impossibly complicated he's made everything just by being here.
no subject
Yeah.
He can stop anytime he wants.
Honest.
Whatever. He comes to the vent at the end of the line, beyond which is light, and what looks like... an apartment? Well, shit. Hopefully nobody's home. He bangs awkwardly against the vent until it dislodges.
He holds a hand out to Tim, motioning for silence - would that be too much to ask? - before inching forward. It's not an apartment, more like... a little cave with bottles and garbage strewn around. A mattress on the floor. Rust-colored stains on the wall. Jay shivers.
"Let's go," he whispers, and shimmies the rest of the way out.
He didn't see the occupant, because the occupant was standing in the corner, just in his blind spot.
A hand seizes the back of his shirt, drags him roughly upward as a strained voice shrieks, "How dare you, monster - I, I'm lonely, I'm so lonely-!"
The man, what's left of him, pivots Jay and slams him into the wall, Jay's left gasping and flailing as the splicer lifts an arm back, light glinting off the jagged blade of a knife, and the only thing Jay can think to do is open his hand in the fucker's face.
That's all. None left now. He can feel the emptiness in his veins.
The splicer drops him hard, shrieking and swatting at the bees that won't kill him, will only buy them some time, and he scrambles back. Nowhere to fucking go. Splicer's between them at the door.
"Stay down!" he yells. The bees don't discriminate. They'd go after Tim just as quickly.
no subject
As far as Tim's concerned, he has every reason to believe that Jay has next to no conception of his own limits, let alone those of other people. They might be on speaking terms - kind of - but he has by no accounts any reason to trust him.
Anymore, at least.
He wriggles ahead, getting ready to uncurl from his cramped little elbows-and-knees shuffle when the hard clang of Jay being thrust into the wall jars his balance.
"Shit - "
Splicer. Looking just as bad as any of the others, his face nearly unrecognizable for all the swelling and - and oh god. Tim shrinks back into the vent. Yep. He's good here. He'll wait.
Except -
"Well, what then?" he fires back, desperately. "I'm not gonna stay here - for the love of - "
With a final, fervent mutter of, "fuck it," Tim worms out of the vent, lands in a stumbling sprawl on the ground, and darts for the door, trying to cut around the splicer as it wails and swats at the insects humming over its skin. Tim reaches for the door, itching with the need to get away as quickly as goddamn possible. If the bees get him, then they get him. He'll get stung. He can take it. He's run out of reasons to care.
no subject
The swarm dies out and the splicer snatches at Jay with a vengeful snarl. So much for that.
"Stop it!" he yowls as he hauls Jay up from the floor. "Just give me - give me what I want-!"
"Get off me!" Jay doesn't want to touch him even to fight back, he's so repulsive, everything Tim was just warning him about and he fucking knows it. "Let me go!"
violence baguettes violence
Tim spins on his heel as the splicer seizes Jay, his fingers curved and clawlike as they fist into the material at the front of his shirt. It doesn't take a genius to know what the splicer wants from him, and as frustrated as Tim is with the man he's really not eager to see him drained dry.
There's a wrench on the ground, crusted thickly with red and brown, probably discarded after the splicer used it to brain its last unfortunate victim. Tim doesn't care. He seizes it and, unthinking, slams the heavy end into the splicer's midriff.
this guy's TOAST
The splicer's getting up, groaning, muttering feverish promises of violence. Jay scrambles unsteadily to his feet, groping at Tim's shirt, trying to propel them toward the door, not fast enough: the splicer is up, and it launches itself at Tim.
that's what he gets for LOAFING AROUND
"Get back here!" the splicer snarls, his fingers way too curved and too hooked to be normal as they catch at the front of his shirt and lift him bodily from the ground. Tim winds back to strike again, but it's too little and too late and -
And Tim slams heavily into the wall.
Which hurts.
He slides to the ground, blinking desperately to clear the bright spots erupting over his vision. The back of his head throbs where it connected with the wall of the place with extreme prejudice.
Goddamn it. Where's Jay. Where's Jay.
we interrupt this pun game for a tw: graphic stabbing and a little dissociation
Tim drops the wrench, and it clatters away, away from Jay, away from the door. The splicer can only focus on one of them at a time apparently and that's fine with him. If only he knew what to do.
He's not as strong as Tim. He doubts he could take anyone out with a wrench.
A knife, on the other hand.
The splicer dropped his, and is working on subduing Tim now with his bare hands.
He dives forward, picks it up off the floor with sweaty, trembling, uncoordinated hands, whips around and buries it into the splicer's back.
He rears up like a startled horse, howling and howling, though Jay's blood is pounding so loud in his ears he can barely hear anything else. He wrenches the knife out and stabs him again, and again.
Splicer goes down. But he's gone down before and he gets back up. Sometimes they like to play dead. Grab at your ankles.
Jay keeps stabbing. He might have screamed. He might still be screaming. He doesn't know.
no subject
When the hands tear away, Tim has barely any mental capacity for anything but coughing, spluttering and gasping as he sucks the air greedily into his lungs. The screams reach him only distantly.
Screams.
Screams, plural.
Oh shit.
Tim staggers to his feet. He has to brace himself against the wall to stay upright. Jay jabs the knife into the bastard, again and again and again and again, poking it full of holes, but it's long since stopped twitching.
"Jay," says Tim, but his voice creaks out dry and rusty. He coughs and has to try again, louder. "Jay. Jay."
Nothing. Still nothing. Tim drops into a crouch and moves closer until he can seize Jay's wrist, the one holding the knife, and force it still.
"It's okay," he says, panting. "He's dead, okay?"
and now some PTSD and panic
It's just Tim. It's okay.
He's dead. Yeah. Everything's okay.
"Oh god," he says, his voice shuddering. His hand opens, fingers aching and stiff, and the knife clatters to the floor. "Oh god, fuck."
He stares at the ugly, bloody, twisted corpse of post-human and can't pull his gaze away, feels himself tensing and shaking under Tim's hand.
"I didn't-" He swallows hard, trying to beat back the overwhelming nausea. "I-"
no subject
However pissed off and flat-out furious he is at the other man right now, he can't - he can't possibly hate him for this. Not when he ran Alex through again and again, his movements jerky and terrified and uncontrolled, and he'd curled in on himself, sick and trembling and spattered with an old friend's blood.
He reaches out, slowly, to take Jay's other wrist. "I know. I know how it goes."
He fires a quick look over his shoulder, but there's no sign of any other splicers, and no sound of the Big Daddy they left behind back at the Lower Wharf. That's good. He can feel Jay trembling beneath his fingers, his skin hot and clammy, and the last thing he needs is more adrenaline pumped into his system.
no subject
Does he know?
How?
He doesn't want to ask. Now's still not the time.
He swallows, again and again, then nods. "Okay," he says, his tongue thick, his throat sore. "Okay. Um."
He tries to get up. Not sure if he should pull his hands back now and use them for leverage or just let Tim support him. The drain of EVE is making all of this worse. He wants it, tries to ignore the want.
"I'm sorry," he babbles, no idea what about.
tw: mild body horror and dead body squick
He's still quaking, almost like he's going through some kind of withdrawal. Or - shit, he would be, wouldn't he? Tim sighs, releasing Jay to massage the bridge of his nose wearily.
"Wait here."
His stomach tightens with revulsion as he flips the dead splicer over with the toe of his shoe, then stoops to rifle through his pockets. The dead man's disfigured hands flop limply, sickeningly, his mouth stretched wide in his last soundless scream, his eyes open and glassy.
It doesn't take long to find what he's looking for. The corner of Tim's mouth twitches in distaste, but he turns back to Jay.
"Here." The syringe is hardly sterile, its contents luminous blue and sloshing faintly, but he offers it to him with weary, dull resignation.
tw: NEEDLE INJECTION fourth paragraph down
His eyes dart up to Tim.
"Why?" he asks bluntly even as he reaches out to take it. Trembling. Hating himself.
He handles it awkwardly for a moment before slipping it right into his vein. He shouldn't, for so many reasons, he knows he shouldn't. He didn't even want to at first, it was freaked out at the idea, but he has to now. He has to.
He flexes his hand and lets out a shuddering breath, feeling the itch lessen a little, feeling himself settle.
He doesn't thank Tim. Not for this.
"Let's keep moving," he mutters, dropping the emptied syringe with a clatter.
and so on
"Yeah," says Tim. He steps over the splicer's crumpled body, nudging the door open fully. A cursory glance outside confirms both that the coast is relatively clear and that they're still in Neptune's Bounty - they'd have to be, they couldn't have passed through any bulkheads in the interim.
"You good to walk?" Jay still looks shaky, even if he's gotten the equivalent of his - fix, or whatever they call it. The thought is enough to engender a sickening twist in his gut, but he shunts it aside. They have time to worry about it later, at least.