rapturefree | baby you can drive my car

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

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!

Threaded | Flat

OPTION DEUX operation fuck the big daddy

Actually Iman knows exactly whose bright idea tailing the Little Sister was. It was hers.

"This way." She waves an arm - her right arm, the organic one - at her partner in tailing. "Just around this corner."

They are getting awfully close. This wasn't supposed to be a hands-on tail job, but it might have to get that way if she doesn't watch her goddamn step, and she knows it. But she just needs to see if she can make eye contact. Nothing threatening. Just a little glance, to see if there's anything human left in the little girl. Atlas' continued insistence that they're anything but never sat well with her. How unscientific can you get, trusting the word of a man you've never seen, who's provided no empirical evidence?

As it turns out, eye contact is all it takes.

"Get 'em, Mr. Bubbles!" shrieks the child, wild eyes burning bright, and Iman jerks back, catching the arm of her companion.

"Okay," she snaps as the Big Daddy lights up red, locking in on them. "All right. Plan fuckin' B."

She doesn't hae a plan B. She has a literal handful of plasmids, a shotgun, and a pistol. But no plan B.

Edited 2015-09-16 20:03 (UTC)

option one

It's like a wave breaking over him, if he'd ever really had any experience with waves or beaches or anything of the kind. The first surge of percussive force is enough to topple him, the blast of heat scalding and immediate. He can almost feel his skin crackle as it blisters. He rolls over, blindly, away from the worst of the flames.

Some immeasurable distance away, someone's crying.

He's on his back, watching the Pauper's Drop sign smolder into ash.

He has to get up.

He has to move.

Tim closes his eyes and groans and tries to lever himself to his feet. High above, with a high, splintering sound, the glass has begun to crack.

option two

The drill slams into the patch of floor that had, two seconds ago, been occupied by Tim's head, shrieking as it tears easily into the worn wood floors of Neptune's Bounty. Tim rolls, pitching violently to his feet, staggering unevenly ahead in a single-minded effort to get the fuck away from that thing someone apparently decided was worth pissing off.

The Big Daddy roars, the drill droning in eerie counterpoint to the its owner's low, menacing rumble.

Big Daddy. Someone here has a really sick sense of humor.

Tim picks himself up, eyeing the thing opposite him warily. It'll come at him quick, ramming him into the wall in what will doubtless be a perfectly calculated crushing maneuver. Once it comes at him, he'll have to throw himself to side. He'll have to move quick. He can't move too soon. It'll just adjust for the difference in angle and oh god, fuck, how is this his life right now? He doesn't deal with things like this. Not physical things, nothing as tangible and there as this.

His breath catches in his throat as the Daddy's eyes blink crimson and it charges.

option one

Ideally, optimally, preferably, this would not be the way in which Rush would spend his day. Possibly night. Such things seem purely fucking relative at the ocean floor which is, he cannot prevent himself from thinking with utter vehemence, a fucking terrible place to choose to construct one's isolationist capitalist refuge with the flawed masquerade of free market preached frequently and intolerably in order to somehow mask how completely and entirely this project qualifies for little more than industrialist onanism.

In short terms, as far as revolution goes, Rush considers himself completely fucking unsurprised.

The collective brisance of whatever chemical work went into the blast has reduced the vast majority of the storefronts to rubble, an outpouring of fire and black smoke being systematically belched into the confining, claustophobic system of magnified tubing that seems to make up the vast majority of Rapture's buildings.

He does not feel right.

Rush braces his palms against the ground, gritting his teeth, and exerts pressure and unidirectional force to press himself to his knees, then to his feet.

He puts a hand to his head. It comes away warm and wet and red.

He drops the hand to his side again.

He marks an unerring line past the tumbled debris, past the muffled cries of whatever unfortunate souls have been trapped beneath, and cuts his way cleanly to the glass itself.

The low, rending sound of two surfaces coming out of alignment is overpowering.

He turns and begins tearing through the rubble. He requires some sort of welding tool, absolutely fucking requires it and he will require it immediately unless they would all like to suffer the absolute misery that is drowning on the ocean floor, an undesirable fate that seems to be looming in their collective possible future.

option three

He's not been drinking. He is wholly uninterested in pursuing any sort of artistic bent for the benefit of others, much less himself. Judging by the way the dancers below subtly tremble with each slow, ponderous step, he's even less likely to offer any services to Mr. Sander Cohen in the near or distant future.

He does not watch. He turns and studies one of the nearest slot machines, running one finger along the elegant grooves and contours of its exterior, and in a fluid, continuous movement, drops to his knees at its base. He taps at it vaguely, almost lazily, in an effort that may seem to the outward observer, rather useless. Andrew Ryan has long since prohibited mechanical tampering of any sort.

Rush smiles faintly.

He's never been one to do as ordered.

[i]

[It took him months to build the Joestar Real Estate Agency up again. Now it was gone. Up in literal flames, and Joseph Joestar himself had just barely escaped. It wouldn't be entirely unbelievable -- he was way too tall and way too muscular for someone who was a real estate tycoon back home -- but he wasn't entirely unscathed either.

Cursing to himself, the old man picked glass out of his arm with a wince. He had to barrel through the glass just before the flames poured in. Damn it. He was pretty sure his back was burned too (it is), but at least his arm was alright (it's not). Wobbly pulling his huge frame up to stand, he backs away from the small building that used to be his and stares.

Joestar Real Estate. Completely engulfed. Joseph had to get several feet back just to get out of the heat. He lowers his arms and stares as bit by bit, it starts to collapse. His heart sank along with it.]

Oh my GOD!

[Joseph never felt like he belonged to Rapture. Especially when his real life was back in the surface, back in New York... but god dammit, he built that! It might not have been nearly as big as the international agency he ran back home, but...

Another explosion rocks somewhere nearby. Another storefront, another bomb. Joseph jumps and whirls around.]

Shit! [Did someone else get hit too? Crap. Well, pity party's over. The old man wastes no time sprinting in the direction of the latest boom. The closest person he sees is gonna catch sight of a hulking old man gunning toward them.] Hey! Are you okay?!

ii.

It is a fool's errand which has her currently in her predicament: squeezed under a stairwell with the rattling of the department store all around her. It comes in regularity which offers no comfort for that fact. Instead the Big Daddy's thunderous footsteps are like a drum beat, promising death itself coming closer, and closer, with the same promise as the very march of time.

Time didn't used to have any meaning to Elizabeth but it does now, and as she holds her breath between the long strides of the Big Daddy, she is reminded that time is no longer on her side. A few months ago she could have created a tear through space and simply stepped away out of danger. She wouldn't have wanted to, given her mission here, but it is an option she isn't used to not having.

Elizabeth thought if she could follow a Little Sister she could find out better what was going on here in Rapture. Instead, she catches the attention of this Big Daddy now on her trail. Its horrible wailing makes her cringe and she curses herself as she stares up at the stairs spiraling up out of sight above her. She can almost hear Booker's warning her to get out of there, but even that doesn't help her. Elizabeth ends up feeling crushed with the memory of him, and even more stuck where she is.

[iv]

She never believed in Earth. She had just wanted to leave. But she knows the sea inside and out, the pattern of the schools of fish and the reflective silver ripple of their scales.

Her hands pull into fists at her sides. She cannot bend or shape the water here. Something - something impossible is preventing it. Once the sea had been her only hope, and now it chains her here, at the bottom of Earth's ocean, alone and surrounded by humans.

Perhaps that's suitable. Lapis wraps her arms around herself. She made the choice to anchor herself in the middle of the ocean before. This is hardly any different.

Looking longingly into the sea will hardly bring her any satisfaction. There's one thing that still she may try.

Lapis closes her eyes. On her back, her gem assumes a luminous glow, its blue radiance shifting into the fluid shape of wings. She flaps them once, delighted, and, without hesitation, launches herself into a low glide through the city.

Edited 2015-09-20 16:10 (UTC)

Booker sat in his office with his door closed to the bustling world of Rapture. It took him about a good few months before he finally felt like he could run his own investigation process. He figured no matter the setting, people were people and they behaved similarly in whatever scene you put them in. Even if it was a habitat deep within the sea.

For the most part people were social beings and thrived off of settings that involved the call of other people to flock to and be in the mingle of groups of people. Then there came the hierarchy of the group, sometimes not so invisible pedestals in which belonged to people who obtained power, wealth, fame, money, whatever that put them on there.

Then the fans, and the chaos of the in between of classes which separated the riffraff from the elite. The grey area is where the muddle of interactions came in conflict with reputation, where secrets lie, and the truth only just waited to be uncovered.

Thus, this is where Booker came in. Like anywhere, such as New York or Columbia, Rapture would have clients that would pay for the dirt of their rivals, where the artist would pay for the secrets of design, builders would crumble their neighboring building. It was all the same and rather poetically expected from any place, any time, and any group of people. The basic instinct to conquer, climb, and give satisfaction for the greed and soothe the jealousy that soured within each of them.

Booker went in without too much judgment, he would likely only get a small side of the story - over all - but going in with an open mind would lead him to many open doors rather than the few doors he would go to with going into something off any bias he had or his own objective.

He had a cigarette lit and the smoke lazily swirled up toward the fan that ran on low-speed on his ceiling. He gently tapped his forefinger on the cigarette stick to rid of the dry ash in the tray then brought the cigarette to his lips to take a puff.

“Yep.” He said to no one before he pulled the new edition of the Rapture Times onto his lap to read. It seemed like there were new people showing up frequently, people from the surface, people from alternate universes and so forth. All it meant was potential for prospective clients to satisfy; as it so happened he waited for his client to show up any minute now.

Just got to stay away from the slot machines… He kept himself in line as much as he could, but only so much. Booker reached for the bottle of whiskey and brought it to his nose to smell. There’s no water deep enough to wash me of the sins I’ve got..

i.

Waking up to explosions isn't a graceful sort of thing. Eliot's thrown from the couch more by the concussive blast that beats at his windows and sends a cheap shelving unit rattling down from the wall in a hail of plaster, four inches from his nose than by the frantic jumble of sounds rising outside. His ears are ringing so high he can barely hear them. He rolls over onto his back and everything lurches once, hard and sick, then refuses to fall into focus.

This isn't happening, this isn't happening. None of this is real because there weren't supposed to be any bombs, we weren't going to-

He doesn't know what that means. He's pretty sure that's something he isn't supposed to know. There's a pulsing behind his eyes that's making it hard to chase that thought. He lets it go. At first he thinks that's what's making the ceiling tiles roil like that but, no, plaster is flaking free and settling in his open mouth like grimy snowflakes and he needs to get up now. He hinges forward, coughing, scrubbing at his face. Up. He's got to get up. Up and out.

He manages up, doesn't manage out, clawing at the painted-shut window in an apartment he only half-recognizes, muscle memory taking him through the layout of a space that could belong to him but doesn't feel like it does. The window comes up and he leans out, a blast of hot air against his face, tangled screams and the ponderous groan of buildings falling one foot at a time.

Fuck. Fire escape. It's not where he remembers it being. He bolts into the bathroom, feet slipping on a cascade of mirror shards that were probably there before all of this kicked off. Barely manages to catch himself, puts a towel-wrapped fist through a faux stained-glass window to spill out onto a metal grate that heaves in a way that doesn't inspire a hell of a lot of confidence.

His knees lock and then give, there's no going down from here. There is no down - just a rusted ladder to three stories' worth of sheer fucking drop. He presses himself to the wall, doesn't even feel the brick biting into his skin as his cheek hits.

This isn't fucking happening

Edited 2015-09-26 05:40 (UTC)

Sure she's heard rumors of bandits. Why else would she be here, idly parked in alt-mode keeping an optic sensor on things. The mark of a good surveillance operative is keen senses and attention to detail. Also the ability to not fall asleep. What?! It's not full recharge, she just idled down for a moment and then next thing she knew--BOOM--all hell broke loose.

Flashpoint's not sure what the scrap is going on but she's seen enough bombings to suspect foul play. She pushes up out of alt, the old Earth vehicle circa 1970 muscle car achieving bipedal form, ducking her head with a gravely curse as debris bounces off her helm in a shower of embers.

"Whoever blew out all my windows is gonna pay for that!" Because ouch, that stings! But that's when she hears it: voices from inside? She cranes her helm, peering past the flames. "Hey. HEY! Anyone in there!?"

Deadlock doesn't have a daddy

Excuse you, but none of Deadlock's plans are idiotic. Poorly thought out, yes. Reckless, sure. Involving a lot of violence, yepperoo. But idiotic? HA! He prefers to think of it that Deadlock naturally creates situations where he can do two of his favorite things: shoot things and blame someone else.

AT THE SAME TIME: so he's going to launch himself across a gap in the buildings they've been temporarily--TEMPORARILY--pinned down into, firing a blast at the big ugly fragger, while yelling at his companion, "This is all your fault!"

Threaded | Flat

Iman Asadi | original

Tim Wright | Marble Hornets

Nicholas Rush | Stargate Universe

Joseph Joestar | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

Elizabeth || Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea || Open

Lapis Lazuli | Steven Universe

Booker DeWitt | Bioshock: infinite | option iii |my responses will be 3rd person present tense prose

(test) driving in your car, i never, ever want to go home || Eliot Alderson | Mr. Robot || Open