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newcombers2024-05-23 02:01 am
newcomod) wrote in newcombers2024-05-23 02:01 am
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May 2024 Test Drive Meme: The First of Many to Come
We will officially be opening our game June 1st at 12:01 AM EST.
Reserves will open on May 28th at 12:01 AM EST.
Applications will open on the 1st at 12:01 AM EST.
Applications will close on the 5th at 11:59 PM EST.
Please follow our Plurk
Our memes are open to current and prospective players alike.
All Test Drive memes are game canon and serve as a lead-up to the following month's event. The first prompt in each TDM will always coincide with the disastrous circumstances of Penumbra's collision.
This disaster will leave unique supplies or conditions for the following month until the reset in time occurs and a new collision invokes new circumstances.
Most characters upon initial arrival may suffer mild amnesia, fatigue, and diminished powers. Memories, energy, and powers will eventually return. Per player choice, this can be quickly or slowly.
You can use your TDM threads for writing samples on your application.
If you are applying for a new character, you can choose to keep your TDM threads canon to your character or not.
Even if our current players do not engage with the TDM, we strongly recommend they read each TDM to be aware of how Penumbra strikes Newcomb every month. We encourage characters to react to this via network or log posts in the community spaces.
Image Descriptions from left to right: First image is a red train pictured along raised tracks set against pine trees in sunlight, second image is a gif of a train explosion as people flee from the destruction, third image is of a dark sky with orange lightning.
Prompt
Once upon a time, Newcomb had its very own train station that was used by students and staff alike. Most students would arrive at campus via the train and supplies were often shipped in through the train. This very train station used to be located by Fitch End and was one of the first out-of-campus locations to be destroyed by Penumbra. This month, it seems as if the reset has brought the train back. For a moment, anyway. One may awaken from a deep slumber in one of the passenger cars, groggy and nearly jetlagged. You will be surrounded by other characters waking up, just as disoriented and confused as you are.
The train ride itself isn't so bad though. The scenery beyond the windows is filled with gorgeous sprawling woods, already tinged with the golds and reds of autumn. The smell of pine and old leather fills the train and you will find your backpack in a cubby just above your head or on the seat beside you.
There is no way to exit the train at this point, no matter how one might try. What is the point anyway? Just sit back and enjoy the ride. Something is soothing about a train ride, after all. You may even feel tempted to fall back asleep. Maybe things will make more sense when you wake up again.
You won't have peace for long. The train jolts violently as if being struck by something, and after, everything descends into chaos. Cars begin to slam together, some smashing upward, shattering glass and doors, crushing seats. Explosions burst from the front of the train, and as it pivots onto campus, it scorches the ground.
Cars break apart, sliding into their destruction here and there against buildings or trees. It feels as though it happens both slowly and rapidly, defying time itself, the sound of a ticking clock somehow overwhelming the symphony of metal scraping against metal.
Oil from the train catches fire across campus grounds. While the buildings are fireproof and resilient, the rest of the campus is not and neither are some characters who may be wandering about perchance. As the disaster comes to a screeching halt, characters will have to help each other from the wreckage and help put out the fires.
The train will remain on campus for June. It can be broken apart for metal parts and explored for small, sentimental items or important weapons that belong to a character. The train will vanish in the blink of an eye as midnight hits on the 31st. The Penumbric siren alerts the campus of the reset and the incoming meteor and its potential new disaster.
You will have to brace yourself for what happens next.
Note on Penumbric Collision Prompts: Characters do not need to arrive in this prompt. You may opt-out entirely by having your character fall through the sky or wake up incredibly disoriented randomly on campus. Arrival to Newcomb should be somewhat physically and/or mentally draining or damaging. Even characters resistant to pain or injury will be temporarily vulnerable to the arrival.
Image Descriptions from left to right: First image is a shadowy humanoid with a black and gray smudge effect concealing the face, second image is a pair of hands covered in a black goopy substance, third image has several clear vials containing a smoky, goopy black substance.
Prompt
A curious boxcar can be discovered among the wreckage of the train. This boxcar was carefully sealed off and kept at freezing temperatures. Inside were metal crates filled with test tubes and Petri dishes containing a mysterious black goo. During the fall, the boxcar's front end was ripped away. Between the raging fires from the crash and the exposure to higher temperatures, the vials and petri dishes thawed. Vials and Petri dishes began to break apart as the mysterious goo essentially "woke up" from its cryogenic state and escaped from the glass containers.
This mysterious goo seeks out living organisms and will subtly attach itself to character bodies. This can be as subtle as a dime-sized speck of mysterious goo behind a character's ear or consume half a character's body. The goo's attachment is painless. It has a tarlike odor and causes a strange prickling sensation the longer it remains attached to a character.
After some time, the goo will naturally slide off a character. Alternatively, a character can apply freezing water or ice to the goo and this will essentially "kill" the goo and slough it off in broken chunks.
While the goo is attached to characters, it will cause uncontrollable, unusual behavior. On a less severe end, symptoms may include disorientation, difficulty walking, slurred speech, confusion, and clinginess even to strangers. On a more extreme end, the goo may cause characters to act in ways contradictory to who they typically are: they may be prone to fits of violence, hysteria, flirtation, cruelty, or even for some, abundant kindness and outgoing friendliness.
The goo will automatically make characters want to interact with other characters whether positively or negatively. It uses these interactions as a way to migrate from one host to the next.
Image Descriptions from left to right: First image has a playing card and two white dice, second image has a text bubble that reads, "I'm not a Soft Gay I'm an Anger Gay. I love dogs and burning things." Third image shows a field of grass and wildflowers with a free-standing picture frame with torn canvas, the torn spot revealing a city scape image.
Prompt.
Who isn't familiar with the bizarre urge to overshare to total strangers online? It would appear that the mysterious goo has an intimate understanding of this instinct and intends to capitalize on it.In other words, the mysterious goo's influence is not limited to in-person interactions. Even characters unfamiliar with technology will have the burning desire to get out their new phone and create a public post to all Fermii users containing two truths and a lie about themselves.
These can range from embarrassing and silly to serious and incriminating. Characters will continue to feel an itch to respond transparently to those who correctly guess which is which. Even the most sophisticated and chronic liars cannot resist the force of the mysterious goo's presence.
The urge to overshare will ebb away the more truth is exposed.
Ironically, this may be a minor blessing to those unfamiliar with smartphone technology. It would seem that the mysterious goo has managed to assimilate the knowledge of how smartphones work and helpfully pass it into the mind of its host. However, the price of exposure might not be worth the shortcut to knowledge.
Train Ride | cw: mildly nsfw
Iggy, sprawled elegantly over the seats, starts patting down his clothes, looking for the requested items.]
Oh, goodness, of course, of course, let me see...
[Nope. Nothing. Fuck. He has nightmare visions of being thrown off the train at the next stop, left to wander the picturesque landscape until he dies of exposure and is eaten by coyotes.
Time to try turning on the charm.
He widens his eyes.]
I seem to have misplaced my ticket. And my I.D. too. ...look, I'll be honest with you, I don't remember getting on this train. I probably got mugged while I was sleeping. So. Is there any sort of agreement we can come to where you let me ride until we reach civilization?
[And in case it wasn't obvious what he was getting at, he not-very-subtly mimes a handjob.]
no subject
No ticket. No memory. So it's not just him. Could be a coincidence but somehow John doesn't think that's likely. Maybe he should ask the other passengers as well, see if it's really a pattern with everyone...
He's about to ask the guy who he is, where he is from, where he was last because somehow John doesn't think he's native to the Pegasus galaxy. In fact, he opens his mouth already to get the questions in. And then the guy goes and says that and.
That is.
So not subtle.
John Sheppard is notorious for Never Seeing It Coming but of all the things he never sees coming he sees this coming the least. And then he suddenly finds himself in that situation like a guy that just took on a role in a very dubious movie and his brain skids to a halt, lurches forward, putters out again, like a car in its last death throes.]
Uh.
[He stares at the gesture, his mouth opening and closing, his expression caught somewhere between jock panic and flustered embarrassment.]
That's, uh. That's fine. ... I mean, not the, not what you're-- the ticket thing, we'll, we'll figure that out.
no subject
Thanks. I don't seem to have any money on me, either.
So... not to sound completely stupid - although sweetie, I'm never gonna win any awards for my smarts - but where are we? I only know of one train station in town, and I'm a little worried I've somehow snuck over the border and I'm gonna wind up stranded in Seattle.
sorry, i totally missed that last notif!
[He hasn't been called sweetie since - actually, he hasn't been called sweetie ever and he's in no particular hurry to start. Look, he's way too repressed for that.]
Seattle. Border?
[That's so weird. He glances out the window again as if hoping to see a landmark, anything that gives him a hint about anything.]
You were in Canada?
oh gosh, not a problem!
Uhhuh. That's where I'm from. I'm guessing by your expression that you are not in fact from the west coast...?
no subject
[John huffs, frustrated and confused.
It's not like he hasn't been trapped in fake realities before but they were usually tied to something he recognizes - either his own life or Pegasus environments. If this is another simulation, what is a random guy from Canada doing here? Of course he could be trapped in the simulation along with him. But then again, how would someone from Earth end up in the Pegasus galaxy? It's annoying that he can't figure this out.]
... All right, gonna level with you here. I have no idea how I ended up on this train. I was... somewhere else entirely.
no subject
[Iggy looks at John expectantly. He's hoping for an answer that will make all the pieces fall into place, but it looks like that's not gonna happen.]
Well, what's the last thing you remember? Me, I was out partying. So this is not
like, entirely out of the question, waking up all fuzzy and confused. Ooh, maybe we were at the same club!