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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.
1/2
there's something wrong with this place.
but he hasn't had time to dwell on it, for better or worse. in fact, he's shocked to be shouted at, and stumbles over a bit of debris, slowed for long enough to be caught by the individual shouting at him. he stares at her for a protracted moment, focusing on her face, trying to assess, probably, whether or not she has the strength to stop him. ]
... I'll be fine. Those people need help.
no subject
[she's also familiar with that look of glassy determination to keep going with no awareness of one's physical condition, and hopes there's no external compulsion forcing him to walk into danger. where she comes from, there are many ways to do that to a person. his skin is heat-shiny too -- burns? how many times has he been into this side of the train car before she saw him through the smoke?
maybe she can divert him without thwarting his apparent need to help.] Do you know any first aid? I can keep pulling people out, but there are more out here who need wound care.
[she gestures to a sideways seat which had been thrown from the car, hoping the pain he must be in will lead him to sit automatically. if he can splint his own leg, she thinks, he'll be able to do more without harming himself.]
no subject
[ castiel is a soldier too, but not of the same ilk— his kind don't have to concern themselves with things like third degree burns and broken bones, bruises or lacerations. they go on forever until they don't. there's only one thing that could stop him, if he was in full possession of his powers, but now he finds he can't do much without risking harm to this woman.
he doesn't know if it's worth it. she's clearly more able to help them than he is— seeing as his vessel is battered and flagging, and her body seems to be more or less intact. his weight leans heavily on his good leg, which is also sore with burns and bruises, his clothes singed from the fire. ]
... No. I don't know how to do that.
[ when his powers return, he'll be able to heal them with nothing more than a touch, but as a result, he knows less about standard medical care than most. ]
no subject
so he doesn't know battlefield medicine; well, many don't. it would be nice to live in a world where nobody had to. she tries her best to soften. her frustrations aren't his fault.]
Let me check who's in there, and then I can set your arm and leg. Can you wait a few minutes? If we can fix you up now, you can help move survivors away from the train. [she doesn't think the fractures are compounded, but his clothing looks like he was rammed through a hillside and then set on fire, so it's hard to be sure. she shrugs her backpack off her shoulder.] There's still some burn salve left in here; it'll hurt like hell later if you don't dress it. [thankfully, the box has directions.]
[[does he have his backpack?]]
no subject
he wanted to become a hunter. to be like the winchesters. strange, that he can't quite remember why. he's an angel— he answers to heaven. he— he has to do something.
even if something is just waiting. ]
... I can wait.
[ he eyes the backpack— he never gathered his own. he's not really one for material items. later, he'll have to go back and find it. ]
no subject
Cheris has no other information about this man, but he seems... very lost. or maybe to have lost something. hollowed out, somehow, in a way she's seen in some soldiers. she hopes he can figure out how the burn paste works.]
Okay. I'll be right back.
[and because a crisis is always easier to bear if you go through it doing something:] Can you watch for other survivors outside the train while I'm in there? My augment's not working so I can't contact anyone. If no one can connect to the planetary grid, we'll have to organize manually.
[she has yet to find her phone and there didn't seem to be any terminals on the train, so it doesn't occur to her that there's a local network which might be accessed in a different way.]
no subject
[ he's lost in more than a few ways, and there may be no saving him— he was trying to make things better back home, but he knows, somehow, that his reasoning was flawed. that his attempts were hollow. not that it's going to stop him from trying to save as many people as he can. he knows down to his bones that it's the right thing to do, that he should, that it's his responsibility.
which is why it's so hard to sit back. but his leg and arm are both thrumming with pain, near numb, and he feels dizzy and like he might be sick. he has to stop, or he'll only be more hindrance than help.
anyway, he complies with the second directive he's given after his savior leaves, watching for people outside the train while he half-heartedly goes through the backpack she left with him. he finds the burn ointment but after a few moments chooses not to apply it— it's a commodity that the people coming out of there will need. when his powers return, his injuries will heal, and it'll be wasted on him.
so he puts it back and sets the pack aside, waits for her to return.
a few times, people come stumbling out under their own power— he does his best to help them but can't offer much besides the burn ointment that was first offered to him, and they wander away to find help before he can do anything else. not that he has any information to give. they all seem to be operating on very little. ]
no subject
she wouldn't think of herself as a savior. just another person doing the job in front of her.
she doesn't want to leave the stranger alone for too long, and returns to him after pulling the last three bodies out and checking the ones he rescued before he got there. two dead, several with injuries or smoke inhalation. she sends the most mobile one off down the train line to check in with survivors from other cars -- an ambulatory communications signal -- and drags a sturdy broken branch over to the improvised bench where the tall man sits, suppressing a sigh upon seeing that he hasn't even attempted to treat himself.
okay, new plan. simple can be better, when people are this deep in shock.] Thanks for waiting. It's all right now. I've triaged the others; can I check your eyes for concussion? [he's lucid enough to make his own choices, so she won't touch his head without permission.]