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annexedmeme2022-11-06 09:45 pm
modaccount) wrote in annexedmeme2022-11-06 09:45 pm
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Test Drive Meme #3
Test Drive Info
⇝ Test Drive Memes take place in a virtual reality simulation occurring in characters' minds that tests them for 'fitness' before they enter the setting officially. Because it is set in a simulation created by the Sylphid, the missions, while being comparable to regular missions in the game, will be from a Sylphid perspective.
⇝ Characters will not be chipped during the simulation, and will have access to their abilities from canon, but will be chipped upon waking for the rescue.
⇝ Current characters can easily be pulled into the simulation if they are sleeping and dreaming when it's happening. The Sylphid cast a wide net with the simulation to fill it out with characters to interact with for prospective new arrivals.
⇝ Test Drive Meme threads may be considered game canon so long as all parties agree to it.
⇝ Test Drive Meme threads do count for Activity Check.
i. Awakening
It happens in a dream. You fall asleep and the next moment you feel like you're awakening again, but without any exhaustion, as if you've had a full night's sleep. You find yourself in a comfortable bed in a room full of comfortable beds, all of which contain other people waking up just the way you are. The room is large but cozy, with wide windows that are framed by light curtains, and the sun is shining in from an angle that suggests morning.
Once you're up and moving around a little, ready to explore this new place, you'll discover an open door on one of the walls in the room, through which soft strains of music can be heard, and above which there's a sign saying "Free Breakfast." Once you make your way into the room, possibly with some of the other people just waking up in this strange place, you find a buffet table loaded with breakfast foods - some familiar, and some strange, mainly featuring mushrooms and root vegetables. Quiet, soothing music is playing and there are a variety of tables with chairs available to settle down and enjoy some food.
This is just a dream, right? What could be the harm in eating a bit of food, maybe trying out some cool alien cuisine, and getting to know the other people here?
ii. The Mission: The Fungus Among Us
Once everyone has eaten their fill and gotten to know their new compatriots a little better, there is an interruption in the music playing in the room. Three musical chimes sound, and a pleasant female voice speaks.
Attention, new recruits! We have a mission for you.
The intercom goes on to explain that there is a forest of mushrooms called The Troop that borders on the northwest walls of the city, which releases spores near constantly (though more prolific in fall) that have a hallucinogenic effect on sentient beings. These spores can cause people traveling in The Troop to become disoriented and confused, experience vivid auditory and visual hallucinations, and become permanently lost. Generally, the spores aren't a problem inside the city or in the surrounding area because no one has built close enough to the Troop to suffer serious effects. However, this particular fall, the spore count has been significantly higher than previous years, and spores are making their way into the neighborhoods bordering The Troop. Even worse, the spores are having a slightly different effect on top of the usual ones.
The spores, once inhaled, are growing into microscopic fungi that populate in the brains of citizens and take over the brains of the infected. Once taken over, the citizens who are infected are servants of The Troop, and will do whatever they can to infect others by whatever means possible, whether it's by capturing spores and releasing them in people's faces or by gagging up fungi that will infect others. Beyond that, there is a kind of mania about the people who have been infected - they are wide-eyed and high-energy, they will accost random people with spores or fungi, they will chase people down on the street to infect them.
Beyond that, there's another effect. Those inflicted with fungal infection become distinctly lacking in any kind of verbal filter. They will say exactly what they're thinking, they will blurt out secrets, expose themselves emotionally, and share their innermost thoughts and dreams. After all, it's not like the individual mushrooms in The Troop keep secrets, they're all part of a larger whole, and that's how infected individuals will behave. It's as if they're sharing a consciousness, taken over by the hive mind of The Troop, and see others as simply extensions of themselves.
Will your character get infected, try to help the infected somehow, or just plain stay out of the way of all this madness?
iii. The Mission: Full Fungal Smackdown
As the infection gradually progresses, those who are infected start to become more violent, which is a big problem. The infection is slowly spreading throughout the low-income neighborhood that it initiated in and moving toward the city proper, with increasingly aggressive infected doing their best to infect others. Their methods are starting to become more aggressive as well, where before they would simply spray others with spores or present them with mushrooms, they are now altering common devices like leaf blowers to spread the spores over a broader area and violently attacking people to shove mushrooms into people's mouths, curling fingers inside their mouths to force the fungi into their victims' sinuses and infect them.
It isn't just infection techniques that are getting more aggressive. Their behavior in general is aggressive - the infected are starting fights, are attacking people, often shouting in a strange, unintelligible language. The tone of the attack is that of people defending their own territory, fighting off intruders or predators, even if the person they're attacking made no moves to strike first. Attackers may fight hand-to-hand or even employ weapons that they are familiar with to attack others, whether it's guns, knives, laser swords, or anything else they might use in their regular uninfected life. Even those who were non-combatants will use kitchen knives or other makeshift weapons to attack the uninfected.
They never attack the infected, somehow they seem to know immediately who is and who isn't part of the hivemind.
As the attacks start to really escalate and there is panic in the streets, characters will be informed that a cure for the infection has been found, and everyone who isn't infected should stop by one of the Sylphid trucks carrying syringes of the cure and load up. Anyone who's able to fight, or even who is just capable of carrying and using a syringe, is asked to take a bandeau of them and to inoculate anyone infected. Unfortunately, though, the only real way to tell if someone is infected is by that wide-eyed look, and the attack that comes out of nowhere.
iv. Welcome to the Broken World.
The simulation is over, and you don't even know how you got here from there.
All you know is that one moment you were participating in a mission to save the Sylphid children, to uphold peace talks, and then you were asleep again, after the mission was over.
You wake up in what seems like the blink of an eye, nauseous and dizzy but otherwise unscathed, possessions taken away, barefoot and dressed only in a set of plain grey clothing, like the most bland uniform ever imagined, in an empty room with empty walls and one single door with a small barred window and a single number printed just above it. The door is locked and cannot be broken by any means, you can feel your connection with any superhuman powers you had severed, leaving them just out of reach - you can feel them there, tingling at your fingertips or in the back of your brain, but you just can't get to them. There is no one to greet you or explain what's happening. You start to lose track of time, the only sound the distant ticking of what sounds like a massive clock.
Just when things seem hopeless, when you feel like you're about to go mad, there's the sound of a commotion outside your door. The sounds of a battle, or perhaps an infiltration gone just slightly wrong. Either way, when the door opens, there is a figure there with a hand outstretched.
"Welcome to the Broken World. Come on, we'll explain everything just as soon as we get you and the others out of here."
no subject
[Usagi's face is a weird mixture of concerned and affronted. Neither emotion quite sure which one to display. But she's got concerns.]
How do you expect to make the most of your day if you don't start off with enough fuel? Both your brain and body need it you know!
[Look, the fact that food was fuel and so was important? She stayed awake during that part of science class. Got to have reasons why snack breaks and the like are important for when some people try to protest otherwise.
Ahem Rei]Here. Try some of mine. I insist!
[Not that she's given the poor girl any time to protest. But she doesn't go overboard with it, just nestling a really yummy bun and a single piece of some sort of root vegetable onto her plate. Honestly she's not really sure what either of them actually are. All she knows is that they both taste really good and so New Friend must try them.]
Oh! What's your name? My name's Usagi, Tsukino Usagi. I'm sixteen!
[Said because out of everyone here, New Friend seems to be the closest to her in age. There's a lot of old people here. Eeek.]
no subject
[And then Usagi's enthusiasm and volume has Li falling silent, letting her go off. She's concerned, and that's... well, that's very odd, because no one is usually very concerned about Li, but it's nice, too.
She wants to protest that she doesn't really need this, that she's fine, but Usagi seems so earnest the words die on her lips before she can say it. Instead she ends up sort of staring, luminous red eyes wide and brow furrowed as the other girl decides to dole out food like an odd older sister.]
Oh, uh. Thank you, Tsukino-niángniang.
[Her tone hopefully translates the politeness of the suffix even if this place can't quite find a good cross-language version of it, and Li very dutifully pops the vegetable into her mouth and eats without complaint.] That's... it tastes like really good watercress, but it doesn't look anything like it at all. [Why does this root vegetable taste like a leafy vegetable? How is that even possible?
Li dips her head politely, trying to find a way to keep the light from catching her eyes and making them glow too creepily. No need to scare off the first person to be nice to her in this strange dream.]
I'm Li Ya-Jing. Li is fine. It's nice to meet you, Tsukino-niángniang. I'm fifteen.
[She's solidly middle-of-the-pack in terms of age back home, but here, they seem to be some of the younger ones present. Age is a relative thing, she supposes.]
no subject
Aish, what's she going to do with this girl that she's only just met but already adopted? Why fuss over her and make sure that things are okay in the future. That's what. Then there's a pause. Oooh learning time?
What's a niángniang?
[Not that she was worried about it being rude. She wasn't. It's just that there's only so much she can get based off of tone. So why not learn something new about New Friend?]
Right? It tastes just like one of my mama's side dishes despite looking nothing like it!
[New Friend seems to be the Very Polite sort who uses Lots of Manners. That's fine! Usagi might be loud and a little brash on occasion, but Ikuko-mama didn't actually raise a boar. Though she interprets the little dip as a small sort of bow, so naturally Usagi has to return the gesture. It's only polite! Which is why...]
Li-san it is then! [See? She can do politeness. Won't insist on the informalness she would normally. Since it feels like something that would make Ne- no, Li-san uncomfortable.]
So I'm older! [She won't take advantage of this fact. At least... not right now.] That means I have to keep an eye out for you. It's only right!
[A pause, before a sunny smile. This isn't awkward at all. For Usagi anyway. Usually the only things she finds awkward are when she's extra ditzy or clumsy.]
Don't worry, I'm a lot tougher than I look.
no subject
Oh, uh, sorry. I'm used to speaking with people whose first language is Mandarin, and I'm from Heilongjiang, where we tend to talk in a way that's a little old-fashioned. It's what you put on a girl's name to show you respect her, especially if she's older than you. Usually it goes after the last name, for schoolmates and strangers. So you would be Tsukino-niángniang, and then I would be Li-xiǎoshēng to you, since I'm younger than you. [She pauses, then cringes at herself.] I know Mandarin is tricky for people who don't speak tonal languages, though. We can use -san if that's easier for you.
[She raises both eyebrows, surprised.]
But why would you look after me? You just met me. And I'm training to be a bodyguard, so shouldn't I be the one protecting you? It feels unfair that you have to do things just because you're a little older.
[Responsibility shouldn't fall on her shoulders automatically. That's a bit harsh, especially when it's someone as cheerful and kind as Usagi is. Li doesn't have a lot of friends, but she's pretty sure one person isn't supposed to be doing all the work. That sounds less like friendship and more like exploitation.
Li takes a bite of the yummy bun, blinking in surprise.] This tastes a lot like caramelized sweet potato, but there's no caramel. I wonder what it's made out of? I kind of want the recipe, now. [Usagi mentioned her mother cooking. Li wonders...] Do you cook, Usagi-san? Or does your mother do most of the cooking?
no subject
[She's trying not to judge, but that just sounds like so little food. Usagi can't imagine surviving on that little.]
No don't apologize! There's nothing wrong with things being unfamiliar, it just means I get to learn something new! You shouldn't have to apologize just for being yourself!
[She listens intently, trying to repeat the sounds but inevitably messing up the tonalities.]
Li-xiàoshéng? [A pause, Usagi makes a face. No, that wasn't quite right.] Xiǎoshěng? I'll get it right eventually!
[And she will! It's just going to take a few tries.]
Li-xiǎoshēng? [A grin, because success!] Li-xiǎoshēng!
[Oh right, she should actually listen to what Li-xiǎoshēng's saying and not just focusing on how to say her name.]
-San might be easier, because it's what I'm used to, but that doesn't make it better. Would you prefer Li-xiǎoshēng?
[After all, if she ended up homesick, having someone who at least addressed her like they would back home would probably feel nice, right?]
I'm pretty used to taking care of people. [Though it's not like she can easily explain why. Though she gets sidetracked again.] You're training to be a bodyguard? That's so cool!
[But also, protecting people is kind of part of Usagi's whole job and destiny. Or at least it was back home. Maybe it's not here, but... hm.]
In that case, how about we protect each other then! That way it's more equal.
[A pause, because while she's getting better. Usagi's cooking skills are still pretty mediocre. There are a few things she can make reliably, but she's not on Ikuko-Mama or Makoto's level for sure. Honestly, she's not even on Mamoru's level.]
I mean... I cook a little? But usually I just eat other people's cooking.