Test Drive Meme #1 (cw vehicular crash, moderate injury)

[spoofer]

Test Drive Meme #1

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

You don't need an invite to test
but please remember we're currently invite-only

CRASH LANDING

Exit one dimension, enter the next. It was chaos: pressure against your ears, light bending in an impossible, unimaginable way. The very molecules of your body vibrating against one another. If you have windows, the view outside makes no sense. Even if not, your hands, your face, your feet seem like an uncertain thing. It's the feel of reality itself tearing apart, reshaping, reconnecting, thread by thread.

And suddenly, there's a beach— or ocean, whichever you land in. Smoke. Fire. Salt water churning up, fizzing around.

Maybe you crash, in a ship wrecking into sand. Maybe you merely stumble out of a portal, a ragged wormhole in space. Or maybe you fall off the back of an incredible steed, some creature that carried you into this place. Either way, there's pandemonium around you. Incredibly, severe injuries are far and few between— nobody's screaming about the dead. But you might have to help pull someone free of wreckage, or move quickly to salvage burning belongings from the landing craft. Maybe it's the crafts themselves, that you're trying to salvage.

Likely, you don't know them, these other strangers who arrived here^[1]. Maybe you don't trust them— you just came out of a dying world, after all. But you all have one thing in common: you're here now.

When you get a second to breathe, maybe you'll see it. The brilliant green forest across the sand. Beyond that, the glint of a faraway city.

INTO THE WOODS

Your first night at Xistentia does not feature five-star accommodations, but as the sun begins to set, the forest offers everything you need to survive. By now, you may even have met your daemon, who'll help guide you through this. There is fallen wood to make fires for warmth and cooking, any number of rabbits, deer, and fish if that's what you're into eating. Those very same animals also provide guidance as to what vegetation is edible, including a variety of vine mushrooms, fruits, and flowers. If you're the kind of creature that mostly eats other sentient creatures, well. Technically, there are a lot of those hanging out too^[2]! Now and then, you'll see tiny, winged humanoid creatures the height of a finger dart in and out of view.

A resourceful group, the multiversal refugees have determined ways to create shelters, using wreckage, supplies, and basic survival knowhow. There aren't enough blankets to go around, but the weather is mild and the fires seem to keep out any aggressive creatures.


Things get quiet. This could be a good time to meet the others under less fraught circumstances. Maybe you'll see some familiar faces and reunite with others who fled from your dying world; maybe you'll meet someone new.

Try not to seek out and fight any Rock Trolls. It's still early.

ENTER THE CITY

The city is beautiful, even with the vines covering everything, the streams running down half the streets, the massive white deer leaping off under the highway overpasses. The architecture of the skyscrapers is incredible to look at, modern and sweeping. It's clear that terraced gardens were part of the building design, and some of the greenery that lines the street had been part of the original city plan. This is a city of great potential.

And it knows you're here. As you walk by, beacons like streetlamps begin to emit a gentle glow, registering your presence. No doors are locked, though you might find yourself chasing out nests of silver-winged birds and bug-eyed rabbits.

Here, you can claim empty shops or the clothing and other sales items inside of them. Apartment complexes aren't difficult to find in a range of sizes; nor are standalone homes, brownstones, loft studios. Penthouses may not feel like penthouses when there's a thin layer of dust growing on everything and a flower growing out of the sink, but you know what? Maybe that little bud is gonna be your first roommate.

It's the strangest thing. After a few days, the lights begin to work and the water begins to run, fully operational within the unseen sewer system. At some point, the keys to your house or residence are going to turn up. Your daemon will help you find what you need. F.A.TE.S. welcomes you.

NETWORK

By now you've settled in. You have some time to explore the city, the woods, and your new kit.

Chances are pretty good that your daemon is not a phone or a computer or a wax-sealed piece of parchment or a Howler, nothing with a convenient camera or a keyboard; it probably isn't even a pocket sized. Likelier, it stares at you with eyes that contain the lenses-- or powers-- of a camera, and some part of its body projects a holographic keyboard into the air. For those of us who are not accustomed to manipulating intangible light prisms, it's about as intuitive to type on as shaping a cloud with your fingers.

But here's your network access. Accessible to all your fellow travelers in XISTENTIA.

Misfires, typos, and blurry video footage are likely. Time to feel like a Luddite!

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

hells yeah

Footnotes

1. Some of these can be nameless, plot-device NPCs to facilitate interactions! But even in this case, please avoid gore in describing their current state of being. Anyone dead or catastrophically injured will have disappeared by the time your characters make it to Xistentia. There are no corpses or dying here.
   
   
2. But like OOCly ask permission ofc.

Comments

[rekt]

[ from off in the trees, after Aaron's gone stomping away in his fit, there's yet another crash and burn whistle, this time with the explosion sound effect included.

Good job, axel, you really handled that well.

If he comes looking for him, he'll find Murphy leaning his back against a tree, looking pensive, though rather cynically pensive. ]

[rekt]

[ Murphy's head lolls to look at him, giving a sidelong look and a small smirk. ]

I'm pretty sure it could've gotten worse. There wasn't a punch thrown, you still have your balls attached.

[ Aaron is a vicious little thing, even if he's never done either of those things to Murphy. If it were him in that spot, though, he's sure he'd have at least given a shove. If this gay thing was as important to him as it was to Aaron. ]

You seriously gonna tattle on him?

[rekt]

[ Murphy shrugs, expression nonchalantly indifferent. ]

Not much. Doesn't make a difference to me if you tell him or not, not my life you're exposing or my sanity you're endangering.

[ as Aaron had said - it isn't really anything. Just screwing around because it feels good, and because Aaron needs the opportunity right now, to help figure this out for himself. ]

But, if you're worried about honesty, you should probably stop pretending you're helping him. This is for you, and Andrew. Not him.

[rekt]

There's a difference between interested and involved.

[ there's plenty of people Murphy's eavesdropped on that he didn't give a flying fuck about. He's just nosey.

And. He does care a little about Aaron, but that's not anyone's (including aaron's) business but his own. He listens to the speil with the same blank expression, and it sounds so much like Clarke Griffin that he kind of wants to puke. Of course it's a bad idea. Sharing information that other people aren't ready to share yet is always a bad idea. That's how you get riots, he should know. ]

Whatever helps you sleep better at night. [ Murphy shakes his head, expression wry, and considers leaving it at that for a long moment. But, no, there's something else wrong with this, with Axel feeling so convinced he's helping. ]

You're acting like he's already gay, what Aaron's doing is experimenting. That's like saying his brother needs to know that he had peach jam one morning instead of grape. If Andrew really has such a dire need to be that much in his brother's business, maybe the both of you should rethink what the concept of personal freedoms means.

[rekt]

[ they're nothing to aaron, and that makes them nothing to murphy. if they were something to him, who knows, maybe it would be something else. maybe it'd be something like he's something with kavinsky. but they aren't, and, to murphy, this guy is inserting soap opera drama where they don't need any. ]

If they can. Not if they're forced.

[ which is what telling andrew will do. which is what that whole conversation just was between the two of them. forcing him to discuss something he wasn't ready to face with that much honesty. ]

And if you just made him too pissed or scared to ever touch another dick in his life again, yeah. Good luck with that, Oprah. [ it's possible aaron's never going to show up on his doorstep again, and if that's the case, murphy isn't chasing him. it'll be sad that he'll go back to being so repressed he can't even abide himself being curious, but ultimately, not murphy's problem. ]

[rekt]

[ because you are ridiculous, axel. any because the both of them already have people they're in love with back home, if they can ever get back home.

any attempt at doing something against someone else's will outside of 'stop them from dying' feels like the kind of crap got people killed on the ark, that sent the 100 of them down to earth, that had murphy mob lynched. the idea that it's for the best and people deserve to know. there isn't going to be an argument that will have murphy in favor of this (unless it some how kept him from trouble, which murphy's really doubting it will, the way aaron spoke), no matter the potential damage otherwise.

he sighs, pushing off the tree, before he gives a shrug, looking back in the direction he'd left his pile of branches in. ]

Well, Fairy Godmother, I'm sure you know what you're doing. [ was it sarcasm? it was sarcasm. ] And I know who to blame if I stop booty calls, which, by the way, weren't actually booty calls. He's barely even brave enough to kiss.

[ they'd done more than axel had seen, yeah, but not fucking much. moving on, he's taking a step back towards where he came from. ] But I've got huts to build, and you've got secrets to sit on.

[rekt]

It'll never stop being funny hearing people say that like it's news.

[ yeah, he's a prick. he's the guy everyone hates back home, who was kicked out of the safety of camp because he got mad when they hung him for someone else's crime. no fucking shit john murphy is a prick. ]

If Andrew comes to talk to me, I don't plan on hearing anything he says, because he's not my freaking problem.

[ he's aaron's problem, he's axel's problem. aaron is hardly even murphy's problem, just someone who wants a service he provides - being male, and easy. ] And unlike Aaron, I don't have an issue with admitting that.

[rekt]

[ 'someone to make him happy'. all axel had to do to make murphy immediately come out here was say that specific thing. he isn't making aaron happy, he isn't ever going to. the kind of person he is is not built for bring joy to people, and when aaron isn't sticking his tongue down his throat, he's cursing his existence for giving him this weird, foreign, insulting lust. ]

I'm not the person to look to for that. [ when murphy says it, it comes out in the same dry, half-joking tone like the rest had, no indicator of how much self-loathing sits behind it. ]

Just here to help him get rid of blue balls.

[ it doesn't tax him at all to give aaron what he wants, does it? and he's getting off too, at least, as often as aaron gets to it without having a meltdown and running out of his apartment, again. ]

[rekt]

So what you're meaning is 'someone to make him a little bit less pissy'.

[ because aaron is always some level of pissy, let's be real here. and honestly, murphy's still not sure if he's left in a better mood or worse after coming by his place. he knows he enjoys during, but the times he runs off in a fit of gay denial, that's a hard argument to make. ]

He just needs time to figure out what he wants. He'll be fine.

[ except, well, time he isn't going to get, because axel's about to drive the andrew train straight through this mess. but, whatever. aaron will live. probably. (hahahaha) ]

[rekt]

[ a beat, and the serious part of this seems to go completely past him, as he stares pensively at a distant tree. ]

Older than me.

[ which is funny, because he's so tiny, and inexperienced, and hasn't had nearly enough near death experiences, and here's murphy, barely freaking legal.

and here they are, talking about aaron like he's the child in the situation. ]

[rekt]

About three months past 18.

[ is that how long he'd been in eudio? eh, close enough. but he was 17 before showing up, and then he was told he was 18. woohoo.

barely. freaking. legal. ]

[rekt]

[ surprising people still makes murphy a mischievous sort of proud, smirking as he leans a shoulder against the tree, more properly facing axel. ]

I know. Cradle robbing and homo, right? Poor Aaron.

[ so many sketchy things to be at once, poor babbu. it does occur to him to make the morbidly amusing joke of 'hey, i can officially be floated now', but keeps that to himself. ]

[rekt]

[ murphy shrugs, considering mentioning that emori, his actual girlfriend back home, is around 25, so it's really not a concern of his. but, he doesn't really want any of these people knowing about her. or that much about him. the only one who was aware was bellamy and, well, he's gone now, along with all of eudio.

so, it's just a shrug. ] I'm from 2149, no one really gives a crap what genitals you're touching.

[ age, yeah, probably more so, but they didn't have freaking vampires back home, and the thought doesn't bug murphy much. none of the problems he's had in eudio, or these intrapersonal things in xist, have done much in the way of bugging him. ] There's worse issues to have, anyway.

[ after all, even healed over and faded as they are, and difficult to see with the dirt of the forest speckling him, there's still light scars from titus's whip on his cheeks. his forearms, though covered in heavy sleeves, still bear marks from that first time he'd been taken and tortured, redness around his wrists from the last. there's definitely worse issues to have. ]