goneawaymemes | TDM #1

Entry tags:

*test drive meme

TDM #1

TEST DRIVE #1

So it's your first day at your new job! Welcome to the Jorgmund Family™! It's time to settle into your new workplace on the Piper 90 rig, the coziest place of employment this side of the Livable Zone. A leader in its industry, Jorgmund is excited to have you join them in enthusiastically envisioneering team-driven paradigms.

The Piper 90 rig's mission is not only an impressive undertaking in terms of impactful customer-oriented deliverables, it's providing a vital backbone to the Livable Zone by creating a safe region for citizens to live, work, and play. Jorgmund's "outside the box" thinking means they understand the importance of wisely investing in their human capital - you! You'll soon find that you'll take pride in this vital work - and the benefits can't be beat.

Rest assured, Jorgmund's multidisciplinary approach to our world's period of recovery means we know how to keep it real when facing this opportunity for restructuring and growth. Jorgmund: Even if most of the world has gone away, we can make a world of difference!

Synergy!

USEFUL LINKS
It is recommended you check out the following links first for info on the rig, rig conditions, game mechanics, and the intro and slideshow your characters would have to endure that takes place chronologically before the Test Drive Meme:

Welcome/Arrival | Rig Weather & Hazards | Rig Setting Page | Game Mechanics

SCENARIO #1 - MOVE-IN DAY!

After the bewildering and unpleasant onboarding process, you've finally been unleashed on the rig. (Well. To places you're allowed to go on the rig.) It's time to get acquainted with your new surroundings, process some of All Of That™, and meet your fellow captives - err, coworkers!

a) A BIT OF A MESS
Perhaps you're hungry? The mess hall food isn't amazing, but it does the job. Characters that have higher metabolic needs than your average human might be left feeling a little hungry, though. The worst part is actually the electronic sliding door: a small sign helpfully informs you that if you want inside, you need to smile for the camera! In addition to being patronizing, this may be a problem for characters who refuse to play ball, or characters with sufficiently nonhuman faces the door sensor can't read them. Remember, if then company doesn't see people like you, it's not discriminatory -- it's just indifferent! And that isn't legally actionable!

b) GOING NOWHERE FAST
The rig's elevators are a little off-kilter today. Overhead announcements mention this, but downplay the severity and are easy to miss -- which means you and your threadmate are stuck in here, somewhere between the fifth and sixth floor. You can complain into the emergency intercomm, but it might take from a few minutes up to an hour before the elevator gets rolling again. How do you pass the time?

c) SHOULD'VE TAKEN THAT LEFT TURN
You're really just trying to get somewhere else on the rig, but you've gotten hopelessly lost. Oh well, at least you're not alone! Did you run into your threadmate here? Did you lead them astray? Are they at fault? Even worse, are you somewhere full of AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY signs, mysterious equipment, and a worrying number of security cameras?

d) NEED A HAND?
You've been assigned a room and some relatively spare possessions to put in it. Unfortunately, it seems that the staff assigned to help move in new hires are all busy at the moment. Unless you want to wait around, you're going to need to lug and assemble your new assigned foldable den furniture yourself. Do you team up with another newbie? Do you try it alone and find yourself needing help? Do you come to the rescue of someone else who did that?

e) SPECIAL DELIVERY
Somebody in processing decided to give you two a quick little errand: you're supposed to take a couple boxes of files up to the executive deck. Unfortunately, a skeptical security staffer is giving you a hard time on your way there, on account of your funny-looking face, insufficient ID or sketchy-looking package. How do you deal with this and accomplish your task?

f) BLOW OFF STEAM
You're likely still a bit sore from Jorgmund fitting you with the nanochain, but you were promised a gym and you are going to use that gym, dammit. It looks like you're not alone in deciding to try out the training area. Do you train together? Spar to let some frustration out? Or are you gonna argue about whose turn it is on which piece of equipment and resent your lost solitude? You'll also find you have to contend with the communal showers when you're done.

g) NO REST FOR THE WEARY
It's the middle of the night on the rig. You're displaced from home, it's not very warm, your door doesn't shut because privacy is a "privilege" nobody has earned yet, and occasional mysterious clanging noises ring through the rig. You can't sleep, not yet, and perhaps you're not the only insomniac wandering the crew deck?

SCENARIO #2 - YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO PANIC

Around dawn on the morning of Day Two, something goes wrong. (Wrong-er?) You awake to the sound of alarms, and a voice over the speakers telling you NOT TO PANIC! A Stuff storm has caused a brief and contained leak onto Piper 90. You may encounter strange sights or sounds. Any anomalies should be reported immediately to rig security. Thank you for your cooperation!

The nature of the problem isn't immediately clear, but over the next handful of hours you find yourself embroiled in a bizarre fracas: a Stuff leak has caused numerous inanimate objects on the rig to come to life. Furniture and appliances small and large are roaming the decks. Some of them are docile, but others are aggressive (or just troublesome due to their size). Some examples:

A rogue photocopier spewing paper and ink
A mahogany conference table with old clawed feet and a brand new gaping jaw
A water cooler that scuttles the halls, squirting people with jets in varying temperatures
Small office supplies like pencils and paperclips that swarm in large numbers
Dressers and drawers that spit their contents at high velocity
A room's worth of folding chairs that hunt as a pack
An emergency fire hose that attempts to ensnare crew members in its coils
The angriest coffee pot you have ever seen

The objects can be dangerous, but are more strange, troublesome, and determined than deadly. If a foe seems to be incapacitated or "plays dead," even the aggressive conference table or hose will leave them with bruises and move on. Crew members who get in over their heads will be bailed out by security personnel as the incident dies down. Jorgmund staff stresses that the leak has been contained (so no new anomalies will appear), but after the initial surprise it's everyone's job to help hunt down and dispose of the Stuff-altered... stuff. It's gonna be a long morning, and you haven't even been properly briefed yet!

h) GOOD MORNING, PIPER 90
Rise and shine! There are alarms going off, announcements blaring, and people are scrambling around trying to figure out what's going on. You're one of them. Freak out? Spring into action? Team up with someone to shake down a staffer for more details? Run into someone new, perhaps literally?

i) INTERIOR WRECKORATING
You've been ambushed by an animate object that seems to have it in for you, or you've heard the shouts of someone who has and come running to help. What's ruining your morning now, and what are you going to do about it?

j) ON THE RUN
The folding chairs from Presentation Room B operate as a unit, harrying their prey through the halls with much scrambling of legs and flapping of seats. They're after you, at the moment. Can you escape, or perhaps lead them into a trap? Or do you stand your ground?

k) HERE'S THE PLAN
You and your threadmate have found somewhere secure (for now) and are deciding how to deal with a larger enemy. Are you hunting it, or is it hunting you? Are you planning to take it out of commission, or just how to get away from it? Or are you just gonna hide here and lay low until this is over?

l) PROP HUNT
Things are getting back under control, thankfully. Large disturbances have been disposed of, but that leaves the little things like elusive chains of paperclips, a small but vicious stapler, pens and markers that write rude words on walls, and utensils from the mess hall. These anomalies are stealthier, but must still be dealt with, and it's up to you to flush them out.

m) CLEAN UP IN AISLE EVERYTHING
The chaos has passed, and now you've been instructed to clean up a mess. Ink or loose paper from the copier, coffee from the rampaging pot, mopping up after a water cooler, scrubbing marker off a wall, etc. You might get roped into contending with the Yuck Puddle, which is a permanent fixture and not a new development, but someone's always contending with the Yuck Puddle.

OOC DETAILS
➤ Feel free to play around with powers. If your character has powers from canon you want to play around with, go for it. If you'd like to test out possibilities for game powers, also go for it. Feel free to change it up from thread to thread if you need to. This can be handwaved as exposure to Stuff making characters' powers shift a few times before settling.

➤ Potential players may use test drive threads as their log samples. However, at least one post in their thread must fit the requirements for apps, both in length (200 words) and in quality. If you do plan on using a thread as a sample, please make sure the writing throughout your threads is a good example of your writing skills and has some solid examples of the character's voice.

➤ Players can eventually count TDMs towards AC. They can only count towards comment-based AC proofs.

➤ Potential players can opt to keep these threads as game canon when they app in, or start over fresh, based on preference. The Stuff bringing them to the game universe can fog their memories, if players don't want their character to remember TDM threads when introing into the game.

➤ The game is invite-only. Players without invites are allowed to tdm since some of them may know someone in game to ask for one, and since some people enjoy TDMs just for fun in games they don't plan to app into. But an invite is required during the apping process.

➤ The game is at a starting cap at 30 players. Right now the current number of invitees is likely to not exceed the game's 30 slots, but if we go a few over they will still be allowed to app during this first round. Future apps will be rolling apps and will have a wait queue if the cap has been exceeded.

➤ The first game round will be apps only, no reserves. Apps open: Sat 4/11/20. Game start: Fri 4/17/20.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There's an almost immediate change in Sam's bearing as soon as Stacia says, "I'm a werewolf." The smile, the 'friendly giant' demeanour falls away and he straightens, managing to look fairly imposing even while sitting.

Internally, he was running down what he knew about werewolves and if there would be anything of use here. Unfortunately, he was already coming up empty. If this turned bad, he was in more than a bit of trouble. Even the fact that Stacia was fairly small and doing her best to look harmless didn't mean she was actually harmless. He'd been hunting far too long to just write her off for being five foot nothing.

After a moment, he nodded, expression still closed off as he worked through that. "All right. I'm not sure what that means for you in particular. I know what it would mean back home, and it wouldn't be good." The look in his eyes wasn't exactly wary. A little more interested, wanting information first before deciding to jump one way or the other. "That said, since I'm fairly certain by now that we're not from the same world, I'm going to hope that while that might mean you turn furry on the full moon, it doesn't mean that you do things like tear the hearts out of humans in order to feed."

It's said pretty mildly, but Sam's body language says he's ready to move in moments if necessary. So not QUITE as mild mannered as he had been trying to come off as.

It's impressive how much body language can change a person. Stacia watches with interest as Sam goes from big doofy guy to big intimidating guy, even while sitting. It's pretty impressive, and it says good things about his ability to deal with the kind of bullshit Stacia expects to have to deal with.

"For me," she says, choosing her words carefully, "it basically means that I'm a white blood cell in Mother Nature's immune system." It's a decent enough metaphor, especially if you take into account that Mother Nature has developed some kind of autoimmune disease.

And she is definitely going to start including "does not eat people" as part of the werewolf introduction. She wrinkles her nose dramatically.

"I don't eat any parts of humans for a variety of reasons, primarily that cannibalism is gross," she says. "Also, even though you didn't ask, it's not just the full moon for me. I shift at will."

It wasn't entirely meant to be intimidating to her. It was mostly a switch from being relaxed to the possibility of having to work.

"Sounds like our worlds are pretty different." And there's a bit of relaxation in his spine as he says that. Mind, he has only her word that's true, but at least he knows to keep an eye on her. "So...I'm not sure what that means, exactly. What do you do as...part of the immune system? Or, more to the point, what does that mean for your world?"

"It's a quasi-spiritual sort of situation," Stacia explains, mentally digging through her memories of the lore and editing for clarity as she goes. "I was born a werewolf, but my parents are both human. It means that I can shapeshift, but also that I can interact with totemic spirits of various concepts. Some of these spirits are trying to bring about destruction in a way that doesn't lead to renewal, or trying to freeze it in unending stasis. It's our job to fight those things and the people and things they manipulate, to try and keep the world turning. Also to try and improve the world if we can, but stopping the end of all things has been keeping us pretty busy."

Plus cleaning up their own messes. Cleaning up their own messes alone would have them very busy indeed.

"I have to admit, I didn't know that was a thing that could happen." Naturally born werewolves. It's an usual thing to think about for him. Especially if she was born of two humans.

Still, he gives a half laugh at the end of it. "Yeah. Yeah, that's kinda been the story of my life recently as well. The stopping the end of all things. Or close enough, really."

"Maybe it's not, back in your home," Stacia says. He seems to be reassured by what she's saying, which is good. Judging by his concerns, the stories about werewolves he's familiar with are of the 'supernatural-rabies' variety. She wonders if other animals can catch his home's werewolf-rabies -- chickens? Moose? Or is it just humans? Would a moose-werewolf crave moose hearts or are human hearts somehow special? Maybe something to ask about later.

"Oh yeah. At a certain point, it may as well be "'close' only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and the apocalypse"."

She may or may not have made a relevant playlist.

"So...we cool? Or do you have more questions or concerns?"

"Well, it's more that from what I remember hearing, it wasn't going to be the end of all things. But it was going to be the end of about half the population of the world, so seemed prudent to put a stop to it."

If he knew what she was thinking, he'd probably bitch face. And laugh. Because he'd heard that nickname a few too many times by this point.

"I mean. I'm a bit curious about how you change and what sort of form you have. But I think that's can be put off for the moment. I will definitely ask you if I have any questions."

"I stand by 'horseshoes, hand grenades, and the apocalypse'," Stacia says, sticking out her tongue at him.

It's probably good for both of them that he can't hear her thoughts. She's not lying about anything, but she is being careful to not reveal too much, since there was no way to know if Jorgmund was listening, or technically if Sam was going to turn around and report on her.

"I mean, I can show you if you'd like," Stacia says. "I'd need to duck behind something first, since as awful as these clothes are, I'd rather not completely shred mine. But I can absolutely show you what I look like when I shift."

To Crinos specifically, since that was the only other form Jorgmund for sure knew about so far.

The look on his face was less calculating and more...curious. Interested. Sam kept himself and Dean alive by knowing more things about their enemies than their enemies knew about them.

"Okay. If you feel comfortable doing so, I'd certainly be interested in seeing it." He grins. "There's no telling what we may have to deal with going forward, so knowing what the people to trust look like when shit's going down would be a good plan."

"Yeah, sure." Stacia turns away and trots off to find cover, trusting that Sam is either cool enough not to try and jump her when her back is turned or that he at least wouldn't be fast enough to do it from his sitting position. She ducks down behind the training equipment and strips out of her clothes (still not worth it to dedicate them to herself) and lets the Rage within her surge to the surface.

What trots back out into view is something that strolled out of a Hollywood Horror film, so real that it almost loops back around to looking fake. Stacia is still bipedal, but her legs are wolflike and her arms are long enough that she could likely knuckle along with little difficulty. Each limb ends in claws that look more like razor sharp talons, and she has teeth to match. She's also very, very big, which is why she stops at about the halfway point to give Sam the option to approach her instead of cornering him. Her eyes are wolfish gold and her shaggy fur is gray and brown and white. Her crown braids are even still there, woven into the fur on her head.

Stacia makes a chuffing noise and swishes her tail, then slowly and deliberately boops her own nose to indicate that she's perfectly in control of herself, thank you.

He's not entirely certain what to expect when she comes back out.

And that's...not what he expected at all.

Sam does get to his feet, wishing for a little bit of silver. Just in case. But he does approach slowly, because... "Okay, strictly by the laws of conservation of mass, that shouldn't even be possible."

Okay, she looks like something out of a REALLY high budget remake of The Wolfman, but she hasn't attacked him and he doesn't feel like she will. Gut feeling. He's learned to go with it over the years. He doesn't get too close, though, staying just out of arm's reach. What he figures is her arm's reach, any way. "Well. I can definitely say that I won't mistake you for anybody else in a fight."

A Garou in Crinos can't really giggle, but the chuffing noise Stacia makes when Sam brings up the conservation of mass sounds close. She raises her hands and waggles her taloned fingers a him, lethal jazzhands. This close up, he can see that the chipped polish on her fingernails (pink, except for the ring fingers, which are silver) has spread to cover all but the sharp edges of her claws.

"Na-gik," she says, through a mouth in no way shaped to produce English. This is not a form for talking in, not to humans.

She lets him look for a bit, then turns to the right to give him a profile view. She also curls her arm like a body-builder posing for the camera, and her tail is swishing in a way that is definitely not about keeping her balance.

"And that's the weirdest sound I've ever heard. And I've seen some shit back home."

He watches her, mouth quirking into a half smile. "You're showing off now." Because, yeah. She's almost definitely stronger than he is in this form.

Oh how the turns have tabled regarding 'who can use whom as a free weight'.

She spreads her arms and makes an interrogative noise, pointing back at the equipment where she'd left her jumpsuit. She can't talk when she's like this, but if he's done looking, she'll go and shift back.

That makes him blink a bit, taking a moment to put it together before nodding. "Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Easier to talk when you're tiny and cute, anyway."

She's way too young for him. Doesn't mean she isn't cute and he has a feeling she knows it. Puts it to good use, even.

There's a certain spring in her step as she goes to duck behind cover to shift back. He's definitely too old for her, but she does ever so much like her cuteness being acknowledged.

It's a matter of seconds to shift back, and it doesn't take too long to pull her jumpsuit back on, then she's back out and returning to meet up with Sam again.

"So yeah, that's me," she says. "Obviously, English isn't really happening when I'm shaped that way. But I can understand it just fine."

"Wolf jaws are not made for English, no." Even if that wasn't quite a wolf jaw. It was certainly a SOMETHING jaw, though.

He nods slowly, considering. "Well. Now I know what to be on the look out for when we end up in a fight." It's not an if for him. Whatever's going on here, it's probably going to be something that they'll end up having to be in a fight for at some point.

Or maybe that's just Winchester luck. He's not certain.

"Jaws, lips, larynxes - none of it," Stacia agrees. "Wait until you hear me howl or scream though. I have truly impressive lung capacity."

She makes a face. She also has no doubt that they're going to end up in a fight at some point. Likely multiple points, or they wouldn't have kept her around after what happened when they demonstrated the shock collar. "Just make sure to tell everyone else not to shoot when they see me too. I heal fast, but bikini season is already unforgiving enough without friendly fire incidents."

Edited 2020-04-24 19:40 (UTC)

Sam flashes her a quick grin. "I can imagine. I have plenty of similar issues." Not quite as many since Castiel brought his body back from hell, but more than a few. And a couple of scars that were still there from before. Sam has never been certain if Castiel had left them on purpose or if there was something else at play. "I'll make sure to let everybody know not to shoot at you. Hopefully, it won't happen more than once."

After all, it would get around quickly when people saw her other form.

Stacia's lone scar at this point is from being stabbed by a pitchfork in a spiritual realm. Everything else has faded with the help of accelerated healing. Her tattoo had barely been a year old when she'd lost it, and it had already begun to look like it would need a refresher session sooner rather than later.

"Anyone who shoots at me twice is getting their weapon confiscated," she says. "I don't have my guns here, but I'll be happy to take them off anyone who can't practice basic safety with them."

"In that, unfortunately, you and I have the same problem." Sam's smile flattened out as he shook his head. "I had a knife with me when I arrived, but not my guns. And don't get me wrong, it's a good knife. But it kinda got confiscated."

"They'd have probably confiscated my knives, if they could," Stacia says, wiggling her fingers to indicate that she's talking about claws rather than any other physical knives. "Maybe you'll get yours back when they send us out to do something. They'll probably take it back again after, though. They seem like the type."

He chuckles, even if it's not really funny. "No doubt. Though I suppose a demon-killing knife is probably something they want to keep out of people's hands." Sam generally prefers using knives if he doesn't have a gun. Being without either is weird.

"Ohhh," Stacia says. "Yeah, in that case, they probably want to see if it's something they can duplicate. I mean, anything that can kill a demon can probably kill anything else, right?"

Demons are hard to kill. Take it from a girl who turns into something meant to kill lots of things.

"I'm not sure if they KNOW what kind of knife it is." A pause. "And I probably shouldn't have actually said anything, really." But, what the hell? It wasn't like these guys apparently thought they were real, anyway. "It can definitely kill a lot of things. Should be glad I didn't have an angel sword on me, I suppose."

Which actually killed even more things.

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