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

1-F

Adora doesn't like any of this. The last thing she needed was having her life interrupted, right when the entire planet was poised to be invaded by Horde Prime and Glimmer was kidnapped (or something). Somehow, she feels like she could have done something better. Like she could have been faster or smarter or more on top of things and then she wouldn't be here, like this is some sort of weird punishment for not being quite good enough. This place also reminds her of the Fright Zone in deeply unpleasant ways, especially the whole shock collar and the repeated assurances that yes, they were absolutely doing the right thing.

She'd heard that before. And she'd believed in it, too, right up until she'd been shown the truth about the world. Then she'd fallen for it again with Light Hope and the sword and... everything else. She's not going to trust in a "benevolent" authority figure so easily again. Especially not when they're quick to resort to torture. It really does feel like Shadow Weaver and the Fright Zone all over again and she doesn't like it. It makes her skin crawl.

She can't do anything, though. Her mind is working overtime, going a million miles an hour trying to come up with a plan or something she can do that won't result in her (or more importantly, anyone else) getting shocked. Maybe she just has to wait - but she's awful at just waiting, so Adora hits the gym instead. She's on one of the treadmills at first, determined, eyes locked forward, expression set as she pounds out a five kilometer run. Once that's done, it's on to weights.

Which means...

"Hey-" She needs some help, "Can you, uh, spot me?"

She gestures at the bench-press she's getting ready to lift. Safety first, right?

Alternatively, she can be found beating the ever-living crap out of one of the punching bags.

2-K

Day two. Not better than day one, so far. In fact, it's arguably worse, since there have been alarms going off and animate objects chasing people all over the rig. Adora is frazzled, frustrated, and incredibly ready to just start breaking things. But she can't do that right now. No; she has to make a plan. Plan first, smash later. Come on, Adora, get it together.

She peeks out of the door she has half-open and then ducks back into the little room (more of a closet, really) with the handful of others she's managed to find. Outside, the sound of distant wells, clattering, and general chaos continues. She takes a deep breath and reaches up to tuck her hair back into her customary ponytail, snapping it into place with a hair-tie. It's time to get to work and that means taking charge. No one else is going to do it, right?

"OK," she says with a frown, "Let's take a second - there's at least two of those stupid fire-hoses down the hall and we need to figure out how to get past them. What do we have that we can work with?"

Give her something. Anything. Please.

Catra had already been in the training area, massive as it was, in an attempt to burn through some of the frustrated energy that had been building up since she'd woken up here. Shit food, shit clothes, shit everything, really. Well, the rooms actually weren't bad by Horde standards and the food was better than she was used to. Real stuff, not just grey ration bars. The point was, though, she had gone from being abducted by Horde Prime to being abducted by Jorgmund and she wasn't really pleased. Glimmer wasn't here, which meant she was already out a familiar face (even if that face hated her).

The training room helped. She had been doing some sort of gymnastic routine on the various pommel horses, parallel bars, and monkey bars available and had moved on to some free weights. Familiar enough to someone who had grown up with a rigorous physical training regime. So focused had she been that she hadn't been paying attention to those who had arrived after her. Then, as she set her weights down, she heard a voice. A very, very familiar voice and she turned, eyes wide.

"Hey. Can you, uh, spot me?"

Adora was standing there.

Adora was here. With her. In this place. Catra isn't sure what to say.

"...If you trust me to do it," she finally says, her voice quiet and more than a little bitter.

Oh.

This is a little awkward. The last time she'd seen Catra had been not great, but that summarizes most of their relationship for most of the war. And now she'd just asked her to spot her in the gym. She opens her mouth, closes it again, and tries to think of what to say.

"Catra."

That's a good start.

"I - I didn't know you were here."

She hadn't known anyone else was here, honestly.

A little awkward might be putting it lightly. Catra sets her hands on her hips, staring back at Adora. She's trying to process this, doesn't know if she wants to. Maybe this is a trick, some kind of psychological test? But... no. That's way too much effort for these guys, based on what she's seen.

"I didn't know you were here either, Adora. So that makes two of us." Catra's default is to be sarcastic. She needs to play defense until she knows what to do and say next.

"Figures they'd want some big hero like you, though. Why they want some miserable failure like me, I have no idea," okay that part was kind of un-Catra, but... when your whole personality gets dissected by a theater kid from hell it kinda takes the wind out of your sails.

"I think they just want anyone they can get their hands on," Adora responds dryly, not all that impressed by Catra's sarcasm. At least she still sounds like Catra. All hostile and mean and full of sharp edges.

"These people remind me way more of the Fright Zone than anything else."

There's a pause from her.

"Are you doing OK?"

"They must be desperate," Catra replies, just as dry. When did they get to the Crimson Waste?

"Asking about me? Didn't know you cared, Adora. And I'm doing fine. Just got kidnapped twice in one day, this time to a whole other dimension, and I'm stuck here. With you. So yeah. I'm great," Catra answers, scowling. She looks distinctly uncomfortable in the provided physical training clothing. It's obvious that whatever she got given was not meant for someone quite her build, and so the shirt is a little too baggy and the shorts a little too long, even though she's rolled the waistband up a couple times.

"And none of the clothes they gave me fit. I had to cut a hole for my tail in these things," she says, still as sullen as ever.

"But what about you, Adora? How're things for Etheria's chosen one?" She steps over towards the bench that Adora was planning to use for her picking-up-heavy-things-and-putting-them-down routine.

"And did you want a spot or not?"

Edited 2020-04-05 20:20 (UTC)

Adora bites back a retort. She is not about to get into a yelling match with Catra about this. They're both in the same boat right now anyway, right? So there's no point in making this harder than it has to be. And unlike Catra, her clothes actually fit.

She folds her arms, trying to figure out what she's going to say as she steps back toward the bench.

"Aside from being kidnapped to another dimension?"

She doesn't say again, although she sort of wants to.

"Just fine."

She steps over the bench and lays herself out, staring up at Catra for a long moment. Does she trust her? Maybe. She wants to. But there's a long history of Catra deliberately trying to hurt her.

"Are you going to actually spot or just laugh at me when I get pinned down?"

Adora | She-ra and the Princesses of Power

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