The Powers That Be ([personal profile] powersthatbe) wrote in [community profile] synodiporia_ooc2014-03-29 03:05 pm
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Test Drive #2

Welcome to the Synodiporia Test Drive Meme! Below the cut there are twofour new prompts, here and here are the prompts from previous testdrives, which you’re still welcome to use here. When you comment, be sure you specify what prompt you want to play with, and please put up your own threadstarter - it makes for a much more friendly environment that a forest of bare toplevels!

Prompt #9 gives a look at what it's like for everyone to be stuck in Liminal Space, & Prompt #10 is a chance to try your hand at being an infiltrator in our upcoming Noir plot.

Before you start, we’d like you to please take a quick look at the game’s Concept, its Rules, and the Liminal Space, Previous Universes, & Noir Plot pages, just to give you the background info you’ll need for some of these prompts. And if you’re looking for more information, the Directory is here and the Application page is here.

Prompts:



Prompt #9: Liminal Space

Today, if it's a day, Liminal Space has shifted again. It's twilight, and a moldering New Orleans graveyard, full of ornate gothic sepulchers, stretches in every direction, gray stone and wrought iron barriers sectioning it into smaller plots. Some of these mausoleums have been opened, and their insides don't match their outsides. Inside are well-appointed train compartments, dinner cars and sleeper cars and such, richly appointed and well lit, as if they come straight from the Orient Express. Out the windows, you can see the landspace whizzing by, although it's not the same landscape from one window to the next. You can feel the vibration of the train, the acceleration - but step out of the car and you're in a graveyard again, and inside the cars you can hear crickets and nightbirds singing and smell the rich aroma of flowering trees.

Also in the graveyard are a few scattered train-cars, but nobody's going into those - inside they're all dank spaces packed with decomposing bodies. There are small animals here and there outside - rabbits, birds, that kind of thing -- all of them dead, but none of them letting it keep them from their nightly routines. The crickets and nightjars are making train noises. Bemused travelers are finding comfortable spaces wherever they can.




Prompt #10: The Midnight Rose

It's half past nine and the joint is jumping. The shutters on the front window are down, the front door is locked, but there's a big mook with a shrewd look in his eye letting anybody with a black enameled rose pin on their lapel in through the delivery entrance, and the back room they're shown into doesn't look anything like a candy store. There's a small, dark bar in one corner, and in another corner six guys with strings and brass are making like they're the Duke Ellington orchestra. The floors are tiled parquet and a few couples are dancing, but most of the action's at the smoke-shrouded card tables where a dozen little private meetings are happening, gents and dames in pinstripes and fancy hats or beaded dresses and heels, but rarely both. There are card games and conversations going on, and who can say what's more high stakes? Tonight, this is the place to be, Bensonhurst outfit or Gravesend mob or anybody else who can pay the cover charge.
willyousee: (Vulnerable)

#9

[personal profile] willyousee 2014-04-23 02:16 am (UTC)(link)
Twilight turns Alcuin's white hair to a vision of lavender and periwinkle, where he's standing in the grass, head cocked to listen to the clattering of the crickets. Quiet and pensive, he stares thoughtfully into one of the train car mass-graves, wondering if any of the bodies bear the faces of those in Travelers' memories. If he were to enter, would he find Phèdre among them?

Shivering, he drifts down the verdant stretch between fences and absently pausing near the mausoleums to listen to others' conversations. But he can't bring himself to linger or focus for long without companionship.
neverfeltthatway: (1)

[personal profile] neverfeltthatway 2014-04-27 03:40 pm (UTC)(link)
"Alcuin!" Armin wanders quietly over, making his way toward his new friend. Though his initial shout is cheerful, he slows, becoming more somber upon seeing the change. Though few of them have the dignity of actual graves, he's had far to many friends die before him for a graveyard to be idle, or hypothetical. And he doesn't want to know what Liminal Space would make of the people eaten by Titans.

"...this is even more dismal than usual, huh?" Alcuin hasn't talked too much about home, but... well, he doesn't need to. He's not seen the same things, certainly, but by the looks of it those graves don't look hypothetical for him either.
willyousee: (Secretive Smile)

[personal profile] willyousee 2014-04-28 04:06 am (UTC)(link)
Alcuin looks up with a reflexive smile, though he is genuinely pleased to see the blond. "Armin! Yes, it is rather... unpleasant. I'm glad it isn't all tombs, but it's not precisely uplifting, either." He looks into the nearest mausoleum, intrigued and a little put off by the strange interior. "Do you know what any of it is meant to be? Or to mean?"
neverfeltthatway: (hooded)

[personal profile] neverfeltthatway 2014-05-03 11:39 am (UTC)(link)
Armin looks around at the graves and the train-cars, then shakes his head. "I don't recognize any of it. And no, definitely not that...

I wonder if they're real dead people. If they actually existed at some point, or if this is just something else this place made up to torture up.

Just... It seems almost mocking, doesn't it? Like this place, the trumps - they're making light of death, and the sacrifices of those already gone."

There's a fair amount of anger and bitterness in his voice, unusual for the quiet and considerate teen - definitely more than Alcuin has ever heard from him before.
willyousee: (Shy)

[personal profile] willyousee 2014-05-04 07:07 am (UTC)(link)
An involuntary shiver passes over Alcuin's skin at the thought of the bodies being the remains of actual people. "I sincerely hope that these are false images, put here to discomfit us. To make us consider the consequences should we fail. I would hate to think that any god would be so cruel as to make light of the fallen, even if they were followers of a different god."

Watching his friend, Alcuin lays a gentle hand on his arm, acknowledging the strong emotions. "If you would like to go look..." to see if you recognize anyone "...You won't need to go alone."
neverfeltthatway: (determined)

[personal profile] neverfeltthatway 2014-05-04 12:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Armin shakes his head. "They mock the fallen either way. I would not name them gods, though - they're not worthy of that." There is an angry, scornful certainty in his voice at that.

Armin glances at Alcuin, startled at his words and his touch. Then he looks back at the train-car, staring for a long time. Finally, he turns his back on it, looking to Alcuin. He looks slightly sick - sorrow and fear and anger in his gaze - but for all that, his voice is strong.

"No. There's nothing in there that I need to see."