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synodiporia_ooc2015-12-18 08:28 pm
powersthatbe) wrote in synodiporia_ooc2015-12-18 08:28 pm
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Test Drive #13.
Welcome to the Synodiporia Test Drive Meme! Below the cuts there are two new prompts, and here are the prompts from previous test-drives, which you’re still welcome to use in this post. 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! OCs are especially welcome! Please take a quick look at our Directory & familiarize yourself with the concept and setting of the game before you jump in.
Our upcoming app round runs December 18th-31st. Our next Jaunt, Escape from Junkworld, is a space opera romp where humans, aliens, and androids work together on mysterious scavenged, malfunctioning ships to outrun an interstellar disaster. Our next Walkabout (a more casual alternative event, for those not interested in the Jaunt) will revisit Heartbreak Academy, a shoujo anime setting where high-schoolers use Social Technology to bring shoujo special effects to life, from glitter to roses, transformation sequences to sad rainclouds, these cartoony powers are at the height of education for those who want a career in media or diplomacy, or some other means of big-stage self-expression. Both Jaunt & Walkabout will begin January 7th & run for approximately six weeks.
Prompt #37 is set in the Escape from Junkworld jaunt, as an advance taste of the fun available there.
Prompt #38 is set in a created landscape within the Telepathic Network all Travelers can access, and features characters facing their inner demons and traumatic memories together.
Prompt #37
The Coronation's coolant system has sprung a leak somewhere in its kilometers of pressurized tubing - near enough to the diagnostic centers to short out the readouts, meaning half the crew is up to their elbows in the decking, ceramic floor plates scattered along the corridors like loose shingles, making traveling between workstations like a game of holy grail hopscotch between the tiles and the potholes they left.
Besides that, the leak leaves the entirety of the ship smelling like a cross between pond scum and burned espresso, and set the radiation alarms to a distracting buzz - not enough for klaxons, just a constant, low-level warning that set the teeth on edge.
In the ship’s simulator chambers, anyone visored and gloved to work in virtual space can ignore it - but the computer environment may experience glitches in its programs, whether functional or recreational. On the bridge, other systems are experiencing occasional failures - from sensor shadows hinting at unreal pursuit and activating automated combat routines, to the translators in the comm system shorting out and creating a momentary babel.
Meanwhile, between evacuating irradiated areas, crawling through the conduits looking for the problem to fix, or quietly shooing smuggler-snails full of contraband out of the way of the search parties, there’s something for everyone to be doing...
Prompt #38
Sometimes someone’s issues lead to them being swallowed by a dungeon in Liminal Space and forced to confront their darker side, their repressed issues - but you can’t always wait for an arbitrary interdimensional force to kidnap you. Here in the Mind Palace, the world is simply a vast, blank white space, and glittering glass cubes float in the air, each holding within it a freeze-framed memory of a traumatic moment, something you’ve chosen to face here together with your companions. Maybe only one of you is going through this gauntlet, or maybe you’ve opted to face your fears together, but whatever this captive image is, you’ll have to explain it or let it play out, and come to grips with what it means to you - whether a happy memory you’ve lost, something that makes you sad or afraid or angry, or even a piece of your past that had been buried or forgotten until now - there it is, in front of you, waiting.
What happens next?
Our upcoming app round runs December 18th-31st. Our next Jaunt, Escape from Junkworld, is a space opera romp where humans, aliens, and androids work together on mysterious scavenged, malfunctioning ships to outrun an interstellar disaster. Our next Walkabout (a more casual alternative event, for those not interested in the Jaunt) will revisit Heartbreak Academy, a shoujo anime setting where high-schoolers use Social Technology to bring shoujo special effects to life, from glitter to roses, transformation sequences to sad rainclouds, these cartoony powers are at the height of education for those who want a career in media or diplomacy, or some other means of big-stage self-expression. Both Jaunt & Walkabout will begin January 7th & run for approximately six weeks.
Prompt #37 is set in the Escape from Junkworld jaunt, as an advance taste of the fun available there.
Prompt #38 is set in a created landscape within the Telepathic Network all Travelers can access, and features characters facing their inner demons and traumatic memories together.
Prompt #37
The Coronation's coolant system has sprung a leak somewhere in its kilometers of pressurized tubing - near enough to the diagnostic centers to short out the readouts, meaning half the crew is up to their elbows in the decking, ceramic floor plates scattered along the corridors like loose shingles, making traveling between workstations like a game of holy grail hopscotch between the tiles and the potholes they left.
Besides that, the leak leaves the entirety of the ship smelling like a cross between pond scum and burned espresso, and set the radiation alarms to a distracting buzz - not enough for klaxons, just a constant, low-level warning that set the teeth on edge.
In the ship’s simulator chambers, anyone visored and gloved to work in virtual space can ignore it - but the computer environment may experience glitches in its programs, whether functional or recreational. On the bridge, other systems are experiencing occasional failures - from sensor shadows hinting at unreal pursuit and activating automated combat routines, to the translators in the comm system shorting out and creating a momentary babel.
Meanwhile, between evacuating irradiated areas, crawling through the conduits looking for the problem to fix, or quietly shooing smuggler-snails full of contraband out of the way of the search parties, there’s something for everyone to be doing...
Prompt #38
Sometimes someone’s issues lead to them being swallowed by a dungeon in Liminal Space and forced to confront their darker side, their repressed issues - but you can’t always wait for an arbitrary interdimensional force to kidnap you. Here in the Mind Palace, the world is simply a vast, blank white space, and glittering glass cubes float in the air, each holding within it a freeze-framed memory of a traumatic moment, something you’ve chosen to face here together with your companions. Maybe only one of you is going through this gauntlet, or maybe you’ve opted to face your fears together, but whatever this captive image is, you’ll have to explain it or let it play out, and come to grips with what it means to you - whether a happy memory you’ve lost, something that makes you sad or afraid or angry, or even a piece of your past that had been buried or forgotten until now - there it is, in front of you, waiting.
What happens next?
Pod - The Dragonlord Trilogy
Pod is at more than a little bit of a loss. All of this is so strange that it might well be magic. It isn't, and she knows that, but she's capable of doing things with it about as well as she could cast a mage's spell. She was very confused at first about what was even happening, but now that it's explained what the spell means, and what could happen if the leak isn't found, well!
She and Kiga (a very large wolverine to other investigator's eyes, at least) are pretty good at finding things as a team. Kiga is not happy about tracking down the smell, and his grumpy noises testify to that, but his person wants to find them (it's important too), but his nose is better than anything here. And he's proud of that fact.
Pod, trailing behind the wolverine, offers encouragement and helps him navigate where claws and stout legs can't give him much purchase on slick tile. She's just a little nervous about behing herself for once, but offers a cheery smile and wave at anyone else in the corridors.
Prompt #38
There is a tiny girl that might be thirteen, and might be younger, standing near a cluster of cubes. Her hair is white as snow, and she's dressed in brown and green clothes that look medieval. Beside her is a massive wolverine, snarling quietly at the cubes. She puts her hand down to calm the wolverine, and then turns her head to look at her current companions. Her expression is turned down in discomfort, and what's probably embarrassment.
"You needn't look; I've no idea why these appeared."
There are several of her memories freeze framed, but the two closest show very different portions of her life. In the first, there is a tiny, tiny malnourished child, no older than four at the very most. She's dressed in rags held together by grime, with skin just as covered in muck. Under the dirt there are numerous cuts, oozing sores, and harder to see, bruises. Her hair is so thickly coated with filth and so very tangled that it's impossible to tell the color. It's probably never been cut. Her eyes and the way she holds herself are so full of wariness and fear that it could almost cut like a knife, and crouched before her is a young (and quite exhausted looking) man in brown and green, an expression of horrified pity on his face as he stretches out his hand like one would try to calm a hurt animal. At that man's back is another that might be a mercenary if his height and very large sword is any indication, looking quietly furious at another crowd far in the background. Those people are well dressed, looking like some servants and a representative of a minor noble family. Not a one of their frozen expression has any reaction to the girl, only concern and perhaps fear and frustration directed at the men.
The other, Pod is recognizable as her current age, but clearly been having a hard time of it. There's dirt and tears and cuts in her clothing and on her skin, probably from trekking through a forest, or running, and her face looks like she's trying with all her might to open her mouth and scream with at least some defiance, but her body is held very unnaturally, as if forced to stop moving mid-motion and held that way by some invisible force. Another girl with a splinted arm is next to her, looking terrified and equally helpless, and a man with crazed eyes and a very, very sharp knife has been caught mid-bound over a wide stump of a recently cut spruce.
Around the group are vile gray mushrooms that look downright evil demarking a wide clearing with the cut tree in the center, flowers the color of fresh spilled blood, scattered from a torn pack, two hand-whittled spears, and further out a forest that looks subtly wrong, like it's sinister and means ill to any who pass through.
37
She returns the smile in kind. "We're getting close to the problem now." She's very confident in that.
no subject
Pod glances down at the wolverine when she says so and the wolverine croons in return, before turning to peer at Jaina with deep, brown eyes that seem more aware than animals usually are.
"Well met! I'm Pod of Gray Holt, and this is my brother-in-fur, Kiga."
no subject
But she didn't have time to miss Jacen. They needed her in a situation like this. "I'm Jaina Solo. My dad started showing me how to work on systems like this before I can even really remember."