The Powers That Be ([personal profile] powersthatbe) wrote in [community profile] synodiporia_ooc2015-01-31 06:44 pm
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Test Drive #7!

Welcome to the Synodiporia Test Drive Meme! Below the cuts there are three 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!

Our upcoming app round runs February 1st-7th, after which we’ll have our Shoujo/Otome Plot, Doki Doki no Gakuen, ins which high school rivalry blossoms into friendship and romance, and competitive students work to fill one another's moe-meters, sabotage hammerspace resources, and sparkle with determination.

Prompt #23 is a darker moment of surrealism - the Liminal Space Travelers inhabit between Jaunts sometimes draws in the characters' dreams - or in this case, their nightmares, colliding, competing, drawing people in.

Prompt #24 is a flashback to the Ivory Tower jaunt, our last stay at a school - an idealistic postapocalyptic academy where students, being students, cared as much for the fate of the coffee shop as for the world. When the coffee shop's funding is threatened, the students solicited donations during Open Mic Night...

Prompt #25 is a glimpse of a jaunt in the far past or future, a virtual world where intelligent algorithms lead lives just like people, and out on the edge of the mainframe, an ambitious group pursues semi-legal hobbies... even a computer world has squatters and bohemians, although those within the firewalls may think of them as viruses or junk data.


Prompt #23: Nightmare Dreamscape
Liminal Space suddenly fills with the sound of whispers, secretive voices that grow louder and louder until they almost sound like deafening static. Everything tilts sideways for a moment, and Travelers will experience a nauseating rush of sensations to their minds, like being blown around in a hurricane, or being sucked up into a tornado. This sensation disappears almost as quickly as it comes, and the whispers that had become so prevalent suddenly grow silent as the scenery changes. At first, each Traveler will find themselves alone, in a scene of their mind's own making. And it is not a pretty sight for anyone.

Veterans will recognize what this is - a dreamscape - and they will remember that it is very jeopardizing place to be, both emotionally and physically, as these places come directly from their own minds and the minds of their fellow Travelers. For those ill prepared, it can be traumatizing, physically harmful, perhaps even deadly. And ill prepared many will be, for these dreamscapes are nightmares, pure and simple. Even the most pleasant of dreams might appear as a twisted, blackened version of itself, and each Travelers' worst nightmares are bound to make an appearance. The dreamscapes have been notorious for shorting out the Telepathic Network that connects all Investigators, making it doubly hard to call for help. Even more dangerous are when two of these dreamscapes intersect, causing a terrifying hybrid that will likely be even more nightmarish than before... but helping other Travelers with their own nightmares may very well provide an ally to deal with yours.



Prompt #24: Ivory Tower
La Tour Ivoire Academe is a beautiful university with an equally stunning and lush campus, gleaming white against the stark gray of the post-apocalyptic wasteland outside. But neither the students nor the Travelers need worry about the radiation seeping through and harming them; the quarter-mile wide, four-story high walls filter out any of the harmful radiation from outside. With no windows in the lead-lined walls, it is hard to tell when night has come, other than the radiant light levels decreasing as the sun goes down behind hazy, toxic clouds. But evening brings about an event that everyone knows about from the brightly-colored fliers that have littered every vertical surface on campus - Open Mic Night at the Ground, the Ivory Tower's very own coffee shop, and for many its pride and joy. This is the chance for anyone to speak their mind or to sing badly at karaoke, and more than a few flasks of various alcohols will be slipped around to students and poured in coffees, while largely ignored by the teachers. Even if the thought of getting on stage is frightening, it's always possible to find a nice, quiet corner and watch the proceedings, perhaps quietly talking with some pleasant company in between acts.

Alternatively, for those who don't wish to participate or even watch, there are a few night classes being held for students in all three departments: Cultures and Humanities, Technology and Salvage, and Ecological Sciences. They are considered optional, but could very well gain some extra credit for those students lagging behind after midterms, or provide fascinating insight for Investigators that aren't familiar with this modern-day world, and wish to learn more.



Prompt #25: The Digital Frontier
The black glass plain beneath them matches the depthless black sky, but there are lights - white and orange and blue, tracing lines and shapes, the geometry of a city skyline in the distance. Here, unshielded conduits beam data and energy in streams of smooth white lightning through shallow grooves in the glass, and Travelers and programs take turns skipping across them, or using copper rods to divert them into other channels, sifting the data with pans for valuable bits and bites, or pouring it into molds to shape it.

On the digital frontier, there’s not much else to do - except practice for the Games. The Games can be a program’s big shot. Disc-dueling isn’t fatal, here, but solid impacts do cause momentary glitching when a throw lands rather than being deflected. And there are a few light-cycles racing in the night, but they’re old models, only able to turn at a ninety-degree angle, their solid-light wake having a length of only about a hundred feet before it derezzes.
closedcircuit: (neutral: cultured)

[personal profile] closedcircuit 2015-02-10 02:20 am (UTC)(link)
If he can talk about the morality of technology, he can most certainly consider the morality of of a psychic network. But just as clearly, Phillip is not the proper audience for that sort of conversation. Maybe he should just stick to getting to explanations. “I don’t.”
darkhourdear: (Pharos [idk my bff Minako?])

[personal profile] darkhourdear 2015-02-10 03:16 am (UTC)(link)
Sorry Ky. Phillip might get used to you. Maybe. Or at least, he'll learn to ignore the issues. "Um, well... we're not sure how important each of them are individually. I mean, with what they represent. But there are 22 of them, and they seem to be claiming people for something. We don't know what."
closedcircuit: (earnest: all his trust)

[personal profile] closedcircuit 2015-02-12 12:17 am (UTC)(link)
That’s okay, Ky has been distracted for the moment (by a greater threat). “So each of these people, who represents an ‘Arcana’,” whatever that is, “which may or may not be relevant, is claiming people. People like you and me?” Have they been brought here because they've been 'claimed'?
darkhourdear: (Pharos [I don't remember])

[personal profile] darkhourdear 2015-02-12 02:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Phillip nods. "Yeah. Sometimes, they show up during Jaunts- those things where we get sent to other worlds- and mark people. I think only three have shown up so far. The Fool, the Sun, and the Moon." Phillip is about 98% sure he'll get marked by the Death whenever it shows up.
closedcircuit: (earnest: for justice)

[personal profile] closedcircuit 2015-02-13 03:50 pm (UTC)(link)
"How do you know there are 22 of them, if you've only seen three? And what does the marking mean? What do the people who are marked have to do?"
darkhourdear: (Pharos [I don't remember])

[personal profile] darkhourdear 2015-02-13 05:17 pm (UTC)(link)
"Because there are 22 major arcana." Duh. "And we don't know yet. Just that it's happening."
closedcircuit: (neutral: cultured)

[personal profile] closedcircuit 2015-02-13 11:22 pm (UTC)(link)
"Can you name them all?" This is clearly important and not anything that Ky knows already. And given the tone of the voice, he should at least be able to get an answer to that question.
darkhourdear: (Pharos [I don't remember])

[personal profile] darkhourdear 2015-02-15 04:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh that was a mistake. "Yeah," Phillip says, nodding. He'll even go in order. "The Fool, the Magician, the High Priestess, the Empress, the Emperor, the Hierophant, the Lovers, the Chariot, the Strength, the Hermit, the Fortune, the Justice, the Hanged Man, the Death, the Temperance, the Devil, the Tower, the Star, the Moon, the Sun, the Judgement, and the Aeon."
closedcircuit: (emotion: fret)

[personal profile] closedcircuit 2015-02-15 11:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Ky wishes for a piece of paper and a pen, but he’s going to do his best on focusing on remembering the names that are being given. As strange as some of them sound. And then they get right on into disturbing. “The devil can mark people?” That is…something Ky had been happy to leave mostly to the metaphysical and the priests and certainly not something that should be taken literally. Ever.
darkhourdear: (Pharos [idk my bff Minako?])

[personal profile] darkhourdear 2015-02-16 12:15 am (UTC)(link)
Oh. Right. With the way the guy was talking about church... "Sort of," he says, "It's the Devil arcana, not like the actual devil. The upright Devil is actually a good thing, about a strong commitment or bond. The inverted side is about temptation and selfishness though, yeah."
closedcircuit: (religion: contemplative)

[personal profile] closedcircuit 2015-02-16 02:24 am (UTC)(link)
Ky can get the whole ‘not the literal devil’ point, but it still doesn’t make him happy. “Who decided that the devil could represent such a positive and powerful thing? A good commitment is one formed with knowledge and awareness of God.” Not that Ky knows anything about those.
darkhourdear: (Pharos [I don't remember])

[personal profile] darkhourdear 2015-02-16 05:04 am (UTC)(link)
Phillip just shrugs. He didn't make up the Arcana- that's just how they are, and as far as he's aware, have always been. "I dunno," he says, thinking the shrug might not have been either, "I guess you could ask, if they show up on a Jaunt."
closedcircuit: (earnest: would he let you down?)

[personal profile] closedcircuit 2015-02-16 11:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Ky bristles at that, fingers tugging on the sleeves of his uniform in order to straighten it. “I will do no such thing. If the Devil appears here, the last thing I’m going to do is start a conversation.”
darkhourdear: (Pharos [I don't remember])

[personal profile] darkhourdear 2015-02-16 11:26 pm (UTC)(link)
"But he's not..." Sigh. Phillip will give up on that. He's clearly not going to get anywhere. "Is there anything else you want to know?"
closedcircuit: (fight: ready and noble)

[personal profile] closedcircuit 2015-02-17 02:35 am (UTC)(link)
"I suspect that I don't even know what it is I need to know." At least he's aware of that much. "But I'll figure out what I need to, in time."