test drive meme

[airlockedmods]

Since we know a lot of people are ready and eager to start playing around in this setting, welcome to the official Airlocked Test Drive! For this test drive, we do have a posting format:

In the header of your comment, put your Character's Name and their Champion title. You don't have to put in the canon if you don't want, but you can if you feel the need.

And the guidelines we ask you to follow are, please try to include at least one prompt in your top-level to reply to, and if you make a top-level try to tag out to at least one other person. We want everyone to get a chance to give their choices a fair shake, after all.

Here are some examples to get you started:

A - Arrival
You wake up in a bed that's not your own, in a shiny chrome room that has bright fluorescent lights that light up along the floor as soon as your feet hit it and glowing sconces on the walls. Whether it's much different from what you're used to or not different at all, it's time to figure out where you are and more importantly, whether you're alone.

B - Mealtime
Well sweet, at least there's a cafeteria! But wait, it seems like there's only hot food during certain times of day. The rest of the time if you go foraging in the kitchen you can find weird silver packages with the name of food on the side that...definitely don't seem big enough to hold the food in question. If you open it up, it seems oddly dry...

C - Zero G
A zero gravity room! Awesome! The walls and floor are textured to give you something to hang onto to crawl across back to the control panel, but if you're floating in the middle of the room you might need someone to give you a push.

D - Holo Deck
A room where all your dreams come true. Kind of. In a photorealistic display of light and sound.

E - Anything else!
Or Create your own!

This is not an official reserve, nor does it guarantee a slot in the game, but if you do choose to app a character that you test drove, you can use two minimum 20-comment threads or one minimum 40-comment thread (so at least 20 total comments from your character) in place of writing a sample. So have fun with it!

Comments

[serrata]

[ ... okay she wasn't expecting that.

She squints through the dark again and... aaah, there's Takumi. She makes her way towards him, taking her steps slow so she doesn't spook him by looming out of the dark all of a sudden. ]

... When you put it like that, I take it you didn't mean to wake up here, then.

Did you sleepwalk?

[tacomeme]

..yeah. It happens sometimes.

['When I'm stressed' is left unsaid]

I think I pulled up something on the machine in my sleep.

[serrata]

Ah.

[ Now she gets the ragged breathing. ]

I'd say we should be used to waking up in unexpected places by now but that might be a bit of a tasteless joke considering the circumstances...

[ there's a long pause, like she's trying to feel him out and work out how much would be overstepping her bounds. ]

Do you need to talk about it?

[tacomeme]

No.

[Said too fast and too hard]

... you can stay if you want though.

[please stay]

[serrata]

[ Mhhm. That's what she thought. ]

Should we turn it on? Just so it's not so dark and quiet in here. A change of scenery might be nice.

[ especially if it's a change away from whatever he was dreaming about that got him into such a state. ]

[tacomeme]

If you want.

[in the dark it's impossible to see his face well, but he hides it in his knees regardless]

...maybe someplace from your realm?

[serrata]

... That might be nice.

[ If she can get this right, anyway. There's a reason she hasn't used the holodeck to 'visit' home like the others have.

She slowly sits herself down on the floor next to him taking the time to try and remember the right school and the right garden. It takes a moment but eventually the room shimmers into life and the two of them are sat on the Megurigaoka High School's rooftop garden.

Yuuri's quiet for a moment but when the sound of chatter and shrieking comes filtering up from the grounds below she gives a small smile. ]

... There. Or close enough, anyway.

[ there's no zombies so she supposes she loses some points for accuracy. ]

The school I used to go to... our gardening club had free reign over this garden. We used to grow whatever we'd like... as long as we could actually get it to start taking root, of course.

[tacomeme]

[The vegetables aren't that strange to him- but the building and the foggy, indistinct signs of modern civilization in the distance are a bit much for him to take in. He's seen glimpses in other people's holograms and books but... right now, with his mind so raw, he doesn't have the reserves to spare for taking it in.

So he focuses on the plants]

Oh, you're in schooling for farming?

[it wasn't so different from the people Mikoto would send to help farmers learn new techniques. Just on a larger scale! How clever]

[serrata]

[ That gets a laugh. ]

For everything, really. The gardening club was just an after-school activity but some of the other girls were so serious about it. I think they were planning to go to school for farming once they graduated.

It was only really ever a hobby for me, though. I enjoyed it but I don't think I ever saw myself making a life out of it.

[tacomeme]

[He looks up from his knees, and while his eyes are still red, he looks much more interested in this then his dream]

As a hobby? All this work...?

[her country must be VERY well off. He knew things like flower arrangement as a hobby, but not growing legitimate crops. Pondring the social implications had him practically giddy]

[serrata]

There were enough of us to split the duties and make the workload a bit lighter. It wasn't always fun but it was always rewarding in the end.

[ There's a tingle of nostalgia as she talks, gazing out across the garden with sort of detached fondness. She misses when it was just a hobby, just for fun. It's harder to enjoy gardening when you know your health and possibly your life relies on getting a good harvest. ]

But our school was all about these kinds of clubs. It was about... fostering personal growth and independence in all its students for us to take into the adult world. Or something like that, if I remember the welcoming pamphlet properly.

[tacomeme]

So it taught things to kids so they had skills to sell as adults.

[He nods slowly. Sure, there's were teachers in Hoshido. But mostly as tutors to nobility, like himself. Or taught at the collages that trained the bureaucrats and samurai. Most village people learned their trades from their families or someone in the area that was already an expert. Temple schools were becoming more common too, so it wasn't too strange for a few people in a village to know how to read and write and spread it around. Just not to this massive degree. Was this entire building a school?]

I think I understand. Do they just teach these things here, or did you learn writing as well? And numbers?

[serrata]

It's a bit of everything. Most of the people coming here have already been to school before so we all come in at the same level. Reading and writing and mathematics... they'd try to drill that all in at middle school so you could be prepared and get into a good high school.

[ She gives a dry laugh. ]

Of course, the whole point of getting into a good high school was that it prepared you for a good college... so it's a bit of an endless cycle.

... I think I could probably show you some of the classrooms, if you'd like to see them too?

[tacomeme]

Levels of schooling... did you have to test to move up? O-oh, and yes, please.

[He stands up carefully, dusting off his knees and offering her a hand up as well]

[serrata]

You do! They're entrance exams. They're a bit different for each school, I think, but they're never any fun.

[ She takes his hand and pulls herself up to her feet as well before looking out over onto the roof. This was easier than she'd expected but... well, the roof was for the most part untouched. A classroom might be a bit harder to conjure up unscathed.

She pauses just long enough for her hesitation to be apparent but then she hitches the corners of her mouth back up into a smile. ]

Why don't we start with the rooms the other clubs used? The music room might be nice.

[tacomeme]

[Even in his excitement to learn more he can't miss that slight hitch. And considering what had frightened him so badly before was images of his home...]

Wait... Yuuri, are you sure you're okay showing me all this?

[serrata]

It's fine.

[ She says it so quickly that she very nearly cuts him off. Her smile doesn't shift at all but the way she answered was probably a little telling. ]

I wouldn't be offering if I didn't want to show you. It's just... strange. Seeing it so normal again and I'm... here.

[tacomeme]

No... I think I understand.

[He looks away, face pinched]

I saw my home in here too, before you came in. It wasn't very nice but I think waking up and being back here was what really ... set me off. I don't know.

[serrata]

[ She's quiet for a long while before she says anything. The room's not silent by any means with all the commotion from the yard filtering up to the roof but it doesn't hit her ears quite as right this time. It sounds fake. The air's too still. She can't feel the sun.

Her home is a total disaster. But she still misses it.

She gives a considering little hum before finally deciding to admit something. ]

This is the first time I've pulled up an image home in here, you know. I didn't want to let myself do it before now. I didn't... trust myself with it.

[tacomeme]

Ngh, I didn't even THINK of that before asking you to do it. Damn it... I'm sorry, Yuuri.

[His hand clenches, digging his blunt nails into the meat of his palm. Stupid, stupid. Of course everyone else was just as sensitive about their homes as he was]

Well... we could pull up something else?

[serrata]

It's my own fault. I was imagining myself wallowing in here all day with school going on around me. You don't have to apologize.

[ She doesn't exactly trust herself to not pull up what the school actually looks like either and she really doesn't want to traumatize her poor fellow captives even more. ]

But... well, something else apart from home would probably be better for both of us. We'll be going back there soon enough so mooning over it in here is a bit silly.

[ is she really that optimistic or telling herself that so she doesn't totally lose her shit? you decide. ]

Any ideas?

[tacomeme]

Well... why not make something new?

[He had only seen people pull up places they knew on this thing. But maybe they could create something?]