January 2024 Test Drive Meme: Our First!

[sweetmod]

Welcome to the Simulation: Our First Test Drive

Taken | Reserves | Application | Activity | TDM Questions | Premise | FAQ | Calendar Full Navigation Reserves open 01/27/2024 @ 12:00 AM EST Reserves close 01/31/2024 @ 11:59 PM EST Welcome to our Test Drive Meme! Our Test Drive Memes are considered game canon and are open to current players and prospective new players alike! It is completely optional to keep your TDM threads as canon to your character's experience in the game, so feel free to play around and enjoy the flexibility before applying! All TDM threads can be used for samples for your application and activity proofs. All TDMs come with an additional greeting message from Daisy in addition to her typical Welcome Message. This is her message for newbies for this month: "Hi there, Sweet Subjects! Congratulations on being the Very First Batch! That also means you're the first friends I've made for this whole project! Isn't that exciting? Unfortunately, I have to already apologize to you. You see, I wasn't expecting you quite so soon! My math was a little off and well...There are a few kinks in the system I'm working out. But don't worry! I'll take care of everything. You can trust me. After all, we are friends, and it would be very rude to not trust your friends! Why don't you just stay inside this little house while I fix things up? You'll be safe! P̴̥̾̉r̸̢̋́̓̀̏ó̵̧͖̈́̏̋͊̅̋̕͘b̵̛̺̞̦̳̙͒͘͜ä̸͓̗̯̺̰́̿̆͘͠b̶̭͔̯̆̒̐l̵̨̬̬̱̱̙͔̻̊̾́͠͝y̶̰̺̲̝͙͈̝͙̟̖͑̆̾̀̀͒͝!̶̱͚͙͉̠̓̒́̌̽̌̚͝ Remember: Don't open the door to strangers. Anyway! In the meantime, get to know your fellow Sweet Subjects! After all, you're going to be spending a lot of time together! Thank you for understanding! Good luck! Prompt One | Prompt Two

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Summary: 🌼 Content Warnings: Optional light alcohol, isolation, bad weather via thunderstorms, feeling of being watched and taunted, false information, mental manipulation, memory manipulation, memories or depictions of murder and torture 🌼 Characters wake up in an unfamiliar house during a thunderstorm. They hear Daisy's broadcast on the TV. There is a persistent knocking at the door, but you know you shouldn't open it. 🌼 Another character (or more) is in the house with you. Pictures of you both begin to take up the walls. Of memories you either really experienced or false memories. They increasingly become more violent. 🌼 A radio broadcast warns Sweet Acres residents about an escaped criminal. Paranoia grows between characters. Violence out of deluded "self-defense" may occur. 🌼 The true escape from this prompt is to just open the door. Outside, all is well and you realize the house was one giant mind fuck...Or hopefully, you realize. Your memories might be a little scrambled now. There is a knock at the door. You mustn't answer the door. It has been a long, long, long day, hasn't it? You don't even remember sitting on the couch and you certainly don't remember dozing off. But that strange broadcast certainly woke you up and now...You are here. In an unfamiliar house with outdated wallpaper and dirty carpet. The weather outside seems frightful. Torrential downpours with clashing thunder and flashes of lightning chase even the most persistent shadows in the house. Was the lady on the TV serious? Did you just have to wait in this lousy place for the storm to blow over? Or, wait, how did she word it? Wait while things finish configuration. Damn, your head is hurting and you could use a drink. Hopefully, the tacky yellow kitchen has a stocked fridge. Luckily for you, it's filled with fresh food and some fresh booze. There is a knock at the door. You mustn't answer the door. Unluckily for you, there is another person in this house with you. They might have woken up on the same couch as you or are bumping around upstairs. Either way, the freak in the polka-dot dress wasn't wrong: You're not alone here. When you and whoever else in this house finally join up, you will notice that the house seems to become a bit more lively. The pictures on the wall change to feature you or your companion. Some of the pictures are genuine from back in your homeworld, but others...Not so much. Others look like false memories of you with families you don't even remember or at a school you never attended, but they are all so real you can't help but think maybe Daisy is telling the truth after all. There is a heavier knock at the door. You mustn't answer the door. There is a radio in the house that suddenly begins to declare an emergency announcement: "At this time, we urge all residents of Sweet Acres to seek shelter immediately. The wind is picking up and we anticipate this storm to last the rest of the night - Oh? This just in: a convict has managed to break into Sweet Acres. We are told that they were last seen in...Oh, oh my...Whatever you do, make sure your doors and windows are locked. And remember: don't answer the door. And remember: don't trust strangers." A heavy booming knock lands three times at the front door. Let. Me. In. The pictures around the house begin to change. Now it shows you and whoever you're sharing the house with doing some...terrible things. Maybe some of it is true. Some of it may be completely false. Will it matter when the pictures seem so terrifyingly real? What happens when the TV glitches on and starts to play sketchy home videos of one of you doing something terrible? What happens when the radio starts to play terrifying audio of you confessing to an atrocious crime? What happens when the person you're stuck in the house with might just be the stranger the radio warned you about? Or will you have the sense to realize that something is very wrong here and that you're both being played a fool? The knocking at the door is only getting louder. So loud it cracks the door. The storm worsens. What should you do? The madness will only worsen the longer you stay. You may even be driven to defend yourself from each other, you may come to develop false memories of crimes you didn't commit. You may just... Decide to open that damn door already. It turns out, that's what you needed to do the entire time. Because the moment you do? You open the door and see a beautiful, sunny day outside. No rain. Not a single gray cloud. Certainly no horrifying stranger either. But now you're left with whatever you did or thought from the house. For some people, the terror may slip away as easily as the rain, but for some of you, you might be stuck with paranoia and suspicion. Welcome to Sweet Acres. back to top ⤴

[ The Bot Problem ]

Summary: 🌼 Content Warnings: Forced sexuality, optional sex, aphrodisiac style computer virus, dubious consent, hunted by machines, use of bombs, guns, and shrapnel. Possible character death or maiming 🌼 Sex Bots are spreading a virus to those that touch them that will cause player characters to go around flirting with others. They can either get rid of the "virus" by having sex or meeting someone who can hack it out of their system by asking grounding questions (or any other creative means a player may have). 🌼 Characters are hunted down by violent little metal boxes known as metal dogs. The metal dogs are extremely resilient but can be destroyed by extreme measures. These metal dogs are intent on killing and maiming characters and plants. You will notice that there are still some errors in the system as you go out and about exploring your new town. There will be an occasional glitch that opens up a screaming void of bottomless darkness before it blinks out of existence. Those are unsettling enough, but at least they don't seem harmless. The bots, on the other hand, are a different story. They glitch into the town, cracking through this carefully structured reality like breaking through a window. It seems like Daisy has a lot of work to do on the external firewalls of Sweet Acres! In the meantime, you're going to have to deal with her incompetence. The Sex Bots A lot of the bots can easily be mistaken for other residents in town. These are model-gorgeous women and men who almost seemed like caricatures of stereotypical beauty conventions. Big lips, huge hips, large muscles, chiseled jaws, perfect hair, pearly white teeth. These beauties flounce about and no matter who or what you are, if they look your way, they are immediately approaching you. "Hey, sexy. I'm single, horny, and lonely. I just turned 18 and I've got my daddy's credit card." "I've never seen a person more beautiful than you. I'm the CEO of at least three different six-figure income businesses. How about I take you on a night out in my Ferrari?" There isn't a single thought behind those eyes or in those smiles. If you have the thought to rely on your Daze, you can just block the Sex Bots and they will blink out of existence. Alternatively, you could probably just smash them out of existence with a good punch or the swing of a weapon...They will just vanish into a cloud of corrupt coding. But if you're a bit more gullible and still catching up on the strangeness of this place or can't figure out Daze, you might make the mistake of responding to one of these bots. The Bot will immediately scan you for all of your information and warp its features into something that you actually would find to be the ideal beauty. "This is better, right?" It's hard to deny...They even sound like the ideal beauty in your mind. A gentle hand on your arm and then they are leading you away. Except they aren't leading you anywhere. You watch helplessly as coding goes up your arm and begins to consume your body. You can't feel anything but a prickling sensation. The Bot vanishes, but you are left rewired. Now it is you with the dramatic features emphasizing your most attractive parts. Regardless of your personality, you suddenly feel the urge to walk up to just about anyone anywhere and flirt with them. Whether stupidly or sincerely. It's hard to remember yourself with the bot's virus wreaking havoc on your Daze. Worst case scenario? You wind up sleeping with someone because of this bizarre virus, but you will also ironically get it out of your system this way and feel completely normal after. Alternatively, you can find someone who is a bit more tech-savvy with the Daze and who might have an idea of how to hack into your system and get rid of the virus for you. This might involve some personal line of questioning, but hey, at least you're not walking around asking for sex from total strangers anymore! The Metal Dogs The Sex Bots are a dream compared to the other virus attacking the system of Sweet Acres. One will begin to see small metal robots trotting about, no bigger than a backpack, with lethal determination. These metal dogs scour their surroundings for anything organic or anything that doesn't belong in the space. This means they are actively ripping up plants and destroying trees, which is tragic enough, but just be glad they haven't seen you yet because it turns out that Daisy's Sweet Subjects are the metal dog's top priority. The moment they notice you, they will begin a neverending chase. These robots can catch up to a speeding car and resist an enormous amount of damage. They are waterproof and run on their own network completely disconnected from the Daze, so good luck trying to hack into them- it won't work. They can see just as well in the dark as the light and have sensors that allow them to pick up on body temperature as well as any vibrations you might make. They are not gentle creatures: their goal is to terminate all organic beings and Sweet Subjects in the area. If they catch you, they will immediately attempt to blow your head off with a small gun they can form. Alternatively, they will expel a shrapnel bomb if you catch them off guard. They also have paralyzing fog bombs. Metal dogs can be destroyed, however. With large explosions, armor-piercing weaponry, people with extreme super strength. Or you can get creative! Maybe you know a spell that can turn them into a stuffed animal or melt the metal. Maybe you have control over metal beings. There are ways to destroy these things. But don't worry. If worse comes to worse, Daisy is going around to destroy them for you. But do you really want to owe her your life? back to top ⤴

Comments

[thelamia]

One learned a few things after 5,000 years of being alive. Having a healthy gaydar was one of them, especially since Lurine was bisexual herself. So she immediately got it. She grinned at the man and twirled around. "Lovely, isn't it? When you can afford the finer things in life, why not, you know?"

"Mmmm, probably not unless you're into bad B horror movies or good indie films. I won't be offended." Surprisingly, there was a whole contingent of drag queens in her small hometown who were absolutely her biggest fans and had done a number of her different characters over the years in things like the annual Halloween parade. She never failed to be flattered by her boys and attended the parade every year.

"Now that's something I can definitely get behind. This all seems a little disorienting as an experience." And entirely new for Lurine which meant she was actually pretty pleased. After the long life she'd led, new experiences were far and few between. The last time she'd been this surprised had been back in the late nineties.

[chuanifrinn]

Fair enough...but...[Lancer lowers his voice conspiratorially, the playfulness seeping back in]...a leash can be pulled from both ends. It depends on the taming of the beast, if I'm a hound, I'm not domesticated.

[Of course there's something else Lancer is trying to get at but he's still feeling out his options.]

[enduresurvive]

Ellie's frown deepens a little.

"No. I've never heard of the East Blue." It's weird to her that it's not, like, a town name. The East Blue. What the hell.

Is this not Mathias? Did she somehow escape that nightmare? She doesn't remember leaving. All she remembers is…well, nothing. Not even going to sleep.

That can't be right. Of course she went to sleep. She fell asleep watching TV on the couch here in Sweet Acres. But her mind fails to fill in a space for Koby, and that anchors her.

Her eyes dart towards the door. The knocking is back, just barely. For the moment, she ignores it. In Mathias at night, when they were warned not to go out, that meant business. There would be monsters or something. Monsters don't knock, though, right?

"Sorry, this is…a lot. I'm Ellie," she says, realising she didn't actually tell him. He looks like he might vibrate through the floor with anxiety, and really? She can't blame him.

"Do you remember this place? This house? I have this weird feeling like…it's familiar."

[snakesona]

[ olrox schools himself back to nonchalance. he revealed a bit too much there. ]

Are you a hound then?

[timetechs]

Holy fucking shit.

[ Totally blank — flat tone, expression drained from his face, a mile-long stare as he takes that in. What the fuck. A Dirk who doesn't want to off himself at the nearest opportunity for the greater good. He kinda wants to hug this Dirk, except there's no way he's known him (or made him endure the requisite emotional word vomit) for that to be chill.

He shakes himself out of it with a quick jerk of his head. Do not freak the fuck out at Hal. ]

Uh. Anyway, yeah, lips are sealed, I've heard nothing but doom and gloom out of you. Also you are so wrong about it being statistically impossible but I don't even care 'cause I've got my robo-bro to watch my back.

[clipon]

[ hal startles visibly at dave's reaction, so confused by it that in the spot where pupils would be on his shades, there are briefly-flashing question marks instead. he knows logically how wild it is that he wants to continue to exist based on what he's made of, but he still didn't expect dave to react quite the way he did.

he pauses, not nervous but overwhelmed, and then gets his shit together. ]

I apologize, I'll amend my claim. [ a brief moment where he tilts his head, a comical image of Processing... as he recomputes. ] There's a 97.56243% repeating chance that there would be at least one other person here that's not a complete tool. That said, [ and the rest comes out like it's being tumbled clumsily out of his mouth. ] of course I've got your back, bro.

[chuanifrinn]

Cu Chuliann translates to Culann's hound. I stood in for a hound I killed, so in a way I guess I am.

[He doesn't seem perturbed about it, in fact he seems to think this is a normal thing to say.

And since this isn't the Holy Grail Wars he sees no need to hide these aspects of himself.]

[timetechs]

[ Dave laughs. Just lets it out right there, no attempt to hide it, he goes ahead and laughs. ]

See, there's the 2.5 percent that everyone else is a giant tool. [ He leans over, bumps their shoulders together. ] Anyway. you know I've got your back, too, right?

[ He's hung out with Dirk long enough to realize this is a thing he's gotta check on. ]

[clipon]

[ he made dave laugh. it feels good, like he's won a prize for being good at something.

he likes it.

dave's declaration gets him in that startle-state again, but he nods carefully anyway. ]

I. Yes. Of course I know that. It's not like you'd accept unreciprocated care and courtesy. A two-way street, so to speak.

[doublycursed]

The second that he opens the door, Izutsumi's leaping, snarling, claws at the ready, going for throat-height of whatever's at the door. Koby's swinging the vase, and she's sure they'll absolutely annihilate whatever is being so annoying, but--

All that happens is that she tumbles onto the pavement outside. She comes up spitting and hissing, crouched on all fours and looking absolutely poleaxed. There's no storm outside. It's peaceful and calm, the sun shining down from a cloudless sky.

There has to have been something doing the knocking, though, so Izutsumi casts her gaze wildly around, and finds some suspicious looking contraption: a metal box with a red flag on top of a wooden pole. (It's a letterbox. But she doesn't know that). She pounces, knocking it down, and wraps herself around it, kicking at the wooden pole while she gnaws ferociously on the red flag.

"I'll kill it! Don't worry!" she hollers, though since her mouth of full of metal, it's a little unintelligible.

[doublycursed]

"Yeah, stylish if you're trying to blend into a forest," Izutsumi scoffs. "And they look really restrictive, so you wouldn't even be able to fight well."

She's going to go ahead and guess that he's not a fighter anyway. If he was, he probably would have tried to fight the weird sex monsters instead of hoping somebody else did it.

"Never heard of Gotham," she sniffs. Must be some place she hasn't traveled to. There's lots of those. "But where are we now? This place is even weirder than your stupid forest clothes."

[kobes]

...therapy. [Koby repeats it like he's never heard of such a thing. There's no mental health on the seas, obviously. Still, Iggy's explanation makes sense.] That's...good? Good. Um. Do you enjoy it?

Oh. [Leaning backwards, giving Iggy a thoughtful once-over, Koby nods slowly. If Iggy's a twink, being a twink must be okay.] That makes sense. Um, thank you. For explaining.

I guess. [Koby rests his chin on his knees, hugging his legs even tighter.] I still feel stupid, though. I spent my whole life dreaming of something, and it...isn't what I thought it'd be.

[kobes]

The question gets a pause, because the answer...isn't immediately available. One part of Koby's mind insists that no, he has no idea where they are or why or how, and he doesn't know what's happening, he's never seen a house like this in his life. He belongs on a Marine base, in the East Blue, by the sea, where the scent of salt air is inescapable. Not here.

But then: a memory, Koby on this exact couch, in this exact room, resting his cheek on one hand as he watches TV, as he thinks about how he needs to run to the store, needs to get the gutters cleaned, needs to do a load of laundry in the morning. It fits just as neatly. Like everything about his life on the seas was a very strange, very vivid dream.

"...I don't know." It's the most honest Koby can be, crossing his arms across his chest, tightly. "I...feel like I might, but...also that I might not?" A beat. "I'm Koby. By the way." Another beat. "Do you feel that same way?"

[dead_tongue]

Yeah! Like, uhm, working through your issues. [Because the concept seems foreign.] I do, yeah! I really love helping people - I actually think it's like, my life purpose.

No problem!

[Another shoulder pat.]

Hey. Look. I'm only twenty-four, but I've learned things usually don't turn out how we pictured. But that's okay. Sometimes it just shows us what we want to be different, and we get motivated to forge our own way. You know?

[kobes]

"Oh, are you all ri--" Koby begins it, already stumbling forward after Izutsumi, the arm not holding the vase outstretched to try and help her. But she's already attacking the mailbox -- even he recognizes that -- and tearing it free and tackling it to the ground.

So he stops, holding the vase, watching her with a slight frown. That...isn't at all productive, but also she seems to be having fun, so. Koby lets her hiss and attack and bite for a moment. Finally, gently: "I think it's dead."

He's noting their surroundings, the sun, the clear skies, the absolute lack of anyone to knock. Something is...very, very wrong. Koby swallows hard, arms wrapped around the vase, like it's the only thing tethering him to the earth. "Where...are we? Do you recognize anything?"

[dead_tongue]

Iggy stares, actually unable to believe it for a moment. He creeps back into the main room, eyes wide.

"It's... there isn't even a storm?"

He joins Hal at the door, frowning. "Why would they lie? To keep us inside?"

[addickted]

"I like all kinds'a stuff, baby," Angel purrs back, relaxing in a way that has his weird long spider leggies all across Iggy's lap. "Just cause I don't wanna bust my ass doin' kinky shit don't mean I hate it. When it's good, it's real good, yaknow?"

Then he just sort of blankfaces at Iggy as he rambles -- Labyrinth is after his time, but he knows movies. "Sounds dumb as fuck. But maybe you're right. Or it's Purgatory. Is Purgatory real?"

All four of those arms are waved around as Angel laughs, leaning back on one set of elbows and crossing the other set. "Their loss. Makes gangbangs so much easier. Nobody feelin' left out with all these babies. And nah, not unless you count takin' 20 dicks in 20 minutes a power."

Damn Twitter!!

[thelamia]

"Sure thing, sweetheart." Alright, now she was just being deliberately annoying because she could. It was one of Lurine's more terrible traits. At least now he didn't seem inclined to attack her.

She shook her head no. "Not that I've seen. And it's not all that big of a house." Not like her own was.

[thelamia]

"You pick things up if you're around long enough. People who look like they need acupuncture, yoga, lessons out of the Kama Sutra. That sort of thing." Look, she'd been around long enough she quite possibly helped write the last of those things or at the very least gave the author some tips.

When Hal mentioned he wasn't attracted to women, Lurine normally would have stopped at that point. She wasn't someone who pushed the limits unless the other person actually made it clear they wanted her to. There was a look on her face for a few long moments of confusion and distress. Lurine wasn't used to not being in control of herself and she knew whatever that bot had done to her was serious. Inside, she was hoping this robot(?) would just take off. Outside, what she found herself saying was: "Now, now, there's no need to be picky."

[thelamia]

Now that's quite a bold assumption.

[Assuming she was human that is. Lurine was thankful these days she could actually pass for one. A number of creatures were stuck in hiding in Pemkowet because they couldn't be out in the open due to their unique appearances. Aside from having to do some late-night discreet swimming, there wasn't much preventing from Lurine living her life the way she wanted to.

The mention of Chris Hemsworth made her burst out laughing.]

Alas, my acting skills are good but not that good.

[dead_tongue]

Iggy is enjoying all the leggies - it means he's getting extra attention! "I do know," he says honestly.

Iggy hums. "I mean... no. Not where I'm from. The Catholics think it is, but... they think lots of weird stuff."

Iggy almost laughs aloud - a little hiccup of sound escapes him before he manages to smother it. "I mean, I do! I don't think I could do over a dozen."

[thelamia]

[Lurine giggled just a little at hearing such blunt honesty from the little...well she wasn't quite sure what he was. A genie, perhaps?]

Aw, I did, but thank you for saying so honey.

[Hypnos was absolutely adorable. She just wanted to wrap him up, put him in her pocket, and take him home with her.]

[dead_tongue]

"Right!" Iggy is a natural born henchman! You just tell him what to do, Ed!

"How do we do that, do you think?"

[thelamia]

"Try it at your own peril," Lurine said loftily, her green eyes hard as ice chips. She'd encountered these weird robotic sex toys already and had found it was very easy for her to get rid of them once she'd had enough of their nonsense. She was fully prepared to go into full monster mode (literally or figuratively) if it took care of them.

She glanced at Izutsumi just long enough to make sure the girl was alright. It wouldn't do to have the bots freaking the poor thing out anymore than she already was. Then she took the advice and shoved the bots away again hard. "Last warning. Go find someone else to play with or you're going to regret it."

[whatam_i]

"Observation and experimentation." He says and motions for Iggy to follow him, "We need to know the town and start making lists of the people in it."

"Have you met anyone besides me?"