snowblindmemes | Test Drive

Entry tags:

test drive

Test Drive


TEST DRIVE MEME
If you'd like to apply to Snowblind and would like to test the waters first or get a sample set up for your application, this meme is for you! We've even provided some prompts for you to use if you want (but feel free to make up your own). Here's how it works. ✭ Reply to this entry with a character you're considering apping into the game. You can include the name of your character and the fandom in your subject line. ✭ Comment around to others on the meme, whether you're in the game already or not. ✭ Now you have a sample ready for your application! ✭ So go reserve and apply when reservations and applications are open. ✭ Seriously, do it. Network Prompts ONE: SEE THAT WE CAN SEE It's late and you're settling down for the night when you notice a strange light coming from... outside? Through the heavy snowfall, you can just make out the haze of glowing eyes in the distance. Dozens of them. It's difficult to tell through the window, but they seem to be staring directly at you. Since it's after lockdown, you can't get outside to investigate, but maybe others in town are seeing the eyes too. You'd better take to the Network to see what's going on. TWO: BEHIND THESE HAZEL EYES You can't sleep. You've been trying, trying, trying. But every time you close your eyes, you see the eyes of the prophet etched into the insides of your eyelids. The symbol only seems to get brighter and clearer the longer you keep your eyes shut, the closer you get to drifting off. It chills you awake. Nothing seems to help. Maybe there are others on the Network who are having the same problem. Or, at least, someone who doesn't mind keeping you company through the long hours. Action Prompts THREE: THREE'S A CROWD You and your traveling companion are exploring what looks to be a perfectly normal building when you notice something strange carved into the wall. Is that an eye? Strange indeed, but what's stranger is that new carvings keep appearing, always where you're not looking. Soon, the whole room is full of eye carvings. Is your companion doing this? If not them, then who? FOUR: THE KNIFE'S EDGE Most everyone in town still has eyes that are either glowing or shaped like the prophet's symbol, and your eyes are no different. These are the same eyes that made everyone attack each other a few nights ago. Every time you catch a glimpse of yourself, maybe in the reflection of a window or the video feed on your tablet, you feel a little sick. Unfortunately, your traveling companion's eyes look strange too, and they're the opposite of yours. Both of you are in danger if those murderous urges come back, which makes it difficult to trust each other after what you've been through. It's late at night when a dark thought crosses your mind--you do have a knife. Not that there's any reason to use it, of course... Right?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Outrageous accusation; deadpan rebuttal. Even the underlying tension is familiar in its own way, but whatever easy insult Karkat had been thinking of responding with dies in his squawk blister as he whirls around and Dave isn't orange, what the fuck. At least, the one he knows isn't.

The ensuing silence is all the more conspicuous for how fucking talkative both of these assholes are, but eventually, Karkat snorts and returns to investigating his half of the room, his eyebrows knit together.]

Well, ex-fucking-cuse me for not being intimately familiar with this place's ganderbulb-scrawling fetish. Do you want a medal for getting one over on the troll? Allow me to fashion one out of whatever shiny piece of shit scrap metal we find in this place, or better yet! I'll stomp on a jagged nutrition cylinder and polish it up using only my hideous blood and the inevitable stream of vomit I'll unleash after having to suffer your bullshit for one more fucking minute.

Dude, do you even know what the word chill means?

[This is the worst part of it: that tension. There's always the unstated weight of him being different than the one Karkat wants, and even if he tries to pretend it's fine, he knows it isn't. He spent three long years on the ship with John doing the same damn thing, and this time he doesn't have the memory of old friendship to soften it. It's tiring.]

I literally just gave you the answer to what's going on and you're still more pissed than a gas station urinal. I've been here like a month and a half, I've seen shit, I've been through shit, I know how it is. If you keep snapping at everybody who decides to tell you what's up you're not going to make it.

[Part of him wants to claim he's only snapping because it's Davesprite doing the answering, but that's so cosmically unfair and untrue that he immediately feels like shit for thinking it. None of this is Davesprite's fault, and that goes double for anything and everything related to how fucking horrible Past Karkat is. Present Karkat, too, for that matter.]

Then maybe don't assume I instantly know what the fuck is going on when shit like this happens! And maybe show a little understanding when I can't be a cool douche about whatever curveballs this place throws at us?!

[He glances over his shoulder to check if the sports metaphor is even half correct, then scowls because again, orange and resumes searching. What is this, a wardrobifier? Time to rifle through it and pretend any increase in tension between his shoulders is entirely anger-related.

This is so unfair.]

Whatever. You're the Norfinbury master, it's you, so can you tell me what else these carvings are supposed to mean?

[See? He can be polite. Sort of. It grates, but it's no worse than everything else about this conversation.]

[Don't look at him; he only thinks he knows sports.]

[Davesprite doesn't even bother to look at Karkat at this point. There's more drawers to check, and he shuts the current one to check the next below it. Still, it's remarkably hard to focus on finding anything when this shouty pain in the ass is constantly shrilling in his ear from across the room.]

I can.

[He squints at the drawer, shuts it, opens the bottom one.]

But you're going to have to say the magic word first.

[Hence "half" correct, and wow he did not. Karkat grits his teeth and resists the urge to punch the stupid wardrobifier and/or slam it shut, instead closing his eyes and counting slowly to... fuck it, there's no number high enough to make this less infuriating. "The magic word?" Seriously?]

Alakazam and go fuck yourself, you distended, sore-ridden waste chute.

[Slam goes the wardrobifier door. He Tried™.]

[Davesprite doesn't even flinch. He expected it, really. Karkat's anger when it comes still feels predictable and simple, like knowing a bear trap will snap shut if you step on the pressure plate. It rolls off and past him, and after shutting the last drawer, he rises and faces him with a shrug.]

Nah. Don't feel like it.

[... That's so completely Dave. Again.

His rage flickers, sputters, and in an effort to rekindle it, he grasps the lousy stupid goddamn wardrobifier and gives it a yank. Who knows? Maybe something's fallen behind it, or yeah, okay, he's just trying to keep himself busy. The fact that he's lapsed into yet another silence is a dead giveaway, but fortunately for everyone, the fact that he's barely able to budge the wardrobifier an inch soon occupies him completely.]

The fuck is this thing made of?

[Sotto voce, unfortunately, does not exist in the land of Karkat, and wood creaks ominously and audibly as he pulls harder. This shit is personal now.]

Hey, get over here and help me with this.

[This, however, is the part that frustrates. Karkat keeps on catching himself in a way that says disappointed expectations. It's a conversation on a low grade internet connection, stopping to buffer every few moments but without the option to pause and let it load.]

[His arms drop out of their shrug as he watches Karkat turn to manhandle an innocent wardrobe.]

Why, so you can yank it over on the both of us? You got a death wish at the hands of some old ass wood furniture, you can make your own corpse. I like not dying, and not busting my wings apart when I don't die.

[He fans them out now, feathers fluffed to inflate the impact. Look at him, jackass: he's the bird version, he's not going to stop being the bird version, so stop pretending like you can just ignore it.]

[Turn and look he does, expression suitably sour but not because it's the wrong Dave. Why is every incarnation of his best friend such a jackass?]

What if there's something we can use? And fuck you, I don't want to kill either of us even if you apparently don't feel that way.

[It's the closest thing to an accusation he's allowed himself, and he bites his lip for a moment in the hope that Davesprite hadn't noticed it. It's not his fault, he isn't Dave, and Karkat is stupid for wanting anything other than cold dismissal from this feathery asshole. He deserves it anyway for fucking everything up so badly.

He examines the wings for a second or two longer, then tilts his head inquisitively.]

How does that even work? Does flapping them do anything?

[It's a space removed from the reaction he expected, and his eyebrows scrunch down behind his shades as it sinks and settles. His wings fold up slowly; his feathers lie back flat. He ignores the question, because fuck that.]

Dude, I was calling you an idiot for pulling on the thing so hard, not saying you literally want to murder me. If you think that's what I think of you—

[He cuts off, shakes his head.]

Nah, forget it. I'm out. I'll chill downstairs and let the eyes keep me company.

[He turns away to float toward the door, if Karkat doesn't stop him.]

[SEE ABOVE RE: FUCKING EVERYTHING UP.]

Hey, no, that's not—fuck.

[He starts after Davesprite, arm raised to catch his hand or shoulder or something, but the last thing the other probably wants is to be touched by him, right? Because—]

Look, I know you don't like me, and I can't fucking blame you. And you probably resent me even talking to you? Which again, completely justified, whatever, but that isn't the fucking point.

[Which sort of begs the question of what the point is, but he'll get to that once he's sure he has Davesprite's attention or, failing that, once he's sure Davesprite isn't about to leave the room.]

[Davesprite turns, his own arm raising as though to fend off the touch that (thankfully) doesn't come. He puts it back down, but his face is an impassive mask. Feelings don't belong on the outside if he can manage to keep them in.]

Why would I resent talking to you, Vantas? What is the point?

[If Karkat's anger is a bear trap, this is a pitfall.]

[Does he have to make this so difficult? Except it's Dave even though it's Davesprite, so of fucking course he does, and if Karkat wasn't shouting before he certainly is now.]

The point is that I'm not your friend and it's stupid of me to think of you as mine! It isn't fair to you?! Why the fuck should you have to deal with some needy troll asshole who can't keep his fucking feelings to himself?!

[... ALL OF WHICH IS OVERSHARING, but goddammit, it's Dave and he's still the easiest person to talk to even if he's not—even when this isn't—

Karkat drops his arm and smears a hand over his face, hating everything about his immediate reality and especially himself. As always. That never changes.]

You have your own shit to deal with and I'm not fucking helping. So, yeah, why wouldn't you resent me? I can't keep my sniffnode in my own fucking business, and Dave didn't—neither of you should have any patience for that and I'm so fucking sorry. You're not him and you don't have to be and especially not because of my fucking issues.

[This is why feelings are stupid and annoying to deal with: they spill everywhere, they make a mess, and they just complicate everything. He can't actually pretend he has none, and trying tends to lead to them leaking out the sides at the most inopportune moments, but it doesn't make being on the opposite side of the spill any more fun or comfortable. Not even if Karkat calls himself out on it.]

Okay?

[It's like being shown something private, soft, and vulnerable.]

I don't even know your issues.

[Just opening up, praying the world won't stab you for it.]

Don't really care to, either.

[It is every single thing he was told not to do, growing up.]

You want to do us both a favor, maybe stop projecting your expectations on me. I have my own feelings about this that got nothing to do with whatever kind of rad broship you had going down with regular Dave. And you just said you know it, so—stop being a dick about it? Not that hard, man.

[He says it like he's any better at not taking out his problems on other people.]

[Don't really care to, either.

Another silence, then Karkat swallows and rubs his hand over his eyes again.]

I'm trying.

[It's more choked up than he wants it to be, and furiously, he rubs his eyes again before just giving up and walking back to the goddamned wardrobe. Look, see? Here he is, minding his own business and not bothering anyone with that troll disease called "being fucking desolate in an uncaring universe." Oh, wait.]

Maybe there's something we missed downstairs, I don't know. Do whatever.

[It's not like it makes a difference either way.]

Try harder.

[Simple, sharp, and immediate. He can see Karkat struggling, but that's the thing: he's not his friend. He has no reason to slow down and hold his hand about it, to give him that gentle handling and pity as he tramples all over his own issues with little more than a look or a silence held too long. He's not the real Dave, he's never going to be the real Dave, and the better thing is to draw the knife down the dividing line here at the start. They don't have another three years here, but he doesn't want even three months of John round 2 with some alien he barely even knows.]

[So he turns for the stairs again. He doesn't know what he'll find if anything, and can't really focus to think about it, but he just doesn't want to be in the same room.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Test Drive

crab & crow shenans it is

cheers \o/

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject