Test Drive

[snowblindmods]

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: THE THINGS THAT CRAWL IN THE NIGHT You haven't thought about the spiders that roam Norfinbury in awhile. But then something happens one night. It's after lockdown and you're all alone, but you can't sleep. How can you, when every time you try to drift off you hear the sounds of scurrying little legs? The sound gets louder, it multiplies, until its all around you. But where--where? Maybe they bugs are beneath the wallpaper, maybe they're under the floorboards. Maybe they're in the furniture. Or maybe, maybe they're just in your head. The tablet is the only thing you have to turn to. Even if you're the only one experiencing these sounds, maybe someone can talk you down, convince you that it's just a brief episode of paranoia that you can unwind from. TWO: IT WAS ONLY JUST A DREAM You wake up late into the night. You dreamed you were crawling through a tight, closed space, your body scraping against the metal, and know you don't belong here. Where are you going? The vent is dark, and you don't have your tablet with you. You think there's someone behind you, but you can't be sure. You pull yourself forward with one of your arms. And then you pull yourself forward with your other arm. And then you pull yourself forward with a third--one you shouldn't have. One that doesn't even belong to you. Once your eyes are open you can still feel those extra limbs extending outward from your body, thin spider legs grabbing at air, clawing for purchase--but then the feeling passes. You're just you, and now you can't get back to sleep. Maybe someone else had the same dream? Action Prompts THREE: RATE YOUR DISCOMFORT You and your traveling companion have found an easy routine. Travel, search, hunker down, try to find a semblance of warmth and comfort for the night before you sleep and start all over again. You don't question when they offer you the last of the fresh fruit from your last run to the grocery store. It's a kind gesture, and perhaps you intend to return it the next chance you get. But the food sits uncomfortably in your stomach. You can feel it, can't you? It's not churning inside of you but moving, squirming, crawling. Nothing relieves it. It doesn't hurt but you feel sick, you find yourself shuddering, but when you show your companion your shaking hands they don't seem to notice the way that your skin ripples with something unseen just underneath. Whatever you ate isn't just in your stomach. It's inside. You can feel it tickling up your throat, reaching up up up. FOUR: IT SLEEPS BENEATH THE SNOW You're almost there: the building is just ahead of you, and just in time for lockdown. The coast is clear...at least, that's what you think before the ground around the building begins to move. The snow shifts, snaking in a wide, giant circle around it. And then the monster reveals itself, snow falling from its hardened exoskeleton in chunks, a giant centipede-like anomaly with too-human eyes and hundreds of legs like stilettos decorated with razor blades. It has you and your traveling companion in your sights--you're going to have to think faster than it can reach you if you want to get around it and into the house before the door locks and dooms the both of you.

Comments

[agravating]

You're not going to tell me about all the snow being cool enough to get you off having to find something now, are you? "Yeah, I'm up" and that's it? I thought the great blogger Dr. Watson would have something more...exciting.

[The old bench she's on creaks as she leans back, her head on her pack.]

I never got that eight hours before you. Not going to get it in a rubbish shack of a house here. [Looking up at the ceiling, she sighs.] Isn't much, really. Bit of old furniture, tired wood, locked up tight the instant lockdown hit. Not particularly cozy, but better than the alternative.

[jumpthegun]

Well, if you want exciting, I could tell you about the time we ran into an anomaly that was playing the Bee Gees. Not something I was expecting, really. [It had also moved like Moriarty and its head had exploded... those are much less amusing facts related to it.]

Anyway, 'old furniture, tired wood,' what are you calling me the great blogger for? You're practically a poet. I can really feel myself there. [He's teasing. Always teasing. It's so much easier than talking about anything consequential. Those things need to wait for when they're together.]

[agravating]

I would much prefer not hearing about you running into anomalies at all, my love. I did read the survival guide.

[She chuckles, soft. Hollow.] I don't suppose it's so familiar because most buildings here look the same, by any chance? There's no chance I have a future in blogging, John.

[jumpthegun]

How about the time I tried to have a talking dog play interpreter for a phantom dog in a firehouse?

[It sounds insane, but he's really not making it up, he promises! Even a hollow chuckle is something, at least. She's always been good at hiding what she's thinking, though. John isn't really sure how to take it, just at the moment, other than at face value.]

I dunno. You seem to be good at mid-life career shifts. [Oh. John clamps down. That was... bad. He hadn't meant it to be a dig, but it is, an old resentment wrapped up and held there in the back of his mind, waiting to come out.

She's here. She's here and she's alive and she's real. It doesn't matter what came before. John clears his throat.]

That's about how most of them look, yeah. Some are nicer than others. A few have even got hot water. There's a precious thing.

[agravating]

Better.

[John's words hurt as if she'd been struck; she's careful to keep her inhale quiet and steady, to keep her fingers still instead of tapping against the side of the tablet. He knew what few tics she had. She need not broadcast them so.] Mmm...I did always want to be a nurse, you know. I liked the hat.

[Her chest aches, where she knows a bullet had burrowed through flesh, ripped through her descending aorta. It had happened so quickly, she can hardly remember the few seconds she had with her husband before the world went black.

It had been quick, though,and that was far better than she deserved. Inhale and exhale. She hopes he doesn't hear the tightness that's returned to her voice.] Hot water sounds like a treat. I'll keep my eyes open.

[jumpthegun]

You look good in the hat. [It's an olive branch, trying to pull them away from the hurt. He shouldn't have said that. He should never say anything to hurt her. She doesn't deserve it.] Especially when it's just the hat.

[agravating]

[She hums quietly in either agreement or acquiescence to avoiding the argument. She'd lied, and lied and lied. Really, she deserved very little kindness from him.]

Ah--it is a pity you don't wear the white coat. I do think you'd look quite dashing.

[jumpthegun]

How about this? If I find one here, I'll wear it. And if we find the hat, you'll wear it. I know I'd look terrible in that.

[agravating]

[This time when she laughs, it's real.] You've not enough hair to pin the hat to, John.

[Playfully:] Though for what it's worth, you would look good in just that hat.

[jumpthegun]

Down, girl. There are kids that look at this network.

[He started it, but never you mind that. And the talk of 'kids' turns his mind to Rosie, which sours the game a little bit. He clears his throat.]

So, any luck with some of the mysteries around this place? I know you haven't been here long, but I was sort of hoping you'd have it worked out in a day or two, you being the clever one.

[agravating]

Hmmph. I believe you started it, sir public network. I've told you before kids get into everything, even things you think you've got nicely locked away. Rosie is going to be mobile soon and--

[No. No, don't think about Rosie, whose little body she can never snuggle close to hers again. Don't think about children. Don't. Don't.

Throat tight, she hurries to not let the silence stretch for too long.]

Ah, the mysteries. There are plenty to go round. I'm still working on it, currently focusing on the more pressing issue of not freezing to death and not developing frostbite. It seemed slightly more urgent, you see.

[jumpthegun]

[It's a like a dagger in the chest saying Rosie's name... reminding him how unprepared he is to handle her. To be a father. Mary doesn't know it, he won't tell her how he's already failed her, failed their daughter. There's just a tense silence after Mary cuts off. John licks his lips and clears his throat again as he responds to the rest.]

Well, I do prefer my wives well-thawed. Hold on. That makes me sound like that Bluebeard bloke. Or a cannibal. Never mind.

[agravating]

Very good thing your wife prefers being well thawed then. I would rather you stay warm too, love. I know what you meant.

[She smiles to herself, folding her arms over her knees.] And nevermind the pirate bit. I know you're no cannibal.

[jumpthegun]

Are you saying you could see me as a pirate? That's Sherlock, thanks.

[agravating]

I've seen the network, John. You don't make a particularly good pirate. Or a good liar.

[Her tone is serious. Concerned.] I hope you've stayed away from that lunatic and his associates. He's dangerous.

[jumpthegun]

[So, they're finished flirting.]

Well, we all have our strengths. You'll have to be more specific about which lunatic.

[agravating]

That's not funny, John. [Fitting is definitely done. Who's taking off their clothes in this weather? Honestly.] Let's start with the one who made you a pirate, then. Who still seems to think you're his attending. Doctor Stein, or Stitches--whichever name he's using nowadays.

[jumpthegun]

[Oh. Well. Strike at the one that hurts most.]

I'm not a pirate anymore.

[agravating]

I asked if you've been staying away from him and his associates, not if you were still a pirate. I know when you're deflecting.

[jumpthegun]

He doesn't have any associates.

[agravating]

I also know when you're lying.

[jumpthegun]

Honestly, I don't know who his associates are apart from Kid, and he's a sickly teenager. Reckon I can take him.

[agravating]

You're too kind to try and hurt a kid, is what I reckon.

What other lunatic should I ask about...ah. The big one--Bucky? We've even seen the film!

[jumpthegun]

He's not a lunatic. Don't even joke about that.

[He will stan for Bucky, Mary. Just you watch him.]

He's just... He has problems now and again.

[agravating]

Please be careful. This isn't London. I can't get you properly patched up here if something were to happen again, and I know it already has before. I don't want you hurt.