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: IT WON'T BE LONG NOW... Well, you made a mistake. You spent too long searching around, or you ran outside near the end of the day for just one more thing, and now you've been locked out. You can search around all you want, but the best shelter you can hope for is pressing against the side of a sealed up building. You do still have your tablet, though. Maybe someone on the network can give you some advice, or at least some comfort while you wait for hypothermia to set in. TWO: CABIN FEVER Maybe you didn't want that mistake of getting caught outside to happen again, but now you've ended up staying too long in one location, and cabin fever has set in. Maybe you're taking to the network to try and ignore the hallucinations. Maybe you want to tell everyone that you've figured out they're all in on your kidnapping. Maybe you ended up wandering off and now you'd really like to know if anyone can check back in the place you were at for your pants. Action Prompts THREE: AN UNEXPECTED MEETING You're going about your business searching what seems like it might be an especially promising house--it's fully intact and there's even a working fireplace with some wood! It looks like someone else has the same idea, though, and you've run into them in the middle of your search. Do you share the potential wealth or try to kick them out? On the other hand, maybe you know who this is, or maybe you're just glad to actually see another person for the first time in ages. FOUR: GOOD MORGUE-NING You've just woken up in a morgue after dying in one unfortunate way or another. You have no idea where you are beyond that, but your tablet is insisting you can't stay here, so you should probably get out of here pretty quickly. Of course, bringing people back from the dead isn't a perfect science, so you're missing something important to you. Maybe you've lost your voice, maybe you can't remember where you're from, maybe you can't remember where you are right now. It looks like someone else is nearby, though. Maybe they can help you out?

Comments

text to Curtis lookalike.

[silenttrainbaby]

[What is all right? Grey isn't used to such questions. Life is suffering and dying. He just thought he was dead on the train and now he's going to die in the cold. He doesn't really want to do it all again.

That there is a message back surprises him. He stares for a long moment before he answers, typing slowly and carefully.]

I don't know. It's cold.

thank you for the real-life lol XD

[starsandtights]

[Steve chews on his lip, still frowning. Cold could mean anything. Hell, Steve was cold, and he was curled up on a mattress with a musty comforter wrapped around him.]

Are you indoors?

it's true! If they meet, Grey is going to be like "how are you so clean?! And blond?!"

[silenttrainbaby]

[it's getting harder for Grey to move his fingers. The wind seems to bite right through his parka, which isn't saying much, really.]

No

[starsandtights]

[Steve takes a minute to curse loudly and ferociously. The walls are probably blushing. The Avengers would be shocked (the Howlies wouldn't). He may or may not punch a wall.

He takes another minute to figure out what the hell to say.]

I'm Steve. What's your name?

[silenttrainbaby]

[It takes Grey a while to parse that question, both because it's cold and because he's gone his whole life without being asked that question before.]

Grey

i'm just going to be over here, weeping softly

[starsandtights]

It's very nice to meet you, Grey.

Everything's going to be OK.

ikr?

[silenttrainbaby]

I dont know where I am.

[starsandtights]

In general, or specifically?
The town is some place called Norfinbury. And yeah, I don't know where that is either, sorry. None of us do.
Where are you from?

[silenttrainbaby]

The train. its all thats left

[Grey knows that everything outside the train is extinct. That just means that he'll be extinct soon. He doesn't understand how this Steve can be alive outside the train.]

[starsandtights]

[Steve frowns at this one, confused.]

What train?

[silenttrainbaby]

The train

[Grey isn't sure how else to answer that question. It was where he was born, where he died once already. He doesn't know how else to answer that question.]

[starsandtights]

[Steve blinks at this latest message, and starts to wonder who exactly it is he's talking to. From the simplicity of the responses he's starting to think... dear God. A child? Now he really wants to punch something.

He stares at the screen for a long time, feeling helpless, not sure what to say. Ask how old Grey is? Not sure he wants to know. Try to help Grey find shelter? Steve knows there's nothing he can do, not really. All he can do is talk to Grey, make sure Grey knows... he? she?... is not alone.]

Tell me about the train.

[silenttrainbaby]

[here's how things get complicated: Grey doesn't know how old he is. He follows directions well, though.]

Everything else in the world is extinct but the train. There's the front and the tail. I died helping Curtis get to the front]

suddenly imagining them meeting & Grey following Looks-Like-Curtis arnd like a silent, deadly puppy

[starsandtights]

[More and more as he talks to Grey, Steve is unsure what to make of this person. Like, what even is that, besides 'terrible'. He's re-evaluating the kid thing, too.

Steve doesn't know what the hell is happening anymore, so he lets his fingers do what they want.]

I died once, too. Not a lot of fun, is it.
This train, have you been there your whole life? Ever been outside?

pretty much.

[silenttrainbaby]

This is my only time outside.

[So of course he's going to freeze to death.]

[starsandtights]

[Shit. Kid or no, Grey probably has no idea how to deal with weather. Damned unfair. Steve rubs at his forehead, then decides to take a different tack.]

Look, I'm going to be straight with you. Weather like this, it's dangerous to be outside. Deadly, even. People have died here, but... sometimes, after a few days, they come back. So there's that.

Meanwhile, it's gonna be cold out there no matter what you do, but if you can get behind something, get out of the wind, that'll be a little better. Or I can talk you through making a snow shelter, if you like.

[silenttrainbaby]

What's a snow shelter?

[Directions+Grey=good]

[starsandtights]

Kind of a cave made out of snow.

[Aw, heck, would Grey even know what a cave is?]

Like a room. A little hidey-hole. Snow is cold, but it's a good insulator. Keeps warm air in, keeps wind and cold air out.

It's a lot of work, you'd have to dig.

[silenttrainbaby]

I can dig.

[at least Grey thinks he can.]

[starsandtights]

All right. If you can find something to dig with other than your hands, that would be best. A shovel's probably too much to hope for, but maybe one of the rubble piles has a nice piece of scrap metal.

Look for a big snowdrift. A big pile of snow, about as tall as you are. Maybe downwind of a building.

[silenttrainbaby]

[There is a LONG pause as Grey parses together what all this means. Then he tucks his tablet close to his body and starts looking. For something to dig with and a big pile of snow. When he has that, he answers]

Ok

[starsandtights]

[Steve perks up when the message comes through.]

You're going to want to pack the snow down to strengthen it... stomp all over it or hit it with your shovel. You don't want it to collapse on you once you're inside.

See if you can find a bunch of sticks or something in the rubble, about a foot and a half or two feet long. Stick them into the snow all over your snow mound. The sticks are markers, they'll keep you from making the walls too thin.

[silenttrainbaby]

[So, it's like a cubby but in the snow. Grey has made a few cubbies in his day on the train. It's the only form of privacy he'd ever had.

Now he's alone except for these words on a screen.

He finds he'd rather be surrounded by people.

The digging and the finding sticks and all of that takes a long time. But at least he's moving. At some point, he loses feeling in his fingers and toes, but he's not one to give up. Eventually he has carved out a place for him to back into. It's out of the wind and it's quiet, the kind of quiet that echoes. ]

ok

[starsandtights]

[That took a long time, long enough that Steve had started to worry that he'd lost him.]

Did you already dig yourself a cave? If you haven't already you're going to want to poke a couple of small vent holes through the roof, so the air doesn't go bad. And then block the entrance with a block of ice or your pack, to keep the wind out.

And then... that's pretty much it. Dark and cramped, I know, but better than outside, right?

[silenttrainbaby]

[vent holes? Okay, so Grey does that and gets some snow in the face for his efforts, but still. He builds up the entrance a little, making it even more cramped. He doesn't have a pack, having nothing to put in it but the clothes on his back.]

ok its a little warmer