sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #5

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TEST DRIVE MEME #5

1. not subtle revealings

[you wake up.

it doesn't matter where you were before. going to bed? dying? opening the door to face a great evil? same result. you wake up in a soft bed with starched sheets in a cool, darkened room, sunlight peeking out from behind thick curtains. maybe you're alone; maybe you aren't. maybe you immediately notice the folded paper on the bedside table near your head. if you don't, you better fix that real quick: you won't be able to even open the door before you read it.

the note itself is written in a neat hand on white card stock; there is a stylized logo of a ship with the words SERENA ETERNA printed underneath. the note reads as follows:

Dear Passenger(s),

As your cruise director, it is my great honor to welcome you aboard the Serena Eterna, your destination for fun and adventure! We know you could have chosen any cruise line for your vacation, and we're very grateful you chose ours! On behalf of the Captain, I would like to assure each and every passenger that will we do whatever it takes to fulfill all your needs and desires during your journey with us.

At your earliest possible convenience, please attend the mandatory lifeboat drill by the end of the day. I'm sure everyone is very eager to get started on all the fun and sun, but safety always comes first! You can find your life jacket in your cabin's closet; carry it to your assigned muster station on deck one, where I will take you through the drill. If you can't find me in the crowd, just look for the gal with the winning smile!

See You Real Soon!

Sincerely,
Gal Friday

you walk to deck one. you have no other choice: every time you try to step in a direction some unseen being considers "not towards deck one," you find your legs no longer move, staying stock still, frozen. whether compelled quickly by curiosity, or delayed by pure stubbornness, the result is the same, and you are left milling around with other similarly curious or stubborn people.

you see someone in uniform near the front of the crowd. she seems to be a gal, but is missing the winning smile, along with most of her other features. she seems to see you, though, rushing to your side and placing a lei around your neck with great formality. a voice, cheery but artificial, sees to come from nowhere and everywhere.]

Welcome! I'm very glad to have you aboard!

[you touch the lei. rooster feathers, lotus seeds, and a carved circle of something white and hard, linked onto a silk string.

after the drill is completed, you are seemingly free to go. or, well, your legs work, now. and maybe that's as good as it's gonna get.]

2. a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling

[the reflections are missing. all of them. in mirrors. in television screens. on the backs of spoons. nothing looks back at you.

then, figures do show up. not your own, like you'd expect. thin, wispy apparitions, people with pleading eyes and hands, reaching out to place their palms against the surface, from their own end. faces familiar and not, beckoning, mouthing words you just can't quite make out. help me, it might be. get me out, perhaps. just until you're close enough, until your skin warms the surface of whatever it is you're peering into. and then, those same hands wrap, all too real, burning-cold against your flesh, and pull, trying to drag you through the surface, making up for their lack of strength with desperation. any flesh unlucky enough to enter the reflection comes back bone-white and cold, all sensation dead, though it will fade within a few hours.

in retrospect, it looks a bit more like they were saying something different. something more like, better you than me. or maybe it's not even words at all. they look a bit more like they're laughing.]

3. complex mementos

[but, hey. sometimes changes are good! like, today, in Playback, there's a brand-new game available for all the children to play! it's an old-fashioned sort of claw machine, the type that's so large, a particularly dedicated kindergartner could wriggle their way inside. the prizes vary, and sit loose: bags of candy, stuffed toys, firearms, painfully early-00s electronics, actually that one just looks like a dead iguana, tiny ship-branded knickknacks... like all the other games in the arcade, the game starts up automatically upon being touched; lack of quarters shouldn't keep you from having fun! pro tip: they are loaded, and they will go off if you suck at claw games and let it fall.]

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( gullible, foolhardy... what about just obsessively curious, chronically suspicious, and just perpetually out of their own depth with all the twists and turns and false footholds to be found on this ship? can those folks still apply to be questionably wrecked in the photo shop today? ...they can? oh, yay, swell!

clarke's walked and mapped the length of the ship enough times by now to be able to catch when things are out of place. pieces of paper stuck to the wall usually belong to stede bonnet on his matchmaking, crew recruiting, and therapist advertisements — some of which she's made a solemn vow to pull down on sight, and all of which she reads. so this day, passing by photos at sea it's the same old routine of scrutiny until the advert actually registers. then she's turning her gaze from the piece of paper to the internal design of the storefront itself.

what's new inside the doors is made plain and simple soon enough; there's an actual person sitting behind the desk, a new face whom clarke immediately turns to and addresses. )

So how's that work?

( for april's perspective, they may have spotted clarke's likeness among the photographs plastered across the wall before. not prominently featured, but a few lively snapshots here and there for anyone who deigns to really look. the time she'd climbed onto the outer side of the deck railing, backlit like a crappy titanic remake, and focus plainly stated by the deep lines of intent on her face — ready and determined to jump. sitting at a table in Windjammer, head in her hands and trying not to throw up after overindulging; a slightly emaciated apocalypse youth, coming off a self-imposed hunger strike and making the definitive mistake of heaping her plate full of chocolate cake when she could only stomach a bite or two of it. battered and wet, slimy actually, sitting against a wall next to a boy with purple hair and blood all over his abdomen; the two of them mirror images of exhaustion. passed out on a pool deck chair in a navy party dress, playing cards strewn about, like a full on renaissance painting of bad choices and futility. an action shot of being shoved off a plastic motorcycle replica in the arcade, eyes bright and half a laugh already painting her face, though not reaching the competitive determination in her eyes. sitting beside a corpse on the deck, head bowed in a silent moment of regret and seemingly covered in ink...

this shop never fails to scar, even without curses involved. )

( there's a...

suspicious squint. because months ago, and he's still wearing the same clothes that look like they've just crusted over in blood a few days ago? not saying showers in the apocalypse were a common occurrence, and she's not one to talk having arrived in a hazmat suit and covered in radiation burns but... that doesn't make this any less weird. or concerning.

yet in the same breath, he best friends here are a vampire and a jellyfish; going with the flow and not questioning too much until answers became necessary had worked for her so far. )

Okay. ( spoken dubiously. ) ...then how about we start with your name? ( don't collaborate with strangers, like mama said. (abby griffin has never —) )

[It's really a shame April can't tell where the cameras here are, because this would be the perfect time to look directly into one, like a looney tunes character asking the audience if they can believe this.

For Clarke, a face April indeed has seen already in many photos here, through many undoubtedly interesting and traumatic points of her journey, April gives her a big smile with a mouth that they obviously have.]

Oh, it's simple, I just find you a picture of yourself (or your friends) (or maybe your enemies!) that came out super creepy. One hundred percent, genuinely scary and unsettling.

[April's customer service voice is in peak form, but they know even that won't be enough to make this pitch sound legitimate on a ship like this. So they lean in a little, like they don't want to be overheard sounding rude.]

See, "cursed images" and "creepypasta" are all the rage with the kids these days, but as with any popular art, for every really good, long-lasting horror that will linger in your thoughts after seeing it, there's two dozen of the same ol, "I blacked out the eyes on this picture and wrote a generic ghost story for it!" or "I photoshopped the mouth and eyes slightly bigger isn't that creepy?", which like, nice of kids to practice but it's not scary horror, you know?

[April sits up again, a pleasant look on their face. What's that look like? Oh, you know. Pleasant.]

So, I'm just curating the good, organic creepy stuff from the rest of the pictures here. Not just any old blurry face or misplaced shadows, but the ones that will truly give you the "heebie jeebies", stuff you'd regret looking at late at night!

[After April adds their own touch to it, of course, but this isn't a real sales pitch and there aren't any paranormal feds here or quality control. All that matters is that they said these would freak people out, so if unsatisfied customers actually succeed in tracking April down, they can at least say they were warned.]

Edited 2022-08-30 00:15 (UTC)

You were. It's the one you woke up here.

[But they all look the same, so she might as well ask Friday. Will probably make their faceless director's day...]

The infirmary is on deck zero. It restocks itself too, so you can take anything that seems useful.

[He own cabin contains multiple scalpels and enough morphine to sedate an elephant.]

[~~H-huff why do people see her as a little girl...!~~ She eyes him dubiously, and he...rambles quite a bit there. She still doesn't like it!! Even if he has a slight point.

After a moment of glowering at him, she gives in just a little.]

Hmph--so what can you do to deal with--monsters?

[ ~~So short she can't see over the bar at restaurants. u_u~~

This seems to be going well! Better, even! Shi Qingxuan waves his fan, flicking it open across his chest. The word "wind" is scrawled across it in slanting script (now in English!). ]

Can't you already guess? I have my own magic to deal with monsters. Isn't that what you were interested in knowing about earlier?

[~~nakjnsd no that's Karol!!~~

"Wind", huh...he certainly has a theme. Rita crosses her arms.]

If you can do more than a little gust, anyway.

[ ~~TRUE poor Captain Karol...~~

Shhh don't comment on how loudly wind-oriented he is... ]

Of course I can! [ He doesn't even sound offended. Rather, his voice is bright and proud. ] But using spells like that indoors is bad, so let's find your lucky hairpin first.

[~~He's a true tiny...~~

All he's missing are some windchimes...]

Hmph...so it's back to that, huh...

[Somehow, the hairpin doesn't feel quite as important as it did before...not that it was ever that important, or anything-!]

Don't think this means I believe you.

Unless you've already given up on it for now. Searching through this debris is much more forgiving than fighting with that metal claw machine; it's just tiring and time-consuming.

[ He looks down again, and around, and...there really is a lot left still. But- ]

What's there to not believe? [ He asks innocently... This is way more believable than the truth! ] Are my skills not enough proof of my identity? Who else will you meet that can control wind like me other than a follower of the Wind Master?

Steven tries the door and gingerly pushes it open, shuffling in quietly and forcing a smile before holding it open for his... New friend to come in.

"Hey. This is... ... um..." If Erik gave Steven his name, he didn't get it in his spike of anxiety. Steven's leaning away from him a bit, one shoulder raised. Marc could be forgiven for thinking that Steven's just been yelled at or had been held at gunpoint.

"...sorry." He wrings his hands and glances furtively at Marc.

Vance. Vance Hopper.

[ He notices the look of suspicion, and the tone in her voice, and he just sighs. That's probably going to be a regular occurrence here, isn't it?

He holds up one hand and it sort of fades away, still visible but only half there. ] I'm a ghost. I'm dead.

...It's just a stupid pin in the end. [Even if...it would have been cute... She does glance over the mess again, but her distaste for this sort of tedious work is starting to win out.

At his question, she gives him a flat look...before starting to casually list people.] Jade, Venti...maybe some others here whose powers I don't know yet. I could develop more formulae utilizing wind if I felt like it, too, and there was the old man back in my world...

[In other words: she's heavily implying that he's nothing special!!]

[ How much abuse is he meant to take here, Rita?! If she were someone he was closer to, he'd be hurt! As it is, he just frowns, more than a little hurt...but not pouting over it? ]

You say that, but you haven't seen what I'm capable of yet, so how can you act like it's all the same? Even if there are such skilled people here, that doesn't change my own expertise?

[ Sigh!! He shakes his sleeves out in a huff and starts walking! ]

Fine, whatever. If it's like that, then let's just go on deck to sort this out.

[ Good thing she didn't want the hairpin that much anyway?? ]

[The laugh wasn't minded, for the record--kind of a funny bit of awkwardness there all around, really--but Jade does very politely ignore that it happened, and then they're moving onwards...! Shi Qingxuan's ready agreement to relocate to a cabin is met with a pleased sort of nod; they're off right afterwards, which is all the better, Jade trailing idly along beside him but letting the latter man take the lead to his memory of his new residence.]

A fine plan to me. I suppose I am rather familiar with all the good spots on board, by now... [For better or worse, and not by his own wishes, but that's just how things are on this prison of a ship. The easy humor in Jade's tone doesn't wane in acknowledging this, at least; there's a bit of a vague wryness, more than anything else.] Might be a good way to pay you back for your consultation on talismans, if such a price would be amenable to you!

[Shi Qingxuan sure is quite readily leaping into a ~~infodump~~ detailed explanation on the matter of charms about now, after all, and it is appreciated. Jade listens with close attention as transit is made to the cabin; it caps off right around the time they arrive, which is quite convenient with all things considered. Jade sure will follow him inside to...prudently not make a show, of watching too hard, as Shi Qingxuan begins the awkward struggle of working his large sleeves back through the holes in the life jacket. (Though it is...a pretty comical sight, goodness. Must have been an ordeal to get the jacket on in the first place, too....but alright, we're still not looking and definitely still not laughing a bit on the inside at this, anyway--)

He's moving to pull the door shut accordingly. And now, with the most secure approximate privacy afforded against the captain, by being within the confines of a cabin instead of outdoors...he can speak just a bit more frankly, finally.]

This is a very interesting explanation...I thank you for it. There are aspects of it that are both familiar and not, to me--another result of the disparity between our homelands, no doubt. ...But you're correct, it's not necessarily what I'm looking for at the moment, though I could certainly see the examples you provide being very useful in a place like this...

[Jade draws further into the room, and folds his arms; the pleasant smile on his face doesn't fade, but his overt humor does finally wane slightly, in favor of being direct.]

I can see now that your experience with handling talismans is extensive. And I'd like your assessment of an existing one, actually. That lei in your sleeve right now is allegedly some form of protection against "times when it seems like the world is ending"...and the captain is not aware of their existence on this ship.

Sure, if you're really that sensitive about it.

[Wow, it's like he's suddenly getting a little grumpy for some totally unknown reason?! Huff, well, if that's how he wants it, then she'll follow after him! (As soon as they step away, the mess and smashed claw machine get magically cleaned up, everything returning to the way it was before Rita ruined it...maybe she'll get that hairpin another day...)

Since he's the one so worried about the location, she'll continue to let him lead the way to the deck of his choosing.]

And just so you know, I'm not here to be your target practice.

[You know, as if everyone's as willing to throw magic at people at she is...]

Well, that's good, at least! Then you can still get some work on that before you get back to the tour. It sounds like it'd be a fun time!

If you needed someone to help organize, I'd be around...

[Just... gonna cling onto this for something to work on, even if that's logically a bad idea when he's still pretty badly roughed up.]

Do I look that petty...?

[ He wonders aloud. How much has his reputation suffered to reach this point? ]

I couldn't use you for target practice. You'd be swept up so far, you would wind up flying out to sea. And then maybe end up floating away like a leaf on the breeze, right back onto the roof of your home...

[ The deck Shi Qingxuan walks to is Deck Six—with the pool! It seems like one of the less potentially dangerous locations to let things go. The breeze is also strong through here when Shi Qingxuan walks to the edge of the ship. ]

"Erik Lehnsherr," Erik offers, before Steven has a chance to wet his pants over it or something. "New arrival. Steven's suggested we should get together for the high holidays. I don't suppose you know anywhere to get a decent challah around here?" he asks dryly.

"I see." A pause. "Can you show me this transdimensional department store?"

Hm, I wonder.

[Maybe she intentionally leaves her answer vague to string him along...or maybe she doesn't particularly care that much.

The pool is one of her locations of choice for magic testing too, so she supposes she's...not impressed, but agrees with his choice there. The breeze seems a bit stronger than usual, but otherwise... His talk of floating home, no matter how lightly he may have intended it, sends a different sort of morose glower across her face.]

It'd be nice if it was that easy...but it's not.

How can it restock itself? [ she raises a brow at him ] Is is done by the captain's strange magic?

[ she takes a glance over at the claw machine again, and all the things inside of it.
one day, she'd like to try and understand a little more about the captain's ability to just create things ...

but for now -- ]

I guess I'll head to the infirmary then. That's probably a lot more important than any of the games here.
Thank you for answering my questions, Yuuki.

[ she turns to leave. although if he were to follow, she wouldn't be opposed to it either ]

[ hearing he'd died certainly surprises her -- but tear knows better than to push someone on a topic like that.
it was a useful tidbit to know, though, since it was quite different from her own circumstances pre-arrival. ]

I see... Thank you for the warning. It's nice to know there's a possibility of at least coming across him.

[ if she played her cards right, maybe there was a chance she could get answers from him -- or even kill him, if she needed to.
but openly talking about murdering someone is also a bit much for a first conversation, huh? ]

I'm assuming you're not the only person that's been here for a few months, at least.
So what do you do with your time here?

[ this is her way of 'lightening the mood' and asking what his interests are :,) ]

Marc can't tell if that's Steven's I'm being threatened face or just his usual anxiety kicking in. He gives a suspicious look between the two and snorts. "You know, haven't seen any. Maybe we should make a complaint to the Captain."

He tilts his head. "Marc Spector. Uh-- where did you two meet?"

And why the hell were they discussing holidays?

"In the bathroom." Because where else do people normally meet? If that sounds horrendously obscene, Steven is completely oblivious. He wordlessly gestures towards the couch for Erik to sit. Even his name is intimidating.

And then Steven busies himself putting the kettle on. The cabin is small but still manageable with just the three of them.

"There's something strange going on with the mirrors. It might be the ghosts again," he casually throws out there while making tea for three because he was a little too flustered to ask if they even wanted any. He does seem to be marginally more at ease standing closer to Marc now than he does when he's just with Erik.

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TEST DRIVE MEME #5

girls on film

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