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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Sure, she's kind of aware of the reflection issue, but the apparitions are--far more ~~scary~~ annoying than she'd want to deal with, so she hasn't experienced getting pulled in.

As such, she gives him a very unimpressed stare. "You got startled by your own finger," she replies, the words practically dripping with disdain. Like, yeah, that colour doesn't look right for flesh at all... "I suppose it does look like it's about to fall off or something."

"You can call me Rin, or you can call me SecUnit." And it's not willing to bet on this man's preference yet. But the way the question is phrased is nicer than being asked its name. "How about you?"

"Mmmm." The casual sound rises and falls, like birdsong in the empty halls. "Reassuring. And yes, I'd be grateful. Swimmers have to swim, writers have to write, and swordsmen have to train. It only takes a few days for it all to go downhill."

Erin's heavy boots continue to ring out against the deck; when Johnny looks back there's something just a bit off about her gait. Is she making noise on purpose?

"I won't be so rude as to ask you about yourself directly but I've been eating up the conversation," Erin continues. "Anything weighing on your mind, Mister Summers?"

There is a long and thoughtful pause. While having no reason not to expect other people in her...cruise ship...Erin was not wholly prepared to be answered by shocked yelling rather than the callous calls of jaded fellow prisoners.

She rests her forehead on the cabin door and thinks. What to say, what to say.

The little goblin that lives in all human minds answers for her: "Ahhhh?" she mock-yells, at much lower volumes.

"She is, yes." A faint smile, that fades into bitter self-deprecation. "Though I wouldn't say the same of myself. Don’t be too hard on yourself -- without cowards, we’d only know chaos and war." Or that's how it seems to Dimitri, cynic of a martial culture that brands any hesitation at violence as 'cowardice'.

He's got his fair share of curiosity about the newcomer, himself. Too many people on this boat know grief and suffering -- it must be easier for the Captain to prey on souls that are already cracked -- but far fewer know tragedy, and fewer still can look it in the face without flinching. But, by the same token, Dimitri's not willing to pry into another's pain.

"I don't expect any happy songs. I'm ... not really built for merriment. I'll gladly listen to you play, but perhaps elsewhere? There are a few different music venues onboard. So we're not blocking the way ... and further from the mirrors." Dimitri casts an uneasy glance back down the hall, then up and down the poet's narrow frame. "Have you eaten? I don't mean to assume, but you seem like a new arrival. I've found it helps to get something in the stomach, after," a broad gesture vaguely describing the whole process from waking to the lifeboat drill, "that."

Steven glances up at Marc, then down to the floor, then at Erik and notices that Erik is watching him. He quickly looks down again and nods a few times. He's pretty sure those aren't mutually exclusive. They could do things hardly anyone would believe they can do and they're also certifiably crazy.

Anyway. They can't do those things anymore. And that's probably for the best. With great power came really shouty and mean gods.

"Are you-- different. Like that?"

They don't have in-depth context for that comparison, having never been a child or spent much time around human children. But it sounds like something children might plausibly do. // Probably. I have no relevant experience.

"Just Summer, not Summers, please." But it's not a huge deal. To be acknowledged for who he is at all is important in itself.

"As for things weighing on my mind, well, this place is designed to make sure we're ill at ease. But there's hardly anything I'd burden you with so soon upon arrival."

[ Arthur is leading himself along the ship's corridor, his fingers trailing along the wall a little ahead of him. He's encountered the same problem as Jack, but he's...

Well, if there's only one path, he's going to find out what's at its end. And who. And then maybe do them violence, or at least figure out how to escape back to (he assumes) the waking world. The narration will spare you the details of his panic at waking up alone in a soft bed, and instead fast forward to: ]

All right. All right. That's... Yes, I'm sure we're curving to the left. [ His fingers reach the edge of something raised slightly from the wall, and pause to explore it. ] What am I... God damn it. Fine, I'll do it myself. A plaque? Maybe a sign. Very fucking useful.

[ Talking to himself keeps him focused, at least relatively speaking. Keeps track of things. Makes him feel a tiny bit less like he's completely alone in a place that he can't even see.

Alone, except for a familiar smell of rot and blood. Oh fuck, what is that?

He stops, suddenly very focused. And now that he's not muttering to himself he can hear it too: the sound of someone breathing over the creak of waves, fast and frightened. Which doesn't scream 'threat', but, you know, he's been tricked before.

He ventures a sharp whisper. ]

Who's there?

[ Arthur, for the benefit of anyone sighted, looks fucking terrible. The pale hooded robe that screams 'cultist' isn't a great start, even if it wasn't soaked with foul water, and the front of it pink with soggy bloodstains. The ship's lifejacket is a comical addition, slung loosely over the whole ensemble. Arthur's face is gaunt and wary as he looks towards and around but never directly at Jack. ]

Edited 2022-09-06 17:58 (UTC)

[The person passing by does a double-take as she realizes that she knows this person in the capris with an indistinct face. There's lots of people on the ship with indistinct faces (or no faces at all) but Flan knows this lack-of-face better than all the others. That's what happens when you're co-workers!

(Also, with all the weird folks around, Flan's decided to relax a little and take the sunglasses off for once. After all, who's going to notice that her eyes are super duper black when they're distracted by all the face stuff!)]

"Yeah, I was feeling a little mixed about it when I first got here because you know how I am about being trapped anywhere. But you know what, I'm on board now."

[And she grins in a way that makes it clear that the double-meaning is very deliberate.]

Edited 2022-09-06 17:33 (UTC)

Summer, right, he'd said that quite clearly. Why has she been -

Out loud, Erin groans, "Wheadon," like a curse. "My apologies, Mister Summer, I appear to have fucking cordyceps. Don't hesitate to correct me in the future."

Erin slips into another thoughtful silence, but as they get closer to the muster she stops in place, having come to her decision. "You've been very courteous," she says, with the air of someone walking themself through it. "And I have tried to remember which pocket I keep my manners in, in turn. But let me say this, Johnny: if we're going to be stuck here for awhile, you're going to see me be a bitch. I'm gonna be rough and ragged because I've worked, very hard, to let myself be. I'll swear and cuss and hit people. But, if you play it straight with me, I'll always play it straight back with you. So let me ask you again, and instead of trying to bullshit a bullshitter you can either answer, or tell me straight that you don't want to: anything weighing on your mind?"

"Stuck -" Erin starts out yelling, and then is conspicuously silent for some time. The sound of boots from inside the room - pacing it? Exploring it? - echoes into the corridor, followed by a futile attempt to open the latch.

With far less yelling: "Yeah, I seem to be stuck, both in the sense that I'm here and not elsewhere and in the sense that this -" Erin pauses to lower her volume again, "that this door is not fucking opening."

"I don't know what cordyceps are, but I understand the sentiment. What you should know about me is that presentation is a very deliberate thing for me; I have polished myself into something very nice and shiny, and I like who I am these days, even on this ship. Is anything weighing on me? Of course. We've been kidnapped by an eldritch magician who's using the energy he derives from our negative emotions to attempt to become a god. That does stress a man somewhat."

He huffs out a humorless little laugh. "You're hardly the only bitch on this ship, and I've managed to get in good with no few of the kind by being friendly, useful, and not showing that I'm afraid until it's unavoidable. But I'm like many others on this warped displeasure cruise, fumbling around in the dark with little actual understanding of what I can do to help anyone with anything. I fear that little personal tiffs will fracture whatever sense of community and cooperation we can build to fortify ourselves against the captain. I fear seeing the people I've come to care about hurt, because a craven little wizard thinks he can play with us like dolls in a dollhouse."

Erin's "hmm," comes with tucking her hands into her pockets, though there's little she can do about the absurd effect of the lifejacket under her left arm. "I'm like a rattlesnake, Mister Summer. If I'm going to bite, you'll get a warning first."

Erin closes the distance and lays a hand on Johnny's shoulder, just about at the limit of her arm's reach; close enough to touch, but not truly close, oh, not ever. The scents of sex and gunpowder blow past the two on a warm Spring breeze, laced with the promise of rain.

"Thank you for shooting straight with me," Erin murmurs. "...I usually have to stab someone before others believe me about that. It's...nice...to not have to do that. Let me offer you some wisdom in turn. Shortly after I -" there is a mental swerve to a less vulnerable version of the truth, "- entered into the service of New Avalon, I was having some similar doubts. Inwardly focused, but still. My liege lady laughed them off, and she told me, not about the power of peace and love and friendship. Not even about the power of Spring. She told me, the thing your enemy does not want you doing is probably your exit. So it sounds to me like you're working on holding the door open, and someone's fucking gotta."

She takes her hand back and motions in the direction of the muster again. "...And it's fungus. Cordyceps, that is. They snake their tendrils into the brains of their prey, control their bodies, and when it's sporing time the fungus explodes and leaves the dead shell behind. You'll find it in rain forests and, metaphorically, any time you have one of those moments where it feels like your self and your brain are knife fighting."

César had been standing near the door, waiting to hear back in case the person really did need help.

And then he hears that response. Which causes a nervous laugh.

"You... startled me. S-Sorry."

He scoffs. Is she being dense on purpose? "Yeah, you think? It's bone white and I've lost all feeling in it. Oh, and a ghost inside the reflection in a spoon just tried to attack me."

He huffs and puts his non-injured hand on his hip. "I'm not having a great day here and I don't think this is something I can just slap a bandaid on."

"Rin, I guess? SecUnit sounds sort of... I don't know what." Inhuman?

"My name is Commander John Crichton. From Earth?" He says that as a question because he's really used to know one knowing where the hell Earth is.

Surprise, Crichton, it's inhuman!

"Mm. I know of Earth. I come from after humanity abandoned the planet, but I know about Earth." It couldn't draw a (star) map, but it knows the stories of the planet, and how it was destroyed by climate change and overpopulation and resource depletion.

He's starting to put the pieces together now.

"Humanity abandoned it? The hell...? When did that happen?"

"Something you need to remember is my universe likely isn't the same as yours. But centuries ago, by Earth time standards."

It shrugs slightly. "Most of humanity is in space stations in the Corporate Rim now."

The poet gets That Face. You know the one. The face where you want so badly to argue for your own self-deprecation, have a genuine deep-seeded disagreement with another's positive perception of yourself, but you also don't want to put that person in the position of arguing for you. It squirms over his face for an uncomfortable moment, then is forced back down into him.

"I think it would be a good idea to back away from these things," he says, nodding. "And I... yes, I'm new here. Still, ah, a little lost, if I'm being perfectly honest. And I haven't eaten. I haven't needed to eat for a while."

[ hello hi i was sick but now i am back ]

[ Steve glances down at the filthy makeshift bandage and prods it gingerly with his fingertips. He really hasn't spared the wounds much thought since wrapping them and now he shudders to think what they must look like under there. Super gross, he imagines. ]

Ah... you know, I haven't really looked at it. [ It had been really dark on top of there just being, like, a lot going on. ] Yeah, I don't think it's bad though. I'm fine.

[ What are they gonna do, anyway, hit up the first aid station?

... Actually, that's not a terrible idea. ]

Could probably, like, use a bandaid, though. If you know where to find one.

Dude, come on. [ He sweeps his arms wide, gesturing to the general ... everything. ] You think the devil's on a cruise ship?

[ hi i was SICK but now i return bearing very late tags ]

[ Steve obediently flexes his fingers, then rotates his wrist this way and that, bends his arm at the elbow a couple of times. It doesn't feel like it's helping at all, but then again his arm doesn't really feel like much of anything at the moment. His chalk white skin is freaking him out though so he tears his eyes away from it and fixes them on the guy instead. His brand new hero best friend. ]

Don't ask me, man. I just got here, like, a few days ago. People keep telling me it's a weird place but they never said why it's weird.

[ Seriously it's been "oh you might want to carry a gun" or "this isn't an ordinary cruise ship!" but no one ever gave info beyond that. ]

Seems like a big detail to leave out, right? That people come out of the windows and try to... [ He trails off, gestures towards the window with his good hand, and shrugs. ] You know. Whatever the hell that was.

"Right. Sure. Alternate realities. No big deal." Except it's a huge deal because, according to what he was just told by an ancient race of space and time traveling aliens, the longer he stays in an alternate reality, the more likely it is to become his permanent reality. He might be just slightly on the verge of panicking. He can feel his own pulse throbbing in the side of his neck.

"Most of humanity where I'm from haven't been to a different continent, let alone a space station. I'm guessing, by the way you keep referring to humans, you are not one?"

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TEST DRIVE MEME #5

lbr wrangling moya's crew is probably worse than wrangling teens

Shit, sorry about that!

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you're not wrong

it's okay, we are on it now

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