sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #8

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TEST DRIVE MEME #8

1. but times have changed for sailors these days

[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 aboard! I'm so happy you could join us!

[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. tried to amend my carnivorous habit

[the space inside John's where the piano normally sits is mysteriously vacant today. as a matter of fact, the entire piano bar is silent, without so much as a muzak-inspired interpretation of Uptown Girl to hum along to.

the piano itself seems to have disappeared... for the most part. unlucky, unsuspecting passengers who enter the cabin hallway, step out onto the lower decks, or find themselves in one of the other narrow corridors of the ship, may find themselves suddenly facing down a silent, unmoving grand piano. it takes up too much space to squeeze by comfortably...

and then, the cover lifts, exposing what looks to be... teeth?

yeah. yeah, those are its teeth. and it's coming right for you.]

3. that American creation on which I feed

[it had been a difficult October for bahamanuel, the bahamanal. its territory had changed utterly, becoming alien and strange. new predators were encroaching on its hunting grounds. its position in the natural order is under threat. and so, nature finds a way.

the old timers know to be wary of large piles of clothes, but even they won’t think to look twice at the tiny lumps of garish kids’ swimsuits and sundresses - until they feel something latch onto their leg, and then several more things, and anywhere from ten to twenty balled up clothes piles try to take down their prey.

the young must learn how to hunt, after all.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Test one: will Commitment To The Bit function on Yakko right now?

Erin loops one of her homemade ropes into a lasso and flings it after him, Cartoon Style Baby.

No!!! She already knows his one weakness!! The Bit!!

Regardless of how well the lasso was thrown, it encircles him perfectly around his arms and brings him crashing to the ground with a thud and a small cloud of dust. He wriggles ineffectually, kicking his feet.

"Wait! Please! Don't eat me! I taste terrible! Even Daisy couldn't stomach me more than once!!"

"Wow you're not even gonna try to pretend not to be the dude who was in my friend." Erin almost says 'phrasing' but no, no, she's gonna let Yakko jump on the jokes. She reels him in, hand over hand, weirdly thankful that most of her television knowledge is old cartoons at this point. She puts her boot on a chair and leans over him. "Is this a good time to tell you Daisy's here too?"

"Goodnight everybody," Yakko adds on, dejectedly.

Yakko tumbles over himself when he's reeled in, smacking into every bit of furniture along the way, complaining 'oof' and 'ouch' with each knock.

"I didn't mean to," he sniffs, "it all happened so quickly. One moment I was Nothing and then poof, I'm a member of the 1%," sniff sniff.

"Couldya give me a head-start in trying to outrun her? I bet she's still keeping score from last time around."

"I'm actually gonna ask ya a similar question to the one I asked her when she got back." Erin leaaaaans down and puts a finger just on the tip of Yakko's nose. "You prefer your straight men for the jokes with or without bashing your head in?"

Listen.

It's not that Erin isn't mad.

It's not even that forgiving Daisy but not Yakko would be hypocritical, though yes, that.

She just really wants a cartoon as a buddy.

"Nobody's confusing you for a straight man, and besides- Bash is the other guy,"

A phantom rimshot goes off somewhere. Man he missed that.

"Now look," he steeples his hands together in front of his face, waving Erin off from touching his adorable little red nose as he settles his hands in place, "we had a bit of a rocky introduction, but I think we can- WAIT IS THAT AN ELIGIBLE WOMAN OVER THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN!?"

And points directly away from the door.

Erin's face turns bright red and she makes the key mistake of picking Yakko up to shake him violently.

Yes! An opening! Yakko sticks the Groucho glasses onto Erin's face and slips between her hands like a bar of soap, landing in a perfect Arabesque atop her head.

"Thank you, thank you, I'm here every night for the rest of my life!" he cackles, and bounds off her head towards the exit, moving over tables and chair with the sort of grace only someone unbothered by physics can manage.

"For someone who isn't a pirate anymore, you sure haven't lost your touch in acquiring boo-tay!"

Censor THAT you hack writer!!

You would think the woman who spoke King Arthur's doom would know better than to say the fatal words that deal her into The Bit, but say them she does: "WHY I OUGHTA -"

She gives chase!

Now this is more like it!!

Yakko scampers free of Chatterbox, out into the corridor. Unlike Halloween, he's locked and loaded and back in action- out of his slacks come the whole gamut of classic gags; banana peels, ball bearings, a couple of bear traps, scattered haphazardly behind him like a flower-girl at a wedding. He's never been the strongest or most lethal of the pack of bastards aboard the good ship Serena Eternia, but he has one thing going for him; his ability to be supremely annoying.

"You know, you might think a pirate's favourite letter is R, but I've heard their first love is actually the C. Do you know what a pirates favourite number is?"

Hey Yakko, you know what the Aura means?

It means these gags can land, baby. In short order the running steps of Erin behind him have a heavy chain rattle because she STEPPED IN A FUCKING BEAR TRAP and kept going - though from the way her Aura fizzles that might get rated R for gore sooner rather than later.

"NINE?" she guesses, still enraged.

"You have an answer?! I thought you were still trying to figure it out- you keep asking girls for theirs, don't you?"

ZING, GOT HER AGAIN!

Yakko screeches to a halt in front of the elevator and smacks the up button a couple of times, holding out his hand to stop Erin in her tracks once she catches up with him. Chases have to pause at elevators, everyone knows that.

Erin pauses, caught in the bit, huffing, puffing, Looming.

Well, maybe not completely caught. She levers the bear trap off with one savage kick, snapping it in half.

"Warner. You do realize I'm gonna make you walk the plank yes?"

"Pirates didn't actually do that historically! Walking the plank was largely an invention by later writers, same as the black spot. I tried to tell that to Hook last time he made me do it, but I just don't think that guy values a good education."

Yakko rocks back and forth on his heels, hands held behind his back while he waits.

"...Damn, I wanna meet Captain Hook."

Ah, the Incongruous Civil Conversation.

"Why? You think his personality will have you... hooked?"

Erin groans. "I want his coat, alright? I love his coat. Never been able to find one quite like it."

"Snappy dresser, isn't he? He'd do numbers on tiktok," another phantom rimshot. That joke got him keel-hauled last time!

"Nah, he'd get DMCA'd by Kesha every time!"

She's doing finger guns Yakko.

There's finger guns.

You're gonna love Crichton and Gideon, Yakko.

"Yeah... stick to your day job."

The elevator dings and Yakko trots himself inside it, hopping up to sit on the railing.

Erin steps inside herself and slaps a random button, folding her arms as she picks a corner.

"Bold words from the guy with a non-union writer, Yakko. Besides, you missed my best bit while you were outta the house."

("His unicycle careens through the void...")

"So, here's the deal. This cruise? Not your cruise. There's a notable absence of Jackson Pollock paintings made from guts. You good to be a bit more Saturday Morning and a bit less Rob Zombie?"

"Just because he's not union doesn't mean the guy isn't funny, it just means he's a scab. He's not funny anyway, but-"

For reasons unknown to him, Yakko smacks himself in the face.

"See? It's all physical slapstick with this guy. Hack writer," he grumbles as he rubs his nose.

"I've been Saturday Morning for the last thirty years, but I'll believe it when I see it. You know how many times I've been made into a fur coat? The IUCN should classify me as an endangered species."

Erin shouldn't. She really should not. It's very insensitive.

But how many times is she going to have this opportunity?

"So what you're saying is you're the Serena Eterna's premier fashion mogul?"

"Are you kidding? Nobody looks better in my fur than I do!"

Ah, so nice to have someone working with him and not just saying 'DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE' over and over until they finally managed to kill him. Actual material. This voyage must be heaven.

"Well we can't all be winners." Erin's smile is fond, but still only half-there. "...I can't promise they're all gonna be understanding, my good dude. You kinda killed several people with your B material, but...we're trying. Shit happens. You've got me in your corner on one condition."

"...If you're gonna do the falling object gag to murder me again make it a safe, it fits better."

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