sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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TEST DRIVE MEME #1

1. now it's fun to wake up in a strange chateau

[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! We're so glad to have you!

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

2. messing with my mind was fun at the time

[freshly lei'd, your legs are forced to lead out onto the deck and towards your muster station. the same woman is there, carrying a clipboard. this time, she introduces herself as Gal Friday, the cruise director, before immediately going into the muster drill spiel. it is very boring, and you are not allowed to move, except when you are required to show you know how to put your life vest on. you could try to not do this, but Friday will move to stand in front of you very closely and just. look in your direction until such a time that you decide to do it. and I'm sure your fellow passengers want you to just get on with it, too.

but, once it ends? she reiterates her desire to welcome you aboard. and, then, you're free.

well, free to move about the ship at your own leisure, of course. which is a kind of free, and probably the best one you can hope for. you could try to escape, maybe, if you have the means to; Friday certainly won't be one to stop you. that's what the barrier is for, after all.

but, wouldn't you much rather have fun?

the buffet is full. the pool is open. the casino jingles and chimes.

welcome aboard.]

3. lots of mystery in the history of the devils I knew

[you were never alone.

a few days have passed since you first arrived on the Serena Eterna. perhaps you've made yourself a little routine, and settled in a bit. or maybe you haven't done that at all. either way, you're here, and it looks like somebody is pretty pissed off about it.

it starts small. sometimes nearby plates skid off tables, or a pool chair upends while you're walking next to it. and sometimes that chair is aimed right at your head. objects are moving with quickly increasing frequency, and a wide variety of styles: some are dropped, or pushed, and others and others are tossed, but a few of the items are thrown, with great force and odd accuracy. if Friday is around during the lighter moments, she simply titters and cleans up whatever mess is made. if a pot of soup sails off the buffet line and nearly drenches you in boiling minestrone, she simply walks away.

and then there's the voices. hundreds, maybe thousands, calling out. not all are intelligible English, but you seem to understand them anyway. some sound scared, or angry. some are screams, others whispers. some sound entirely strange, while others are achingly familiar. and they're all saying the same exact thing:

Get Out.]

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"Someone wants to be eaten somewhere. You don't know they don't. The world is full of tasty humans and maybe one of them wouldn't mind. But I won't if they say no." It's simple. Not even Aby would argue with that.

"They are very nutritious I think."

A switch flips—not dying is a priority for a ton of reason, and César nods, keeping himself low and behind her. He's been in situations like this before. You stay behind the one with the superpowers when it's this dangerous. Until they need help.

"Understood!"

She's able to keep the wall of water up until the ghost's temper tantrum subsides--maybe it gets bored, maybe it wears out its anger. Either way, the wall of water dissipates, without even a puddle on the floor.

Alchemical Water turns to look at César. "You're not hurt, right?"

"Nutritious or not--it's not okay. Humans are people." She looks more thoughtfully at the see-through guy. "What...what even are you?"

"Fish are fish, turtles are turtles, crabs are evil... Even if they don't sing the song you understand life is the same all around." He rises a little further and wriggles some tendrils out of the water.

"I'm a merjelly from the crushing darkness, where the lights shine and the bloom dances on the deep currents. And you?"

"I'm a magical girl from what might be the last city on Earth, one of the protectors of humanity against the monsters from outside the Outer Barrier."

She seems proud of all that.

César shakes his head, slowly standing while glancing around. "No, thanks to you. Hitting the deck is a skill I've perfected back home. One that I seem to still need here." A bit of a smile. "The only thing hurting is my head."

"Oh, good." Glancing around for any more danger, she drops back into the form of a mild-mannered schoolgirl. The pink glow in her pupils diminishes, but there's still definitely an uncanny saturation to the blue of her eyes and hair.

"I hope I didn't scare you too much. I know people here come from all kinds of different worlds, and some might not have magical girls."

Don't worry, he's genre savvy. No one has normal hair in anime, especially not magical girl anime. He'll just. Go with the flow.

"Oh, no, you didn't scare me at all!" César laughs a bit. "More like destroyed the half-dozen hypotheses for how our captors could be doing everything. My brother's the closest thing we have to a magical, ah, boy back home—" César really hopes Rex doesn't show up now, because he might legitimately kill him "—and I've seen the concept in... popular media back home."

He pauses for a moment, then has to rub his goatee in thought. "Rex might actually count, come to think of it...."

"So you are a protector. You are young but strong." He nods. "What is the barrier? What are the monsters? Are they tasty? Do they have a song?" As he speaks his skin lights up in excitement like fireflies.

"Is is somewhere we can get to from here?"

"Really? Back home, boys can't be magical girls at all, they can't have the Dream. How is he like one of us?"

She's startled by the very idea, looking up at César with mild awe.

"I don't think we can get there from here--none of us knows how to get home from this ship." She still worries about that sometimes, even if she takes chances to relax and do things like swim.

"But the monsters come from outside, and the Founder created magical girls, girls who have a magical Dream that grants them the power to fight. No one really knows what the monsters are, or where they come from. And no, they are not tasty, but you shouldn't be eating them anyway?"

Yeah, he's a little startled himself. He's pretty certain that Rex has no magic involved with his evolution, but it won't hurt to learn more about her system anyway.

"His abilities were granted through technology. No magic involved. ... I think." César drops his hand from his face to gesture with his open palm just around his stomach instead. "What is this 'Dream' you speak of?"

"It's how we become magical girls. When a girl is ten to thirteen, they might have a dream and wake up the next morning with the ability to transform and a mark of their powers. Most girls who have the dreams transfer to Future's Promise for school, because the schedule's better for girls who have to fight monsters while the barrier is up, 10pm to 2am. And most also form teams. I mean, almost everyone who's powers are thematic with other girls will join a team, but there's also non-thematic teams, like Team Blitz or Team Flash."

Did that manage to actually make anything at all clearer?

Yes, it's a bit clearer, but now he's actually committed to exploring this potential. Partially because it's hilarious.

"..." Rex had been ten, but that's honestly a coincidence. "That'd be a terrible schedule for a normal school. It's good that Future's Promise exists. ... how strange do the dreams tend to be?"

Edited 2022-03-27 05:22 (UTC)

"I only remember part of mine. It was dark, like deep in the ocean, and I was sinking, and colorful glowing jellyfish were all around me. I sink deeper, toward this tiny light, and I emerge in an upside-down place, where the water is the ceiling? There's more, but that's the part I don't recall. It felt really peaceful, though. Some think theirs are creepy, though. My friend Kokoro hates thinking about hers."

She pauses, thinking about Kokoro. Really, it's awful being here, knowing she's probably missed back home.

"Anyway, some people think the dreams come from the Founder. I don't know if I believe that--it might just be Foundationalist propaganda."

"Huh." César crosses his arms, curious and a bit concerned. "That's absolutely fascinating. An unknown source of power, the granting of which causes a symbolic dream."

The corners of his eyes turn up in amusement. "My brother isn't magical, but he could certainly masquerade as one to someone who didn't know any better. He'd drive your researchers up the wall if they couldn't determine the mechanisms driving his abilities."

"The CDD still hasn't really determined the mechanisms behind our powers yet, so your brother would really stump them." She laughs warmly "Anyway, I'm Undine, also known as Alchemical Water! What's your name?"

I've been fooled before by people of your stature, Mister Venti. [ he quips back, totally unapologetic and not at all malicious - even if some of the associated experiences are less than ideal. at least there's honesty enough in the mutual dislike between coworkers that he can't find himself getting too worked up over it.

the way he dissipates the harp gets a scrutinizing look from him, and it's then that Childe notices the Vision against Venti's hip. how interesting. ]

Maybe after you can show me what you can do with that Vision of yours. [ it's less a provocation for a fight and more of a light teasing, a gesture of acknowledgement. he sees you, Venti.

but before he can add anything more to it, before he can think about where else to go - he's through the door and his legs are moving, automatically, taking him in the direction of the drills. it's only a little confusing. ]

⭕ STRANGE CHATEAU

Well. This is... something. To her recollection, Chloe has not a) boarded a cruise ship b) booked a cruise to board in the first place and c) done either of these things with the intention of being alone. The man she plays constant companion to is nowhere in sight. Nor are the other android models who share her face and name. There's just her, and a myriad of strangers all being shuffled to their designated destination.

Chloe follows the instructions, as the routine of 'do this, do that, go here, go there' is familiar. But she does glance at those around her, trying to ascertain if anyone might know more about this situation than she does. From what she can tell, no one looks especially... comfortable.

A test? Maybe. Being left to fend for herself with no hows or whys could be in the realm of possibility. It doesn't seem entirely fitting, however. Those sorts of tests should be long since passed. But then, perhaps a more recent test has reignited the experimental spirit of her creator.

Don't mind the circular LED at her temple spinning yellow and the kind of spaced out look. She's just running diagnostics to check that she isn't in the midst of some catastrophic error or that her memory hasn't been corrupted.

Or Chloe might be caught when she's back to 'let's smile super pleasantly and cheerily try to find out what the deal is here' mode and she comments, "I don't see many who look too thrilled by the prospect of a vacation."

⭕ MESSING WITH MY MIND

Throughout the safety lecture, Chloe is earnestly taking it all in. At least safety appears to be taken seriously, and that is something she can appreciate. And if any of her fellow cruise-goers haven't been paying rapt attention, she'll handily be able to provide a recap of the rules.

When the time comes to roam freely, the blonde android looks a little lost. As much as she likes people and the idea of exploring stores and casinos and promenades (oh my), ten years of being secluded in Elijah Kamski's home makes a girl a tad gun-shy. By all accounts, they can just go and do... whatever. Sure, she could kind of do as she pleased (to an extent) at home. Only doing as one pleases within the same walls and doing as one pleases on an entire ship are two very different things.

But freedom has its allure and so after hesitating for a while, Chloe finally mills on over to the pool. Sitting down at the edge, she lets her legs dangle into the water. Wiggling them back and forth, she smiles to herself.

⭕THE DEVILS I KNEW

No functional need for the buffet isn't going to stop Chloe coming to check it out anyway. Firstly, she's curious as to what might be on offer for those that require the nutrition. Secondly, perhaps an android with some culinary skill might be able to find a way to make use of herself. There has been an awful lot of leisure time thus far.

She's peering at an assortment of pastries and considering how the 'display' could perhaps use a loving hand when bowls go flying past her. Literally flying past her. Which is a cause for alarm. Her head tracks a couple more, like she's watching a tennis match, before she moves to intercept one that's coming dangerously close to hitting someone. Better it smash into her than into someone with much more susceptible, squishy parts.

The cacophony of voices draws her attention away from any unfortunate soul who almost got whacked with haunted crockery. The emotions are nearly as deafening as the din itself. "Are you alright...?" she asks. It's not entirely clear if she's talking to a person or to the ghosts. Or both.

I'm already dead.

[Beetlejuice mused, though he grinned in an attempt to be disarming. It was usually hit or miss.]

But, if you're not tasty, it's not worth the effort, right?

[He preened slightly.]

I'm a demon.

"O-Oh." Prompto looked very surprised to be spoken to. Chloe might have been looking and intending on being with others and he was desperately fighting the urge to hide out somewhere until this potential nightmare was over.

"A-Are you...um...a-are you talking to me?" He stuttered nervously, picking at his fingerless gloves a little bit.

She need not worry about the light, he had no idea what it meant.

César uncovers his head and looks at her in shock. She had just taken the hit. How—?

He's not that afraid of what's happening; he's already used to it, so he's mostly resigned to just keeping safe. César is more surprised that she had stopped the hit.

"I'm fine. Thank you." His eyes widen as he sees a plate become a frisbee from another direction, and he ducks down.

"He'd probably find that funny. Rex never was much for authority figures." César smiles warmly. "I'm César Salazar. It's a pleasure to meet you, Undine."

Murderbot sees the LED at the side of Chloe's temple, and decides it's going to be polite (by its standards) and ping as it walks up toward her. It's a light gentle brush, just seeing if she's another AI, the informational packet very light. Mostly, just an 'I'm here'.

Physically, it settles on one of the nearby pool chairs, a tall broad figure in cargo pants and combat boots and a dark hoodie. The chair strains a little under the weight of its inorganic parts. It's a security construct, not exactly the lightest thing.

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TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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Chloe | Detroit: Become Human

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Strange Chateau

THE DEVILS I KNEW

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Messing with my Mind (in more ways than one)