( TDM | #5 )

[spellbindmods]

IMPORTANT: This TDM is something a little different -- it's a mix of 4th Wall shenanigans and test driving. Anyone and everyone is welcome to come and make this spooky experience even more creeptacular, and all threads are canon. Any weird happenings, magic shortages or flip-flopping for new characters will just be considered part of the strangeness of the night.

TDMs can be used for anyone interested in the game and/or testing out a new muse.

Test Drive samples are encouraged to be used for your application sample, though they are NOT a requirement.

Feel free to use one prompt, multiple prompts or make up your own!

These threads can be considered game canon upon game opening if you so choose.

Telepathy and magic can be used at any point in time on the TDM, from Prompt A to your wildcard prompt. A specific prompt exists, however, that makes sure all characters have an equal chance to use this mechanic within the TDM. You're encouraged to have characters use telepathy and their magic accidentally or even purposefully on any TDM prompt.

If you aren't set on your character's power yet or want to try out a few, you're still able to use the test drive. Maybe your character is a late bloomer and hasn't fully unlocked their intuitive drive yet. In the case of multiple powers, only prompts that contain the power you choose for your application will count as potential game canon threads.

While only one character can be apped or reserved during a cycle, feel free to post with more than one character if you like! This is for those who are uncertain of their first choice or who would like to try out different characters within the setting.

IMPORTANT: This world is low-frequency. No canon powers or abilities are allowed! Also check out the setting information for more info about what the hub island looks like and what can be found there.

The foreign moon has come as close to the hub island as it possibly can, and the nocturnal deer aren't the only things acting up at this point. Those with intact spiritual intuition or with the power of emotional understanding will have felt the heaviness in the air, and as the days have dragged on that thickness has only intensified. Tonight that thickness might be explained by the heavy fog that's settled in on the island. However, that doesn't mean it's all that's making the night unsettling. All across the island, spirits are taking shape. They're humanoid in nature and completely devoid of sound -- like holographic projections with the audio broken. They flashstep around at times, and other instances they'll walk around like a normal person. Their mouths move and yet no sound escapes. They tangibility is as erratic as their movements. In one moment they have control over their solid mass, despite being translucent, but other times they can walk through walls or pass right through flesh. Their clothes are indicative of a somewhat modern time period, and sometimes they're indistinguishable from other coven members outside of their blue, sepia-toned hue. Another inconsistency is that their demeanor and actions are as varied as any modern society's. Some of these spirits are confused and angry. Some are trying to go about life as best they can. One might be able to pick up a sword and swing it, while another might want to braid your hair. Ages, strengths, dispositions...they match the state of the person as they once were. But where do new, potential coven members come into this equation. A ▢ Some "new coven members" will come to the island as they are. That's your choice. Others, however, are also affected by the bizarreness of the moonlight. Unlike other spirits, characters affected by the moon will be able to talk, but everything else will match their new spirit friends -- from translucence to physical inconsistency. B ▢ No matter whether your character is spirit-y or 100% as they were, the spirits in question are still going to interact with them. For this prompt, they've run into a kind spirit. Whether this is a child spirit tying to round them up into a game of tag or an adult spirit who is trying to communicate with them in some way, this spirit will be neutral or welcoming to their presence, as well as to the presence of other coven members. C ▢ Other spirits may not be so friendly. While their demeanor will mirror the type of person they were when they were alive, the spirits run on very simple and exaggerated emotions. A person with a gruff demeanor in their life will exist as an aggravated spirit. A person with violent tendencies when alive will exhibit as a malevolent ghost. This is the type of spirit you happen to have encountered. How will this interaction turn out?

Brie's been pretty busy trying to fix the wild boar problem that the island has been having, which the results? It's hard to tell if they're paying off, yet. She's somehow smuggled out some Elto bones and tried to use them as something of an electric fence system around the boar-dense areas. The boars who are alive seem to be reacting well! Others, however, are not. D ▢ Dead boars are now waking up around the island, somehow affected by a combination of magic and the moon's spiritual awakening. Some are a little more like their alive cousins -- undead flesh still pretty much in place. Others are totally skeletal, roaming around and thrusting their tusks anywhere they please. E ▢ These boars and spirits happen to be attracted to several shrines located on the island. While the religious affiliations of these shrines are unknown and vastly differ from one another, the spirits seem to be drawn towards them. If your character happens to be exploring the island and finds one of these unique locations...good luck with that hoard of spirits and/or boar zombies. F ▢ Boar zombie tusks should be avoided at all costs, but there's also another threat they pose: their bite. Instead of turning characters into the undead, their bites or their saliva results in something of an instant poisoning. Characters touched by their mouths will die temporarily, just without the whole gaudy spectacle of death. Everything will stay exactly as normal, except they too will be turned spirited. This counts for new characters and old characters -- so if you don't want your character to go ghost, you should avoid their gnashing teeth at all costs.

Despite the creepy air the island holds right now, let's say you want to do something...normal. No boars, no spirits. Just some good ol' fashioned test driving. You have a few options, though they still may be tinged with the spirit of...spirits. G ▢ Despite the moon causing a lot of craziness on the island, there's a lot of beauty in how close it is. You can't reach out and touch it -- everyone would be dead and frozen to death, let's be honest -- but it does cast a lovely cool glow on the entirety of the island. The moonflowers are in full bloom, with the nocturnal deer dancing around through the foliage. There's a lot to see on the island that isn't necessarily overrun by spooky spirits. H ▢ There's also the issue of NPCs preparing for new characters -- which they did! There's the beginning of a welcome party set up, though it's obviously abandoned. With all the craziness going on, the base camp is thrown into chaos. If your character makes it here from wherever they spawned (or if they spawned here in the first place), they may be confused by the chaos. Asking questions might be good, especially since there's still so many to ask outside of dead people suddenly coming back from the grave. I ▢ Wildcard prompt. Go nuts and utilize your own creativity within the setting. This can mean striking out on your own or utilizing a certain location in a different way. The world is your oyster!

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Comments

[terezias]

[Her hands on his shoulders go slack at that, which is probably confirmation.]

It was not your job to save me! [Or it shouldn't have been. She should have been able to finish the job.] I am fairly certain it was my job to prevent all of this from happening in the first place, actually.

[Does she just mean the bloodbath in the kids' session or everything that's happened since Jack broke into theirs? It's hard to say.]

[alienates]

Exactly how was it your job to do that? [ it's time for the blame game, where everyone claims responsibility for everything going to shit.

it was a joint effort, really, but kids will be kids. ]

I should have at least done-- something. Why the fuck did I just sit back and let that honkophile get away with all of that?

[terezias]

Seer of Mind! [In pale imitation of her usual--less usual, the longer they spent on the meteor--cheer.] The one who filters through the petty lies people tell and the traps they make for themselves and helps them come to the right decisions.

I didn't turn out to be very good at that. [Making the right decisions, she means. Part of her is still sure she could have done better with Vriska.] But I shouldn't have left it all to the humans.

[alienates]

Why don't we agree that we all collectively as a whole shat the recuperacoon? We all just took turns dumping our fecal matter that took the form of our horrible mistakes down into it.

[ it seems like he might continue going on this tangent, but karkat actually manages to stop himself. mostly because then pulls terezi into another hug.

he has a lot of questions. he doesn't get what john was sent to do and what it means for them, but at this exact moment it doesn't matter. ]

[terezias]

. . . all right. Mostly because I do not wish to extend the metaphor! [She makes a face, not that he can see it from this angle. She isn't holding onto him quite as tightly as before, but she still has her arms wrapped around his shoulders.] You are lucky coming to this place broke my nose.

[A pause.] Wherever this place is. It doesn't look familiar, not that looking is all that familiar in the first place!

[alienates]

[ he will take a moment to give the place another look around. he was in the middle of trying to figure out where he was (while simultaneously running from ghosts) when he ran into terezi, and unsurprisingly everything else stopped mattering as soon as he saw her. but now that she mentions it... ]

Well, trust me, it doesn't look familiar to me either. It doesn't even look like anything that's from the game.

[terezias]

Humans are not usually blue and transparent, are they? Even in dreambubbles.

[She is pretty sure she would have smelled that. She sniffs instinctively, wrinkles her nose, then reaches up to pull her blindfold all the way off. This obviously isn't Alternia, nor does it look like the Earth she sniffed glimpses of through a computer screen, nor does it seem like anything from the game.]

Maybe we broke something. [On the other hand, imagining they've escaped the purview of the game doesn't seem all that likely.] Or maybe someone else did.

[alienates]

Maybe Egbert did a shitty job of following your instructions? It wouldn't be the first time he completely and utterly ignored our directions and fucked up spectacularly.

[ in john's defense, usually when he ignored them was when the trolls were still being gigantic assholes at the humans with no explanation. ]

[terezias]

They were fairly simple instructions!

[Which is not a dismissal of the possibility. She shows a flash of teeth.]

He would have had to change the entire fate of planets in order for something like this to result from it, I think. This feels like something else. Something beyond the parts of the game we've seen so far.

[alienates]

So, either there's some other form of nonsense going on within the game that we don't know about or something else has someone managed to hijack us out of one extreme, mess of a situation and into another.

[ especially considering they're... you know, alive, and this isn't a dream bubble. he's pretty sure it isn't? nothing about this feels like they're just reliving a memory. ]

[terezias]

Pretty much! I am not sure which is more likely.

[On the one hand, nothing about this feels like the game. On the other hand, they've literally been enmeshed in the game since before they were hatched; how likely is it that they've actually escaped it?]

[alienates]

I guess we'll just have to figure out what's going on ourselves, which is basically how shit usually gets solved in the first place. It's not like anyone else ever actually helped.

[ granted, everyone who "didn't help" mostly ended up dead. then again, so did they, so that doesn't really matter. they only got three extra years. ]

[terezias]

That is a very ungenerous interpretation of our game session.

[Without any real energy, though; she doesn't feel like giving the lecture about blah blah the cooperative nature of Sgrub or whatever it would be this time. Part of her doesn't feel like doing much of anything, at all, ever, but she figures they should at least sort out where they are and whether they're in any immediate danger.]

Have you seen anyone besides the blue transparent humans yet?

[alienates]

[ he is not feeling very generous to their session, especially considering how that ended for all of them.

at the question though, he shakes his head. ]

No. What are they, anyway? [ like, the obvious answer is ghost, but as far as he knows humans don't normally turn into ghosts. ] Besides obnoxious. One of them seems to think I am a diseased grub dying of malnutrition.

[terezias]

That would explain some things about you.

[The ghost of a smile. Was that a joke? She reaches around to wave one arm through one of the nearest spirits, anyway.]

They seem to be here and not-here at the same time. If they're not ghosts or spirits, maybe it's some sort of bug?

[alienates]

Well, it's got to be something. And stop that. What if that shit is diseased? Next thing you know, you're going to have a transparent blue arm.

[ he reaches over to pull her arm out of it??

... and then just does the same, because this is kind of neat, actually. ]

[terezias]

[Yeah, she's definitely smiling. Just a little, but still.]

If that happened, I would put it to good use! You don't seem to mind the idea, either.

[alienates]

I am willing to take one for the team. The team that currently consists of me and you, so take your arm out as I am only willing to sacrifice one arm between us.

[ as they are discussing this, the ghost is... going to be kind of offended because this is probably really rude, tbh. ]

[terezias]

[She shoots the ghost a wide-mouthed grin.]

Sorry! [She does not sound sorry. To Karkat:] You are being awfully bossy for someone who no longer claims to be the leader of anything.

[She does take her arm out of the ghost, though. Mostly because holding it like that was getting weird.]

[alienates]

What? I am not bossing you around, I am giving you some advice with my expert opinion that I have formed based on the fact that I am right about this particular thing.

[ in other words, he's being bossy.

he also does not apologize to the ghost. ]

[terezias]

[This is familiar: she can almost forget the confusion of their situation and the . . . tbh, depressing trauma of everything that happened before they got here and just banter with him like they did back in Sgrub.]

That is a lot of words to say you are bossing me around! Why would being blue and transparent even be contagious?

[alienates]

Give me a good reason to believe that it wouldn't be. I have not seen any proof stating the contrary, Terezi.

[ granted, the last he heard, humans didn't have a disease as weird like this, and he is about... 40% positive it would have come up. but only 40%.

then again, maybe they're not human. ]

[terezias]

For one thing, you have not yet turned blue and transparent.

[She points to him.]

For another thing, being a ghost is not typically contagious!

[alienates]

Are you sure about that? In my personal experience, once one person ends up dead then usually a lot more follow.

[ that's not the same as being contagious, karkat, it just means you guys know way too many murder happy people for things to be comfortable. ]