tdm ii

[pareidoliamods]

test drive meme ii

navigation. locations. application. rules. faq.

Welcome to our second Test Drive Meme! The TDM is open to anyone to play and can be game canon. The TDM takes place beginning April 1; its events can take place at any time until the next TDM. NPCs are not available in this round's TDM.

Applications are open today, March 25, and will remain open perpetually. You may apply at any time. Invitations are automatically extended to the Plurk list of both mods.

Pareidolia’s next event drops April 1. Our upcoming calendar can be found here.

i. arrival

content warnings: n/a

You jolt awake, remnants of a nightmare slipping through your mind like water, the lingering shapes and voices blurring in the edges of your memory. You find yourself on cold, damp ground in a narrow alley between two dilapidated cabins. As your senses return to you and you push yourself upright, your muscles ache, stiff and painful as if you’ve been lying on the ground for far too long.

You’re in the clothes you were wearing last, but nothing else from home. Your pockets are empty; any jewelry or trinkets or notes are lost. A new, unfamiliar iron key is hanging from twine around your neck.

A faint fog clings to the ground, swirling gently around your feet, thickening to an impenetrable dark wall beyond the edges of the village. No one comes to welcome you, and there is nothing to indicate why you are here, where you should go, or where you can rest when night falls. A crow cocks its head from its thatch rooftop perch, eyes glinting. It watches you with unnerving curiosity as you orient yourself and wipe the mud from your cheek.

Welcome to Pareidolia.

tl;dr

☠ Characters arrive in the clothes they were wearing last, nothing else from home, and a key around their neck. The key unlocks their cabin — if they can figure out which one that is.

ii. echoes of the self

content warnings: hallucinations, derealization, claustrophobia

What parts of town aren’t pressed in by sharp cliff edges are suffocated by the dense, surrounding forest of spruce and redwood. The cool air is heavy with the sounds of a home reclaimed: the faint creak of distant bridges; the drizzling of rain against the creek; the wind through the trees; animals calling out to one another. And in quiet moments, when you're outside and alone, you hear something else: your own voice urgently whispering your name.

It’s barely audible, a murmur in the wind brushing through your hair. But it happens over and over, shaky and desperate, calling you towards that forbidding treeline. If you follow that pull into the woods, the voice continues to call for you: too far to touch, yet always just out of reach. Your shoes catch in the dense, tangling underbrush and sink into the marshy ground. Thorns snag at your skin and clothing, and the fog weighs on you like lead. Time slips away, as it always does in the forest, leaving you with no idea how far or how long you've wandered.

By the time you have the presence of mind to turn back, it's too late. Thick vines have grown around you, coiling around your ankles and wrists to prevent your escape. Every attempt to struggle tangles you further in the plant life until you’re pinned completely, left to the mercy of whoever might be close enough to hear your cry for help.

tl;dr

☠ The forest lures characters in and traps them with thick, creeping vines. Someone else must help them escape.

☠ Characters may hear their own voice calling their name from inside the forest when they’re alone.

☠ Alternately, they may hear another previously lured character calling out for help.

iii. shadow and ink

content warnings: hallucinations

As you wander the town, it's impossible to miss the weathered Gathering Hall at its heart, the light flickering in its broken, boarded windows promising a respite from the chilly wind. Inside, it’s warmer and brighter, though not by much. The fire struggles in the hearth, but it never goes out. The iron teapot on one crooked table offers little more than warmed water, but the cups warm your hands and the chairs support you as you rest.

The hall is littered with signs of use: used dishes, charcoal shavings, a cooking pot boiling water over the fire. On the wall to the left of the fireplace, a single, legible sign still requests assistance with organizing the garden. Around the sign, however, dozens of slips of yellowing paper, parchment, and faded newspaper clippings now hang, forming a haphazard sort of notice board.

At first glance, the aging papers appear ink-spattered and illegible, unworthy of further observation. Look closer, though, and the ink begins to run and bleed, melting together into large, dark blots. The longer you look, the harder you try to make sense of it, the clearer the inky shapes become: they depict something that haunts you. A fear. A memory. The face of someone you love.

Just as the image comes fully into focus, a sudden caw from the rooftop interrupts your thoughts. The papers become illegible once more, and you notice another person is watching you from nearby.

tl;dr

☠ Rorschach-esque inkblot shapes appear on slips of paper pinned to the wall of the Gathering Hall.

☠ Each person sees something different, designed to draw out their emotions: memories, fears, the face of someone lost.

Comments

QUESTIONS

[pareidoliamods]

Klonoa | Klonoa: Phantasy Reverie Series

[dreamtraveller]

ii.

A.

[Klonoa, of course, knows that the call he hears is in all odds just another trick of the woods, another strange mischief of this foggy place. The suspicion turned into this bone-deep certainty when the voice calling for him began darting just away from him even at his own—quite speedy, he'll add!—sprint.

But, what if it isn't?

It's that but that results in Klonoa hanging upside down from a tree by his vine-wrapped ankle, binding him like a rabbit caught in a rope trap. He wriggles at you, piteously, causing him to sway this way and that. His ears are a two point pendulum problem like this! Isn't that neat.]

Um, hi. A little help?

B.

[After this debacle, Klonoa takes to patrolling the woods, quite sure that others will also find themselves in a similar predicament.

A surety that is proven correct when he hears a call, or maybe a cry, and this one doesn't impossibly dash away from him as he carefully approaches it.]

I'm coming! [He shouts as he draws nearer to where the noise came from.] Just, don't hurt yourself!

[Which, well, is a concern that he needs to have with at least some of the people here, who would absolutely struggle so hard they'd hurt themselves.]

iii.

[The Gathering Hall is a place that Klonoa finds himself spending time in quite routinely, for a variety of reasons. Helping with the garden, to use the kitchen, or just to relax. So of course he notices the new additions, and he first just imagines that it must be something Palamedes put up related to the garden, so of course he goes to inspect it.

And then he keeps on inspecting it.

More inspecting.

By the time his focus is broken by a bird's cry, he is all but glued to the wall. This does, in fact, mean that his response to being startled by jumping results in him slamming his head into the wall, causing him to drop to the ground with a cry of—]

Manya!

[—as he clutches at his head.]

II.A.

[girlbossedtoohard]

[Nova's still trying to get her bearings here when she discovers a poor little animal caught in some kind of trap. She's never technically been hunting, but she did study how to make a proper trap. This creature, however, seems completely unfit for eating. Or at least, it looks significantly less fit for eating as soon as it opens its mouth to speak.]

Oh! [She cries.] You're intelligent. How fun!

[The trap, she notices upon further inspection, is not human made. The creature seems to have gotten itself all tangled up in the tree. How does something like that happen?] How can I help?

Re: II.A.

[dreamtraveller]

[This creature is also wearing a snazzy hat. But regardless, Klonoa stops to think about what exactly can be done, while just disregarding the comment about his (apparently surprising) intelligence. He's used to it, by this point.]

Well, if you've got a good throwing arm, maybe a rock or something could break the vine?

Re: II.A.

[girlbossedtoohard]

[So it is! Very snazzy indeed.

Nova perks up at the suggestion. She could be very useful at that!!]

Can do!

[She raises her arms and lifts up nearly every stone in the immediate vicinity at once, pelting them all toward the vines. She will simply hope this doesn’t also hit and kill the creature. She would like to introduce herself before accidentally killing him.]

iii.

[inkyubeytion]

[The Incubator runs over to Klonoa, also startled.]

Are you okay?!

lisa "tattletale" wilbourn | worm

[thinkerseven]

i: arrival
[ As soon as Lisa wakes up, her mind starts working well before her body.

Wind; outside; no recollection of arriving; abducted. Weight differential of less than a pound; items stolen; item of note stolen; gun missing; object around neck left in return. Cold; metal; key shaped; conditions harsh; leads to shelter. Survival meant to be difficult but near-guaranteed; odds of survival -

Lisa screws her eyes shut, doing her best to will her power to shut the fuck up while she gets to her feet. Ugh, she feels like shit, but what else is new? She takes a couple minutes to stretch before heading to the promised shelter. After all, it's not going to take her that long to find. ]

So, like, what d'you think happens if we sleep outside? [ Lisa asks, grinning at anyone who passes by. ] You think our overlords are gonna get mad at us?

[ The way she's grinning, it doesn't sound like she especially cares. ]

ii: echoes of the self
[ It doesn't take Lisa long to realize that the forest, along with its fucked-up fog, is easily the most interesting thing about this place. So off she goes to gather intel!

At first, it's not even a human voice that calls her name. Just the clicking and hissing of insects that don't exist in the undergrowth. But the deeper she goes, the more it resolves into something like a human voice: ]

Tattletale, [ it whispers. ] Tattletale. Lisa.

[ That's when she unceremoniously trips. A vine wraps around her ankle, and as soon as she makes contact with the forest floor, another vine snares her wrist. ]

Fuck.

[ Lisa whispers, not quite meaning it. She's still doing her best to hear the voice. ]

iii: shadows and ink
[ The caw of a crow breaks you out of your spell. If you choose to look over at the fire, a young woman sits with her back to it, one leg crossed over the other, smugly sipping a cup of tea. From where she's sitting, she can see the entire gathering hall. That's probably on purpose. It looks like she's having a grand old time.

If you make eye contact with her, she'll wink, offering you a wave that's little more than an insufferable wiggle of her fingers. The way she's looking at you, it's almost like she knows what was on your paper. But she couldn't possibly know that. Right? ]

ooc note
[ Lisa has the supernatural ability to deduce large amounts of information from very limited sources. For more information on her power, and to opt in or opt out of it, please see my permissions here. Thanks! ]

ii

[black_light]

[Alex has become annoyingly familiar with the forest over the past couple of days. After all, the forest is home to animals other than the crows, and after the first couple of times he ate those husks, he made the decision that it's probably best not to piss off whatever is puppeteering them worse than he already must have.

So, when he hears the muttering of a human, he's immediately at attention. He saunters out from the green and browns of the treeline, almost melded with the ever-present fog. He keeps a distance, for now.]

I don't recognize you.

[Which might be an opportunity. Maybe. He'll sus her out a bit first.]

cw: suidice

[thinkerseven]

[ Sometimes, Lisa is able to slow the flow of information pouring into her brain, largely as a migraine-prevention measure. But the second her power gets a lock on this particular being, it's over. Her shard lights up like a kid in a fucking candy store.

Hungry; hunger for meat; preferred meat is human. Amalgamation; viral; sentient hive. Poor mood not simply hunger; lonely; disillusioned; has considered ending own life; prepared to do so -

The recitation doesn't cease, and Lisa doesn't try to stop it. Instead, she tilts her head up as best she can from her prone position, and smiles. It's softer than her usual grin. She's glad that the hive has no way of knowing that.

Of course, she's still in danger, so a gentle touch works best. ]

Hey. Call me the new girl. Wanna help me out? These things don't like it when I move. [ Her grin widens. ] Nice of them that they're still letting me talk.

[ That's a joke just for herself. ]

[black_light]

[Then it's like he thought; she's a recent arrival. In other words, an ideal target.

But, no. Maybe if this was her actual arrival, but she has too much of an idea of what's going on. Someone must've already filled her in, which means that someone might notice. Alex begins to slowly draw closer.]

Wouldn't be able to call for help if they weren't. [Not that she, you know, did.] What the hell were you even doing out here? You don't look like a hunter.

i. arrival

[harborborn]

[Kaz takes a look at this new arrival, sizing her up. It’s clear she’s trying to make a joke or something, but he was under the impression jokes were supposed to be funny.]

Don’t think they’d care either way, but you might care when the crows start trying to pluck out your eyes, a demon comes for your soul when you’re not safe behind a locked door, or the cold makes you wish you’d thought better of it.

[thinkerseven]

[ Close! Lisa's jokes are only meant to be funny to her. Lisa sizes him up right back. She's seen dozens, if not hundreds of this type of guy, so his presence is almost reassuring. The most interesting thing about him is his gloves. Interesting fashion choice, given that he doesn't otherwise strike her as a cape. ]

You're right. I would care about all those things. [ A beat. ] Except maybe the cold. Respectfully, I've handled worse.

[ The cold of the boardwalk, the cold of a prison cell. ]

That's an unusual diet for a crow, though. They don't have insects or seeds here?

[ She's getting the sense this person knows a decent amount about crows. The insects question is for her own personal purposes. ]

ii.

[inkyubeytion]

[The Incubator peers down from up on a tree branch.]

Are you alright?

[It hops down and starts biting at the vines.]

I'll try to get you free!

[thinkerseven]

[ Weird. A cat with attack ears. Her power gets enough of a lock on it to know it's not a cat, not really, but she'll call it one for convenience.

Dryly: ] I'm stuck. But thanks. Didn't know you cared.

[ It doesn't, is the thing. But she kind of wants to see how it reacts to the allegation. ]

Tsar Mirnatius | Spinning Silver

[tsarmirnatius]

II. Echoes of the Self

Two months into his stay, Mirnatius has largely resigned himself to the boredom and day-to-day miseries of this charmless, insufferable town. Which makes it a pleasant--if puzzling--surprise to find his old hunting bow and quiver outside his cabin one morning, as if they'd been left for him as a gift.

Perhaps they were. This place has certainly shoved Karolis's ghost at him often enough.

It takes him a while to notice the whisper, too caught up in inspecting the woods for signs of game. He follows the voice with bow drawn, half-expecting an ambush, only to realize the real threat too late. By the time he gives up the struggle, the vines have forced him to his knees, his wrists bound too tightly to do anything but glare at his bow where it lies useless in the dirt.

It's his own fault, really. The moment things seemed to be looking up, he should have known it was a trap.

Calling out is more likely to draw enemies than summon help, so Mirnatius settles into his bonds and remains silent. Either someone will find him before dusk, or his passenger will break him free. Until then, he can simply seethe--and wait.

[gastro]

Mirnatius isn't the only one looking for game. He might be the only person willing to admit it, though.

Noelle stumbles across him a couple hours before sunset. She doesn't look like much: tall, maybe 5'10" or so, but gaunt, with deep hollows in her cheek and bags under her eyes, wearing the lumpiest, frumpiest denim skirt imaginable. She stops a few feet away from Mirnatius, eyeing both him and the bow. A ranger, she thinks to herself, stupidly, as if video game classes have any bearing on what's happening now.

"Hi." Slick. Nailed it. "When you try to move, do those get tighter?"

[tsarmirnatius]

Someone new. Well. This isn't the sort of first impression Mirnatius would prefer to make, but it's better than being stuck here all day.

He offers up his most courteous, princely smile. It's a bit strained from stress and disuse, but still serviceable.

"So it seems," he says cheerfully. "I don't suppose you have a knife?"

Probably not, considering how thoroughly new arrivals seem to be robbed. But she might have magic or some other means of getting him out.

ii.

[inkyubeytion]

The Incubator peers down at Mirnatius from a tree branch. After some deliberation, it hops to the ground, and without ceremony, the Incubator sniffs at the vines.

"I'll go out on a limb and assume that these wouldn't be enough to keep the demon from moving," it says, drily.

[tsarmirnatius]

Oh, for...fine. Mockery from the deformed cat that hunts demons. This may as well happen.

"Probably not," he returns, equally dry. "But you're the expert. I've never been in this position before."

ii.

[harborborn]

As it turns out, enemies may find him whether they want him to or not. It's possibly the best thing to happen to him all month (if he feels like being hyperbolic). Despite doing his very best to actively avoid Mirnatius lately, this really is too good of an opportunity to pass up.

"Well, isn't this interesting," he says, picking up the bow sitting just out of Mirnatius's sight. "Even nature itself agrees you deserve to be the one on your knees for once."

And Kaz is going to be really normal and helpful about this.

cw: murder mention

[tsarmirnatius]

Shit.

Attempting to stand up will only tighten the vines further. Mirnatius knows this. It doesn't stop him from trying anyway, gritting his teeth as the foliage digs into his wrists and ankles. He should be afraid right now, probably, but the humiliation of his position just makes him angry. Go on. Mirnatius can take it. At least once Kaz slits his throat, he'll be free of this forested hellhole for a few days.

"I kneel to some things," he says coldly. "Just never to you."

[dushenka]

Irina had pushed through the mirror to escape him once again. But this time, no river of ice and snow greets her. Instead, the glass spits her into a suffocatingly dense forest, thick with mist and the scent of decay, and the glass takes with it the Staryk silver. There is no mirror, no path, no way to return.

And then, in her wandering to find a path or some escape — him.

She flinches back, fingers clawing into the bark of the tree she leans on, instinct screaming at her to hide herself. But it's no use. He's seen her. But whatever cruel fate has come to greet her, the sun here filters through the canopy, and reveals no fire in his eyes.

"Husband," she says, as cool and unwavering as freshly fallen snow. As if she doesn't stand before him in a dress torn by thorns and furs snagged beyond repair, with sweat beading at her hairline.

[tsarmirnatius]

Of all the tricks this wretched town has played on him, this just might be the worst. His mouth falls open in astonishment as he sees her, and he very nearly calls her name. Then he catches himself and schools his face into a scowl, studying her with wary--but human-eyes.

"My dear wife," he replies with icy dignity, as if he weren't sweaty, bound, disheveled, and kneeling in the dirt. "What a pleasant surprise. Is this where you keep running off to, then? I can't say much for your taste."

Kyubey | Puella Magi Madoka Magica

[inkyubeytion]

ii.

When the Incubator notices the vines tying it down, it makes no effort to struggle free. This is a great opportunity. Instead of attempting to teleport out, which it believes ought to still be in its power, it wails telepathically for help.

"Help! I'm trapped here!"

This is technically true. A trapped state is still a trapped state, whether or not one could get out easily. The Incubator doesn't even know for certain that it could, anyway.

iii.
When the shapes morph, the Incubator is half expecting to see its own face again, or that of Homura Akemi. Instead, it's the figure of an old nuisance, long gone now.

Crépuscule de La Reine's main body had been slug-like and horned, with an open, gaping maw and a massive tongue lolling out. Crépuscule had been intelligent, but her body was cumbersome; she would have, the Incubator reflects, hated its prized Walpurgisnacht, so much conventionally stronger and so humanoid.

A crow caws, and the ghost of the image is gone. The Incubator turns to its present company.

"Did you see it too?" it wonders.

Lua | OC

[brightlyburns]

i.

Two incredibly yellow, faintly glow-in-the-dark eyes snap open. Lua wakes up all at once, and realizes immediately that she's face-first in the dirt, somewhere unfamiliar.

This is alarming enough that she, promptly, bursts into flame.

"FUCK!" Lua yelps. She putters back out into a girl, hissing.

Since she's in no position to waste time feeling sorry for herself, she instead feels sorry for herself as she makes a go at productivity. She rockets up into a sitting position and scrambles to pat herself down for her things. They're all gone, of course.

Lua slumps.

She's finally, somehow, out of the wretched city she's been stuck in up until now, and she can't even be happy about it.

Just her luck.

ii.

When Lua hears the voice, alarm bells immediately go off in her head, and she sprints in precisely the opposite direction to the one that it seems to be coming from. She doesn't stop until she's reached the Gathering Hall, into which she runs, and then she slams the door behind her.

"Am I the only one who can hear that?" Lua asks of whoever is also there, eyes wild with paranoia.

iii.

Lua yelps and tears her eyes away from the paper the second that the ink appears to start moving. She smacks both hands over her eyes for good measure.

"Is that thing hexed?" she asks, still determinedly blinded. "Did it hex me? Am I more hexed now?"