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+ ENTRANCEWAY TEST DRIVE MEME +

HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU?!

You have stumbled into a new voice, fallen headfirst into a new canon? You're approaching new faces, exploring new scenarios, or rediscovering an old muse? There is novelty, there is excitement, AND YET--

--you're not ready to take the plunge just yet. BUT HESITATE NO MORE! We have just the place to practice or prepare, to warm up or invite a welcome, to mold the muses or to mesh with the premise! We have the

♥ ENTRANCEWAY ♥
TEST DRIVE MEME

► Try out any new characters and new Mirrors here! Have a go at the setting, thread with its current players, and see if Wonderland is a good fit for you and/or your character. Post a top level comment, tag into other people's starters, enjoy yourself!

► Thread your character's arrival, set a scene with them as long-established inhabitant, or let one of our past events inspire you. Any starter is fine, and both prose and comment spam are welcome!

► Please only note that any threads on the test drive meme are not game canon, and cannot be used as part of the activity check OR as samples for any future applications. Thank you for understanding!

► Intrigued? Check out our...

NAVIGATION | INPUT & INQUIRIES | TAKEN CHARACTERS | RESERVES | APPLICATIONS

AND THAT IS ALL, run forward, leap, and enjoy! ♥

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Gardens, action

[Another hallucination, huh. This one seemed to be sticking longer that the last few. Maybe it's getting worse.

But there doesn't seem to be anyone around, this time. He'd woken up in the middle of a rose bush (the roses were... painted red?), and his first instinct upon waking up in a garden is to tend to the flowers. A couple had bent where he'd landed, but they seemed to right themselves quicker than he'd gotten up. But why were they painted?

And for being outside, why did it still feel so stifling?

Ah, well. He'll probably wake up in the church or having fallen off his bike again. In the meantime, he'll find a canister of water and start tending to the gardens.]

[Lost time again. How many months, days, weeks? Hell if he knows. It doesn't matter so much anymore anyway - Tim's used to it. Thing is, this sure doesn't look like any part of Alabama he remembers.

It doesn't look like anything he'd think he'd remember.

But there's a guy nearby watering some flowers. Tim breathes in, and breathes out. He'll keep the interaction brief. Curt. To the point. That's far safer than any alternatives.

He's already fumbling in his pockets for a box of cigarettes as he approaches.]

Hey, so - weird question, I know - but would you happen to have the date?

[Another voice. That's... weird. Aren't dreams usually supposed to be about people you know? Or sometimes they're faces of the dead, shapeless and haunting, trying to reach for you, demanding you join them--

Uh. Anyway. Someone else is here. He doesn't turn around fully, only looking over his shoulder at the newcomer, opting for politeness even if he's not real and Cloud will probably just wake up soon anyway.]

Last I remember, it's the 25th.

[Unsure of the month, though. That's odd.]

Woke up in a bush someone thought they could dump paint over.

[Should've asked for the year, though that would probably get him a weird look. Weirder than usual.

The lighter fitzes halfheartedly in his hand before it sparks the end of the cigarette. He has to cough a few times before taking a long drag from the thing. His lungs sound like they're filled with tar.]

I meant kinda in the more general...never mind.

[He shakes his head, dismissing the question before he asks it.]

Yeah, I woke up on the grass somewhere over there. [He gestures vaguely in the general direction of the checkerboard hills.]

[He's used to cigarette smoke with being around Cid for so long, but it doesn't typically mean he has to like it.

Cloud steps away slightly to give the man a little more room (and himself, though he's not about to voice that objection), turning back to give the roses a few more shakes of the canister before he sets it down, idly rubbing at his left arm a bit. It was starting to throb a little, and the spasms generally come without warning, but... it should be okay. It's not real, right? He was probably already unconscious somewhere.]

Is there a name for this... whatever-this-is? Am I awake?

[Of course he's going to say yes, Cloud. It's a dream. They're not gonna say it is.]

[Tim's brow creases momentarily. Are you awake. A shiver races down his arms, hairs prickling as they stand on end.

There can't be correlation there. He tamps the thought down viciously, dismisses it as the simple recitation of a phrase anyone would use. Anyone with the kind of issues Tim has. His lip almost curls in a self-deprecating sneer, but he fights it down.

He shrugs, his tone wry.]

If you're hallucinating, so am I. Patch of painted roses, flowers all around - nice, sunny day?

[He shrugs. See if the visuals match. It's a valid comment, isn't it? Or is that not how normal people act?

He doesn't know anymore. He doesn't make a habit of mingling with people who aren't freaks like him.]

[He's good at reading tone. Can see something else isn't quite right here. Might be looking for something in this stranger. But Cloud doesn't have much to offer - flowers were rare back home, both in Midgar and Edge. The most he'd seen were out in the wild, far far away from anything civilization could touch.

...usually his hallucinations do go differently than this. A patch of flowers. Nice sunny day.

A familiar f--]

...

[Huh.]

So. We're not hallucinating. We're dead.

[It finally fucking happened, didn't it.]

[That's a hell of a leap to make. Tim's not sure he believes that just yet either - he's gone from one place to another with barely any time feeling like it's passed, been trapped in a world of screaming and dark branches clawing at the sky until the camera's battery ran out and learned that barely ten minutes passed in the interim.

Anyway, this place is too nice to be where he'd end up in death. He's entirely certain that, if there is one, he'd be sent to the other place.]

Not sure I'd say that. Unless this is your heaven. I know it's not mine.

[He still feels like shit, and he's pretty sure heaven is supposed to wipe that kind of thing clean. Or maybe he was just born too dirty and broken for that to be erased. Figures. That's not surprising either.]

[He wouldn't throw it out of the realm of possibilities. Hell, he'd been in the world of the dead several times. Though having your mind completely scattered across it the first time probably doesn't count. He just knows he's seen worse people who probably deserve worse.

This man doesn't seem like it.]

You wanna suffer? That's fine. You want peace? That's fine, too. This is just a place. It's what you do that makes it matter.

[A little more blunt than he'd meant for it to sound, but he's... not too great at reassuring people.]

Look, I mean... we're both here, right? No use thinkin' about why or what we deserve. Everyone's got their reasons.

[If he wants to get all existential on Tim, that's fine. Tim stopped having preferences regarding what happened with his life years ago. If you don't have a direction, you don't have to be disappointed or plaintive when things inevitably go south.

He says nothing. He blows out a long stream of nicotine-scented smoke and scratches the peppering of shadow starting to lace his jaw.]

Yeah, okay, except not everything has its reasons. I don't think we're dead. I think we're just here. Someplace else.

[He's not one to get insulted and hold a grudge. No point in that. Not when you suddenly wake up somewhere you've never been with a guy you don't know and he starts asking the same questions as you. So Cloud just shrugs a bit, finally turning around fully to watch the other.]

You sayin' something just teleported us here?

[Wouldn't be the first time that's happened, after all. Interdimensional travel is possible, yet space flight is out of their reach. But the world was also kind of... ending, at the time. That's supposed to be resolved. This is something else.]

Alright, then. What?

[Ha. Ha. Ha-ha-ha-ha-oh my god Tim doesn't want to answer that question.

A moment of heart-stopping anxiety choking his throat and chilling his veins, and externally, Tim simply blinks as he pretends to consider the question, like he doesn't have a glaring potential solution that he does not and will not ever talk about.

But he's a good liar. He seems utterly unperturbed.]

Your guess is as good as mine. But we might be able to ask someone in there.

[He points at the building looming over the garden, the mansion itself.]

[So they're not dead, and this isn't a hallucination. The Stigma, compiled with the fact that there's a suspicion something from the outside brought them here and it really doesn't sit right with him. Cloud presses two fingers to his temple, rubbing them lightly and closing his eyes with a sigh. At first, he wasn't worried. But now?

At least he's not the only one.

The man mentions the mansion and he had glanced at it before his attention was drawn to the flowers, but he's only just now... looking it... over...

A giant mansion. Someone built this. Someone is here. This is getting more complicated by the minute.]

This really isn't some collective hallucination, is it?

[It feels different from every other time. His hand moves to rub at that same spot again, adjusting the sleeve even though it's already completely covered. Sometimes it drips down. Don't want this new guy to find out.]

Cloud Strife | Final Fantasy VII

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