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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

[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.]

Hallucinations aren't generally this coherent.

[He exhales another plume of smoke. Tim won't mention how he knows that. Or what his history with hallucinations is. It's safer not mentioning, and that's not exactly prime conversation icebreaking material.

He has a very limited conception regarding how conversations between normal people work, and he's not about to start learning now. Conversations stop being normal the minute you wake up on a field of grass, surrounded by bushes of painted roses. Literally painted roses.]

There's a mansion in the middle of a checkerboard field and we're standing in bushes of painted roses. [Cloud pauses a moment, considering this.] ...actually, you know. Never mind.

[He shrugs again, finally setting the watering can down.]

The roses started fixing themselves before I even got involved, though. Flowers don't... usually do that.

No, yeah, I'd definitely put that down on the list of things that I wouldn't call normal.

[He almost laughs, a self-mocking, mirthless sound. "Normal." Like Tim would know. What a joke.]

Plus the fact that, uh...I don't recognize the area at all.

[Which isn't good. Usually when he loses time he doesn't wake up out of state, let alone out of...world? Whatever this is.]

[He's a bit... strange? It's not like Cloud himself has room to talk - gods know he probably has some bizarre ~~stolen~~ mannerisms, himself. At least he never really resorted to smoking. Never saw how it could be calming in anyway, despite people telling him it was.]

I don't think anyone else here even recognizes the area.

[It looks like something out of a bizarre painting. But it definately isn't his world, or the man's, apparently.]

...I. I don't even know if the date I told you is right. What is all this?

No idea.

[Tim says it dryly, as if to lampshade the fact that he knows it's not a helpful response, so there's no need to get on his case about it. He starts moving cautiously through the garden, pausing here and then to brush aside fronds that might block his way.

The building looks like a place a couple of lost guys like them might be able to find help in, so he might as well start there.]

All I can say is that it sure as hell doesn't look like we're in Kansas anymore.

[Maybe they'll find help. Or maybe they'll find whoever dragged them out here for whatever reason. Nothing seems to be attacking them so far, but... he's not going to be too optimistic about it.

...Kansas? Is that where he's from?

Forget it. Cloud doesn't even know the guy's name yet.]

I'm gonna have to write a receipt for a late delivery, aren't I?

[Again. First it was the Hounds, now this. Good thing Tifa can't fire him.]

You're a mailman?

[Color Tim skeptical. In his experience, most mailmen don't run around dressed like...that. With swords and things. But, you know, maybe he was late for his annual LARPing convention, who knows.

He sticks his cigarette between his teeth to leave his hands free as he pushes his way through the overgrown vegetation in search of a path. He just got here; he doesn't want to burn the entire goddamn place down.]

Delivery service.

[Read: yeah, a mailman. It's just a fancier title. Might as well run a secondary business alongside the bar, right? Give him something to do and make it easier for them to get supplies in return since he's already out.

Except he hasn't gone back to the city in... awhile. Isn't ready to just yet.]

Everyone's gotta make a living, right?

Uh-huh.

[Tim would laugh, but he's pretty sure he wasn't born with a sense of humor.]

Yeah, real dangerous job, delivering mail. Gotta go fully armed to the teeth, in case those nasty letters take a bite outta you.

[Boy, they're getting along swimmingly.]

You ever hear of 'wildlife'? Traveling the world ain't easy.

Yeah, you gotta watch out for those vicious trees and butterflies. Why, I'll bet they even eat up puppies.

[He rolls his eyes, though he studiously doesn't look in Cloud's direction as he does so.]

I've been attacked by an icicle before.

[Yes. Really.]

I'd suggest looking up a little more often, then.

[Tim starts picking his way around a particularly thorn rosebush. He's got enough scars without scratching himself up on accident.]

Good idea. Then maybe I can see all the other little icicles it throws. Get a good long look.

[His world's got some weirdass monsters, man. You don't wanna know.]

I've also been attacked by a house. And scissors.

Well, never run with scissors, you know what they say.

[It still hasn't occurred to Tim that this guy might not be bullshitting him, one hundred percent. He's dealt with some weird shit, so his threshold for tolerance is higher than most, but he's got no reason to believe this guy just yet.]

Kinda like you shouldn't be walking through brush with a lit cigarette.

[Man he just met you and you're already trying to set him on fire.]

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