+ ENTRANCEWAY TEST DRIVE MEME +

[vitaelamorte]

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! ♥

Comments

[postictal]

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.]

[battlefront]

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.

[postictal]

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.]

[battlefront]

[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?

[postictal]

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.

[battlefront]

[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.]

[postictal]

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.]

[battlefront]

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?

[postictal]

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.

[battlefront]

[Boy, they're getting along swimmingly.]

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

[postictal]

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.]

[battlefront]

I've been attacked by an icicle before.

[Yes. Really.]

[postictal]

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.]

[battlefront]

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.

[postictal]

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.]

[battlefront]

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.]

[postictal]

[Tim simply shrugs tiredly. He doesn't have it in him to care. He's tramped through thicker vegetation than this and successfully kept the place from getting set alight - Alabama and its thick-ass kudzu comes to mind - and anyway, if the fire catches him in the middle of it, less work for him later, right?

That's a terrible joke, and he should be ashamed. But he's not.]

Eh. These things'll kill you anyway.

[battlefront]

[Exactly. So why do it at all?

But Cloud doesn't have it in him to insult another's coping mechanisms. It's usually why a lot of people he knows smoke.]

How 'bout we find out where we are before you go hurtin' yourself, alright?

[It's not the most... tactful response, but he's trying.]

cw self-harm mention

[postictal]

[Ha. That's a joke, right? It's gotta be. There's still the pale webbing of scars chasing up and down the outside of his arms, stark against dark skin. And given Tim's general short-sleeved wardrobe, they're not exactly difficult to miss.

But whatever. He stopped being self-conscious about those things a long time ago. A long, long damn time ago.]

I mean, that's the general goal, right?

[battlefront]

[He hasn't missed them. His eyes don't miss details like that. There were plenty of people in Edge who resorted to that type of coping after the stigma hit. Mostly adults, but some kids had taken up the habit, too. And it was just... sad to watch.

But... ha.

Not Cloud. Too much of a coward. More obvious than his own oozing, discolored bruise. So he just runs and hides. Always just trying to run from his problems. Maybe if he does it enough, they'll just go away, right?]

One would assume.

[He needs to pick his words more carefully.]

I still wanna know who thinks painting flowers is a good idea.

[postictal]

Maybe it was a joke.

[Oh thank god, a walkway. Tim steps onto the cobblestones, following the trail of it straight to the mansion's front door.]

I dunno. This place kinda has a...surreal feel to it. Is that just me?

[battlefront]

[Yeah, because defacing flowers is hilarious. Everyone laugh! Or maybe he's just still feeling bitter about... well, all of this in general.

It's frustrating. What the hell is going on?]

...I thought that was just me. [Dusting a few leaves off his coat, Cloud pulls himself out of the brush fully.] Kinda why I thought I'd died at first. Whoever's here might not be as friendly as we're being.

['Friendly'.

All they've done is sass each other back and forth since they met.]

[postictal]

[Unreality. Yeah, he's pretty sick of that too. But things tend to blur and detach at the edges when he's losing his mind - how fucked up is it that he has a metric for this sort of thing? - and this current picture is way too crisp. Way too defined. Way too immediate, rather than abstract.

Doesn't make it any less fucked up.]

Well, hey, if it helps any - I can say we're not dead. I sure as shit wouldn't've ended up here if that were the case.

[battlefront]

They say hell is other people.

[And that may not even be directed towards Tim.]

And I don't feel like meetin' whatever else might be here.

[postictal]

[Tim would be offended if he didn't relate to that sentiment so fucking heavily. He already knows he's not the best company. At least this guy's being honest about it.]

Maybe we won't.

[But there's a pair of doors in front of the pair of them now, and Tim gives the guy with the big honking sword a pointed look, as if to say, you first. He's the one with the sword, after all.]