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+ ENTRANCEWAY TEST DRIVE MEME +

Has this ever happened to you?!

The theory is beautiful but the practice is ehhhh, the spirit is willing but the flesh needs canon revision, the muse is new and the task is daunting, and people on plurk were like OMG GO APPLY but you were like eehhhhhhhhhhh again and entranceway, what is it with this weird game and questionable run-on sentences in its memes is there no law is there no order is there no country for old men or young men or a bigger animanga cast WILL I LIVE UP TO MY EXPECTATIONS AND THE EXPECTATIONS SOCIETY PLACES UPON ME WHY ARE YOU STILL TYPING LOOK I JUST WANT TO PLAY A FEW THREADS AND SEE HOW THAT CHARACTER WORKS OUT IN THIS GAME oh wait you just want to play a few threads and see how that character works out in this game this game of wonderful Wonderlands well then

THEN STEP RIGHT UP AND SEIZE OPPORTUNITY BY THE--

--uhhhh, beard. Beard! I meant beard. Seize... seize it by the... beard and come meet your fellow cast and players at the... family-friendly, wholesome and healthy, entirely safe for work

♥ ENTRANCEWAY
TEST DRIVE MEME ♥

►► Test your shiniest and brand newest muses! Bring an old voice and try Wonderland's setting and population on for size! See how that Mirror personality fits your character! Post a top level comment, tag into other people's starters, enjoy yourself!

►► Thread out your character's arrival, have them act the long-established resident, let our past events inspire your scene, or write up literally any Wonderland-based scenario you feel like threading out!

►► If you want to take it a step further, check out our NAVIGATION for all the game info you'll need, and our INPUT & INQUIRIES page for any missing pieces. If that's got you convinced, the pages for RESERVES and APPLICATIONS are right there for you!

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

AND THAT IS ALL, NOW GO GRAB 'EM AND HAVE FUN!

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

[He won't let go. If he wrenched hard enough, he could tear out of his grip and run, and never look back, but he's not - he's not Jay, he knows better than to turn away from a threat when it's right in front of you. Keep your enemies close, right? Precisely why Jay always had Tim walk in front of the camera, isn't it?]

[Let go of me.]

[His breath has gone staggered, and he can't - can't look at him as he is now, looking so fucking sincere, like he didn't put him and Jay through every inch of hell that Alex did, like he isn't responsible for the weight of guilt sagging on Tim's shoulders, for the mocking words that must keep Jay up still. Like he isn't responsible. Like he deserves some measure of forgiveness for that.]

[Like Tim could - ]

I sad let go of me!

[The words wrench out from his throat in an outraged howl, tearing at the back of his throat.]

You were scared? We were all scared! You didn't see me or Jay trying to kill anyone over it!

[Not - ]

[Not until he'd already lost him.]

( he's hanging on by fingertips now - and despite Tim's outburst, the very idea of fully letting go, of stepping back, it feels like a much greater fall than the one that--

well. )

No- no, please! ( he's not acting, in fact he's not even trying, years of repressed thoughts, years of repressed emotions, all stomping over themselves in an attempt to get out and an effort to reach out to him. Jay mattered. Jessica mattered. hell, even Alex but it's Tim, it's Tim he's always placed on that marbled pedestal and Brian knows he has every right to push him off; his words cut like a knife, burn hot into his very soul but he doesn't run, he doesn't even snap back.

because Tim isn't okay. and it's his fault.

all his mind can wrap around is how sorry he is )

Everything backfired-- everything. I didn't want to hurt Jay, but I wanted Alex to stop and- and I... ( the bitter feeling pooling in the sides of his neck, up his throat and pounding into his skull are like a catalyst, turning his skin red, his eyes watery despite his best efforts. )

( stupid, stupid boy. )

I didn't want to lose you.

You - you could've said something, could've sent some kind of message, could've done anything but sit in your fucking cave and write us these - these codes like we'd ever understand whatever the hell it was you were talking about!

[The words spit out from his parted jaws like venom, and Brian won't let go so he holds on - he holds on, all right, seizing Brian by the front of his jacket, fisting into the fabric of that worn beige of the hoodie he's never wanted to see less in his life, yanking him close so he can snarl mere inches from the face of someone he once called a friend.]

[Once.]

You could've done anything.

This is a terrible idea. This is an unspeakably terrible idea, and Jay doesn't know why he's still going along with it.

That's a lie.

He has to know, that's why. Tim said that thing only ever shows up during events, but Jay has to make sure, and what better way to make sure than by walking straight into its nest? If he sees it, he'll run. He'll be fine.

Keep the camera running. Keep the camera running. Keep the camera running.

God, this is a terrible idea. The closer he gets to the forest, the more he feels it. He can still turn back, still run back to the mansion and up to his room and lock the door behind him. Sounds cowardly when he thinks of it that way, but maybe it's not. Or maybe cowardice is the only thing that's kept him alive so far.

He has to turn back.

He has to turn back.

He's still walking.

He's at the edge of the woods now, peering between the trees through the night vision setting on his camera, when something moves out of the corner of his eye. He jumps, rustling the dry leaves at his feet, before slipping behind the trunk of a thick oak (or whatever passes for oak in Wonderland).

What was that?

Closets?

[ what. like, okay, she's heard "closets" in passing but that doesn't fully explain it. ]

...No.

[ jyn looks up at the dog's owner -- jyn, you can't think of people like that wtf -- and it's clear she thinks that even with this place existing that is a level of "okay, you need a doctor" kind of weird she has experienced yet. hutts and mouse droids and the aquatic people of wrea are one thing, talking woodland creatures are another. ]

Does that happen?

[ wild cards this because i can so guess who is sitting near cassian when he makes his network post? it's jyn, sprawled out in his room like she owns it and isn't just a guest. at least she is eating her raw cookie dough at his desk instead of on his bed. ]

Why do you want to know?

[ trini glances over at kimberly, shrinking down a little in her seat when someone shushes them, and dropping her voice to something more conspiratorial. ]

I don't speak German.

( and there it is, the physical response for the bubbling anger finally surfacing; Brian is already bracing himself for what impact awaits but that he's shoved close enough to actually look at Tim in the eyes is almost merciful compared to what he deserves.

likewise his grip on Tim's wrists returns to a small degree - however that is the extent of Brian's force and it doesn't match the pathetic look in his eyes. he's always made himself look so transparent, this was no different. )

Don't you get it?

( how could he? when all Brian did was act more cryptic by the message )

It made me do it, I wasn't always in control. I didn't always remember. ( but when he did? it felt too late then. by then he was so shaken up, both angry and horrified that he couldn't bear to show his face again. not until he got rid of Alex first. or at least that's what let him sleep at night. ) That hooded thing was speaking damned clearly, Tim; just not to you, or me, or Jay.

( there's a sense of urgency in his voice. he's spilling all he has for a chance to be heard. )

You think I had fun with it? I'm not- I'm not like that.

He could have brought anything- a knife, a club, hell a large chunk of wood for all it mattered was a better weapon than no weapon. What was he planning to do? Grab a rock and—

No. Hell no, he wasn't Alex. He wasn't...

( You'd do that to him. You would. )

It's that thing in his head again, the same voice that has him looking like the perpetrator behind totheark - not to cast away any blame or partaking in it, but Brian was in this body first. That thing's clung to him like a tumor, growing into him and it makes his head hurt.

He just doesn't expect it - not here, not of all places. The noise. The noise of rustling leaves, of soundly human behaviour and for a moment he feels lost and uncertain; has he been caught this soon?

His head turns in every direction and he reaches towards a bush, pushing the leaves aside, searching though for what he isn't sure yet.

( you're making us an easy target you stupid– )

Brian - not "Hoody", the hooded monster - keeps looking through the leaves and trees. If there's someone around here he needs to find them. Needs to make sure it's not someone else who might get hurt because of him.

He's got enough kills to be held accountable for already.

How am I supposed to believe you?

[It is, he's coming to realize bitterly, exactly how Jay must have felt. This aimless frustration that doesn't have an outlet - because as much as he'd love to drive his knuckles into his jaw and send Brian sprawling like he deserves, there's too much holding him back.]

[There's too much stuttering at his fingertips, the digital rip and scratch of a tape dislodged from the deck, the spun-gold thread of memory after memory that feels so far from now it may as well belong to a different person entirely.]

[He wishes, for the first time, that he could be like Alex.]

[He wishes he could be cold and locked and stony, and cut away the things that would hurt him like the tumors they were without remorse - without outward remorse. He wishes he could scowl and rage without the cursed fucking moisture biting at the corners of his eyes and undercutting everything the says.]

[He wishes ~~it could be goddamn over already.~~]

How much of you was there? How much do you even remember?

Because you know me, goddamnit!

( it's more than just urgency then; the way his voice raises an octave but still breaks at the end, the way he suddenly blinks so angrily for a couple of times or his vision will be blurred. Brian knew this was coming some day - or he assumed it was before everything went wrong. )

( he never wanted any of this for any of them. he never wanted to lead them on aimlessly for so long. )

( ... but at the same time he can't just stay silent now, not when he can say it to someone he knows would understand him. or someone he hopes would. )

I wasn't there! I didn't know what it was like until I experienced it myself; the blacking out. The blank spots. Waking up weeks later with bruises and nightmares and trying to get the hell away but always waking up in those woods, in that--

( that hole. that hole, trying to find Alex, or trying to find Tim, or going through tape he didn't remember filming and seeing it uploaded for everyone to watch. to the ark, to the ark, to TH E A RK written all over, sometimes in pen all over his arms, sometimes all over his legs, sometimes etched into wood or stone in what he could only assume was the masked man's frustration.

until one day it all started coming together. it started coming to him in flashes, in dreams, in sequences he'd once been unable to make sense of.

he was ill; so much that he was chasing Tim up and down looking for pills instead of his direct help. )

When I started remembering it was too late. It's like- like it latched on like a parasite and grew into me. The more the Operator came closer, the worse it got. ( sickening. horrible. Brian tugged at Tim's wrists, almost holding on for dear life. ) I wanted to tell you, but I was scared.

You don't get to say that.

[The words are a dangerous, venomous hiss. He doesn't know him - not anymore, he doesn't. The fact that he never - that it never really struck him, the evidence that piled up against Brian as the culprit - that outlines it in earnest, the fact that he never really knew him.]

[He knew him once. Once.]

[He says It, he says It, he names It like It's a person, and he ca n ' t - ]

Nn -

[The next time Tim comes into himself, he's relinquished his grip, one hand pressed to the swelling, spiking branch of pain in his temple. There's a wailing, continuous tone drilling into his ears, and he can't tell if it's real or something that isn't there, like the rest of this. The sweat's beading on his brow, and it's all he can do to gasp it out, blinking past the agony that boils like a migraine.]

Don't say Its name!

( he's not scared - not of Tim persay, not of someone he cares for deeply enough that he's here, facing him and admitting guilt instead of shoving his own death in his face. instead of trying to guilt him like it was ever even his fault to begin with. )

( he can't - he can't blame him. he's been hurt all his life. he can't blame him. )

Then what do I sa–

( the momentum of his words is lost mid-sentence however, the change in Tim's expression more than evident to him - he's always had an eye for it ( you've always doted on him ) and he releases his grip in time for the other's hands to reach for his head. and he could run, could hide from another fuckup but that's not the point anymore.

so he reaches for Tim's arms, pulling at him, trying to give him a shell of comfort despite the fact that his gesture operates more as the cage he knows Tim can't stand; yet he can't help it. he understands and, maybe out of commiseration more than actual ailment, he can briefly feel the pounding headache on the inside of his forehead; his knuckles grip a little tighter around Tim's arms. he grunts. )

Tim- Tim listen. I won't say it, I won't-- Tim! ( and it's awful, he knows (or he should at any rate); how he sounds so much more like himself all of a sudden. how, when Tim is hurting, Brian can't really focus on his own pain. he's a lucky sod next to the other man. if only he could shake that horror out of him, he would. ) Stay with me. Please, please- it's going to be okay.

( no it's not. you liar. )

[Every part of him that's not trembling in the aftershocks that still blister at the contours of his skull - every part of him that's not still screaming at the blinding unnaturalness of what he just said - is howling to get away.]

[He can't.]

[He can't do anything but tremble like some weak little shell of a person (You'll just be a shell of a person, just like Brian!) and hate himself for being as fragile as he is.]

[Always running scared to someone else's skirts. Like Brian could, or should, be the one to shield him from the monsters that have dogged his shadow all his life.]

You were just a shell.

[The words are low, rasping, like the grind of stone on stone.]

You weren't supposed to still be there. You weren't supposed to be alive.

[He'd grieved the man who was trapped in a hospital, who coughed and yelled and was doomed by his own compassion for his friend, even then.]

[He'd grieved him. He was - he'd thought he was dead.]

[It isn't fair.]

( his stomach churns, a knotting pain pulsating through his abdomen and yet he can only hold him tightly like his physical presence might do something. but what would it do to fix him? Brian doesn't know; in fact he isn't sure this is even okay, all he knows is it's what he can do to try and help. "try" being the keyword. )

( his voice is held down by a hard lump in his own throat.

you were just a shell

it hits home, of course, it sends a chill down his spine and raises goosebumps but he just listens. for once, in a long time, he listens and doesn't try to justify or explain. it's an excercise in self-restraint once he realises how everything could have been different, not just if Brian had acted differently, but also if he had. )

( I was dead. )

It takes more than that to... ( his voice is so quiet, broken up and he can't bring himself to finish it. he can't bring himself to hammer home the reminder that he is alive, somehow, in some way he can't explain, that it's still him.

Tim grieved his loss and he'd just- he'd just come back to haunt him. Not once but twice. )

( couldn't even give you peace on that )

( his cheeks are damp with something warm. for once there's no cough, no headache or static in his ears but there's something so much more natural and too pure for someone like hi- like what he'd become. )

... I couldn't let you go through this nightmare on your own.

But you did.

[It's more of an indictment than he intends for it to be - glancing up with a look both betrayed and accusatory, red-rimmed and wrung out. He can never be done with this, can he? It's always going to come back.]

[He was alone. He was always alone, and when he wasn't, there was that barrier of a camera between himself and the only other man who might've understood. The only one that was still unambiguously on his side - even if he wasn't on Jay's. Not completely. Can't ever forget that, can he? Can't forget that he's a liar.]

[HE IS A LIAR.]

[Follow ME.]

I was...how I was supposed to know? And once I did, I -

[His throat closes.]

[Once he did know, who it was that lingered behind the hood, he could only wish desperately that he didn't. The difference between him and the man with the lead round in his liver, bled out on a floor that didn't exist; that he never fucking asked for the answers he got.]

( Brian's throat is choked up with something he's too scared to put a name to. when he blinks again, he is still as pathetic-looking as one would be; he still feels sick. guilty. worried. )

( he put an uncrossable barrier between himself and the person he has always called his best friend. in trying to save him, he endangered him further. all the while making him believe that he - Brian - was dead. )

... I deserve every ounce of hatred that you might feel. ( saying it feels a little like opening pandora's box; he has no idea what might come out of it. but he would rather say it instead of lying again. instead of gaslighting and hurting Tim again. ) Just like I deserved to be…

( did he? )

I'm so sorry, ( his voice is quiet, his breathing shallow ) For not being there. For not being the person you could call a friend. For...

( For being too scared of worrying him? For being too scared that he would run away? Think again, Brian. )

..For- not protecting you...

Goddamnit, I didn't ask for your protection.

[It would probably sound better, more intimidating, more heartfelt, if he wasn't some sniffling, awful mess half-crumpled on the ground. Wanting nothing more than to shove Brian roughly away, and being patently unable to - maybe because the fear that he'll dissipate into nothing is still there, despite all of it. He's lost him twice now. Twice, and the third time is always the one that sticks.]

[Tim has never been someone who could contain everything behind a viewfinder. He is not Jay, and he is not Alex, and he never will be. He wraps his arms around his middle and hugs at himself because no one else is going to, and he sobs like the broken thing he is, unable to keep it from boiling loose, dribbling down his face in a disgusting mixture of tears and snot.]

[Halting, stuttering, stumbling.]

[And never, never enough.]

I missed my friend.

[he doesn't seem to care that she's lounging around. if he did, he wouldn't have network'd in the first place, and it's not like he wouldn't tell her it all anyway.]

Timelines. Patterns. Ideas about how long we could be stuck here. It would tell us more about this place.

( the truth is Brian has always carried his heart on his sleeve to some extent and it was never difficult to pull at his emotional state - at least superficially, though even that is saying something. the way he could so quickly incarnate the character - Brian, funnily enough - in Alex's script without appearing forced, for instance, was proof of it. so imagine meeting someone like Tim, being capable of getting to know him and getting to see him at his best and at his worst.
imagine how that tugs at his heartstrings - nay. how it rips them completely.

his voice is quiet, barely a whisper when he speaks again, yet so ripe with emotion that it should be a crime to feel so much like himself now than in the past years; )

You never had to ask.

( you're my best friend, for heaven's sake;
 Brian's brows are knit in concern but his tears feel numb against his own cheeks, each of Tim's burning into his mind like a grim reminder of how much he's added to hurting him. it's wrong. it's everything he always wanted to avoid. )

( when he holds himself Brian can almost empathize; how can he not feel angry, or scared, or so utterly alone? everyone around him dropped dead some way or another. not because of him, but because of that Thing following him like a particularly stubborn parasite - and he resents It so much. he could live with the nightmares if they were just that, but they couldn't ever be just that. there's little comfort in thinking that at least Tim survives when he's forced to experience horrors in his own flesh, before his own eyes.

when he sinks onto the floor and wraps his arms around Tim's, it's a slow, tentative gesture; he avoids imposing, but he wants him to feel, even if he can't understand it (yet), he wants him to feel that he wants to keep him safe. for just a moment, with everything else drowned out, he wants him to feel that this is his friend. Brian. no hooded man. no Operator. just Brian, for Tim. )

I missed you too. I missed you every damned day I could remember myself.

When the shuffling of whoever the hell is out here with him grows a little quieter, a little more distant, Jay peers out from behind the tree, camera lens first.

He recognizes the silhouette instantly.

He's here. The hooded man is here. How long has Tim known?

Jay keeps watching, as silently as he can manage. The hooded man's only tried to attack him once, and that was when he was closed in and cornered, so maybe Jay's not in danger here.

He just wants to talk, for real this time. But he doesn't want to risk having the guy bolt like he always does.

All he can do for now is watch. Get as much footage as he can.

(And to do that, he's fully stepped away from the tree. If the hooded man turns around, he doesn't have any easy cover. If he has to, he can run.)

How often did you?

[Can't resist asking, can he? Just like Jay, in the end; for all the grief he gave him for prying and pushing and picking over everything with a ruthlessly fine-toothed comb in search of his answers, Tim's really no better, in the end. He's no better, because when faced with the opportunity, of course he seizes it.]

[Those answers that Jay never got - and that Tim had to learn in his stead. Like it was honoring his memory.]

If you could remember, why didn't you do something? Anything besides just...hide, and let us think you were dead?

[Until the day it stopped being a presumption, and became a hard fact.]

[And whose fault is that?]

It does. They speak to us over these - [ at which time she removes and presents the communicator, offering it for Jyn to see ] Usually with some kind of ominous message.

[ And usually followed by an event. ]

That one may just be a normal mouse, though.

[ It's possible, isn't it?? ]

[ jyn wants to mention that... they are probably dead so can they really be stuck anywhere when the option is being vaporized on the beach? both options suck but this option isn't death. ]

Even when you haven't got a job... [ he doesn't stop working. bless. ]

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Page 19 of 29

+ ENTRANCEWAY TEST DRIVE MEME +

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did somebody say woods and bad choices?

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4

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jay STOP NOT ALLOWED GO BACK >:C

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jay go FORWARD

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