+ ENTRANCEWAY TEST DRIVE MEME +

[vitaelamorte]

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!

Comments

[postictal]

[He wouldn't be taking so long if he could stop coughing. And he can't - he can't. It's dragging nails down his lungs, down his throat, choking him. Like water, thick and laminar, rushing out from his mouth and spilling onto the leaves.]

[Water - or blood. Hot and sticky and coppery, spat out in black clots across the scattered leaf litter.]

Get - out. Get out.

[...]



[Who is he talking to?]

[eyesee]

[Out of you?

It's hard to remove black tar from a soul. You should know that Tim.

You'll never be free.

A small crack echoes in the darkness, close to Tim. When did it get dark?

Probably a question best addressed later. It's not someone - or something - but an attempt to draw Tim's attention towards a tree. At the base rests a white doll with long limbs.

How did it get there? Did It somehow get close enough without Tim reacting to place it there? Who knows.

But take it as a final warning.

He's running out of time.]

IM DEAD i am GONE i am DECEASED goodbYE

[postictal]

[A familiar thing - a familiar creature. He remembers it, he knows, with the sick jolt to his stomach. He remembers it; the only thing he could cling to as real in that maze of white walls. That reminder of reality.]

[He clutches it between trembling fingers - white cloth, soft and slightly scratchy. The same as it ever was.]



[It's a cruelty, he knows. It's mocking him.]




[He stuffs it in his pocket, and he bolts.]

:)

[eyesee]

[Run run, as fast as you can. Where you'll end up?

Nobody knows.

The name of this game is simple. All Tim has to do is get out of the maze of trees. But there's nothing but darkness to the front, back and sides of him and a deeper darkness lying in wait.

Following. But waiting. There's a light at the end of this tunnel Tim. He just needs to find it.

Before he gets caught. Because if he makes an unfortunate turn somewhere.

....well, he's been down that route before.]

[postictal]

[It's a simple game, but he'd really rather not be playing right about now, thanks. Especially because his lungs are already on fire and it's just getting worse the longer he goes. Fingertips catch across the edge of one coarse trunk as he spits out a hot gobbet of his own blood.]

[He can hardly breathe, and he has to keep running. God, he has to keep running.]

[There's a light at the end of this tunnel.]

[which tunnel]

[eyesee]

[Whichever one It wants, of course.

It's not like you and Jay ever figured out how to truly escape.

Trees and trees, nothing but trees. There's a story about them, about how criminals are left to rot on them. Nothing but a story made up by one man trying to scare another...but it may shed some light on their almost-malevolence.

Catch a corner of your sleeve on a branch, splinters in your hands, leaves in your hair, twigs in your shoes and sap on your skin. They'll never let you go.

A friend of a friend is much better than an enemy and It has made a home in many a forest for a reason.

But back to the game on hand. It's almost blatant how the game is rigged to not be in favor of Tim.

All the Operator has to do is wait until he collapses because he can't push his body any farther. And then the real fun can begin.

But there is an exit. Not an escape, mind, but an exit. All Tim has to do is find it, perceive it and leave. Look for the light you're ignoring in favor of the darkness behind you.

Because it will swallow you whole if you lose.]

[postictal]

[Like great clawing fingers, catching on the fabric of his jeans, twining into his hair. He always felt like trees were skeletons, in their own ways. Perhaps they're just dead husks of things long-gone. Maybe they're alive - alive, and serving a malevolent god with twisted morals.]

[He has to find the exit, assuming there is one. There must be one. He made it out before - he can do it again now.]

[(Assuming Jay doesn't follow.)]

[Something, something...ark. An ark, a respite from the flood that inevitably swims out from the woodwork (the woodwork), and beyond that - something more.]

[His hand plunges into his pocket for the only other talisman he has.]

[A lighter, flame spritzing out between his fingertips with a bright, metallic click.]

[eyesee]

[And so within the darkness there is light. A tiny light, but light nonetheless.

And maybe, because this is Wonderland and Wonderland's rules, it is not yet a light the Operator can snuff out. The lighter will glow for as long as Tim wants it to.

But he better not push his luck.

The shadows and the trees seem to extend far beyond the scope of what they normally are capable of. A forest twisted for the single purpose of catching one lost man and any one of them could be a black and white figure waiting for Its pray to run itself ragged.

Because that's all the Operator had to do. Just wait. You all took care of yourselves, didn't you?

It's wise to keep running but Tim can slow down a little. With the light comes a path and with a path, eventually an exit.

But he better not drop the lighter.

Keep an eye out for any roots on the ground.]

[postictal]

[Water. Running in streams and in slurries of rainwater, coursing down windows and filling his lungs. Dark and black and all-encompassing as the thing behind it, behind all of it.]

[The thing watching.]

[Coughing like water bubbling out from his lungs, and when he was smaller he put a light to hospital bedsheets and watch them erupt in sheeting curtains of red-orange. Watched it all dissolve into ash and charred wood, the paint mottling the walls as flakes of it peeled and fell away.]

[There's blood rushing in his ears, swooping in his gut with a sickening tingle.]

[He's on his hands and knees, and the lighter, the lighter - ]

[He puts flame to wood.]

[And he watches the tree catch alight.]

[eyesee]

[The flame travels along the wood, to the leaves and the next tree. And the next. And the next.

And then there is an inhuman screech. Not from the surrounding area, but from Tim's pocket. The device Wonderland had given its residents to communicate with each other has switched on and unleashed a burst of static. It's nothing like the rips of interference or distortions that happened when the Operator was caught on tape, but a simple tear.

Its not yet on top of Tim, but close behind.

He has a light and a means of recording what's going on. Maybe help is on the way too.

But it is merely an exit and not an escape.

He's not out of the woods yet and fire makes shadows. Its coming for him.

Directly.]

[postictal]

[The static rebounds across his ears with a shrilling, unholy screech. A high, uneven tone drilling into the center of his skull, and he screws his eyes shut as if that will block any of it out. He'd clamp his hands over his ears, but he won't dare relinquish his grip on the one thing he has - that one barrier between him and whatever It has planned.]

[The trees are going up like torches. It hasn't rained. The shadows lick up like clawed fingertips.]

[He can feel It looming, pressing down on every corner of his mind. He's not out of the woods and he can't find his way - so he'll make one. He'll make one, or go out making one. Every inch of him, of his eyes and his head and his spine, throbs with that indefinable pressure that feels like it's ionizing him, piece by piece.]

[The breath squeezes out from his lungs in a static-torn wheeze. He's slumping against the trunk of the tree, sagging even as the heat singes his hair, blisters his skin.]

Go on, [he whispers.] Go on.

[Go on.]

[Doesn't he deserve this?]

[eyesee]

[If he can't find an exit, he'll make one instead?

Amusing. And so very predictable.

All it takes is a simple blink before It stands in front of Tim. That dominating presence is at an all-time high, merely existing in the same space must be tortuous. It would be forgivable if Tim passed out due to it.

We're going on a little trip again Tim. Welcome home.

Dragged through the burning forest by

A̮̲ͯ́͂ͬ̇l̔ͨ͆e͉͇̹͕̾ͤ͐̏x̯̘̲̲̍̀ͪ̚̕ͅ
̷̟̬̃̽̔͒ͅ
̖̲̣͖̜̹̩ͮ͒ͭ̚͠J͍ͫ̆͛a̺̠͙̳̪̞̓ͥ̉ͣ̔y̫͖͎͇̱̼

A thing with no hands and no eyes. Drowning in the ocean, dragged underwater by an unseen creature or maybe Tim is holding on with both hands and taking that final option.

Does he deserve this?

You tell It.

All through an inverted Wonderland where everything is right-side up and makes sense, then under the water again and it tastes like blood and rot. There are corpses here, a mad and incompetent boy with a gunshot wound, someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and offered help to the wrong person. And the man himself, Alex, forever choking on his own blood in a watery grave.

"Everything is fine."

We. Think. N̶̝̮ͭ͛̉ͧ̂͗̔͝o̵͔ͧ͛ͅͅt̙̪̻ͩͤ̐̈́ͣ͊̈͂͝.

Because, you see, It is never done. Not even in death. And The Operator is far from finished.

Tim will soon find himself deposited outside of the forest, during the day. It's been restored but if it was only Wonderland's doing is up in the air.

He's safe for now.

But the doll is still in his pocket.]

[postictal]

[It's coming for him.]

[He should be terrified. His veins should be bursting with epinephrine, and he should be screaming. Clawing at the leaves as he's dragged into the jaws of whatever counts as hell. Waiting, watching, waiting, watching, and when it comes it sweeps over him like water closing over his head, and his eyes close, and he should be afraid but all he can feel is that drifting sense of solemn, absolute peace.]

[Waiting for an End to come.]

[God, please.]


[Just waiting for it to finally be over.]




[It isn't.]



[He wakes blearily, his hair and his clothes matted with mud and tangled with twigs and leaves. The soft shape of the doll is still cushioned in his pocket, and as Tim rolls onto his back, his chest seizes with the rough spatter of rough coughs that leave him gagging on his own blood and vomit.]


[Whatever the hell just happened, it doesn't matter what he tells anyone.]
[(He won't tell anyone.)]

[Everything is fine.]