entranceworks | + SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER TDM +

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test drive meme

+ SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER TDM +

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER TEST DRIVE MEME
It's Chinese for 'Japan.'

Prompt A: Serious Event

A memory is displayed. It's yours, the most traumatic of your life whether it was a terrifying clown encounter or the death of someone you love. It's on a loop for everyone to see. You can enter the memory and take your own place, but no matter how hard you try, you cannot alter the outcome. You're forced to try in vain to change what happened or watch until you decide it's too much and walk away. If you can.

Prompt B: Lighter Event

Welcome to Storybrooke.

You've lived in a quiet town in Maine for as long as you can remember. You are a fishmonger or a diner employee, perhaps you work at the hospital. Whatever you do and whoever you are, it's not the real you. You are cursed and you know no other life outside of Storybrooke.

When the curse breaks (either from True Love's Kiss or, in a more TDM friendly, handwaved way), you have two sets of memories: who you were, and who you are. Do you choose to accept all that you were cursed to believe, or would you rather slip back into your old life? The choice is yours.

Prompt C: ediS rorriM

Use this prompt to test out your mirrors. Are they loyal to the new White Queen or do they think she's too good to be true? Do they long to cross over or spend their days tormenting reals? Whatever the scenario, know that the Queen is watching, and let that guide you - or not.

Prompt D: Choices

Any scenario goes! Thread out your character's arrival, have them act like a long-established resident, let our past events inspire your scene, or write up literally any Wonderland-based scenario you feel like playing with.

Rules

Test drive memes go up every other month. Please note that any threads made as part of the test drive meme don't count towards your activity check, and they can't be used as samples for any future applications. Thank you for understanding, and have fun!

NAVIGATION ♥ RESERVES ♥ APPLICATION ♥ INPUT & INQUIRIES

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Isn't your ex dead? Like, you literally just mentioned him a minute ago." Crazy serial killing is not as abstract as it once was, not after seeing what the Men of the Machine were willing to do.

"Dirk will turn up eventually. He's a holistic detective, he always ends up where he needs to be." And Todd needs him to be here. Hopefully with Farah.

"I- government. I'm pretty sure." He was fairly sure. Given their sway with agencies. "Pararibulitis attacks? Yeah, of course. It doesn't go away because I've gone somewhere different."

"Yeeeeah," she says, nodding slowly. "You haven't been here long have you? Dead come back. People come in from the past and never know you. They come in from the future and you're dead. Just because he hung himself doesn't mean he won't show up one day." There is a very blase tone to her words as she says it, even if he can finger her for a lot.

"Wait, a what? Like, isn't that the whole thing about eating organic and shit?" Nope, never heard this in those terms.

"This isn't a normal place, you know. Like I said, the dead are alive, you come back from the dead. Wait, you knew that right?"

"Like, three days," he admits. "And that is horrifying and so not a good thing. Not that there are many dead people in my past." But a Farah or Dirk who didn't know him? That would be hard.

"No, it's more to do with the interconnectedness of everything. The universe takes Dirk where he needs to go to fix things that never should have happened in the first place. It's impossible to explain without sounding like a total lunatic." He is very aware of that.

"I gathered that you can't die here. Or, you can, but it doesn't stick. Bart would hate this place." So much. "But I still have pararibulitis, it's neurological."

"Oh well... Okay, that sucks. Walking in on this, that's so much bullshit," she says, realizing that he hasn't run into any of this before now. "Yeah, it's... I mean, I want my bestie here, you know? But what if there's other timelines or something? If she never knew me."

Now that is a fear she can have, one that she truly fears. She gets that worry.

Turning away from the image before her, she focuses on this man. "Okay, so... All of that can happen. People you don't know. People that look like someone you know and aren't. So... I mean, this interconnectedness could mean sure, he shows. But might get you sucked out of here quick," she notes. "Though, I mean, so in that if he came here, he'd figure this all out?"

Now that is curious. "How do you know he can do that? And what about magic? What if that helps you with the pararibwhatchihaveit."

"I've only know Dirk and Farah for... three months. And Dirk was missing for two of those. But I don't want to imagine not having met them."

Toss shrugs, watching the memory, watching the way Dirk looks at him, full of excitement and happiness and sugar. "If he was meant to. The case I met him on involved a self fulfilling, closed time loop, which wouldn't have resolved if he hadn't been involved. But if he's not meant to, nothing."

Bart killed who she felt like killing and she always felt like killing objectively terrible people. Really terrible. "I know he can do it because I've been with him when he does it. It's frustrating as hell and terrifying but it works out. And so far nothing has really helped much except my medication."

And being in Wendimoor, where thought and reality overlap a bit more than they should.

"Not like it sticks, you know. You go home, everything's normal and you go back too your life," she points out, blase about it though this part she gets. "It's what I keep telling myself because my girl isn't here either," she points out.

Being comforting is hard, but at least she can try. Maybe. Probably badly. "Look. If that's the way this guy operates? Then he's probably going end up here sooner than later. So you're just torturing yourself when it sounds like you're already living with torture," she points out. "Have you eaten or anything?"

"That's... not exactly as comforting as I think you think it is." But he looks amused, so it's working at least a little bit.

"Dirk is where Dirk's meant to be. I don't know if that applies across all realities, though. And I'm really not torturing myself, just... enjoying seeing my friends." He's torturing himself, it's a habit he's picked up since he actually admitted to himself how awful a person he was.

"Yeah, I've eaten. I don't spend all my time staring at this until I collapse. If I don't look after myself, it can bring on attacks."

"What? The whole time is frozen and everyone is waiting for you thing?" She thinks it's that part, though she's kind of accepted that some will look at her oddly. Faking being other than she is just isn't worth it sometimes.

"If you believed that you wouldn't be torturing yourself standing here watching them," she points out, not buying his denial. Not at all.

"You sleep in here still, don't you?"

"Time is frozen?" That specific detail had not been divulged.

"Where else am I going to sleep? I like having a bed, I've gone a long time without beds before, they're a luxury I enjoy."

"Let me guess. All anyone brought up was the events trying to kill you, huh?" She rolls her eyes, though she got the same thing when she arrived. "Okay, so... While you're here? NO one is moving on without you, you're not let behind and they haven't found a new Bee Efe Efe," she says, her voice a bit rougher than she means, so smiling to soften that. "So they're just waiting. Whatever moment it was when you came here? You'll go right back into it whenever they sent you back."

Which is comforting for some, weird for others.

"Pick a random room? There's some still open, I'm sure. Someone else's where you don't care about the memory they're living through?"

"Sort of, yeah. Though this one is decidedly less murdery. Murderous, Jesus, I spend too much time listening to Dirk." He wasn't sure how to feel about that, that things would happen to him, change him, but when he got back, it would be like he hadn't gone for even a second.

"That's... fucked up. Not outside the realm of what can happen to us anyway, but still, fucked up. And other people's memories tend to be noisier on the whole. But yeah, when I need sleep, might try and find somewhere else."

"Except it's meant to kill your spirit," she points out, meaning it. Not even kidding. If she had one, something like this would do it for her, and she knows it. "Also, murdery sounds about right," she adds, amused by that and smiling at the thought.

"You could, I don't know, crash in my room. There's nothing going on there. Just, if you make a mess, you'll pay."

"Well, there's a cheerful fucking thought," Todd murmured. "I knew a holistic assassin, it's the sort of word she'd use." He wondered what had happened to Bart.

"Only mess'd be if I had an attack and flailed and I can clean up after myself. Adult living and all."

"So don't let it. That's the cheerful thought in it. You can't always protect yourself when they send monsters and demons and all, but when they're after your soul, only you can protect yourself," she points out.

She considers him for a long minute, head canting. "If you actually have a whole mental thing and clean it up? I won't punish you."

She might mean that.

Todd was very bad at protecting his soul. His ass, sure, he was great at that, but it had taken Dirk for him to fight for his soul.

"... Yeah, see some people would think you're joking, but you're not. And I don't think your idea of punishment is something I want to get to know..."

"Some people would be stupid. You're not stupid," she says, nudging him. "See, you're already ahead of the game."

She sighs, realizing she's falling again for helping the underdog kid. Damn. "Come on. Let's go get you lunch or something. You know it's lunchtime, right?"

"Thanks?" He thinks.

He's a lot older than her. Just... small.

"No, I didn't. But sure, lunch."

She gives a nod of her head, moving towards the door and holding it open. "Come on. It's on me," she says with a snort, given all food is free and easy to get.

"Diner work for you? I don't really cook."

"... that's a lot less generous than you're making it sound." He knows that food is free. "I can cook, but diner works as well."

"Oh totally," she agrees, not even arguing that. "We have no money, no need for money, and no system to even make bartering worthwhile. I am offering though to try and keep you from driving yourself mad with an event that is obviously designed to drive you mad,' she points out, shrugging.

"Trust me. I get missing your friends. I don't get letting this place get the better of you."

Todd shrugs, not responding for a moment and instead pulling out his medication, popping two pills dry and pocketing the bottle again. "Yeah, lunch sounds good. I need coffee."

She arches a brow at that, head canting slightly, taking in the pills and how easily he takes them. "Do they help? I mean, like a lot, or just maybe?" Asking it even as she heads for the door, pulling it open for him.

"They help. I take two four time a day for prevention and if I have an attack, two more when it starts. If I had to pay for it here, I'd be pretty fucked." He only manages back home because of Farah.

"Um... thanks?" He steps through.

"That is one thing about whatever psychotic fantasy this place is," she admits, glancing at him as she heads for the stairs. "Anything you need is free, and you can just do whatever you want. It's kinda fun."

Except those desires she might be discovered for, and no MK to share it with.

"I used to buy my sister's medication for her." It had basically bankrupted him, not that he had much to begin with. "Luckily she's got non-chemical treatment now. Way more effective that these." He pats his pocket.

"So much free time though. I never quite know what to do."

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