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

Bigby shrugs and wishes he had something to do with his hands. This not smoking thing feels great on his nose and lungs, but his hands don't like it.

"People do things to each other." Not humans. People.

Still, water under the bridge. He and Colin patched shit up.

"Colin would love this fucking place."

"Never heard of that. Newest terrible thing I've heard of." And she's heard of a lot as she huddles inside the coat, more from fear and memories than from the cold.

"It's better here than I've seen elsewhere. Here they're doing things to you. Except... except one time." When she saw what happened to Claire. That had been different.

"If I ask who Colin is, are you just going to tell me someone from back home?"

"You should read more fairytales. Plenty of terrible things in them."

Terrible is just part of Fables life. Frequently, Bigby is the terrible that happens.

"Not much else to say, is there? He's-" Bigby's only friend. "A guy who crashes my place far too often. He hates where he lives, up at the Farm, so he comes to stay with me. Nicks my smokes and whiskey."

"I just finished Beowulf," she admits, smiling weakly because it had taken her a while. "And when I read them and thought about them, it wasn't as real. I've seen more than one person burned at the stake, so that was ..." She stops herself, taking a breath. "Does your story cover more than the obvious one?"

She's read Gren's. She would read his as well.

"Oh. He lives on the farm. I see." And she did then. A bit more from that detail. "I noticed you kept reaching for your pockets. You know you can get them from the closet, right?"

"I'm- not like most of the others. My story's old. Long as there's been wolves, people have feared them. Peter. The pigs. Red and Woody and Grandmama. Aesop."

There aren't wolves for every story. There is only one wolf. The Wolf.

"It's habit. I fucking hate cigarettes, but I've been smoking since the Industrial Revolution. Used to having something to do with my hands." He looks at her. "Gren told you about the Farm?"

"So you're all of them? All that have ever been told?" Even with what she and Gren discussed, about the fact that the stories are told by the victor, the idea tells as much about Bigby as it did about Gren. Not that either bothers her, and she's assured Gren of that. She doubts Bigby cares.

"They have a new thing. Least in my world. Called vaping. It's more flavored water and not poison. Not that poison matters to you, I guess, but still." She at least feels that telling him about it might help.

She nods then, not knowing how much of a problem that might be. "We've talked about a lot about both of our worlds and what we've been through."

Bigby doesn't say yes. But he certainly doesn't say no. His look suggests she knows the answer, in her heart.

"Sounds like a different problem. I smoked to mask the stench of the city. Just have to find something else to do with fingers." It's both a blessing and a curse of walking on two legs instead of four."

It isn't a problem. This world is a fairytale world and the residents all already aware of magic and fairytale things. Gren can say what he wants to who he wants here, by the rule of the Exiles. "Colin wants to live in the city, but he can't afford a glamour and can't really use one anyway. Work best if you actually walk on two legs."

She certainly does, and while she knows that her vision of him is tinged due to the high emotions she feels for Gren, she can't help but consider him in a very different light. Especially in knowing Gren's story.

Was the Wolf always the bad guy, or did the victor write the stories so that a sheriff doing his job is suddenly a bastard destroying homes and eating grandmothers. Though she isn't sure she can find a reason for the latter, but she's also not sure she wants to ask.

She smiles a bit at that. "There's a few things that might help with that though I warn they may look a bit like toys. I'm told they help though," she offers, knowing she will go to the closet and summon a few to see if they help him.

She nods at that. "I've been experimenting with a few ideas on spell craft that can help with those illusions. Not that we've found a way to get information from this world back to our own. Though if I could find a way that was affordable, easily manufactured by the right witch or magic worker..."

She makes a face with a sigh. "Just wanting to find a way to try and help."

In fairness... he ate Grandma because he was very hungry and very angry. It wasn't the best of reasons, but it's honest.

"I've put up with dog comments for the last... four centuries or so. And collars. Leashes. Jokes about vets and fleas. What other people is not something I bother with. Never has been. Looks like a toy? Doesn't bother me." He's copped abuse ever since he joined the community. No one wants him to forget what he is, even while they do forget exactly what they're dealing with.

His expression isn't disinterested. He knows a surprising amount about the theoretical and practical enactment of magic. He just can't do any of it and doesn't really get why certain things work. "Problem isn't that. It's the monopoly. Floor 13 have a stranglehold on magic and can charge whatever the fuck they want. If Cole would just let me eat one of them..."

It's a joke. It's been a joke for years. It's mostly a joke. But he thinks it might knock them into line.

"Yeah, well... you won't ever get comments like that from me. Not ever. I am more likely to slap someone that says them to you. Up to and including Gren," she admits, though she suspects she may be put to the text on that given their fight. "But I will see what I can get and see if they help. Worse is you're still looking for something like you are now," she says, more than willing to try and help if she can.

Including with magic. If she can. "Well, in theory how long does a monopoly hold if you have a free source? Or a cheaper one? I mean, if I could find a way? I'm not looking to profit from it. I'm looking to help. You. Gren. Anyone that is different and unique and being harmed before of it. So... IF I could find a way, since Gren has already found on in Wonderland, and we could get it home with you..."

She smiles then, and it's not the nicest of smile. "So then if they came after you because you undermined them, it wouldn't be murder but self defense to eat them, wouldn't it?"

The politics of Fabletown and the Farm are complex, complicated and ancient. Things were drawn up and set down long before Bigby ever joined them and while he thinks a lot of it is badly thought out, his role is to uphold the laws.

It's what he is. Always been. He is consequence for poor choice of actions.

"No magic is allowed outside of Floor 13. Because any rogue magic leaves space for the abuses I only just shut down. You introduce one rogue source and turn a blind eye, you're implicitly condoning people breaking the rules so long as they're quiet about it."

He doesn't like it, but he's seen what happens. "There was a troll called Lily. Rogue glamour use caused a shitstorm for her. She was murdered. Rogue magic use was used against her friends to control them." He gives a slight smile. "You're a good person, Misty, and I wish it was that simple. I do."

Misty has spent her entire life outside of politics and the things that most consider normal. The ways people abuse one another, the things they use against one another. So it's hard for her to watch people being hurt, people she cares about especially, because of those games.

She takes a step towards Bigby, looking confused and earnest. "But doesn't that just allow them to keep hurting your people? It gives them a stronghold, a way to threaten them and manipulate them, and you're letting them because you think you have no choice, but there has to be a way. For you and Gren. For Holly and that poor flying monkey and..."

She pauses then taking a breath. "And so that what happened to Lily never happens again. There has to be a way between monsters getting good women murdered and these witches using it all against you so that you're desperate to pay your bills and will do anything you have to so you can exist. There has to be a way."

So desperate, wanting to do anything to help them. In Wonderland. Outside of it if she can.

"One day Gren will have to go back to all of that, and it breaks my heart, Bigby. To know he'll go back to that without me and Shawn and Jessica and everything he has here. It hurts so much to imagine any of you enduring that, and there has to be a way to fix it and not let the bad ones win. There has to be."

It's frigid, and the tears are practically freezing on her lashes, and Misty doesn't care. The emotions have come out and she can't stop them now.

"They're not my people," Bigby says, a reflex, really. Bigby doesn't have people, that's always been very clear to him. "Bufkin? Bufkin can't be allowed out, he's a kleptomaniac alcoholic flying monkey." Nothing to do with being a Fable, he's just a disaster.

"There should be. But the whole system needs an overhaul, which is a long way out of my scope of understanding. Snow's trying to pull shit into line, but it's taken a long time to get this fucked. Going to take a long time to unfuck it."

Bigby just doesn't have the empathy to cry for anyone. But he realises it's not good for humans. "You... need to be inside before you freeze your eyes shut."

She merely arches a brow at that, not looking the least convinced by that disclaimer. He had his reasons, but she didn't believe that from anyone. Not just because all she sought in life was her own people to be with.

"A lot of people have faults. That doesn't mean they should be mocked for it," she says, voice choked as she hugs her arms tightly around herself.

"The only way to fix it is to try," she manages, not looking the least bit convinced that she should go inside, or to be less determined in fighting for them, even if she is the only one fighting. But at length, staring at him bleary eyed and positively miserable before giving him a nod. "You can have your coat back," she offers, moving to shrug out of it, assuming she is trudging inside by herself.

Bigby is ancient, far from human and a tiny bit incomprehensible even to other Fables, let alone anything younger than that.

"Bufkin would get arrested inside ten minutes. It's nothing to do with what he is and everything to do with the fact that he's a menace." He gestures vaguely with his hand. "Keep it. At least until we're inside. I don't need it. Just people expect you to wear a coat out in this. And I'm not giving Gren an excuse to get on me for treating his people badly."

Sure, that's why he'll escort her back.

She snorts, a gesture that makes her nose hurt from the moisture and cold. "If Gren does that, tell me. I'm capable of getting into trouble all by myself," she points out. "I was doing it long before we met."

But she turns for the mansion, only then realizing just how cold she is. Not just on the surface, but deep down.

"It's Shawn we have to watch out for. He's human and all," she says, sighing because how does one human get in that much trouble? She'll never know. "But thank. I appreciate you trying to keep the peace with him." Not for her sake, but Gren's.

"Gren and I are quite capable of finding reasons to fight without dragging you in." It's their nature, sadly, to want to fight, though not usually too seriously. For Fables.

"Mortals... they're so..." He doesn't know what word he wants. They break so easily. They live such short lives. "Little." It's not quite the word, but it's the word Bigby has always associated with them. They're small and breakable and fleeting. Little. Do you need a piggy back back? You're doing the shaking thing."

"That I don't doubt, but I won't let myself be the cause of it," she notes, unwilling to let that happen. Let them find her own ways, she won't be it.

She chuckles softly at that. "Little seems right, especially before this place when they had no way of recovering or coming back. At least outside of a few I've known." But then that involved witches who are not, really in her world, as human as everyone else.

That makes her smile then, glancing sidelong at him with a look that was almost fondness. "I think my blood might be a bit thin. Growing up in the swamps and all," she says, teeth fairly chattering. "I think the moisture..." Not tears, moisture, though the emotions and pain that came with it likely didn't help. "Please?"

"The world we live in was carefully chosen for having no magic. Just completely mundane." He assumes Gren has told her something about the war, about why they live how they do.

"Right." He has no idea bout thin blood and swamps, but he turns his back to her. "Come on, I'll carry you back." The coat will help, but being pressed to his back may also help.

The biggest help is not something he's willing to risk right now.

"Which is the danger here," she says with a nod. "So much magic here, and no idea how safe it is given the queens reveal nothing about how we got here or get sent home." It's a fear she has, for their sake, and the sake of all the magical people in Wonderland.

Smiling when he turns though, pausing only a moment before she easily moves to get on his back and make it easy for him to carry her. She wouldn't have imagined this when meeting Bigby but anything that means maybe they can all have peace here, then so be it.

"If there's a way Between, it's going to be incredibly well disguised." He had lucked out in finding his way all those centuries ago, back during the War.

He hefts her up carefully, hands very properly placed under her knees and starting forward with the same ease, like her weight means nothing to him.

"Everything here is well disguised, that's the problem with much of Wonderland. If we knew the answers, how many would still be here? Well, I would but..."

She murmurs as she speaks, this much closer and trying not to yell in his ear, though it's in part to try and hide just how cold she is. This is nothing she expected from him, though she's thankful for his kindness.

"I rarely know my own limits," she admits.

"Nature of Wonderland. It's always been a place where nothing is even remotely what it should be and everything that lives there is crazy." Or at least, the Wonderland attached to the Homelands were.

"Knowing your limits is important. Doesn't mean accepting them, just knowing them." He had never accepted limits.

"I guess that makes me crazy for loving this place then, huh?" She's smiling as she says it though. She knows she's crazy. And was before Hell. But she does have her reasons for it.

She laughs though at that. "Well apparently cold is one of them. Which I hate. Gren told me once that the cold is his native world," she murmurs, reveling in part why she's out there. "Shawn probably hates it though. No pineapples."

"Maybe. What is it Cheshire says? I'm mad, you're mad, we're all mad here?" He misses the contrary creature, but it's another friendship split by borders.

"Yeah, it is. The Nordic dreams, snow and ice and stone. Mine is the forest, where the North wind lives."

+ SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER TDM +

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