interstellar404 | TEST DRIVE MEME: THE SELF TITLED ALBUM

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TEST DRIVE MEME: THE SELF TITLED ALBUM

☆WELCOME TO INTERSTELLAR
And welcome to our first TDM! We've got two types of prompts to use this time around: the first takes place while your character is in the process of being captured, and the second is during their first brainwashed rockstar tour. The former is designed to be considered 100% game canon if you make it in officially, while the later is more speculative and will only work if you get lucky during label and band selection.

☆THE TALENT SEARCH
These prompts are design to be kept as game canon after acceptance, and can be used as the official story of how your character was captured. Importantly, the kidnappers entering your timeline causes massive time distortions, which means that the outcome of this scenario will stagger and replay itself multiple times before settling on an outcome. This means that after the fact, you character may remember being captured multiple ways, or going in more than one direction, before the timeline settled on a final path. Or at least, they'll remember this until their memories are wiped shortly afterwards, but that's okay! That's what memory regains are for. Read this page for more specifics on this situation. Any powers the characters have will be weakened and prone to malfunction to the point of uselessness.

►A1) THE SEARCH: It always starts out this way, doesn't it? At some point in your life, you were just doing your thing, wherever you call home. Then, all at once, it's like you've been torn from your dimension by the roots. Time and space displace, and it's like you've been shifted one layer of reality to the left - like some kind of subspace where you can see your reality through it, like a rainbow surrealist image of your home. Even if you can see this ghost image of where you were, you can't interact with it meaningfully. Any friends or family are somewhere else. As you begin to wander, without any other options, you'll find that the scenery gradually shifts to ghost images of other places, other worlds. If you wander long enough, you'll even find other people, lost just like you are. But you probably won't have much time - you've been brought here for a reason, after all.

►A2) THE HUNT: It could happen almost immediately, or it could happen hours later - but, at some point, your dimensional kidnappers start to do their sweep. Space Men in black body suits and gas masks pursue you on foot and in small spaceships, trying to sweep you and the other displaced up like fish in a net. Their guns contain a weird pink gas that will knock out most with only a single breath - and for those more enduring, they have the heavy artillery, like electrical nets and guns. The fallen will be sealed up into stasis pods for transport and loaded onto the ships, which seem like the only way to get out of this place by choice. This is where it ends, but are you going to put up a fight?

☆THE MAGIC TOUR BUS
By default, these prompt aren't considered canon, but if after you are accepted and sorted they can be tweaked into working for you, it'll be totally okay to keep them as a part of your rockstar's personal history. They take place after being kidnapped and brainwashed, on your character's first tour under their new label. As it turns out, it seems like brainwashing aliens isn't the only thing the abductees have to worry about.

►B1) PLAY IT STRAIGHT: It's just another day on the tour bus, in between long stretches of highway. How do you fill your time? Do you practice your instrument, or do you take full advantage of the open bar? Do you sulk and try go to bed early? Do you yell at your bandmates for ruining the toilet? Do you troll people on Twitter? Tours being what they are, everyone is probably at least a little bit tired or cranky. Just don't do anything that will get the Manager on your ass, because that's always more trouble than it's worth.

►B2) THAT'S NORMAL: The Managers aren't here, as far as you can tell, leaving you in a moment of relative relaxation. Something about those guys just make you uneasy, and they're always shoving you around and making you do things you don't really want to. However, these moments of peace don't last long, because it stars to become increasingly apparent that your tour bus might be...haunted? Whether its the bus turning on without a driver and without a key, wine glasses falling off tables, or guitar static sounding like frantic whispering, things are starting to get weird. Yet, at the same time, something in your subconscious is strongly suggesting that you should ignore it, and that everything is normal and fine...

►B3) THEN WHO WAS GUITAR?: These weird experiences eventually culminate in a kind of phantom music bleeding in from the air around you. The source is impossible to discern but it's somehow...familiar? Like something that played at an important moment in your life, even if the event itself just won't come to mind. What's weirder, is that everyone seems to hear something different. It gets to you in a way that your programming doesn't like - but how do you react? Reluctantly take it in, or throw a fit until it stops?

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[Oh...um. Okay. That's...uh.

Steven definitely seems alarmed by that, no matter how relieved he is that it saved him from being accosted by weird people in space armor. He finds himself backing away from her just as he had been backing away from the soldiers - and then, the trips and falls on his but with a small yelp.

It takes him a moment to find his words.]

Oh, um...uh...thanks? I think...

[He can't help but wince at the soldiers.]

Maybe...maybe you should let them go, now...

[The fact that they're going after small children is more than enough for Luce to want to walk over and do a bit more than simply shock those soldiers. As far as she's concerned, even mafia must have standards. Accosting small children, trying to do God knows what... She finds it revolting.]

[Fortunately, she has restraint, so Luce simply shoulders the net gun and kneels down so that she's more on the young boy's level. She doesn't want to scare him more than he already is.]

If I let them go now, there's no telling what they'll do or what tricks they'll try to pull. You don't have to worry. It isn't truly harmful, I think. Someone will find them and get them out of it- [Probably. It's not her concern.] -however, by then, I want to think we'll be far away and safe.

[She offers out one hand in his direction.]

My name is Luce. What's yours?

[Well...he guesses that makes sense. If they were trying to kill people, they probably wouldn't be using nets and gas, right? He gives the shuddering soldiers one last apologetic look, before meeting Luce's eye and putting his shaking hand in hers. He nods, biting his lips.]

I'm Steven.

[He still sounds uncertain, but her tone isn't unfamiliar. It sounds like something one of the Gems would say. He nervously starts to stand himself up.]

Do you know where this is? It used to look like Beach City, but now...geez, I don't even know what this looks like, anymore! Isn't it weird?

It's good to meet you, Steven, even if the situation is horrible.

[Wrapping her fingers around his hand steadfastly, she pushes herself up to her feet again and starts to guide him away from the soldiers. Time to make a fast getaway. Maybe this strange place's tendency to warp and shift would come in handy.]

['Beach City' sounds distinctly American, and Steven, she knows, is an English name. She's from Italy, him from (likely) America... This place really is mixing things up.]

I'm afraid not. I was back home, and suddenly everything started to change like this. Soon enough, well...

[She gives his hand a squeeze.]

I'm certain there must be an exit, however.

[Despite the inherently violent introduction, he does find the way she talks to him fairly soothing. She's taking charge in a crisis, which is something he appreciates, because it makes him feel like he doesn't have to - as a Crystal Gem, he always will try to handle things if necessary, but as a child it's always a relief when it feels like someone else knows better. He holds her hand tight, and tries to run fast enough to not slow her down.]

That's the same thing that happened to me!

[His eyes widen a little, even though it shouldn't be surprising. He's just been so sure it must be gem related...but that never seem to affect anyone outside of Beach City...!

Beach City. Suddenly he remembers something.]

W-Wait! I think I saw my dad here- [He slows down reluctantly. Think? Isn't that something he should be sure of? Man, everything feels weird here, too.] I can't just leave him!

[A worldwide phenomenon... Luce doesn't have much time to wonder on that when he's suddenly slowing at her side, and she quickly takes a look around to see if she can spot who Steven has.]

Really? [Well, safety in numbers. She smiles down at him.] Lead me to him, then. We can protect him together in case any more of those people in black show up.

Ah- uh-okay...

[He speaks as if this is something he can do, but then when he stops to look around...he's totally lost. He left Beach City far behind when he started running, and now it feels like it could be anywhere, like he's drifted out into space.

He stops, and then stutters, the urgency of time making him feel like he can't think properly. Where did he go? Where did he go? His eyes begin to fill with tears.]

I...I don't know! I don't know where he is!

[He spins around wildly like he's hoping it will make his father appear, but it doesn't. He looks up to Luce desperately.]

Please, we have to find him...!

[Unhesitating, she follows after him but it soon becomes clear that this strange place has turned them all around once again. It would make any child panic, understandably. Smoothly, Luce goes down to her knees again and gently but firmly takes the young boy by the shoulders.]

Steven. Hush. Take a deep breath, alright? Try to calm down. We'll find your father, alright? Yet it's hard to do that when we're panicking. Just take a moment to breathe, and then tell me what he looks like.

[He does what she asks, and tried to breathe. It takes a few moments, but after closing his eyes for a moment and wiping his nose, he manages to pull himself together. He nods stiffly, and tries to think. He has to be strong.]

He's...He's got really long brown hair, but with no hair on top, and...and he has kind of a sunburn...He's always wearing shorts and no sleeves when it's summer...

[He has to bite his lip to keep from wibbling, but he manages it.]

There we go.

[Her encouraging smile is bright, and she strokes his hair.]

Now we both know what he looks like, which means we have two pairs of eyes looking for him. That's doubled our chances of finding him again soon.

It'll be alright.

Edited 2015-09-13 22:46 (UTC)

[He smiles back at her, even if it's a bit frail. He appreciates the reassurance with an intensity that's hard to describe. After a moment, his hardens his expression with determination and nods his head firmly.]

Right! Let's keep looking.

[He squeezes her hand and then starts moving directionlessly through the terrain once again, keeping his eye out as attentively as he can.]

Right. Let's.

[Adjusting the net gun, she looks around to see if there's anyone like them that's both actually not-fuzzy and also not dressed all in black.]

Is there anyone else you can think of that you know?

Um...

[Maybe, but he's not really sure that he wants to explain. He's becoming increasingly less certain that it has anything to do with the current situation, anyway.]

...I kind of thought that maybe this had something to do with all the magic stuff I usually get into...it's kind of a long story? That's the only kind of weird stuff I usually see, but...I'm starting to think that this isn't like that at all.

[He lifts up his shirt a little, staring at the rose quartz gem in his belly button dubiously. If it's a gem thing, his own sure isn't being much help.]

Edited 2015-09-14 02:23 (UTC)

['Magic stuff' and a gem in a belly button. Well, she'll admit it's not entirely something that would be out of place back in her own home, but it's certainly new. She blinks, clearly caught off guard and murmuring 'oh my' under her breath.]

Well... If it makes you feel better, it's not like any magic stuff I've encountered either. [She frowns a little as she looks at the next strange landscape they pass by.] The closest thing I could think of that could do this would be an illusionist, but it doesn't feel right at all...

[Steven falls quiet for a little while, as they walk. Nothing looks more familiar as they cover distance, and he's starting to get more and more worried. He stares at the ground, staying close to her.]

At least we can protect each other, right?

[It's spoken softly, at least partially being said to himself. He just wants to badly to believe it's going to be okay.]

We'll definitely protect each other.

[With her free hand, she thumbs the strap of the net gun and winks down to him.]

I'm a pretty good shot with this thing after all, right?

Haha...yeah!

[But that's when he hears the sound of something, approaching them again. Fast. He gasps, grabbing her hand, just barely prepared for the ambush that's arrived.]

Hang on!

[He brings up a pink bubble shield around them, though it flickers weakly and doesn't seem to want to stay together. Steven struggles to hold it together, long enough for a gas bomb to hit the outside and explode, popping the bubble and knocking them backwards.]

[And this, children, is why you wear sensible clothing when you think something dangerous or strange might happen in your day. Luce goes skidding across the ground, the air knocked out of her from the small explosion. There's gas in the air, and she knows she can't breathe it- she's seen what happens.]

[Lungs aching, she passes on getting up as she fumbles to get the gun from its place. Aiming is a rough affair, and the recoil is worse as it nearly makes her fall back again. She can handle a little bruising. The fact that she only manages a couple of soldiers instead of the whole group is what really seems to hurt. Jerking her shirt up over her nose, she hastily tries to see where Steven is.]

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TEST DRIVE MEME: THE SELF TITLED ALBUM

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