test drive;

[thecommissary]

The game cap is 30 players. We currently have 22 players in game. TDM Guidelines 1. We strongly encourage you to post to the AU Workshop before posting here, just to get your concept out there. Feel free to link to your workshop post in your tag for easy lookup purposes. 2. Threads can be game canon if both players agree to it. 3. No one is late! Consider this a permanent test drive (until captcha is hit, if that happens). We'll be tracking top-levels and drawing attention to new posts. 4. You don't have to use any of the prompts below; feel free to create your own! 5. Don't worry about cell block assignments for the purpose of the TDMm if you haven't chosen one - feel free to keep it vague or retcon the threads a bit later. Prompt 1: Common Room The common room has books, magazines, newspapers, cards, and board games. The television has been out of commission for a while, but oh! Look! It seems like a new TV has been mounted on the wall! And this one's a 32 inch flat screen, a nice substitute for the old broken tube TV someone broke over a Monopoly dispute turned violent. If you decide to watch the TV, the screen cuts to static a few minutes after you start watching and a strange voice starts to speak. It's a soft voice, but with the occasional distortion as if spoken by a person standing too close too a microphone. "Hello there! You must be [CHARACTER NAME]. I think it's about time you got to know somebody a little bit better. Why don't you..." (Choose one of the following options:) "Tell someone something you don't want them to know. It doesn't have to be terribly juicy, as long as you'd prefer not to have told them." "Give one of your fellow inmates a nice hard slap across the cheek." "Be nice. Ask somebody if there's anything you can do for them. Anything at all." "Find someone with a snack, and take it away from them." "Go up to someone you don't know, and ask them what they did." "If you decide to ignore me, or you tell anyone you're not acting of your own free will, the guard beside the magazine stand will send you strait to the SHU for two weeks.. Your choice." No one else in the common room seems to hear the voice except you - although the aforementioned guard sure seems to be staring you down. The other people watching TV continue to react to the show that was playing. Prompt 2: Lockdown Uh-oh. Something bad must have happened, because the entire prison has been put into lockdown without bothering to herd everyone back to their proper blocks. You've been herded into a cell with someone from ANY block, and who knows when you'll be let out. You have a set of bunk beds, a table and chair, a toilet and sink, and two shelves where the inmates who actually reside in that cell have put anything that belongs to them. Now's a good time to get to know your new temporary cellmate. Or pray that you're on good terms, if you already know them. Prompt 3: The Yard It's recreation time! Your daily opportunity for a couple hours of fresh air, if you choose to take it (or if the indoor guards are sick of you and decide you're going outside whether you like it or not). The guards here are primarily concerned with preventing your escape, so if you're not lingering around the fences you'll be watched less than if you were inside. If you're new, weak, or don't have a solid group of allies yet, that also means it's less likely that anyone will help you if someone else decides to pick a fight. Be careful. The outdoor guards to a careful, meticulous sweep of the entire area every night, trying to keep...something out. It seems they were slacking off a bit yesterday: the tiniest sliver of obsidian rock has made its way into the yard undetected and - ow - you've brushed up against it, embedding it somewhere on your body. The shard has imbued you with one of the following effects: The next person who makes eye contact with you can read your thoughts, and you can read theirs. Careful, it might get hard to tell who's who after a while. You suddenly feel frightened and timid, as if everyone in the yard is bigger, stronger, and out to hurt you. You are overcome with the urge to dig into the ground with your bare hands, looking for more of the rocks. The next person you see fills you with rage, and you want to attack them. You become exceptionally suggestible, and will do whatever you're told. You feel a strange euphoria: regardless of how you felt before, the prison now feels like the very best place to be, as if you're at the center of the universe. Regardless of the effect, the shard will slowly start to burn hotter and hotter, compelling you to remove it.

Comments

[lizardtrip]

[It was certainly an oversight, from a purely objective standpoint. Whoever stuck the terror twins in the same cell block was either stupid or bored, or possibly a mix of both. Margo isn't complaining, though.

Well, not about that. She's complaining about a hell of a lot of other things, on a fairly regular basis. It's an integral part of her personality.]

I threw an axe at a cop on the 5. Classic. [Oh, there it is: a scrunched box of matches, peeking out of a hole in the ratty, regulation mattress. Come to Mama.] You should've been there, Coldwater.

[Hey, this is the closest she's going to come to, "We were a family, and we should have all gone down together" for the moment. Whether she means it in a distantly quasi-heartfelt way or a seethingly bitter way, though? Undetermined.]

[volunteertomatoes]

[ Oh, Quentin catches that. His brow quirks up, and he toys with saying something before deciding against it. He doesn't want to ruin Margo actually admitting she gives a shit about him, in her own way.

Still. It's nice. ]

I'm giving it a week before you and Eliot take over the whole jail.

[ He's happy about that, too. ]

[lizardtrip]

[One eyebrow raises, in that cool, practiced manner that she's always had. A mask on top of a mask, hiding something she hasn't shown Quentin more than once or twice, just passing glimpses years ago.]

Tsk. I thought you had more faith in us than that. [She sits down, legs crossed and posture perfect.] I give it two days.

[volunteertomatoes]

Two days with my help.

[ He looks pointedly at Margo again, though there's a ghost of a smile on his lips. ]

If you want it.

[lizardtrip]

[You soft motherfucker.]

You can turn off the puppy eyes, kid. We're a team. No one's going back on that now.

[volunteertomatoes]

[ Is he grinning like an idiot right now? Absolutely. Margo Hanson just said he was a part of her team.

Okay, but he has to play it cool, and not say anything stupid-- ]

We're like the Chatwins.

[ Nope. ]

[lizardtrip]

[There's certainly a trace amount of derision in Margo's answering laugh, but it isn't cold. She's far too fond of Quentin and of Fillory to be truly malicious about his dorky remark.]

Are you serious? I'm clearly the Watcherwoman.

[Sometimes, when she let herself be fanciful and carefree, she would lie in the lawn and imagine she was on a white beach in the Eastern Ocean, dressed in gold and resting from important travels, eating exotic fruit plucked straight from the trees. But other days, when rage boiled just below her skin, impossible to ignore, her fantasies would turn darker. Trees shaking, clocks spinning, everyone running for cover in her presence.]

[volunteertomatoes]

That's true. [ Margo would make a better Watcherwoman--although Quentin thinks Margo would probably be the only one to match Ember and Umber. She'd just tell them to fuck off if they ever tried to banish her.

He likes Margo. A lot. She's gorgeous, and scares him a little bit, and half of the shit she says he honestly doesn't know how to react to, but there's little things--her love of Fillory, her occasional smile in his direction--that Quentin finds to be utterly enrapturing. ]

Have I told you? I have--uh, I have this theory about her. The Watcherwoman.