SUMMER TEST DRIVE

[spaceshipit]

THE SUMMER TEST DRIVE MEME
(Or Winter Test Drive for you Southern Hemisphere folks!)

Got someone you want to try out before you app? Well this is the post for it! Feel free to use anything that fits in the setting of Drift Fleet! Want to play bumper shuttles? Want to go wild in a med bay? Play around with the current plot? Have at it!

Threads from the Test-Drive may be made game "canon" but DO NOT count toward AC!

FOR NEW PLAYERS: You DO NOT NEED an invite to participate in the TEST DRIVE! If you decide to APP into the game, ONLY THEN will you need an invite from a current player!

Helpful Info for Ideas!:

June/July's Star System

Game Details

Test drives are posted SEASONALLY, so the next one will be in late September!

Comments

C!

[namisan]

[Let us assume there have already been the requisite OMG ROBIN and YAYYY reactions some days ago, which is why Nami's only response to that question is a vaguely suspicious look.]

What kind of experiment? [Does it involve morbid curiosity. She bets it involves morbid curiosity.]

[thetruehistorian]

[Sounds good to me!] [Robin laces her fingers with Nami's.] Focus your thoughts on a specific emotion. Don't tell me what it is, but keep to just the one. I want to see if we can control what we share with others in this way. [She lifts their hands to indicate the planet's physical connection phenomenon.]

[namisan]

[Deliberate emotion-sharing in such a literal way isn't really Nami's thing-- it feels intrusive, for and both parties. But Robin is nakama, and one of a very small pool of people she'd be willing to roll with this for.]

Well, I'll try. But I don't know if you'll get more than what you're already getting.

[That is: peaceful enjoyment of this place with friends. So she tries to focus on something from home. The Thousand Sunny.

...if that manages to translate, it'll probably hit as homesickness.]

[thetruehistorian]

[It's hard to sort out and separate from her own feelings, but Robin assumes that since she hadn't been particularly homesick in the moments leading up to this, those feelings and memories must have come from Nami. She answers with an emotion of her own choosing, not necessarily in response to the ones being shared. She thinks of things that make her angry- of the Skypeian priest Yama wantonly destroying precious artifacts in the forest, just to spite her. Of Spandam so ignorantly throwing away the lives of her nakama and his own allies. The bleak cruelty of Tequila Wolf.] I began to long for home. Is that correct? What do you feel coming from me?

[namisan]

[Nami draws back a little with a weak smile. Robin, why are you throwing that emotion at her. It's not pleasant.]

It feels like you're mad at me.

[It's framed as a joke, albeit a weak one, because she's pretty sure Robin's not.]

[thetruehistorian]

Hm. [Robin's a little taken aback that Nami translated it as anger with her, and the emotions being transferred shift drastically to worry and concern. And a bit of studious curiosity.] I intended for you to feel anger, yes, because it's an emotion incongruous with our present situation. But I'm not angry with you for any reason. Was the feeling that it was your fault part of the emotion you received, or was that an interpretation you gave it? [It seems even with the ability to share emotions, there's plenty of room for miscommunication. Possibly moreso.]

[namisan]

No. [She shakes her head.] I'm joking. You've got no reason to be mad at me, right? But anger isn't pleasant one way or the other.

But I guess you can say your experiment worked. More or less.

[thetruehistorian]

So it would seem. [Robins fingers relax, indicating that Nami can break the connection if she so chooses.] I wonder what a place like this does for ratings? It seems to me that physical transference of emotions and memories is perhaps too subtle a plotline, no?

[namisan]

Transference, maybe. Reactions to it, not so much. Or maybe they have some kind of way to show what's going on-- this isn't the first time they've messed around in our heads.

And that's assuming there's even an audience to begin with. For all I know, we're just lab rats to someone who likes to poke at what makes us tick.

[She does let go finally, though she's not really in any hurry.]

[thetruehistorian]

Have you ever been recognized? [Robin grins a little. If they're really stars of a tv show, someone somewhere would try to get their fansquee on, wouldn't they? Robin wonders what Nami would think of that. It's not exactly the same as being recognized due to a bounty poster, after all.]

[namisan]

Ah--!! [That makes her grin.] I have, actually! I don't really know the context, but when I first got here one of the kids sang me a song about our crew!

[thetruehistorian]

Charming. [And she means it. She would have liked to have seen that. It also lends credibility to the idea that they're part of a reality show.] Do you remember how it went?

[namisan]

Not really. He only sang a little bit of the chorus. Also, the song had Zolo in it. [Not Zoro. Yeah, guess who got sung the 4Kids theme. ;|]

[thetruehistorian]

[That is awesome. But Robin doesn't know that. What she does know, is this:] How strange. Though perhaps that could be due to differences in the linguistic structure of the child's native tongue. The R sound and L sound are quite similar in how and where they're produced in the mouth. Some languages don't even differentiate the two, and may use them or a mixture of both interchangeably, according to those who've been trained to listen for the difference. [Because Nami really needed to know that, right?]

[namisan]

[Oh totally.]

Huh, really? I suppose that makes sense. So the song could have been originally in another language, or... something like that.

[thetruehistorian]

[Robin nods.]

Or the song was always written in the language it was sung in, but the child himself usually speaks another, and couldn't tell the difference. In any case, it does seem to lend credence to the idea that there's an audience. Or perhaps both hypotheses are correct. There is an audience, and they are what generates the funding for someone to keep us as lab rats.

[It's... not exactly a pleasant thought.]

Has any mention been made of a way to return us to our original lives? Or is death the only escape?

[namisan]

I'm not sure about that-- the kid was one of the passengers, so wherever he'd come from, we were a source of entertainment. Just us-- the Straw Hats.

As for death... [The look she gives Robin is utterly unique to Robin, honestly. Why you always gotta be morbid.] Supposedly we get to go home if we win the ratings game. But people vanish back home all the time, same as Adstring. I think that's just something they tell us.

I can't tell you about what happens when you die. I don't know if it's permanent here yet. Nobody has died.

[Has Nami mentioned this is her second go-round with a place like these? No? Oh well.]

[thetruehistorian]

[She cocks her head to the side, curious.]

Adstring?

[And that bit about death maybe not being permanent here. That's an interesting way to phrase things. What have you been through, Nami?]

You have me at a disadvantage, I'm afraid. To what are you referring?

[namisan]

[She wasn't exactly intending to hide it from Robin, it's just... when one sees your crew for the first time in forever it's sort of buried in a long list of things to tell her all about. Nami looks faintly sheepish for a second, and glances up at the trees.]

There are a lot of worlds like this-- I mean, places where people turn up, or are kidnapped to, or fall through the cracks... stay long enough and you'll hear people talk about a bunch of different places.

Adstringendum was where I was before this. Me and Sam. We managed to leave, but I got dragged straight here. He got a week sailing with us before he got dragged here, too. [She peers at Robin as a thought strikes.] Do you remember Sam at all?

[thetruehistorian]

[Brows furrowed, Robin thinks for a few moments. She's pretty good with names- and if someone sailed with them, she would definitely remember. It seems like... perhaps... there might be something attached to that name, but... Robin shakes her head.] I don't think so. When you mentioned his name it seemed as if there ought to be some significance, but I can think of no reason to give it significance other than having been told I ought to. I'm sorry, Nami.