TEST DRIVE MEME

[bibliofilo]

TEST DRIVE MEME

> The Park. Man, what a nice day out. Why not enjoy it? I'm sure -- shit, yep, there's some echo monsters.
> The Mall. Exactly what it says on the tin! Dodge the hordes of teenage mallrats or take part, whichever suits your tastes.
> Rainy Day. Agh, it's fucking awful out. And is it raining those vermilion things?? Now you've got an Echo to contend with on top of everything else. Find some shelter, quick!
> PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION, HOW FUN
> The most horribly kitschy Arts and Crafts Fair you can imagine.
> NEW YEARS. What better way to start out the new year than to learn that everything you know is a lie? Or if you are already acquainted with the network pass out some resolutions.
> A food fight has just broken out in the cafeteria. Join? Flee? The choice is yours alone.
> Wild Card! Make up your own.

Comments

Graham Specter ~ Baccano!

[heartwrenching]

ACTION: RAINY DAY

[It's just a quick grocery run, he'd said. The dark clouds are all sound and fury, signifying nothing, he'd said. It'll be fine, he'd said.

And for a while, that was true enough. But then there was a terrible clap of thunder and a burst of lightning and the skies opened up to unleash the torrent of odd rain. Graham had tried to cover his eyes from the burst of light and sound, only to be weighed down by something heavy clutched in his right hand.

It was a wrench. The thing was almost as long as a human torso and probably weighed at least 30 pounds. And was that rust or... something else dark red stained into its metal? He tried to drop the weird thing and go about his business, but he found himself strangely compelled to keep it with him. He had to carry it. But the damn thing was so heavy, he wasn't physically capable of picking it up.

So now, if you happen to be walking down a particular street, you get to experience something out of a horror story. You'll hear the horrible ckk-shrrrk cck-shrrrk of metal slowly dragged against concrete. And if you look, there will be a young blond man, drenched and bedraggled by rain, pulling an impossibly long, more-possibly-bloodstained wrench behind him. And he doesn't look too happy about it.]

HEY, YOU! DON'T WORRY! I PROMISE I'M NOT A PSYCHOPATH! And yes, I do realize the inherent irony here, since that is word-for-word, beat-for-beat, and even screaming declaration-for-screaming declaration what a psychopath would say.


NETWORK - HANDWRITTEN:

[In hindsight, maybe the most recent echo was a doozy after all. He hadn't felt too strange at first. Hell, he'd thought that maybe he'd just acquired some new philosophical or poetic inspiration by finding beauty and pleasure in the idea of destruction. Stripping things down to their essentials, maybe? Finding joy in the component parts instead of just the whole?

But, no. Things seem to have escalated quickly. This new interest in destruction plus the older echo that made him more prone to dramatic mood swings has left him feeling kind of uneasy. It might be a good idea to look for some advice.So he pulls out his ideas journal and starts to write.]

At what point, hypothetically speaking, should one start to worry about their... 'obsession' is such a strong, loaded word with such negative connotations... so let's call it 'thoughts which completely consume their every single waking moment until they just wanna smash the alarm clock so you can look at all those wonderful broken gears or slam something into a brick wall over and over and OVER until red dust puffs out into the air or some bastard comes at you so you TAKE EVERY ONE OF HIS JOINTS AND THEN-

[It looks like Graham's pencil broke. The rest is written a bit shakily, as if he had to hold the lead between his fingers.]

I think you get the picture. Again, purely hypothetical.

[ooc note: Unfortunately, I'm traveling a lot over the next few days, so I'll probably be slow. I'll be free by New Years' Day, though!]

Omg I had to, rainy days seem to be a thing for Holly. Action!

[keywarding]

[She'd been out with friends to see a horror movie, and when the movie finally ended it'd already gotten late and the rain had set in. Thankfully Holly always kept an umbrella in her backpack, today wasn't an exception.

She hears the sound first, stopping where she was to look around. It isn't until she starts walking again that she can see him, coming around a corner her eyes going wide as she actually screams during his explanation of innocence.

Congratulations, you have successfully scared a fifteen year old into running, she trips though and falls roughly onto the wet ground, her blue umbrella skidding from her.]

[heartwrenching]

[Graham picks up his pace, wincing as that just makes the awful grinding sound of the wrench against the concrete even worse. With his free hand, he makes what he hopes is a reassuring 'calm down' gesture at Holly.]

Look, I'm sorry that I scared you. Really! I mean, no matter how you look at this scenario, it looks pretty bad. Some random guy stomping down the dark, rain-drenched alley with some creepy object that seems like it'd be pretty good at delivering some indiscriminate blunt-force trauma. I think I saw that movie the other day. But the thing is, I couldn't hurt you with this thing even if I wanted to - which again, is something that I must stress that I do not want.

Just watch this, okay?

[He tries to pick up the wrench with both hands, straining as he does so. He manages to get it about five inches off the ground before he gasps and drops it with a loud clang. He drags the wrench over to the fallen umbrella. He picks it up, offering it back to Holly.]

See what I mean?

[notbloody]

[The paper will speak to Graham now. It wasn't meant to, but putting your number in and then talking just activates audio... ...it will also speak in Finnish, mostly.]

|This person writes really long sentences, Siiri. What does hypothetically mean?

\What if.

| Okay.

...I reply by writing, right?

\Mh.

[And then it will switch to the letters of a elementary-schooler, clean and careful letters crawling over the paper.]

There are strong alarm clocks that you can throw against a wall. I had one once.

[heartwrenching]

[With the pencil nub being too much of a hassle to deal with now, Graham scurries off to find a pen. When he replies, his handwriting is still slightly shaky, but altogether much more legible.]

Honestly, if I keep having urges like that, that's just the kinda thing I might need to invest in. However! I've got this nasty gut feeling that just introducing non-breakable items into my life might just make things worse. If the urge says "smash smash smash" and the object I want to pulverize says "unsmashable unsmashable unsmashable", then that is quite the impressive case of an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force. I wonder which would give out first, it or me.


But putting my theoretically interesting if kinda worrisome troubles aside, I can't help but notice that your non-written response is babbling at me in a language I could never hope to understand. What is that?

[notbloody]

[The answer is a bit delayed, as Charlotte needs a bit help from her sister to understand what is being said - she's getting better at English rapidly, but it still is a foreign language and more importantly some of these are just adult words.

Finally though, there is an answer in the same children's writing.]

Finnish. You could understand it, though, if you learned it.