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bopbay2025-05-10 10:00 am
bayhelpers) wrote in bopbay2025-05-10 10:00 am
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003 ⟡ MAY TEST DRIVE
⋆✩ test drive 03 ✩⋆
The day begins like any other.
Routines, eventful scenes, and boring errands — no matter what you were in the middle of, there's a moment where everything begins to feel wrong. A searing pain tears through your body, so intense that it feels like every nerve has been struck at once. Muscles spasm, joints scream in protest, and as you double over, you find yourself clawing or clinging at anything within your reach. As your attempts to maintain composure fail you, your bones begin to twist with an agonizing force, the pain rising in a crescendo until it becomes unbearable to even breathe. Then, as quickly as it began, everything stops.
For a single, terrifying moment, there's nothing. No sight, no sound, no touch, no taste, no smell — just the weight of nothingness swallowing you whole. The absence of sensation might even be worse than the pain, leaving you adrift in a void you can't escape. Hopelessness threatens every fiber of your existence, and try as you might to fight it, your darkest thoughts begin to surface, flooding your mind in an onslaught of suffocating feelings and ideas.
In the darkness, you hear a voice.
It's faint, a gentle flashing of something warm along the edges of your mind, like sunlight itself. It's a voice, but you can't identify who or what it comes from, how it sounds, or what it means — still, you know it's directed at you. Something tugs at your heart, a powerful ache that throbs once and ripples outwards. You can feel the aches again, like fresh sores throughout your body. You feel off, like something isn't quite right, like you're not where you should be, or who you should be. But the voice continues, whispered just beyond your understanding. The sound is warm like hope, and it wraps around you, distant yet intent, before you wake up.
i. arrivals
FROM TUNNELS DEEP
The scent of must meets your nostrils, perhaps more strongly than it normally would. To open your eyes is to meet the dark — though if you're fortunate it could be that something about this new body, or perhaps the body of another, leaves some faint illumination to see by. Either way it soon becomes clear that where you are is somewhere underground. They are deep and sprawling tunnels, with corners of some unknown civilization storied away in their many carvings and ruined pottery. Portions of the cavern walls even bear the appearance of old structures and dwellings, as if the earth itself swallowed a city whole.
Trickling through the tunnels in quiet streams are tendrils of fog. It's difficult to see, but not in the least hard to feel. The mist is damp and cloying, clinging to every inch it finds on you to the point that it seems to grasp at the very soul; and the longer one lets it have its way, the worst it feels. You begin to question your body. Your mind. Your very memories — are they really yours?
Staying underground may be unwise anyway. Diglett and Dugtrio soon make themselves known to the weary arrivals here, and unlike these newcomers they have had far too long to succumb to the mist. They will attack without hesitation, and the only options are to fight or flee above ground.
The forest above unfortunately is not much better. The fog here is thick, even if some light somehow makes its way through the canopy above. What could have once been helpful landmarks become sources of dizzying misunderstanding, and the gnarled trees seem to move when no one watches. Rescuers from the city will have their work cut out for them once it becomes clear how many could be stranded out there, and time will be of the essence. The sooner that these wanderers can be brought to the clinic to be treated, the better!
ii. under the weather
RAIN RAIN, GO AWAY
The first thing anyone will notice as the month of May truly sets in, is the rain. Light or heavy, sunny or cloudy, a near constant rain pours down upon Bottlecap Bay and its surrounding areas. There's no escaping it; it pours, and it pours, and it pours ever long, until it becomes impossible to do even basic tasks outside one's dwelling without getting soaked to the bone.
While it's not unusual to receive rain at this time of the year, the amount of rain is unnatural according to the Guild Leaders. To ensure no one suffers any more than they already have, all three are quick to open their doors to these new Pokemon in their midst. Or at least, they're quick to offer other foreigner's doors. Pokemon who originated from other worlds soon find themselves with new bunkmates and housemates, and with the rain as bad as it is there’s no good way to refuse.
It's best to remain in similar company after all, and until there’s time to sort out who fits where, it’s all these newcomers have.
While it's not unusual to receive rain at this time of the year, the amount of rain is unnatural according to the Guild Leaders. To ensure no one suffers any more than they already have, all three are quick to open their doors to these new Pokemon in their midst. Or at least, they're quick to offer other foreigner's doors. Pokemon who originated from other worlds soon find themselves with new bunkmates and housemates, and with the rain as bad as it is there’s no good way to refuse.
It's best to remain in similar company after all, and until there’s time to sort out who fits where, it’s all these newcomers have.
THE WATER CYCLE
While Pokemon begin to settle into their new lives at Bottlecap Bay, the rain continues to fall. On some days it’s harder — hard enough to bring sheets thick enough to blot vision, sharp enough to leave unprotected pelts stinging for minutes after retreating inside. Thunder booms, and lightning flashes, a clear message to all within the city when they see it. These storms are bad. Dangerous. And the danger is in more than just the weather itself.
At first the signs are subtle. Those same symptoms from the forest can be felt, lasting only as long as a Pokemon is damp from the downpour outside. Even the gentle drizzle causes absent thoughts, an empty mind staring into the distant grey skies as you forget.
Staring longer still, as you remember. But is what you're remembering actually yours? Something about the concentration of forest mist in the form of raindrops changes the effects as the days go by. The body and mind rebel against what it knows doesn't belong, and it finally comes bursting out with a shout! Those memories you've seen, they aren't yours! They're someone else's!
And the world needs to hear it!
At first the signs are subtle. Those same symptoms from the forest can be felt, lasting only as long as a Pokemon is damp from the downpour outside. Even the gentle drizzle causes absent thoughts, an empty mind staring into the distant grey skies as you forget.
Staring longer still, as you remember. But is what you're remembering actually yours? Something about the concentration of forest mist in the form of raindrops changes the effects as the days go by. The body and mind rebel against what it knows doesn't belong, and it finally comes bursting out with a shout! Those memories you've seen, they aren't yours! They're someone else's!
And the world needs to hear it!
iii. the archives
RECORDS KEEPING
The longer the rainfall persists, the more clear it is that staying outside is unwise. Not only is it dangerous to non-water type Pokemon's health for the most part, but the full scope of side effects only increase the risks. After one too many shouting matches caused by vitriolic memories, Polteageist offers a simple but beneficial solution. The doors of the archives are opened up, as senior members in the Lum Guild offer up their time as temporary librarians.
Polteageist's solution is as follows; instead of training their bodies out in the rain, everyone will be training their brains. There have been many questions raised over the last number of weeks, and now is the time for everyone to investigate the mysteries. Entering the Archives means entering a building of clear splendor, filled with couches and beanbags for sitting and beautiful flowers and plants to accentuate the green hues within the halls. The shelves are well stocked with records kept on stone tablets, and the additional guides within the guild are eager to help everyone find what they're looking for.
The illustrious leader of the Lum Berries is well aware however, that not everyone is willing to spend all their time reading. As it would be counterproductive to expect anyone to sit twiddling their thumbs (or tails, or ears) he has thus arranged for a few of the archive meeting rooms to host additional activities. They are simple things; there's classes on recording writings properly in clay before firing, minor history lessons where newly arrived Pokemon can share in what many others already know, and even community building exercises. They're nothing like the escape rooms organized during the last two months, but they're good for passing the time.
And eventually, the rain will hopefully calm down. A few skilled Psychic Pokemon are offering their services to keep others dry until then however, at least so that everyone can get home safely.
Polteageist's solution is as follows; instead of training their bodies out in the rain, everyone will be training their brains. There have been many questions raised over the last number of weeks, and now is the time for everyone to investigate the mysteries. Entering the Archives means entering a building of clear splendor, filled with couches and beanbags for sitting and beautiful flowers and plants to accentuate the green hues within the halls. The shelves are well stocked with records kept on stone tablets, and the additional guides within the guild are eager to help everyone find what they're looking for.
The illustrious leader of the Lum Berries is well aware however, that not everyone is willing to spend all their time reading. As it would be counterproductive to expect anyone to sit twiddling their thumbs (or tails, or ears) he has thus arranged for a few of the archive meeting rooms to host additional activities. They are simple things; there's classes on recording writings properly in clay before firing, minor history lessons where newly arrived Pokemon can share in what many others already know, and even community building exercises. They're nothing like the escape rooms organized during the last two months, but they're good for passing the time.
And eventually, the rain will hopefully calm down. A few skilled Psychic Pokemon are offering their services to keep others dry until then however, at least so that everyone can get home safely.
✩ OOC NOTES.
⟡ TDM CWS: body horror, disorientation, hallucinations, dysphoria
⟡ TDMs are game canon and act as events for the month they are posted.
⟡ New characters can link to their top level beneath the NEWBIE DIRECTORY
⟡ All new arrivals are not assigned to any one guild. However, if they participate in the Archive's bonding activities, they may receive a unique reward.
⟡ Remember that at least one thread for your application must come from the TDM! There is no comment minimum, but we will be looking for engagement, as well as for players and characters who take the time to delve into things like character thoughts, emotions, morality, and other deep themes. Take this time to engage with the setting as you would in game!
⟡ As a reminder, reserves and applications are permanently opened. Please see their respective pages for details on processing time.
⟡ Have any questions related to the TDM? Ask here! If your question is more general for the game, please make sure to direct it to the FAQ page instead. Thank you, and happy threading!
⟡ TDMs are game canon and act as events for the month they are posted.
⟡ New characters can link to their top level beneath the NEWBIE DIRECTORY
⟡ All new arrivals are not assigned to any one guild. However, if they participate in the Archive's bonding activities, they may receive a unique reward.
⟡ Remember that at least one thread for your application must come from the TDM! There is no comment minimum, but we will be looking for engagement, as well as for players and characters who take the time to delve into things like character thoughts, emotions, morality, and other deep themes. Take this time to engage with the setting as you would in game!
⟡ As a reminder, reserves and applications are permanently opened. Please see their respective pages for details on processing time.
⟡ Have any questions related to the TDM? Ask here! If your question is more general for the game, please make sure to direct it to the FAQ page instead. Thank you, and happy threading!
no subject
[Unlike Shoka, he was never brave enough to accept nonexistence. A few times, he came close... but he would impulsively reset each time, no matter how tired he was. Did that mean that one day, he hoped to live differently, too? See new things, go new places? Be with people he wanted to be with, as Shoka put it?
Or did it just mean he was still a coward?]
You don't get it. The reason I wound up that way...
[His voice comes out small. Pathetic. He hates it.]
I used to be someone else. Someone who still had a soul. My best friend had a plan to free all of us monsters who were trapped underground. They ended their life for it, and... I helped them. I absorbed their soul and went past the barrier to the surface.
[He thought he'd sooner die than tell all of this to anyone again. He supposes that's another lie he's told himself.]
All I needed to do was kill six humans and take their souls so we could break the barrier. But when it counted most... I couldn't do it. Even when my best friend's desire for vengeance just turned into begging me to save my own life, I couldn't. I failed when they needed me most, and we both died for it.
... Do you get it, now? If I had just finished the job, all the monsters could have been free and I'd still have their soul. My best friend wouldn't have died for nothing.
For a while, I wasn't sure if me being the one to come back was some kind of joke. But then, when they all started saying the same lines like NPCs... when it would all be reset in the end...
Then I realized why I came back. It was all a game. And I was going to win.
I could make it for something. I could prove to them that I had learned the world really is kill or be killed. I could... I could...
[He's sniffling. He will not cry. He will not cry. Big kids don't cry. And he doesn't feel anything-- if he can feel, he can regret. And if he can regret, maybe he can care. And if he isn't just a relentless killer because he's soulless, that means he's even worse: he's someone who chose to hurt others. Someone who could have cared, but didn't.]
... it didn't matter. Someone else came along and freed everyone, anyway. I was an idiot to the end. And just when I thought I was going to accept it and stay underground forever, I got sent here. What a joke. What am I doing here? There's no second chance for a thing like me.
[Now she's going to mock him, like before. Whatever. It's the least that he deserves.]
You. You've still got a chance and you just want to throw it away. Me, I'm just waiting for something to finally kill me for good, since I could never do it myself and make it stick.
no subject
In any case, she lets him finish—makes sure he's poured out all the emotions he doesn't have—before she speaks. Her tone is a little mocking and dripping with sarcasm, but still not entirely cruel.]
... Well, that was convincing. Didn't sound completely miserable at all. I totally buy that you're just an all-around happy-go-lucky guy who definitely can't feel a thing!
[Even if she doesn't get every part of what he's said, she definitely heard him sniffling just now, maybe on the brink of tears. There's nothing unfeeling about that.]
Why would being stuck here count as another chance for me but not you? I'm just as screwed up as you are, remember? And I thought giving up freaked you out. But now you're just gonna take it, too?
no subject
... You keep talking big game about being sooo screwed up, but as far as I know, you just wanted to die and willing to embrace it with open arms. So what's your damage? C'mon, you know my oh-so-tragic backstory now. Surprise me.
no subject
Except she does now, in a way. It feels almost like she's talking to herself when she eventually says:]
... You're right—you have no choice. You have to keep going. 'Cause nobody's gonna waste their energy on killing you.
[Not even him, apparently.]
Uh, did you forget that you're the one who called me screwed up first? What, does being fine with disappearing and being ready to throw away my second and third chances not earn me enough damage points?
[Flippantly, like they're playing a game, she continues:]
Let's talk about how I can make up the difference, then. What's screwed up enough in your book? Killing someone? Killing lots of people? How about stabbing your friends in the back? Those spicy enough for ya?
cw flowey encourages suicide
Is that all you've got? 'Boo hoo, I'm soooo sad and I was okay with dying!' 'Waaah, I killed lots of people!' Who hasn't?! Give me a damned break! [The hypocrisy of this is just hilarious. He doesn't care.] At least I had an excuse in being a stupid coward! Why don't you just go kill yourself already and finally shut the hell up?!
no subject
[He is the one who asked, inviting her to share her damage, even if now he's acting like he doesn't want to hear it. She can understand that, too, in her own way—just saying things for the hell of it, to rile people up, to make herself feel a little more powerful.
Even that last sentence doesn't seem to faze her. Though she has no face to emote with, the broad grin is audible in her words.]
Someone's got a short memory. I already did, remember? Same as you. And it sure as hell didn't make you quit running your mouth, so I guess we're both stuck! Too bad.
Anyways—since you forgot to answer my question, lemme try another one. So that time you were supposed to take all those souls or whatever. The time you were supposed to finish the job. Why couldn't you? Was it really just 'cause you're a coward?
no subject
... I've been asking myself that for a long time.
I could've killed them all easily. That's what my best friend wanted. But I felt they weren't just going to stop at six. They hated humanity more than anything else, and once we had seven souls and became a god together, they would've killed every human out there.
I thought there had to be some good humans out there. They were one of them. So in the end, I hesitated... and the humans seized on that and beat the crap out of us.
[He's surprised that he's still talking. Even moreso, he's surprised she's still talking to him. Most people would either swear him off as a soulless asshole or be falling all over themselves with pity. Maybe Shoka does think he's an asshole, but not a soulless one-- maybe that makes it easier to talk to her. Either way, she's still here, and so is he.]
Don't get me wrong, though. I was a coward back then. ... Still am. [He's realized this aptly throughout the course of the conversation.] Maybe even a bigger coward, because I wasn't scared to die back then. I still had a soul then, but... whatever.
[He's silent again for a moment. He shakes off some of the rain and hops closer to her, apparently tired of the deluge.
Nobody would waste their energy on killing him... she wasted her second and third chances... it's all making him think, and it's giving him a headache. Ugh. Why does he think he's so important? Once, he thought he was the prince of the world's future. Now he's barely a bottom feeder in a new world entirely.]
... Fine. You're right. You win. I was miserable. That shit sucked and it still sucks and I'm too scared to die. You're not much better off. And no, weirdo, not being scared to die doesn't make you better than me.
no subject
... Didn't say that it does. Nothing cowardly about staying alive. [It's the opposite. She's probably the bigger coward between them, scared of living.] It's what that "best friend" of yours would've wanted you to do, right? ... Even if you are messed up.
[He is an asshole, unquestionably. They've only just met, and he's already said plenty of horrible things to her. Parts of his memories still make her feel sick with anger to reflect on. When she thinks of her parents, she thinks only of hard eyes, uncaring hands, and conspicuously missing photographs; Flowey's parents held him, wept for him, genuinely loved him. She can't stand it when people have that and take it for granted. But...
It wasn't really his fault, was it? Or at least it wasn't fair. He tried to believe in something good, and he lost his life and Soul for it. He hated the unfeelingness of it all as much as she does. Who wouldn't be messed up after all of that, even after getting their Soul back?
She thinks of Ayano, suddenly—or, rather, the thing that Ayano turned into, after the Plague Noise ate away at her heart. Then she thinks of Shiba, too, who had done far worse things to her and yet she still couldn't bring herself to really, truly hate. She doesn't know or care if Flowey deserves a second chance, but he has one now. Even if he was just encouraging her to take the easy way out, she won't do the same to him.
In any case, she's surprised they're still talking, too. She's never talked about her feelings as much as she has this month. It's exhausting, but it's also like water rushing from a crack in ice: once she gets started, she can't seem to stop.
He takes a hopping step closer to her then, apparently over the novelty of the rainfall, and for the first time she realizes, with dull amusement: she doesn't even know what his name is.]
... Anyways. What's your name again?
[1/2]
Ah-- ahahahahaha!
[It's so funny that he can't stop laughing. Twice now, he's poured everything out to someone whose name he doesn't even know.]
[2/2]
[He doesn't meet her stare-- at least, he avoids where he thinks her gaze is, since it's hard to tell.] Oh, and, uh... sorry. Or whatever. I don't actually want you to go killing yourself. There, I said it, okay? [It's almost as if he's trying to quiet some sort of conscience.]
... You remind me of them, you know? My friend from back then. Maybe a little less misanthropic, but not by much. Heh. [He manages a small sad grin at that.
... Maybe that's why he reacted so strongly to her accepting death so blithely.] They never talked about what happened to them to make them hate humanity so much. Now they're gone, and I let it happen.
So if you're gonna tell me to stay alive, then you have to, also. Or else I'll find some way to bring you back and kill you again.
[She said she wouldn't mind getting a snack, being around the people she wants to be with, playing... what he assumes is a video game? And while he can't feel love or empathy, or get back all the years he lost, or undo all of his crimes... that might be fine, too. To try something new for the first time in ages. To try helping people again- for real this time- instead of hurting them.
He spent so long thinking that what Chara would've wanted was for him to finish the job. Now that he can look back on it more clearly... maybe Shoka's interpretation is a little closer to how they actually may have felt. He'll never know... but he's still here, so he might as well keep going.]