+ ENTRANCEWAY TEST DRIVE MEME +

[vitaelamorte]

Has this ever happened to you?!

You are a handsome and ambitious producer of creative content in search of new venues to showcase your staggering talents, you are scouting the vastly wide web for new collaborators, you are READY to take the next step on your artistic journey--

--AND WE HAVE JUST THE THING FOR YOU!!!



TEST YOUR SKILLS, TAKE YOUR SALAD, AND BRACE YOURSELF TO LAUGH IN PUBLIC FOR THE VISIONARY, THE INSECTARY, THE COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY EXTRAORDINARY

ENTRANCEWAY
TEST DRIVE MEME

►► Test your shiniest and brand newest muses! Bring an old voice and try Wonderland's setting and population on for size! See how that Mirror personality fits your character! Post a top level comment, tag around in other people's threads, enjoy yourself!

►► Thread out your character's arrival, let our past events inspire your scene, or write up literally any Wonderland-based scenario you feel like trying out!

►► If you want to take it a step further, check our NAVIGATION for all the game info you'll need, and our INPUT & INQUIRIES page for any missing pieces. If that's got you convinced, the pages for RESERVES and APPLICATIONS are right here!

►► Please only note that any threads made as part of the test drive meme are not game canon, and cannot be used for the activity check OR as samples for any future applications. Thank you for understanding!

AND THAT IS ALL, NOW GO PLAY IN THE jam jar SALAD BOWL, AND HAVE FUN!

Comments

[nibelheims]

[ her voice has often served as something of a light in his life. more times than he cares to admit, cloud can remembers having used the soft sounds of her voice as a guide, a rope to follow whenever he's been lost. this time is barely any different, as it breaks through the questions threatening to cloud his mind, and so instead he focuses on it, on her.

she's here somewhere, and he needs to find her. ]

Tifa.

[ it's a quick breath of her name, cloud forcing himself upwards slowly, pushing the weight of his body up with an arm, while one clings weakly to his massive blade. at the very least it has been transported with him, in case this new world turns out to be hostile.

once on his feet, cloud presses a careful hand over his shoulder, but finds the pain gone. still, his clothes are matted with blood, much like the side of his face, his hair... all of sephiroth's dirty work still visible from where he'd almost bled out. but none of that matters when she's here, somewhere, so cloud around, scanning the garden around him as he calls out her name again. ]

[platinumfist]

[ The moment that Cloud's voice comes through, Tifa breaks out into a run. She needs to get to him. Wherever they are, they're here together, and that's what matters, isn't it? The rest of it they can figure out later.

Thankfully, it doesn't take her too long to find him. It wouldn't, not when Cloud's lugging that sword of his around. Between the way that he looks like he might be on the verge of dropping it, though, and the blood that's covering him, Tifa stops short.

She recognizes the pattern of bloodstains. This is what Sephiroth did to him, but the rain should have washed it away...

Surreal as this all might be, when Tifa clenches her fist tauter she can feel her nails digging into her palm. This is real somehow, even if nothing makes sense so far. She's used to things not making sense. ]

Are you hurt? [ She rushes over to him, hissing in frustration when she realizes she doesn't have any Materia slotted into her gloves. Then again, last thing she knew she'd been asleep -- she couldn't have prepared for any of this. She looks around them again, worry flooding her features. ] Do you remember how we got here?

[nibelheims]

[ cloud breathes a quiet sigh of relief when she appears. ]

No.

[ there might be blood, but it doesn't look like he's bleeding anymore. not that he's worrying about that, now that she's here he's watching her carefully, giving her the same once over. nothing had quite shocked him than finding her fading in and out of consciousness in the church, hurt and with cloud unable to do anything.

but this time she appears to be in good health.

he shakes his head, blond spikes swaying softly. ] I was fighting. You were on the airship. [ she'd been safe. she'd been safe along with everyone else, had given him his space to see all the torment of his memories be put to rest. but before any of that had the chance to happen, sephiroth had struck him down. it's that thought of the silver-haired man that has cloud tensing, head whipping around to see if they're not alone. after all, they'd made it here -- wherever here is -- so who is to say sephiroth hadn't followed?

sephiroth, if anyone, had a knack for never staying away. ]

Sephiroth-- [ he turns back to tifa, explaining. ] He could be here.

[platinumfist]

[ Tifa had been pretty surprised at ending up unconscious in that church, too. She'd managed to head all the way down into the Northern Crater and help Cloud and everyone else save the world from Meteor, yet somehow Loz had taken her by surprise all the same.

It's a frustrating realization. She should have been stronger than that. All that training, and what had it led to? Maybe she's been slacking off lately, too caught up in watching over the children to focus on her training regimen.

That's neither here nor there right now, though. Tifa turns over Cloud's response in her head, a slight frown wrinkling her brow as she realizes everything is a little off. It's not a good sign, and it makes some long-resolved anxiety kick up in her stomach again.

When Cloud brings up Sephiroth, Tifa almost asks if he'd be able to sense him. Instead, she lifts both of her hands and places her fist in the opposite palm. ] Then let's go find him. [ They've stopped him before, they can do it again.

So with no more fanfare than that, she turns them back toward the massive building behind them. She's never seen a mansion like this, it almost doesn't look real, but it seems like the right place to start looking. If Cloud wants to head a different direction, he'll say so, right? Still, Tifa has to give him some idea of what's going on. She'd kept it to herself before, but this isn't quite the same and he deserves to know.

Even then, it takes her a few seconds to come out with the words. ] I remember a little more than you do, about that day. [ That alone is probably enough to set Cloud off, so Tifa quickly adds: ] You beat Sephiroth. And Geostigma is cured.

[nibelheims]

[ where tifa is all certainty, cloud finds himself lacking. it's not that sephiroth is some impossible enemy, but he is a powerful one all the same, a disease that clings to him as it does the planet, refusing to accept his own fate and rest in the lifestream. this place is at a risk, too.

turning to the mansion as well, his reaction is much the same as tifa's. the size of it is impressive, and perhaps the closest similarity he can find is the old, rundown mansion in nibelheim. one which had kept within it too many dark secrets. but just like in their tiny shared hometown, it might be the source of all their answers, so cloud pushes forward, lingering just behind tifa before stepping up next to her.

what she says chases away his plans of going further for a moment.

his geostigma had faded in a downpour of water in her church. it had been cured, cleansed off his skin by some force beyond their comprehension. perhaps it had been those who had passed on, their strength ( her power ) or the planet itself... but for it all, cloud is grateful. it means the kids are going to be safe, as are the rest of the infected.

it means there is reason to fight.

but he doesn't remember winning yet. ]

... It's over? [ out of everyone who has stood by his side, it's tifa he's been able to trust the most with the truth. why she would lie now is beyond him, though cloud searches for memories to match her words and finds none. maybe he'd passed out in the end. maybe someone else had finished the job. ] I don't... [ understand. ]

I saw him. He was still there, before this. [ before this place. ]

[platinumfist]

[ It is a bit like the Nibelheim Mansion, but much larger, and that alone is enough to make the entire thing feel ominous. On top of the fact that they have no idea where they are or how they ended up here, which is never a good situation for Cloud to be in. He's been clearheaded for quite some time now, but that doesn't stop Tifa from fretting over him all the same.

She keeps that to herself, realizing that getting into that right now (or ever, maybe) isn't a good idea. They'll figure this out together, they'll make it make sense. If Tifa and Cloud had been able to work through the discrepancies in his memories together, then they can do anything.

It doesn't seem like Cloud has any hope of remembering the end of that battle right now, though. Maybe it will come back to him in time, but compared to how bad his memories had been before, this is a small thing. Tifa keeps her expression neutral as she leads them in through the double doors, which open up into a huge entry room with a ceiling that towers over them. It would be breathtaking if it weren't for the circumstances.

She spins back toward Cloud on her heel and shakes her head. ] You passed out after the fight, so maybe that's why your memory's hazy. But he's gone. [ Hopefully for good, this time. ] And after that, it started to rain... it was from the Lifestream. It cured everyone. [ Tifa bows her head and smiles to herself before finding Cloud's bright mako eyes once more. ] It was her.

[nibelheims]

[ it was her.

cloud stills again at that, breath caught in his chest as he lets that ever-present sting of pain over any mention or thought of her slide through him. it makes sense though, he'd felt her presence in the church as well, had been cleansed with her rain.

she wouldn't leave the rest hanging either.

and tifa has that knowing look in her warm brown eyes, like she knows a secret he doesn't, and that she's letting him in on it right then and there. when they were children it might have made him uncomfortable, desperate to know what she was thinking, but by now he's learned it's her way of telling him what she believes in.

when he realizes that he still hasn't answered in any way, cloud nods. perhaps he had been in an explosion, it would explain the gap in his memories once more... but it still didn't explain one crucial thing. ]

It still doesn't make sense of this place. [ with tifa here, and speaking of victory, it means they're not in the lifestream. they're not dead. but then, what else could this be? cloud lets his gaze slowly track over the entry room, taking in the details that make up the mansion, and then finally settles unnaturally blue eyes back on her familiar face. ]

I've never seen this before.

[ where oh where have they landed? ]

[platinumfist]

[ It's always difficult to see the pain pass through Cloud's face at even the smallest mention of Aerith. That wound is nowhere near scarring over, maybe it never will. Aerith had been truly special to all of them and she hadn't deserved her ultimate fate. Sometimes the anger of how unfair it is still flares up in Tifa until she has to punch it out of her.

They've had to move on, though, and while Cloud's remained tethered to Aerith in many ways, she can only hope that he continues to work toward letting her go, painful as it might be.

Now isn't the time to talk about it, though. Tifa hardly knows how to broach that subject most of the time, even when they're in a familiar environment. This definitely isn't that. But they got the issue of what happened before all this cleared up, so now they can focus on the present.

It might seem like the obvious explanation, that they're in the Lifestream, but it doesn't feel that way to Tifa. She feels whole and alive, like every breath of air that's going into her lungs is real, and yet that doesn't explain what happened. At Cloud's words she shakes her head -- she's never seen it either -- and then takes a look around again. ]

Well, it looks like there's a lot to explore... [ This doesn't hold a candle to Shin-Ra HQ, right? They can search the whole place. ] Maybe we'll find some answers if we keep looking. I just hope everyone else is okay.

[ Marlene and Denzel, Barret and Cid, Nanaki and Yuffie and Vincent...

But they could take care of themselves, right? ]

[nibelheims]

[ a lot to explore seems about right, and there are many directions they could start with. but hardly the shin-ra hq, that's for sure. what's most odd is how they've yet to see any other people-- or any living creatures for the matter. the mansion feels lived and used though, a breathing thing that's seen more than it will immediately tell.

his thoughts get interrupted at her worried voice, has cloud turning to look at tifa. ]

They'll be fine, Tifa.

[ look at that, cloud offering comfort. he finds himself surprised at his own words as well, and even more so at the fact that he fully believes them. they, their group -- barret, cid, nanaki, yuffie, vincent, reeve, marlene, denzel -- are all strong. incredibly so. they'd fought against bahamut, and had remained behind cloud, ready to face sephiroth at the drop of a coin. if anyone can manage, it's all of them.

now they just have to figure out their own mess instead. ]

...There has to be a way back. We'll find it.

[ and return home. ]

[platinumfist]

[ As far as Tifa's concerned, she and Cloud are both equal in how they offer comfort to each other. He sees her as the stronger one, but he's helped her through rough spots too. Seeing how they've known each other since childhood, there's a sort of bond between them that can't be severed so easily.

Maybe that's why it's the two of them who got dragged into this mess. It really wouldn't be fair for them to disappear right after they triumphed over Sephiroth and the remnants, which is why Cloud is right twofold: they have to get back. Everyone else is going to be worrying about them.

It is odd that they haven't encountered anyone (or anything) else yet, but Tifa imagines that'll happen soon enough. She faces the interior of the mansion. There's a long hallway extending down the ground level and also a staircase. After a pause, she glances at Cloud with a teasing smile. ]

Where to first, fearless leader? [ Tifa might say it jokingly, but Cloud should understand. She'd follow him anywhere. ]