capitalxxx | TEST DRIVE MEME #0

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TEST DRIVE MEME #0

A TIME VORTEX has opened in downtown LA! Some magic folks have been contacted to close it, but they haven't gotten here fast enough for the vortex not to spill out a HECK TON OF DINOSAURS – all kinds of dinosaurs of all kinds of sizes. There are theoretically gentle herbivores among the fierce predators, but they are all pretty pissed off about their sudden, startling relocation, and a lot of them have spikes.

(The vortex is both temporally and spatially unstable, which is why the dinosaurs emerging onto the streets of LA are constrained neither by specific prehistorical era nor geographical location.)

What you do is up to you. Here are some suggestions, though:

Fight some dinosaurs. You might be trying to herd them back to the vortex, or just trying to stop them by any means possible.

Flee or hide. If you're lucky the dinosaurs won't work out how to open doors and you can spend your entire thread hiding behind the bar in a Starbucks with some other hapless civilians without having to confront any of them.

Try to capture the dinosaurs on camera. If you can get some really good photos you might be able to sell them to the local paper in order to supplement your elderly aunt's meagre income. Or just use them to get a bunch of notes on Tumblr, either way.

Take advantage of the chaos to do crime. The forces of law enforcement are preoccupied with all these prehistoric reptiles.

Or pretty much anything else you think your character might be doing. Any location in LA is game, although there's no real need to meticulously look them up – you can just assume a generic street, rooftop, store, etc. (You don't have to look up the dinosaurs, either.)

If you have a character who you'd like to assume is part of a team, but that team hasn't been named or brainstormed OOC yet or anything, feel free to indicate in your opening post that you're assuming your character is operating alongside others and encourage others to tag in as if they are part of the same team! Or just handwave it and assume they got caught without their usual teammates or separated from them. Whatever way works best for you.

Events from this test drive are not automatically assumed game canon, but individual threads can be if you and the people who you thread with end up mutually wanting to keep them.

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It's fairly impressive anyway, at least, just because Karkat isn't very tall. Karkat is very determined not to be intimidated by this weirdo, though, and when he's dealing with humans it's easier not to worry that he doesn't have any weapons with him.

"Shit, really," he says, "you'd prefer literally to get torn apart by wild beasts than worrying about your car? Then it's basically my job to drag you out of here for your own good."

It's really astounding that he hasn't lost his patience yet, but the last threads of it are snapping. Starscream stoops, leaning in dangerously close until he's face to face with Karkat. "I'd like to see you try," he growls.

Ah, that seems to have done it. Or, seems to for a moment. Karkat's pointed ears press back against his head and he takes a step back – but if anything having had this near instinctual reaction makes him more annoyed. He pushes himself back up into Starscream's business, fists clenching. "Yeah?" he snarls. He can't fight dinosaurs without a weapon, but he thinks he could take this scrawny jerk. "Then let me get you front row tickets to the once a life time spectacle of me folding you in half and hauling your obtuse human cogitation cavity out of this reptile infested transit canyon."

Starscream stands his ground, fully prepared to strike the first blow from the moment that Karkat gets back up in his face, but then the angry little creature continues with his empty threats and suddenly there's utter bafflement written all over his face. He blinks a few times in confusion. Transit canyon...???? Not that he claims to have an excellent understanding of human terminology himself, but he's fairly certain that none of that sentence was what anyone would strictly call "proper english".

Then he snaps out of that train of thought and, without any warning whatsoever, jabs Karkat right in the stomach with as much force as he can muster with the holoform; definitely not the effect he would like to get across were he using his real body, but should be enough to send a painful sensation of concussive force through the little vermins torso.

Karkat's eyes widen in surprise as soon as it becomes clear what the supposed human is doing, but by then it's too late – he'd assumed the man would get exasperated and drop it and go look for a different vehicle to mangle, but he was wrong.

He squawks in pain and surprise as the holomatter fist makes contact with his gut, and stumbles backwards, falling on his ass; within seconds he's scrambling back to his feet, though, and though there's a wheeze in his growl and he's visibly wincing he bares his fangs and snarls. The human started it. That means anything he does now is justified. He knows the rules.

Karkat tackles Starscream's holoform without further hesitation. He doesn't have any weapons, but he does have fists and claws and a righteous anger.

For about 4 seconds, Starscream gets to stand there and look smugly pleased with himself, feeling superior.... until then he's tackled by a raging ball of angry troll and promptly lets out the most undignified sounding squawk imaginable.

Flat on his back and yowling angrily, he immediately begins to claw and kick at any part of Karkat he can reach; holo-matter combat is not exactly a highly skilled form of combat, and while the punching and scratching can't really physically hurt him, the feedback he gets each time a blow makes contact is starting to give him a hefty processor ache, and he absolutely cannot BELIEVE the audacity this creature has to even think of laying a hand on him.

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