timetrappedooc | Test Drive; December

Test Drive; December

Test Drive

Welcome to the test drive for Time Trapped. This is an open forum to test out your characters to see how they would fit into the game and if you might be interested in apping them here. We want you to feel comfortable and, of course, test drive threads can be used as samples on your application to join.

First, a few housekeeping things before we start:

∞Apps will be open as of Dec 10th at 12 AM, and will reopen on the first of every month. They will remain open until the 10th of each month before closing.

∞Both first and third person prompts are allowed in the test drive. We encourage both. We also encourage making multiple prompt options in your post.

∞Finally, you will be allowed to transfer your test drive threads over into the game canon should you apply and be accepted.

∞If you have any other questions please feel free to refer to the FAQ or contact the mods directly.

Aside from that, happy test driving.

Instructions:
Post with Character you'd like to test drive using Name and canon in the subject line.
Receive comments.
Profit

Prompts

1. Acclimating to the environment
While Gideon has a part of the area sectioned off for now based on her calculations of where the time anomalies are going to occur the area is still large and confusing. It’s easy for a person to get lost or overwhelmed in this big mish-mosh of a world. Perhaps you are lost, or maybe you are just settling in.

2. Reach out and touch someone
Gideon has been kind enough to provide you with a way to communicate. Whether that be a device or a simple SIM card. Why not try it out by sending a public message. Of course, you could also be sending it by accident.

3. Make peace, not war
While LA has become a hodgepodge of different times it has also become a hodgepodge of different areas as well. Exploring the downtown LA brings you to a section of Greenwich Village in New York. Unfortunately what was once a peaceful protest has grown into a fight between Mogul hordes and peace loving hippies who just want to protest. Local enforcement is, of course, trying to sort out this mess but it seems they might need a bit of outside help.

4. What's this strange building?
The 'Hall of Justice' stands in a sorry state as nature is trying to overtake it. Vines are crawling up the walls and there is Dimetrodon sunbathing in the courtyard, or what's left of it. Inside, any technology seems to have been destroyed and there is no sign of life. Still, it is a ruin left to be explored and the local archaeological society is willing to pay good money for relics from inside. Be warned that there may still be some rather nasty traps active inside and around the hall. If you happen to be a from the DC world you might see a few familiar faces among the broken statues that once adorned this building.

5. Let’s dance
The Verdant. A rousing nightclub in 'bad neighborhood' of what was once Starling City circa 2013. There seems to be a wide variety of patrons here tonight, anything from Greek Scholars to some Greasers. What a great place to grab something to drink or maybe cause a little trouble.

6. Dressing in style
Perhaps you arrived in less than ideal clothing. You may have arrived in no clothing at all. It might just be about time to look through some clothing stores and find what is right for you. Of course, it’s never that easy though. There are pickpockets and thieves all over the streets. You may just become their next victim.

7. Home for the Holidays
Little old London town is high in festivities right now. It's Christmas and the area surrounding Big Ben is snowy, though it's a bit melty due to the climate in LA. Festive decor and foods for sale circa 1885 in england and emotions are cheery and positive. Take a horse and buggy or attend a christmas party.

Just hope the mongols don't show up. Or Amazons.

8. Wild Card. Go nuts.

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"Sara," his smile is something small and fond as he watches the emotions flicker across her face. They might not be lovers in her time, they might never have that easy and sweet contact that they used, but she will always be a part of his life and hold a place in his heart.

He will always reach out.
Which is what he does.
Reaching out to draw her in and plant a kiss on her forehead.

"You're family. You're.." a small huff because damned if he can find the right word. "You're everything. I don't care how tight it gets in there. If you need it, if your team needs it, the doors are open."

"Always."

Sara isn't expecting it. Oliver to reach out. Oliver to pull her in towards him.
Oliver's lips to end up brushing her forehead in that old familiar way.

What she isn't expecting, even more, is the sudden swell of emotion that rises in her chest, prickling at her eyes.

A confused rush that is everything about Oliver being away and silent these days and preparing herself for his distance or anger when she showed up; that is the stupidty of how they met here and the fact she knows he was seeing another her when he looked at her that whole first night; that her Oliver isn't here and she's afraid for his time and she can't stop wanting to help the man sliding his arms around her just as much as she ever has in every world and every time;

that is Martin's body in the medbay chair and his coffin in the ground; that is the time they fixed is now the time that is broken more than it ever was; that is her ship is half impaled in the ground, and something wrong with Gideon, and half her people here, but half her people missing, right after she swore, she swore she would be nothing like Rip.

Her lips trembled even as she strives to keep them straight, even though he can't see her face anymore, and it's impossible not to give in. Even if he knows almost none of it, and probably won't understand it in the slightest, Sara slips in closer just leaning her forehead against his chest, and then her cheek, raising her arms to hug him, pushing up on her toes into his arms even more, fingers digging in slightly hard on his back. Maybe like she's never quite had any real purchase in the last few days --

-- and that was exactly why she couldn't ever let anyone see it, know it, stop being The Captain.
Like she might not be able to stop it at all if she started stopping at all.

Edited 2017-12-09 19:32 (UTC)

Oliver doesn't understand. He doesn't know what Sara's life has been because he's so far behind everyone and it's frustrating beyond measure. But in any time, in any world, if Sara needs him Oliver will always be there. Always reach out to hold her.

He might not understand the reasons in her past that drive her to cling, that drive her fingers to dig in a little tighter, but Oliver doesn't have to. He simply has to be there because she needs it.

A Captain, a leader, they can't fall apart in front of the team and it's a lesson they both know too well.

Sara couldn't grieve when Martin had fallen in battle. Oliver couldn't grieve when Sara had fallen. Because the people that looked up to them, the people that counted on and depended on them needed them to remain steady and strong.

But alone, in this sterile little apartment that doesn't feel like home, he can wrap his arms around her. He can breathe a little easier. Because Sara will always be home to him.

"Okay." It's mumbled into his shoulder, or maybe it's more his collarbone under his shirt, where her face had been buried. Just for a few seconds. Only a few. Only. Only enough breathe and get too close to the part where her eyes might do more than sting and start swimming. She can't cry here. She can't cry now. It's still. She just can't. And even if he has no reason to offer it to her now, her mind hooks on those words.

You're family. You're everything.
if you need it. Always.

She nods, again, try to square her shoulders as she lets her heels touch back to the ground and her fingers release from pressing fingertips and nails and the side of her coffee cup into his back. Making a scene of herself. She shouldn't be doing that. To him. This wasn't why she came. This wasn't anything she'd prepared herself for. (And yet, there's a tiny voice saying she should have. Reminding her of him in the hallway. The hand on her arm;

How are you?
I'll cry at the funeral.

Hey.
I ... 'm fine.)

She takes a deep breath, and half a step back. She's not sure her face is collected in the slightest, and she's resisting the urge to reach up and rub her face. She's won't give it that much. She can do this. Even if she looks up at his face and back down, most of her face framed by the fall of her hair around it as she does.

"There's three others right now. Mick Rory, and Martin Stein, and, uh--" This with a faint pause as she realizes she detailing things she's not sure she should, and that will come out here anyway as they work; that it's all running into her incapability not to tell Oliver, any and every Oliver, the truth, and what Felicity told her happened after she died. "--Ray Palmer."

Because if they are opening boxes they shouldn't, maybe they start there.

"And," because it bears adding, too. "And Leo and his Ray."
"Who aren't exactly Legends, but they're ours while they are here, too."

Edited 2017-12-10 06:19 (UTC)

Sara needs a moment to ground herself, so that's what Oliver gives her.
He doesn't protest when she draws away and takes a moment to breathe. To pull herself back in. Oliver only just resists the urge to gently move her fair from her face, to tuck it behind her ear.

Blink. Mick Rory. Heatwave? Ray Palmer?
There's a moment of surprise, but he schools it away quickly enough.

"I don't know Leo or Ray but.. okay. If they're your team, the door is open." Even to a criminal pyromaniac and the rich egomaniac that took over his company. If Sara says they are hers, that's enough for Oliver.

She doesn't have to look up to catch the surprised pause between her words and his. Slight and small. Any number of people might miss it. Even his own people. But Sara's known him too long. She's known every shade of him for over a decade, and she knows what that is, even when it's pent in. It makes her have to look up.

There's a bit of uncertainty that lays there, clear on her face, because he says nothing to it, except the repeat of his open acceptance, and nothing is never expressly good. She's not looking to kick gift horses in the mouth, especially not when she needs it, they all do, but she's not looking to create a bigger later explosion than the one she and all of them are already likely brewing in the shape of Oliver from too many years behind, thrust outside of it with too many of them who weren't.

Sara looked to the side, what he had of this sterile strange room, that looks nothing like anything the thought of Oliver and Oliver's rooms, and Oliver's house, and Lair ever brought to mind. But it's what there is, and she glances back for asking. "Can we sit down?"

Edited 2017-12-10 19:49 (UTC)

Of course Sara would catch his hesitation.
In time, in the future there will likely be some explosion between them. Tension regarding her knowledge of his future and Oliver's uncertainty of it. Tension regarding why she's traveling with a known criminal and a rich industrialist.

It doesn't make sense.
None of it makes sense.

There are a few things Oliver can count on however. His faith in Sara. His faith in Felicity. Small but profound things that have kept him from retreating entirely.

"Yeah." He perches on the edge of the couch, too uneasy to relax into it. "I have questions. But I'm not sure how many of them you can answer."

"I probably shouldn't answer any of them." Sara says it, sitting down sideways from the back, one arm brushing the back of the couch, one leg curled in front of her so she can stay facing him, stay nearish, without being too invasively close, even to say that. Not because she's goading, or even correcting, but because she doesn't know how to be anything but honest about that. There's a reason Rip picked her. So many. But she learned so well. But.

But.

And their lives have always had that but haven't they?
But she shouldn't have been sleeping with her sister's boyfriend.
But she shouldn't have let him catch her on the roof top in Star City.

Like she shouldn't say it, and she still does, look up from the coffee cup resting on the side of her calf, to look at him and only him, in a clear way that asks as many questions as always true and too true admissions it makes -- "Ask me anyway."

Because as much as she knows the first, she knows this, too. She has only once -- once in her whole life -- been able to tell Oliver Queen no. To turn away from him. And it wasn't about him, then. Just like she's not that girl now; not even in that same life.

Edited 2017-12-10 20:42 (UTC)

And he is fully prepared to hear that she can't tell him and he will continue to do his damndest to accept and respect that. Sara means too much to him to do otherwise.

Still. She relents and Oliver feels something loosen deep in his chest, the unease that he hasn't been able to shake since waking up in a world where time seems to have come unhinged.
He won't ask about himself.
But he will ask about the people that have come to mean a lot to Sara.

"Tell me about your people. Your team. I'll admit men like Rory and Palmer seem like.. unconventional choices." Not bad ones. Because if they're on Sara's team it's because she sees something in them.

He will ask about her team. Maybe even ask about Barry and whether or not he took his advice to be a hero for his own city.
And he will ask if she's happy. Doing what she's doing. It seems that way, but it's still a question he wants to ask. Needs to ask.

She doesn't know when his face shifts surprise, and then thoughtful, shifting through thoughts she can't entirely know, what she's agreed to even. Offered, if not agreed. A small part of her whispers, everything. The Legend in her says, nothing. Somewhere there has to be compromise (even when she doesn't know if she's lying to herself about that, too, a compromise) that won't break the timeline (any more than she, and the Legends, have already broken it) -- or Oliver.

She can't live with either of those.
And she can't lose either of them, either.

And there's a dizzy sort of relief, giving her heart a spasm like being punched, when he asks about her team. Not about her. Not about his team. Not about Laurel, or even himself. It's wrong, she knows it's wrong, but her shoulders want to sag slightly. Even if they don't. (Even if she knows one safer question, isn't safe, isn't the promise he won't go there next. Later. Tomorrow. This is a slippery slope.)

"That's not actually a bad descriptor for all The Legends." Unconventional. It was why they were picked, why they were lied to, why they managed to build a team, and even more a family, out broken, inconsequential pieces. They became so much more than they were ever supposed to be, and they existed in tenacious rebellion of what wanted to stop them from being.

Because it is everything. "I trust them."
She says trust, and means it. Means Respect. Love.

"I would trust my life in Micks's hands, and Ray's. Every life of everyone on the team." She says, even with the shadow of doubt against Mick's name in her head. He's been at her back every step these last few months. He called them in, from Aruba even. But some soreness linger, and memories of people she never was. She does trust him, but she knows all too intimately where the faultline for breaking him lies.

Which makes Leo being on the crew, being here...a concern, at the lightest.
(Because that's totally the only concern, or issues, she's carrying there.)

"I have, and I would again. They've all earned it. A hundred times over."

A nod. If Sara trusts them, that will be enough for Oliver because she is the one that has decided they are both worthy of that trust. Like him, she does not offer something as critical as trust easily, so he will take it on faith. Men like Mick Rory and Ray Palmer would have to have done something extraordinary in order to earn Sara's trust.

"Okay." A pause to sip at his coffee and gather his thoughts because what he has to say next matters. It's important. She needs to understand why there are some things he won't ask about. Things he can't ask.

"I'm not going to ask about me in your future. The last eight years of my life haven't been good ones and I have no desire to hear that trend continue. I'm not going to ask how you came back." His eyes soften a little as he smiles for a moment. "Right now it only matters to me that you did. That you do."

"I just.. are they okay? Are they safe?" The people that they both love. The ones that they care about and have fought and sacrificed for. It won't be enough detail to potentially upend time, but it will be enough to grant Oliver some measure of peace with what's happening to them.

Sara's not entirely sure she can understand why, or even how, he manages to smile, and still it's like a small buoy. Even if far away. A rare ray of light among too many clouds, on the endless washing sea. That can't even stay when he's saying not his life and not her ressurection taking sections of Thea, and Roy, and Malcolm, and Ras off the table.

But, also, the same with any number of things. What happened to Felicity. What happened in Nanda Parbat. The existence of William. Running for, and being, Mayor. Things that happened with his family, with his company. It's like whole books slide right off the table, leaving Sara almost unsteady in her surprise at the suspect grandiosity of what it takes out.

Leaves the question of what, until Oliver drops it on her.
Is everyone okay. Is everyone safe.

That's a no.

That's a no so deep in her heart,
there are parts of her that might never heal.

Sara looks down. She has to think about, her head tipping a little. Trying to find a way between what he said not to say, the one thing slamming her throat, heart, that is irreversible, and unforgivable, and the need to give him what he's asking for: a promise that the future is a good place, even if he's said only seconds before it he believes it's full of darkness. It's very him. I know it's dark, but tell me there is light.

"No, it's not always good," start quietly, because there were terrible things, too, yes, she can admit looking back up at him. "But it's not always bad either. Like now. Like then." It wasn't. "I saw you last little more than a week ago." In another small version of hell, on another planet entirely, where another him was, also, subjugating and killing a whole world. "And a few months before that, I was home for about six months, and your people seemed at least as good as they could be."

A small pause. "You did."

Aside from some very loud scenes at Barry & Iris's reception.

Edited 2017-12-13 04:06 (UTC)

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Test Drive; December

Test Drive

Prompts

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