tushanshu_ooc | Test Drive Meme

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Test Drive Meme | March 2014

TEST DRIVE MEME - TU SHANSHU EDITION!

Itching to try out writing a character? Then rev up your engines, grab your accounts, and slam your way into this meme! Here is a venue for you to try out whatever character there might be tickling your fancy, from fandom to OC, for as few as one and as many as MANY. Seriously, there's no limit.

How do you partake in this fantastic congregation of character testing? Why, by following these simple steps:

Comment with the journal of a character you want to test; put their name and canon in the subject line for added sparkles.
Tag around with everyone!
Profit like you live on a the back of a turtle!
Maybe even reserve so you CAN live on the back of a turtle!

But wait, there's more! For the low, low price of $9,999.99, you can even use one of our handy prompts when you tag someone. You could even pick one with a Random Number Generator to help decide which prompt to go with!

A Chance Meeting at the Turtle's Head.
Remember, being here causes a great sense of-- well, shall we say inner peace.
Haggling Over Something in the Marketplace!
Maybe someone else saw the exact same shiny thing you did at the exact same moment! However shall this be resolved? Remember: blood is extremely hard to scrub off of turtleshell!
Have Met Before? Because I Could've Sworn I've Seen You In My Dreams.
Have you wandered into the realm of Dreaming via an archway in Keeliai? Here, everything is shaped to your character's individual mind. Dreams can be shared between characters and will result in a meshing of minds. These dreams can be positive or negative, depending on your character.
Dramatic Chase Sequence!
You're running away from something! It could be anything, from a rampaging kirin to a gaggle of overly enthusiastic children, or even one of the newest editions to Keeliai's menagerie, an incredibly affectionate turtle the size of a minivan! One way or another, you can't stop, and much like a katamari ball, you feel obligated to grab everyone in your path along the way to keep them out of danger! Or perhaps you're more the sort to try and knock them into it as a distraction...?
Spring Fling!
Apparently the kedan take the "starting anew" aspect of spring very seriously and have started showing their appreciation for flowers and lovely weather by kissing everyone they across! Neither age nor gender seem to play a factor (though the children will instead get kisses atop their heads, because they're not that weird) but you might find yourself liplocked with a random stranger just for walking down the street.
WILDCARD!
Go nuts. Suddenly your character is fighting dragons! Good God, they've found the Millennium Falcon drifting in the ocean! Do you really feel the need to polish every paving stone in the Earth Sector? Please note, Wildcard options are also what you can choose to do if you aren't yet comfortable in the Tu Shanshu setting and would prefer a more 'dear-mun' esque experience. Please specify in your post!

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Jesus, her mention of that tunnel, of her drowning.

The memory hits him in an ugly, blurred flash. Trapped in the bus underwater, struggling to get to the surface, finding Ellie fucking floating lifeless. Frantically dragging her out of the water, tasting stagnant water and dirt, with mildew and rot from the tunnel filling his senses, as he began CPR. Heart in his throat, stomach twisted in panicked knots.

He takes a step back, clamping down on the memory while trying to process the absurdity of this whole situation. It's like Ellie don't even remember. He steels himself, clenches his jaw.

"The Fireflies took you. Knocked me unconscious first. They took you while I was tryin' to--"

A hand comes up, pushes through his hair, down to the back of his neck, which he rubs with a tense squeeze. "Shit," he mutters under his breath.

"What?" Ellie asks in an exhale of breath. "You mean-- wait, you mean we made it? Joel, it wasn't all for nothing?" She was hoping, praying. Maybe there was a chance, then, that she'd been dreaming this whole time, not dead like she'd thought.

There was a spark of hope, where there had been none before. She shook her head slowly. Joel had given her the best news that she'd heard so far, and she didn't know what to do. "That's great, though, isn't it? I mean, they're the Fireflies! Marlene wouldn't let them hurt me-- or you. Maybe it was just an accident, a misunderstanding or something."

There was a cure. Or they'd be making it. "There's no way-- maybe, maybe we're just both unconscious right now. That's all."

"Jesus," he quietly exclaims, his hand now lifting to his face. He rubs it.

"No," he replies to her saying how great it is the Fireflies found them, that maybe it was a misunderstanding, an accident. He holds his hand up at her, indicating for her to stop right the fuck there, and he says in a louder, almost angry voice, "No."

And for a moment, he stares down at her hard, anguish hidden beneath his weather-worn face. But then, the looks down with a weary shake of his head. "Look, it ain't like that, kiddo. Alright? It weren't no accident, no misunderstanding."

"But we made it!" She isn't sure what to do with her hands, torn somewhere between wanting to shake him, and wanting to pinch herself. Instead, she clenches her fists, and stares up at him. Would the Fireflies have made a mistake? Was that whole glimmer of hope she had pointless?

"This whole god damned time, for almost six months, I thought we failed... That we didn't make it." She knew explaining was pointless, get over it Ellie. But she wasn't sure what she was expecting, and Joel was the only one who would have understood. "I thought I was dead... You mean that we both might be."

She frowns down at the ground. "We were so fucking close." Her voice cracked for a moment.

She loved it on the turtle.

But the turtle had already taken Joel from her once, made her relive David, and brought back Tess and Sarah. All the friends in the world wouldn't make up for that. The lack of the infection here just made the fact that it still existed back home hurt worse.

She still needed to tell Joel about Sarah.

"Joel... There's something else I gotta tell you."

"Hey, listen, listen," he says over the top of her saying she thought she was dead, over the top of her voice cracking, and he moves back in quickly to take her head in his hands, to make her look at him.

Fuck, he doesn't know what to tell her. One minute, he'd been frantically scurrying through the hospital in Salt Lake City, trying to find her, knowing she was laid up on some operating table somewhere, and the next--

Well, they're both here now. Alive. And it don't make any fucking sense but it's a damn sight better than maybe finding her dead on an operating table with her skull fucking drilled open.

He can't bring himself tell her. God, he's just found her, he doesn't know where the hell he is, and he can't bring himself to tell her. About Marlene. About the Fireflies.

He lets her go. Stands tall again, arms dropping by his sides with a sigh. "What?" he asks tiredly.

She looks back up at him, transfixed. Was there something else? She didn't know, she had no clue what to think. She didn't want to think for a moment, she just wanted to be glad that he was there, and to try and make sure he didn't leave without warning again.

Get it together, Ellie. She had to quietly repeat it to herself, to tamp down on all that emotion that was just making things more confusing than they needed to be. He'd probably tell her to get it together, too, if he knew how close she felt like she was to losing it.

"... Sarah's here," she mumbles, just audible enough for him to hear her.

(ooc; DO YOU MIND IF I ADD YOU ON PLURK, BTW...)

Joel peers down at Ellie, her words rebounding off his ears like she's just told him something that he can't quite decipher. Something about... Sarah? Here?

Just hearing his girl's name is always enough to send a searing pain deep through his chest. Something he's always quick to squash, turn into something cold and dead before anything resembling grief has a chance to start rising up his throat.

He takes a half-step backwards, almost like he doesn't trust Ellie in that instant. "What'd you say?"

[ooc: yes! i'll PM you. <3 edit: NVM I FOUND YOUR PLURK ON YOUR ELLIE JOURNAL LIKE A CREEPER and added you. :3]

Edited 2014-04-01 03:33 (UTC)

She swallowed. Maybe she should have let Tess handle this. She knew what Sarah meant to Joel, she knew the whole story. It had been 20 years, and she'd been shocked when she first saw her, not to mention what Joel would have thought. But she couldn't just ignore that Sarah was there, she couldn't keep that from Joel.

Even then, knowing she couldn't have done it, it didn't mean that she wasn't almost losing her nerve. "Sarah's here," she repeats again, clearer this time. "She got here a few months ago." There was no way to smooth over that botched recovery.

And then, there was Tess. Two people so important to Joel, both dead, both there. Ellie didn't know how to tell him about either, and she'd done a magnificently fucked up job telling him about Sarah. But she couldn't afford to look away from him, either. She needed to see that he believed her.

Another step backwards, and he's watching Ellie suspiciously now, like she's about to wield a weapon at him that he's not sure he's going to be able to dodge.

If that's meant to be some kind of sick, cruel joke... Telling him his baby girl is here, that she just so happened to arrive here a few months ago, after all the god damn years he's been torn apart by her dying in his arms--

"The hell are you talkin' about?" he replies, his voice low, almost dangerous.

"Look, I know it sounds crazy, I thought it was too," she launches into an explanation immediately, her hands up as a pacifying gesture, one she knows is useless. She screwed it up. "But people who are dead-- they come here, and they're not dead." She almost pleads.

"I wouldn't lie to you about this, Joel. I wouldn't!" Her hands lower, and she feels frozen to the spot. "Fuck, do you think I'd tell you something like this if it wasn't true? She's my friend. She-- fuck, do you think I'm just pulling this shit out of fucking thin air?!"

She felt like all the stress that had been building up for over six months was finally, finally threatening to erupt.

"Fuck... Tess is here, too."

"Just-- stop. Right there. Just fuckin' stop." A hand has come up, defensive, commanding Ellie to do as he damn well says.

Sarah. Tess. Two names he can't bear to hear. Two names he only talks about on his fucking terms, damn it. His terms. Not Ellie's, not no one's.

"Now, I don't know where you're pullin' this shit out from," he continues after staring at her for another long, hard moment, "but it ain't funny, and it sure as hell ain't clever."

The hand that he's now pointing at her balls into a fist, then points warningly at her again as he opens his mouth to say something else. And then suddenly, he turns away from her, walks away a couple of paces. Reels back around and faces her again.

"Do you have any idea what the hell I've just been through? Tryin' to find you? Finding out the fuckin' Fireflies had taken you to the hospital on Marlene's fuckin' orders, and you're gonna stand there and start talkin' shit about Tess? About Sarah?"

"What?"

It's a simple, one word reply that wasn't actually a reply. It was all she could manage, for what felt like a long moment. She felt her breath get sucked away, and stared at him. Marlene found them, Marlene took her to the hospital... what happened? What did he know?

What happened? What happened? It was a running theme that was in her head, that she didn't even now how to begin responding to everything. "You think I'd fucking joke about this? I fucking promised not to talk about Tess-- about all the shit that happened, Joel. But you need to know this."

She swallowed, her eyes watering. She couldn't. She didn't know what else to say, or what had happened, but all this time, she'd thought she'd been dead, and she wasn't.

She was torn between relief and something akin to heartbreak. "They're gonna see you, they're gonna want to see you!" Fuck, if she could only take back saying anything, and just make Tess do it. Fuck. "I'm not trying to hurt you, I've been fucking worried sick about you Joel!"

He's aimlessly pacing away, a hand anxiously rubbing over his beard and his lips and then pushing into his hair. What the fuck is Ellie talking about, Tess being here? And Sarah? The pleading conviction in the girl's voice is starting to scare him.

Jesus, it was only an hour ago - more? less? he's lost track of all time, he wouldn't have a fucking clue how long ago, not really - that Joel was dragging Ellie's lifeless body from out of the water. Don't do this to me, had been ringing like white noise in his head while he gasped and desperately began applying CPR. Don't do this to me, don't you fucking do this to me.

And it was even less time ago than that, that he was pinning that asshole, Ethan against the hospital wall, gun digging into his stomach, demanding to know where Ellie was. His head had been pounding from where he'd been struck across the head with the gun while trying to resuscitate Ellie; his stomach had been clawing in terrified knots that he was going to be too late, that Ellie was going to die - but he'd remained calm, cold, ruthless. And then, he'd been scurrying through the hospital, ducking behind counters, jumping through broken windows, hiding behind walls, killing whoever got in his path of him trying to find wherever they'd taken her to be prepped for surgery. That tape recorder he'd come across of a surgeon saying there'd already been twelve previous test subjects, all of them dead.

And now-- now this. He turns on Ellie as she's exclaiming about being worried about him, and he bellows over the top of her, "And you think I haven't been worried sick, too? About you?"

And now this business with Sarah, and with Tess--

"What the hell am I s'posed to think, you tellin' me things like that? That Tess and-and Sarah--"

His voice suddenly breaks on the second syllable of his baby girl's name, and he paces away from her a few steps with angered anguish. "Jesus fuckin' Christ, Ellie."

"How about you fucking trust me?" Ellie says back, some of the spitfire coming back into her voice. Him asking her what he's supposed to think, that's something she can respond to, she can tell him what to think. She can do conviction, especially when she knows she's right.

Especially when she knows Sarah's going to want to see her Dad, again, and that Tess... Well, Tess had already started working on the smuggling ring. She'd want Joel to be part of that. And Ellie was just glad to see him there, underneath all the other feelings, so it didn't matter, in the end, what he thought of her.

"Jesus, Joel, we went through all that shit together, so I get it. Maybe I don't fucking know what that type of loss is like, but I sure as hell know what the fuck I'm talking about right now. Sarah is here, so's Tess."

Her hands clench and then she finally gestures towards him. "Please, Joel."

Joel paces one way, then the other, throwing Ellie a look. But then he crosses his arms over his chest, lifts a hand to his face and presses his fingers against his eyes with a rub and pinches the bridge of his nose.

Okay. Okay. Get a grip, he thinks to himself. Get a fucking grip. This is Ellie talking here. Ellie. The girl who's seen and been through shit that Joel wished like all hell he'd been able to protect her from. The girl who nursed him back to health when he was on the brink of death. The girl who reminds him so damn much of Sarah, who Joel would go the ends of the fucking earth to protect even if it almost kills him.

Maybe she is telling the truth. Maybe-- Jesus, it makes no fucking sense, but...

He drops his hand from his face to his arm. Looks over at Ellie. Underneath his hardened face, under the heavy-set lines around his eyes and in the tired wrinkles lining his forehead, there's something almost indescribable, like he's not sure how much more of this he can take. And bringing Tess and Sarah into all of this - hell.

"Well, then, I guess I am just gonna have to trust you, ain't I?"

It takes a moment for the gravity of his words to sink in, but when they do, the tension in her face eases. She doesn't quite break into a wide grin as she might have once-- there was still too much stress, even so many months later. But Joel trusted her, even if she'd completely botched telling him. But that trust was enough.

"... Thanks," she finally breathes out. Her hands rub together for a minute. "There's lots of food here, more than I've ever seen. But it costs money. I've been trading these lizard things with the people here for the cash."

She rubs the edge of her sleeve, where it was still wet from her botched ice cream. So much for that last bit of cash-- but she knew who to go to if she really needed food, and she had that extra store of money that Jason had left her, but she didn't want to touch it, out of the hope that he'd come back.

"... There's probably room for smuggling, too."

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Test Drive Meme | March 2014

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