TDM #1

[beautifuldreamermods]

TDM #1

Welcome one and all to the very first test drive meme for Beautiful Dreamer! If you're unfamiliar with the game, then you can check out the navigation to get yourself up to speed on all the relevant info pages then check out the AU Planning meme to see what juicy ideas your fellow players are cooking up!

In order to not spoil the opening of the game for players, the overall TDM is not canon to Beautiful Dreamer though players are free to treat individual CR/threads on this post as canon to their characters if both players are happy to do so.

Dreamers on the TDM will have access to all of their starter powers as outlined on the powers page as well as two unique abiliites to play around with as you please.

Some prompts and location details have been provided below for you to play around with but please feel free to go hog wild and have fun!

YUMEMIGAOKA

It's a busy day just like any other in a town as big and bustling as Yumemigaoka. With the last days of winter finally at everyone's backs, spring has begun blooming in earnest and the cheery seasonal energy is pretty infectious. A number of events are taking place around the city, so why not take the time to look around and have fun?



⧖ The Tsubaki Department Store is beginning to hype up their upcoming Golden Week extravaganza with a number of small sales and promotions. Maybe this year you'll finally be able to snag that air fryer you've been eyeing?!

⧖ It's cherry blossom viewing season! Hina Flower Gardens are holding a free event with a number of special seasonal goodies and some absolutely beautiful scenery to take in.

⧖ Moon Bunny Market are organising a stamp rally all around the neighborhood, with prizes on the line if you manage to collect them all. Just find the right stalls and speak to the right people and you could win a tasty prize!

Of course, life doesn't grind to a halt just because it's nice and sunny outside. Now the city is getting busier and more touristy, the folks who keep things running are starting to get some pressure put on them! And if you happen to be a student, end of term exams are starting to loom on the horizon, with particular pressure put on those just about to graduate their respective schools... Not to mention with spring coming around, allergies are running riot!

Let's just hope you're not feeling too stressed. After all, with all this energy running rampant and regular life starting to really push down on everyone, who knows what those negative feelings could spawn...?!

THE DREAM SPHERE

The Dream Sphere might be a very different kind of place to Yumemigaoka but that doesn't mean it's any less busy. Spring has sprung over on this side, too, with iridescent flowers and colorful trees growing right out of the streets and buildings all over the Slumbering City and the sky above turning a particularly pretty shade of pale pink to match.

That makes it especially bizarre that it appears to be snowing all over the Dream Sphere, no matter where you go but on closer inspection this snow is actually cherry blossom petals raining endlessly down from the sky. How pretty! Of course, for those of you with allergies, maybe it's just rubbing salt on the wound. Your nose isn't itching, is it? Achoo!

Pretty or not though, if you're on this side then you've got work to do! With the Waking World starting to gear back up after winter, some of the associated stress is starting to funnel into the Dream Sphere and cause no small manner of trouble. Torments and Nightmares won't hunt themselves so be sure to properly scout out all the available locations of the Dream Sphere you can access just in case - maybe you'll find a new teammate to work with while you're out there!

In particular, it looks like trouble can be found...


⧖ In the Vale of Sorrow, it's still raining and pouring despite the change of season and that combined with the dusting of petals across everything has turned navigating the place into a real task, even for a fully prepared Dreamer. The ground is even more of a wet and soggy mulch than before and to make matters worse, a group of particularly nasty Torments are gathering and seem to be made out of bristling vines and piercing brambles... they're unusually quick and vicious even for Torments so you better act fast and deal with them ASAP!

⧖ In the Reverie Necropolis, the season of spring hardly seems to have touched the place. If the sky has changed at all, it's hidden behind the bone white clouds that hang low and every single petal that touches the ground immediately shrivels and dies once it lands. Once you actually enter the labyrinth, frantic whispers can be heard and the scratching of disembodied pencils scribbling over papers can be heard echoing up and down all the halls. The vibes are absolutely rancid, is what I'm saying – made even worse by the fact that when you stumble into one of the open caverns, you come across a Nightmare just about to manifest?! Better hope you're not alone, because you'll need some good strong teamwork to keep things from escalating any further!

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Comments

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[kitri]

So there's Ango, enjoying the fruits of his totally above board labors.. when a dark cloud looms on the horizon, in the form of a slim man sidling up to stand with perfect posture by the edge of his "picnic blanket," whose perfectly-pressed collar stands extremely at odds with those dark circles under his eyes.

He's smiling.

"Hi, yes...'Scuse me. I have a little question."

That's not a very promising tone.

[darknesshotpot]

Ango looks up at him, eyes narrowed in suspicion. The guy looks even more tired than Ango does, and Ango slept on a park bench last night. But the guy's clothes are clean and crisp, unlike his own shabby leather jacket, and Ango doesn't trust anybody who owns an iron.

"Are you an undercover cop? I ain't talking to cops."

[kitri]

The side of his mouth twitches.

"Sure, lemme just show you my ba-- no I'm not a cop, I'm here for the viewing. Absolutely perfect this year, isn't it? Everyone's really gone all."

A pointed glance down at Ango's banquet.

"Out."

Mr. Perfect Collar steeples his hands together in front of his chest, and slowly, fluidly takes a knee so that he's sunk down to his level with that piercing stare before continuing. "Speaking of out, do you want to know what else our hosts are out of?"

[darknesshotpot]

Ango wraps his arms protectively around his hoard and pulls it closer to himself. "Hell no, I got the last sakura mochi! It's mine!"

Sakura mochi always sells out first at a flower-viewing party. Who can resist delicate pink rice dough, wrapped around a core of delectably sweet bean paste, wrapped in a salted cherry leaf? The gooey center, the melt-in-your-mouth sweetness, the subtle hint of salt that makes it go so well with beer... it's his, damn it!

But then Ango notices the little girl playing in the trees nearby... and with a sigh, he hands over the mochi in its plastic box. "Figures I'd get busted by the Snack Police... you'd better give this to a kid. If I catch you eating it yourself, you donut-munching cop bastard, I'll kick your ass."

[kitri]

Novvy's smile is cryptic, smug, and something he only pulls onto his face once the sakura mochi is safely in his grasp, because it's the sort of shit-eating grin that would make someone immediately want to change their mind for whatever they'd just done to provoke it. "We'll see."

Speaking of that kid...

Instead of getting up and leaving, Mr. Perfect Collar cups his free hand by his mouth, and hollers over at her.

"Gratia! Come here, little mochi bunny, look at what the nice man shared with us! You can smash petals up with rocks more later!"


The kid absolutely does not drop the rock before she starts to run over.

[darknesshotpot]

Like father, like daughter, Ango thinks to himself as the little girl runs to them with a mud-stained rock clutched in her small fingers. As a former bratty child himself, Ango supports bratty children, but when bratty kids grow up into bratty adults, he can't help but want to punch them.

The Dreamer Union's main office doesn't open until Monday morning, and Ango can't afford a hotel, but he's pretty sure he can survive until then. "Sakura mochi's got leaves in it, so I guess I can get by eating leaves and grass until I get a job..." He quickly pops a whole skewer of hanami dango into his mouth before Mr. Perfect Collar Cop Bastard gets ideas about the rest of his meal.

[kitri]

Brat Prime has even got a blue kerchief with him, which he insists the kid use before he lets her anywhere near sitting down with the both of them. The cloth tag with the word 'daiso' front and center that he's forgotten to cut off kind of ruins that particular illusion of posh.

"You're not gonna be working anywhere if you choke, first. Try chewing. I'm rusty on my Heimlich. Hey, bunbun, are you done?"

The kid silently nods, then sits down.. not half as primly as the dad, but in a flouncy way that makes it obvious she's trying to be. She's looking at the rest of the food with an unholy light in her eye... until Novvy puts the sakura mochi countainer down on her lap.

"Here you go. Now, what do we say?"

The kid looks dead on at Ango... come on Gratia.. we're... waiting for that thank you... any second now...

"Is there grass in it?"

[darknesshotpot]

"Of course there's grass in it. That's the good stuff. Ain't ya ever made mud mochi? You've gotta mix in grass, and sticks, and rocks, and cicada shells, and dead flowers... You oughta make some mud mochi for your dad - I bet he'd really like to taste your cooking!"

Ango leans back, smile spreading into his own shit-eating grin. Take that, you smug snack-stealing jerk.

"So you're Gratia, huh? I'm Ango. Nice to meet ya."

[kitri]

"Uh-huh. Grah-tee-ah Kat-zuh! And Papa's name is--"
He quickly cuts in.
"--Novvy. Just Novvy. Charmed. Gratia, look at the box, remember I told you how to figure out if something has coconut in it? There's a label. I think you'll find grass isn't on there anywhere."

He did not want to have the different last names conversation today.

Gratia picks up the sakura mochi box... stares at it... stares at it... pushes her big round glasses back up her nose where they've started to slip off...

"It does too. Like Ango-sensei said. It's got mud and sticks and sakura and bugs and sand and GLASS in it."

Guess that last one's her own special ingredient for the recipe. Anyway, that's when she opens the box up to eat it, and there's nothing Novvy can do about it because this was what he wanted. The world he has wrought.

[darknesshotpot]

"Hehe, 'Ango-sensei~~~'" he repeats, inordinately pleased by the honorific. "It's nice to meet you too, Just Novvy." No honorifics for you, thief. "Sounds like the kiddo's a real gourmet. I hope you like the taste of broken glass!"

He cracks open another box of hanami dango and slides half of the container to Gratia, beaming insufferably at her father. "Here you go, Gratia-chan. Maybe I'll see you guys around town again. I just moved here from Tokyo - on Monday, I'm officially gonna be a Dreamer!"

[kitri]

Gratia accepts this offering eagerly. It trades place with her (somewhat clean, since she wiped it off along with her hands) mochi-making rock.

'Maybe I'll see you guys around' is a cue Novvy reads. He's up on his feet with that usual clearly-honed ease, and offers Gratia a hand-- but though she takes it, she dawdles, tugging on it and planting her feet instead of getting ready to go.

"Papa, you heard that, right? Just like you and Mr. Eyepatch...!"

(That 'mister' is a Mister said in English, in fact.)

Novvy's face is initially illegible, but he sighs, and smiles. "I heard! That's... fantastic news. I'm always happy to meet someone else involved in the.. industry." Especially someone he already bullied for snacks for his kid. Love that. Now they're going to be coworkers, instead of Ango just being someone he can happily push around once and go on his merry way, forever. He forces some tension to leave his shoulders. Okay. Time to play nice(r).

"From Tokyo, you said? You chose well moving out here. The Union is... I have no complaints." Yet. It's been what, a week? And some change. "You won't have to worry about finding enough leaves for all that long. They do direct deposit."

[darknesshotpot]

"Direct deposit? Now that's the life." He whistles approvingy. As a writer and professional procrastinator, his usual paydays are few and far between. "Gotta say, though, I didn't take you for the magical warrior type! I mean, I dunno what the magical warrior type is... a peppy 14-year-old with pink hair in a tutu, I guess?" Novvy could probably pull off the tutu, but Ango can't imagine him being peppy. Not that Ango himself really fits the role either...

"But hey, a paycheck's a paycheck! Good to know that I'm not gonna be the only 30-something weirdo hanging around the place, though."

He pulls a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, then remembers Gratia and laughs apologetically. "Guess there's no smoking with kids around, right? Man, this is going to be a rough gig."

[kitri]

"Nope! Tiny lungs!" Gratia chirps.

Oh, that's genuine pain in Novvy's eyes.
"Tiny lungs, no smoking," he repeats. "Yes, the majority of our fellow Dreamers do skew toward being, ah... Teenybopper age. Thought I had a few more years before my life was that all day, but, what can you do? ..Sweetie, do you still have my pen? Thanks."

Novvy's started scribbling something or other on a pad of paper, because this is in fact the kind of guy who actually makes use of tiny cute mascot character notepads when he buys them.

"Well, if you already know what you're doing, I don't need to give you the address of the office... but you might want this one."

[darknesshotpot]

"Cute notepad." Ango wouldn't have guessed that such an uptight guy would have pink stationary with bunny rabbits on it, but that must be one of the mysterious effects of parenthood. Not that Ango would know anything about parenting - he can't even take care of a houseplant, much less a kid. He thought he was doing really well with a spider plant one time, only to realize (after 6 months of forgetting to water it) that it was actually a plastic replica. Nope, kids definitely aren't in his future. But being a bad influence on other people's kids? Hell yeah, that's where it's at. All the fun, none of the responsibility.

He skims the note, raising an eyebrow. To his surprise, it's not the address of Dreamer Union. "...Thanks, man." Ango beamed, previous animosity forgotten. "I'll have to call you 'Novvy-sempai,' huh?"

[kitri]

Now he's Novvy-sempai, huh? Damage, controlled.

"You better. Alright, so that address..."

Clicky-click goes the pen, before he puts it up.

"...there's a... place in this ward. They're operating tomorrow. Early. 5am early. It's not exactly gourmet, but they won't get you sick, unlike how eating nothing but overly rich sweets will. They usually run out by noon, so don't drag your feet."

His piece said, Novvy swiftly turns away. "Gratia! You said you wanted to see the very biggest tree, didn't you? If we're going to make it, we ought to get going."

"Oh! Okay!" She takes off for a few steps, then turns back and waves-- "Bye, Ango-sensei. Go fight lots of bad guys!"