test drive meme (#2)

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Test Drive Meme The Pan Pacific Defense Corps was usually offered any of a variety of local buildings to set up their testing centers. For reasons of access and availability, most testing clinics were set up in central areas for any given community. Those of the PPDC staff on hand vary in their personal intensity. Some of the men and women wearing Strike Group insignia seemed overly serious, to the point of frowning with intensity at some of the youngest checking in for this testing round. Those from the K-Science division are tight with nervous energy as they direct prospective cadets through various activities. Everything was meant to measure potential, looking for that spark that meant they had somebody who was Drift Compatible. The majority of people were turned away after the first series of seemingly random tests, officials looking in eyes, placing odd looking contraptions over heads, asking for people to play a series of short games, one even in a virtual reality set-up.
	( SCENARIO ONE ) If you are still here now, you've made it past the first cut. You'll be sat down in a room with the rest who have made it this far, then systematically led into smaller interview rooms as pairs. If you came with a partner, they're your first interview candidate. If you came on your own, all your interviews are random assignment. All who have been asked to stay are required to sit through and conduct a series of short peer to peer interviews. The questions are straightforward. What kind of pets would you like to own? What game do you gravitate toward first in an arcade? What does the fox say? Where do you squeeze your toothpaste tube to get toothpaste on your toothbrush? What do you believe the Drift is like? Peer to peer interviews last for half an hour to an hour, and each person is asked to participate in at least three peer-to-peer interviews. There is no punishment for going off script. There is a one-way mirror looking into each interview area, and one door leading into the room with a small panel of glass located on the door. There is a clock on the wall in each room. The time they report is odd when examined. These are not digital clocks, but timers, counting up time since the last Kaiju attack.
	( SCENARIO TWO ) You've been accepted into the Jaeger Academy. You've been assigned to your barracks, issued your uniform and necessities, shown the overall layout of the Shatterdome, and told the wake up call is at 0530. You're settling in to the Academy schedule, and for many, it may be brutal indeed. When you're brought into the indoor swimming pool, it's to an overwhelming stench of chlorine. Your swimsuits are all the same for the men, simple swim-trunks, one uniform blue. Women wear a blue and white racer style swimsuit, in the same cut across the board. Uniformity doesn't disappear for swimming lessons. Lessons start out basic, teaching each Cadet to rely on themselves and each other to keep them afloat. From there, maneuvers get more complicated. Learning safe diving techniques, practicing proper holds to keep an unconscious or panicked partner afloat. Speed, agility, and endurance: all will be in demand. Then you start hearing rumors about full uniform swims coming up the next session.
Please set up your own scenarios as you like. The above two scenarios are suggestions. Anything goes! If you want to stop by and see about doing some communal AU Worldbuilding, check out the new AU Worldbuilding Meme!

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[ychan]

Serena was doing her best to keep her nerves down, sitting in the interviewee chair with jittery legs and her hands balled up into fists on her knees. Her long, blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail and she was dressed in the cadet uniform.

When the door opened, Serena was already standing, smiling before Herc had even begun to speak. Not having to sit all by her lonesome definitely made it easier to keep herself calm. Even if she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. She gave a small nod in greeting and when she spoke, her voice was heavily accented by French.

"Serena Gabena, Sir." She put her hand in his, shaking it as firmly as she could manage, though age and size difference probably meant it didn't amount to too much. "Good morning, Sir."

[fieldcommissioned]

"Miss Gabena," he greeted, then motioned her over to to the chair she'd already been sitting in. "Nice to meet you. Not too nervous, are you?"

Herc gave her a smile as he seated himself opposite her. He wasn't here to intimidate and that meant remembering not to be too serious just yet. In fact he sat slightly slumped, casual and calm.

[ychan]

Serena gave Herc a small nod before taking her seat, flattening her skirt out once she was sitting down.

"No! Not at all," she said, shaking her head along with the words. It was only a bit of a lie. She was still nervous, certainly, but much less so than when she had been all alone.

Unlike him, Serena sat upright in her chair, back straight. It was more an inclination towards good posture than a result of over-seriousness, though. She gave him a smile, looking forward now to his first question for her.

[fieldcommissioned]

Herc nodded, "Good. Few things I want to tell you first. There are no right or wrong answers to any of these questions, and some of 'em are unusual. Just answer however it occurs to you to answer. You also have the right to ask me questions, and you don't have to stick to the list we're given. This is as close to no pressure as you're gonna get. So."

He sat up, arms coming to rest on the table between them.

"Anything you wanna ask before we get started?"

[ychan]

Serena stared straight ahead at Herc, never breaking eye contact except for when she nodded once or twice at what he was saying. She hadn't even really thought about wrong answers. She was sure there were answers that would be wrong, like if he had asked her why she wanted to be a Ranger and she told him that she liked the color blue. That would have been a wrong answer, she was sure, even despite his words.

And at the news that she can also be asking questions, her smile finally broke. For a second she just looked confused. What kind of questions should she have been asking him?

"Um," she blurted out, at first. "No! We can go ahead and start. Sir."

[fieldcommissioned]

Interesting reaction, he thought. Maybe this was what these questions were for. "All right, then, let's start with the first one. What kind of pets would you like to own?"

Herc thought of Max. And then he thought of how happy Chuck had been when he'd first gotten Max. Yeah, the dog was worth it.

[ychan]

"Well, I already have a lot of pets!" She was close to blurting out that two of them were there. With her. In the Shatterdome. But she managed to keep her mouth shut about that.

"A really big dog at home, and a fox, and birds and a frog and a really fat hedgehog. We worked really hard to make sure they all had enough to eat and kept them safe. My mom and I." She turned her head up in thought as she rattled on about them. "I guess I would want to have all kinds of pets, if I could choose any kind." She stared across at Herc again. "I love all animals!"

But then she wrinkled her nose a little, as she thought about the question again. "But I don't think we own any of them. Any of the pets we have, I mean. They're like family to me! It would be weird to say I own them or something like that."

But then she felt like she'd drifted away from the actual question. "But if I had to choose one that I don't have! Um. Maybe a monkey! I think it would be a lot of fun to play with a monkey." Serena nodded to herself, satisfied with that answer.

[fieldcommissioned]

He was surprised at the conclusions he was drawing just from this one answer. Environmentalist type, maybe here to save the world from the destruction of kaiju blue. Not a bad cause, but a little naive. "I'd be careful about wishing for monkeys. I've heard some horror stories. But let's go on."

Keep it rolling, he thought.

"Out of all the games in an arcade, which one do you head for first?"

[ychan]

"Yes, sir."

She didn't want to say that she would wish for a monkey all she wanted, no matter what kind of stories people told. With only the most positive of experiences with animals, she felt some confidence that she could keep it up.

At the next question she shook her head a little. "I've never been to an arcade. I don't know what sorts of games they have in them!" Even though she couldn't and hadn't really answer the question, she was still smiling. She remembered what he had told her earlier.

"Can you tell me what sorts of games they have in an arcade?"

[fieldcommissioned]

"Not modern," he admitted, "but back when I was your age, there were video games that mostly focused on racing, fighting, or shooting, physical games like skee ball, basketball, or pinball, sometimes dancing games, but that was after I was a little too old to go to arcades." But he still had some fond memories of arcades long, long ago.

[ychan]

"A fighting game sounds fun! I think I'm good at those. And a dancing game sounds fun, too. I've never played one before but I'd like to try. I think I would go to that one, first! A dancing game. And then the fighting game! I bet I could win, and winning would be fun. Especially if I'm bad at the dancing game."

[fieldcommissioned]

"Might want to take a look around town when you've got some time off, then. There might be an arcade or two around, then you can find out." And the cadets would have some time off now and then. "So, let's see. Next question--"

And it was the one that he had to fight to keep himself from rolling his eyes. That bloody song...

"I didn't write these. What does the fox say?"

[ychan]

Serena nodded at the suggestion. "I would love to do that." She would have loved to just explore everything around the Shatterdome, not just for the arcades or even anything in particular. She still had that feeling of being somewhere new, somewhere that she really wasn't used to.

The next question had Serena giving Herc a curious look. She didn't have the same disdain for the song as he did, but that didn't make the question not weird. "Like... like the song? Are you asking if I know the song? I do know it, if that's what you mean."

[fieldcommissioned]

Herc shook his head. "To be honest, I have no idea. It's just the next question down the page. First thing I thought of was the song, though, so might as well be it."

Seriously, what were the people thinking when they'd written these?

[ychan]

Serena laughed a bit. What a weird question. And a weird question that had made its way into the interview questions. After a moment, she straightened up some and cleared her throat.

And then she let out a couple of squeaks. She did her best to sound as much like her own fennec fox as she could, even if she knew she was probably being super weird.

It did put some color to her cheeks. "That's the sound a fox actually makes though."

[fieldcommissioned]

It took him a moment, but then he remembered that she had a fox and, with his brows raised, he gave a nod. "I guess having one for a pet, you'd know. I'll take your word for it."

[ychan]

Serena ended up being glad she hadn't made an impression of herself on him as a complete weirdo. It was a good thing he asked the pet question before that one. She just gave him a nod and a smile.

"Thank you, Sir." And then she was waiting for the next question. That she could ask her own, that this interview was perhaps supposed to be some kind of back-and-forth, hadn't really set in for her yet. It probably wasn't going to at all.

[fieldcommissioned]

"All right, next question - where do you squeeze your toothpaste tube to get the toothpaste onto your toothbrush?" Mentally he added, And what bearing does this have on anything? He was definitely going to have a talk with the higher-ups about what these questions accomplished.

[ychan]

These questions really took a strange turn, she thought to herself. She figured Herc must have already known that, too.

"Uhm," Serena raised a finger to her chin, and she turned her gaze down to where her toes met on the floor. It was a weird question, but kind of a hard one. "I think, from the bottom?" She looked up at him, letting her hand fall away from her chin. "I don't usually think about it. I just," she held up her other hand as if she were holding a toothbrush in it, and mimicked squeezing a toothpaste tube with the other. "Squeeze some out and brush my teeth."

Her hands settle back down to her lap, and she blinked curiously over at Herc, wondering if it was a good enough answer.

[fieldcommissioned]

"I think that's how most people do it," Herc said. Honestly, he'd never thought about it himself, either, though he did tend to push his up from the bottom while the lid was closed - just for his own convenience. "And now, for the last question - one that actually makes some sense - what do you think the Drift is like?"