academyooc | test drive meme

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 is your least favorite color? Which tool in a standard toolbox is most useful to you? What time of day do you accomplish the most? Do you have children? 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 ) Congratulations! You have been judged Drift Compatible, and sent home to pack after giving a definite yes to the Pan Pacific Defense Corps. The next thing you face down is the flight into Santiago, Chile, and the subsequent drive in to Valparaíso's Shatterdome. You and the rest of the crowd of soon to be PPDC Ranger Cadets have been gathered together to wait for the old bus scheduled to take you to the Shatterdome. While waiting in the open air, those from any Northern Hemisphere countries may find the summer weather strange. Today's high is going to be in the upper 80's, and there's not a cloud to be seen that's not clinging to the distant mountains. Welcome to Chile. When the bus arrives, it's another hour ride out toward the coastline to get to the Shatterdome. Even better? The bus Air Conditioner is broken. Safe travels, Cadets!

Please set up your own scenarios as you like. The above two scenarios are suggestions. Anything goes!

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1: INTERVIEW

Whoever's been chosen from the throng to speak with Armin will find their peer sitting straight-backed across from them, interview questions set neatly in his lap, exuding the general aura of someone about to go up on stage. Not a smooth, patient confidence, either—more of the nervous, preemptively embarrassed variety.

Honestly, he'd prefer a stage. Public speaking and even talking to strangers, he can handle. One might even argue he has a natural talent for it, but this sort of casual and personal banter fodder written out before him to use on the person opposite doesn't exactly fall in the category of his forte.

Surprisingly, the unease hardly reaches his face, and he'll mask the little that does with an exchange of pleasantries.

"Hello, my name is Armin," and should the other be so gracious as to return the greeting, "... Would you prefer we each go down the list of questions in its entirety, or should we alternate?"

2: CALISTHENICS

He'd never been under the illusion training would be easy, but while the bustling busywork from dawn to dusk is a routine he can adjust to with grace, one hour in particular is quite predictably making itself out to be the very bane of his existence.

The running.

It's not as if he's inactive, but he's always been partial to books over physical exertion (alright, he's a massive nerd, who in their right minds even let him get this far?). Not that that is any sort of excuse. Here there are standards. Strict standards, ones he clearly doesn't meet—perhaps ones he sets more for himself and far too high to boot—but by god, they are ones he will uphold or die trying.

Which, frankly, he sounds like he's just about to. The oppressive trifecta of sun, heat, and humidity is driving a slump into Armin's shoulders like a wedge into firewood, the splitting sensation in his ribs forcing his breaths out in short, rasping bursts. In spite of this, he presses on, but there's only so far mad determination not to disappoint will get one. And he's not even sure it's the required distance.

To anyone unfortunate enough to be running with him, they'll find him slowing helplessly to a trot, but in spite of ragged gasps and screwed-shut eyes, the spindly young man trudges on. More than half-expecting to be left behind whenever he glances up.

In stark contrast, the kid who slows to a trot beside Armin seems to be in his element. His breathing is deep and even, and he's got the sort of focused expression of someone who gets satisfaction out of athletic pursuits. He's sweating a little, but just a thin sheen, nothing to indicate hard labour so much as a hot and humid surrounding climate. He's up by two laps anyway, since he's been intermittently sprinting just to keep things lively. It won't hurt him to check on a fellow student who looks just about ready to hurl on his running shoes. Might as well distract the guy before he hurts himself.

"Watch out for that snake."

Exhaustion aside, the sound of another pair of footfalls keeping pace beside him as opposed to shooting on past is enough to coax up his gaze, eyes opening and catching sight of the veritable athlete striding along without a care in the world.

Armin lets off a slightly more emphatic huff at the sight. Maybe there's a little pang of envy in the glance, but it's far from venomous. Unlike the words the other offers, albeit in a much more potentially literal sense. Well, that's one excuse to take a break.

"Where?"

It isn't a yell, but with as hard as he's breathing, the noise comes out as harsh as it is suddenly rife with alarm. Digging in his heels and coming to a halt like a horse balking at a jump, his eyes snap down to the track, wide and searching for any sort of winding line stretched across his path.

It's not far ahead, thick and long and stretched all the way across the path and way out of sight along the other side. Some sort of enormous jungle snake, indifferent to the flock of teenagers that seem to be running around on top of it as it suns itself.

Kou merely hops over it at first, but then frowns and hops back when he realizes he's alone on the other side. It hadn't been a dire warning in his opinion, he just hadn't wanted the younger boy to trip, with his eyes closed that way. He chuckles lightly, apparently not to concerned by the situation, and jogs back over to where Armin stands.

"We don't have them like that at home either. Pretty impressive, huh?"

"Guy Cecil. Nice to meet you."

The young man sitting in front of Armin seems, for all appearances, laid back and relaxed. He looks like he's had quite a bit of training already, in something - physical labor perhaps, if his worker's jumpsuit and rough hands are any indication. He's calm and unafraid of his environment, and his voice is friendly - even reassuring. It's as if he doesn't feel any pressure at all.

In a way, he doesn't. It's not like he has anything to lose, anyway.

When Armin asks about the questions in such a stiff, official manner, he can't help but smile a little. Was that nerves, or was that just how he was? "Either one is fine," he says. "Back and forth might be a little more like a conversation, right?"

test drive meme

Armin Arlert | Attack on Titan | Multiple Choice

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Scenario 1!