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!

→ Directory ←

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Neither have I, unfortunately."

It's obvious that Leila's thinking through the questions too hard, lips pursed and forehead creased, that she nearly all but ignore her partner. Her father has never been home for too long to teach her whatever art he knows in construction or building; her grandfather, on the other hand, prefers to buy pieces rather than make them. And the Royal Navy certainly did not include "items in a standard toolbox" as part of her studies during her brief time with them.

She pauses, giving the question some more thought, before she looks up at him from the sheet of paper. "Then I'll go with the hammer. It seems that you can do various kinds of repair as long as you have a hammer and a handful of nails."

Sound logic ... or at least, she thinks it is. Leila smiles slightly before she glances back down at the list of questions. She's usually not one to say anything (most especially during evaluations like this) but — "Not at all of them makes sense, do they? The questions, I mean."

Edited 2014-02-05 15:17 (UTC)

Selecting the hammer brings a saying to mind, one that the old men are all fond of in his country. The nail that sticks up will be hammered down. But the girl's bright smile and curiosity make it less intimidating of a statement, most likely not loaded with any political commentary at all. How could she know the sayings from his home anyway? Just looking at her he can see that she's from somewhere very different. So Kou nods. Sure, a hammer could be useful. And she's right about the questions. They're pretty odd.

"Maybe it isn't the answers that they're looking for. They might want to see how we approach the situations?"

"How to approach the situation?" Leila briefly glances at the mirror, frowning mildly. She's not really confused as to what that means; she can tell that that seems to be the case, considering the questions don't really have a correct and exact answer. But what she can't tell is what kind of answers they are looking for. Should she answer them as straightforward as she can or should she be thinking of an answer outside the box?

And some of the questions are simply ... She once more looks up at her partner expectantly. "All right. Do you have children then?"

She skips number 3 for now, if only because the fourth one would definitely (or at least, she believes it would) show how one approaches the question or situation. After all it can't just be a yes or no answer, can it?

That gets a laugh out of him. It feels good to laugh, it helps shake off some of the nerves that come of being observed by unseen individuals in tense circumstances. Kou shakes his head. No kids, thankfully.

"Just a baby sister."

Leila blinks once, twice, the laughter taking her aback for a moment. She doesn't understand at first what the laughter was for, if she had said or asked anything funny without her knowing her (and her mouth does have this tendency to do this once in a while). Confused, she opens her mouth to ask him what's funny when she notices him shake his head ... and only after hearing his response did she smile back. She covers her mouth with the back of her fingers to stifle her own laughter, shaking her head as well.

"I'm not sure if that counts as children." The question does sound amusing now, especially when it came from her and directed at him. "By age, perhaps."

"We'll just say I have great babysitting skills." He decides, shooting her another amused grin.

"A notable skill to have, surely." Not that Leila would know. She's never really taken care of kids before. "I don't have children as well. Not even younger siblings."

She imagines it's a different experience, having young children at home than having none. Lots of running and yelling, full of endless games and high energy. She imagines it to be exhausting but she thinks the house wouldn't have felt so imposing if she had company other than her grandfather.

"How old is she?"

"Going on two."

There's a hint of pride on Kou's face when he talks about his sister, though there's also a slight twitch just at the corner of his lips that hints at unspoken reservation as well. The smile reaches his eyes, though, and he casts a dreamy look off to the side. "Her name is Sachiko. She's really cute."

It's probably time to get back on track, though, so he straightens up in his seat a bit -though his posture is still relaxed and his expression still polite and friendly- and moves on. "What time of the day do you accomplish most tasks?"

"So you're a doting brother, then." Anyone, even someone with no experience with siblings, can see that. Leila stifles another laughter, glancing briefly at the glass window. Right then. Moving on ...

It takes her several minutes to come up with an answer to the next inquiry. It isn't because the question is overly complication; it's not. It's simply asking for the time of the day after all. But given her usual timetable at home (and her innate ability to think through things too hard), she has various tasks depending on the time of the day and the weight of one task isn't often the same as another. She'll go with the safest answer however.

"Late at night. It's much easier for me to concentrate when everyone's already asleep."

Kou hums thoughtfully at that, a sort of 'I'm listening, I heard you' response even as his gaze is far away, still locked on the window across the room. He huffs a bit, blowing the hair out of his face. It falls right back in front of his eyes again anyway.

"Do you? Mm, I like sleep too much to stay up like that. I try to split tasks between after school and early morning. Never during lunch."

test drive meme

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject