academyooc | test drive meme

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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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( scenario one )

They're shown into a little box of a room and she takes a second before she moves to her seat. Just a second and a quick glance, not careless or nervous. There simply isn't a lot that she didn't already expect to see. A window (and it could only be a window), a clock and chairs. There are two of them and placed facing each other as if for interrogation, as if for enemies. She sits, waits, tipping her head to the other chair to signal her interview partner to sit as well. Not a gesture of command but not of invitation either, more the courtesy paid at the beginning of a duel. Incongruous with any impression made of her based only on her appearance. Seventeen in a schoolgirl skirt but there is something precise in the way she sits with her crossed ankles, shins in black socks, arms bent at the elbows so that she's all strong lines and angles.

Suddenly she relaxes back into her seat, a softening of her body meant to deceive, to create a false lull so that when she asks "What do you think the Drift is like?", her voice is a knife-slice of sound in the quiet room.

( scenario two: calisthenics, 1-4 mile run )

[ she's used to the summer of an urban city, sunlight reflecting off glass and steel, the noise and the claustrophobic crowd. the Chilean summer is different. The heat is a weight pressing down on her, relentless and without a single cloud or skyscraper to obscure the full glare of the sun. only their instructors seemed unaffected and even seemed inspired by it, sadistically assigning them daily runs although as former track star, this isn't that much of a change to Hitagi. but this is the academy and there's always the Drift to keep in mind so they're assigned to run in pairs.

you run together and if need be, you fall down together. one of you wants to stop, you both stop, rest but don't sit down and then move when you're both ready. no leaving your partner behind and no skiving off somewhere either and pretending you ran the miles.

her partners change daily. some are faster than her, some have more stamina. some are more sensible and know when they're about to hit their limit. hitagi never asks to stop even when her partner decides to extend the run past the initial mile.

she's pinning her hair up as she looks at the partner she's been assigned for today's run ]

I'm not going to ask to stop. Don't mistake this for a challenge though. I'm not concerned about your pride and neither should you worry about mine.

( ooc: eep first post ok the calisthenics instructions are totally made up sorry for taking liberties mods! also please tag in whatever style you prefer. er i know the game preference is for prose but i went in and put a starter in brackets so that there's something for either tagging preference. i can edit it if i misunderstood and it's actually prose-required. uwoooo sorry again! )

[Today, her partner also happens to be putting his hair up when she turns to speak with him. He finishes pulling the bulk of it through his hairtie before glancing over at her, expression neutral as he studies her. He'd done this run himself with so many different people, he'd probably been paired up at least twice with nearly everyone in his old academy before he'd been booted out and re-assigned to Valpraiso. He was good at setting a pace, good at navigating between pushing his partner to excel and staying with their limits. It would be an excellent quality to take into the Drift, they told him--if he could get his attitude in check.

There was always an 'if', when it came to him, it seemed.]

I'm not all that worried about anybody's pride.

[there was nothing in his tone indicating he didn't take her at her word, despite her being both younger and shorter than him. he rolled his shoulder--half a shrug, half a stretch as he leaned forward over his outstretched leg to finish warming up]

You ready?

[Scenario 1]

[Anyone with one eye half open can tell this kid is nervous, jittery, fiddling with his gloves and looking around at everything but not engaging anyone. At least he seems resigned to his own anxiety, and does a good job of containing it to himself. He isn't what you would call a bother.

When you're both ushered into the small interview room and he sits across from you, he smiles. There's an obvious note of uncertainty but none-the-less the smile is genuine. He's actually happy to be here, and to see you, though it's probably no secret he hasn't the faintest clue what he's doing. He picks up the sheet with the scripted interview questions but doesn't look at it yet, instead tripping into an eager, if somewhat shy, greeting.]

Hi! I'm Luke. It's nice to meet you.

"Orange," is her answer to what is her least favorite color, wrinkling her nose as if the color personally offended her. "It clashes with everything," she says, providing an extra explanation just in case. And it does. With her pale skin, tailored clothes and blue-dyed hair (gray enough to look vaguely natural, but blue enough to seem rebellious), she definitely does not seem like a great appreciator of the color orange. She sits up with proper posture, with her hands in her lap - one hand per lap, mind you - she's not some common boor.

"What's your least favorite color?" she asks in return, if her fellow candidate has nothing else to say about her answer. She asks it as if there is a right and wrong reply for that question, and that there will be repercussions for getting it wrong.

[ I am also open to bracket tagging! ]

Edited 2014-01-28 03:41 (UTC)

[Yuri didn't mind so much being confined to the basic newbie activities, but this was one he nearly broke his good conduct standing trying to duck out of. Icebreakers. Despite the assurances of the brass, no icebreaker had ever caused him to form a life-long friendship, or even a day-long friendship, and it certainly hadn't helped him Drift. What were they expecting with such cut and dry questions besides polite small talk?

He was too busy being annoyed when they dumped him in the room to take notice of who was with him, which was a good thing. The coordinator might have noticed the stiffening of Yuri's spine, how his entire posture snapped from insouciant disrespect to focus on the red head sitting in front of him.

As quick as the realization came, Yuri was already unkinking himself, draping a forearm over the back of the chair, resting his booted ankle over his thigh and looking as uncaring as he usually did. Anyone could mistake the flat hostility in his eyes as the annoyance of an older candidate being put on level with a kid.]

... Luke, huh. I'm Yuri.

[Annoying a senior candidate wasn't a bad guess, except, of course, it's not Luke's guess. He'd spent the last two years subject to hostile looks from total strangers pretty much any time he dared to set foot anywhere in Cali. The only thing surprising about Yuri's reaction is that the man tries to contain it and be civil.

There's an obvious pause while Luke looks guilty or uncertain. To just apologize now? But that never did him any real favors. No one wanted his apologies, he'd realized that by now. He guessed if this guy wanted to pretend he didn't hate his family's guts he would go along with that.

He takes a breath, changing what he was going to say, and tries to gather himself up from the defensive hunch he'd automatically fallen into when Yuri first glared at him.]

Nice to meet-- uh. Wait. I said that.

[A beat of pained silence, then he just continues on.]

Well, I mean, it's still nice. But... yeah.

[A sigh, there's no way he's going to come out of this looking cool or competent or like anyone who should be allowed within fifty feet of a giant robot.]

[Yuri's face goes through a transformation of expresses--angry, annoyed, more annoyed, aggravated, to simply aggrieved. He sighs.]

Just shut up.

[he wasn't in a diplomatic mood. The brief spike of pity the kid's fumbling elicited in him just made his anger snap back harder]

What the hell is a pampered rich kid like you doing here? Trying to cash out on some good PR? Bet it's already made one hell of a headline. "Spoiled Scion of a Mass Murderer Joins Fight Against the Kaiju".

[He has absolutely no poker face. He doesn't quite flinch at each word, mostly because he's pretty used to hearing some form of hate or another directed his way, but it's obvious the words find their mark.]

That's not it.

[But as for what 'it' is, he hesitates to elaborate.]

Anyway, so far all I've done is show up for drift testing... not exactly joining any fights yet.

[If Luke's answer doesn't annoy him, it obviously doesn't impress him much, either. He keeps his gaze locked on Luke's eyes, impassive, voice low and flat.]

And you won't, if I have to pull you out of the cockpit myself--and that's if you even get that far. You're going to have to actually break a sweat to make it here, something I doubt you've done before.

[Back on Shatterdome turf, at last. It felt good after a month's suspension, but he knew it wouldn't last long. They told him he'd have to start at the bottom again--any screw up during the first three months, and he was out on his ear, just like anybody else. That, as well as extra training and restricted free time, was one of the many benefits of getting "reassigned" (as the official papers said) to the Valparaiso Academy.

Yuri's CO hadn't been so diplomatic about telling him the news.

So he had to make sure to dot his 'sirs' and not cross his arms when standing at attention, iron his uniform, shine his boots, the works. Thankfully, he'd nailed down the science of where, when, and how to sneak off. Just because he was used to the rigmarole didn't mean it didn't get to him, sometimes.

So he had eaten a hasty lunch, not even bothering to sit before he'd ducked out of the cafeteria and headed for outside, finding a secluded rail to lean against as he took off his jacket and pulled out his hairtie. He did a quick double-check for anyone approaching who might dock him for 'being out of uniform' before he tilted his head back to look at the cloudless sky, his shoulders finally relaxing in the clean, stiff starch of his uniform shirt.]

Edited 2014-01-29 03:28 (UTC)

[He's actually broken lots of sweats, exercising, learning to fight, were pretty much the only disciplines he had any talent for. But he'd learned the hard way that he wouldn't do himself any favors by trying to assert his toughness.]

I'm sorry...

[That slipped out, and he winces, abruptly rushing forward to fill the gap before it turned into someone yelling at him about his apologies weren't going to bring back anyone.]

I know! Sorry, no one cares if I'm sorry. I just...

[His gaze slides away, tracking along the smooth face of the wall.]

I'm just want to do something.

[There it was again, like a knife in the ribs--a stab of sympathy, the more sensible part of himself reminding him that Luke was just a kid, not responsible for what his father had done.

Well, as the saying went. Ignorance was no excuse]

You're right. I don't care.

[he did care, however, about whatever shrink or CO or whatever was standing on the other side of the glass, watching the show. He hadn't looked at the clock when he came in, but he knew that they had at least another twenty minutes to burn]

Ask your questions and let's get this over with.

[Luke sighs, unable to stop himself, at once grateful for the change in subject but disheartened that it had come up at all. His shy eagerness was depleted and he looks at the question sheet he'd been given.

What was his least favorite color? Red, probably, is what he'd say... This was stupid. Before he'd been game, but the idea of going through all these stupid questions with a guy whose life his father had ruined made him feel a little sick.

Anyway... he'd probably already messed up. Might as well ask whatever he wanted.]

...Why are you here?

Scenario One:

Andrea picked up the clipboard, tucking it under her arm as she turned the handle into one of the small partitioned interview rooms. Fascinating how much has changed, she thought, remembering back to tests involving the X-Box as a highlight of mastery in coordination skills. The Pan Pacific Defense Corps hadn't been too far off the mark in considering hand eye coordination to be key, but it wasn't an early indication of Drift Compatibility. Not in Andrea's experience.

She was dressed casual in jeans and a button down shirt, no jewelry or make-up in evidence. A headband kept her hair swept back off her face. She held out her hand to the other occupant of the room, a smile sliding into place.

"Nice to meet you," she said. "You can call me Andy. You are...?"

"Is that so...?" Blinking slowly behind the thick lenses of his glasses, Tenpou looks down at his orange shirt. To be fair, it could use a good ironing, and there's a prominent, coffee-colored blotch down the front that's not quite hidden by his lab coat, but he doesn't think it's that bad. "But orange hides curry stains well, so I can wear the same shirt for at least three or four days straight. Dry cleaning is expensive." He chews thoughtfully on the cap of a ballpoint pen, wishing it was a cigarette. "I don't dislike any particular color, though."

Hm. Next question, then. "Which tool in a standard toolbox is most useful to you...?" he reads off the printed cue sheet with the pen still dangling from his mouth. "Well, that depends, doesn't it? Would you consider a PCR thermal cycler to be part of a standard toolbox? If not, it should be."

Tenpou glances towards the glass wall with a pained expression. He's not actually sure why he agreed to participate in these trainee interviews - he suspects that the psych analysts are having a laugh at his expense. That, or they want to calibrate their instruments to new low levels of Drift suitability. As a longtime member of the PPDC K-science research division, Tenpou has already been through a battery of psychological tests, all of which he's failed miserably. The PPDC likes their mad scientists to be suitably mad.

(scenario I)

Waiting for his new survey partner to make himself (or herself) comfortable across from him, Eren leans on the table, watching the clock on the wall—the one counting up from the last Kaiju attack—with serious green eyes and an oddly intense amount of focus. As if he's waiting for it to reset any minute.

This many hours since we were last invaded. This many days since the human race had to fight to survive.

The clock ticks up (57 seconds...58...59...another whole minute that the hammer hasn't fallen;) and he blinks back down away from from it to study the person across from him. This could be the person he drifts with one day.

"You wanna start or should I?" he asks, and looks dubiously down at the seemingly random grouping of questions. It doesn't make much sense to him, how they could tell anything from this stuff. Still, this is important. He's not going to goof around.

(scenario II)

It's hot as hell in Chile. Muggier than he'd come to expect from summers in California. Despite the oppressive heat, Eren is practically bouncing on the balls of his feet as the new recruits wait for the bus to arrive. It does, finally, allowing them to file into the stuffy interior wihthout fanfare. He manages to swing himself into an empty seat with enthusiasm just as the bus lurches itself into motion, bumping shoulders with the poor unfortunate soul already occupying the window seat in the process.

"Shit, sorry," except he doesn't really look sorry. Far too busy craning his neck to look out the window, as if expecting to catch sight of the Shatterdome already.

"Almost there," he breathes, mostly to himself. He's waited years for this. Ever since Trespasser had torn his old life up from the roots and devoured it. Ever since the jaeger program had been established and given him a way to fight back, to achieve his dreams. The best weapon against the kaiju. Jaegers. Like a sign that he's meant for this. He has to be.

(bonus scenario III)

It turns out Eren Jaeger is nothing much like the finely tuned machines that happen to share his name. In fact he seems—at first glance—entirely inept, if earnest. Dedicated, passionate. Enthusiastic—to the point of idiocy, maybe—but almost as likely to hurt himself as he is to take out a practice dummy. To be more accurate, he's prone to achieving both at the same time with alarming consistency.

He is, frankly, embarrassing. But to his credit he is getting better. And fast.

Unfortunately, today is not a day in which he manages to circumvent his nature. He's bloodied his nose doing something ill-advised and possibly suicidal during kwoon combat training. It's not bad enough to warrant a trip to the infirmary, but he's been ordered to stand by on the sidelines until he's done bleeding all the over the place. So he's sitting outside the room, glaring daggers at the ceiling and holding a red-spotted towel up to his bruising face. As he hears someone approach, he lowers it and looks back down. Furrowing his brow, he sets his jaw and his shoulders, as if he's got something to prove.

"I said I was fine," he insists, apparently under the impression that the person in question has been sent to check on him. Whether or not that's true— "I don't need babysitting."

(Also open to brackets if you prefer it! I'm flexible.)

Edited (tenses why) 2014-01-28 06:56 (UTC)

"Mike Traceur," he answered, standing to take the offered handshake. "Nice to meet you."

This part definitely wasn't like military school had been. If anything, it was painfully casual compared and left him feeling a little suspicious. He was waiting to hear the shout of a sergeant telling him his shoes were out of regulation, or his gig line wasn't straight. (He couldn't help it. That style of belt just pissed him off.) And in jeans, a henley, and an open button-down, it was kind of hard to have a gig line.

His shoes, however, were combat boots. They were comfortable!

"Somebody's eager," Mike chuckled from the window seat, half-wry but halfway honestly amused. Sometimes, he felt old and this was one of those times, watching the eagerness of other people to get into all this.

But then, his past had already given him some preparation. Before the Academy. Before the training.

"Take a breath or two -- if you can, this damn air's as thick as gravy."

Scenario II

The temperature, he could get behind. He'd even like it a little hotter, he thought as he glanced around. He almost thought it was sheer luck he'd gotten this far. He'd figured he'd end up washing out on the Drift Compatibility part of the program, but then, maybe it was because he was finally doing something he wanted to do instead of something he was being made to do. Seemed like that made a difference.

He bent down to flick a bug off his boot. He didn't want it up his pants leg and he didn't want it ending up on the bus, either. And none too soon. The bus appeared around the bend just as he was standing and he actually smiled to see it. "Well," Mike murmured to himself. "Here we go."

It makes sense, really, to start off applicants with potential matches they have a previous history with. Perhaps it will be easier to bounce the questions off a friend as opposed to a stranger, depending on how intimate they range. While Eren's eyes drift upwards, Armin's remain fixed firmly on his clipboard even as he settles straight-backed in his seat, sifting through every printed query before raising his gaze.

Only to find the other stubbornly glued to the clock. He's had a fascination—nigh obsession—since that fateful day, one that permeates his entire being and radiates out like an aura blinding as the sun. With the attacks, with the program, and ever since he'd made it beyond the first stage, it's been more intense than ever.

But they won't progress if they don't focus on the task proper.

Armin opens his mouth to snare Eren's attention, but it isn't necessary. As if the tiny movement had yanked him back to reality, he's mulling over the questions for himself now.

"I can start," asking the questions, that is. Should they just start at the top? Seems the proper way to do it. "What is your least favorite color?"

Surprisingly, it's not something he can say they've ever brought up so directly.

"Yeah, no fucking kidding," he agrees, swiping a wrist over his brow. Never appreciated the weather back home—what had been home—so much until now. They haven't been out here very long, but already his shaggy bangs are sticking to his forehead with sweat. Still, he grins as he says it. It's his past that's led him to this point. Spurred him on in with a singleminded (obsessive) and breakneck trajectory. They've got a chance to strike back at the kaiju with their own hands, to give as good as they'd gotten in the past seven years, to make them pay for it in their own blood. Damn straight he's eager.

He does, however, seem to stop take a deep breath. Only to open his mouth again.

"We're on our way to becoming Rangers," he says, immediate and energetic. He tears his gaze away from the scenery flashing past the window to look the guy beside him square in the eye. "There's no way I'm letting anything stop me now."

Definitely not a thing as inconsequential as the weather.

The only thought that came to mind was that damn, the guy was bouncy. Bouncy and happy and... Mike almost wished for a few seconds that he could envy that kind of energy, but it just wasn't happening. He was too content to be somewhere warm, even if there was going to be more work at the end of the drive.

He could live with that, as long as he wasn't freezing his balls off.

"Yeah, and we're all looking at the possibility of getting to punch a kaiju in the face, which is what we're all looking forward to, but let me give you a hint: if you look too happy to get into a fight, no matter the kind of fight, people don't tend to take that well."

He'd learned somewhere that the foundation of a good drift is trust. It's not uncommon for the drift compatible to be friends, siblings, lovers. They'd be hard pressed to find someone who Eren trusts more than his best friend, so that they've been started off together isn't at all a surprise.

Hell, it's probably for the best that Armin is first, because as seriously as Eren's trying to take this, he wrinkles his nose down at the questions in muted frustration as he reads them, shoulders drawn up and tense with concentration as he leans against the table. Armin already knows half this stuff about him, anyway. The rest just seems arbitrary. Unimportant.

But before he can voice the thought Armin reins him in again, starts at the top of the list. Least favorite color. He makes a hedging noise as he casts about for an answer.

"Purple? I dunno. It's just a color, isn't it?" There's an impatient air to it. He feels sort of silly. "What's all this got to do with piloting, anyway?"

Well intentioned or not, his good mood doesn't seem to survive that little tip. He frowns. Sets his jaw, and his posture edges toward defensive, or combative, or both, because the two often end up becoming one and the same before long. Eren's not a thug, he's not even that bad a guy once you get to know him, but he's gone through much of his life with a chip on his shoulder. Spent years getting into fights with people bigger than him even before he had cause to carry a monster-sized grudge. (And whether or not he'd won those fights is beside the point.) He's a firm believer that you need to stand up for what you believe in. And there's nothing wrong with doing it.

"We're all fighting for a reason," he maintains, stubborn. This is a big day for him. Despite what he's been through he's an idealist at heart, and he doesn't do things in halves. But it's actually not too often that his energy gets to be expounded in such a positive way—if not one that might be universally accepted as such. They're on their way to the Academy, taking a big step toward his dreams, toward fighting for humanity—is he supposed to be unhappy about that? "For humanity. No one's being forced to come along."

[ she answers his question with a nod and slants an assessing look at him ]

If that's so, then can you be counted on to be honest if you're getting tired? How virtuous of you. [ what would sound like a friendly jab from anyone else seems pointedly matter of fact coming from Hitagi]

One more warning then. Live up to that admirable claim of honesty [ never mind that he claimed no such thing ] and speak up if you need to adjust the pace. There's no point in trying to give off a stoic impression especially since it'll be ruined by all the sweat.

[ she takes her position at their starting point as she finishes up with her hair, her hands moving with practiced efficiency in checking for any loose strands. she checks over her shoes, her clothes and the routine is so nostalgic that she almost drops into a starting block position ] Just dismiss it as a product of an overly cautious nature if you feel it doesn't apply. I'm only saying it now to give myself an opening to say "I told you so" later.

[ hitagi senjougahara, leading authority on how to lose friends and alienate people ]

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test drive meme

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