spherememing | May/June Test Drive Meme

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May/June Test Drive Meme

All you need is love.

So the Sphere heard that some of you guys are lonely. It doesn’t want you to be lonely so it has decided that even though it’s not really February the people within its confines and connected to them deserve to have a sort of Valentine’s Day anyway. Celebrating love (all sorts of love, definitely not merely the romantic sort) is on display. Think pink and red and white and loads of hearts and rainbows.

all you need is some kind of love.

In the middle of the merchant dome, some of the stalls pushed aside a large pink and white stripped tent is set up. Inside is a series of small tables, each set up with numbers and two seats each. When people go in and register to receive the number, they are given three initial options. Option one is romantic dating with further subcategories based on gender preferences (if any) and orientation. The second option is for friendship. The Sphere wants you to make friends! A third option only open to the adults within the Sphere is for hooking up and no strings attached sex. That is also sectioned by orientation and preferences.

Each option you pick allows people to talk for five minutes before people move onto the next person. At each station is the option for ice breaker cards. Think would you rather or describe your perfect date (date date or a friendship date. Whichever you’re working on.) Should players wish it, there are various unnamed NPCs around for people to chat up, hook up with or whatever. Go a little bit nuts with it.

it's all for a good cause

John put a post up that calls for the option to sign up for (or to be signed up by someone else) for a date that’s auctioned off. She somehow managed to convince Max to host said auction (but don’t ask how. You don’t want to know what she had on him) so he is your MC for the night.

The gala takes place in the same tent as the speed dating, but it’s been made over to look rather gala like. There’s fairy lights and silk on the tables and an open bar with circulating free champagne. And everything else of course. As always with the sphere there’s food in abundance, things that typically one might think of in a romantic context: strawberries and oysters and chocolate and finger foods. It’s that sort of party. None of it has any effect though. Too many people imbibing for that.

There’s a small band playing for people who are interested in dancing, and various NPCs are currently using it. It’s a good party, lively and inviting.

i get by with a little help from my friends.

So, you know how the people within the Sphere tend to force festivals on you? Well, a big part of those is always food and gifts. These particular foods and gifts tend to come in the form of small valentine’s cakes or candy, or flowers for those not inclined for food. The flowers are yellow however, because this isn’t about love. This is about friendship. There’s signs for free hugs, and random people have been hired to go about telling folks that so and so is their friend. Even if they’re not. But they’ll still follow you down the street and spout things like poetry and cheers in the honor of epic friendships. Even if they’re not really all that epic--the friendships or the poetry.

let's go to the movies, let's go see the stars

Some people may remember a few months ago when Alex badgered Max into letting them have an open area movie screening. This time she didn’t need to do it! In the middle of the rec dome, a large screen has been set up, and there’s space for people to have blankets or chairs from home set up in front of the screen. Various vendors have set up carts or stalls here and there, selling the sort of foods that one would expect at the movies (popcorn, homemade candies, soda, juice, wine and beer, nachos and that sort of thing) along with some that one may not expect: (full curry dinners, burgers, basically a bit like a food truck festival. If you can imagine it it’s there.)

Before the movie, there’s cartoons running, some familiar, and some not, and this is an event that people have seemed to have taken to well. Children run around here taken with the idea for the movie, and it’s a fun, summery festive sort of atmosphere with a community vibe, despite the wine and beer for sale.

we're heckling! it's good to be heckling again!

The movie is a buddy movie double feature, and both of them are rated R, but there’s no one checking IDs so go nuts. The movies that are being shown are Hot Fuzz and The Heat because that’s just what buddy comedies happen to be. But movies aren’t to everyone’s taste and there are some people who have taken this to go full on commentary about them. Do you join in or shush them? It’s entirely up to you!

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All You Need Is Love

None of the decorations made sense to him. Ned stood there, confusedly looking at the hearts and arrows and candy lips and rainbows for longer than most would. He was quite overwhelmed at the array of colours, too. It was all a little much. But that wasn't all and adjusting to being a dead man, in a different world from his own, at the bottom of the ocean, in the future.

The elder Stark stares at things as he walks along, trying to make sense of it and ultimately failing.

"What did you call this again?"

[ Wildcard ]

[ For those one on one Stark Fambly (this means you, too Theon) Feels ]

Edited 2020-06-08 01:28 (UTC)

She saw him from afar, but there was no denying those broad shoulders. She'd grown, and he'd stayed just as she remembered him.

And she does remember, right there, in a quick flash she can see him in front of her, prepared to swear fealty, to join the Black in order to keep his life. She remembers how hot it was on the Steps of Baelor, and how proud she'd felt of herself, standing there alongside the boy she would profess she loved more than anything. That sentiment would only last a few more moments.

It had been a lifetime ago. And it had been yesterday.

"Father!" She yells, and before he can even turn she's running toward him, picking up her skirts to try to close the distance faster. She was always good at running, her long legs coming in handy. When she meets him, she throws her arms around him, a little girl welcoming her daddy home, tears a foregone conclusion.

How many times had he heard that word upon returning home to Winterfell after visiting other Houses and dealing with threats to their Northern Kingdom? It's a question that makes him realize that he took it for granted far too many times. Hearing it again now has him turning and searching for the little girl who wanted to be a Lady far sooner than she should have been, only to see her as one.

Ned holds her gently but tightly, his mind whirling from past to present and everything in between. Was it all a dream? How was any of it possible? At the moment, it didn't matter. And after a long moment, he pulls back, tears in his own eyes and a look of disbelief.

"Look at you," Ned chokes. "You are exactly your mother's daughter."

She's heard such things before from nearly everyone that knew her mother, including her mother herself. Her mother that- it didn't matter, the bad things that had happened. Because the Starks were together again, or at least a good half of them, far be it from her to wish anyone to arrive in this place.

Her daddy was here, and she looks at him, beaming just as much as she is crying. "I'm so sorry, father," she chokes out. "I tried so hard-" Joffrey was supposed to honor his word. "I should have listened to you." She'd been so angry about Lady, a petulant child who wanted to play at Lady and Princess and Queen. She'd wanted a crown and pretty dresses and all the things that ruling was on the outside. And she'd wanted a handsome husband- funny that those she thought the more pleasing to the eye had treated her far worse than Tyrion ever had.

But she'd been just that: a child. A girl who had been raised in isolation in the cold North and though winter born, she was born of love. She'd grown up with stories and songs, with the expectation that she was to be Lady of Winterfell some day. She had come to find out all her wildest dreams were coming true. How could she abandon that?

In the months leading up to his death, Ned had often chastised himself for handling certain situations. One of which was taking his girls to King's Landing when they had no business being there. They were far too young, even if he felt it was wise to have that exposure as soon as they could. He also wishes he had taken them home when he had the chance.

At her words, Ned shakes his head, lifting a hand to cradle and bring her close to him once more; a gesture of protection that comes too little too late.

"How would you have known, Sansa? None of this is your fault, do you understand me?" he tries to tell her. "You didn't know."

And none of it seems to matter because none of them could go back and change it all.

He smells warm, pine trees and worn leather. She closes her eyes and breathes him in deeply, remembering every moment with him she could and vowing to enjoy every one she could here, too. She didn't know how long he, like any of the others, would be staying. She couldn't risk that he'd be gone in a day.

"But I should have listened! You, Robb, Mother, Arya- none of you could stand him, but- I was so foolish. I thought I was in love- that he loved me!" Joffrey was not the worst man she'd met in her life. But she would never deny his cruelty, his spite and desperate attempts to rule all those around him with fear.

"He was an awful, awful, awful boy and an even worse king. I tried so hard and-" she breaks off to bury a sob in his neck. He's right, it's in the past and there's nothing they can do. She didn't know, none of them truly knew what Joffrey would be capable of. But considering who his mother was, they shouldn't have been surprised.

She sniffles. "I'm so happy to see you. The others will be, too- Robb, Jon, Theon, the four of us are all here." Alive at last.

Jon knows the domes pretty well by now, and the other residents are, in general, used to the near-constant presence of the wolf with him. So when Jon and Ghost first arrive in the market dome, there's nothing to call attention to them being there. Nothing that would make anyone notice them if they weren't looking.

Ghost notices Ned first, a whiff of an almost-forgotten scent that he hasn't smelled in years but still associates with home. From there all he has to do is get Jon's attention, and then Ned will see them in front of him: a familiar white direwolf, and Jon, older than the last time Ned saw him, and with more visible scars.

Jon says nothing yet, just questions with his eyes? Is this man who he thinks -- hopes -- he is?

Ned was lost in his mind when he finally turns to continue on his way, only to have his path blocked by a very familiar white wolf with red eyes and a man who looks so eerily like his sister and yet, like him, too.

"Jon?" Only it was not a question, Ned knew it was him. He spoke the name to make sure he wasn't being tortured in the afterlife like he had been Lyanna while he was still alive.

Ned steps closer, emotion in his face. "Say something. Tell me it's you."

Ghost is showing no signs of distress. Ned's eyes aren't glowing blue. And, most importantly, he's capable of speech. Independent speech. This is Ned standing in front of him, like just Robb had been not so long ago.

He takes a step forward himself and nods at his father's words. "It is. It's you, too."

It seems like so long ago that they last spoke and it occurs to Ned that there is so much to talk about now. The way he left Jon, promising to talk about his mother the next time they saw one another was wrong.

Ned said nothing, rather grabs his son by the shoulder with a strong arm and nods proudly.

"You've grown into quite the man," Ned chokes back a sob. "How old are you now?"

There is so much to talk about, and even Jon already knowing the truth of his birth doesn't reduce it by much. Ned doesn't have to tell him that, but Jon has so many more questions now that he can finally, hopefully, get answers to.

"Twenty-three." So much has happened in the years since they last saw each other, and he wouldn't know where to start if the answer weren't obvious.

It's been several days since Theon had gone home to Sansa, still struggling between the pull of his two selves. Crazy is a word that's lingering in his mind and so when he sees Ned, he's convinced the Sphere is playing tricks. That it's a ghost of his guilty mind, and maybe of the part of him that misses the family he'd had. Theon had a mind to ignore it, to push it out of his mind as his heart twisted in his chest and his stomach felt like lead. He turned to walk the other direction before he instead moves to close the distance.

But once standing in front of Ned out on the street he doesn't know what to say. Should he confess all his sins, how he'd failed him? The struggle is visible in the way his face twists, hands mangled by Ramsay curling up into tight balls.

What right does he have to even speak to Ned after all that's happened?

When he sees the face of the young man who was once his ward, Ned can't help but greet him with a smile -- a proud one. But it quickly slips away to concern when he sees the way Theon is reacting to seeing him. It's troubling. It's more than uncertainty.

Ned knows guilt when he sees it.

"Theon," Ned greets, tilting his face downwards as he approaches to try and get a better look at him. "That is you, is it not?"

He's not sure now whether his eyes are deceiving him now. Last he saw of him, Theon was a confident, albeit arrogant young man - but good.

This wasn't him.

Theon has half a mind to take a few steps back but he doesn't. He nods, despite the fracture in his mind trying to tell him Theon is dead. He opens his mouth to say something -- anything but his throat is tight.

"I'm so sorry," he finally gets out. It's likely Ned couldn't know what had happened but it is the only thing that he felt he could say to this man.

"The festival?" Inesa turned, her lips tugging into a warm open smile. She didn't really understand much of the celebration herself but she loved any reason to celebrate. "It's supposed to be a celebration of love. All sorts of love I believe. I don't really know what is common but my favorite thing to do is collect flowers and make crowns."

She turned towards him and showed him the three flower crowns that were looped around her forearm. One was white and yellow, another one was red and pink, and the last crown was primarily purple. They were all lovely flowers and collected and decorated carefully. "Would you like one? I hope to hand them all out while I am here."

She didn't know if it'd help ease his mind to be made part of the festival or not but she'd do what she can to help.

It's almost like a thrust of the dagger in his chest when he sees the familiar figure of his father. At a distance, he is almost like a dream. That goal that he had been driving towards when he called the banners, a distant glimpse of home that had almost seemed impossible. When he died, the world collapsed under him. Not long after, every mistake Robb made lead him towards his own end.

Now it was only a matter of coping. He hadn't expected to see his father again, but he was always at the back of his mind. How Ned might view his coping and his slide of honor. Seeing him now, it was almost like a mirror was being held up to him, reminding him of everything he had done wrong and the choices he made.

Still, his feet was racing towards Ned, his breath caught in his throat. "Father?!"

It still felt like a dream and Ned was caught in a whirlwind of anguish after speaking with Sansa and Jon. Learning what he did from them, about how their lives had been for them after that day at the Sept of Baelor, was hard enough to hear. Now, it was a matter of grasping it all, which was proving difficult on so many levels.

What he did know was that if anyone with the Lannister name showed up...

Sansa had told him that the eldest of the Stark children had arrived before he did. Ned was eager to see him but took a little while to collect himself. As it was, Robb would find him first anyway.

At the familiar voice calling out for him, Ned turns quickly, grey eyes searching the faces around him until it finally finds his son.

Emotion, once again, overcomes him.

He stopped short of racing into his father's arms, unable to fully let himself believe. If he reached out for him and nothing but air passed through his fingers, it might truly break him. But he looked the same as when they last saw each other in the courtyard. There had been so much trust in his gaze, so much hope and belief in his heir. How far Robb had fallen from that. It almost felt like he was shrinking under his father's gaze (though no fault of Ned's), as if he were a naughty boy and had been caught.

"Are you really here?" He had speculated what might happen if his father appeared, but never believed it could happen. His father was too much of a memory, a longing and need to be truly granted to him. Not here, at least, where it seemed he was being punished.

"Gods, how can you be here?"

Felicity couldn't help but laugh softly as she walked through the stalls. Her lips curled in a soft frown when she passed by various stalls wanting to share with Barry or John the more interesting things that she found.

She was standing in front of the booth when she heard Ned's question. "The candy, hearts, or the rainbow?"

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May/June Test Drive Meme

Ned Stark | Game of Thrones

<3 <3 <3

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wildcaaaaaaard

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whoo my writing is some shitty thing lately i'm sorry

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Love Love Love