TEST DRIVE MEME #4

[inthenightmods]

TEST DRIVE MEME #4

Hello and welcome to the In the Night test drive meme for September! Thanks for your interest in our game! Reserves open on September 20, and applications open on September 22.

While you're here...

• Take a look at our rules and faq pages to familiarize yourself with the game.
  
• Note that we have a reserve cap of 20, and a (current) application cap of 13 apps this month for new players, as the game has a player cap of 60. An accurate count of current players will always be available on the taken page.
  
• TDM threads can become game canon if both players wish. If the situation isn't something that could happen in-game, you're free to chalk it up to some strange hallucination, a shared dream, or other mysterious circumstance.
  
• Note that this is not limited to new characters threading with characters already in-game. If current players wish to thread out the TDM prompts as canon events, they are welcome to do so. They are welcome to make posts in the main comms for TDM events as well. Please note, however, that actual plot clues or happenings will not occur in TDM prompts.
  
• If you plan to apply, please keep in mind that we do require at least one sample thread on the application to be from our TDM (though it doesn't need to be the current TDM).
  
• You're welcome to use the provided prompts or come up with something on your own, but we do ask that all threads take place in our game's setting.

Thank you again, and we hope you'll choose to join us!

log prompts

GATHER YE ROSEBUDS WHILE YE MAY

With a cloud of mourning having weighed heavy on Beacon over the last month, the Lighthouse Keeper has decided to try and rally the community with a game: a selfie scavenger hunt! With the promise of (secret) prizes for those who play along, she's provided a list of 25 different items to track down and take a picture with. And, of course, all submissions will be public for others to view and comment upon. A town forum, Instagram-style. How fun! Feel like teaming up? Finding a companion to go searching with could make the task go by faster, as there's nothing saying that you can't both submit the same pictures so long as you take them together. And what's a proper game without company?

This prompt is a mini version of this month's Gather Up event.

IT'S RAININ' SIDEWAYS

Overall, the weather has been mild lately. Since Autumn hit, the standard has been overcast darkness blotting the stars and little wind. The rumble of thunder sounds just before the downpour begins, as if a switch has been flipped up in the clouds. If you're in the Invincible, the houses in the village, or any of the other solid establishments, it isn't anything to worry about, really. Mostly, it just means hunkering down until the storm passes. However...it seems that someone opted to build themselves a structure in the square that's proven not to be able to withstand these harsher elements. Whether you're the unfortunate sap in the tent or you're merely a bystander, one way or another, you notice its roof cave in, the beams placed to support it buckling inward and trapping the inhabitant inside. It's not enough to crush someone, but it'll surely be difficult to gather oneself as the wind and the rain bears down without mercy. Call for help and maybe someone will hear you, or be the good Samaritan that runs to their aid.

network prompts

I CAN'T *PBBT* UNDERSTAND *PBBT* YOUR ACCENT

Something's wrong. The things that you type and the things that you speak are transforming themselves upon being posted to the network. Or maybe that's not quite accurate, because everything in your posts are certainly your own words...it's just that indiscernible static has descended upon the page and crept into your audio, blocking out pieces of your statements--just enough to change the overall meaning of what you were originally saying. Efforts to clarify don't seem to be improving the situation, and it's hard to say if there's any way of fixing this. Maybe it's a comfort that the problem isn't isolated on your end; after all, that effectively takes the issue out of your hands to solve. Or maybe it's just the opposite. Maybe knowing that the network is experiencing widespread failures, however mild, fills you with a sense of dread and unease. One thing's clear, at least: you'll need a bit of luck to get your point across for the time being.

THE TITLE EQUIVALENT FOR WHEN YOUR GRANDMA COMMENTS ON YOUR UNRELATED FB STATUS AS IF SHE'S WRITING YOU A PERSONAL LETTER

Sometime in the recent past you had a problem. Maybe it was a dire emergency advertised to the community at large, maybe you became overwhelmed with stress and needed the ear of a close friend, or maybe it was just something embarrassing you were sharing in confidence. Unfortunately, regardless of what the message was, it looks like it disappeared the moment you hit send, as if it had been eaten by the network itself. It's been long enough now that you've brushed it off; you've been able to solve your problem one way or another and moved on. That's when it appears, unprompted, on the network for all to see, regardless of how private it was meant to be. Well, now you might have a bit of explaining to do.

QUICKNAV
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Comments

[saintjames]

[ Jim's eyebrows jump back up for his hairline again and he nods, but something about it telegraphs the of course, this might as well happen that he doesn't actually say. A giant mutant rat. Multiple rats. Why not? ]

Good thing I'm used to rats.

[ He's really not keen on going hunting after it thought. He'd like to hope they act like normal rats and mostly get out of dodge if someone comes around, but just like everything else in Gotham, the rats there weren't exactly shy about defending their territory. He's had to beat back a few with a broom off his trash cans before.

Either way, it makes him wonder about the nature of this scavenger hunt. He waves his tablet at her, face-forward, as if to make more clear that he's indicating the list he'd just been reading. ]

You, uh, aren't taking part in this?

[kungfuey]

[ Scarlett nods, a glimmer of appreciation shining in her eyes as she gathers up the papers in her lap. Folding them and stuffing them into one of her many pockets to pour over later. Apparently the mere fact that he was - more or less - rolling with what was happening here, was enough for Scarlett to spend some time talking to him, instead of offering one word answers until he went away. ]

The Keeper's little game? [ She lets out a derisive snort, her fingers running through her short dark hair as she cants her head in Jim's direction. ] Don't see much point. You only do something like that as a distraction. So you don't go crazy with nothing to do but worry about what comes next.

[ She shrugs, far more at ease with the idea of 'what comes next' than anyone has a right to be. ]

I don't need the distraction. [ Her life had been a game of 'what next' for the last few years. Being here was much of the same, only somehow safer. ]

Plus I don't do selfies.

[saintjames]

[ He hums an acknowledgement, looking away from her and back at the list. If nothing else, assuming she's speaking to him honestly, that it really is just a game and not anything more worrisome. Something like this would be a stunt the Nygma would pull, or worse, some new and unwelcome face ready to pull one over on the police and start muscling their way into the turf wars happening in the city.

Though, he thinks wryly, with the current state of things it would be unlikely for a new criminal to pop up unless it was someone already locked on the island.

But he can't worry about that now. He has no idea where he is on a map, so Gotham will have to go on without him until he can figure a way to get back. For now, it's going to be eternal darkness and rat kings and this ominous what comes next the woman is talking about. ]

Can't imagine it's easy in this light anyway.

[ Jim takes half a step forward, close enough he can offer her his hand. ]

Jim Gordon.

[kungfuey]

[ His words earn a snort of amusement, her eyebrows bouncing by way of agreement. She'd point out it seemed like a surefire way for a bunch of clumsy idiots to get themselves killed, but refrains from sharing that tidbit. As right as she might be about that likelihood, she figured it was best not to follow up 'rat king' with anything more dire than that.

He catches her off guard with the extension of his hand, Scarlett staring at it for a beat too long. Her own coming up to accept it finally in a brief but firm shake. ]

Scarlett Harker. [ She gives his uniform another once over, nodding at his appearance as she pulls her hand back. ] Fresh off the boat, I take it.

[saintjames]

What gave me away?

[ He's being facetious, he knows full damn well that it's everything about him, from the questions to his outfit. Gordon certainly hasn't been around long enough to put his finger on the pulse of this town, but even he can tell which people have been around for longer than a few hours. Not just from the clothes they wear, but their comfort in their interaction with the environment.

Like the fact she'd been sitting there with a stack of papers in her lap, seemingly unbothered by the fact she's evidently dead and supposedly stuck in a village in the dark.

Jim gestures into the space she'd just cleared of the paper and takes a seat next to her on the log with a polite distance between them. ]

Good reading?

[kungfuey]

[ That earns a wry grin, Scarlett not protesting his joining her. Her body language surprisingly relaxed, at least to those who might have seen her in the months she's been here. A long sigh escapes, blowing hair from her forehead as she glances at her pocket. The papers like a heavy weight at her hip that she'd sooner ignore for the moment. ]

About as mindnumbingly dull as the first time I read them. [ She shoots a glance in his direction then looks back at the fire, enjoying what little light there is to have in this place while she can. ] We get these bulletins. Updates on what's been happening here. They come on your phone now but when we first got here?

[ She pats her pocket, indicating the papers he'd seen her put away. ]

Old school.

[saintjames]

[ What catches his attention is the first time I read them. Jim doesn't know enough about this place to know if this is because she needs something to occupy her time, or because she's looking for something she thinks she's missed. He's done the same thing, countless times, in the past. Though lately it tends to skew toward the latter— with Gotham in the state it's in, he doesn't have much downtime anymore.

He glances at her pocket, maybe just because she makes a move toward it, before his attention comes back up. ]

Who's in charge of that?

[kungfuey]

The Keeper.

[ Her tone is somewhat neutral, Scarlett showing as neither for or against the person in question and while it's true that she doesn't detest her the same way many do here. They had a fundamentally different approach to the way they see, basically everything. She found there was a petulance to the Keeper that Scarlett has little time for. An inability to accept valid criticism and an overall childishness to her that's a little hard to take considering she literally holds the power of life and death over them.

Then there's the fact that Will hates her and Scarlett is somewhat inclined to believe that's for good reason - even if she doesn't know what it is. ]

Caretaker of this place, I guess you could say. The jury's still out on how much care is actually taken.