TEST DRIVE MEME #5

[inthenightmods]

TEST DRIVE MEME #5

Hello and welcome to the In the Night test drive meme for October! Thanks for your interest in our game! Reserves open on October 20, and applications open on October 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 10 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

MAMMA MIA

The town is quiet, the forest spirits behave business-as-usual, Rastus doesn't know what's up. Whatever's going on, you'll have to figure it out for yourself.

And you will, though the hallucinations are subtle at first: objects moving when they shouldn't, people's proportions looking just a bit off, voices in an empty room, and so on. Is it just your mind playing tricks in the darkness? Might be! As the days go on, the hallucinations are harder to ignore, no matter how much you may wish to wave them off as flukes. What's wrong with everyone's faces? When did all the howling start? Who do you hold onto when the world drops out from under you? And those hands...

While you might know it can't be real, it certainly feels real. But at least it can't last forever... Right?

This prompt is a mini version of the game's Bury a Friend event.

GIMME! GIMME! GIMME!

Although the month is already well underway, residents of Beacon will notice a brand new shipment being delivered to the general store—only this one comes via the forest, as a small legion of spirits quickly drop off crates of boxes at its doorstep before scampering back into the woods. Hopefully nobody is riding too hard on hoping for further rations or supplies, because opening them up quickly squashes any notions of a full month's restock. Instead, it looks like each crate is bursting with costumes! Coming in all shapes and sizes to fit anyone of any age or decree, there’s plenty to choose from. Something scary? Magical? Clever? Or maybe even a bit on the sultry side? Dig deep enough, and you’re sure to find something to suit your tastes, props, accessories, wigs and all!

If nothing else, surely you can find an alternate use for a bit of spare fabric in your size, but what's the harm of having a bit of fun? But, oh, be careful if you're playing dress-up while the hallucinations from the event are in play... These costumes might just have a funny effect on you. 🤔!

network prompts

S.O.S.

The morning is interrupted by an alert. The text, which helpfully converts itself to automated speech when opened, reaches every inbox across Beacon, refusing to disappear until acknowledged. The problem? The username it comes from is glitched and unreadable, and all attempts at responding directly appear fruitless. The message is simple, three words:

SOS. SEND HELP.
There's nothing that seems to be able to be done about it, but with the earnestness in which it appears, maybe it would be wise to discuss it with the other residents. Isn’t there something you can do, even to track down the source? Maybe that will help you better put it from your mind.

TAKE A CHANCE ON ME

The longer you stay in Beacon, the clearer it is that you’re here for the long haul. And, on that note, the clearer it is that this place is going to need a lot of work to meet your standards. Obviously there isn’t much that can be done about certain things, like the state of lighting, or some of your potentially missing powers, but there are a lot of things that would certainly improve your personal quality of life. And for that matter, maybe some of your ideas would be agreeable to others, as well.

Whether you’re here to call for the establishment of a club, a new business, or even some kind of monthly therapy circle, the best way to get your message across is to turn to the Network and give your pitch. Whatever skills you may be lacking in the organization of this project, there’s undoubtedly someone out there who can provide. What are you waiting for? No time like the present to start collecting signatures!

QUICKNAV
comms	|	network • logs • memes • ooc
pages	|	rules • faq • taken • mod contact • player contact • calendar • setting • exploration • item requests • full nav

Comments

drinking

[saintjames]

[ She's not the first person he's seen on the other side of the bar. Everyone takes turns, when the spirits are mysteriously missing, or when they simply don't want to wait around for them to get their act together. The don't seem to have a rhyme or reason, and certainly no kind of regular business hours. Gordon has been down here a number of times, maybe half out of habit, maybe half just missing something familiar and the makeshift bartenders are only there fifty percent of the time.

They're missing when she pulls the bottle off the shelf, turns around and pours it into a highball glass.

Jim, sitting on the other side of the counter and a little ways down, sets his own tumbler down. The whiskey inside sinks down from the insie rim, catching the flame from his lantern and casting it in melting fractals on the top of the bar. ]

I think you're the first person I've seen open a bottle of wine.

[wantsnormalcy]

[No one has asked her to play bartender yet, and that's probably for the best. Her partying days are far behind her, if they ever existed at all, and the wildest things ever really got were margarita nights with the aunts. This is somewhere in between- because it's not the odd glass of wine where she curls up with a book or writes out new recipes, but it isn't something she's going to make a habit of either. The glass she pours is too full for someone who'd claim to drink for pleasure. It's too close to the brim to be anything except a rough night- usually reserved for the ends of things, bad break ups, lost jobs, funerals. God this probably checks all three.

Sally sets the bottle down a short distance away and leans onto her forearms, elbows pressing into the bar as she reaches for her glass, takes a long swallow. It's not great, but it's not cheap either. Maybe this is why Jimmy Angelov is haunting them, an afterlife full of mediocre booze.

Her laugh is a short breath, more a puff of breath through her nose than a hum in her throat. Sally's face doesn't turn to look at the man on the other side of the counter just yet, it seems like the kind of place where people like to be left to their own misery and this isn't really an invitation. She doesn't think. But her fingers stay spread over the mouth of the glass when she answers instead.]

Can't say I'm surprised.
This place is full of teenagers. You remember what that was like.

[saintjames]

[ Jim exhales his own laugh, more breath than anything else and cants his head in agreement. He doesn't dwell on the unsaid lingering persistently: the there are too many kids here if we're really dead. Jim knows death doesn't play favourites. He's bore witness to it more times than any person should, has been on the other end of the weapon doing the killing, though thankfully not with a child at the other end of the barrel. But still... it's one thing, knowing it happens, and having the potential evidence of it wandering around an everlasting night. ]

Depends on what city you're from, I think.

[ He offers back, because it might not be the same everywhere, but a cheap bottle of wine could take you further than a two-four of vodka depending on your age and how much cash is burning a hole in your pocket. Jim raises his glass again, holding it by the base, tipping it toward her in silent gesture. ]

Though now that you mention it, I don't think I've seen them back here half as much as I'd expect.

[ It's not like anyone is actively gatekeeping the liquor in this town, after all. ]

[wantsnormalcy]

That's how you know they're good at it.

[There's something matter of fact about the way she says it, and maybe it's just the kind of thing that comes with age. With experience and with life in a small town. Maria's island wasn't big enough for more than a single school and it trapped every kid in the area in a kind of race- lapping the same mile markers, seeing the same faces again and again.

Life has it's own routine out there and underage drinking is hardly scandalous enough to make the papers.]

No kid worth their salt's going to get caught.

[Her elbows come to rest on the bar once more and her fingertips settled on the mouth of the glass. Whether she's keeping it in place or it's keeping her in place is anyone's guess. Sally puffs a breath hard, a deliberate attempt to gust stray hair from falling into her eyes.]

Unless you're telling me you were a wine guy.
[One brow goes up.]

Were you a wine guy?

[saintjames]

[ Jim laughs, the sound low, like he's keeping it contained somewhere in his mouth instead of letting it fly out free. Or like he's making an attempt to not draw the attention of anyone else who might be loitering in the bar at the same time. Both, in a way, are true. It's less that he doesn't want to be seen enjoying himself, and more that he's never been a flashy kind of guy— just the one that keeps his nose to the ground and his work at the forefront. Just the one that somehow always ends up in the middle of a messy situation because he'll never choose to turn the other cheek. ]

I was a "whatever's in the liquor cabinet and I won't get my ass beat for it" kind of guy.

[ Not that he thinks his father or his mother ever would have done that. He was an only child, and for as fiery as his temper could be, hadn't really stepped out of line. Where other kids might have railed against the sort of structure that came from a parent wrapped up in the rules of the law, Jim had only ever taken comfort in it.

Things are a little different, these days. Probably because he's lost his rose coloured glasses.

They're close enough that they don't have to shout, but not near enough that Jim doesn't have to actively lean over the stool next to him to reach across and offer her his hand. ]

Jim Gordon.

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