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memesinthenight2019-10-15 04:16 pm
inthenightmods) wrote in memesinthenight2019-10-15 04:16 pm
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TEST DRIVE MEME #5
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:
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!
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no subject
[Photography is still not always common where he comes from, and especially not photography in color. So he looks on with interest, and finds himself internally melting just a little with how sweet the kid is but also at the deep affection in the man's voice.
It's hard not to think about Law. He misses the kid so much and is sure he will for the rest of his life. The kid's substantially older of course, somewhere between adoptive son and little brother, but the drive to protect him is the same either way.]
Adorable is right. You must be so proud.
[And so heartbroken. It's hard to know what to say that isn't utterly tragic.]
no subject
[There's a beat. He knows he needs to change tactics. This was supposed to be drinking to forget, not necessarily drinking to be sad. Though often that was difficult to do.]
I'd ask about your family...but I get the sense this isn't why you came here. So maybe we should focus on the present. What do you do around here or what's with the weird hand things that were on the bar?
[Another pause, he looks down into his drink.]
Unless of course you want to talk about the family stuff. 'm good for that too.
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No, it's best for you to get filled in, I think. I'm Rosinante. I do a lot of things around here; building boats, charting stars, odd jobs. And those hands, they're not real. Everyone's been seeing them this week. Things worse than hands, too. Dunno why, but probably something to do with the spirits.
[He takes a long drink, then keeps his eyes low, mostly on the table. He's so sick of seeing those things. Any moment now the people at other tables in the room will change into horrifying versions of elements from his past. It keeps happening and he doesn't want to see it anymore.]
no subject
Maes Hughes.
[He hadn't really been here long enough for the more terrible hallucinations, but this wouldn't be his first time having to deal with such. He shudders, thinking back to the space ship they'd been sent to rescue only for most of them to be tricked or murdered by an abomination lurking in its walls. He didn't like to dwell on that particular mission, even if they had more or less succeeded in the end.
The next drink he takes is definitely a bigger one. Steeling himself against those memories.]
Spirits, huh. The guys speaking in whistles and humming, right? They didn't really strike me as a threat, but I guess appearances can always be deceiving.
[He considers what to say about the hallucinations. He figures if he says something about having experienced something similar before he might come across as more crazy than helpful, especially without the ability to give proper context.]
I've seen some pretty bad things before. As long as these hallucinations stay 'not real'...well, I'll manage somehow. No one's died because of them...have they?
[Which seems like a pretty silly question considering their status here...but then again the information he'd managed to glean so far was that it didn't mean they couldn't die again...somehow.]
no subject
Those are the ones. Some of them are relatively harmless, some of them are outright murderous. The rest are somewhere in between. Best to stay on their good sides when you can, but then sometimes they go and do... whatever this is. For no clear reason to anyone.
[Not even Robin says she fully understands, and she's had decades to live alongside them. Then again, he doesn't believe most of what she says on any given day.]
They've killed more people than are currently here in the town, though, over the last hundred or so years. Second month I was here, they cut our numbers nearly in half. Most of the bodies were never even found.
[Still easier than talking about family. Oh, it hurts; he still wears Melisandre's necklace. Still carries Winters' shotgun. Still thinks about those two American medics, torn out of some war and dropped here only to get slaughtered all over again. But at least it's a problem they have a chance of understanding and even solving.]
no subject
At the same time, it's about par for the course. The Circle had been all about visiting other worlds, each one making less sense than the last. He wished he had others here to help him make sense of what this meant, what he was supposed to be doing, but he supposed this time he'd have to work with a new group.
His expression darkens.]
Sounds like a massacre. Do you mind me asking what the inciting incident was or did it come out of nowhere like these hallucinations seem to have?
no subject
When we got there and reconnected the lighthouse, Robin played a tone from up in the lighthouse that she says was meant to let the spirits know we meant her no harm and that we should be allowed to safely return to town. Instead, they ambushed us. In the woods, in town, everywhere.
[He's tried to simmer down his anger at Robin. He still doesn't trust her, but she had no reason to kill them all off even if he had believed at the time she had commanded them to attack. She doesn't benefit from losing so many and even if she has the body of a teenager, she's been here long enough to mentally grow up and learn to make calculated decisions.
Well, probably. His distaste for her is still evident in his voice, anyway. She can't be trusted, she withholds information, and she's in a role that makes deceiving all the rest of them very easy if she needs to. It's unpleasant.]
no subject
Needing their help, but then not giving them all of the information and the only people getting hurt are those on the front lines...not the ones making the mistakes.]
I'm guessing Robin wasn't troubled at all by this? Or maybe she made a few cursory apologizes but in the end 'it was an accident' so you shouldn't blame her?
[His fingers itch for a pen, to jot down some notes, but he'll leave it in his head for the time being. He can record it all later. He knows he shouldn't make assumptions, but he just spent a year of his post-death dealing with this only to return to death (or whatever happened) and have to deal with it again? How was that fair?]
no subject
[But the rest, well. Just a bunch more deaths by her hand, even if indirectly. She's understandably jaded to it; anyone would be.
Hard decisions have to be made. Losing a few lives, already dead and brought back for a brief second shot, is probably easy for her to justify in the long run if it means finding a long-term solution. The problem isn't what she's doing - he doesn't like it, but he understands it - but rather her unhelpfulness in the meantime. That, plus all of her claims are awfully hard to verify.]
no subject
World Eaters? [He considers that phrase.] I think I came across that when I started going through the logs in town hall.
[There was a lot to sift through and he'd only just begun looking. He'd done a cursory flip through and noted a few key passages, this was definitely one he was going to have to go back and look over more. Right now though? It sounded like the same kind of thing Astoria had had them combating in a different way. Hadn't she said something about darkness?]
Robin's on the network too, right? Does she tend to keep to herself or respond to others?
no subject
She's on it, yeah. We did succeed in that part. And she's talkative enough. Just doesn't like saying too much that's actually helpful. I can't tell if she genuinely thinks being cryptic is for the best or if she just likes watching us squirm.
[A little of both, maybe. Twenty years in the dark will make anyone batty enough to think that figuring things out on their own is somehow helpful. She has maps, she has decades of knowledge, and all of that would put them years ahead of their current efforts but instead she withholds it "for their own benefit". Some days he's tempted to storm the damn lighthouse with his shotgun and singular explosive and take the stuff by force, but he knows that would be one hell of an impulsive mistake.]
no subject
I'm familiar with the type. They have a lot of power and supposedly a large responsibility, but unfortunately that also skews their perspective of those of us on the front lines of the action and actually living with their decisions...or dying as the case may be.
Does she ever say why she's being cryptic or withholding information, especially when she does reveal it?
no subject
[If she hadn't already soured him on her whole person, he might have understood she meant it to just lighten the mood, suggest it as some sort of adventure. But it's deeply condescending, instead, to treat them like they're kids who need to pretend they're making discoveries in their own neighborhood when she knows all the streets.]
no subject
[Maes is liking this information less and less. He knows he should reach out to Robin and possibly get a little more about her for himself, much like he did interacting with Astoria, but this isn't exactly making her endearing to him. The thing Astoria had going for her at least was she personally greeted them upon arriving at the Temple and usually took the time to interact with them on a regular basis.
Robin seems somehow even more distant.]
Right...weird question for you, does she claim to be anything other than human? I didn't exactly come here directly from dying back home and she's starting to remind me more and more of a so-called goddess who also had a penchant for pulling people from different realities in order to 'help.' Of course, in that case not everyone she brought in was dead...I was just one of the lucky ones she decided needed to be pulled out of the afterlife to come help.
no subject
[But now that's interesting. He was elsewhere before here? Rosinante had met a few others who arrived with him, no longer here, who had been to another world before this one also. Taken from their homes and shuffled around the universe, across a few worlds in fact, until they finally died on one and then ended up here soon after. It's not common, but it's less rare than he would have expected.]
no subject
[Human. Though perhaps dead for so long that her memories of it are faded? Or just being here and what she had witnessed had changed things. Either would explain it and he had to keep in mind that he hadn't gotten a read on her for himself. He'd have to poke around this new network and see what he could turn up.]
And she's a teenager? Oh jeeze, no wonder it's been difficult.
no subject
[Whatever she may or may not have been through, it doesn't justify her actions. But it does help explain them. It's probably frustrating for her, and there are probably plenty who haven't taken her seriously based purely on her apparent age.]
no subject
[Maes isn't trying to justify them, just trying to understand them. He'd never really completely understood Astoria, though he felt he'd come close. Now he was having to do this all over again, figure out the inner workings of a powerful being and why they did the things they did to the normal people dragged along the way.]
Any idea why she stays up in her tower or lighthouse, technically.
no subject
[It's an incomplete explanation, obviously. What really is that lighthouse for? What's inside, and why do the spirits defend it and its keeper with such intense violence and desperation? The half-answers Robin gives just fill him with double the number of questions.]
no subject
No, I haven't, and you aren't exactly making me want to try.
[But now he knows not to try teleporting without his lantern in hand. Though, given how dark it is, that would seem unwise anyway.]
What else did she say about being the Keeper?
no subject
Not much that makes any sense. She likes to talk, she's just careful about the answers she gives. I keep pressing whenever she lets more slip. Should probably mention, though, the spirits seem fanatically devoted to preventing anyone from visiting her. If you walk north into the woods and see a fence with some crude signs on it, turn around before they find you.
no subject
So maybe a little bit of a madman.]
Hmm. Perhaps she's learned over time what not to say. That's something you only learn with experience.
[He considers this.]
It's a good idea to keep pressing her and it could be a matter of asking the right questions. If she really has been at this for so long, we might have to implement our own kind of patience in finding out her secrets.
[Maes doesn't like the sound of that at all. He makes a mental note to be careful with errant teleporting.]
no subject
[Which in his experience is a sign of someone who likes the attention. Someone who wants everyone to be waiting for her each and every next word, like dogs hoping for treats. Maybe that's a little too cynical, but it really is hard to trust someone in her position - not just as Keeper, but as someone who clearly has had a lot of practice handling groups of people like them.]
The other angle is to go through the spirits themselves. Some of them must know quite a lot, if they spend so much time conveying information to her. Most of what goes on in town here, she was writing down and keeping track of it all before the network was even back up because the spirits kept her informed. Get to be their friend too and I bet they have a lot to say.
no subject
[He hadn't interacted with them much, just enough to know that 'speaking' with them was a matter of charades and whistling the right way. He hadn't engaged much in it due to other areas of interest, but he could now see where there could be some benefit to it.]
no subject
[It's a daunting task, to think of how much they have to accomplish in so little time. Maybe the estimate is wrong. Maybe it's all nonsense, but he refuses to just throw his hands up in defeat and assume none of it matters.]
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