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memesinthenight2019-06-14 11:39 pm
inthenightmods) wrote in memesinthenight2019-06-14 11:39 pm
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TEST DRIVE MEME #1
TEST DRIVE MEME #1
Hello and welcome to the In the Night test drive meme for June! Thanks for your interest in our game! Reserves open on June 20, and applications open on June 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/application cap of
20 apps per month(this has been waived for the first month!).- 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.
- Though threads can become canon, they cannot count toward AC.
- 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
YOU'RE DEAD, JIM
You haven't been in Beacon long when you find yourself in Bonfire Square, staring into the flames and thinking about how you ended up here. Maybe it was an accident, a sudden freak thing that you never saw coming until you woke up on the ferry, or maybe it's a miracle you made it as long as you did. Maybe death was a relief. Maybe it was just your time. Whatever the case, you can't help but reflect on your final moments as you linger in the firelight.
But however you died, it's behind you now, and you're here, stuck in this little town with just a few buildings and a smattering of other people. You're going to be here a while, so you may as well get to know your neighbors, but... Would it be cathartic to commiserate about your deaths? Or is your time better spent stocking up at the general store? Then again, you've got plenty of time, so why not catch a drink or two (or three) at the Invincible? Pretend you're unaffected by your death, and, well. Fake it 'til you make it, perhaps.
Point is, you have options. You're dead, you died, and this is your "life" now. Better get used to it.
AND THEY WERE ROOMMATES
Currently, there's only one place to live (technically speaking) in Beacon: the Invincible, a tavern and inn located in Bonfire Square. Luckily, the place has working amenities (minus light), and the forest spirits don't charge anything for your stay. Unfortunately, it seems there may not be enough rooms for everyone. Guess you'll have to get cozy!
Maybe you'll try to pick a roommate from around town or in the bar downstairs, or maybe you'll just walk into the first room you see and choose that way. Want a room all to yourself? Get ready to fend off any potential intruders. And the fun doesn't end there.
The Invincible's rooms aren't all created equal. Some may have had their furniture stolen or become a dumping ground for unwanted pieces, resulting in a single bed, five dressers, and other equally distressing situations. Will someone sleep on the floor? Will you nail two beds together to form bunk beds? Maybe you just want to make this room into something more like home— potentially to your roommate's chagrin. Whatever you decide, this is where you're staying for now, so you might as well get comfortable.
network prompts
HACKER VOICE: I'M IN
In order to use the network, you have to register a username. Er, at least, that's how it's supposed to work. For some reason, new users have recently been able to bypass that requirement, allowing them to post anonymously. Time to troll strangers on the magical internet!
Eventually though, you'll need a username in order to use the tablet's other functions, like the direct messaging system. So hey, why not take advantage of the ability to source opinions, and workshop your potential usernames on the network? Share ideas, get feedback, steal ideas, critique others, and figure out what you want everyone to call you.
TURN ON YOUR LOCATION
When you wake up, you're in the woods. An iron shackle complete with a chain leashes you to a tree, and the only light you have is your lantern. You've never seen this area of the woods before. You certainly didn't go to sleep here.
Hm.
But, all is not lost. You find your phone in your pocket, as well as a scrap of paper covered back to front in cryptic scribbles. Are these clues to your location? They must be. You also spot a key dangling from a branch, though it's hanging from a tree you'll never be able to reach from here. Perhaps someone on the network will be able to lend you a hand...
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luckily his tolerance for recalcitrant babies is high!!
( it's said with a little self-deprecating smile. other folks are a lotta things, but he wouldn't ever consider them a waste. souls have weight and worth. gene's killed when he has to, but there ain't any joy in it. when he's done with the war, he likes to think he won't ever take up arms again.
but if it's true, that bein' here means bein' dead, then it's a moot point, now ain't it? they won't even be able to bury him in the cold. truthfully, he'd rather his squad not waste the time on it. st. vith has been a goddamn bloodbath.
he gets up from where he's sitting and moves nearer to the fire. he takes out a pack of chesterfields, taps one up and crouches to light it off the flame. his damn matches don't work none, and he's jonesin' hard for the nicotine. once he's got it lit he reclaims his little spot near the fire, one knee drawn up. the cigarette is loose between his two fingers, he takes a drag off of it and holds it out for the boy in case he wants one too.
way he sees it, any fella old enough to die is old enough to smoke. )
Can't say as I have. But I'll keep an eye out.
that's a kind description for this tit babe
Until now he hadn't paid the other much mind, but now that he's accepted the man with the unfortunate accent intends to cling like a persistent burr, Gene goes about his business under the watch of an attentive observer, M.K.'s gaze following his movements, lingering on the pack of smokes--again, not a make he recognizes from the Badlands. The only time he's not noncommittal is when Gene leans into the fire. It's no further than a steady hand needs to catch a tendril of fire, but tension straightens his spine nonetheless, watching the flames lick so close to skin. Any minute now he expects to feel the flood of aching pain down his face and chest, pain he's been living with without respite from for weeks. Burns hurt worse than blades, he's now decided.
But the charitable, drawling figure in his bland uniform doesn't come away with melted flesh. Just a lit cigarette, which he offers out. This, unlike the soup, inspires some interest. It's not opium, but...
He takes it, not noticing his hands fail to fidget restlessly this time around. He doesn't give thanks, but then that doesn't seem to be a commonly found word in his vocabulary.
Neither does he do the amateur thing and cough after the initial inhale, but it's clear from the way he speculatively turns the cigarette around in his fingers that it's not a brand he's familiar with.]
Most people who spend time helping people they don't know do it because they're trying to make up for something bad they did.
[Would you believe that's a casual observation? No. It's not. Coming from M.K., it sounds more like a mild accusation.]
you're doing so well with him tho ;; soft angry baby
I reckon that's the likely case for some folk.
( gene's always been a deliberate man. not a soul alive or dead could stir him to do something he weren't keen on, and he ain't never done a damn thing he knew he'd later regret. there ain't ever an excuse for cruelty by his yardstick, and he's a man of convictions plain.
he watches as the kid fusses over the cigarette like he ain't quite sure what to make of it. he'd intended to share it originally, but now he just pulls out a second for himself, leans over into the boy's space to light the second off the dim cherry of the first. )
An' it's fine by me if'n you care to assume it of me. Y'ain't got no reason to trust my word. We're a passel of strangers tossed together in the dark. That ain't a thing what engenders belief in one another.
( a faint pause, and m.k. gets a bit of a sideways smile. playfully, )
But who knows. Maybe one day I'll surprise you.
screams, i'm glad, bless u
[An invitation to prove him wrong--with the confidence Gene can't. It makes for some cognitive dissonance, being at an age most young men would just be beginning their lives while his words drip with a worldly man's cynicism. Better to die young for something than grow older and more miserable for nothing like most people he knows, at any rate.
Because he's watching the watcher now, he thinks he gets a whiff of the humor tucked away behind the equanimous expression. Words on a page elude him--body language, though, he's literate enough in that, and the way Eugene seems entirely unafraid to come near him allows him the chance to scan his face. He doesn't press it. The free cigarette buys Eugene that much.]
I doubt that. Not a lot surprises me anymore. [The second inhale is better the second time around, knowing what to expect. He savors the burn a beat before releasing the smoke through his nose, again turning the cigarette around to look it over, tangible evidence he hasn't lived long enough to encounter quite everything yet.] One thing's for certain, the darkness makes everyone more honest. I don't have to take your word for it. We'll see.
i hope you app tbh i'm already living for this cute cr
It does at that.
( darkness terrifies. brave men lose themselves in it. things endured in daylight hours become hell beneath the cover of twilight, and the mind imagines all manner o'horror lurking just past the edge of comprehension. he's heard more confessions, more admissions, more sweet nothings passed over in darkness than any other time. an' more death. most injured men, if they're gonna pass over, do it in the small hours of the morning just before dawn.
it ain't ever been a thing of fear for him. maybe it's the ghosts that are like as not to lurk in it, or maybe it's just that he's too dog-stubborn to fear what normal men fear. it's been more friend than foe to him. he kissed alex in the dark.
gene takes another drag of his cigarette, flicks the ash off one end. it's such a damn thing, to be warm after st. vith. felt like he wouldn't ever be so again, an' dead or not it's a little miracle to find himself conscious of the tips of his fingers on down to his toes.
as m.k. studies the cigarette — )
They're called Chesterfields. They get handed out like candy in the war. Calms the hands.
( and the nerves. makes dyin' easier. makes livin' easier too. )
i'm!! super tempted!! chinhands @ calm bro and snarly bro
He goes silent at the first remark, watching ash curl on the end of the cigarette. Easy agreement encourages settling into easy conversation, and he's not interested in making more friends. All of his friends are fighting where M.K. isn't, and many have probably already fought and fallen to Sunny. More black lines for Sunny's collection.
But the second...
Even if tobacco hadn't become hard to come by when the territory that harvested it went down, no baron he knows would have handed out anything like candy during the war, unless it were backhands to the face for daring to insinuate clippers were so weak as to need calming. Neither would Pilgrim; he hadn't needed bribes to comfort his people. The dots are there--the way people look, the way they dress, the things he's overheard--but he hasn't spoken to enough of the arrivals yet, still coming to the realization of just how vastly different they are.]
Not the part of the war I've seen. [Following the hunch:] You're not from the Badlands, are you.
im soft it's so cute
I'm guessin' you ain't talkin' about South Dakota.
( since. anyone who's ever set foot in the states would mark his accent as southern, and wouldn't bother with the askin'. )
Most folk here are from some other place or time, seems like. I'm from a state called Alabama, in 1944. ( a slight pause. then, in correction: ) Ah, sorry. '45. New Year just went on a few days ago for me. Only met one other from my war, an' he ain't a soul I knew.
protect Eugene 2k19
You guess right. I don't know where any of those places are.
[While the Gregorian calendar may have died an ugly death, the irony of ironies is that the geography they're thinking of is more or less an apocalyptic rose by another name. The Armadillo Territory had been lodged in the deep South, close enough that its eastern most border could've spit on Gene's home state. That same oppressive heat had made him sweat out his weight in water more than once.
In better news, in about six hundred years white privilege will be all but wiped out by the heterogeneous melting pot the baronies become, though granted, the slave trade sees a major resurgence.
Hey, you win some, you lose some.]
No wonder you can't take a hint. Most people from the Badlands and the outer territories would know to keep their distance.
[It may be as close to a thanks for the cigarette as M.K.'s going to get.]
he would object!!
From you especially, or in a more general way?
( the boy seems to expect to be known, an' feared some. he's used that as a weapon twice now in the course of this conversation, draggin' the dark things he's done out into the firelight as if he expects an exhumation of dead deeds. )
too bad, he doesn't get a vote
For as long as he can remember, he's seen wariness ground into people so deeply it's in their marrow. They live it. They breathe it. They greet their neighbors with it. They watch their backs with it. That knock on your door--is that a newcomer asking for directions? A clipper come to borrow your wife? When you knock on a door--is the person who answers it going to have a knife in hand?
People from the places M.K. names wouldn't need to ask. You approach a stranger preparing for the worst, not expecting the best. It's the way of things.]
From anyone, anywhere. Especially when they have a weapon beside them.
no subject
it's just. he never could cop to the attitude. weren't built like that. he goes out into the world knowin' people will lie, an' cheat, an' steal an' swindle him. he ain't stupid. he just believes it says more about them when they do than it ever would about him. it's on him to decide if he wants to let the world turn him cruel or not, an' he mostly comes down on the side of not.
gene flicks ash off the end of his cigarette thoughtfully, hums some under his breath. he's armed too, the boy might not've noticed it if he's lookin' for swords and the like, but he's got his service pistol at his side, seven rounds to its name. he's fired it only a handful of times in the war, but it's come to be a welcome weight at his hip. he doesn't like killin', but when it comes down to it he'll do it plain. )
Guess I'd find it stranger if a fella weren't armed these days.
( which is a curious thing all its own. war, an' those in it, is more familiar by far than folk who ain't never known violence at all. maybe that's why gene's all-but-gravitated to those souls what've seen it, breathed it in. he ain't all that sure about livin' life beyond war, now. an' if he's well and truly dead, then he guesses he won't have to. )