memesinthenight | TEST DRIVE MEME #1

Entry tags:

!tdm

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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Coraline was finally equipped to observe the town better thanks to some actual clothing and a random pair of sunglasses she had found in the general store. Granted, she looked like she was about to enter a snow storm with just about every inch of skin covered, but it was better than the slip of a dress she had died with. Why was it even called the general store? Apparently you could just take anything you wanted? But then the land of the dead would have different rules about these things.

She had just approached the bonfire, skirting around the different groups of people gathering when she was greeted… a ninja? She stared for a moment before his words finally processed in her brain.

“Oh uh… magic? I thought it was just. A big fire.”

Edited 2019-06-20 03:36 (UTC)

"Look closer." He points at the base of the bonfire where the flames are sitting on top of the kindling. "The wood doesn't catch, it's not turning to ash and it doesn't appear to need more fuel to continue to burn."

He's still watching it closely, the fire reflected in his eyes. Even in his homeworld how he's dressed would be strange, but tradition dictated nothing else.

"Yet it casts light and heat. But it won't ignite other items."

He might have stuck his hand in it to check.

She shaded her eyes from the light as she did just that, squinting slightly.

“… What the fuck.” She made an aborted movement to stick her hand in the flame before thinking better of it. He sounded serious, but maybe he got his kicks pranking random weird looking teenagers. Who knows? She’s dead! And apparently a weird zombie even compared to the others found here. Nothing was certain anymore!

No. No more panicking. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. As she did so, the shadows that had started to roil around her did the same, settling back into their normal configurations. Her powers used to be so much easier to control. Fucking cult.

"I already tried that. It feels like fire, but it doesn't act as such." He's not above admitting he stuck his hand in the fire, better him than someone who couldn't freeze themselves over to compensate for the burning.

His head snaps around at the shadows, he'd only seen them for a few brief seconds, but it was enough to remind him of someone else. His eyes harden, "Who are you?"

She winced under the scarf wrapped around her face when she felt the man’s shadow shift. Awesome. He noticed. Maybe she could just… play dumb.

“Coraline. You?” She said with false cheer, acting like she didn’t understand the true direction of his question. She held her hand out for a shake, only to falter and bow mid movement so it looked more like a weird spasm than anything. She screamed internally. Why was she like this????

That does not put him at ease one bit, "Grandmaster Sub-Zero."

He stands up straighter, his eyes narrowing, she doesn't seem to be an immediate threat, but he's on edge nonetheless. "Are you alright?"

She slowly straightened up and put her hand down, now all too aware of the fact she was talking to someone important. God hopefully he wasn’t in charge of this whole place or something like that.

“Nice to meet you Grandmaster.” She said with a nod before forcing out what she hoped was a real sounding laugh (it wasn’t).

“Yeah of course I’m alright. Why would you say tha—“ She paused when his previous words finally sank in.

“Wait. Feels like fire? So it still hurt?? Are you ok???”

He relaxes marginally, only because she seems more awkward than anything. And he figures if she was going to attack him she would have already.

He gives a wry smirk, "I wanted to know if it was actually fire, or the illusion of such. So yes, it still hurt."

It may not be the smartest decision he's ever made, but now he knows and that's half the battle according to a different franchise with two similar palette swapped ninja warriors.

"I will be fine." He holds his hand out, palm up, a thin layer of ice crusts over his hand as mist forms around it and he manifests a small ice ball letting it sit there for a moment before crushing. The pieces fall to the ground and immediately melt in the heat of the bonfire.

Her eyes widen: first at his words, then at his show of power. For a moment, her anxiety is forgotten as she witnesses him create ice with out of nothing! How cool!! She crowds a bit closer, peering at his hand.

“Cryokinesis!? That’s so cool! What else can you do with it? How complicated can your constructs get? Can you freeze yourself???” She bombards him with questions, voice rising in excitement. It was always so cool seeing what other metahumans could do with their powers! Even those with technically the same ability always applied them so differently, not to mention the little details in their powers that made them special.

“Wait… are you a superhero? I haven’t heard of you before. That’d explain why you’re dressed as a bright blue ninja and all that.” She isn’t a superhero fangirl. She isn’t. ~~She is.~~

He's had so much practice on this long suffering sigh that he doesn't even realize he's doing it.

"The Lin Kuei are not ninja." Though he definitely looks like one. What's the difference? Probably some imperceptible fabric folding on his clothes or that his knives are on the left? The world may never know.

"Yes I can freeze myself. I'm not sure what a superhero is but I do not think I am one." He smirks before turning to the side and making a snowman. It won't last long near the fire and will make a huge puddle, but still.

Whoops. Definitely shouldn’t have called him a ninja then considering the fraught history between China and Japan. Hopefully he wasn’t as bad as her mom who still held a grudge. Like, it was 88 years ago and she wasn’t even alive then???

“I am so sorry.” She said, her mortification clear on her face before it was quickly replaced by one of delight when he made the snowman. She ran up to it, a giggle (that she will never admit to) escaping her. The main cryokinetic she knew never did fun shit like this! But then, they were also kind of a drunk and possibly crazy so. The bar was pretty low.

“This is amazing!!! … Wait. Did you say you didn’t know what superheroes are???” She turned to look back at him, an expression of something akin to ~~overdramatic~~ horror on her face.

He could tell that she was honestly apologetic which was so rare that for a moment he didn't recognize it. The snowman was already starting to melt in the heat of the fire, but he watched it anyway, no one else but him enjoyed when he did stupid stuff with his ice powers. Probably because he usually did them after ripping out an opponent's spine, but if he had the power to make ice sculptures, then why not use it?

"I do not. Should I?" The word sounded a little familiar, like maybe he'd heard Cassie say it before. But this was someone who barely understood how movies worked let alone anything pop-culture.

“I. I’m.” She placed a hand on her chest. A world without superheroes was so foreign to her. But then, if her conversation with

parker was any indication… Well, she couldn’t judge then. Still, he clearly needed an education about one of the coolest things to have ever existed (other than herself since she kind of sucked as one, and turns out her powers were meant to des—okay enough with that thought train).

“I mean yes, but it’s fine. Since I guess you’re just from a world where they don’t exist??? Which is like so weird BUT.” She clasped her hands together in excitement as her grin widened.

“That means I get to tell you all about them. Basically they’re people with superp—Well, not necessarily superpowers, but they’re exceptional in some way and they use that exceptionality to go out and save people from those that use their own exceptionality for evil!” She posed in a faux karate chop move before pausing for a moment.

“Or just from like, natural disasters and shit.” She said with a shrug.

“Different heroes focus on different things depending on their powers and just. Interests I guess? Most of them wear costumes and have this whole secret identity so evildoers can’t target their loved ones. It’s all super cool!!” Part of her wanted to reveal that she had (kind of) been one before she died, but then, when a secret identity was revealed, it could never be unrevealed. Better wait to scope this place out a bit more first.

Edited 2019-06-23 06:16 (UTC)

She was very excited about this which only served to further confuse him.

"That sounds like you have the forces of good pitted against the forces of evil in constant struggle. We also have that, but we're not called super-heroes. I'm not sure we're even heroes." They defeated Outworld and the Netherrealm frequently, but there was usually a heavy cost associated with it. And some of those battles the rest of the world was unaware of.

"Why would you hide your identity?" He blinked, thinking about that. "That seems impractical."

“Exactly yeah!” She said, happy that he was finally (possibly) getting it. “I mean, if you’re fighting against like, evil, I’d argue you’re a hero! And since you have superpowers, superhero! Though I guess superheroes have an aspect of public theatricality to them, even the ones that like try and stay away from the public eye… Maybe that’s the difference?” She frowned slightly, crossing her arms in thought. Now that she thought about it, the line was similarly blurred back home. What made a hero? What made them a superhero? God she didn’t have the mental capacity for this level of analysis.

She shook herself out of her thoughts at his next question, glad that this topic was at least easier to answer.

“To protect those dear to you. So enemies can’t target them to get revenge on you or anything like that, so I’d argue it’s like super practical.” She said with a resolute nod. God knows what she’d do if her mom or Leon died because of her. The fact that they weren’t here with her in the land of the dead was a large factor in her not absolutely losing her shit right now.

He'd like to argue that they're not exactly superpowers, but even he has trouble justifying being a normal human who happens to be a cryomancer.

"Don't have families then." This all seemed so simple. Having a family complicated everything: his own brother had basically become a shadow demon, Hanzo's family was murdered which turned him into a spectre of vengeance, and the children of the Special Forces group were routinely attacked in order to hold them hostage. Better to not have any of that.

"It would be difficult to have one while also protecting the world anyway." He had no idea how Johnny and Sonya did it, nor did he think that had been a wise choice to begin with. "I'm a protector of Earthrealm, my clan is my family. I desire nothing else."

“I.” God, he wasn’t the first one to have said something similar. Multiple heroes had gone on record saying similar stuff. Whether they were serious or not was another question, as duplicity was par for the course when you had a secret identity. She was pretty sure this dude was serious though and that was just. Well, that was just sad. Was it appropriate to ask about it? Probably not? God what does one say in this sort of situation.

“Well. I mean. I guess you like. can’t. Always. Choose?” She said stiltedly, carefully navigating through the ~~possibly imagined~~ minefield of words.

“And I mean. I’d argue a chosen family is still like you know… family.” Would it be weird if she patted him on the shoulder? Yeah, probably.

He is absolutely serious, and futhermore can't understand any other course of action here. If you want to protect people, don't get close to them.

"What do you mean? How is it not a choice?" This is someone has never had a normal human interaction in his life and honestly has no idea what she's talking about. It's like he's an outsider looking in on people trying to figure out why they do what they do without any of the context.

"It's a family of sorts I suppose. But all the Lin Kuei are trained to protect Earthrealm, they will not fall so easily. And they are always in danger."

He looks away because they are also all dead. He's the last one. Grandmaster of a clan that has no members.

Well there's Cyrax who was turned into a robot and isn't powered on so he's effectively dead. And Smoke who's been turned into an undead revenant and controlled by Quan Chi. So realistically there's only Sub-Zero. The name of the Lin Kuei clan died with him.

“Like. If your mom’s still alive I guess. Even if you leave she’s still your mom and people can still like hurt her if they know who you are. That sort of thing. Or even someone you’ve distanced yourself from, but the bad guys think you’re still like kinda close…” She trails off, at a loss for how to further explain the concept. At least he got the concept of a team? That’s something she supposed. Was he doing ok? Probably not, considering what he was saying and just the way he held himself. You know what? Being a hero sucks. She thought, frustrated.

“Hey uh… sorry for… bringing.” She made a vague gesture. “This up. And uh. If you ever… need someone to talk to I guess, feel free to like, message me? Yell for my name? Whatever like works.” She said, out of a loss for anything else. And it wasn’t like she was going to try and pry into his tragic past or whatever. She certainly wouldn’t want anyone to do that about hers.

"Oh. I think I see." He doesn't really, but he vaguely gets the idea. He at least understands what she's trying to say even if he doesn't think it's valid. Cut yourself off from everyone and no one gets hurt. Easy.

He arches an eyebrow at the apology, "There is nothing to apologize for."

And he's definitely not touching the needing someone to talk to part. He's fine. This is fine. Everything is under control.

She nods, honestly just eager to get out of this absolute minefield of a conversation she had accidently stumbled into. She just wanted to talk about superheroes! Now she’s questioning the very concept of them and the strain being one had on the individual (but also it felt bad not to do anything with your powers if you had them???). Yeah, let’s move on as fast as possible. And oh god he’s saying there’s nothing to apologize for when there clearly is. She internally screams.

“I mean. I’m just. Like. Still sorry you know.” More internal screaming.

“So uh… what’s China like in your world?” Great job Coraline.

He's not really sure where this conversation took a turn but it's uncomfortable on both sides. Are they even talking about the same thing anymore? He's used to conversing about fighting and this is probably the closest to a normal conversation he's had in a while which says something terrible about how often he talks to people.

"Is there a China in your world?" He's not sure how to answer that, describing an entire country in a few sentences is beyond him. Maybe start with something smaller. "I live in Arctika far to the north. It's a mountain upon which sits the Lin Kuei temple. If you are asking about the more populated areas like Beijing or Shanghai it's been years since I've been to either."

“Uh duh?” She said, raising an eyebrow in disbelief at that question. Why else would she be asking about it? Come on Grandmaster, get with the program! Let’s get out of the minefield together!

“Wait… Arctika in China? Or in like. Greenland.” She thinks that’s where the north pole is. “Cause China definitely doesn’t go as far north as Russia and even Mongolia where I’m from… I don’t know though… I’ve never been.” She frowns slightly, trying to remember the map of the world. Geography was never her strongest subject (because it was boring as hell).

"In China. Greenland is several thousand miles away. It's east and north of Mongolia." He pauses, trying to think about how to explain this. He knows where it is on a map and knows all the locations around him, however in Mandarin, well Northeast Mandarin technically, which may or may not be helpful here.

"I think it would be Manchuria to the rest of the world? I'm unsure if that's correct though. Heilongjiang."

She just stares at him blankly for a moment. Why did she ask like she’d know where anything was? The most she knew about Chinese geography was that her family apparently came from the Szechuan region and that it was in the south. That’s it and all. Her mom wasn’t exactly close with the extended family, due to… circumstances. She’d never even been to China. But hey, this topic’s better than the last one!

“Uh… any major cities? Sorry, I only know the Szechuan province cause apparently that’s where my family’s from?” She said sheepishly.

Bonfire

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She's adorable

i'm so sorry u got her talking about superheroes

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