memesinthenight | TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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!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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( that garners a bit of a laugh. )

An' myself.

( though he prefers other methods as well. violence ain't never been the first of any ten things he'd reach for. he is, at his soul, a peaceable man. he ain't never been stirred to do harm except when the stayin' of his hand would result in worse bein' done. it's why he volunteered. why he went to fort bragg, why he went on to north africa. why he did that first awful night jump into gela in high winds and stormy seas. they lost near as many men to drownin' as they did to the machine gun nests that first time out. )

An' that'd be a sound tactic for them to try, but I reckon there's enough folk here that know better. Those that don't can learn or be taught, an' we'll stand together in the meanwhile.

The trauma of this may bind us closer together. War has given me little faith in the nature of men – we are either good, or we are evil.

[ her faith is the dualistic kind, there are no grey areas, no spaces to fill with a maybe. war has not helped, that much is true, there is little to be seen on the battlefield that has convinced her of anything else. yes or no, dead or alive, helping or killing. ]

Some of us will work together. Some of us will seek to destroy.

( he ain't never believed it's so clear-cut as that. good folks can do evil deeds. an' evil ones can do good. history is replete with that manner of deeds that can't even be put to such linear thought.

he lights up a cigarette almost idly, leanin' in so's to catch the tip of it aflame in the burn of the bonfire's easy warmth. he taps the first bit of ash off it, settles back where he'd been beside her. )

Don't know I'd agree on all your points, ma'am, but I do think it'll be plenty hard bein' here. Ain't no tellin' how a soul will deal with dyin' until the dying's done.

( he's seen brave men fall to ruin, an' those labelled coward go to it with their heads high. human nature has changed its skin over the years but never its shape.

gene flicks his cigarette, then politely holds it out to her in offering. it's such a natural extension of companionability by his yardstick he don't think twice about it. cigarettes an' soldiers an' dying souls. it's a manner of comfort in his time. )

[ she has watched him light the cigarette with the same intrigue she'd watched him with as he spoke. in some ways, yes, he was the age he appeared, in others, war has caught up on him, it seems, and wisened him beyond his years. he can't have more than twenty name days to him, perhaps one fewer or one more.

the kindness of youth, she notes, is still in him, has thought so since he'd brought her the broth, and now, she takes the cigarette between her fingers just as he'd down, and takes a careful draw.

it's smoke, just like that. she returns it to him easily, but there's a smile to her lips as she breathes it out. ]

Tastes of the Temple, in its way. [ there's a tilt of her head as she goes on. ] Is it common, among soldiers of your world? It reminds of the death rites, to get the souls closer to the light.

[ at the wall, where her body must still lie, they are sure to burn her, but the rites no one will administer. this is as close as she can get, she knows, and for this, she owes him deeply. ]

( he can't speak to a temple of her reckoning, he don't think, but. he clears his voice, cants his head to one side. )

`Let my prayer be counted as incense before thee, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice'.

( he says it sweet and somber. he ain't never read the bible, but certain things are known by rote. as he takes the cigarette back and pulls another drag of it on into his lungs a spell — )

Smoke lifts up to Heaven in that way, symbolizin' prayer, though I don't think cigarettes are meant to evoke the idea of incense. Soldiers damn near can't live without 'em, though. Calms the hand, quiets the mind. Warms you, when it's cold.

( and oh, st vith had been cold. ten degrees if it was a hundred, he'd been wearin' near every piece of clothing in his kit and tried to keep his hands limbered up by curlin' them around hot rocks thieved from his lt's camp stove when they dared run it. cigarettes were near the only luxury they had, he knew men what'd light one off the dying ember of another though he weren't never so bad about it as all that. mostly he saved his for the dying.

here, well. that's him, ain't it. an' all the other folk here. )

[ red eyes close at the line, much like prayers of her world, closer at least than all those prayed in westeros. she has read scripture, studied it, of course, even the parts kept in asshai. ]

Not a prayer from my own world, but I can't say the Temple would not take a liking to it.

[ 'tis a secret, the next thing, or had been, when it had been stannis and her, far from the wall in the south. once at the wall, it had been difficult to keep – she need not wrap herself in furs, in layers. she had been cold once, yes, but that was years, and years, and more years ago.

she would say she recalls it, but she would lie. she takes his hand, then, and he can feel how unnaturally hot her temperature runs, as if she is dying of a fever. ]

God warms me. [ she withdraws her hand.] All that burns belongs to him, incense and cigarettes alike. Mankind can make faith of everything and nothing, and all the more so of smoke. It reaches him.

( she runs so damn hot it's got every instinct he ever built up in war firin' off in the back of his mind. sepsis. if she didn't follow up with that line about her god he'd think a right serious case of it, too, though she's lackin' in all the other symptoms besides. he still looks at his hand afterwards, like she'd put a brand to his skin somehow. his fingers flex and curl over his palm as if to soothe the spot she'd touched. )

I see. An' whereabouts are you from, if you don't mind the askin', ma'am?

( he can't speak to whether it's a theology of earth or not. he ain't familiar with every branch of every religion out there, to say nothin' of the pagan sorts beside. it sounds monotheistic, but even then he ain't versed. )

[ where is she from. she came from the wall, the northernmost point of the seven kingdoms. westeros. essos, the continent she was born on. asshai, the place that formed her, shaped her, changed her forever.

another temple, before.

an auction block in slaver's bay, earlier still. ]

Westeros is where I died. On Castle Black. [ and a right gruesome one it was, though there is something fitting, some would say, to see her stabbed to death. ] And yourself? If it is none too personal for you.

( unfamiliar words he ain't never heard, even whispered through the ages on the breath of the dead. he'd already figured it weren't his world, but that's some species of confirmation just the same.

he shakes his head. it ain't personal, though he hasn't quite parsed his own thoughts on the matter — where he's from and where he died are two different places. )

Ah. I'm from this little place called Agathine. Mostly we're a coal an' cotton town. But the last few years I've been overseas with this fight.

[ she rests a hand against his shoulder, a gesture of comfort she hopes is not overstepping so many boundaries. ]

It is not easy, to fight and die in a foreign land, I know this well.

[ but she is much older, and had more time to prepare – she doesn't think this applies to him, not at all. ]

( he ain't usually a man what's on the receiving end of sympathy. he ain't built for it none, really. even at church when his ma died, it was more his tendency to stand off to one side, shepherd his brothers best he could. kind words well-meant couldn't get to the heart of him — not on account of any stubbornness on his part or insincerity on theirs, it just. ain't a thing he's ever wanted for.

but he don't mind much the hand on his shoulder. he's a bit on the tense side beneath her touch, but it ain't due to her, it's just that he's about always that way. war beats it into you. )

I don't mind it so much. At least I died for somethin' I believe in. Not everybody has the privilege.

( he could'a done what his granddaddy did an' died peaceable at home in his bed, but. the world needed him, an' the 82nd needed him, an' his boys out there in the mud. he never could'a done anything else but go. )

Edited 2019-06-30 22:24 (UTC)

[ she notices the tension, but then, the man she spent most of the last years with is stannis baratheon, who can only be described as tense, and harsh. some worlds do this to its people. some are born this way already.

his words on privilege ring true to her. the lord knows, had she not been saved, chosen, raised up, she would have likely not lived to see eugene's own age. ]

Not every person has the choice. It takes much to make the right one, even when such things are offered.

[ a moment's hesitation. ]

What of the rest of the men who fought with you? Are they here?

No ma'am, no one from my unit or who I fought beside.

( he says it with a certainty. he's looked. lord knows he has. there's a settled sort of satisfaction in knowin' he's alone so far as the 82nd goes. leastwise, maybe that means malachi made it out. he weren't hurt so bad as all that. he could'a lived. ginny would'a gotten him on out. an' the boys what died before him, well. those he guided on to the afterlife. they wouldn't be here anyhow.

he lifts both shoulders in somethin' very like a shrug. )

But there's another fella, a medic like me, name of Irwin Wade. Different part of the army than myself an' we ain't never met before now, but we fell in together pretty easy-like.

Never an ill thought, to have a brother or a sister in this place.

[ it's how they spoke of each other in the temples. it's how she's heard soldiers speak, when they shared war tents, when they tended to each other's wounds, when they were aware at this battle could cost them all other family. brothers in arms, brothers to the pyre. ]

And all the better for us to know you are healers of a kind.

[ all the worse for those they left behind. ]

Do you have any supplies to work with?

( he exhales a bit through his nose, jaw ticked off to one side. he an' wade between them barely got enough to assure the survival of a squad, much less some 50-odd heads like they've got here. )

Some. Not near as much as I'd like.

( supplies were stretched thin come january. he'd been stealin' what he could from the dead on both sides, an' felt an awful man about it, but. it couldn't be helped. bandages, dressing's, syrettes and scissors ain't never helped a dead man none. but they might help them here. he refuses to feel poorly for the foresight. )

But, uh, there's a lot of folks here with skills beyond my reckoning. Could be we can enlist their help, too, if'n it comes to that. Bandages ought not to be much trouble, we can just tear bed linens for those. It's the drugs I'm worried about, things like sulfa to tend the wounds an' morphine to cut the pain.

I have never heard of morphine. Or the other – sulfa?

[ Though she understands the gist of what she is saying. No milk of the poppy, nothing to soothe agony in the injured, should any of them need it. And considering what is said of the woods, they might need it sooner than they would like. ]

In my lands, we make use of plants, herbs.

[ And it is knowledge she has. ]

I suppose we will need to search the woods for what we can find and rely on... solutions older than you.

[ It's a weak attempt at a jest. ]

Morphine's an opiate. Comes from poppies, so far as I know. An' sulfa, it's... ah. An antibacterial. Helps keep a wound clean, moreso when you ain't in a sterile environment.

( but herbs an' plants, he knows those just as well. ghosts like to share their knowledge, an' more than once he's been out in the bush huntin' for some thing or other beneath the veil of night with some helpful long-deceased soul at his side guidin' his hand. he'd be a fool to discount the sum of human knowledge, an' most medicines come from plants besides. )

I'd be glad to have the help, ma'am. An' if there's anything you can teach me on that count, it'd be an honor to learn just as well.

Like milk of the poppy, then? If we have drink, we may have some shape of rubbing alcohol to clean wounds with.

⟪ she sighs, then finishes the broth he had brought her. ⟫

I will appreciate your help every bit as much, and I do not doubt you know many things I have not once heard of. We will have to learn from one another.

⟪ the offer of a smile. ⟫

Try to rest up while you may.

( he chuckles a bit, an' turns up the flap of his bag. there's a bottle of vodka nestled carefully in what looks like a shirt. )

Thought about that already. Dulls the pain an' disinfects the wound. It ain't nothin'.

( an' it could be worse. lord knows. )

Ah, ain't you ever heard the phrase 'I'll sleep when I'm dead'?

( his sense of humor ain't got much chance to shine, but. every once in a while it creeps up, rears its head some. she's easy company, an' that makes it more like to make a grand entrance. truth is, though, he ain't never been one to rest. idle hands an' the devil, as it were. gene's been workin' straight on since he was eleven, an' even before then he was an active participant with chores at his ma's side. peace wouldn't know what to do with him. )

⟪ She eyes the bottle with interest – the makings of it are so different than those in her own world, though perhaps, she simply missed something here and there. Drinking was never something she much engaged in, dulls the mind. Oh, she knows the temptations well as any other.

Still, she laughs at his jest. ⟫

I have, in Westeros. It isn't... said in my lands, in Essos, for we believe in a Red God who takes the burden of sleep from us.

⟪ She sighs. ⟫

I was free of life before I was free of the curse of dreams.

( another name for another place he ain't never heard tell of. essos. he'll remember that as surely as he does westeros. least he can do is keep an ear out for her, in case he can find a countryman of hers. lord knows it's a balm to his soul.

to the rest, well. he listens. takes it in. ain't been a moment of his life he wouldn't give over in earnest to learn about other folks from other places, an' all and sundry that accompanies it. in layman's terms, that shit be whack. but the other thing she adds on to the rest gives him some pause, an' he looks at her askance. )

You speakin' on the matter of nightmares?

( he asks it gentle, but plain enough. lord knows he's had his share, but his ma always said it was better to be direct. address the thing, cope with its evils, an' win.)

➻ here on the intro log

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TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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me, accidentally hitting enter when i'm not even halfway done my tag: THIS IS FINE

only mildly cursed

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