memesinthenight | TEST DRIVE MEME #8

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!tdm

TEST DRIVE MEME #8

Hello and welcome to the In the Night test drive meme for January! Thanks for your interest in our game! In an effort to streamline our application process and avoid future confusion between incoming and existing players, we will no longer have a reservation period. Applications open on January 22, and will be judged on a first-come, first-served basis.

While you're here...
Take a look at our rules and faq pages to familiarize yourself with the game.
Note that we have a (current) application cap of 16 apps this month for new players, as the game has a player cap of 70. 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!

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CAKE BY THE OCEAN

It's a brand new year, and with it, a brand new...you? Well, you are dead, but there's still plenty of ways that you can embrace the spirit of starting fresh, especially when it seems that the forest spirits have their own traditions that they're eager to share! If you've only just arrived, you may find yourself pelted with loaves of bread and accosted with noisemakers, or if you're a seasoned Beaconite, maybe you're wearily unsurprised to find strings of onions being placed around various doorways. Just another day in the afterlife. Best to go along with it, even if some of these practices seem to be somewhat chaotic. It's never a good idea to make the spirits mad, after all, and especially not when they're trying to show you...some sort of semblance of good will, you think. For the most miserable of souls, at least you can be comforted in the knowledge that it should all be over before the day is out.

This is a miniature version of the festivities present during this month's intro log!

I CAN'T FEEL MY FACE WHEN I'M WITH YOU

Winter has made its way to Beacon. It's fortunate that plenty of snow gear has been made available at the general store, so this is a great time for those with little-to-no experience with genuine snow to get out there and draw some angels or build forts for some playful snowball fights! At least...it is, at first. Linger too long and you'll find yourself caught in the middle of a raging blizzard that seems to have swept in out of nowhere. In an instant things seem to go from cold to freezing, and the need to get back inside where there's safety from the elements is pressing. Fortunately, you aren't alone. It might not be your usual residence, but more than one of you have tumbled into the same shelter, and will probably be stuck in there until the worst of the storm passes. No time to get to know each other like the present, right? Gotta break the ice somehow (haha).

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RUN BOY RUN

The changes in the weather isn't the only thing that residents old and new need to keep weary of. While a great many of the forest spirits remain generally friendly, traveling alone comes with its risks. There's always the possibility that you may encounter a creature that's less inclined to let you pass it by unscathed. And so it goes for you as you venture out into the trees with your lantern and torch in hand. Whatever reason you had for starting out alone, and whatever got you to this point, you've had to take shelter from a very, very displeased spirit. Maybe it has a body not meant for climbing, and you've scaled high up into a tree that it won't let you down from, or maybe you've taken shelter inside of a structure that it's too big to squeeze itself into. Whatever the case, it's clear that your pursuer isn't giving up the ghost (haha), and you'll need to contact someone for some form of help to get yourself out of this.

1000 FORMS OF FEAR

It's a normal day in Beacon...which means that something inconvenient at best and terrifying at worst must be just around the corner. Whether or not you're on edge about the relative calm, it doesn't seem that anything weird is happening...until you try and post to the network. No matter how many times you try, the message you intend to write erases itself. As if someone else has hacked into your tablet, a new message re-types itself in front of your eyes. One of your greatest fears or greatest regrets announces itself for all to see, and there's no getting rid of it. All attempts at getting rid of it are fruitless, and it doesn't seem that you can back out of the new post window now that you're here. Your only option now is to hit send. But, hey, your fellow residents are a pretty understanding lot. Maybe they won't hold whatever it is against you. Maybe you can explain it away. There's always lying, too, if you want to go that method of covering your tracks.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

~~Cake~~ Bread and Onions by the Ocean

[Sure is chaotic around here, huh? Forest spirits running back and forth, carrying bundles of baked goods and strings of onions in their stubby little arms. They've even invaded the Invincible, tacking up their strange decorations above all the doors and covering every table in bread. Topped off with a cacophony of festive noise-makers, it's probably enough to get on almost anyone's nerves. Except Gregor's, apparently.

He can be found either sleeping soundly, face-down on a table and covered in a mountain of baguettes (save him), or leaned back in his chair with an onion necklace, casually buttering a piece of bread. When life gives you loaves, make ~~loaf-onaid~~ sandwiches, or something. (Please don't make loaf-onaid.)

In either case, anyone sitting down nearby is likely to either wake him up (causing an avalanche of huge breadsticks) or spark a conversation. In which he will ask for jelly.]

It's a shame we can't toast anything. I don't suppose you were lucky enough to be given a jelly-filled donut?

Run Boy Run

[The first part of the post is a picture of an open doorway. And outside it is a pair of legs. It's just legs. More accurately, feet and shins, because whatever these legs belong to, the rest of it is somewhere above the door frame.]

So. Seeing as how it hasn't moved in about three hours, I'm guessing they don't get bored easily.
Should I toss it something, or do I live here now?

[Presumably the spirits have again picked up on Earth customs to perpetuate. Which is fine - kind of. Rosinante gets a little tired of the assumption everyone knows about these things already. New Year's Day is fairly universal, but having croissants hurled at him is absolutely not. He's consented to wearing a string of onions around his neck as some sort of attempt at appeasement, but apparently it does nothing but make him look like he's wearing a weird string of pearls.

He notices the sleeping man and intends to pass him by, but it's at that point that a troupe of spirits bounds out of the darkness with a platter. They leap onto the table, kicking bread in all directions - including toppling all those breadsticks - then vault off each other to fling the entire array of fresh pastries at Rosinante. Perhaps the onions just make him a target?

Raised arms don't quite shield himself, and although the bread bounces off and onto the ground, he's now decorated with bits of honey and almonds and sticky sugar syrup. Frustrated, he shoos them away, then heads to the table.]

No. No donuts, no jelly. I think those were sweet rolls, though. Have you seen a napkin?

[Oh look, they're onion-buddies. Great.

Despite having just woken up, Gregor seems fairly alert and just sort of goes along with whatever is currently happening. Which is, apparently, something he finds at least a little amusing.]

Maybe a while ago, but I'm guessing it's long gone by now.

[He lifts up a few of the remaining baguettes to check underneath, but alas.]

Unfortunately I'm not in the habit of carrying around handkerchiefs, either. Maybe you could just wipe it off with the bread.

[There's plenty of it to go around, who's gonna know?]

Ugh.

[Yeah he's gonna try anyway, at least to get the actual pieces of nuts off of his coat. Sure, he could use his hand, but then his hand would get sticky and - well really he just needs to go get changed, probably. But first, he finds what looks to be a firmer sort of bread and brushes his coat semi-clean. Who knows what kind of bread it is. He hates all of it and never bothered figuring out the different types.

Anyway now he has bread in his hand and he's not sure whether the table or the ground is a better place for it. Maybe just. The table. Hopefully nobody's actually trying to eat what's on it because a lot of it could have come from anywhere.]

What baffles me is I'm not sure where all of this even came from. I didn't think we had that much flour left from the last ferry, and they can't have just baked all of this from the new supplies, right?

[He's trying very hard not to judge the sticking of gross bread to the table, but hey, he probably would've done the same thing. Still nasty though.]

Maybe they asked for it. Special order. I'd say they could've been baking and hoarding it in stages, but there's a distinct lack of mold. Unless they've just been storing it in the snow. You know, the good old Canadian refrigerator.

Either that or mold doesn't grow here. At this point I can't really rule any possibility out.

[It's definitely not ideal but neither is littering which like, normally he wouldn't give a shit but he knows Rastus cares and keeping Rastus happy is sort of important to his cigarette supply.

Anyway what the hell is a "canadian refrigerator".]

That's... a surprisingly good point. Mold might not grow here. I've seen a lot of old, overgrown buildings but they're not moldy. Being dead doesn't work right here, so why would decay?

[Is mold alive? He's honestly not sure what it is, come to think of it.]

Yes, I've been told that the dead simply disappear here. The little creatures included. Which is... slightly frustrating.

[It's actually really frustrating. Like, very. You're ruining his unlife, Beacon. That said he could probably still test that decay theory, except that there isn't a need for it.]

If there's nothing for the mold to feed on, it makes sense there wouldn't be much of it.

Well, there's wood. Food. Other plants. I don't know, really.

[Other plants, because mold is a fungus and fungi are plants, right? It occurs to him that he doesn't really know even that much. Biology wasn't ever something he had to study or had any real interest in.]

Doesn't matter, I guess. Nothing here acts like you'd expect. The river tries to pull you in, and the air knocks you down if you get up to high.

[Where does mold actually come from? What does it primarily feed on? He sure as hell doesn't know.]

Sounds a bit mythological. River gods, Icarus, etcetera. Some force doesn't want us going certain places, and it's offended when we try. The fact that you know all this is promising, though. Means people are still trying.

[Fuck the proverbial police, or something. Gregor's realizing that non-toasted buttered bread really isn't all that appetizing, so he's just going to leave it on the table with Rosi's nasty honey-napkin one. (Not butter side down, though, that would just be rude.)

He'll go with a cigarette instead, grabbing one out of the case he keeps in his jacket.]

You don't mind, I assume.

[It's not a question. Firstly because they're already dead, and secondly because this guy smells about as much like smoke as he does.]

[Mythology he's entirely unfamiliar with, but whatever. It's fine. He's used to it, and he gets the gist well enough.

The question that comes next actually strikes him as surprising. Do people mind? Is that something he should have been asking? Smoking is so commonplace where he's from and not once here has anyone complained that it didn't occur to him. Maybe this guy is just from somewhere strange.]

Of course not. In fact, don't mind if I do.

[As he retrieves a cigarette himself from the pack in his own pocket. He's going to want one the moment the other guy lights up anyway, so why wait.]

You've probably noticed your lighter doesn't work by now, I imagine?

[To be fair "from somewhere strange" is not entirely incorrect.]

I haven't, actually. Lost it a while ago.

[His tone suggests it will not be particularly missed. Without hesitation, he lifts the top off of his lantern and tilts it so he can reach the flame without removing the glass.

Of course he's figured this one out. It was one of the first things he did, immediately realizing that doing it with magic wouldn't work.]

That's good to know, though, for future reference. This place seems to have some peculiar rules when it comes to fire.

[Oh, well look at that. Good on him for figuring it out so quickly.]

Yeah. Something about what happened to this place back in the past with the World Eaters, I guess. Made light and fire and anything like either of those not work right.

[And life, which is such a strange thing to him. Why should that be bundled with light? They coincidentally sound similar, but otherwise he's still not sure what the connection is. But they must have some sort of shared properties, considering the lanterns.]

[He had to figure it out quickly. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all.]

So the World Eaters ate fire's ability to catch? Except for those torches. And the lanterns. Is it even possible for something to eat a... property of a thing?

[It sounds like he's actually puzzling this question out, but like, very tiredly. He's too old for this shit. Eventually he just shrugs.]

I guess anything's possible at this point. It doesn't really matter how it happened, it's fact now.

Something like that. Might matter eventually, though, if it's something we can use against them, or figure out how to change.

[He'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt, though. Being new here means there's a lot to take in and sometimes it's surely far too much information at once.]

I'm Rosinante, by the way. Don't think I got your name.

Eventually, maybe.

[It is a lot of information at once, and he's lacking a lot of the vital context, so for now he'll just table that particular mystery. No use fretting over it just yet.

He notes that Rosinante doesn't offer a last name, but that could mean any number of things. Maybe he's just the informal sort. Maybe there's just no point in a surname when you're probably the only person with your given one. Who knows?]

Gregor. [He won't offer a last name either, just in case it's the norm.]

I'm sure you've already heard more than you care to of Earth, seems a lot of us come from the same place. You, on the other hand, I don't think so.

[Not that there's anything wrong with that. But humans on his Earth don't exactly grow to... those heights.]

You're right on the latter point. I don't mind hearing more about Earth, though. Learn something new every time. You all come from different kingdoms and different times. Sounds like a big place. How about you? Anywhere I might have heard of?

[Yes, that deflection was pretty transparent and he realizes Gregor will probably make a second attempt at asking about where he comes from. That's fine, though. He doesn't really mind giving a barebones description if he's really that curious, there's no harm in it.]

[Gregor shrugs.]

Maybe. Most people from Earth in the last hundred years probably have, so it could've been mentioned.

[And yet he hasn't said it yet. Either he's very much the type to do everything on his own time, or he's being a shit about Rosinante's dodginess. Probably both. The sly, eyes-only smile essentially confirms that.

He'll be nice, though.]

New York City. Largest city in the United States. If nothing else, you've at least probably heard of the county.

[He nods a little. Who was from New York, again? He'd have to pull out his tablet and consult his notes to remember and he doesn't want to demonstrate just how much he keeps written down on everyone right now.]

I've heard of it. Think we've had a few from there, though I can't remember who. And a lot of others are from the United States too, but other parts of it. Even heard it's a big enough country where in parts of it you can travel for days without seeing the ocean.

[Which is still mindblowing. Even up on the Red Line, someone wouldn't be more than a day or so from at least a view of the sea.]

Days? It can take over a week if you don't want to be miserable.

[He's never driven a car, never had a need to, but the idea of doing so for twelve or more hours a day is incredibly bleak.]

Don't get me wrong, our world is mostly water. The continents are large, but the oceans are even larger. I take it where you're from, the landmasses aren't that big?

Yeah. Small islands. The biggest ones I've ever been too you can still walk across in a couple days, so it's hard for me to imagine being far from water.

[But that first statement was confusing, wasn't it? What does Gregor even mean?

Also apparently this is a full on conversation now so he gives in and sits at the table. This is awkward since the ground is wet and snowy but it's still better than trying to cramp himself into a too-small chair with his knees hitting the table from below. He finds a spot that at least doesn't look muddy and has a drag from his cigarette.]

How is taking more time less miserable? You mean taking it slow, seeing the sights?

[On the one hand, Rosinante looks very uncomfortable on the floor. On the other, Gregor doesn't have to crane his neck as much to look at him, so there's that.]

Something along those lines. You could rush to wherever you're going and enjoy yourself there, I guess, but I can't imagine how awful it would be to be stuck in a car for two days straight.

If you have to go a long way, might as well make the most of it.

[Give him a second. He almost squints a little as he thinks hard. A car - that's a word he's heard before here, isn't it? But he can't recall ever getting the specifics.]

Stuck in a what?

[He'll just start there, see how Gregor answers.]

A car.

[And because it's then clear that he didn't just mishear, now Gregor has to figure out how to explain what a car is.]

It's a vehicle. A sort of closed wagon that's powered by an engine instead of a pack animal. Modern ones can move quite fast, over a hundred miles per hour if that measurement means anything. Somewhere around... a hundred and sixty kilometers?

[Don't ask him knots he doesn't know shit about that.]

[Kilometers are easier, and his eyes widen as he does a rough conversion in his head. The fastest sailing ships in full sail and strong winds still only travel half that speed and only while the winds are good. The average is far lower. A horse likewise cannot approach that pace.]

Most of our ships are lucky to reach a tenth of that speed. And cars are common on Earth? Enough where people can prefer them?

[Since Gregor had, after all, mentioned travel at those speeds as something mundane. Expected. How do they not crash into things all the time?]

Well, to be clear, those speeds are what cars are capable of. In most places it's only legal to drive them around sixty-five at the most. In kilometers something like... [Hold on, gotta do some mental math.] A hundred and five?

[Still much faster than a ship, or at least one without an engine.]

Cars are extremely common, though most people living in the city I'm from don't bother with them. It's a busy place, things get backed up with everyone trying to use the same roads at once. Faster to just walk or use the subway. [Oh, wait, if he didn't know what a car was, Rosinante definitely doesn't know what a subway is.]

That's an underground train system. [Fingers crossed for trains?]

TEST DRIVE MEME #8

Gregor Allaine | OC | hey what's up it's leu

there is no ocean, only fresh water and teeth

eh good enough

only the onions remain

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