memesinthenight | TEST DRIVE MEME #05

TEST DRIVE MEME #05

Hello and welcome to the The Next Night's test drive meme for December-January! Thanks for your interest in this GPSL! We operate on a rolling application system. Applications are always open and will be judged on a first-come, first-served basis.

The Next Night is currently set to end in spring of 2021, so this will be the last TDM posted - but don't let that dissuade you! There are plenty of opportunities for new characters to get involved in current game events as the community of Beacon unites to deal with a world-ending foe.

While you're here...

Take a look at our rules and faq pages to familiarize yourself with The Next Night.

Note that we will have an application cap of 10 apps for new players, and that 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 top-leveling is not limited to new characters! If current players wish to post a starter, they are welcome and encouraged to do treat the TDM like any other game-wide event. Current players are welcome to post logs or network posts using TDM prompts as desired.

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.

As we no longer plan to have a bimonthly game-wide HMD meme, we will require all new applications going forward to have a HMD post somewhere on the journal and we will ask for this as part of the application process.

Thank you again, and we hope you'll choose to join us!

log prompts

the walls, the walls are coming down

After Dr. Solis' disappearance, the people operating the portal have occasionally struggled with bringing in new people. So they widen the parameters. Select all target sectors of the multiverse. Surely, this has to be better, right?

For some of you, the last thing you remember is dying. Maybe it feels like a moment ago, maybe a lifetime. But now you awake in darkness, with a lantern your only source of light, and a tablet that prompts you to sign on to a network at your side. The locals must be these strange thing surrounding you - some humanoid, some animal-like, others something else entirely, but they encircle you, masked faces pressing closer, until one shrieks and squeaks and takes you by the hand, or shoves you, or simply tries to herd you to the large bonfire in the center of an open square.

For others, you're quite sure you were just recently alive, and possibly in the middle of something important. And when the forest spirits try to haul you off, their hands pass right through you. Your lantern flickers. The network prompt blinks, but entering a username doesn't seem to get it to go anywhere until it finally lets you on as an anonymous guest user. Strange. But while you're here, you might as well enjoy the sights, right? Hopefully this is just some strange mistake and you'll wake up shortly with nothing more than a headache to show for it.

Note: for characters who are not dead, they will function as "ghosts" for this TDM - however you want to interpret that! If you decide to app them to the game, they will have to end up dead as part of their arrival in Beacon, but are allowed to remember the events of this TDM once they have died and wound up here.

As this is a fourth wall-style prompt, feel free to play any character you like for a brief visit to Beacon, but keep in mind that if you later decide to app them they will need to fit within the rules for appable characters. For situations involving characters previously in Beacon returning for this mini-event, any memory of previously being in Beacon is allowed but will automatically render the threads non-canon (or some strange hallucination).

Questions? Feel free to ask on the December Gameplan.

rat nicholas

Did you all forget the Rat King? Because the Rat King hasn't forgotten you. Just as you're picking up the monthly supplies and greeting the strangest round of newcomers yet, there's a thundering of paws, shrill little squeaks, and the glint of torchlight on sharp teeth. A wall of rats overtakes the town, threatening to trample anyone and anything in their path.

But if you manage to stay out of their way, you'll see a strange sight - the Rat King, body composed of hundreds of fleshy, furry rat bodies writhing and swaying, is being pulled on a large piece of scrap metal across the snow. And as they swarm, the King tosses gifts to and fro! Try not to get bonked in the head by a shrunken apple doll, or trip over a very pungent cheese rind. Among the strange rat-favored junk you might even find a few treasures in the form of actual sweets, or some lovely spirit-made garlands, though you might have to beat the rats to the good ones!

network prompts

Q&A

WHAT WOULD YOU GIVE
TO SEE THEM AGAIN

WHAT WILL YOU GIVE
TO KEEP THEM SAFE

KNOWING YOU GET NOTHING IN RETURN?

[The words appear on the network - sometimes when you go to make a post, sometimes interrupting what you were trying to type.

Maybe this place is just like that, or maybe there's someone looking for an answer?]

shivers

The brutal cold drags its teeth across your flesh with every biting gust of wind. You just want to get indoors, to safety - but the snow spirals thickly around you, blocking all vision, reflecting light from your lantern onto shards of ice that seek to dig in to any part of your exposed skin. You close your eyes, cover them with a hand, while branches crack and snap in the forest around you.

When you open them, you aren't where you were, and you are very alone. But the tablet in your pocket still has a signal. Maybe you can ask for help? Maybe someone knows how to guide you back?

(This is a mini-version of our upcoming event, Shivers (I've Got 'Em)!)

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[that is a very good question, isn't it?]

You tell me. I don't remember dying at all, Zeus might have hit me pretty hard but he didn't kill me. Maybe it's because I live with death every day?

So you just got dragged in by accident? I guess I could see that. Hell of a way to go.

[The smile he offers is sympathetic, even as he makes light of a god apparently dying in a pretty dark half-joke. Funny what this place has done to his sense of humor, which was already pretty dry other than pulling faces at one bitter dying child.]

Well, I'd give you the grand tour but it takes a while to get around here. Big area for how few people there are. That building ahead though, that's an inn and tavern called The Invincible. Bunch of us live there, and a few people like doing group meals. It's also the main rally point if there's an emergency.

[that doesn't really assuage any of his worries about how he got here and how he gets out if he can't just snap his fingers and be literally anywhere, but...one thing at a time.]

Yeah, I guess it would be hard to see how big the whole forest is if it's so dark. Oh well, if there's other folks around then maybe that's the place to hang out, get to know...

[so distracted that he walks into a tree...only he doesn't exactly walk into it so much as through it, as if either he or the tree have chosen that moment to exist in alternate dimensions from one another. It's enough to give anyone pause.]

[Or, if you're Rosinante, it's enough to make you stare, miss a step entirely, and collapse onto the ground backward with your tailbone smashed on a tree root. The bag of flour doesn't fall far, given its weight; it ruptures instantly, though, dusting the forest floor in a spray of white powder when Rosinante's head collides with it and finds it a lot harder than he would have expected.

God, it's like I called this several tags ago or something.

Dazed only briefly, Rosinante sits up and scoots away from the root, rubbing the back of his head, while staring at the supposed god.]

Did you just... walk through that? Is that normal for you?

[don't worry about him, what about you on the ground! all those gangly limbs everywhere...

Hades leans down to try to help him up, offering a hand without thinking that maybe it might fade out mid-grab and just make matters worse]

I, uh...apparently I did? But no, that's not really a usual thing. I'm used to being very solid. Aw, man, and the flour spilled and everything, I'm sorry...

[If he would stop to think it through, reaching for that hand would seem like an obvious poor idea. But it's one of those gestures you automatically react to, so of course he tries to take it, finds his hand meets nothing at all, and somehow loses the balance he'd attained by sitting up halfway and flops back down onto the flour.

Maybe he'll just give up here, arms wide, coughing as the cloud of flour dust rises and then falls again around his face.]

Think most of it's still in there. I hope. Otherwise, Pudding's gonna make me do all the cleaning for a week.

[He'd do it anyway if asked, but.]

Maybe you should come to the lab. Maybe there's something in there we can scan you with. Or maybe Law can figure something out.

[whoops sorry about that, buddy. It's more than a little concerning, but Hades just makes a thoughtful face and pats himself down. Huh, he can touch himself...]

If you think that's going to help. A lot of this is nothing I've experienced before, but if it's weird to you, too, then...well. I don't know that there's anything to do, but I'm curious enough to try anything. If you think it'll help.

Can't promise anything, but I don't know what else to do.

[He grunts at the slight throbbing pain in his head and tailbone as he sits up again, then takes off his hat and beats flour out of it with his hand before setting it back on top of his head. Then, let's see - he tries to fold down the top of the sack of flour, then carefully pick it up without spilling too much more, and just carries it against his chest with both arms.

And sneezes, once. Dusty stuff.]

Invincible first, though. Maybe someone there will have an idea. Mind getting the- [- door. That won't work, dude just walked through a tree.] ... Mind asking someone to get the door?

[it's getting more disconcerting by the minute, this whole phantom thing; if he wanted to mess around he would use his powers, but if he can't blip himself back to the underworld at will, he wouldn't be able to do that either...logically. Right? It's hard for Hades to tell anymore.

He trudges ahead and figures, if he's noncorporeal, he should just walk through the door and see if anyone is inside to help. Except, when he goes to, this time, he slams face-first into the wood. Thanks, Beacon, thanks ever so much.]

Damn it!

[hmm yes this is definitely pain. He rubs his nose awkwardly and then tries the door. This time, he can grip it just fine. That solves one problem, but leaves him staring at Rosinante, perplexed. Like, bro, I'm so confused here, I know this isn't how humans do but...]

[Well that is new and different all over again, isn't it. Rosinante just looks at the door, the hand, then at the guy's face before giving a half-shrug, just visible despite the sack of flour.]

Don't know any better than you do. Maybe that was just a fluke a moment ago.

[Which seems unlikely, but what else is he supposed to say?]

We'll have someone have a look at your lantern. Will's been working on those, he might have an idea. If they get dented or damaged it can affect the rest of you.

Hopefully so. It's going to be a pain if it keeps happening when I'm trying to be useful and all. At least we're here, and it's warmer inside...

[you know, for dudes wearing scraps of fabric that vaguely hint at "clothing" 0 even his Greek-ish lantern hangs from the decorative chain around his waist that is most absolutely not a functional belt in any sense of the word]

Hm. Charming place you guys have got here.

[Walks through trees but not doors, does sense the temperature... Mysterious. The fashion sense doesn't throw him though, since apparently dudes in his world just casually go shirtless as normal attire. Seems fine.]

I feel like you're not being completely serious. But we've worked hard to keep this place together, between the floods and blizzards and all-out warfare it's had to withstand. Like the paintings?

[He tips his head toward the murals decorating the walls as he then sets the half-sack of flour on top of the bar for someone else to put away. Maybe if he slips away now, nobody will know he's the one who lost a bunch of it.]

TEST DRIVE MEME #05

wow look what notif I never got

ruuude dw I wonder how many other people lost them, hm

not that I doubted it happening but then it's like wow it really does happen

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