JANUARY 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to January's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: OCEAN HORROR.

All Test Drive Memes contain at least one clue to the Deerington's upcoming in-game events for the month! Keep your eyes peeled! But...not literally.

Characters may die during TDMs, but you do not need to count it towards a game-canonical death unless you want to. Consider it a freebie. All TDMs can be considered game canon as TDMs introduce minor aspects about the world of Deerington that can be revisited by characters later on in the game. You may also use TDMs for your application writing sample as well as AC.

PLEASE NOTE FOR CHARACTER ARRIVALS: This month, all players can choose to have their characters wake up in the town of Deerington or on the Titanic.

CW: Ghost of a child, rotting corpses, drowning, hallucinations, paranoia
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

WHERE FEET MAY FAIL

For those who were left behind in Deerington while everyone else was whisked away in the flood during the New Years Eve party, they will find that the town is a little more wet than usual. The streets are still flooded, houses are damp, and the chill of winter isn't making it easy to deal with. Your hands can feel like ice any day of the week and it's hard to focus with how badly you may find yourself trembling from the cold.

But it's almost preferable to the visions. They start off while you're sleeping; large sea monsters roaming the ocean, waiting to pull you down into the darkened depths; or maybe it's a strange, ghost looking girl with glowing eyes and tattered clothing, her skin blue and rotting the way a body does when it's been submerged in water for too long. She's calling out to you, beckoning you down, and all around her are the strung up, floating corpses of the people who were foolish enough to listen.

It's just a dream though, right? Slowly you start to see the girl around town. She's still calling to you, watching you, waiting for you. If you get too close, she'll even be able to grab onto you, pulling you down into the waterlogged streets, and into what you thought was only a puddle of water. It's as deep as an ocean, and just as dark and cold too. Someone near by can grab onto you before she can drag you under and the vision will disappear. If no one does, maybe if you're a strong swimmer, you'll be able to struggle free, but when you resurface, there will be a bruise forming on your arm in the shape of a hand – something to remind you that maybe these visions are a little more real than you gave them credit for.

The only way to stay safe is to travel in pairs. The girl seems to keep her distance when there's more than one person around, but it doesn't mean she won't try to find the means to separate you. Whether it's increasing the flooding in certain areas of the street or trying to distract one of you long enough to put some distance between you and your comrade, she'll do whatever it takes to try and grab onto whoever she can.

GHOST SHIP

Those who are on the boat might find that life is a little easier, depending on what class you've found yourself in. The struggles between first, second, and third are certainly rough on everyone, but many seem to find themselves thinking this is just the way of things. Maybe your mind has been altered to just accept the class differences or your memories completely rewritten and you think you've led a completely different life so far; either way, only a handful of passengers seem to fully understand that this isn't the way things are supposed to be.

There's nothing anyone can do to change things, though, and so many find themselves getting lost in day to day activities. Whether it's working on the ship, enjoying the finer foods in the first class dining halls, or enjoying the rowdy parties in third class storage after hours, everyone seems to be finding something to keep themselves occupied. As the days pass, even those who know full well what's coming seem to forget the looming doom, and you might even find yourself feeling lost in the monotony of day to day life.

But those who stare into the water too long, who look at the strange, large shapes swimming just under the surface might find a sense of dread filling them. The paranoia will shake you to your very core, leaving you with a sense that all is not right with this journey. You can try to tell people, but most will look at you as though you're insane. Eventually, your fear will become so heavy that you start to see destruction all around you. Whole sections of the ship will look flooded, rotting wood and rusted steel taking over every inch of the once proud ship, and every section is covered in algae. You might start to realize it looks uncannily like an old shipwreck.

The ship is still floating, though, and the coarse steady. So it's all in your head, right? Staying away from the water will make the visions and paranoia eventually ebb, but any glance at the floating shapes will cause it to come back tenfold. Maybe just stay inside and away from the ship's edge. It seems a lot safer that way.

Character Arrival

You can read how all characters arrive in Deerington here.

NOTE: Character's this month can wake up in Deerington or on the Titanic.

There is not a collective "all these characters showed up at the exact same moment" occurrence in Deerington. Since characters fall asleep, die, or pass out at various times throughout all their worlds, it wouldn't make too much sense if they arrived in game all at the exact same time. There should be some discrepancy between character arrival, whether by a couple minutes, hours, or even days up to a week.

The players are entirely in control of how/when they want to play their characters arriving in Deerington. For TDMs, you can play it like your character has just arrived and that can be maintained as your game canon, or you can wait until game events for that moment. Or you don't need to acknowledge it at all. The flexibility for character allows a bit more of an organic feel to the character arrival situation, so please play it to whatever feels right for you.

If you are interested in having an "arrival" introduction for one of your TDM prompts, you are more than welcome to explore that option.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[The good news is she does have a weapon. The bad news is it’s in her bag and is likely nothing he’s ever seen before—and it’s a little embarrassing to fight with anyhow. She’s sort of hoping she won’t have to bother.

She crosses her arms over her chest and frowns up at him (and up; shes unfortunately short, okay?] When you arrived this probably looked like a really fancy ship, right? Too if the line, every luxury accounted for.

I’m not sure how it’s even staying on the water like this, but it definitely doesn’t actually look like that. [She taps against her lower lip with her index finger, frowning in thought as she murmurs to herself] Some kind of hypnosis...? I don’t know. But it’s weird and the more people seem to look out at the water, the more they seem to become aware again.

It keeps going away after a while for most people though and they go right back to acting like everything’s normal. [Most people. Not her, apparently, but she’s watching him with a careful curiosity, like shes trying to figure out already which he’ll be.]

[if a flute can be a first class spiritual weapon, anything can. he'd probably be curious more than anything.

he listens, arms folded and lips pursed before he nods.]

A nicer ship than I've ever seen. Every clan of Yunmeng could fit and then some. [wei wuxian's brow arches when she says that it looks something different. the eyes sweep a part of the ship nearest him and-] I remember.

[the words are whispered, nearly to himself.]

There was a fog that plays with the senses and the mind. It's something like that?

Edited 2019-12-29 00:10 (UTC)

[Miu considers what mask she should be wearing here, what kind of role she should be forcing herself to play. Her ticket had marked her as first class, so playing up being rich and haughty had been easy enough; she could play up this sort of guide role she seems to be taking on, but it's all so... Exhausting. She doesn't care anymore.

But he's got her attention and is a curiosity enough that she'll hang around as he puzzles it out, as the awareness comes over him again.

She hums, as if pleased, and nods.] Something like that, yeah. Out here you start to see things for what they really are and remember things again. When you stay away too long, you start slipping back. Normally, anyway. Maybe you'll be different, who knows.

It hasn't gotten to me, after all. [Oh. Right though. Manners, or something. She waves a hand in a lazy, 'wait wait' gesture.] My name is Miu, by the way. Hopefully you'll actually be able to remember it later.

[She's a bit too casual about this whole 'memory loss and weird hypnosis fucking with our heads,' thing, but maybe it's just easier since it's not her who has to experience it.]

The sooner we can get everyone off this ship, the better.

[now, convincing everyone else of that when so many seem to be having a grand ol' time on it. wei wuxian was too with a bottle of alcohol in his hand.

he puts aside his worry for the moment to smile at her comment.]

Don't worry, it would take something much worse than this to make me forget the name of a pretty girl!

[...the back of his neck prickles. it's almost like he can feel the phantom glares of both jiang cheng and lan zhan combined.]

Do you also remember why you got on his ship? Or where it's going?

...Ah, yeah. [Ahha right, other people exist.

That comment gets a raised eyebrow though.] Thanks. [her entire career revolves around looking pretty, so she knows she is. She doesn't want to bother with the pretenses of false modesty. In the end, people were all the same, so she didn't really take any stock in what he said anyhow.] I'm sure you tell all the girls that.

[She opens her mouth to answer, then freezes with the sudden shock of realization that she doesn't know. She brings her hand to her mouth, curling her fingers at her mouth as she tries to think.]

...I remember having a weird dream right before. And then the next thing I knew I was waking up in one of the first class cabins. Why can't I remember...? [She trails off, looking frustrated and irritated.] I don't think I've even overheard anyone talking about where we're supposed to be going.

Ah - only the pretty ones.

[wei wuxian holds three fingers up as a part of his promise, and gives his brightest smile in case that's not enough. it's not a lie! it just so happens that yunmeng has lots of pretty girls, so he has a lot of practice when it comes to compliments.

he lowers his hand while watching her, waiting, able to guess her answer before she even says it.]

I don't remember anything before being in third class, and the liquor isn't good enough that I'd forget.

[Wei Wuxian please. Miu kind of rolls her eyes in an exasperated--but amused--way and gets back to focusing on the fact she can't remember anything substantial here.

So something ehre was definitely messing with her memories and that pisses her off more than anything. She stomps her foot against the ground in frustration and then takes a breath, her jaw tight with irritation.]

The captain.

[She blurts it out and turns to him sharply, her eyes fierce with determination.] There has to be a captain somewhere, right? If we find him, he'll have to know where we're going.

[She says, having apaprently decided that her and Wei Wuxian are in this investigation together and obviously he's going to follow her around this ship looking for this guy.]

As much as it seems like this boat sails itself, I doubt that's the case.

[he's in agreement with her. someone has to be in charge, and that someone has to have some answers. if not all of them, certainly still more than the passengers.]

I bet we'll find them in the more comfortable part of the ship.

[count him in. this mystery has affected his life too, taking him away from a second chance at life. wei wuxian rubs his nose as he thinks about something else.]

I bet the captain has the best liquor too...

[by all means, lead the way!]

[Normally, Miu doesn't really like touching people. Humanity as a whole is just gross and the disgust she feels with having to even interact with people on a daily basis is hard enough without the objectification she subjects herself to by way of her chosen career as a gravure idol.

It doesn't help that her abilities are normally touch-activated, but that doesn't matter right now. She's aggravated and doesn't have time to hope that Wei Wuxian will be able to keep up with her-- Which is rather silly in and of itself, given that her legs are so much shorter than his. Either way, she immediately snatches at his arm and pulls at him as she starts off, practically stomping away and hardly letting him even finish his sentence before she's trying to do so.]

What does liquor have to do with anything?