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soddersays2019-12-24 01:53 pm
sodder) wrote in soddersays2019-12-24 01:53 pm
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JANUARY 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME
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!
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.
no subject
Basically, back in the early 1900s, this ship was built, was supposed to be unsinkable, and sank anyway. Ton of people died. From the looks of it, we've all gotten ricocheted back into the past and are probably all gonna die, or nearly die, once this bad boy smacks into an iceberg.
And for the record, I've got no clue where or what Elysium is.
no subject
[There's a pause as Kim digests this information.]
So...we are on a ship that is historically not supposed to exist anymore that is bound to be destroyed and have a majority of its passengers die. Fantastic. [He lets out a sharp exhale.] How much time do you think we have?
[He didn't even know it was possible to have a nightmare scenario that didn't already exist in his head, but here he is now. On a boat. In a different world.]
no subject
[He shrugs noncommittally.]
Not like there's anything we can do 'cept wait and try to scramble for the lifeboats when the time comes.
cw: implied racism?
[He doesn't like how nonchalant Venkman seems about this whole situation. It reminds him too much of the same way the Coalition of Nations treated the city--it was already going to shit, anyways, so just let it stay on its course and slowly wear itself out of existence. People's lives are at stake, no matter how strange the scenario may be.
There's a brief pause, and he lets out an annoyed noise. He takes a moment to remove his glasses and wipe them clean on his shirt. A note of disgust creeps into his voice.]
Not that they would listen to me, anyways. Most people I speak to regard me as some sort of second-class citizen. You're actually one of the first people I've talked to who've given me any sort of helpful information.
[Plus, all the comments of "We don't see your kind around here very much", despite being born and raised in Revachol. He already has far too much of that back home.]
no subject
... I think some people've tried talking to the crew. Nothing's changed. They won't listen. And most of the people on this boat- they're not really real, anyway. Only some of us are real people. Everyone else is like... living memories.
The other people you talked to- I'm guessing they were probably first-class? [Automatically, he looks around again. A slightly more nervous edge creeps into his voice.] Most of the first-class people don't want to talk to anyone they think is beneath them. Bunch of privileged shitheads who got on this boat with their parent's money. Only exception is the real people- for the most part.
no subject
["Waking up" doesn't seem like the correct term, given that they're all technically asleep back at home.
Kim grimaces, putting his glasses back on and adjusting them.]
Yes, they certainly did seem to hold themselves as such. Glad to know that regardless of where or when we are, people will still try to make themselves seem better than their fellow men through capital alone.
[Should he be saying this much about home, given that they're still in such a precarious situation? He doesn't know. It just feels nice to commiserate with someone about this shit.]
So we wait until the ship crashes and we all die. Is death even an option in a collective dream?
[Something tells him no, but there's a small part of him that's hoping that maybe this is one of those dreams in which you're like, inches away from death, and then you startle yourself awake.]
no subject
[Venkman takes another sip of his drink, eyeing Kim over the glass. He still... absolutely does not trust this man, by virtue of him being a cop, but he's willing to maintain a hesitant truce with a guy down on his luck. Besides, it's not like the guy's a cop here in this dream world. Not anymore.]
I think so. I mean, other people- the real ones- who've been in this world for a while, they still seem worried about dying. So 'm pretty sure if the ship goes down, if we don't get a lifeboat, we're screwed. Drowning, hypothermia, deep sea monsters...
[For a moment, his glance shifts to the side, towards the open sea- and immediately back to Kim.]
no subject
He follows Venkman's gaze to the ocean, his eyebrows knitting together.]
Sea monsters.
[It's clear from his disparaging tone that he doesn't believe in sea monsters in the slightest. He turns back to face Venkman.]
I'm sure if there were any, they wouldn't waste time eating small prey like us. [A pause.] You seem awfully unconcerned about all this. Even with the prospect of death.
no subject
I was joking, mostly. But do you seriously accept getting sent back in time to a doomed voyage but draw the line at sea monsters? Really?
[He was only partially joking, given the occasional visions of disaster that've been plaguing him since he stared a bit too long over the boat's edge a few days prior, but still. It's the principle of the thing.]
What can I say. You nearly die a few thousand times, you either go batshit or get used to it. This wouldn't even be one of the weirdest near-death experiences I've had.
no subject
You make a good point. I suppose I spend so much time trying to dismiss supernatural causes, it's more difficult to accept such explanations.
[Clearly, though, he'll need to get used to it. He clears his throat, looking slightly out of his depth. He's already had the detective suggest at every turn that the man in the tree has some sort of supernatural influence or sexy twist. Kim has grown immune to these comments over the course of spending a few hours with the man.]
There's nothing wrong with a healthy fear of death. [There's a pause.] I'm almost afraid to ask what your strangest near-death experience is.
no subject
[Unlike Walter "I will have molten marshmallow god chunks land on me and still believe ghosts aren't real" "dickless" Peck and his ilk.]
I've still got a good fear of death. Trust me, when the time comes, I'm getting on those lifeboats. I just can't let that consume me in the meantime.
... And it's hard to narrow it down, but one of the weirdest is definitely the time we got teleported into the chicken dimension.
no subject
So you're dedicating your time to drinking and feasting while you can. A sound decision, I guess.
[At least he doesn't sound disapproving. When you work with people as corrupt as the RCM, you get people much worse with their drink (and other assorted drugs), and Kim honestly doesn't case--so long as they can still do their jobs and don't involve him.
A question leaps to the front of his brain, and he hesitates for a moment. It's stupid. He'd never ask this sort of thing during any sort of questioning. Wasn't he supposed to be gathering information on more important things?
Ah, fuck it.]
Just to be clear, was it a dimension filled with chickens, or was everything in that dimension made of chickens? [A pause.] This is for investigative purposes, obviously.
no subject
Dimension filled with chickens. Specifically, a pocket dimension created by a demon, and every chicken that existed on earth got teleported there by some guy with weird priorities. He sent us there too, we started plummeting towards the ground 'cause for some reason everything sent to that dimension appears in the sky, and then we got saved by getting sent to Hell.
[A beat.]
Sea monsters don't sound so fucking bad anymore, huh?