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

Easy-peasey, huh...at least we know she's not just lonely now.

[He mentally files away the phrase 'easy-peasey' as something he can say for stuff that's simple. Mob doesn't know a lot of slang, but he thinks he likes the sound of that one.]

Yeah, I can show you the way there. I have to dry off some stuff too...

Too much to ask for, I suppose. Would have been super great to see though! My baba liked to talk about ghosts, but I always thought it was old people superstition talk. They were always kind of bitches anyway, it sounded like.

[ He nods agreeably at the offer, another wide and grateful smile in place. ]

That would be great! Hopefully you have dry places in general here too; wet everywhere gets old super quickly.

I think your baba had the right idea. There are a few ghosts that are alright, but...well, a lot of ghosts are the type who cause trouble for others, in my experience.

[Adjusting the straps on his backpack that has his laundry in it, Mob starts to walk towards the direction of the Laundromat, waiting a moment for Hank to follow.]

Indoors usually stays dry...things didn't start flooding until the start of the month, though. Weird stuff happens all the time here...

[ Hank follows quickly, bouncing after him like a large puppy, looking around at everything as they walk, taking it all in with wide eyes, wrapping his arms around him to keep warm. ]

What kind of weird stuff? Wet and cold, is not so weird, no?

The weather’s the normal part...the weird stuff is more along the lines of that little girl. Soul-sucking monsters, ghosts—well, ghosts aren’t weird for me, but these ones are meaner. Stronger too...back home, I can take care of most hauntings, um...easy-peasey.

[Mob is matter of fact about being able to handle ghosts easily since it’s honestly not a huge deal in his opinion. A very tiny smile does appear on his face for a moment when he uses the same phrase Hank did before. Easy-peasey. That’s fun to say.]

[ Hank nods along to the explanation, and grins at him over the repetition of the phrase, if only because the kid seems mildly pleased about it.

But the talk of more ghosts well that's something else entirely. ]

So you know other ghosts. Real ghosts?

Yeah, it’s part of my job to help people who are having problems with ghosts. People could get hurt otherwise. ...plus my Shishou will buy me food sometimes.

[Most of the time he doesn’t get a ton of money given it’s more like an internship than a real job and he’s fourteen. He’s content with life experience and ramen for now though.]

A whole job to deal with ghosts? So you are like Ghostbuster. ...original one, not one with girls, although was very well done. Underrated by many.

[ Yeah that threatens to deviate pretty far from the conversation, so he reels himself back before he gets too into it. ]

Your shishou?

I-I guess? We do the same thing. I don't have any of the cool gadgets though, just psychic powers...you know the Ghostbusters?

[He's a little confused about the last part, given he's thinking about the actual guy he's met here and not a fictional character.]

Oh, Shishou...my mentor. He's the person that helped me learn to control my powers. He's really cool.

I have seen movies!

[ He listens, making all the appropriate 'this is extremely interesting' faces and making the right encouraging noises at the right places; Hank is a VERY good listener. ]

He would have to be, to help with ghost powers!

Oh...Venkman-san didn’t mention people making movies about him.

[Mob half says that to himself, wondering whether this means there’s a universe where all those people are fictional. That or the Ghostbusters movie is just a documentary.]

Heh, I guess so. Um, what do you do, mister?

[Hank seems like a nice guy, maybe he works with kids or something like that?]

Me? Oh, I am.

[ A beat, thinking it over, and then he shrugs. ]

I am between jobs at the moment.

Oh. Good luck with that.

[Hey, he's got no reason to doubt the guy. It's around this time that they finally reach the Laundromat.]

Hm...I can just throw your jacket in with these sweaters, I think. They look like the same material?

Thank you! That is so nice to hear, you know? I was not sure at first, I thought it would be difficult.

[ It's so nice to hear that kind of encouragement, especially in a new place he's still trying to get a feel for. ]

Close enough, should be! Must be a place around here to buy another once when flooding slows if it goes badly anyway.

[ He shucks off his coat once they're inside and passes it over as he steps in to look around the place, putting the heavy tattooing along his arms on display with the extra layer gone. ]

Edited 2020-01-05 19:38 (UTC)

I mean, figuring out what you want to do is hard...so it's fine not to be sure, I think?

[Mob takes the coat and puts it in the wash with the rest of the sweaters. It's then he can't help but notice all the designs on Hank's arms. He doesn't quite understand the significance of them, but he can't help but be a little curious.]

Um...does it hurt to get a bunch of tattoos like that?

Hmm?

[ Like he didn't hear him. Right. But he looks down, then back up at Mob, and shrugs, like it was really no big deal. ]

Was not so bad. Vodka helped with some. Fingers were a bit bullshit anyway, but rest?

[ He shrugs again; 'what are you gonna do?' ]

Pain is only temporary, no? But useful. Reminds you are still alive. Dead men? No pain.

[ And just...don't point out the scarred back of his hand over what clearly used to be a tattoo, okay? It's Fine. ]