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

Frustration and apprehension lingered in his thoughts as he tried to understand why they both remembered something different. The comment about living the truth reminded him of the spiteful comments that had been directed toward him by members of the Clave and the hurtful condolences that Maryse had dealt with whenever her friends discussed Alec's future.

He barely managed to bite back a comment that was directed more at those individuals than at Magnus, but his expression still showed signs of the stubbornness that had kept him going whenever he'd faced that bigotry. "I know all about that, Magnus. I accepted the truth when I agreed to be Jace's parabatai."

A truth that hadn't been as accurate as Alec had expected. He'd somehow found the courage to ask Magnus out and the strength to continue on with a relationship despite knowing the possible consequences. "The last thing I remember was leaving the Loft to go on patrol. We've been dating for five months." That wasn't quite true and he felt a pang of guilt for not mentioning the break up, but he really didn't want to deal with Camille right now. "And we'd been dating for weeks before I kissed you in front of the Clave. We might have been sneaking around, but we were still together."

Something about this wasn't right. The spell must be altering memories, but which one of them was remembering things correctly? Glancing down at his hand, he noticed the scar of the Alliance rune and let out a sigh of relief. That was proof that his memories were real.

When Magnus mentioned the graveyard and old relatives, he had knew it had to be only one person. Moving to the bed, he took his boyfriend's hand, lifting it to his lips to kiss Magnus' knuckles. "I'm sorry that I was here with you to..." He wasn't sure what. What could he do to help Magnus through the grief that had to be part of such a terrible experience? Then he stiffened at the mention of hunters, making a protective sound before he realized what he'd done. "Or that I wasn't here to deal with those Hunters. I might have forgotten about the Downworld, but I know that my memories are true, Magnus."

"Five months?" Alec's behavior made a lot more sense based upon that, but what he does not expect is the divergence from what he knew and what he'd experienced himself. More of it, an unfair amount, really - that made things a lot harder to swallow. Magnus had known that the sleepers here were from all different times, different places and he'd also been subject to the truth that even someone you knew could have lived different things entirely.

The gentle kiss to the back of his hand would typically stir up discomfort, such a bold move that he hadn't initiated himself and a clear breach of physical boundaries but with Alec, it felt safe. The gentle press of his lips alleviated some of the tension he'd been holding in his body without realizing it and he uses the same hand to cup his palm over the sharp incline of Alec's cheek.

"That's not your responsibility." The hunters, what had transpired between himself and the ghosts of his past. Magnus is grateful Alec wasn't there for that, a weakness within himself that he wasn't ready to present just yet despite him already having clearly been given that trust. "This happens sometimes. Different roads traveled, almost like a fork. I haven't experienced any of this, I have to be honest with you, but it doesn't change that I want to."

The kiss had been an affectionate gesture given without thought. The two of them touched regularly, especially when one or the other was hurting. Simple gestures like holding hands or chaste kisses had grounded them in a world that had seemed to be falling apart. Just like the touch to his cheek that settled his thoughts. Leaning into the contact, his eyes briefly closed until Magnus spoke.

"It is my responsibility, Magnus. Even if you weren't my boyfriend, I swore a sacred vow to protect others." He was more protective of Magnus, dangerously protective depending on the situation, but even if they weren't together, Alec would defend him. Other Shadowhunters might believe that they should only guard the lives of Nephilim and Mundanes, but Alec knew he was meant to protect all beings who might need his help.

His heart gave an odd lurch, cold settling in his chest as Magnus suggested that he hadn't experienced any of the events that Alec knew were true. Magnus remembered him, but he didn't remember dating him. Magnus knew about a kiss in front of the Clave, but not the one that had changed Alec's life completely. "I don't understand," he said slowly, carefully pulling away from Magnus. "You're ..." My boyfriend. The being I love most... "How can you remember me, remember the kiss, and not know about the rest of it?"

It shouldn't be so simple for the two of them but it was, they interacted as if they'd always known each other. A soul recognizing another, perhaps, but the divide between them was larger than he would've thought. The memories that he didn't have weighed on him, and with a mawkish sort of smile he slips his hand from Alec's cheek down to his shoulder.

"I don't have an answer to that, but what I can say with no doubt involved is that I've been pining for your company since I left. Leaving it unfinished, it made me wonder what I could have had- if I weren't so unfortunate as to wake up here." Magnus didn't wish Deerington, this place and what it was capable of on anyone. A large part of him hated to see him here at all, let alone as disappointed as he was. "You're the first thing on my mind every morning and the last thought I have before I rest. I may not have all of the same memories you do, but I know what I feel. I can only hope that's enough."