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

Well they're certainly going to get that with team RY [Pronounced Rye] on the case.

...But they'll have it even worse if they were dumb enough to invite all of RWBY along for this pounding.

[Jeez. She understands the excitement but she does her best to keep the amount of hobbling Yang has to do to a minimum as she helps along to the restaurant.]

Alright, alright! Just be careful.

[Though she's just as eager to get food in her belly so she's not really one to talk.

They get in to the restaurant and it looks like a fairly old fashioned run down sort of diner. There's a sign that says please seat yourself but there isn't anyone immediately in their view.]

I bet Weiss and Blake are already kicking butt halfway across the city.

[ the extra emphasis and warmth in yang's voice as says "blake" is almost swallowed up by the dead silence of the restaurant. no staff chatting up diners, no clink of silverware, nothing.

quietly, to ruby: ]

Maybe this place doesn't have the best reviews?

[ and then she cups her hands around her mouth and shouts into the diner: ]

Hello? Anybody here?

If they are then we're going to have to have a team meeting about inviting everyone to the party.

...And we tell them we kicked that little spooks butt.

[Yeah. This is a really freakin' creepy quiet.

She whispers back.]

I mean. We ate the beans in the Apathy town. How bad could this be?

[There's a muffled shout from in the kitchen that sounds like a sarcastic "Seat yourself."

Ruby shrugs and starts to move them toward a booth in the corner.]

[ yang wants to whisper back that stopping to eat the beans in apathy town almost got them killed by...well, the apathy. however, this doesn't feel like the time.

instead, she'll shove her hands into her jacket pockets and slide into the side of the booth with the best view of the entrance. yang warily glances around the diner until-- ]

Oh, be right back.

[ she leaves the booth empty-handed and returns with two grubby looking menus that seem to have the typical diner fare at first glance. ]

Well, the upside is that if we ever get to order, our food should be out in no time, [ she says while passing a menu to ruby. ]

[Details, details.

Ruby takes a seat across with her and immediately starts to fiddle around with the cutlery until Yang returns with the menu's.

This place just had top notch service.

She takes a hold of the menu and starts to flip through it.]

Well we're due for some good luck, so here's hoping.

[Ruby's eyes immediately brightened.]

Ahhhh yeah! They've got milkshakes here, Yang. Milkshakes!

[Her feet start kicking at the air with excitement. Even if it was the middle of the winter here.]

What are you feeling like?

Oh, wait they do? [ weather be damned, ice cream is good at all times of year. plus, yang's semblance will keep her warm regardless. her own eyes are lit up with joy as she peruses the (surprisingly) large list of flavors. ]

Well, I've gotta have a milkshake. Maybe a burger, too? You can't go wrong with that combo when you're trying out a new place. [ yang shifts to the right so ruby won't accidentally kick in the shin in her pure hype over sugary treats. ] Oooh, do you want to split some cheese fries?

They totally do!

[She's pretty sure if she asks nicely Yang will let her use that semblance for warmth too.]

Ooooh. A burger sounds good but I'm going to have to go with the chicken fingers because of this.

[She holds up her menu and points to a cute cartoon chicken that's drawn on it. She gives three nods of approval over the question of cheese frees.]

...Now we just need someone to take our order.

[Any minute now.

Any minute now.]

[ any minute now!

about three more "any minute now"s later, yang starts drumming her fingers on the table. after five of those, she adds bouncing her leg in irritation and .

after eight, she groans loudly and leans back so far in her seat that it's a miracle she doesn't fall onto the floor. ] Oh, come on! We're the only people in here! How hard can it be to just ask us what we want?

[ yang pushes herself out of the booth with a mighty heave. screw this. time for some old-fashioned detective work. ] Ruby, I'm gonna see what the hold up is. You wanna come with?

[Ruby's feet were starting to get tired trying to keep up her enthusiasm for that long. She can't help but feel a little annoyed herself when Yang finally starts to speak up about their poor service.]

Maybe-They forgot to send someone out?

[That sounded more likely than not.

Ruby finds herself jumping up and joining her sisters' side. There was no way she was missing this.]

Yeah, sure. But I get to play bad cop this time, deal?

[The server and cooks just chatting in the kitchen picked the wrong sisters to ignore.]