Entry tags:

tdms

JANUARY 2019 TEST DRIVE

JANUARY 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to January’s Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: NEW YEAR'S.

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.

CW: Mind alteration, alcohol, options for self-harm, knife violence.

Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

YOU BETTER GET THIS PARTY STARTED

It's party night at the Grady Hotel and the hosts are pulling out all the stops. Champagne, funny hats, pictures, great music, and a wonderful countdown clock that let's everyone know just how much closer they're getting to the end of what has probably been a pretty crazy year for everyone. The glasses never seem to empty themselves and the citizens serving them out to people seem to be making extra sure that everyone has one for themselves. Regardless of whether or not you usually like champagne, anyone with a glass in their hands will eventually be tempted to take a sip, especially the closer it gets to midnight - the bubbles make you giggly, friendly, talkative in a way that you may never have been before. It lifts up just about anyone's spirits, no matter how rough of a time they've had before (or during their time in) Deerington. It doesn't seem to get you drunk, no matter how much you drink, but it definitely makes you more euphoric. Enough so that you might start to think you can do anything; tell someone how you really feel about them, compliment whoever you've had your eye on all night and see if they want to spend more time together, make up with someone you've been fighting with lately, do a magic trick you never were able to master, or even something as drastic as fly when you know you can't. Hopefully you start off trying to jump from a chair, but there is definitely roof access for those who are a little more daring - maybe someone a little more sober will have the wherewithal to stop you before it's too late.

There is also plenty of entertainment happening in various parts of the room. A table with beer pong for the adults who never outgrew their college days, a dart board, card games in the back, and a game called Guess the Candy for those who want to test their sweet tooth. Anyone who wins a round of any game will get rewarded with a small gift from home (no bigger than a toaster). Unfortunately will disappear once you leave the party, so make sure to enjoy it while you can.

The dance floor is also lively, the music upbeat and easy to move to no matter what your personal tastes might be. If you want a random dancing partner, take a dance card! Each one has a random, glowing number on it and it's your goal to find the person who matches. Once you do, no matter who it is, you'll find yourself literally stuck together (hopefully just by your hands, but it can be any body part) and will have to go through an entire dance (or maybe even two) with them before you come unstuck.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Everyone starts to gather around the countdown clock as it nears midnight, and when it's down to ten seconds, obviously you've got to start counting too! Everyone seems to be having such a good time as they shout out each number (10! 9! 8!) and you might not even notice the way some of the people around you have started to get a little... twitchy? (7! 6! 5!) Or the way some are starting to get more handsy, pushing themselves up close to whomever is beside them. (4! 3! 2!) And it isn't until they all shout 1! in unison that the room seems to shift in two very different moods.

If you're lucky, the person next to you will just have the urge to kiss you - and you might even have the urge to kiss them back! After all, sharing a kiss at midnight is supposed to bring you good luck for the rest of the year. And with the way everyone else is starting to act, you might need it. For some, the urge to kiss might be stronger than just a chaste peck. For those who find themselves wanting to get a little more intense, it might be best to try to sneak out the back and head back to your place. The moment you step outside into the cold air, though, the urges seem to disappear - unless, of course, you were in the mood all on your own.

If you're unlucky, there's a murderous rage that runs through you, and there seems to be a table of weapons near by to help encourage a messy time. Various knives, swords, machetes, and other blades are laid out, enough for almost everyone. You might find yourself driven to plunge your weapon into the closest person, or maybe someone you've hated for a long time, and even more - maybe someone you've loved. Whoever it is, the image of their face will be burned into your mind and you'll do everything you can to try and make them bleed. Hopefully they can fight for their life - or at least evade your attacks until they can trick you into going outside. Like the desire for love, the desire for murder will also disappear the moment that someone steps outside, regardless of whether or not they did so on purpose or just to try and hurt whoever they're after.

Character Arrival

You can read how all characters arrive in Deerington here.

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

[ Chloe wasn't sure why she'd even come to this party. They never ended well in Deerington and she had told herself it wasn't gonna be any different. But she'd felt pulled, as always, and she had mostly thought of drowning any worries she had with champagne - but she'd made a promise and she was trying to stick to it. She'd only taken a couple of sips before she'd pulled herself away from the bulk of the party, trying to get a breather and wondering if she should pack it up and head home before she regretted it.

Instead, she'd dug out her own pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her jeans as she'd made it closer to the windows, and was fishing for her lighter when she had looked up in time to meet Cain's eyes. She noted the cigarette, giving a small smile, and finally clasping the lighter in her fingers.

She took a step closer, just so she could be heard over the music; ] Need a light?

[He gives the other a once over if only to get a good look at her attire. Everyone here was dressed so differently that he wondered what odd melting pot he somehow ended up at. He can concentrate on her though and let the murmurs around him die out a bit. It helps a little. He takes the cigarette out of his mouth and gives her a grin.]

I'd love one. I wasn't sure if I wanted to take a step outside or take the chances just smoking inside. It's bloody cold though and I'm not really interested in freezing my arse off though.

[He'll accept a light because it means he doesn't have to light it and he's not about to do a tiny fire trick in front of a crowd. Maybe he should start carrying one around with him.]

Smoking indoors doesn't seem to be something this place holds against people. It's one of the bonuses to being a little behind the times, I guess.

[ She lit her own cigarette first, before offering the cheap bic out to him as she took a drag. ]

You new here?

Small mercies then. I'll take that, since I hate having to find somewhere to smoke just to get a fix. [And he smokes more than he actually likes to admit given his constant nerves.

He takes it from her to light his own and hands it back to her.] What gave it away?

[He takes a long drag from his own. A scent of vanilla fills the air.] I'm not a fan of being the new guy, so I was hoping it wasn't too obvious.

Everything else about this place might suck, but at least you can have all your vices without frostbite.

[ As a possible human chimney, Chloe certainly wouldn't have judged him for any amount of smoking he might have done - especially in a place like this.

She notes the smell, a much more pleasant one than her own cheap pack from the stores here. ]

I wouldn't say it's glaring. Not knowing you could light up inside was sort of a dead giveaway, though. Welcome to the nightmare. You're lucky you showed up during a lengthier quiet period.

Oh, simply wonderful. And here I thought that we'd all have to come clean. A nunnery for us all. Would be dreadful and I'd rather take the frostbite if that were the case.

[Clove cigarettes are bad for you. Cigarettes are bad kids.]

I certainly intend to take full advantage of smoking where I please now. Consider me enlightened. [Honestly, it's nice. Even if he rather take a smoke outside where there might be less people anyways.] I'll be sure to enjoy it while it lasts then. I'm not much of a fan for nightmares, so I guess I'll be willfully ignorant until the time comes.

Now that would be a real layer of hell. Hopefully whoever is running this dreamscape doesn't get any ideas.

[ She took a sip from her champagne glass she went to lean against the wall by the window, glancing out towards the (somehow still, despite a lack of storm) snow-covered gardens of the hotel. ]

Maybe you'll get lucky and be part of the high turn around rate. Some people show up here and are gone long before shit goes south.

I'm sure our captors wouldn't find it so enjoyable. We'd already be miserable enough. We might as well take our lashings on top of it and who wants willing participants at that point.

[He actually thinks that. If they aren't interested in living, then it would surely be too easy. Everyone seems to be getting by as best they can and taking everything away from them would probably leave the inhabitants hollow.

Although the idea that their captors are also terribly sadistic is a rather unfortunate situation too. He fusses with his cigarette before taking another drag from it.]

Well, I'm certainly not opposed to it, but I find that terribly rude. This captor of ours really has no manners.

I don't know what the goal of this place is, but you're probably right.

[ Sometimes she thinks they're trying to teach some sort of weird life lessons, but most of the time she's pretty sure it's just torture for the sake of suffering.

She went grab another glass from a passing waiter so she could flick some ash into it rather than onto the floor. ]

Maybe it all depends on how restless a sleeper you are. Since we're supposed to be dreaming or whatever, right?

Some people are just into torture. They're either a sexual deviant or a sociopath. I'm going to lean to the latter though.

[There's plenty of people here that doesn't need to be taught weird life lessons through suffering, so it's probably just torture for the sake of torture. Lucky them.]

I'm a terrible sleeper. Anything can wake me up. [This was an honest truth.] The real question is whether or not time moves proper between here and our sleeping bodies.

[ She can't argue that. If it's a dream, she thinks it might be just a side effect of being in the mind of someone who's being tortured somehow, but if it's not, she's pretty sure anyone who is in charge is definitely a sociopath. And she's been killed by enough of them to know the signs now.

She takes another drag herself as he brings up time, though, and she can't help the chuckle as she releases the smoke out of the corner of her mouth. ]

Guess I never really stopped to think about that. [ Probably because time had become meaningless to her now. ] But I guess that's not something anyone else is going to be able to tell us.

[All it really means is that their lives suck because they're stuck here. They sure did luck out.]

I like to think of things that probably doesn't matter in the long scheme of things. The unnecessary shower thoughts and things you think about whilst laying in bed that no one else wants to hear you talk about. [He's marginally interested in the dreamscape as a whole. It was, well, rather impressive.] I imagine you would know already if someone could tell us.

You and I clearly think about very different things in the shower. [ She says it with more humor than one probably should when they're also supposed to be discussing something as important as where and how their kidnapping has taken place, but that's beside the point.

She shrugs her shoulders some, looking out the window at the snow again. ] Honestly, there are a lot of people who can tell you way more than I could. I haven't been that big on investigating how to get out of this place in the long run.

Honestly, I don't think I have many thoughts in the shower. I take mine in the morning and I'm a terrible morning person. You'd be hard pressed to get an intelligible response from me. [This is actually an honest answer. He hates waking up.]

If this is a dream, then I'm afraid that I'm not really gunning to finding an answer anytime soon. These kind of things tend to be out of our control, although I suppose people don't like that idea. [He doesn't either, but he's not about to throw a tantrum or anything either.] I'm not really looking for an answer. In the end, we really just want to wake up. Isn't that right?

God, I feel that. Mornings are the worst. I don't really wake up before noon most days. [ Luckily for her, she had jobs that allowed for that sort of thing here. Making her own schedule for the comic store and her other work being... well, not particularly schedule-based at all.

His response to the idea of not rushing for an exit gets an intrigued pause though, head tilting as she puts the cigarette back between her lips again. At this rate, she'd finish it quicker than she expected, but chances are she'll just light another. ]

You're one of the few people I've heard own up to that. Things being out of our control, I mean. A lot of people will sell this place as one of the many layers of hell we're all trying to hit the ground running out of, but... I dunno. It's not so bad. I'm not too worried about when or if I ever wake up.

Edited 2019-01-11 18:18 (UTC)

I'm a musician, so I have the luxury of waking up whenever I wish as long as I make my nighttime obligations. I'm terribly glad that people deemed music to be something to be appreciated in the evening and not the early mornings. I would have to reconsider my career choice otherwise. [It was also more socially acceptable to run off in the evening to do whatever he pleases. Or at least he feels like people don't usually go home with others for a long and wild night if it's sometime in the afternoon.]

Hmm? Is it really that rare? [Cain more or less finishes his first cigarette and is immediately pulling his box out to shake another one out. He offers the box to her Incase she might want to try one.] I suppose I grew up with certain obligations I couldn't skirt, so I did them in a perfunctory manner, but I was still forced to do them. Being stuck here feels the same in that regard. I am more of a person who'll try and adapt to the circumstances and figure that I'll take advantage of an opportunity when an opportunity arrives. I'm a patient man and I really don't care to expend extra unnecessary effort. Things can be tiring as it is, no? Why make more work for yourself?

Dude, really? [ Chloe's eyes lit up at that. What a dream, man. ] What kind of music do you play? [ Even if it wasn't something she'd listen to, it's still cool. She has a deep admiration for people who are doing things they enjoy instead of whatever people might expect of them.

She went to toss what remained of her cigarette into the glass she'd been using as an ashtray, before going to take on of the offered clove ones from him. ] Thanks, dude. [ She lit it quickly, holding it out to him again in case he still needed it. ] Some people just like to suffer, I guess. [ The words were slightly muttered around the cigarette in her mouth, and once his is lit, she goes to finally pull it out from between her lips and let out the smoke with a quick sigh. ] There are a lot of people who wanna save everyone, protect their friends - can't do that if you have to admit the only way we're going home is on a whim.

Yes. Some would say I'm a prodigy of some kind. A natural. [He says it rather dryly that would imply that he finds it rather tiring to hear.] I went to Juilliard and mostly play classical. The dreary classical recitals. Not my favorite crowd. I'm more fond of playing jazz at clubs in between long tours. They're far more entertaining and interesting in my opinion. [He truly was a natural at heart, but he likes to think he still puts a lot of hard work into what he does.

Also music beats following his father's footsteps or whatever.] Hope you're fond of vanilla. I've found I'm unneedlesslg picky about my cigarettes. [He takes the lighter and lights a new cigarette after discarding his last one with Chloe's. He holds it back out to her.] I don't know about you, but I do hate suffering. Allergic to it. [He says like he isn't a complete troublemaker at times.]

There's protecting others to the best to one's abilities and there's being a self sacrificing fool.

That sucks. [ Chloe hadn't been a prodigy, but she'd been labeled 'gifted' and it had been enough of a bear for her to wish she'd been just an average nerd and not a smart one. She also had wasted her potential, supposedly, but that was beside the point. ] No one's gonna force you to throw around any Bach or Schubert in this place, but you might be able to find a space to play jazz somewhere. They've got shit from all sorts of time periods around.

[ She gave a hum of satisfaction at the new flavor, nodding in her approval. It was different - but definitely nicer than the cheap cigarette pack she'd picked up in town. ]

I'm too lazy to put up with something as time consuming as suffering. Or self sacrificing. Way too much effort when I could spend half as much energy into letting things be wherever they need to be.

It is what it is. Small talk is rather dreary and you grow to just smile and thank them after you've heard it for years. [He absolutely hates the after parties.] I don't think I'll be too pressed. I'm sure I can work with what I got. It'll beat taking some dull normal job. Even if I can pull the sexy secretary look if I tried.

[He looks back at the crowd of partygoers.]

Then we're in agreement. Suffering is shite and I feel like saving energy for a worthwhile endeavor would get much farther than flinging oneself into whatever pops up. [He says that like he probably wouldn't do the latter depending on the situation. Denial.]

I don't think you'd have to try too hard at all. [ It's said more in humor than in actual flirtation, a small and certainly amused smirk on her face. ] I dunno how many musician jobs they ultimately have, but as long as you're doing something, you tend to get paid. They aren't really picky on what it is.

[ She went to finish off her champagne, placing the empty glass onto the tray of a passing waiter and grabbing a full one to replace it. ]

Hopefully you know how to use a weapon or have some crazy powers like a lot of people in this place. You'll get dragged into a lot of bullshit no matter how hard you try to avoid it, ultimately. Fucked, but it's just how things run.

You say things like that to other people and you'll easily wrap them around your fingers. People do love being told things like that. I personally love to be reminded that I'm attractive. [Cain laughs a little.] Well, I imagine I'll find something to do here for money. As long as I can buy cigarettes. [The era of this place may work in his favor as far as cigarettes go. Or so he hopes.]

Sounds like shite for people that have neither. [Cain doesn't confirm or deny that he can do certain things.] You've been here awhile then. [Sounds like she's seen plenty to say something of the sort.]

Oh, trust me, I know. How to properly people is the number one thing to learn for getting out of trouble, after all. [ And Chloe was always good at talking her way out of a paper bag if she really needed to. ] Cigarettes are definitely aplenty, my friend, but -- Well, you might not find the vanilla kind. These are really fucking good, by the way.

[ She can absolutely confirm it's shit, because she is one of those people, and it's clear from the nod. ] Eight months. No shiny powers, had to learn to use a gun. Luckily most people here are willing to teach everyone else how to protect themselves.

Edited 2019-01-19 20:27 (UTC)

You are a wonderful conversationalist. [He thinks he's going to get along quite well with her.] Ever since I started them, I can't possibly switch off them. I suppose I'll figure out what to do if I run out, but that's neither here or now.

Perhaps once I run out, I'll finally be able to quit. [Haha, He's been smoking since moving to America. That's not happening anytime soon. He has tried.]

Dreadful. I can't say I'm looking forward to my stay here at all. I thought this was supposed to be a dream. Not a nightmare. [He is at least gifted with magic, but god, he didn't really care to use it in a combative manner.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only