memebrook | September 2023 TDM

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test drive

September 2023 TDM

SEPTEMBER 2023 TDM

You wake up completely alone in an unfamiliar place. The forest around you is awash in the pleasant warmth of late summer. Any time-telling devices have stopped working and nothing looks familiar. But the visitors center has maps and information on the area, and with a bit of looking around you find the name of a nearby town: Ashbrook.

Welcome to Ashbrook's very first TDM. Take a look at our navigation page to get started, or skip right to the prompts below! TDM threads may be kept as game canon.

While Ashbrook is an invite-only game, you do not need an invite to play on the TDM.

Please direct any TDM-specific questions you may have here.

Of Monster and Men

What:

Lost in the woods with friends and 'friends'

When:

Throughout September

Warnings:

Stalking, paranoia, violence, being lost in the woods

With summer nearing its end and school already begun, it seems as if every teen's got a story to tell.

One of them that's pretty popular starts off like any other. Couple of kids go into the woods, one of them goes missing, and gets found later on — but they're not right, it's not them; the rest of the story goes as it goes and the group ends up dying or scared half to it by the week's end, tormented by the Goatman. The story has its variations depending on the person telling it. Sometimes there's a creature staring from the treeline; or unexplainable, not quite human voices calling from outside the campfire's light. No matter what the creature is hard to identify, and you can only really catch it by spotting oddities in the way it mimics its victims.

The stories aren't just stories, though. In any other town they might be, but in Ashbrook, they're warnings. You're cutting through the woods after class, or heading back to the car at the end of a camping trip, or maybe you're even a new arrival stumbling your way home. No matter what, there's an odd scent, sharp and metallic, that's following you around. It disappears when you think about it; maybe it's the mind playing its tricks after hearing the stories, or the stress of being somewhere unfamiliar?

But when you glance at your companion they're suddenly gone; look away and back and they're suddenly there again. It can happen a few times and it does. You try not to think about it, but it nags at the back of your mind — how well do you really know the person beside you? Are you sure they're safe? Are you sure they're really them? You decide to press on, sure you're imagining things.

Until you discover the eviscerated body of the person you've been traveling with.

You hear footsteps behind you.

TL;DR

There's a Goatman that's said to roam the woods and slip unnoticed into groups, disguising itself as someone else. You won't ever catch it taking someone, just the mangled corpses it leaves behind.
The Goatman has an acrid scent to it, metallic like blood in the back of your throat, but it doesn't linger enough to tell who it's coming from.
The Goatman can take on the face of anyone at all. Identifying it is tricky, but possible — but it requires you the know the person it replaced well enough to spot the oddities.
The Goatman will also play dead while disguised as a member of a group, in hopes of inspiring paranoia in its victims.
Characters can experience visceral, gruesome deaths in this prompt, due either to the Goatman or to the paranoia of their traveling companions.

Ghost on the Shore

What:

An encounter on a foggy night

When:

Evenings in September

Warnings:

Drowning, compulsive behavior

As summer turns to autumn, fog from the rivers rolls steadily over the town in the early evenings, and only dissipates in the morning's rays. Visibility is low, but it's perfect if you want to go for a quiet evening stroll or pre-dawn jog. It's just you out there — you and one other person.

You don't know if they were there a second ago. And maybe it's just the cover of the fog making it hard to see but... they seem familiar. You feel drawn to follow the path they take. No matter how hard you try they don't slow or respond to yelling, and you never catch up. You eventually find yourself at the river's edge, one foot ahead of the other as you've seemingly started to tread the depths of it. You can't see the person you were following but you're certain they've gone into the water. You just need to follow them, and never mind how cold and swift the river runs.

But maybe that didn't happen. Maybe you thought you heard someone calling your name and snapped out of it. Your first instinct may be to get out of there and away from whatever had you hypnotized in the first place, but then you see it: someone else still chasing after a phantom.

If your first instinct isn't to help, as a decent person should, there's something like a soft voice as the wind caresses your ear, pleading for you not to let them near the water, not to let them sink... and you move, for whatever good enough reason your mind conjures, to help those who have yet to wake.

TL;DR

Characters see a familiar face on foggy knights. They're driven to follow them, because who wouldn't want to see an old friend or even enemy?
Unfortunately, characters will never reach that person. They can walk all they want, run or sprint, but the other will remain both unresponsive and just out of reach.
Eventually, the phantom will attempt to lead their victim into the river, where they will likely drown if not rescued.
Characters can be snapped out of this trance by a whisper on the wind they can't quite identify. Those that are will be compelled to seek out and help anyone still in a trance. Just don't wait too long, or you'll find the other party willingly taking a dive six feet under.

Toil and Trouble

What:

It's time to learn magic!

When:

Weekends in September

Warnings:

None

A more welcoming rumor is about the Witch of the Woods. The teens describe her as a stern but beautiful woman who's willing to teach anyone who comes seeks her out. Bring her a suitable offering and knock three times on her door in the middle of the night, and she'll answer to teach you what she knows of the supernatural and magic.

... Thankfully, no one has to find out how wrong that is right now. There are flyers, decorated childishly with bat and cauldron stickers, inviting the reader to the "Witch's Retreat". These flyers seem to appear when a Visitor glances away for a second to pick something up, or gently drift down right into their hands. Even the most skeptical, scoff-likely of Visitors will find their interest piqued in the days before it, mind drifting back to the promise of help in their unusual situation.

The retreat itself is headed by a middle-aged woman, who's narrowed gaze inspects the people who've come before she grumbles something under her breath and waves her hand.

"Look in the tree holes for your books and pick a partner to pair with — they aren't the kinds of things you'd want to test on your own. First rule: Always have a third hand. Second: Don't do it in public if you can help it. Final: Don't even try skipping ahead, because they won't answer you."

Whatever that means. It's time to learn magic.

The Witch — if pressed, she'll begrudgingly allow the students to address her as 'Ms. Spinner' — will force characters together with a surprisingly powerful shove of her hand if she passes and you aren't already paired with someone too, so don't think you can get out of this little exercise by going solo! You can't. As far as the promised spirituality goes... listen to the voice within, find your inner peace, and the rest'll come naturally. The Witch isn't too pressed for you whelps to understand off the bat, though she won't leave you out on a limb either.

TL;DR

The characters — Visitors, as they're referred — are able to learn basic level magic with the help of the Witch.
Pair up and practice. This is essential to the process, and the Witch will force unpaired individuals to partner up.
Anything higher level magic won't come to the character; it may feel like there's a kind of blockage, even to those who're used to magic themselves.
The Witch isn't open to questions about the town in particular (are you here to gossip or learn?) and won't answer anything about it, so stay on task if you want answers to your questions.

A Day In The Life

New Visitors may wake up in the woods, but that's not where they're going to be spending all of their time. They have homes, jobs, work, entire lives they need to attend to. They'd better get to it!

A Visitor will be instinctively drawn towards both their home and job; they will always know how to navigate the former, and may find the tasks they perform at the latter suspiciously easy. Outside of that, their life will be incredibly normal for the first few days. No one will acknowledge the strangeness in the woods, and a Visitor's insistence that they're not from around here will be treated like a joke.

And then suddenly it's weird again. They wake up one day and realize they have a different job, perhaps even a different home. They will lose any instinctive understanding they may have had of their old job and gain similar understanding of their new job. Visitors will retain all of their memories of their previous job, but if they bring it up to the townsfolk none of them will have any idea what they're talking about.

TL;DR

This prompt is meant to allow players an opportunity to experiment with the role mechanic, without forcing them to retcon their threads if they receive a markedly different role after applying.
Retconning is, of course, still an option - but if you want to give your character another bit of existential confusion, this is the prompt for you.

OOC Notes

If your character dies... While characters may die during the TDM, these deaths do not count towards a character's death count. If a character dies, they will vanish the instant they lose consciousness. The dead character will reappear safely back at the nearest visitors center, and both they and any witnesses will have only a hazy recollection of the event.

If a character TDMs but doesn't app... You have the option of having your character remember these characters. ICly, characters that TDM but do not apply will simply vanish without a trace under mysterious circumstances.

If you have any questions, please direct them here. Enjoy your new life.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The other person in this conversation is not built for sitting on anything with a back, so he's managed to pull off sitting sidesaddle on a park bench with every inch of royal dignity available to him. His arms are crossed. His smaller bag, for the record, is on the side behind him because he requires no such paper barricades. The rusty metal contraption is bizarre and unsettling and it's probably a child's toy and not an executioners device but there's no telling with some people. At least there are trees.

"Heh. Tell whoever you like." He sounds a little bit bitter and a little bit like if he laughed for real he might never stop. He would honestly welcome someone running down the streets yelling that he is a birdman because it is so incredibly bizarre that they can't see this very obvious thing about him.

"Nobody would believe you. I've been trying to get anyone to acknowledge the real me for days, and you're the first one who's so much as blinked. This town is completely insane."

All right, so he was planning on jumping right to questions but it is such a relief to talk and not have it be brushed off as some silly story.

"It feels stifling just being around so many people who are that wrong about me."

Well, Yoshiki probably does not understand what that is like, being a regular beorc and all. But this ain't about him.

It's funny, hearing some mythical being talk about not being seen like that's a bad thing. If the people of this town, or any town, could see those wings? They'd be sure to whisk him away to some laboratory somewhere for study. Yoshiki would bet anything on it.

But then Reyson finishes up with that, and there's a low pang of understanding in Yoshiki's chest. His lips thin pensively as he looks at Reyson, focused on his face and not his oddity.

"I hadn't thought about it that way," he says, quietly, "Must be strange for you. Nobody knowing who you really are. Safer for you, but...lonelier."

Reyson huffs, annoyed at the whole situation here. That's a good read on him, and he doesn't mind sympathy as long as he can't sense any pity in there. It is for the best that Yoshiki did not bring up laboratories because he certainly has opinions on those. One opinion. The opinion is that it would be better for civilization in the long run if all alchemists were to be staked out in the fields and fed to wild tigers.

"That's how it is. I can survive being unsafe, but my people aren't meant to be solitary."

His loved ones might have a few words about Reyson's ability to handle being unsafe, but he is alive so far, is he not?

"Not that yours are suited to it either, but there are more of you to begin with."

A little bit of his empathy is creeping back, and that regal expression softens a hair or three. It is probably quite unnerving to be the only one who can see through illusions or whatever nonsense is going down here, and beorc do sometimes get odd about spirit charmers. Not as odd as they get about people who turn into birds, mind you.

Edited 2023-09-10 02:04 (UTC)

The longer Yoshiki talks with Reyson like an ordinary person, the easier it is to see him as one. Having a pair of wings isn't the strangest thing in the world. If Yoshiki had met somebody like this before everything that's happened recently, he probably would've thought it was interesting in the good way.

Reyson's not doing anything wrong, either. Yoshiki can't blame somebody for being prickly in their situation, and how much worse must it be when you're the only one like you around? Yoshiki doesn't fit in around here either, but at least this whole town is built by people like him, for people like him.

"I'm sorry this all happened to you," he says, sincerely, "I wish I knew anything about it. I'd tell you, if I did. I hope...I hope you get to go back to wherever it is you came from soon."

Deep sigh. So Yoshiki doesn't know anything. The sentiment helps a great deal, though. He's a sentimental person, words and feelings are important.

"So do I."

He's not going to go weeping on a park bench in front of a relative stranger and his groceries; he's made of sterner stuff than that. He just... very much does want to go home.

But it could be worse. It has been worse. He makes sure his breath is even before he speaks again, with appropriate gravity.

"But now, at least there is one person here who will not mistake me for a system administrator."

Reyson has a kind of elegant dignity to him even in their so ordinary setting. If anything, Yoshiki thinks it might be enhanced by being so incongruous, the way he's stepped from whatever fantastical world he came from into this seemingly mundane one making him shine like an opal in the mud.

That's why Yoshiki can't help but be taken back by the idea of him being mistaken for a system administrator, which is maybe one of the least magical jobs Yoshiki can think of.

"But your hair is so long," he blurts, then looks aghast at himself, ducking his head and running his hand over his face, "Just- if you're workin' in an office, don't they have a dress code?"

Because that's the obvious hang up here. Hair length.

Reyson looks affronted at the very idea, bristling. He hates his job enough as it is! The first person to ask that he cut his hair for it is getting their keyboard a bath in hot coffee. He doesn't drink it, but he makes a point of carrying around a mug at work for the sake of doing something with his hands and also to pour on inconvenient coworkers.

"They might; I certainly don't intend to follow it. Any leader who would make so petty a demand doesn't deserve so much as a scrap of my loyalty. I'll follow a man through a live volcano if he's earned it but I have to draw the line somewhere."

He would honestly rather be back in the volcano. A hostile army on one side, a surly territory of dragons on the other, nobody expecting him to do anything about defragmenting... Yoshiki seems like he is more comfortable talking about dress codes rather than volcanoes and wars, though. Some manner of middle ground is possible.

"I had two older sisters, and one younger. I have more than paid my dues in terms of allowing other people to do things to my hair."

Edited 2023-09-12 03:49 (UTC)

Reyson has Yoshiki pegged on the volcano front if the wide eyed goggling the boy does through the fringe of his hair is any indication. He's still trying to figure out if Reyson means it literally or not when he transitions to the subject of sisters, which makes Yoshiki soften into knowing sympathy.

"My little sister always wanted to mess with mine when she was younger," he says, glancing at a leaf blowing by on the path in front of them. He'd always let his hair grow out longer than some other boys, and he recalls her chubby baby fingers grabbing at his bangs with a newfound pang of nostalgia.

"I don't remember when she stopped." He goes quieter, eyes still trained on the leaf. "I wish..."

He wishes he knew that. He wishes he was home, so he could ask her to put a tiny braid in his bangs for old time's sake. He wishes he knew when he'd see her again.

"...I bet dress codes're different in America, anyway. Probably won't ask you to do anything."

Some aspects of having a little sister must be universal. The wish to protect them but also to see them grow up, and also everything they try to do with your hair.

Even Reyson's older sisters were unabashedly childish about some things. The whole family's impulsive nature runs deep, and being a grown woman didn't stop Lilia from gathering up a handful of acorns and weaving them into the hair of whichever younger sibling found themselves within arm's reach. It goes without saying that he'd put up with that in a heartbeat and ribbons as well if it meant being able to see her again, but unfortunately, some wishes are not meant to be. The leaf blows up into the air, its eventual destination as much of a mystery as a sister's memory.

The shorter locks of hair over Reyson's circlet waft in the breeze, going nowhere in particular. He considers showing up to work tomorrow with a braid, because he feels like it.

"That would be safest for them."

He knows what America is because it is written on the coins. But, hold on, he has to reshuffle a lot of the context in this conversation right now-

"Yoshiki, you aren't from this place either?"

It's ridiculous for Yoshiki to give Reyson a perplexed look. He realizes that when his brain catches up to his impulse to do just that, leaving him blinking and flustered when he looks away again.

"My family's not from around here," he says, which is true in a sense that leaves out all of the most immediately relevant pieces of context, "Guessin' you might not have the country of Japan where you come from."

Earlier, Yoshiki had been thinking how relatively lucky he was he was still in a town built by humans, for humans. But it's not exactly like home. The details, the feel of it, those are all different. Another wave of homesickness rises and falls over him, pointless and hopeless.

"America's real different." And so is the time, which he doesn't even want to start to get into.

(And why is that? Why doesn't he just tell Reyson the truth, directly, that they've got this thing in common? Neither of them are supposed to be here - so what's he scared of?)

Oh, he supposes that it is more obvious when you have the whole context for it. Beorc have different tells than regular people who have the courtesy to have stripes or feathers about it. He looks at Yoshiki with more scrutiny than before while he's looking away - it is rude to stare. People stare at Reyson all the time and he doesn't care for it. They still do it here, he knows why, he knows what his own face looks like. Nobody can do anything about the way they look. Yoshiki's eye shape and moles stand out, he supposes. Mostly, he looks tired and sad. This is relatable.

"I've lived in various foreign countries for the last, oh, twenty four years or so. No matter how welcoming they are, home is always different. The way buildings are shaped, what kinds of plants grow, the food, of course, and even the air..."

Marinating in it probably doesn't help but also it is only right to feel one's feelings.

"They eat raw fish in Phoenicis and Gallia, but in Phoenicis, they eat the whole thing, and in Gallia, they leave the tail. And then in Crimea, they'll cook it but leave the head." Reyson isn't expecting him to know any of these names, but it's an indirect answer on how the whole geography situation is because nobody here knows any of these places.

Even if the places don't ring a bell, talking about the different ways they all eat fish draws a rare, slight smile out of Yoshiki. It's a bittersweet thing, knowing exactly what Reyson is talking about.

"Even the things you'd think would be the same ain't," he says, softly, "The water tastes different. Who thinks about how water tastes, ya know?"

The accent that's apparently his in English gets thicker when he's more relaxed. He doesn't know what that means, or how the words and sounds got into his head like this. He still sounds the same in Japanese, and he doesn't understand that either.

"...even if I don't know what's goin' on, I guess we're sorta like neighbours, right? Livin' in the same town and all. An' I know this has gotta be strange for you." He bites the inside of his cheek, screwing up his determination. "Do you want my phone number, maybe? In case you got questions about the day to day. Where to find stuff in the grocery store and things like that."

A genuine smile from Reyson borders on radiant, even if there is a similar bittersweet loneliness on the edge of it.

"It's kind of you to offer, I'd like that."

His first instinct, when he needs a pen, is to pull out a loose feather on the spot - but that's not quite right, is it. No inkwell. It's fine, between them, one of them will have an actual pen.

Yoshiki does have a pen. He brought it so he could amend his list if necessary, but it and the tail end of the receipt he rummages out of his grocery bags will work just as well for giving his phone number to a winged man he met less than an hour ago.

"I live with other people, so don't go leavin' any strange messages," he instructs, handing over the improvised note with his name and number on it, "Just say you want to talk to me and leave your number if I don't answer, and if it's anyone else on the phone, you tell 'em you want to talk to me about the photos I'm takin' for you."

That's just plausible enough to get by, Yoshiki figures. He's seventeen. That's plenty old enough to be doing freelance photography unsupervised. The portfolio in his room suggests it wouldn't be the first time.

"...what kind of photos would I be takin' for you, anyway? Maybe...maybe we say you do hair modelling? For barber shops and shampoo ads and such?"

Reyson exchanges the phone number for the stray feather, out of reflex. There is not any significant cultural meaning to giving anyone a feather it is just that he is so confident that he could say you too when a waiter tells him to enjoy his meal and have it come off like it's a completely normal reaction.

All right, so this is how a phone call works for an average family setting where he is trying to make friendly contact with people and not an office where he is obligated to only not swear overtly about Wilson's virus acquisitions. He should. Figure out what his home phone is. A nod of assent.

"A photograph is - like those pictures in the newspaper, correct? Hair modelling it is, since it stands out so much. Unless I can think of something better."

The go to excuse will later turn into wildlife photography, but he's off balance in this strange world. He doesn't like falsehoods but also, he doesn't want to sponsor any weird haircare products. Prior Reyson liked something called Herbal Essence which does not smell quite as herbal as the name might suggest.

Yoshiki treats accepting the feather as significant even though his culture, too, doesn't have much in the way of specific protocol for accepting such a gift specifically. It fleetingly occurs to him it's almost like a lock of hair, maybe, and he really doesn't know what to think about that.

It's a pretty feather, though. Yoshiki holds it carefully, not wanting to mess it up by tossing it into a bag or stuffing it into a pocket.

"I photograph a lot of things," he says, earnestly, nodding back, and don't they just make a pair? "And yeah. Like in the newspaper."

Should he teach Reyson how to tell the difference between a photograph and a picture? Where would he start? What kind of responsibility has he just volunteered himself for out of a burst of sympathy? What does Yoshiki even know about hair products? All questions to ruminate on later, in the comfort of staring at his own ceiling full of dread.

"I should get home before they start wonderin' where I got to." He begins to collect his bags. "You should too. Just in case."

The feather is what one makes of it, maybe it means friendship now.

Reyson's ignorance of the modern world is, at least, matched by his determination to figure out what he can on his own. He may not be the most intelligent of creatures but you can puzzle out plenty of things if you are too stubborn to give up on them. But also... it is a lot easier to say that sort of thing when you do have an emergency fallback to call up about, say, credit limits, if it becomes necessary.

"Right... Home." Such as it is. They've already had that conversation, though.

What kinds of trials will he face this evening? It will not be the stove again, he has proper rations at hand. The radio, perhaps. With courage boosted by all of this newfound stability, he has another try at lifting off. Hm. A smooth hover, unhampered by whatever intermittent force keeps him grounded. Just in case, he does not rise as far as he would like. He can afford to fall a few feet if the flight cuts out on him again. He prefers to fly, and why wouldn't he act how he prefers?

Of course Reyson can fly. He's got wings. It doesn't matter that it ought to be impossible aerodynamically. Everything about all of this is impossible, but there is a sort of logic to it all the same.

But Yoshiki's hardly thinking about that. He's staring up at Reyson from where he sits on the bench, but it's a different sort of staring than normal. Soft wonder transforms his face, stripping out all the clinging signs of worry and tension.

Who hasn't ever daydreamed about flying? Who hasn't watched birds and wanted, even just for a minute, to know what it's like to be that free?

"That's amazin'," he says, quietly sincere.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

September 2023 TDM

and now he has to have a conversation with a stranger when will it end

but this ain't about him!!

Slowly rotates the spotlight towards him, against protest

:[ please do not perceive him

Yoshiki, so politely: I wish you would go away and never come back

if it helps he wishes that for everyone not just bird men (it does not help)

yeah yeah reyson gets it he also had an emo phase

fortunately that emo phase is over completely now

hot topic is going strong in the 90s i hear

boys' shopping trip for striped fingerless gloves and chunky studded belts

just call him Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Heron Way

best title possible time to pack it up

ha ha yoshiki made a friend in spite of himself

he's sensitive to the issues of the 'freaky weirdo' population

i cant even say reyson is normal for his species he is hands down the weirdest heron

he's a unique individual with a heart full of passion and fists full of rage

stand next to him in order to look like the most normal person by comparison

this is yoshiki's general life strategy already call that synergy