citylogs | TDM: AUGUST 2023

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TDM: AUGUST 2023

TEST DRIVE MEME

You wake up on a train.

Your phone is buzzing. It's in your pocket, in your hand, on the seat next to you. It's a normal phone, and you're on a normal train car. One of the lights flickers, a little further down. The world is very quiet. It feels like you're right where you're meant to be. On the phone's surface is a white screen and the words—

WELCOME TO THE CITY. BEGIN ORIENTATION?

▶ YES
▶ NO

Please take a moment to complete your orientation.

Once you're finished, the subway doors slide open to let you out onto the train platform. To your right, the platform continues on and eventually ends; to the left is a set of stairs that will lead you up into the station itself. The platform is quiet, clean, empty—there's no one else around, and the only sounds you can hear are your own footsteps, your own breaths, and the occasional faraway sound of a creaking pipe or rush of air. The train you disembarked will stay there as long as you do, its doors still open, until you finally decide to venture up into this new locale.

As you make your way up the stairs to your left, you find yourself in the belly of City Hall station. The station is large, a sprawling underground mini-metropolis of corridors and storefronts. Here, you may find others like you, freshly-arrived city residents from other realms (or even your own). There is also a subway map, which will give you an idea of the layout of the neighborhood, and ticketing machines, which can currently only be used to buy tickets to a handful of stations located on lines 1, 2, and 9.

If you're hungry or in need of any kind of supplies, there are plenty of storefronts inside the subway station as well—snack stands, convenience stores, restaurants, clothing stores, a pharmacy, and a variety of empty shops that may or may not have ever been in use. Everything is unlocked, and you can take whatever you need.

Characters may stay on the train platform indefinitely, and may re-board and re-disembark from the subway as many times as they like, but the train will not depart nor will the doors close. Once they go up the stairs into the train station, they may hear the train doors closing and the train departing. Another train will not arrive, no matter how long the character waits. Only once they come up the stairs into the station itself may characters encounter their fellow newly-arrived residents and take advantage of what the city has to offer.

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WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

The station is located in the city center. It has three major exits that lead to areas of interest in the district, but there are several other smaller exits that lead in other directions around the neighborhood. You are welcome to use any of them, but may find the north, southwest, and east exits to be the most welcoming.

TO THE NORTH

The northern entrance to the station leads up into the sunlight and puts you out in a brickwork plaza. There's a modest building in front of you, three or four stories of stone with a welcoming facade. There's a sign above the entryway—it says City Hall. You may be tempted to explore, if you're interested in learning more about the city and how it functions, but prepare to find yourself disappointed—the folders in the records rooms are full of empty, blank sheets of paper, and the logbooks and balance sheets are similarly devoid of information.

Immediately to the southwest of City Hall, you will find a small building that houses the tourist information kiosk. It looks welcoming, with an inviting glass facade and a sign above the entryway announcing it as the "TOURIST CENTER." It's a humble building with a receptionist's desk on the back wall opposite the entrance, empty magazine shelves lining the side walls, and a few spinning brochure racks full of blank pamphlets. Anyone is welcome to peruse the tourist literature, though they won't offer much information, being primarily filled with pictures of the surrounding area—City Hall, the park, a statue garden, and the surprisingly heavily-featured cemetery. There are a few sentences sprinkled throughout about basic offerings of the city, such as apartment complexes and office buildings, as well as a few maps with the same limited scope as the larger version on the wall behind the receptionist's desk.

The main feature of the tourist center is the interactive kiosk installed dead in the center, right in the middle of a few rows of uncomfortable chairs that fill the small room. It's noticeably in the way of any would-be foot traffic through the tourist center, and something about the technology seems a little more modern than the computer behind the desk or the landline phone on the wall. The kiosk is a tall silver rectangle, about average adult height, and the upper half is a screen welcoming visitors to touch it to activate the kiosk. If you were to touch it, the screen would come to life with simple dialogue inviting visitors to ask it their questions.

However, residents should note that the kiosk is only programmed to assist with exploration within the available areas of the city. It may not be able to answer every question, and tampering with the kiosk may result in unreliable or inaccurate answers!

TO THE SOUTHWEST

The western exit of the station takes you up into a city park, lush and green with a very light fog still hanging about the trees. There are lampposts on the walkways and benches where you could rest, and plenty of flora, although you can neither see nor hear any signs of animal life. You walk the paths that meander idly through the verdant grass and you feel a sense of peace, some of your unease about this place easing into a pleasant calm. The air smells fresh, like it's recently rained, and you'll find the grass ever so slightly damp should you decide to take a seat.

As you make your way deeper into the park, the trees grow denser and the smell of soil and plant life grows stronger. This is the older part of the park, very nearly a forest, with ivy climbing the trunks of the trees and plants and shrubs growing riotously around their bases. As you turn a corner, you find yourself first in the statue garden, although the statues are harder to see now, choked as they are with ivy. There are many statues, some partially obscured, some fully—very few of them still stand free of the vines and clinging roots. (It doesn't feel quite as peaceful here.) If a statue's face looks a little bit familiar, you may not want to look at it too long.

Continue down the path and you will find yourself in a graveyard, one that seems centuries old. Most of the headstones are worn away by time and covered in moss, rendering them impossible to read. The few that are free of moss are blank, or bear only suggestions of names too faint to be understood. (Was that the name of—no, it couldn't have been. Could it?) Many of the headstones stand at an angle or are toppled over completely, having been subjected to either strong winds or the roots of the trees that grow up from some of the graves, spreading branches toward the sky.

TO THE EAST

The final exit of the station, to the east, puts you out on a quiet surface street. Are you hungry? Or are you paralyzed by choice? There are plenty of restaurants, offering options of almost any food you can imagine. You could try a convenience store—it's well stocked, and the items there seem free for the taking. How about a restaurant? There's no one to take your order, but when you look in the kitchen, there's something on the stove, and it's just what you've been craving. Imagine that.

A few blocks down, you come in through the lobby of a tall building and find yourself in a corporate office. The fluorescent lights are steady and unforgiving, and the cubicles and offices are empty. There are a few pieces of paper on desks, a few folders left in organizers, but everything is perfectly blank. Despite how empty and quiet the office is, it nonetheless gives you the feeling that just a few minutes ago, this place was bustling with workers going about their daily business.

You enter another building and find yourself in the lobby of an apartment complex—finally, a place to rest. The first door you try opens easily into a completely empty living room, freshly vacuumed but without a single piece of furniture. It's a nice apartment, quiet, but with a little too much echo for your taste, maybe. Still, and perhaps oddly, you have no trouble envisioning what life here would be like.

The second door you open leads to an apartment that feels lived-in. Why does it feel lived-in? It's fully furnished with items that seem to go together perfectly, true, but the feeling is more than that—the room feels like someone was just here, maybe standing right in the kitchen only moments before you swung the door open. The air is a perfectly comfortable temperature, and it somehow smells like home despite that you've never once set foot here before. The refrigerator is stocked, and the cabinets are full of spices and flatware and kitchen utensils.

As you look around the living room, you find that there are pictures in frames on the walls and some of the flat surfaces—a seascape, a field, a shot of a city park bench. In each of the photos there's something just slightly wrong with the angle, as though the photographer were aiming for a subject that can no longer be seen.

Characters are welcome to explore the district around the City Hall subway station to their heart's content. The City Hall building itself contains several floors of offices and file rooms, but none of them contain any particularly interesting information. Nonetheless, characters may wish to team up with other newcomers and try to find some hints about the nature of the city. They can also spend a while in the park, the statue garden, or the graveyard. In the blocks surrounding the station there are plenty of options for food and housing, as well as office buildings, storefronts, and alleyways to look around. There are no workers in any of the buildings, and there does not seem to be an honor system for payment, nor any consequences for taking food from the stores or setting up camp in an apartment or office building.

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I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM.

Have you ever visited the ice cream parlor located in District 2? It's a pretty quirky little joint!

When you walk in, what you'll likely notice first is the colors. Everything is bright, almost oversaturated—the pink of the leather seats, the teal of the walls, the red of the menu sign hanging over the counter. By all rights it seems like these colors shouldn't go together, but somehow they do, or maybe that's just because being in an ice cream parlor puts you in a good mood. It smells like waffle cones, and overhead, there's music pumping through the speakers at just the right volume, providing some nice background noise to your decision-making process.

Wait, music?

There's a jukebox at the far end of the shop, which seems to be where the music is being chosen. As you head over, the song comes to an end and the jukebox machinery shuffles through its options before landing on a new one. The song sounds sort of familiar, doesn't it? And the longer you listen, the more the lyrics really seem to speak to you. It costs money to pick your own song, so if you happen to have some coins on you—or if you're really, really determined—you can choose the next round of tunes.

When you're done at the jukebox, you can go check out the serving area of the shop. Behind the counter you can see milkshake mixers and waffle cone makers; there are ice cream cakes in the freezers that line the wall; and when you approach the main counter you can see the tubs of ice cream in almost any flavor you can imagine.

Pick a flavor, whichever one's your favorite! Do you want it in a cone or in a bowl? There are regular cones and waffle cones, and all kinds of toppings—sprinkles, syrups, gummy candy, mini marshmallows. Decorate your ice cream however you want, the sky's the limit when it comes to choices! You can even come back for seconds if you want, or thirds. Who's going to say anything about it, after all?

But the more of your ice cream you eat, the more you start to feel… strange. Maybe you're starting to get angry, or sad, or giddy—maybe you feel romantic, or feel like you want to tell a secret to a stranger, and you're not really sure why. You also can't quite seem to stop eating your ice cream, and the more you eat, the less worried you feel about whatever's happening to your emotions. After all, why be concerned about that when you have something so delicious in front of you?

Flavor Effect

Strawberry You find yourself compelled to seek out strangers and tell them a hidden truth about yourself

Rocky Road You find yourself compelled to seek out strangers and convince them of some egregious lie

Vanilla You are overwhelmed by a sense of total calm, and can only speak in aphorisms and platitudes

Rainbow Sherbert You are overwhelmed by amorous feelings towards whoever is near you and try to cuddle or kiss them

Chocolate You feel suddenly morose about something in your past and cannot stop crying until someone consoles you

Bubblegum You become uncontrollably giggly and giddy, and can only speak in rhyme

Caramel Ribbon You become angry and perhaps even violent, trying to attack anyone who comes near

Mint Chocolate Chip You suddenly have a common but exaggerated phobia (for example, a fear of heights where the step down off the curb is too much)

When characters first enter the ice cream parlor, they may notice that there's music playing overhead! That's from the jukebox, and the lyrics of the song may sound like they're particularly apt for a character's circumstances. Players are welcome to choose their own jukebox songs for their characters—it doesn't need to have appeared in canon, but characters from modern times are welcome to recognize the music being played. (Players can also feel free not to pick a real song at all, and instead just describe the overall sound of the song and content of the lyrics!)

This is an ice cream parlor, so of course there's also ice cream to be had. Characters can serve themselves whatever flavor combination they want, but shortly thereafter will find themselves suffering certain emotional effects depending on what flavors they chose. These emotional effects, shown above, will last for roughly an hour before slowly dissipating, and their intensity depends on how much ice cream the character ate and whether they were able to recognize what was happening and stop eating. Not every flavor has an emotional effect, so players can also choose to have their character eat a normal scoop and go about their day.

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WILDCARD.

The city is by no means small, and there are plenty of things for you to see. There's no rush in exploring, so feel free to take your time looking around and peering into various nooks and crannies and alleyways—and don't worry, you're not very likely to find anything peering back.

If none of the above prompts appeal, feel free to check out the Locations and Maps pages and write your own freestyle prompt using one or many of the available locations.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

arrival/around

[Or: sulking. Sulking is what Dr. Kenzo Tenma is doing, after he emerges from the subway to squint into the light of day. He's not immediately in the mood to do anything after that, walking only a few yards away from the subway entrance before he simply leans back against the wall and sinks to the ground. Yes, this is where he should be right now: sitting on the ground, not having to think or move or act or do... anything.

Of course, he can't keep that up for very long. If he's not caught sitting on the ground then he'll be found upright and leaning against that same wall in about an hour, two paper cups of something steaming held in both his hands. He doesn't remember how to stop, anymore, and if leaning into whatever's happening here will put thoughts of Ruhenheim and his friends and his patient out of his mind for a little while, maybe that will be... something.

Enough. He can't rest; it doesn't bother him anymore. Despite the fact that he looks like he's been through hell and back, worn around the edges and a little frayed, he has a smile and a nod for whoever else might come out of the subway, or pass by it. He raises one of the cups,]

How are you doing? [soft-voiced, but without any timidness to it; a consummate professional at bedside manner. uh, here on the sidewalk.] Here, I've filled two cups. Something warm to drink will help you feel more like yourself again. Would you like coffee or tea?

[So, neither of these cups are for him, necessarily, but he'll drink the de facto reject.]

graveyard/statue garden

[Temna goes to the graveyard. Tenma leaves the graveyard immediately, only to return some twenty minutes later with some gardening tools shoved in a canvas bag. He'll be keeping the bag, later, but the tools are for—cleaning.

It just seems like the thing to do? To make some of these faded and worn headstones look more like someone has been here and caring for them, all this time? He's no professional at how to clear away vines and moss in the most efficient way, though, so it's a slow-going and sweaty process. He won't turn anyone away who might want to help, and anyone who tells him not to bother will be met with a simple: "Someone ought to." So, that's Tenma's afternoon...

Later, he'll be just lying on his back in the grass, some yards away from the nearest headstone, exhausted. He tried... woe....]

It isn't right, [he says, to a passing pair of shoes, arm held up in front of his face to block the sun. hi.] Why wasn't anyone taking care of this place?

it's not unusual

[Now, Tenma doesn't plan on hanging out in this ice cream parlor long. He feels out of place; he's still mostly frayed and frazzled, he's tired, he's grass-stained from his episode in the graveyard - but some cold ice cream would hit the spot, so he's here to browse the flavors and get some to-go cones for himself. And perhaps a friend...??

He's sporting a fashionable oversized canvas shoulder bag, which is overtly filled with what looks like sandwich fixings and bread, a few drinks, and a blanket. He's been shopping! And stuck in his emotions, now that he's had a day apart from them, but never mind those.

To anyone else who is browsing the flavors with him, he offers an almost sheepish,] I've never been much of an ice cream guy... What do you recommend?

[seriously who would put bubblegum flavored ice cream in their mouth, what is that.]

I'm thinking of going for a picnic. Would you like to come? It's better to eat with other people, after all. [ahem,] That is, if I'm not coming across as too sentimental.

[Haha, he's totally not. Come have a picnic with a stranger.]

pharmacy

[Sooner or later he's got to have medical supplies on hand, so here he is in the pharmacy, gathering up yet another big bag of those. He's meticulous about it, making his own advanced first aid kit, until the prescription counter of the pharmacy catches his attention.

That's where he can be found, medkit-in-progress sitting on the counter as he thumbs through blank prescription after blank prescription.]

Ah—excuse me, have you seen any of these properly filled out? What happened here?

[Life-threatening organizational skills happening over here!! He's bothered!!]

misc/wildcard

[it is what it is babey!! tenma's canon point is post-ruhenheim, pre-final timeskip, if you know you know. reach me at jojoveller or by pm for inquiries.]

[ Ice cream is the last thing on Nina's mind when she first spots the shop. Supplies, answers, and some other living soul would be much more—

Oh, but there is someone. Right there in the shop, there's a sillhouette. Something about it gives her pause, but not from fear. A familiarity to the outline lends a sense of anticipation to Nina's footsteps when they pick back up and she pushes through the parlor door. There's no smile on her lips, but the blue in her eyes carry a hopeful clarity that no one but this man has managed to instill in her.

It really is him.

She— She really shouldn't be surprised, should she? He seems to always be near, one step behind her. Only, has he now gone ahead of her? What does he know? Is—

Is he okay? ]

Dr. Tenma?

[Tenma is certainly upright and conscious; maybe "okay" is relative. He's considering ice cream flavors, except he can only wonder What would Dieter pick? and thinking about Dieter is a minefield right this very second he should probably avoid. There's a tense moment, the grip on his silly shoulder bag strap white-knuckled while he valiantly forces himself to stay calm, and then—

A voice, familiar; she could be saying anything at all and he would know her even before he turns his head, a spark of some kind of emotion run rampant over his features for a split-second.]

Nina?

[Is this place safe for her, he wonders, can Nina not simply be left alone to live her life now that things are finally over—

Ah, but he can handle those things later, when she's not in front of him.]

I wasn't expecting to see you here. [but he probably should have-] Are you alright? You look tired.

[ It's such a relief to hear that name. Nina. Having just recently been bombarded by strangers calling her Anna, it's a comforting reminder of who she really is. At least, who she knows herself as. Just before arriving here, what had she been doing? Who was she with?

There was a mansion.

It's still foggy. Tenma looks clear enough to her, yet he's lacking the usual urgency when saying her name, and that's enough to furrow her brow as she hurries over to him. Is there something he's learned that she doesn't know yet? ]

I'm— I'm fine. How... how are you...?

[ Nina had been wondering if this city could be a dream. What else could it be? There was nowhere in the world that could exist without animals, without insects. It is the quietest city she's ever known, and it's a place where she shouldn't be left alone with her thoughts. ]

Are you real?

[ Without even thinking, she reaches up to touch his cheek, at the last second going for a gentle pinch. Or, was she supposed to pinch herself? ]

[Something's wrong. Tenma has developed a keen eye for things being wrong, being off, over the years—and he can tell when something is wrong with Nina quicker than most. He wouldn't have expected her to be... well. "Happy" is cruel, he would like her to be happy—he wouldn't have expected her to be over the moon is closer to what he's thinking. After everything...

But she's disoriented. Upset on a level he doesn't understand, asking him if he's real—? It's all he can do to stand there and let her touch his face, although-]

Ow, [he says, although it doesn't hurt. It's confirmation. His hand not holding his bag comes up to cover hers, gently guiding it away from his face.] I'm real. I'm here.

[They should sit? They should, and he guides them over to one of the booths, ice cream mission put on hold for a moment. There's some of that patented Tenma Urgency back in his voice when he asks again, more insistently:]

Are you alright?

kenzo tenma | monster

it's not unusual | to be sad with anyone

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pharmacy

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graveyard

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it's not unusual

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graveyard

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