Test Drive 01

[pluviosamods]

TEST DRIVE

Hello, and welcome to the first Pluviosa Test Drive!

Rather than a series of prompts that are set after arrival to the game, this Test Drive is instead more of a soft open for the game. That is to say, not only are Test Drive threads game canon, but the Test Drive should be regarded as the "start" of the game chronologically and contains arrival-related events and information.

Or lack of information, as the case in fact is, because there is no greeting party waiting to reassure characters that everything is fine back in their worlds and that they'll get to go home again. (On the flip side, there's no one telling them that their worlds have been destroyed, either.) There is only the ship, the things inside it, the raging storm outside, and what characters can figure out for themselves.

It is advised that potential players familiarize themselves with the Premise page, the Rules/Session Zero page, and at least the first few paragraphs of the Setting page. As Pluviosa is a horror game, we especially encourage players to be aware of the content warnings that will be major themes of the game.

ARRIVAL

(cw: minor blood, visions, storm weather)

The first thing you become aware of is the sound of dripping. Your mind is fogged, as though woken from the wrong part of your sleep cycle. In your daze, you're convinced that the sound of dripping is blood. Yours? Someone else's? You can't be sure. It's dripping from somewhere. It's your fault, whichever it is.

Good. One way or another, you'll be free of this nightmare -

And then, in response to the sound of a crack of thunder outside, clarity returns.

Characters come around as though disturbed from a deep sleep. Once they have shaken off the (vision? impression?) of blood, they will find that the dripping sound, at least, was real. Fortunately, it's only water - rainwater, more than likely, judging from the occasional booms of thunder and flashes of lightning overhead. One hell of a storm, quite possibly the worst characters have ever experienced, is raging outside.

Outside where? Well, outside the ship, of course.

As a general rule, characters wake up in a random room of the first level of the ship below the main decks. Theoretically, this should be a relatively safe, dry place - but with the age of the ship, its state of disrepair, and the number of plants above that have dug their roots into the deck above, leaks are plentiful. Thus, the sound of dripping water is a constant even in enclosed areas - and, of course, the outside of the ship is being pounded by rain in shimmering sheets, adding to the cacophony of noise accented by the thunder.

Even the protective bubble over the deck itself and the balconies of the rooms is having trouble working to keep the rain out - the rain isn't terrifying hurricane levels, but it is steady and water floods steadily down the stairs and over the edges of the gap down the center of the ship. The worst of the wind, too, has been kept out, but occasional gusts send ripples through the rain.

There is no power inside the ship right now and barely any light besides the flash of lightning - although characters may arrive while it is nominally day, the clouds stretching from horizon to horizon have blocked out the sun almost completely. The motion of the ship is also far worse than usual due to the storm winds - it's easy to believe that you are in fact at sea, unless you manage to get close enough to the exterior windows or balconies to be able to see the ship's legs in motion through the cascade of water that runs down the exterior.

SEEING IS BELIEVING

(cw: hallucinations, thinking things that are real are hallucinations)

In the dark, you have to rely on your other senses - hearing, sound, smell. Smell is giving you the best information to start out with - rain, of course, but also mildew, plants, and old metal. (Is that a whiff of blood at the bottom? No, it's because of that bad dream you had messing with your head.)

No one comes to greet you. No one comes to find you. Instinctively, you know - no one is coming. You'll have to save yourself.

Characters will be fully convinced that they are alone until they actually run into another character. Even things that seem like they should be indicative of another person's presence, such as hearing voices or seeing someone shine a light down a hallway - your character will be convinced that that is just a hallucination until they can definitely lay eyes on another person, hear their voice clearly (ie: not half-drowned-out by the rain) or otherwise be certain of their presence.

That isn't to say that hallucinations aren't occurring. All characters, but especially those who are alone, will periodically hear murmuring voices, smell blood, smoke, and other scents reminiscent of destruction, and see what appear to be the flashes of flashlights, flickering lightbulbs, and the shadows of people walking around. These hallucinations fade in and out in intensity, but they always clear up for at least a little while when a character notices the sound of thunder. Given that the thunder is very frequent during the storm (every few minutes), most hallucinations won't last for long.

For most characters, the voices will be unintelligible murmurs. However, if your character has experienced an event of mass destruction at some point in their life (apocalypse or near-apocalypse, destruction of a city, volcano eruption, being the only survivor of a town that was slaughtered, etc), or has a connection to the dead, they will be able to pick out that the voices of the hallucinations are talking about either attempting to rescue people from something similar (eg: a distant voice shouting "there's someone still alive over here!") or, alternately, talking about how everything is lost, everyone is doomed now, etc. They may hear one type of voice or both at different times, at player discretion.

TO RUN ITS COURSE

(cw: dead loved ones, hallucinations/delusions, violence, potential death. THIS PROMPT CONTAINS PVP OPTIONS.)

You're not supposed to be alone. There was someone with you, only a few hours or years or minutes or lifetimes ago. You weren't always alone, and you have to find them.

You'll find them. You do. But not in any kind of condition to keep you company. This lump of flesh is empty now. The plants are already growing over it, reclaiming it. There's blood in the soil, and there's the sound of someone else coming up behind you.

Someone is coming. You'll have to save yourself.

There are various heaps of organic debris that characters can stumble across when wandering around in the dark - piled up leaves, rotted plants, heaps of ferns, moss, and so on. Even solid wood, sometimes - the trunks of small, twisted trees that took root where they might and have grown out from balconies to the exterior or inwards down the jungled crevasse between the two halves of the ship. In the low light, it's easy to literally stumble across them, or mistake them for something else in the brief light of a flash of lightning.

It's the mistaking them for something else that could be a problem. Characters may find themselves absolutely convinced that these heaps of leaves are the body of a loved one - especially if they were wandering around looking for someone in particular. They may or may not accurately perceive leaf cover on the outside of the "body," but unless they dig their hands in enough to be sure of the heap's contents - but who would want to go digging their hands into the body of someone they love? - or they see the shape in clear lighting (which would have to be provided by another character), it will be near impossible to convince them that the pile is just that, and not a corpse.

But that's not the really dangerous part. The dangerous part of all this is that if someone unexpected approaches while the character is in the same room as the 'body,' they may become convinced that the new arrival is responsible for their loved one's death. It doesn't matter how illogical it is on the surface - fear, or rage, or whatever it is that might fuel them will turn on the stranger. And whatever it is that convinces them of this has also turned their fight-or-flight reflex solidly to fight, whether it's for revenge or the last chance at survival for a cornered rat.

Characters so affected will fight until one of the following occurs: If they are led out of sight of the 'body,' they return to their senses (given that they may be inclined to chase the 'perpetrator,' this may be the best non-violent way to resolve the issue). If they are convinced that the 'body' is fake (through physical contact or clear lighting as above), they also return to their senses. And finally, if they kill the 'perpetrator' or are themselves killed or knocked unconscious, the effect ends. In all of these cases, it ends with the sharpness of a rubber band snapped against the skin, and the character is fully aware of their altered mental state and what occurred as a result.

If your character dies as a result of this prompt (and you want that thread to be game canon), please give the mods a heads-up if/when you are accepted into the game. Although this will not count as an 'official' death and will not consume a character's "freebie" revival, there may still be consequences for your character's death.

CONTENTS WORMING

(cw: worms. many worms. not parasitic. just worms.)

It's easy to take a wrong step in the dark. Of course, tripping and falling isn't the worst thing that can happen.

This isn't the worst thing that could happen, either. That doesn't make it any better in the moment - the split-second when the ground erupts and a writhing mass of something slimy doesn't so much crawl out as jump out - but maybe it will make it better later.

You know how worms come writhing up out of the ground during a rainstorm, when the soil is absolutely saturated?

Well, that's true of the soil on the ship as well, except the worms here aren't just common earthworms anymore. They've learned to climb, the slime that they use to wriggle through the soil modified such that they can cause it to turn sticky and squelch their way up walls, ceilings - and anyone they happen to come across. If you step in the wrong place, an entire cluster of them will respond, by clinging to your clothes and body, squirming upwards in a desperate bid to escape the wet soil and the continuous rivulets of water caused by the storm.

Or perhaps you sat down to rest somewhere and felt them creeping - or didn't, until there was suddenly something wet and cold on your bare skin. Or maybe you encountered the worms not through their climbing, but afterwards, when they drop off the ceiling and fall down on your head as the enzyme that renders their slime sticky wears out. However it happens... worms.

Fortunately, they're harmless - aside from being a bit larger than the earthworms a character is likely to be familiar with, and their strange ability to become sticky, these are largely indistinguishable from normal earthworms. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell that in the dark and the wet - this is their native environment, not yours, and anyone would panic at the sensation of worms trying to crawl up them or into dry places in their clothes.

There is an easy solution to this: Because the worms are fleeing the rain in the soil, they won't climb up anything that's just as wet as the dirt they left behind. All a character has to do to become worm-free is get thoroughly soaked, such as by stepping out into the reduced-but-still-pouring rain on a balcony or deck protected by the ship's bubbles. Unfortunately.... Well, then they're wet. And there doesn't seem to be anywhere to dry off any time soon...

FAQ

For information on the general shape and state of the ship, please see the setting page. Please note that mods will not be running investigations during the test drive period.

Q: Do our characters still have their powers/items?

Generally speaking, yes. Characters have their powers intact (with certain exceptions, largely for potential-gamebreak reasons) and whatever items they were carrying at their canonpoints. Please see the FAQ for more details.

Q: My character is dead and/or dying at their canonpoint!

Well... Now they aren't. Specifically, dead characters come back as their most recent 'healthy' state of being (unless they're a type of character that is playable while dead, such as a vampire or a Bleach shinigami, in which case they continue as normal for them); they also arrive already soaked through by the rain, regardless of the location they wake up. Characters who are mortally injured find that their wounds have healed; in place of whatever blood was soaking through their clothes/dripping from their bodies/in their mouth from a Cough of Death, they instead find pure water.

Q: Can my character(s) explore the ship?

Your characters are welcome to explore as much as they're willing and capable of doing in the wet and the rain! However, getting between floors is a challenge in the current weather - with the power off, the elevators do not work, and the stairs are consistently flooded by a cascade of rainwater. However, mods will not be running any official, guided explorations until after game opening.

Q: Is there anywhere dry to rest?

Nowhere is completely dry, but the aft portion of the ship is significantly drier than the middle and fore. The reason for this is that there is a series of partial decks (the residential decks) over roughly the last third of the ship. The rain is fully blocked by the roof overhead, in theory, but in practice the wind and the flooding leave this space only sort of dry. It's possible to find your way here on your own and find some place to sleep that doesn't blow mold spores into your face when you sit down, but it's also darker here, since the lightning's light is also blocked out by the roof.

Q: BATHROOMS?

Unfortunately, the lack of water in the pipes means that the toilets (which can be found relatively intact in most suites, though many are full of standing water) are also not running. Characters get to deal with this issue as they see fit, whether that's using the dilapidated toilets or using a more fertilizer-like strategy.

Q: Is there anything from the game's main info pages that doesn't apply to this Test Drive?

Given that the power is currently off, the Ship (as in the entity) cannot be interacted with on the Test Drive (and characters have no reason to think it's there). Anything else that would require power, such as the elevators or water from the faucets, also does not work.

Q: How long does the storm last?

ICly, it begins to lighten up on the evening of the second day after the first characters wake up, though it is still raining steadily with occasional thunder throughout that night. (Characters will continue to trickle in throughout the duration of the storm, though most arrive before the end of the first day.) The characters will be able to see the sun starting on the third morning - which is also planned to be the game's formal opening, so we won't say more until then!

Q: Do our characters receive anything upon arrival?

Not a thing! Nor do they encounter any kind of informational NPC or anything that gives them a solid idea what's going on. The only exception to this is that all characters experience the dripping-blood related vision/dream/impression detailed in the first prompt of the Test Drive. Additionally, characters who have a unique tie to their world (such as Aerith's connection to the Lifestream in FFVII) will be aware that they're not in their own world anymore.

Q: What are our characters eating?

Since the power hasn't come on yet... Whatever they're adventurous and/or knowledgeable enough to find that doesn't kill them! This can include edible plants and limited amounts of things brought from home (please don't have your character bring 99 casseroles even if your game's inventory system allows it), but mods are not tracking this specifically. Most characters will be expected to be hungry and unhappy but not literally starving come game open. At least there's plenty of water.

Q: I have some specific question I need to ask about my specific character on the test drive!

Please post your question in response to the header comment QUESTIONS below!

Comments

Re: Arrival

[airplaneskyward]

A person! This is either fantastic or terrible news! Shang Qinghua attempts to look vaguely competent and put together and not like he’s been kicking walls.

“Over here!” He calls back, listening to the squelching footsteps approach and resolve into a blond teenager in… a hoodie? Holy shit, he hasn’t seen a hoodie in like sixty years. And jeans! Denim! Normal modern clothes! The kind of thing he used to wear before he died!

“I don’t suppose you know where we are? I seem to find myself… misplaced. I have no idea why or how I’m here, or where here is.”

[helborn]

Oh gods is that... no it's not Japanese clothing. Chinese? Or maybe it really is Japanese - either way it's ancient Asian clothing and he is not the kind of nerd that knows that kind of stuff. He's faintly aware of Japanese mythology and barely aware of Chinese. Hopefully he doesn't offend.

"Uh... it's some kind of ship. A bunch of us from different worlds seem to have showed up here. It's kind of a mishmash of cultures here. I'm Casper. And you are?"

Go ahead, make the joke if you're familiar enough with 90s movies. He's heard it a million times.

[airplaneskyward]

"Oh my god, are you American?" It's entirely possible he's from a world where there isn't an America, but it's worth asking! He seems American-y!

"Sorry, uh. My name is Shang Qinghua. Shang is the family name, Qinghua is the courtesy name." He's just going to assume this guy is... western, at the very least, so he should clarify that. His mouth keeps going. "...Are you a friendly ghost?"

[helborn]

He sighs a little - it's not wrong because he is technically from North America, and he knows the accents are similar enough, but - "Canadian, actually."

The explanation is very welcome. "So should I call you Shang or -" ... There it goes. "Yes and no. I was a spirit at one point, though."

He... probably shouldn't admit that so freely, but there he goes.

[airplaneskyward]

Shang Qinghua belatedly pokes mentally at the System. 'Hey! System! Are there any penalties for telling people that I'm a transmigrator?'

A screen pops up with a low battery icon and the words [Standby mode] and then disappears again.

...He's going to take that as probably no!

"Canadian! From real Canada! I almost forgot Canada existed! It has been such a long time. What's being a spirit like? Did you have to grow a new body?"

"Also, uh, it's most polite to just call me Shang Qinghua? If you call me just Qinghua it implies like... a close relationship. You could call me Shang-xian, I guess? Or Shang-ge if you want to be like, bros. Man, I don't know how to explain this to a westerner."

[helborn]

"A lot of people do." He's used to it, unfortunately. "And no, I didn't..." Actually exactly how he got a new body is unclear. His soul is in his raven, but he's not going to explain that part. "I was solid enough that I had to climb back up the World Tree to come back, though."

Climbing that thing is kind of hazy for him to try to remember. Still... "Normally people wouldn't have a chance to come back, but my mother kind of... needed me. She doesn't have many... pieces on the board at home, so to speak."

He nods at the explanation. "No, it's... okay." Not Japanese though, he's... pretty sure? "I just didn't want to offend you. Technically you could call me by my family name - LeBlanc - or my..." He thinks for a moment. "Honestly I'm not even sure what 'Junior' counts as for part of a name, but my father is 'Mister LeBlanc'. No one calls him Casper. And he doesn't call me Junior, so just Casper is fine."

... Aaaand he's rambling again. Great.

[airplaneskyward]

To be fair, probably most people don't forget Canada exists because they've been in a world where it doesn't for decades.

"World tree? Damn, that is so much cooler than growing a new body with a special kind of mushroom. That I didn't actually end up having to use." Pause. Lots of people's mothers need them, probably, without them coming back to life. "Your mother sounds... important?" he hazards.

Shang Qinghua exists in a quantum state of being Chinese and not being Chinese because he's lived in fantasy ancient China for longer than he was alive in actual China! And nobody in Proud Immortal Demon Way calls anything 'China'. 他不是中国人, 苍穹山不在中国*, but also, yes he is, and anyway PIDW is pretty damn Chinese regardless because he wrote it that way. "Casper works! I'm pretty sure I remember westerners don't go by their family names that much! It's nice to meet you?"

*'He is not Chinese, Cang Qiong Mountain is not in China'. Look I realized I knew enough Mandarin to type that in it and I got carried away.

[helborn]

"Yeah, she is. If you know what Canada is you're probably from my world or a world like it? So you might be familiar with the Norse. My mother's the Norse goddess of death." He's given up trying to keep a low profile. There's just no point in this kind of place.

He nods and... attempts a brief and shallow bow. It's close, and probably a little too formal, but he's used to seeing it at funerals rather than social situations. He's doing his best. "It's nice to meet you, too. And yes, we don't normally go by family names. ... I've had to learn how to pronounce a lot of different names though. I grew up working in the funeral industry, and in a big city you end up with people of all different ethnicities."

[airplaneskyward]

Oh. Okay. That was. More than he expected to get in response, okay! "The Norse are, uh. European?" Shang Qinghua was never that good at geography. "Er. Does that make you a god? Or an immortal? I'm a cultivator, an immortal master. I'm, er. I'm originally from a world that had Canada in it, but I died there and was reborn into a... fictional different world, and I've lived there a lot longer." Shit, that's weird to say out loud. He's never tried to explain transmigration to someone before. He's only ever talked about it to Cucumber-bro, and he already knew.

He waits for the System to deduct ten thousand B points or initiate punishment mode or something. Nothing happens.

Casper god-son is very polite! Shang Qinghua flaps a hand at him.

"Ah, that must be an... interesting industry for someone with your heritage?"

[helborn]

"Northern Europe, yes. I'm... well I started out as not immortal and definitely was killable, but now I think technically I'm a demigod? About halfway to godhood on the power scale sort of thing. And the gods can be killed, it's just really hard."

He listens attentively and to his credit does not laugh. That sounds like something he'd read in a book, but isekai aren't super popular in his time and he probably wouldn't know the term anyway. "Huh. Not an afterlife I've ever heard of, but why not?" He's reached the point of his life where 'this shit might as well happen' is a normal refrain. "That must have been really disorienting. I don't know what a 'cultivator' is - immortal master? Is that..." Oh gods he's trying to not be offensive. "Is that like some kind of immortal sage sort of thing? I think I've heard of those in books."

The smile he offers the other is a little nervous, but not really unhappy at all. "I didn't know I was the son of a goddess until about... a year or so ago? And since then it's been nonstop chaos. But I could see and hear ghosts growing up, so I always knew I was different, just not why."

Bob finally sticks his head out of the pocket and squawks. "Oh! And this is Bob. ... I named him as a child, so the name is a little..." Weird? Silly? Dumb? Any of those apply.

[airplaneskyward]

Okay, he's halfway to ascension! Cool! Shang Qinghua is not as close to ascension as he should technically be for the Qing generation to ascend together, because he has not worked on those aspects of his cultivation the way he should have, but he didn't actually expect himself or the sect to survive long enough for their ascension to be a going concern, so! Anyway, if he ascends to the heavens, Mobei-Jun won't be there, so really, he's just probably not going to do that, whether or not he lives long enough to theoretically achieve it.

"It was definitely disorienting. It, uh, yeah, immortal sage kind of thing? You... do spiritual techniques and meditation and shit and gain magic powers, basically. And stop aging. Which is why I still look like I'm twenty."

"Seeing ghosts when no one else can and not knowing why, while working in the funeral industry, sounds... interesting." Actually, that sounds fraught to the point of probably shouldn't have brought it up! Moving on! "Hi, Bob." Shang Qinghua doesn't know English well enough to have real context on Bob being a weird thing to name a bird! "Nice to meet you, too."

[helborn]

"Oh, I see. Yeah, that makes sense." Honestly he's also stopped aging but he's still a teenager so he hasn't really noticed. "'Older than I look' is something I've encountered with a good few people so far. Honestly a lot of creatures are older than they look." Even giants and trolls are older than they look. Not that it's... easy to guess their ages.

It's fine, he's not really all that good at social cues so he didn't even really notice. "He's -" The bird breaks into a series of weird noises and Casper rolls his eyes. "Yes, yes, you're very funny, now can you -" Squaaaawk! "Watch your language! Even if I'm the only one who can understand you that doesn't mean you can swear like that. I taught you better than that."

He looks up and scratches the top of his head. "Sorry. He's uh... mouthy. Beaky?"

[airplaneskyward]

"Demons and cultivators pretty much all look young, unless something really fucked up happened, or they're doing it on purpose." Honestly, he'd always been suspicious of the Old Palace Master for looking like such a grandpa for no apparent reason. There weren't even rumors of why.

"You speak bird? Cool. And I would be the biggest hypocrite in the world if I pretended to care about people--or birds--swearing." Honestly sometimes it feels like his first language is just, profanity. It's what he falls back on when things go bad. Which is often. "What was he saying?"

[helborn]

"... Basically he was complaining about the boat and he was complaining about the water and complaining about his feathers being mussed from being in my pocket even when he chose to be in my pocket rather than fly in the wind and rain."

Little brothers. What're you gonna do? "And I mostly just speak raven - other birds it's like an extremely thick accent or dialect, so I can only sort of understand them." Anyway.

"I know I'm going to probably always look this way, at least until I reach godhood and can basically pick my appearance."

[airplaneskyward]

"Fair complaints, Bob. It is pretty wet and horrible here! I am also not a fan. At least An Ding Peak is generally dry, even if I'm buried in piles of work. If a roof leaks there, I can get someone to fix it."

"I can only understand humans, and I guess demons, so you're still one up on me!"

And he was totally right about this being an ascension process, cool. "How do you progress towards godhood? I should technically be cultivating towards ascension, so the Qing generation of peak lords can ascend together, but I sort of don't want to? The Heavenly Courts sound... boring. And I'd probably still have to organize logistics, so what difference would it make?"

[helborn]

Technically he can understand trolls and other mythical Norse monsters but that's not very relevant right now. "It's based on belief. The more your deeds become legend the more powerful you get. I don't know if it's possible to lose power if your deeds don't get repeated, since most of the pantheons don't have a lot of active worshipers." Something to ask at the conference of Scions when he gets back home.

Heavenly Courts... oh. He's heard of the Celestial Bureaucracy from a few people but it's probably different for this guy. "Logistics doesn't bother me all too much. I was usually the person who ended up arranging decedent pickups. Or sometimes driving them myself if I wasn't at school. Or handling billing for coffins, or scheduling viewings... but being a god is probably more complicated than even that." Not to mention that even if he did hit godhood he wouldn't outrank the older gods anyway.

[airplaneskyward]

“Oh, I’ve read books like that. Like, you get power from how many people burn incense at how many temples, but it makes you a god, instead of cultivating to a Heavenly Tribulation first. Most of the work to ascend for cultivators is internal, worship and shit empowers you afterward. I’ve cultivated to immortality and all, I can fly on a sword and perform inedia and all that jazz, but I haven’t focused a ton on making it past Nascent Soul.” Unsaid: he also fucked up the cultivation stages so badly in PIDW by forgetting what he’d already written that Nascent Soul sort of doesn’t work right? Which Cucumber-bro had beaten him over the head with a fan for multiple times.

“I don’t like, mind logistics! I’m good at them! I just don’t see the point in moving to the Heavenly Courts to start over from the bottom doing the same shit. I’m doing fine as I am!” And he’d no longer be able to see the mean sexy ice prince of his dreams.

[helborn]

"I don't... know what Nascent Soul means, but I think I get the vague picture." It's like... a level. "But yeah I get it, I'm not really looking forward to starting from the bottom again either. But it just kind of happens? Or you die trying. Permanently die, at least."

He got better, at least? "Grunt work's kind of what I've done a lot of my life. Like, I don't really know what I'd do? Even if I had my own business I'd end up doing most of the work anyway." Funeral work can be rough, especially if you don't sell to one of the big companies... but he's not going to get into it. He knows most people don't really care to talk about that business.

[airplaneskyward]

"Ah, well, what it's supposed to mean and what it means for me are sort of... different things, because the book I was reborn into was maybe a little bit, uh, sloppily written." Look, he needed to eat and he didn't have time to reread his own millions of words and crank out ten thousand words a day of shitty porn! "But it doesn't really matter! Anyway, yeah, you just sort of... inevitably keep heading towards godhood, you mean? I would have to make like, intentional efforts in that direction, it definitely doesn't just kind of happen, at least in my world, there are some books where Heavenly Tribulations just sort of randomly strike the worthy and call them up to the Heavenly Courts. Generally the worthy are at least cultivators already, though, so there is some work going on."

"We grunts deserve the respect, bro. We keep shit running. Like, nobody would have food or an intact roof on Cang Qiong without me and my grunt army. And you and your," he gestures vaguely, "Nobody in the modern day knows what the hell to do with a corpse, nobody can prepare someone for burial at home anymore, people would lose it without the important services of people like you! Honestly it was maybe a little alarming the first time I realized I would have to personally deal with corpses, even after I came to terms with the fact that I would as a cultivator at some point probably have to create some, because I grew up a shut-in NEET in goddamn Beijing, I was not prepared for the cultural norms of fantasy ancient China." Writing really doesn't count as employment, even if it did pay the bills, it wasn't a real job.

[helborn]

"I see." And he shakes his head at the question. "I mean some people never do things people talk about, and some people do but don't get like... famous famous. You have to intentionally do things to get people talking. There's... uh. A reason that the leading causes of death in Scion are either Titanspawn or 'stupid stunts'." He's not sure on the numbers, don't question him. "And I know some mortals have been granted godhood but I don't know if it actually works like that. It's one of those 'all myths are at least sort of true' things, but the 'sort of' is important?"

'Bro'? He can't remember the last time someone called him 'bro'. It's kind of nice. "I'm uh... not sure what a NEET is, but Beijing explains the uh... I guess genre you're in?" It sounds like an anime, and yes he's aware Japan and China are wildly different cultures but it's the closest non-mythology comparison he's got. "It's not something that's really popular where I am."

... Actually that brings up a good question. "Since we're from comparable-sounding worlds, what year is it for you? It's... early 2006 for me."

[airplaneskyward]

"Oh, god, it's like some kind of fucked up reality TV show? That sounds... sort of terrible! Does everyone know about the gods being real, to be able to talk about shit you do?" If they do that would definitely be a point towards 'not from actually the same world', because he's never heard of anything like it.

"Oh, NEET is, uh, no education employment or training. I uh, made my living writing shitty serial novels, which is not a real job." He looks actually kind of embarrassed, for once. "And then I got electrocuted and died! In 2015. It's been like, sixty years since then, but that probably didn't pass in the same way back home, because Cucumber-bro transmigrated like fifty years after me but from the same death year. And, oh, yeah, I'm from a xianxia novel, but unless you're like a truly enormous nerd you probably never heard of that genre in Canada, I don't think it's very popular overseas period. It's like, sort of the stock fantasy tropes in China, the way wizards and shit are in the west? Like, people write it different ways, but there's always cultivators and spirits and shit."

[helborn]

"It's a little 'Jackass', yeah." Which probably didn't make it over to China, so he continues. "Which was 'stupid stunts for attention: the TV show' basically. And no, not everyone knows the gods are real. Most - who aren't like Hindu or something? - are still worshipers of the Abrahamic capital G God. I don't know how it works, it just kind of does."

... Aw. He shakes his head. "I mean writing anything is a big achievement? I struggle with writing essays in school. I couldn't write a whole novel - that's actually really impressive. It absolutely is a real job." Come on, have a little confidence! One of them has to. "Yeah, I've never heard of it. But it sounds pretty cool, at least."

There's a brief pause before... "... who is 'Cucumber-bro'?"

[airplaneskyward]

"That sounds very confusing to become suddenly aware of being a part of. Do you just like, need to be famous among the other, uh, godspawn? Scions? Also, what are Titanspawn, by the way?"

"It was millions of words of... it really was not good, Cucumber-bro never lets me forget all my fucking plot holes and bad characterization. Oh! Cucumber-bro was one of my readers, his username was Peerless Cucumber. My biggest hater. Read every update and left long comments about all the ways it sucked. He remembers everything. And then he also died and transmigrated into my--the same shitty book." He's trying not to admit he's in his own work, but Casper is so chill to talk to, and he's so unused to mentioning transmigration to anyone other than Cucumber-bro himself, that he's honestly struggling a little to not spill it by accident. "But thank you for the encouragement! My family did not agree on the real job front, but I was going to be a disappointment no matter what, so whatever, yknow? Anyway, you have other strengths! You're a logistics guy, the most underappreciated kind of guy!" He joined An Ding Peak as a disciple, and even the lower peaks look down on An Ding cultivators as useless and pathetic. You're welcome for the medicine being available to treat your constant injuries and the organized collection for repair of training weapons on your peak, Liu Qingge!

[helborn]

"Nope, you need to be famous around regular people. ... There's a reason that there aren't a lot of new gods. It's not like the gods have children often, and the ones that do tend to stay hidden until a crisis happens. And among those there are very few who make it to demigod, and fewer still to godhood."

He shrugs. "Look, I know of people who write novel-length fanfiction of characters having sex. Writing is writing, at least you're being creative." But as he goes on... oh gods that sounds like a nightmare. And he kind of figured it was his book. "If he hated it so much why did he read it? That sounds like a waste of time."

Eheh. "I know the whole 'disappointing to family' thing. I was going to go to university and get my funeral director's license but even if I did that I don't know if my dad would have ever let me take over the family business. And then I find out he's an extremely long-lived mage so it's not like the business was going to get handed over soon anyway." Wait. Uh. "... Fuck it, it doesn't matter anyway. Magic isn't a secret here. But he never told me and I had to find out in a... really unpleasant way."

[airplaneskyward]

"But you made it to demigod! Are you famous? Are you-- is it weird if I ask what your deeds were, sorry, that's probably weird. You don't need to answer that."

"He didn't just read it, he paid me for it. You had to pay to unlock every chapter, and he did. He bought merch, too. Most dedicated antifan. He did like my protagonist." He really, really liked his protagonist. Carnally, as it turned out. Shang Qinghua shrugs. "I dunno, I've never argued with what makes me money. That's why I ended up writing so many nonsense papapa plots-- uh. I mean, that's why I wrote so much every day, the fans demanded regular updates." His saving grace is he's pretty sure that particular piece of slang is specifically Chinese, as long as the translation effect doesn't render it intelligible to Casper. He really would like to seem even slightly respectable for five minutes, even if he is a sellout porn author!