APRIL 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to April’s Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: SPRING HORROR.

All Test Drive Memes contain at least one clue to the Deerington's upcoming in-game events for the month! Keep your eyes peeled! But...not literally.

Characters may die during TDMs, but you do not need to count it towards a game-canonical death unless you want to. Consider it a freebie. All TDMs can be considered game canon as TDMs introduce minor aspects about the world of Deerington that can be revisited by characters later on in the game. You may also use TDMs for your application writing sample as well as AC.

CW: Violent urges, violent furries, hallucinations, paranoia.

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

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

SPRING TIME'S FAVORITE TROPE

Despite the slightest of chills still lingering in the air, Deerington's spring seems to pop up all at once. It'd be easy to assume every flower and every tree has gone into bloom overnight! Along with all the beautiful foliage, there's another wonderful thing about all the new flowers; pollen. And it's everywhere.

The pollen settles on top of every car, every road, sticks to every screen; a thin layer of yellow that gets in your eyes and fills your lungs. Hopefully you're not allergic. No matter what, there will be one interesting side effect you may end up exposing yourself to. Those who spend too much time outside may find they suddenly have the urge to cuddle, to be close to another person, and to maybe even fall in love, even if you normally wouldn't be interested in any of it. It may be with a complete stranger or it may be with someone who you've known a long time. Regardless, whoever is on your mind will end up becoming like your new obsession.

If the person is also interested in you, you're in luck! Get in your snuggle sessions (or more, you crazy animal). If they don't return your feelings, though... You'll find yourself not handling the rejection very well. The obsessive thoughts will come even worse, turning troublesome quickly, and you'll find your head filed with violent urges. You can take them out on the person who rejected you or on a complete stranger, or you can do your best to fight them off entirely.

All the urges, positive and negative, will go away once you get covered in water, either through a shower or jumping in the lake.

GAZING AT THE PURPLES AND PINKS

The only place that doesn't seem to be covered in pollen for whatever reason is the Spring Festival at the Staggering Heights Theme Park. The usual $20 entrance fee is waived for the day and everyone is encouraged to come have fun on the rides, listen to live music, and grab a partner to dance if you feel like it! Special foods on top of the usual carnival fair can be found around the park; lavender and maple ice cream, maple cotton candy, lavender sorbet, and maple candies.

At first, it will seem like none of these foods have any ill effects. After about half an hour, however, anyone who had any of these special desserts will start to see and hear things. It will start off mild - you may think you hear someone walking behind you or you'll be sure you saw someone from home out of the corner of your eye. As time goes on, they'll become more heavily intense. You'll become actively convinced someone is out to get you, even turning on friends who you are sure are part of some elaborate plan to bring you some sort of harm. You'll begin to see enemies from home - or friends who are now acting like enemies, even if you've never done them any harm. You'll feel more on edge, ready to defend yourself at any cost, and it will be particularly hard to calm you down when you're not trusting anyone to get near you. Effects from the desserts will disappear after three to four hours - or if you get a slice of freshly baked bread from one of the vendors.

The usual 9 PM closing time seems to have been extended until midnight, but people may still find that the familiar creepy elements start to sneak their way in even with the park open. The rabbit mascots are still following you with their eyes, and the closer it gets to midnight, the more obvious it gets. By the time it hits 11 PM, the rabbits will actually pull themselves up from their seated positions and start to follow you around the park. Some of them have weapons in their hands - golf clubs, steal pipes, and knives seem to be a favorite. If you get out of the park, they won't follow beyond the edges. If you try to stand your ground, however, they will attack. If you knock off the head, the mascot will crumple to the ground; and you'll find out that they're still completely empty.

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

Peachy.. [ another new person, even if she’s been here longer than she and caity have been. knowing her shit luck, everyone who isn’t a townie or whatever is probably some variation of new, brand spanking and shiny sold separately. she’s not sure whether that’s a good sign or a bad, the fact that none of them, at least no one she’s met, seems to have been here long. it’s a question to get all comtemplative over later. it’s a question for caitlin.

the head has a weird heft to it in her hand. it’s one of those mascot deals; at least that’s what she assumes given the way it just popped off. but the body on the ground conspicuously lacks a head and a tell-tale puddle of blood that comes from decapitation. (she would know, and that should be enough said.). when the woman says the head is empty, frost can’t help but shake it, swinging the whole thing by the ears. no paint can rattle. no suitable thud from someone rolling around in there.

curious, she turns it over to see for herself. ] Huh. So it’s not a bunny suited freak or robots gone wild. What the hell.

[ the head is tossed back at the body, landing square between the shoulders and rolling off toward the feet. ]

[ Even with two months (seriously, how the hell has it been two months here already) under her thoroughly impressive gunbelt, this place is still finding ways to surprise Wynonna — and this is coming from the girl who fights demons on the regular back home and has had to look up the plural of "apocalypse." Succubus demon floating around her house? Surprisingly normal. Ugly-ass Cupids literally shooting people with bows and arrows? Slightly out of her wheelhouse. Murdery bunny mascots with nothing inside to indicate how they're even moving around to begin with? Yeah, she's definitely operating on next door to no expertise.

She's squinting into that giant black hole of nothingness that makes up the opening of the bunny head, mentally crossing her fingers that nothing will come tumbling out as soon as the other woman starts shaking it back and forth — and she does lean back then, in case it causes anything to dislodge from the inside. ]

What the hell is right.

[ Slowly, she rises up to standing, Peacemaker still clutched in her hand; her finger isn't on the trigger right this second, but that's bound to change in short order if more of those are running around. ]

At least we've got one thing that'll stop them.

Oh, that’s not the only thing.

[ eyebrow raised, her blue lips curl into a smirk as the woman stands. guns are nice and all, really. not that she’d use one. why bother when she has her own natural weapon? when she is the weapon. one that won’t jam and that’ll never need reloading. to demonstrate, she makes a sweeping gesture, like a spokesmodel showing off the grand prize on a game show. her hand moves in across her chest and then out with a sharp flick. three sharp shards of ice fly from her hand, each sinking into the mascot’s body.

if the thing had been still “alive,” each shard would have been a singular kill shot. ] They call me Killer Frost. Three guesses as to why.

[ get it? three guesses? she laughs to herself, a short humph of mirth. ]

We should probably see if these things are about to murder someone else.

[ It isn't that Wynonna's questioning any alternative methods of killing — an ice dagger literally conjured out of thin air seems to do the trick as well as a bullet from a gun set to magical-mystical glowing, and she has no doubt that if the rabbit wasn't currently headless it'd be reduced to mere twitching on the ground now. But if the other woman — Killer Frost — wants to offer a bit of intimidation on the side of that power display, she's definitely succeeded on that front.

So Wynonna's glancing over a bit warily, though no less directly, a sharp jerk of her head acting as the nod that precedes mention of her own name. ] I think you just sent all three into that fuzzy bunny body, but point made.

[ And then she briefly gestures to herself with the hand that isn't holding the gun, because that wouldn't be smart otherwise. ] Wynonna Earp. Happy to help you take on some of these creepy carnival rejects.

[ it's less about intimidation and more about... stretching her legs, so to speak. despite icing up earlier and scaring off a few folks that caity thought were after her, frost hasn't really had a chance to try out her abilities here. the transformation was a good sign, but not a definitive one.

now, she's absolutely sure she's running at full speed.

there's a tip of her head. ] Pleasure. [ then a pause, a turn, and a squint. ] Earp? Like... that Earp?

[ what? she might have read a history book. or more like... watched a movie. or two. she prefers tombstone over wyatt earp. kilmer could get it back in the day. ]

[ Ohhhh, if there were ever a moment when Wynonna wanted the ground to open up and swallow her — okay, it's not this one, exactly, but leave it to her to find a potentially closet Wyatt Earp fangirl even in the middle of Deerville.

There's always that beat where she has to suss out exactly the kind of obsession level she's dealing with here, and that can run the gamut from mild interest to full-on geeking out — and neither of them really have all that much time to deal with the latter.

Instead, she presses her lips together and musters a smile, a firm nod. ] Yup. That Earp. Gun's his, if that was gonna be your next question.

It wasn’t. [ her reply is cool, like she’s already losing interest in this topic. her eyes glance to the gun one last time, taking note of the long barrel of the six-shooter and the markings that glowed a minute before. it’s a neat trick, one that she can ask about later if she really wants to. ] Was just curious. It’s not a common name. Either there’s a relation or somebody’s mom and dad are wild west weirdos down to the W-Y of their kid’s first name.

[ hey, look, progress. she saved the possible insult until she knew it wouldn’t be as bad.

it’s been quiet in the few minutes since they beheaded the bunny. maybe the danger’s passed. maybe she won’t have to use any more of her neat party tricks tonight. maybe—

there’s a steadily rising shout of no no no no, and it’s close. ] Next customer?