JULY 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

[sodder]

JULY 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to July's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: DREAM 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: Violence, Freddie Kreuger references, fire, forced sleep with some drug-like references, stabbing, nightmares, monsters, possibility for extreme alcohol consumption, and lobster festivals
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Prompt Three
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

WHEN THE BOAT COMES IN

It’s July and July in Maine means lobster! The Lobster Festival springs up seemingly overnight down near Koji Pond. In the morning, there’s a large parade that makes its way through town, starting from the top of East Main Street and all the way down through West Main St until they hit the festival. There are tents, a few rides, games, arts and crafts, and most importantly, food pretty much everywhere behind the hotel and you can help yourself to free ice cream at the ice cream shop! Lobster ice cream and Blueberry ice cream are pushed to the forefront, but you can get just about any flavor you could possibly dream of in the long run.

You can hear live music playing and a stage has been set up on the roof of the arcade. Live bands play everything from folk music to jazz to classic rock that you may or may not have heard in your lifetime. There’s a tent where local artists (including sleepers) are selling art, a craft tent where people are selling goods they’ve made such as pottery and homemade fudge, and a Do It Yourself tent where people are teaching you how to make your own buoy decoration for your front yard or how to weave your own baskets!

A seafood cooking contest is held for anyone who may want to show off their culinary skills. Any kind of seafood dishes are allowed, but they highly encourage showing your abilities to cook with lobster! Think you can beat the longstanding champions from Deerington? It’s pretty unlikely, especially since it looks like the townspeople keep trying to sabotage your meal as you’re making it. Did you mean to put in an entire half cup of salt to your stew? Oops. Guess you better figure out how to work with it anyway.

Across Koji Pond, there are floating crates set up for the great crate race! See if you can make it across the lake fastest – challenge a friend! These lobster crates wobble pretty heavily, but each runner is given a life vest for when they might inevitably fall in. Be careful if you do! Some of those strange looking fish in there definitely bite.

Each morning at the festival there will be an all you can eat blueberry pancake breakfast. Surprisingly, nothing drastic seems to happen, so have as many pancakes as your body can hold! They’re delicious, after all. Through the rest of the day, it’s easy to get your hands on lobster rolls of varying sizes, full steamed lobster meals (with corn on the cob and a buttered dinner roll), lobster salad, steamed mussels, scallops, haddock (baked or fried), fried clams, lobster stuffed risotto balls, blueberry cobbler, and strawberry shortcake are all available at any of the food stands. All the food seems perfectly safe. But you’re gonna need something to wash it down with…

The drink stand has a great deal to offer, but every drink seems to come with a particularly strange side effect to it. People who enjoy the hand crafted beers will find that it gets them drunk twice as fast and can even make people who would normally never drink completely wasted after just a glass or two. Every glass you have makes you thirstier than the last and it can be easy to want to reach for another beer to try and get yourself together. In fact, it’s particularly hard to reach for anything else. Urges to drink the beer will last for at least one full hour or can be cut short by being responsible and going to drink some water instead.

So maybe beer isn’t your thing; that’s okay! There’s also blueberry lemonade which will turn you the color of blueberries from head to toe! Fresh iced tea will make you feel particularly sarcastic, prone to mocking even your closest friends and gossiping with complete strangers about the things you may or may not have heard about the town. Got a juicy secret you were trying to keep for someone? Well, it’s out in the open now. Cream sodas will make you extremely cuddly, wanting to cozy up next to the closest person to you for a little while. The more you drink, the more touchy-feely you may get, so maybe try and stick to just one or two unless you’re looking for some afternoon delight. Hot tea will make you feel calm and relaxed to an extent you never have before. To the point where you might even want to just go lay down on one of the docks and take a quick catnap in the middle of the afternoon sun. Hopefully you wore sunscreen.

Effects from any drink will last for one to three hours or until you have some strawberry shortcake from one of the food vendors.

BLUEBERRIES FOR SAL

So maybe the lobster festival isn’t your thing or you got tired of all the crowds and wanted to go and do something else fun. Strangely enough, some of the fields out near the farmhouses apparently have a bunch of blueberry bushes that no one’s ever noticed before! They’re in full bloom and the berries look ripe for the picking. Perfectly round, juicy, warm from the sun – you could eat a whole handful of these and maybe never feel more satisfied. They’re deliciously sweet, perfect for pies and cobblers. And a whole basket seems to be reasonably priced, so why not go out and pick as many as you can!

The longer you’re out in the fields, the more you’ll start to feel a little groggy. It’s easy to shake off as just being from the sun at first and you might think about heading back, but something in you wants to keep picking. So you trudge in deeper into the fields, and that sleepy feeling becomes more and more difficult to ignore. Eventually, you might find that you’re ready to just lay down and take a nap in the shade of a particularly large blueberry bush. It seems like a good a spot as any – the ground is nice and soft. Just curl up for a little while and close your eyes. Even people who are normally not prone to sleeping will find that they are compelled and even capable of taking a quick nap in these fields.

Any dreams you may have while sleeping will feel more vivid than normal – to the point where it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not. Did you actually manage to find your way out of Deerington and back home? You can pinch yourself, but you won’t wake up, and it’ll hurt like a bitch, so it’s hard to be sure. Dreams seem to mostly be pleasant ones, but the occasional nightmare might find its way in to your otherwise restful sleep. Anyone who stumbles on you asleep in the fields might even hear you talking in your sleep, rambling out conversations and feelings you might normally have kept quiet. Got feelings for someone you were trying to bury? They might just hear you mutter them out loud if they’ve found you there in the dirt. Wanted to make sure no one in Deerington found out you had no home to go back to? That sucks, it sounds like you might have just spilled the beans without even knowing.

The real question is if the person who finds you will wake you up or just keep listening to find out more of your secrets without having to pry for them.

NINE, TEN, NEVER SLEEP AGAIN

It’s not just in the blueberry fields that sleepiness seems to be catching. Throughout Deerington, people seem to be having a harder and harder time staying awake for long stretches. The desire for a quick nap or even a long snooze becomes harder to fight as each day passes and you might find yourself nodding off in places you normally wouldn’t – behind the wheel of a car, in the middle of a store, at work… Hopefully no one gets too hurt or loses a job during these strange episodes.

Only unlike in the fields, when you do give in to sleep, the dreams you have are now far from pleasant. Nightmares are running amok in your mind, but that vivid realism? That inability to tell when you’re awake or asleep? That has definitely not changed. You might not have even realized you’ve fallen asleep at all – most of the scenery around you seems to be Deerington itself, but something just seems off. You don’t have time to think about it though because it’s then that things start to get scary. Whether it’s reliving your most traumatic experiences, running in to your worst enemies, or seeing monster of your own creation popping up and chasing you, danger and fear are permeating every corner of these dreams. Horror movie fans might find they’re being chased by Freddie Kreuger, hunted down by Jason, cornered by the aliens from Alien. Or maybe there are terrifying monsters from your own world that have started to come for you and are trying to tear you limb from limb. It feels impossible to outrun, and maybe in the end, you don’t. But if you die in your dreams, you don’t really die in real life, right? So you might just snap awake with a particularly frightening jolt.

You think when you wake up that everything is fine. That sense of fear is gone and you’re able to just breathe. But as you go about your day, you start to see images from your nightmares out of the corner of your eyes. Was that Freddie’s claws scratching against the blackboard? Did you just hear the strange clicking of alien feet against the tiles? You hope it’s in your imagination, but this is Deerington. When does anything ever stay normal?

The danger from your nightmares is definitely invading your personal space and it will try to kill you. Anyone else can see these images just as plain as day as you can and they are welcome to either sit and watch or help you fight. Whatever is trying to kill you will go down in the same manner it would have back home – that means that it could be as easy as a bullet between the eyes or it could be as complex as an intense ritual. Guess you’ll have to figure it out for yourself before it really does kill you.

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.

Comments

[shoutymutant]

Oh fuck, oh, fine.

[He resists the urge to cover his face with his hands and submits to the incoming papping. It's for the best and Dave's gotten pretty good at it in the passing years.]

[rage_on]

It wasn't bad? But I grew up in the sewers under New York so definitely different.

[timeriffs]

[A corner of Dave's lips quirks up slightly, and bam, his hand is back on Karkat's face, papping with practiced ease, though this time much less assholey than before. He even throws in a couple shooshes for optimal Karkat taming.]

I know this blows a donkey's dick, Karkat, but nothing we can't handle. So far it doesn't look like we have to gather a literal shitton of useless grist or deal with mindless animal consorts trying to cook us in a giant cartoon kettle because they were so stupid at playing their own stock market that even a 13 year old could fuck them over like a goddamned wolf of wall street, junior, so there's that.

[As he talks, he stops the calming action and moves his hand, fingertips brushing along the ridge of Karkat's brow to move hair from his eyes, a less than moirail gesture but definitely, definitel no other meaning behind it. Karkat's hair was just being too messy after their tussle!]

And at least we aren't alone.

[finearts]

( The way he said it made her narrow her eyes. He couldn't be serious... ) You've never... partied before? Not even, like, spin-the-bottle parties in middle school?

( And what the hell is 'sopor'? Talking to this guy really is like speaking to someone from a different country. ) I watched movies sometimes with one of my friends. Not like a party; it was just us two. We talked the whole time, really. He'd point out all the phony bullshit parts. ( But they mainly spent this time to talk shit on their classmates. ) It was sort of cool.

...But whatever. Not like it matters now. ( Not when he was one of the ones haunting her. ) What do you do for fun in, uh, Alterion? ( Nailed it. )

[finearts]

( She just gives her a really long look. )

Are you on drugs, or something?

cooking contest!

[finearts]

( Not that Victoria was planning on eating any the food offered at this fair before, but she's definitely not taking chances after seeing whatever the hell Dave is calling a stew(? Soup? There probably isn't a real name for it). Clearly she isn't cool enough to go with his flow. The amount of butter alone was enough to make her wince, and now that salt? She has to say something.

When she approaches, she has no intention on helping with his concoction. )

Are you trying to kill people?

[timeriffs]

[He just stares at her with a blank expression, as he keeps stirring his lobster liquid.
Stir.
Stare.
Stir.
Stare.]

Who's asking.

[finearts]

( The length of the pause makes her wonder if he heard her. Just in case: ) I said are you trying to—

( Oh. )

This is some kind of joke, right?

[timeriffs]

[His expression doesn't change, but he's at least there's no long pauses anymore. For now.]

Do I look like I'm joking? You see how sturdily I stir this liquid? The sweat on my brow as I slave over this flame with dedication? How smooth and confident my hand is at choosing a carefully considered ingredient?

[Without turning his gaze from her, he reaches out and grabs a random dish and tosses everything in it into the pot. He doesn't even know what it was he threw in there. It could have been the handful of blueberries. Could have been walnuts. He doesn't know, or care.]

Bam. Fucking delicious.

[finearts]

( No, this has to be a joke. There's no way this guy seriously just threw a handful of Fruity Peebles into this 'soup' without even batting an eyelash. Even if he did, it's not like Victoria would be able to tell from behind those dark shades. It's not even that sunny out! )

If it's so delicious, taste it. Right now. That won't be a problem, right?

[timeriffs]

Sure.

[He shrugs and takes out the ladle, bringing it up to his lips for a completely unhygienic taste test.

(Wait, are those Fruity Pebbles? When the fuck did those get in there?)

From her point of view he's making loud slurping noises, mmm-mm-mmm, etc, and it looks like he did indeed slurp down half of the ladle.

But from his point of view, he froze time for a second, dumped out half of it, and brought it back to his lips to continue time as normal. He tends not to use his powers too much since after winning the game, not even to hurry up doing his chores or speed along the three minutes to cook the bagel bites in the microwave, but he isn't above using them for a literal second to have a little fun. (Though, if he was aware of the consequences of using them in this town he might have second thoughts... Nah, he still would.)

He wipes nothing off his lips with the back of his hand as he puts the ladle back in the pot.]

I repeat: mother. fucking. delicious.

[bigbadrose]

See? This is your problem. Absolutely no imagination. I'm not an artist myself, but you can't even see talent if it's not outside of what you've already been taught. What everyone else thinks they know.

You could be talking to a ghost, and wouldn't even know it.

[And with that cryptic reply... Rose just starts walking off.]

[shiro2hero]

... you know what? That's fair.

[vajratna]

Do you get a lot of flake for it?

[shiro2hero]

You must be pretty well-read then.

[Get it? It's a joke. It's a terrible, borderline pun joke. Because, clearly, nothing breaks the ice like a bad joke. Or, he's just feeling more comfortable right now. Letting the bad sense of humor leak out a little.]

[You know, at least until that bit about listening. Suddenly, he's back to business, back to looking worried. Wanting to do something, and unsure of what.]

Why wouldn't I listen? [Just give him a second to tick through that in his head. He's usually better on the uptake, but, so far, his conversations with intoxicated people have been more along the lines of "go date that poster" or "the floor is lava".] Because I thought I should fill you in at some point?

[Nailed it. Maybe. Maybe Hawkeye wants it from a different source or, in writing or something different. Surely, a person would want to know what they were getting into. Right?]

[He grimaces, though.] See, you say that, and I can't help but be a little concerned. Memory problems are kind of old hat in my house.

[wasonayoyo]

[He may or may not shoot the creepy doll a dirty look at some point, one sprinkled with a light powdering of seriously unsettled, thanks. On the bright side, at least this is some proof that maybe he's not the only 'living' toy in this town (which is barely a bright side, if this is the only company he's got, to be honest).

But there's a kid in need here, so he focuses more on that, instead.

Keeping his voice low, he crouches a little to make sure she can hear in her blueberry-induced sleep. This is so strange to him — there are so many times he'd nearly spoken to Andy, especially when he was distressed. It's so frustrating, to want to say something to help the people important to you, only to be held back by what you know has to be.

His voice is light, as he adjusts his hat.]

... I'm sure you didn't do anything wrong. Sometimes things just happen.

I'm sure if you keep looking, you'll find them.

Or, hey, maybe you'll find someone who can point you in the right direction.

No apologies needed, Aziraphale is ALSO an idiot, and usually the cause of his own troubles. XD

[guardianofeden]

Oh, yes, yes, a happy little soldier, fighting the Good Fight for the bosses on high, just like Aziraphale was supposed to be. Until he'd given his flaming sword to the Adam and Eve, abandoning the actual fighting before it even got started. Though that didn't mean he didn't feel the threat coming from the other angel when he cuts him off, his eyes narrowing slightly. It was definitely unsettling, made him draw in a shallow breath to try and keep down the rising urge to panic.

Instead, he stood to his feet as gracefully as he could manage, brushing the dirt off of his clothes with hands that he desperately tried to keep from shaking, and straightened his coat. Give the appearance of being calm and indifferent. Too bad he'd absolutely never been good at hiding his nervous tension. It was evident in the way he stuttered, in the barely-hidden glint of fear in his eyes when he tried to put some distance between him and the other.

"Oh, yes, of course, we don't sleep. And neither do we eat, nor do we..." He closed his mouth with a snap of teeth, trying to hide the slight tremor in his lip. No, no, he's calm, you see? This figment of his imagination isn't getting under his skin and managing to remind him of all of his shortcomings all at once, not in the least!

Instead, he redirected his attention, sniffing indignantly.

"Oh, why are you saying it that way? I've never once heard someone say it like that, it's worse then...then Crawley! Gabriel talks with an American-English inflection, and he doesn't pronounce it that way!" He muttered the other angel's pronunciation of his friend's name under his breath, trying to wrap his tongue around the way the 'o' twisted strangely in his mouth. "It sounds like you've hurt yourself just as you said it. He would have a fit."

[1926]

[The demon's smile is, quite possibly, the brightest Aziraphale may have ever seen grace Crowley's features.

In Crowley's mind's eye, the angel was walking with him from the park. A small nagging sensation told Crowley that this wasn't how things had gone, but the part of him that felt so strongly for Aziraphale promptly shut the logic centre of his brain off.

They reached the Ritz, just as the angel had predicted. He forged a reservation for them on the way there, so they were seated comfortably when they arrived.]

A good vintage Pinot Noir, and I think we should try the Tartlet with Tunworth cheese. It should pair well with the wine.

[There's a brief pause from the demon and the smile slips a bit.]

Do you know what the Home Office will do to you if they find out?

[He hated more than anything that something could happen to his angel if they got caught.]

[shoutymutant]

[The papping works; his breaths go calm again, but hitch at the gentle brush of Dave's fingertips. He looks up at Dave for a split second, caught by his words, then glances away. No, he has to get his shit together. This isn't time for Karkat's hangups. This is serious.]

Yeah, this could be a lot worse.

[All the rest of the tension gets released in a long sigh, then he looks up at Dave, questioning.]

Should we try to figure this out or something?

[shoutymutant]

My species doesn't really do parties. When we were kids, some of us played, fuck, that takes me back, a lot of stupid roleplaying shit. I didn't, thought I was too cool for that, I mostly stayed home and trained and coded. Probably only started "partying" once I met a human.

[But her story about the other human twigs thoughts of Dave.] My, uh. My friend does the same kind of thing, talks through movies. Thinks my taste in movies is ridiculous. But romance movies have something to say about the troll condition, I'll stand by that.

[guardianofeden]

It took him a moment before he realized that the grip had released him, but the instant he did, he scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could. Had he not been backed against the fence, he would have backpedaled and put distance between the two of them. As it was, he pressed himself as far against it as he could, reaching down to try and grasp onto his divinity, to throw it up around him like a shield against any attempts to regain that hold on him.

"...You're lying." She was a demon. That was what most demons just did. The look on his face showed his doubts, however. He didn't know what was going on, but he wasn't going to simply take her word for it. "Besides. That's what a dream would say."

[guardianofeden]

To anyone else, the concept of "alternate universes" might not have been so foreign. Aziraphale had never had much interest in matters of quantum sciences or even the very fantastical science fictions that humans were so fond of writing. Not that he didn't have a wide collection of those in his bookshop. They just weren't his favorites.

He nodded slowly at her when she confirmed it was a dream, though the look on his face was definitely skeptical.

"Yes, my dear, that's been well established." But then she was scolding him, prattling on about Crowley and the things he'd apparently said? And he felt a small twinge in his corporation's heart. Oh, Crowley.

"I assure you, Crowley is far from a monster, and I am no saint." His voice was sad, concerned. Crowley was loud, brash, cynical and quick to be short when frustrated, yes. But the thought that he might view himself as something so awful as to be monstrous hurt, made him want to wake up so that he could seek him out just to reassure himself that his friend wasn't out of sorts. He huffed back at her accusations, shaking his head. What?

"Why are you saying these things???" Was this some deeply-seated guilt surfacing to point out all of the things he may have said in the past to make his friend feel less then worthy of his...companionship? Forgiveness? He dimly recalled the day in the park, watching Warlock wander through the statues of mythical, "prehistoric" practical jokes, and the way his eagerness to perform slight-of-hand magic tricks had vexed the demon, the way he'd sighed and retorted back a light-hearted 'you're no fun.' "He knows I didn't mean that, surely! Oh, I never meant that in earnest, I was only joking!"

The tenor of his voice had taken on a bit of a distressed tone, and if she were to look back at him, the look on his face would have been one of actual guilt and worry. Crowley surely knew better then to take the things he said when they bantered to heart, didn't he? He gave it as much as he received, it had been their way of teasing each other for as long as he could remember! His hands fidgeted in front of his chest, wringing gently as she prattled on, and he only seemed to be half listening to her for a long moment. He seemed to have completely missed the grumpy way she pointed out the blueberries in the field and his nightmare-in-a-dream as if that proved her point.

When he finally seemed to check back into the conversation, he gave a small, thoughtful nod, considering what she said as he dragged himself back to the present. It was an unusual concept, true, but he supposed it made a certain kind of sense?

"Well, yes, of course, it could certainly be something that She might have done. B-b-but there would have to be so many! I-...I...I don't dare try and confess to understand what She has planned for us, not the way I once did. But if that were true, then..." Would that mean there was another Universe where he and Crowley had failed? Where the world had been lost to fire and death and destruction?

Where Crowley had...

He bit down on that thought sharply, fighting it back even as the implications threatened to stop the purely-optional breaths in his chest. When he focused on her again, when she described her Doctor friend and his resemblance to the demon, he felt a little surge of pride breaking through the discomfort. Yes, yes, that sounded a bit more like the Crowley he knew. He was so very fond of the humans, even if he had trouble showing it. But that, he realized, wasn't the point of what was being said, and he shook his head to refocus his attention.

"You...you realize that...if the things you're saying are true...If this dream is...somehow more then what it seems, and has been...trapping people from other of Her Creations, then...the implications are astronomical! And it's a little hard to believe, mind you." But then it was certainly not something he could have ever imagined himself dreaming up. And that, in and of itself, was telling, wasn't it? When she chided him for thwarting Crowley's temptations, insinuating that it was not the tit-for-tat Arrangement that they had had for hundreds of years, now, his nose curled slightly, a little bewildered. She-...if she were really a part of his mind...she should know this.

The look on his face slowly shifted, to one of slowly-dawning horror.

"My Dear...Do you really not know?"

She may have just stumbled upon the proof needed to convince him without even having realized it.

Dan Torrance | Doctor Sleep

[docsleep]

CW for alcoholism, child abuse, Stephen King, blood, haunted hotels, drug abuse, murder, Jack Nicholson.

blueberry pancakes

Dan hadn't had pancakes this good since he was a kid. His mother used to wake up early on Saturdays and make blueberry pancakes. He'd helped Wendy as best he could, dumping the blueberries into the batter and stirring them with all the strength his child-body could muster. She'd pour the batter on to the pan to make shapes, a D, A and T for Daniel Anthony Torrance. He'd add extra blueberries and whipped cream if he could, and eat and eat until he had blueberries all over his face and he couldn't move anymore he was so stuffed.

Right now, history was working on repeating itself. Unaware of just how hungry he was, Danny had taken a few blueberry pancakes, loaded up on the whipped cream, and moved to sit at one of the many picnic tables. This whole place... There was something shiny about it, for lack of better terms. He hadn't felt anything like that since he'd last been to Colorado, standing on the Roof O' The World.

It was unsettling, but these pancakes? They were good.

Blueberry Fields

When in Rome, pick blueberries, right? He's grabbed a bushel and started grabbing the plump berries by the handful, dark juices staining his palms. Occasionally, he'd pop one in his mouth as he wandered further into the fields. Every once in a while, he'd stop to yawn. Maybe... Maybe he'd just sit down for a minute. Close his eyes...

Just like that, he was out like a light. Anyone stumbling across a full-grown man in the berry fields will be able to pick out a few key phrases and words from his dreams: Overlook, Abra, Steam and Shine.


Dream Time

The things he'd seen in his dreams.. Once he knew they couldn't hurt him. But that was before the Overlook, before the bad feelings and the hedge creatures. Now he knew his dreams meant something, even vaguely. One of the reasons, one of the many reasons (you drink because you're an alcoholic) he'd started drinking. Here, he knew his dreams meant something, too.

Sitting at an outdoor cafe, he was working on a book he'd grabbed from the local library, trying to get a better feel for the town when he saw something out of the corner of his eye roll toward him. Stopping the rolling object with his foot he bent down to pick it up. Excedrin. The green bottle kind. The kind his dad used to chew.

Setting his book down, Dan began to look around carefully, fully convinced he'd see his father ducking around the corner.

Jack Torrance was nowhere to be found.

[the_cleric]

Oh...

[Jester's inward thoughtfulness is abruptly interrupted as Yasha pulls her right off the ground. She makes a little ulp of surprise--first, because being a strong girl herself, she's not used to being pulled around by strong girls, but it's more than okay, you know, because it's Yasha who is her friend--and so is Caduceus, and so is--

Well, that's why she should make another noise of surprise. But she doesn't. Instead it is like getting brain freeze, but all-over full-body brain freeze, everything in her all locked up and breathless.]

Wait, Molly is here? Yasha--

[Jester grabs onto Yasha's hand, reluctant to be cut free, needing this contact with her. If it is really just her, and Yasha, and Caduceus--if all of the other Nein are somewhere else, or if they haven't come here yet--then there is no one that understands.]

Did Caduceus... [No, because he would have before, if he could have.] It is really him? Really-- really Molly?

[bigbadrose]

Well, now she felt bad! She'd clearly upset the angel, and she could see Crowley kicking her for it, and she'd probably deserve worse!

Deep breath, time to do this a bit more calmly, a lot less emotionally and all hurricane Rose, something that had been exacerbated between the void.

"No, he knows you're kidding," she softly rested her forehead to the angel's. "Sorry, I am too, Just a bit... overwhelmed meself right now. Not stopping to put a cork in my mouth, and I should." An apologetic wince, "Been a couple years since I really spoke to anyone who could see me as not a dream or ghost. I'm beyond rusty... as they'd say."

Still, her temper wasn't calmed down enough to refrain from snorting at the idea that the infinite multiverse was beyond astronomically vast. "No, you don't say," she growled extremely sarcastically, rolling her eyes. Look, if Aziraphale had been the one traveling multiple universes, and seeing varying shades of dead Crowley which resulted in the end of the Earth in even more dramatic fashion, Rose would 100% be very very forgiving of him being more than a bit snarky about the whole thing, okay?

To the last question, she just threw her hands up in exasperation. "I really don't. I'm well-traveled, even by TimeLord definitions now, but the more I see, the more I know how much I don't know."