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Sodder ([personal profile] sodder) wrote in [community profile] soddersays2019-06-25 12:24 am
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JULY 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME




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!











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.
variantcover: (❝YES!❞)

[personal profile] variantcover 2019-07-05 12:19 am (UTC)(link)
For sure, for sure.

I'm Gwen, by the way. Welcome to Deerington, in case no one has said it yet.
laminae: (side)

[personal profile] laminae 2019-07-05 12:22 am (UTC)(link)
It's fine, I took care of her. Who knows what else is down there, though.
vajratna: (In the land of Mordor)

[personal profile] vajratna 2019-07-05 12:23 am (UTC)(link)
Thanks.

I'm Aru. Aru Shah.
variantcover: (forgive)

[personal profile] variantcover 2019-07-05 12:25 am (UTC)(link)
Cool to meet you, Aru! Where are you from?
timeriffs: (yo)

[personal profile] timeriffs 2019-07-05 01:10 am (UTC)(link)
[His eyebrows arc up over his shades at how she downs the whole thing. She must be a blast at parties. He almost feels bad for tricking her.

He's impressed that she didn't just wind up throwing the ladle in the air while screaming out a disgusted BLUH, but she could work on her lying a little.]


That so? My genius continues to know no bounds. Would you like a cup of this lobster liquid. On the house. Let the judges see you mm-mmm-mming all over it like some aryan-lookin' kid licking his chubby li'l lips in soupy delight.

[Without waiting for her answer, he grabs the cup that once held the fruity pebbles and filled it with the colorful liquid.]
timeriffs: (now we will fly)

[personal profile] timeriffs 2019-07-05 01:20 am (UTC)(link)
[Know one can reign him in like you can, bro, don't let him out of your sight.

He throws his arm around Karkat's shoulder, all buddy-buddy.]


Sure you don't, bro. But if you start breaking out the online memos again, I'm gonna have to do an intervention.
vajratna: (Fear nothing!)

[personal profile] vajratna 2019-07-05 01:34 am (UTC)(link)
Atlanta. My mom runs a museum exhibit there.

You?
timeriffs: (Grimace - Big frown)

[personal profile] timeriffs 2019-07-05 01:34 am (UTC)(link)
[Well, fuck, someone else is seeing them, too?]

What've you been seeing? Big chess-looking motherfuckers? One with a big gold cane? One with billiard ball eyes of doom?
rage_on: (Eesh)

[personal profile] rage_on 2019-07-05 01:35 am (UTC)(link)
Not sure I wanna know, but it's kind of worrying that the monsters are people-shaped.
docsleep: (Default)

[personal profile] docsleep 2019-07-05 02:16 am (UTC)(link)
Dan frowns slightly. "Yeah- best way to put it. Things here are... they're off." That was really all he could speak to it. Abra maybe could, but the last thing he wanted was for her to show up here.

For one, her parents would not hesitate to kill him this time.

"I'll take your word for it." The waiter chose this moment to bring the glass of lemonade he'd ordered, and Danny hastily poured half of it into one of the available empty water glasses for Rose.

"I figured you were British, but I didn't know around what parts. I'm no accent expert." He smiled warmly, plucking the Excedrin bottle from the table and putting it into his pocket for further inspection later. He knew where it came from, but it was so specific. And that flash he'd seen...

Was it just the shining, or were other people seeing things, too?

"Well, the food here's good. I love the fall in New England. Not a big fan of the snow, but I like the way the leaves change, how the air smells. Cheesey, I know." He shrugs. "And yourself? Compared to... whatever universe."
bigbadrose: (wolfish grin)

[personal profile] bigbadrose 2019-07-05 02:22 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, maybe! [Giggles... but doesn't let go... she'll just play up the drunk thing, sod it.] What's your name again?
bigbadrose: (if you really want to)

[personal profile] bigbadrose 2019-07-05 02:53 am (UTC)(link)
Uh... Nope!

They're supposed to be stuck in either one universe, or the void, no in between, but since my friend is supposed to be sealed in that universe, and he isn't, I'm not really sure anymore.

They look like... pepper pots with a plunger and whisk. Yeahhhh it's more... intimidating than it sounds, 'onestly!
finearts: <user name=rpicongallery site=tumblr.com> (Default)

[personal profile] finearts 2019-07-05 03:11 am (UTC)(link)
Do you buy flowers 'or something' for all your friends?

( Only one flower? What a cheapo. )
onerthes: (Default)

[personal profile] onerthes 2019-07-05 03:16 am (UTC)(link)
Hmmm, you seem to have come from quite the unusual background to say the least. At least you do know how to defend yourself, though. It may be something you need to rely on quite a bit.

...

Are you a king?
finearts: <user name=rpicongallery site=tumblr.com> (Default)

[personal profile] finearts 2019-07-05 03:19 am (UTC)(link)
That, uh... that sucks. ( She could be eloquent when she wanted to be, but there weren't too many words she could think of that would work as a proper response to hearing about the death of a parental figure.

He's been talking about his life this entire time. His life must not have been the greatest... Even the movies he's into sound bad! )


Yeah, I do. They're... parents. You know how they can be. ( Or maybe he doesn't. She winces. )

So is that what's following you? Your Lusii?
onerthes: (Default)

[personal profile] onerthes 2019-07-05 03:20 am (UTC)(link)
[They were going to have a damned heart attack from this liquid from hell. At least she didn't have to drink it.]

It's got quite the sharp odor, does it not? I don't think you gave me your name by the way. A master chef should be known by their name, yes?
finearts: <user name=rpicongallery site=tumblr.com> (Default)

[personal profile] finearts 2019-07-05 03:34 am (UTC)(link)
( She's... not going to take that cup.

Instead she excuses herself to find a glass of well-needed water. She doesn't want to look too desperate to get away from him and the soup — but mainly the soup — so she powerwalks to safety. Once she's drank enough to wash away most of the taste, though she feels almost certain that it will never be gone from her memories, she takes an extra bottle for the road and returns.

After having a moment to get collected, she feels more like herself. )


By the way, your soup fucking sucks. Saying your soup is good is an insult to all soups in, like, America. No, the universe, because some troll kid told me there's life on other planets, too. They wouldn't even serve this soup to prisoners on Ulternian.

( Alternia*
Close enough. )

finearts: <user name=rpicongallery site=tumblr.com> (Default)

[personal profile] finearts 2019-07-05 03:57 am (UTC)(link)
( She hasn't been here for long enough to experience anything close to what others had described to her. A few weird dreams, some more vivid than others, and the fact that she woke up here at all... it's all out of the ordinary, sure, but nowhere near close to monsters being described to her.

To think it was all some elaborate prank that the entire town was in on was a little too self-centered, even for her. )


Then why are you here? How are you here? ( Which isn't to say she's completely buying the whole 'monsters' bit. But if everyone else believes it, why would they chose to stay? Chloe's the first familiar face she's run into since arrival. She could write off aliens and weirdos she'd met before as all being a part of the elaborate dream she must be in — or maybe she boarded the wrong plane without realizing it and ended up here. But Chloe? How did they both end up in the same place? ) How is anyone here?

( The whole dream within a dream thing had been explained to her... but she tuned out when it started sounded too similar to the plot of Inception. )

There's got to be an plane back to Oregon, right? Fuck, I'll even take a train. Or a bus. Or a goddamn Uber. ( An Uber across the country probably cost more than she thinks, but she's good for the money. )
timeriffs: (now we will fly)

[personal profile] timeriffs 2019-07-05 04:03 am (UTC)(link)
[The only thing he is finding more amusement in than her giving up her game and going to drink water in defeat is her returning to give him a completely ineffective smack down about his culinary skills. A corner of his lips even quirks up just slightly as she unleashes it all on him.]

That's your problem right there. You were expecting soup when I clearly said liquid.

[He rolls his eyes, not that she can see, and his smirk grows a little more at the mention of Karkat.]

Lemme guess, the troll guy was grumpier than a lasagna cat on a Monday and had a wicked overbite. They definitely wouldn't have fed lobster liquid to prisoners, because they mostly eat bugs. [Beat.] Also: killed all their prisoners.
finearts: <user name=rpicongallery site=tumblr.com> (Default)

[personal profile] finearts 2019-07-05 04:28 am (UTC)(link)
( You got her there. )

Fuck. Your. Liquid.

( She's too refined to knock his bowl of liquid to the floor, but not too refined to think about doing it.

She can't catch a break. One normal person is all she's asking for. Is that too much for this town to offer? Forget the aliens and the bugs for just a moment. Hold up. Rewind. Go back to that last part. )


What did you just say?
timeriffs: (Stoic - Head bop)

[personal profile] timeriffs 2019-07-05 04:53 am (UTC)(link)
[He's enjoying this personality more from her. Much more amusing, though it was fun that she pretended to be nice enough to drink is horrible, horrible liquid. At least he hadn't peed in it like he thought about doing at least 6 times. A classic liquid prank.]

What? Killed their prisoners? Yeah, fuckin' crazy planet he's from. Knew a girl that would feed people that lost at LARPing games to her giant spider. Karkat looks all cute and cuddly, like you could just hold him all night long and have the most deepest of sleeps, dreams full of cotton candy and Kanye congratulating you on your sick flows with boxes of kittens, but that dude? Woof. I can't even say it.
tagartist: (130)

[personal profile] tagartist 2019-07-05 05:31 am (UTC)(link)
I'm sure being the thorough student that you are, you read the letter, right? You're about as in the know as the rest of us. Congratulations.

[ She'd been lucky to remember being to another world before this one, but she remembers the first time she woke up in a strange place with no means of escape, and a part of her might be able to empathize with the general feeling of insanity that came with it if she'd just let herself. It's more confusing than half the art history lectures she only half-listened to and barely cared about on the rare days she'd actually come to school.

Chloe holds out her arms to gesture to the field around them, like it holds any answers to the millions of questions that this place always drags up. ]


We're stuck. You can't get outside the town limits without some severe backlash. Puking blood for a week is as miserable as it sounds and I don't really recommend it if you wanna keep lookin' pristine and put together. Not that I've been exactly itching to go back to the hell hole we came from, but I'd have been on a train to New York a fuckin' year ago if I'd had the option. Trust me.
lednikovyy: IW (you're in time for the show)

[personal profile] lednikovyy 2019-07-05 06:00 am (UTC)(link)
Same. Bucky Barnes.

[ Bucky takes the hand with a small smile. He looks a little different from the last time they'd seen each other. His hair is longer and his metal arm is a different color, even if it functions similarly enough to the original. There's also a sense of ease to him that's replaced some of the tension that had dogged him then. A few years in Wakanda did a lot for him even if he's still got his ghosts. ]

It's good to see you again. Maybe this time no one will throw any punches.
shiro2hero: (why is it on the CEILING)

[personal profile] shiro2hero 2019-07-05 06:03 am (UTC)(link)
If flowers are important to the friend? Sure.

But flowers don't last. So... I figured a painting or a photo of one would.

[Not that he expects to find the actual flower anywhere down here, but it's the thought that counts, right??]
lednikovyy: IW (If I could melt your heart)

[personal profile] lednikovyy 2019-07-05 06:07 am (UTC)(link)
[ It takes a moment to click that it's Barton because he looks a little different but also because that haunted look is one he's seen on Steve's face. Twice. He'd never gotten an explanation the second time before Steve had disappeared from Deerington and now Bucky will never know what it had meant, but he knows what a man looks like when he's seeing someone who shouldn't be able to be there. ]

It's me. What happened to you? Steve's around here somewhere if you need--

[ He trails off, not really sure what to offer. Steve knows him better, but Bucky's happy to give whatever he needs if he can. ]

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