soddersays | JULY 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

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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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He glances up suspiciously, then gives a rebellious lick of his ice cream before he musters up an answer, and with effort he's not too shitty about it:]

There's room.

[He notices she doesn't have any lusus-adjacent shit on her person, so he just dives into the rant that was already on his mind before he can help himself.]

Do you see what they're eating? It's fucking horrifying. Humans. They'll eat anything.

I've heard of worse foods in my time here, I'm sure... but I'll admit that boiled bugs isn't quite on the menu for me.

[Nope, she was just going to nope out of those things. Vira Lorr probably would have been more on board if she wasn't seeing the process, but right now, she was far more happy to slaughter moo milk, heavy cream and some blueberries as she settled in properly and tried to offer him a shrug.]

I am Vira-Lorr. A pleasure to meet you...?

[Damn it. He's in a conversation now, with someone who mostly looks like a human. He can't be a piece of shit right now, can he? Not when someone who's not trolling him back is sitting right there. Right. Human politeness.]

Karkat. [He gestures to the lobster festival with his ice cream cone.] My - what's the human word? Guardian. Parent, that's right. Whatever. He was a giant crab. So that's a line for me.

You were raised by crabs?

[Blink. Blink blink blink? Well, she could tell he wasn't human, but she wasn't either. According to the notes back home, she was something called an "Onelthes," though those had been shaky on the details. Still, the idea of being raised by a crab?]

Do... you want to go somewhere else so we could talk? Away from the boiling versions of your ... parent? I wouldn't mind getting some air away from it. The smell's quite strong.

[Not to mention a little fishy.]

He was a giant monster crab. He was great.

[Then he considers her offer. He can't deny that that sounds a hell of a lot better than hearing the whistle from the lobsters boiling. Maybe they're not crabs, but it's uncomfortable. And she's not so bad. Maybe all humans aren't annoying as fuck, or maybe she's not human, and that's why she's not annoying as fuck.]

Sure. Why the hell not. Let's walk.

[He tosses what's left of his ice cream cone into the appropriate receptacle and hurriedly checks to see if anyone who knows him is about to see him do the human thing of associating without jockeying for power and influence. He's good. He gestures with his head and starts to walk.]

[Up she got, though she was carrying her ice cream with her, following along with the crabby little Alternian. She followed alongside at a respectful distance, and when the smell of boiling sea-life started to fade, she breathed a little more easily.]

So, a crab... how is it that you came to be raised by one instead of your parents? Or is that normal for your people, to be raised by crabs like that?

[She hadn't even gotten around to asking what he was. That could wait.]

[No one's ever asked politely about this shit before. All he's heard is jokes or prodding academic questions with associated psychoanalysis that doesn't even apply to his species. It's... well, it's nice.]

On my planet we're chosen by our guardians. Mine was Crabdad. Shouldn't have even chosen me, he should've left me to get eaten. I'd say it was the complicated destiny shit but I don't think lusii know about complicated destiny shit. Maybe they do. Did.

[He doesn't like to think about what happened to all the lusii. It makes him frown before he can help it, and not the usual scowl.]

You're not human, are you? Shit, that's probably rude.

[She had a snarky side just under the surface, but she liked to save it for when she knew someone first. The woman shook her head at his first assertion. The whole situation sounded strange, but she'd already met a boy made entirely of grass, so strange was becoming normal.]

I am sure he had his reasons. I think I will personally say I'm glad you didn't get eaten... and no, I'm not human. I'm... well, I'm what's called an Onelthes. We apparently all have three eyes.

[She pointed to her extra ocular option and then made a halting gesture.]

But I'm afraid I couldn't tell you more. I am still fighting amnesia. I have been for a while now, it seems.

[For some reason, he relaxes a little knowing she's not human. There are a lot of them around, and he's still sketchy on how to deal with them, because he didn't exactly have great examples as his primary human contact. Then she mentions the amnesia, and he frowns. It's disturbing to think about; he leans on his memory more often than he'd ever admit. Home was shitty, but it was home.]

So you don't remember. You don't remember anything?

[She fidgeted a little. For likely understandable reasons, the usually self-confident seer wasn't entirely comfortable delving too deeply into the topic. But it wasn't exactly easy to avoid. She had a nearly total amnesia. Remembering things like cooking had been an exploration for the first week, after all.]

As of close to a month ago, no. I only remember my own name because I wrote it in a book, thinking this might happen. I had a scrapbook of pictures, just in case. It's a little disturbing that I felt it this necessary.

[Karkat only realizes then that he was definitely prying into some personal shit, but it's too late now and she's already talking about it, so whatever, here they are. He offers the faintest of wary smiles.]

Shit. Sorry. Hope you figure it out. Maybe this place can throw something at you that'll wake it up, impossible shit goes down all the time.

Moira thinks it should fade... but it might take longer than I'd like. The last time ... [She paused. Honestly, did she tell this stranger that she had amnesia because she'd died multiple times in this place?] I know it will fade eventually. In the meantime, I'm doing what I can to jog my memory for now.

You... you're new here, aren't you? Has anyone told you to boil your water yet?

[His eyes go wide for just a second, then he manages to hide his concern, thank fuck.]

No. No surprise that even the water's out to get you here. Fuck.

[He scratches the base of his horn, awkward.]

I'm new. My... my friend's here, too. Just us from where we came from. You got anyone? ...Moira?

No, not that I know of. Everyone I am close to here is from another world. From what they've told me, nobody from my world has come here before now. [Which honestly right now she was glad for.]

Moira is from another world. She and Angela are both doctors if different sorts who help people out. They've been helpful to me in the past when I've d... when things have gone wrong here. As they always seem to at some point.

I'm Vira-Lorr by the way.

I'm used to things going wrong. At least this time it won't be my fault. Probably.

[It's only half a joke. He's fucked a lot of shit up in his time. He was just a kid, yeah, but it doesn't mean he doesn't hate himself for it.]

You've lasted this long. You must be tougher than you look. ...No offense.

Almost assuredly. [He wasn't Sodder after all.] And I would like to think that looks can be quite deceiving in my case, though I don't remember how to cast a single spell other than one of detection to see magical auras.

I'm afraid that I'm not quite as dangerous as people tell me I am right now, though there is still this. [She patted the rapier at her side. Rusty, but she did know how to use it.]

My species can have... powers sometimes. Of course, I didn't get any, but whatever. They usually come with unpleasant shit.

I just have this. [He touches the sickle at his side.] I could've been... uh, a soldier, I think is the human word. For the Empire. I was supposed to be, anyway. After everything happened they gave us crowns. [He's half-talking to her, half-talking to himself. He misses Earth-C.] Still weird.

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?

I guess. It's complicated. The world I wound up on thinks of me and my friends as their creators. ...Because we are, actually, but - anyway. So I helped run the troll kingdom. Before I got here. Kind of. I did a lot of adventuring instead of kingdom business.

I can only imagine that ruling anything would be complex. And lots of responsibilities. [Thought about that before shaking her head. Even without her memories, something felt obvious to her.]

I don't think I'd want the responsibilities, personally. I'd rather be free. Being a hero is easier than a king.

I kind of suck at being a leader. But my species needed rebuilding. They deserve a better planet than I had.

Sometimes, I suspect we don't find the job. It finds us, whether we like it or not. It can't be easy to prepare yourself for everything life will make you do. So, you were finding them another planet?

What was wrong with yours?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

JULY 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

JULY 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

WHEN THE BOAT COMES IN

BLUEBERRIES FOR SAL

NINE, TEN, NEVER SLEEP AGAIN

Character Arrival

Re: Lobster

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