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soddersays2019-06-25 12:24 am
sodder) wrote in 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.
no subject
Yeaaaaaah they're more dangerous out of the tank believe it or not. So just... avoid it. They can take control of your nervous system if worse comes to, make you act as their living puppet. And they're primarily motivated by just pure hate. Hate and survival. And supremacy.
[She can't help the giggle though, instantly catching on that he kind of wishes he was there for the mayhem.]
Well, no, it was pretty fun! But I don't remember a lot of it. Human failsafe to avoid that trauma thing.
Yeah. If he's not--
[Frown. She has watched him die way too often. But it's not real... right? Or permanent or... she can't be sure, after all she's backwards in timelines so...]
[She just facepalms.] He gets into trouble worse'n I do, I swear.
no subject
if the dalek can turn someone into a living puppet, would it be able to do the same to cade? a little problematic, don't you think? it's like... trying to destroy a monster just to create an even worse monster.
he isn't liking the sound of that. ]
Whaaat is the likelihood the little octopus guy will come out of its tank? [ a beat. ] Can you kill it?
[ it's always good to have a backup plan. ]
Because if it manages to take control of Cade, you'll be in worse trouble than your friend. Count on it.
no subject
They can self-destruct. They'd rather self-destruct than be alone in the universe, but I -- [Cheeks color and she looks at the ground.] Don't think too badly of me, but I -- [Shivers.] Had a lotta nightmares about... telling the one that opened up to destroy itself. It had started changing, because it was using me to regenerate, and in the process, got more than it bargained for, and it couldn't stand itself anymore. Wasn't a proper dalek so it just... didn't want to exist. So if you can logic it into self-destruction... it will, but I'm not sure I can. Again.
We could shoot it into the void. Darkness. They'll also self destruct rather than let enemies gain scientific progress from them, but uh, they're durable. The one I changed was being tortured for years before I found it and made them stop.
Why do you keep calling him Cade, he is Satan, right? I shot... my universe's version, at minimum -- I think he might be from another universe... or many but the Doctor's hella cagey about if that's possible, which means it is, he just doesn't want to admit it -- annnyyyyway he possessed an archaeologist and I shot him into a black hole. And I promised another demon I'll protect him from You-Know-Who.
Anyway, um... [Furrowed brow.] The way daleks puppet you, isn't like the way Lucifer or whatever, the King of Hell, possessed the dodgy archaeologist. Daleks would just manipulate your central nervous system from the spine. S-same way as [shudder] cybermen use it to operate, half-robot, half human circuitry, but cybermen are just... zombie cyborgs. You can fry their wires. No good with daleks.
But I don't think... if your demon friend is as powerful as you think, then the dalek shouldn't be able to take control of him, no. Wouldn't want to, either... like I said, they don't come out unless there's no other choice, and the only one I saw did it willingly, because it wanted to feel sunshine, and then destroyed itself in disgust.
Never thought to see if Satan could withstand a dalek's death ray though. Even TimeLords have to regenerate, and if it's too fast...
[Yeah fuck it, she's crying a little. Stupid stupid... she shouldn't have let him out of her sight.]
The weakness is the eyestalk. [Between sobs.] If you're strong enough or get a good kind of leverage, you can grab 'em by it, tug 'em and -- [Hiccup.] With luck, Cade'll go for that and they'll both destroy each other at the same time. If not you can blind them if you get something strong enough to break the shielding, but they create force fields, and suck in energy from surrounding sources.
Outta the tank... they're feisty and fast, really fast, like light-speed fast, but squishy. You could stab them with just a sharpened stick at that point. Or a regular screwdriver. Just gotta be... ruthless and aim for the eyes and brain, not the tentacles, because they can survive without those.... oh and you gotta... they'll still be... kind of alive if they're not immolated. Like how frogs still move when you dissect them? But conscious... That's their genetic engineering. They live on hate. Of everything not dalek. So all you can really do is make it sludge, burn the sludge, but that's an absolute worse case scenario. The only reason it would come out of the tank is if the tank's completely useless, and that's nearly impossible. And it wouldn't likely try to puppet Cade because it's not like... we're close with him. It would only use people as a shield like that. Double hostage. They like hurting people emotionally for leverage. And they're smarter than they seem. They'd grab onto someone powerful or important to others to force submission. 'S what it's trying to do with me... But they're cocky. And one dalek in a tank is enough to dominate most worlds... honestly. [Hiccup.]
I could try talking to it again... [That might require her to stop crying first.]
[Her brain runs through a list of a billion options. Bury it concrete. Find an honest-to-goodness magic user with sun-levels of fire to melt the whisk. Rope??? Lots of rope. Completely tangle it up in unbreakable chains, then haul it sideways with a truck.]
[She starts calming down. She's got this.]
[Reviving the Doctor and making sure he wasn't killed again can wait for a bit. It'll have to.]
no subject
[ understatement of the year, kai. but it sounds like she has a very adventurous life. or maybe the world she's from is just that bizarre. he wish he could say the same about his own. sadly, his life has been more... prison-y and less robot-demon fighting-y.
he... doesn't have empathy worth a salt, so whereas most people might try to comfort her, he is gonna ignore the fact that she's crying because he honestly doesn't know how to work with that. at least she is providing a lot of useful information on how to defeat a dalek. good to know, except— he doesn't plan to fight the little robot or cade.
best case scenario, they take each other out, but he is beginning to think it might be safer if he distances himself from whatever happens altogether. ]
I was thinking we could just leave. [ he gestures for her to follow him before he starts to head out of the area. ] I'm sure they'll work it out between themselves.
no subject
[A shrug.] I'm jeopardy-friendly. [Normally she's more cheerful about that, but yanno. Crying. It does mostly settle down though. Devil lies, why wouldn't a dalek? Especially not a really-real one.]
[She hiccups and nods at the last part, and follows along, but also takes his hand, just in case.] Are you a demon too? Not a problem if you are.
no subject
[ he glances down when she takes his hand. well, that's a first. most people avoid physical contact with him. she's pretty trusting, isn't she?
he doesn't sense magic coming from her, so she should be a regular human. maybe she's the type who tries to see the good in everyone. ]
No, I'm not a demon. I'm just someone lucky enough to escape Hell.
no subject
Yeah???
[A beam. No magic.] Haven't met many others like that, 'cept Torchwood. Strange how everyplace seems to have a Hell, but they're still kinda similar and different at the same time. I wonder what causes that, yeah?
no subject
Who's Torchwood? Is he the doctor?
no subject
[Snort.] No. [Hard headshake!] Torchwood's an organization to fight me and the Doctor. I just subverted it because... [Face scrunch.] Different universe. In the one I was knighted, that's the one the Doctor and I got exiled in, where I was born. My friend Jack runs one of their branches. And in my Dad's universe, where I worked for him, the Queen was killed, because the Doctor and I weren't there to save her, so instead of getting exiled after saving her and getting knighted; it was just founded to protect aliens from humans too. Yeaaaaaaah don't feel bad if you can't follow that... it's all a bit... mad, yeah?
Point is, Torchwood and the Doctor don't get along great in his Universe, even with Jack being one of our best mates. But in both universes, they decided to explore Hell. To better humanity with scientific exploration. Which is why I traveled universes.
Oh, and the Doctor doesn't have another name. Just the Doctor. Makes him a real pain to explain to people. But all the daleks know who he is. They wouldn't exist without him, and he's their greatest enemy. They call him the Oncoming Storm, which is really only impressive sounding until you watch him dance around with a tie around his head, and see how bad he is at driving, and watch him land a couple dozen times in the wrong century, and get into completely stupid situations no one would ever get into, and he has to hop on one foot to escape, or yanno he just dies. And then the Oncoming Storm thing is less "oh yes the one thing the daleks fear is this giant sodding idiot," and more "I can't believe the daleks actually fear this giant sodding buffoon."
no subject
he doesn't have much to offer in response, but he'll pocket everything she's telling him. could be useful in the future. ]
You two sound really close. [ he never had anyone like that in his life. ] I hope you find him again.
[ but anyway, it looks like they're far enough away now that they both have a good head start from whoever will come out the victor in the battle between cade and the dalek. if they're lucky, they have taken each other out. if not, then he seriously hopes the dalek will be the winner. ]
We should be safe now. [ probably. ] I better get going, but I'll see you around, Rose. [ he releases her hand before he gives her a small wave. ]
no subject
Mmn!!! Thanks for the help, Kai!!! [Cheerful wave back, and yes, she thinks he was a total superhero in this... Rose...] Be seein' you! [Although she will go make sure that the dalek and Cade really are gone. Public safety and all.]