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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.
i believe in us
Wino extraordinaire.
He raises a brow, delicately, when she launches into that don't you know who I am style of introduction and it's he alcohol that's making him bark out a quick and short laugh again. My father the inventor of Vitex. And she's right; he has no fucking clue and for once, it doesn't seem like someone will die for it. He uh-huhs along with her challenge, and hopes he can remember to harass her for whackjob inventions later.
Right now he has an impressionable young lady who just loudly and proudly admitted to liking jazz and working in them dens of sin(ful music but Pierce does love his exaggerations). That's much more fun.] Rose. What a lovely thing a rose is. [The Naval Treaty.] Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life. A lovely name for a lovely girl. [--] I'm Hawkeye.
/brofist
[Ruffles his hair and beams at the singing.] Oh no, you sing! [She loves it.]
[And tilts her head at the name.]
[Not too weird, but of course she can't help but think of the movie, but that was from the nineties. Though there was a book. She wasn't much into historical fiction, but Braveheart and Seven Years War between the French and British which led to the American Revolution were staples. Still, she wishes the Doctor was around to give her cheat-sheet clues. But she's had two years of just fumbling in the dark, what's one more day? Actually... bad, because unlike in between universes, she wouldn't just fast forward to the end of the world and work her way backwards, so this might actually matter...]
[Well, it can't matter that much, can it?] Is it wrong o' me to ask if you're Mohican?
[A tongue loll grin again, and she covers up for her uncertainty with inevitable flirting as a distraction.] Your eyes are like the sky, but I wouldn't call them hawkish. Maybe gorgeous. [Let's make sure the Doctor never hears that, okay?]
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He pretends he can't hear her pressing on the issue of work or her doctor friend. There's fear, there's hurt, and he doesn't want it.
So he grins a little more, mischievous, as confirmation that he has frontiersmanship in his blood. Or he might as well, anyway.] I think you just took my line. Can I interest you in some role reversal?
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Let's see, I prescribe 20 cc's of bluer than blue blueberries, a pound of lobster daily, and all the Maine sunshine you can soak in. And then we'll get started on the jazz.
How's that?
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[Her face is scarlet, but she takes a deep breath and nods. Moving to do exactly that, sit in his lap.]
[It's not that big a deal, she tells herself. Even if she hasn't done this with Jack or the Doctor...]
Okay, but two things. I wanna hear you sing again, and remember the secret thing. British are supposed to be all stiff upper lip and all that, yeah? I just like breaking all the rules. [A wink.]
[And she swears, Rascal...]
[He reminds her of the Tramp from Lady and the Tramp, but for the life of her, she can't remember if that was before or after Pinocchio and what year it came out.]
[Which makes her start laughing as she remembers the "astrologist" in Ancient Rome who was kidnapped as a slave and forced to perform astrology, only to spread dire warnings about Pompeii.... and find out it had already happened and people knew about it.]
[Rose can relate.]
[Okay, worst that happens, she makes no sense again, and really, that's just the story of her life.]
I might have to call you Rascal though. You remind me of the dog from the picture with them kissin'. Lady and the Tramp.
[But she's still playing with his hair and definitely flirting.]
[And starts humming.] If he's a tramp, he's a good one, and I wish that I could travel his way...
Peggy Lee has such a gorgeous voice, I swear...
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[He has no idea what's going on but that makes this a day ending in Y.
Hawkeye's about to wave off her concerns, whatever they are, and let slip the obvious that he'd been only kidding. Imagine his delight when he doesn't quite need to, and instead he focuses on propping himself up back into a sitting position without too much in the way of sway. The girl's probably got a boy somewhere--
Jack? no, he'd been a 'friend'.
He's looking on in hazy amusement and maybe he'd go hunt down that film about the smooching pups, if only so he doesn't feel the panic of not knowing when the people of Crabapple Cove start to drop the lines on him.] Yeah? If you ever wanna get the leash and collar just the words. You know I don't usually do public showings, but for you? [How can he say no? Tit-for-tat, a gentle hand goes to stroke the hair framing her face and goddamn he's such a slut.] I think my lips a little dry, though.
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Like his dignity.] I have a confession, darling. I think I drank our son. [This is, again, a judgement-free zone. Please and thank you.] Would it help if I said I'm filthy rich and only have three days to live?
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Besides, I'm betting you are going to live... forever. If you don't drink yourself there first.
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He leans his head forward a little, his salt-n-pepper hair just the slightest bit of a horrendous mess, and lowers his voice to a husky sort of dare.
Bold of her to assume he's not already dead.] What if I just said I'm filthy, then? [And no, there is no way to take those words with a grain of innocence.]
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[She leans back at the snuggle annnnnd --]
[Completely bursts out laughing.]
Now THAT I believe!
Make up for it with a filthy mind to give Jack a run for his money, and I might just have a job for you: in the circus.
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A circus might just be the only place that'll take him if papers and records followed him to this place. He tries not to look too... contemplative, all of a sudden, but c'est la vie and when's the last time he'd been in control over his feelings, really?] Who's Jack? You can't keep dropping his name like that and not spill.
He's not your, uh. [Vague... hand gestures...] Doctor friend, is he?
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[A quiet hum. Now to test the limits of Hawkeye's either charitable nature or at least how accepting of future mores he was.] No worries, he's got a Welsh boyfriend now. Ianto Jones. They both work in Torchwood, like me, [She's vaguely certain they don't have any publicly known branches in the States or Canada in the 50s... If it's even in his universe!] But even though Da's the head of it, I haven't gotten any of my messages through to Jack yet, I think. Well, he wouldn't know as well what to look for either, probably.
[A shrug and she dismisses it with a beam.] The Doctor, won't let me call him anything else. And I've tried! No nicknames, things from books, and he won't let me shorten it to 'Doc', like Bugs Rabbit! He's around here somewhere. Bit like you, but without a home, total roamer.
We both met Jack in London when I was hanging upside down from a barrage balloon. I should warn you, they both say I'm a bit of a jeopardy magnet, and they're completely right. I love trouble. Comes from breaking the rules, and trying to help before I even know what's going on properly.
How about you, Rascal? Bloke like you must have a dozen girls, yeah? Although... it's hard on the go, yeah? [Her eyes gain a subtle edge, because that is very much speaking from her own experience.]
cw for homophobia and violence because the 50s were p much never okay
Who knew the spoken word had such power? Oh, you mean everybody did? Wonderful.
Hawkeye's quick to sober (not that way, though he's feeling a mean dull and fierce pain behind his eyes right about now) and were he a dog, a lovable wire-haired mutt of a thing, the ears would be perking up with a sort of cautious wind that, while perhaps unexpected, would be far too old and familiar on the lines of his face to be uncharacteristic. His eyes even give pause, if that's the right word for it, and they search the way a murky river, flowing, searches every rock in its depths: fruitless, yet thorough. A captain, and then she says it: a flyboy, and then she says that.
Boyfriend.
It'd be infinitely more suspicious if he turned to peek over his shoulders but his skin isn't crawling enough to think there's snipers in the immediate vicinity, and anyway, that's why he's still so all of a sudden, his dumb-drunk brain trying to wire the truth to the right column of thought. Either she's messing with him, with them or
she wouldn't, right? No, she wouldn't.
He hates being wary, hates feeling so at-war, hates how familiar and old and... familiar. it is.
But he reads papers and hears the radios, some times, or he did. Sometimes. And sometimes would be just enough, just enough to know it's Us against Them, with 'them' being perfectly good people. He'd done work on a kid or two who had let his tongue wag a bit much between drinks and buddies (like here?) and then said buddies had let out years of poor, stupid, barbaric indoctrination on a kid's body. Abuse over abuse. And.] Listen, Rose. [There's anger somewhere, deep, deep down, but to hell with that.
His eyes brim with open concern, either for her or for what he's going to say or for them. Damn it all, he doesn't know. He fidgets, draws circles lamely where his hand had rested on her shoulder.
Damn it all, despite it all... there's joy somewhere. Not so deep down.
Imagine being free enough to love? But he can't; he's American.
The thought alone makes him pull up a wry grin, a bark of an unbelieving laugh alongside it.] I'm happy for your Cap'n friend, I really am. [He's bleeding worry. What a mess.] But maybe don't use his full name around here, yeah? It's a small war. [Everyone needed a dishonorable discharge like a hole in the head.
Trust him; he would know.
He tastes the word, the full word, on his tongue, mouths it to himself silently: boyfriend.
And just about fucking cracks into a fit of mania; Hawkeye settles for looking on at Rose-- this time in wonder. Some day... Yeah, some day.
He cracks a grin, wants to call her doctor friend a prick for being one of those title-only kinds in the same breath as he wants to tell her that, welp, that settles it; they're soul mates of a sort. Instead he clicks his tongue, a gentle tut-tut, and gives her what-for.] Oh, darlin', you've got me pegged all wrong. I think you believe I have a heart. [Which hurts to say, in an almost-good way. Or maybe he's just a masochist. But that's just love, ain't it?] That silly old thing was shot to shit years ago. I just love 'em and leave 'em.
yup
[She almost can't breathe, worried about his reaction.]
[He was still a decade before Britain even undid the buggery law, and America was even more paranoid about communism and outsiders than Britain, but she was trusting him.]
[Somehow... that earns him a kiss. He's sweet. Thinking Jack's still in the American army. It's not even Don't Ask Don't Tell by his time...] Don't worry, they're well-protected. They're both in Torchwood, not your army now, Captain Jack is a code name, and no one can touch 'em. That's why I can't get my messages through. [Soft grin.] They're always doin' me proud though, yeah?
[And a gentle nuzzle at the last part and another kiss.] Nahhhh, you've got a heart too big for your chest, s'why it's always hurtin', I bet.
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important.
The sort of important that needed capital letters and acronyms and branches, and so Hawkeye nods in understanding because he's done with those sorts of things (even if he doesn't understand a lick of it) and he mentally kicks himself for having missed her first kiss. He smirks, smug.
That's the appropriate response to all of this.
That, and following her second kiss with one of his own-- it's chaste. enough.
But it's enough for his ego and he won't troll for more, he'll promise.] Another sweet young lady, fallen victim to the long-fabled Hawkeye Pierce enigmatic charm and wicked wiles.
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[Nevertheless his claim to fame earns him all the giggles.]
[And an eskimo kiss, rubbing her nose against his.]
If I can trust you with Jack, I can trust you with me.
[The sweet innocent act doesn't last long however, as she instantly gives him a wolfish grin to rival any lechery of his own.] Now, how do you plan to take advantage of that?
[She half-expected he would say he'd walk her home -- well hotel or wherever she was saying -- safely and give her a handshake at the door, just to be truly as much a playful troll as she was, honestly. Though the rest of her hoped that wouldn't be it.]
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[Not that he's feeling himself weigh heavy, but he is... subdued. Not dulled. He can go another round, he swears it (he thinks it). But today has done its job and even gone above and beyond the call of duty, and Hawkeye figures he can rest easy if only until the other foot drops.
Her grin (the damn tease) is making any gentlemanly notion difficult to conjure and it's just about the right time for him to become hyper aware to the fact she's sitting in his lap.] 'Take advantage'? [In mock offense, of course.] No, no, you think I'm lout when I'm really only a cad. [And if he leans in for another kiss...?]
Walk you home?
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And when I give you a handshake at the door, I'll say, "Thank you for a lovely time, today, Doctor." [More kisses.] "Will I see you around, or are you like the wind?" Or maybe just a loose hound. [Butterfly kisses his cheek.] To track you down, just call the local pound?