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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.
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He nodded slowly at her when she confirmed it was a dream, though the look on his face was definitely skeptical.
"Yes, my dear, that's been well established." But then she was scolding him, prattling on about Crowley and the things he'd apparently said? And he felt a small twinge in his corporation's heart. Oh, Crowley.
"I assure you, Crowley is far from a monster, and I am no saint." His voice was sad, concerned. Crowley was loud, brash, cynical and quick to be short when frustrated, yes. But the thought that he might view himself as something so awful as to be monstrous hurt, made him want to wake up so that he could seek him out just to reassure himself that his friend wasn't out of sorts. He huffed back at her accusations, shaking his head. What?
"Why are you saying these things???" Was this some deeply-seated guilt surfacing to point out all of the things he may have said in the past to make his friend feel less then worthy of his...companionship? Forgiveness? He dimly recalled the day in the park, watching Warlock wander through the statues of mythical, "prehistoric" practical jokes, and the way his eagerness to perform slight-of-hand magic tricks had vexed the demon, the way he'd sighed and retorted back a light-hearted 'you're no fun.' "He knows I didn't mean that, surely! Oh, I never meant that in earnest, I was only joking!"
The tenor of his voice had taken on a bit of a distressed tone, and if she were to look back at him, the look on his face would have been one of actual guilt and worry. Crowley surely knew better then to take the things he said when they bantered to heart, didn't he? He gave it as much as he received, it had been their way of teasing each other for as long as he could remember! His hands fidgeted in front of his chest, wringing gently as she prattled on, and he only seemed to be half listening to her for a long moment. He seemed to have completely missed the grumpy way she pointed out the blueberries in the field and his nightmare-in-a-dream as if that proved her point.
When he finally seemed to check back into the conversation, he gave a small, thoughtful nod, considering what she said as he dragged himself back to the present. It was an unusual concept, true, but he supposed it made a certain kind of sense?
"Well, yes, of course, it could certainly be something that She might have done. B-b-but there would have to be so many! I-...I...I don't dare try and confess to understand what She has planned for us, not the way I once did. But if that were true, then..." Would that mean there was another Universe where he and Crowley had failed? Where the world had been lost to fire and death and destruction?
Where Crowley had...
He bit down on that thought sharply, fighting it back even as the implications threatened to stop the purely-optional breaths in his chest. When he focused on her again, when she described her Doctor friend and his resemblance to the demon, he felt a little surge of pride breaking through the discomfort. Yes, yes, that sounded a bit more like the Crowley he knew. He was so very fond of the humans, even if he had trouble showing it. But that, he realized, wasn't the point of what was being said, and he shook his head to refocus his attention.
"You...you realize that...if the things you're saying are true...If this dream is...somehow more then what it seems, and has been...trapping people from other of Her Creations, then...the implications are astronomical! And it's a little hard to believe, mind you." But then it was certainly not something he could have ever imagined himself dreaming up. And that, in and of itself, was telling, wasn't it? When she chided him for thwarting Crowley's temptations, insinuating that it was not the tit-for-tat Arrangement that they had had for hundreds of years, now, his nose curled slightly, a little bewildered. She-...if she were really a part of his mind...she should know this.
The look on his face slowly shifted, to one of slowly-dawning horror.
"My Dear...Do you really not know?"
She may have just stumbled upon the proof needed to convince him without even having realized it.
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Deep breath, time to do this a bit more calmly, a lot less emotionally and all hurricane Rose, something that had been exacerbated between the void.
"No, he knows you're kidding," she softly rested her forehead to the angel's. "Sorry, I am too, Just a bit... overwhelmed meself right now. Not stopping to put a cork in my mouth, and I should." An apologetic wince, "Been a couple years since I really spoke to anyone who could see me as not a dream or ghost. I'm beyond rusty... as they'd say."
Still, her temper wasn't calmed down enough to refrain from snorting at the idea that the infinite multiverse was beyond astronomically vast. "No, you don't say," she growled extremely sarcastically, rolling her eyes. Look, if Aziraphale had been the one traveling multiple universes, and seeing varying shades of dead Crowley which resulted in the end of the Earth in even more dramatic fashion, Rose would 100% be very very forgiving of him being more than a bit snarky about the whole thing, okay?
To the last question, she just threw her hands up in exasperation. "I really don't. I'm well-traveled, even by TimeLord definitions now, but the more I see, the more I know how much I don't know."
no subject
He gave a very small flinch when she pressed her forehead against his, not at all averse to the gesture but instead just a little startled. Like with the hug she'd given earlier, he could sense the intention behind it and was thankful for her attempts at reassuring him. But it was a surprisingly familiar action, and he had gotten used to going for a very, very long time without physical contact that was anything more then an idle hand on his shoulder or a handshake, or Crowley's infrequent pressing into his personal space. Pushing him against a wall in a fit of pique because Aziraphale had complimented him too loudly in a public setting where the denizens of Hell may have been listening in. He reached over and patted her gently on the back in silent gratitude for the kindness, shaking his head as he settled into the close proximity.
"I'm sorry, myself, dear. I...must admit, I may be a bit out of sorts, myself. I've had a terrible week, you see. But..." his confusion bubbled back for a moment as she said things that were 'Greek' to him all over again. "Whatever do you mean, "a ghost?" You certainly seem alive to me."
The sarcasm in her reply received a huff in reply from him, though there was little real irritation in the sound. Sarcasm rolled off of him like, well, water off of a duck's back. He was used to receiving it without the other person needing to have gone through something quite so traumatic as all of that, though in Crowley's defense, Hell was certainly not a cake-walk, either.
It was obvious, though, by the way she threw her hands up, at the ramblings of things he didn't quite understand (Time-Whatnow?) that she hadn't realized what he was even asking about, and for a moment, he looked as if he were imitating a fish.
"The Arrangement. It's been in place for almost a thousand years, now. I-...If you..." He blanched. "If you were a dream, then it wouldn't need to be explained."
And that was when the dawning horror finally hit him. Oh, oh no, oh dear! He fussed and fretted with the pinky ring on one hand, spinning it idly as the reality of it struck him. Already, his mind was racing a million lightyears an hour, trying to understand the meaning of it all, the implications and trying to remember exactly what that cryptic letter had told him when he'd found it in his strange apartment this morning.
"Crowley and I, we...we've had an...agreement. Started off many, many years ago, before some countries had even been established. We were tired of canceling each other out, working ourselves to the bone for no reward, and we..." He hemmed and hawed for a moment, gesturing vaguely and obviously uncomfortable with actually explaining the thing. It had never been done before. It was too dangerous to speak of to anyone but themselves, for fear of their higher ups getting wind of the Arrangement. But they already knew. No sense in hiding it if it would help explain things to the very confused young woman who had only gotten bits and pieces of a very old, very complicated story. "We decided we would work together, you see. Stay out of each other's way when at all possible, or...if..."
And he cringed just a little, realizing that this was going to implicate himself in doing things that were absolutely UnAngelic.
"If the two of us were meant to be serving our roles in the same place, at the same time, then...from time to time...perhaps...one of us could play both roles at once. A...A blessing and a temptation..."
And no. He hadn't just "tempted" people to "eat healthier foods." He'd done actual, proper temptations, the same as Crowley had done actual, proper blessings. There was good reason why they had always feared Up Above and Down Below figuring out what they'd been doing. But then, before he'd even finished the thought, he was turning back to her, his attention suddenly razor sharp.
"Wait! You've spoken to Crowley! So he's here, in this...this dream-world? Where??? Can you take me to him?" Because if there was anything that was important to him, it was finding his friend, ensuring that he was safe and sound and knew that he wasn't alone, in this strange place, so soon after they'd finally broken free of the shackles that had restrained them for so many millennia. He was no longer fretting, no longer frightened. His gaze was determined when he took a step closer to her.
no subject
"Yeah, sure, here: I'm not, but it's more like you're all ghosts come to join me." A beat, "Bad phrasing, I'm not sayin' you're dead." A sigh, and she pushed her hair back with a hand. "I've been on a mission. To travel between universes, dimensions, to fight the darkness, to find the source and stop it. Between verses, that's what it was like. Like bein' a ghost." Like how the cybermen were mistaken for ghosts at first, and the Doctor's hologram looked like one too. "Impermanence, yeah? I wasn't born part of that universe, so it was just like the Demi Moore movie tryin' to get pennies to push up against walls." Right. One universe's movie references. That was going to work brilliantly on an angel who merely hoarded antique books, even if that movie existed in his universe! She pinched the bridge between her eyes, casting about mentally for ancient books with ghosts. The older it was, the more likely it was in more than one universe, but for the life of her, all she could think of just then was Harry Potter. Caspar??? No wait! Charles Dickens' had a few, not just Christmas Carol, one with trains and -- this was a total fools' errand, she didn't even know if ghosts were even perceived the same to angels as humans!
She beamed ear to ear as he explained about the Arrangement, however. "Now, that's more like it!" She understood, of course, why it was nerve-wracking to say out loud. That it never had been said aloud. That they both probably implicitly agreed, and had to keep it secret, but still... Rose had always longed to tell people about her adventures, any of it, all of it, keeping it all secret was easily the worst part of her time in Torchwood. And at least with the Doctor, even if no one else would ever understand; she'd always had him.
The smile faded into a frown as he asked her to take him to Crowley. "It's not that I don't want to," the frown deepened further, "I know he's missing you something terrible," the thing you wanted most in a new Earth, another dimension, cut off from everything; was just the one person you knew completed your existence. Closed the loop. Better together. "But he didn't give me his phone number and--"
Rose shook her head, and rolled her eyes at herself, laughing softly, "Right, since when has that stopped me? Come on, angel, we've got a demon to track!" she offered him her arm.