SEPTEMBER 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

[sodder]

SEPTEMBER 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to September's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: CHAOS.

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: Torture (emotional and possibly physical), claustrophobia, potential weapon violence (guns, knives, spears, flamethrowers, etc.), possible body horror, emotional manipulation, emojis
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Prompt Three
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

DICE BLOCK

In case everyone hasn't had enough fun and games to last a life time in the good old town of Deerington, apparently this month brings you one more. Maybe you were just walking through the door to get into your own house, or maybe you were leaving from work — the moment you walk through any door, you'll find that it doesn't open up to the place you were looking for. Instead, you find yourself standing on a giant game board and you seem to be right on the start space. The doors already disappeared behind you, don't bother trying to run back. The only exit is at the end and you'll have to hope you make it there.

But you aren't alone! With you are other unfortunate souls who hopefully weren't just looking for a quick bathroom break. Some of them might look a little worse for wear. What happened? Well, looks like you may have to ask later, because you'll only really have time to exchange names if you don't already know one another before a large screen you didn't notice was hanging from the ceiling will light up. There's a giant image of a typical six-sided game die that's completely stationary. For the moment. Shortly after, a voice will come on over the speakers, echoing in the otherwise fairly empty room. It's overly cheerful, grating, and giggles at the end of every sentence.

Welcome, players! Is this your first time? Yes? Great!
Would you like to hear the rules?
Okay!
Each player will take a turn rolling their die.
You can then move the number of spaces shown — but only those spaces!
You can move forward, backward, right, and left, but not diagonally!
Each space will have a symbol.
The spaces with a clover are lucky spaces! Congratulations! You'll gain some fortune, whether it's an extra turn, moving ahead more spaces, or gaining an important item you can take with you on your journey!
The spaces with the skull are unlucky spaces! Boooooo, that's too bad! You'll befall some grave misfortune here. Hopefully it won't set you back too badly! Make sure to avoid these at all costs!
The spaces with a chest are item spaces! Here you'll be able to win prizes, like medical supplies or weapons! Maybe even a small something from home! Wouldn't that be nice?
Your goal is to make it to the end alive! Good luck! And remember to have lots of fun!

The first player's name will pop up on the screen, before the die will begin to randomly blink between numbers. Eventually it will land on a number. Once the player moves forward and lands on their space, it will repeat for the second player. This will go on until one (or both players) reach the end!

When they said to make sure to not land on an unlucky space, they certainly weren't kidding. Each one seems to come with some sort of random punishment or horror; it can be as light as having to move back a few spaces or go back to the start, or as heavy as breaking a random bone or feeling a blade slice open your skin. Maybe you'll start to slowly turn into a monster or become filled with the desire to kill your opponent. Anything can happen, but it's always going to be bad.

Players who reach the end will be able to go through the door and end up back wherever it was they were intending to go in the first place. Players who lose? Well... It's back to the beginning for you. Time to wait for the next player. Better luck next time.

DANCE DANCE

But what's behind door number two! People are going to start to get tired of walking around in their own houses at this rate. Even if you managed to escape the board game horrors, this new room you've found yourself in doesn't seem much better. In the center is a large TV screen and on the floor in front of it are two pads with arrows pointing in four directions; up, down, left, and right. Anyone who is familiar with Dance Dance Revolution might feel right at home! But fear not, there are instructions on the screen for you to follow if you need them.

Two players only, and you'll have to work together! It's a team dance and you'll want to encourage each other to stay perfectly in sync. The doors won't open until you finish, and should you mess up? Well, look up, friend!

The ceiling is covered in sharp, painful looking spikes and every time someone misses a beat or steps on the wrong arrow, the ceiling will drop down a foot. It's pretty high up there, but miss more than three arrows and you're gonna start to really feel the pressure. The spikes are looking a lot bigger and more ominous than they did when they were all the way at the top. Hopefully you've got some good rhythm.

But this is a good lesson in teamwork! Even the worst dancers might be able to get out of here okay if they've got someone who they can work together with. Maybe their perfect scores will make up for your two left feet. You can only hope you're both so lucky.

THAT'S NOT A "MEH" FACE!

Everyone loves to get a text, don't they? Of course they do! Which is why someone has been kind enough to send out a little special something to everyone's Fluid's this month! There's no name you recognize — in fact, it doesn't even look like a name is attached at all. The sender's identification only looks like this: 🥳

The message you've gotten is pretty simple though! Each person has received a text message with one emoji inside. No rhyme or reason applied! That's... random, isn't it? You can try to text back, but no one will answer, and so you might as well just close your device and forget about it.

Every person who received a text will find that their personality starts to shift. They begin to take on some aspect that's tied to the emoji they received. Did you get a simple smiley face? You're happy and relaxed for the time being! Or maybe a silly face will lead you to become more of a prankster. An eggplant could have someone feeling like sexting a Special Someone. An angry face might get you really riled up, even towards people you love. Did you get a knife? Time to start stabbing. A gun? Those people around you look like really good target practice...

The options are endless. Each emojis effects will last for twenty-four hours or until another emoji is sent from the same user.

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.

Comments

Robin (Dick) | Young Justice/CRAU | ota

[turbedon]

i. character arrival

The first thing Dick notices is the jarring silence. He's gotten so used to always hearing the buzz of voices on the Psychic Network that he'd never realised just how deafening it is not to have other people speaking directly into your mind.

It's so... lonely.

Waking up in a strange location is nothing new, but he then notices the second thing: he can't open a portal. He's completely cut off from Liminal Space, as far as he can tell, including all the Liminal and Psychic abilities he'd gotten from it.

Okay.

He eats the food in the basket and moves on, taking to the streets in his civvies, shades in place as he takes in Deerington.


ii. dice block

As soon as that little 'tutorial' speech is ended, Dick's glancing over at the other players, grinning brightly despite dreading what's about to happen.

"Anyone else not feeling too turbed, right now?" he asks, voice lighthearted even as a name flashes up on the screen and the numbers begin to cycle.


iii. dance dance

"Seriously? DDR with death penalty?" Dick quips, brow arching up as he stares at the spikes. Then he's looking over to his teammate, asking, "When - if ever - is the last time you played?"

For some reason, he doesn't seem that worried about the impending doom spikes hovering over them.

He's probably a little touched in the head.

Or potentially gotten too used to revival.


iv. wildcard
(hit me up)

ii. dice block

[oversight]

"If 'turbed' means 'disturbed' or perturbed,' you might be alone," John says, his face turned a little sour by the whole ordeal. Honestly, it sounds cliché, but he's done with these games and he feels like putting on a smile is disingenuous when he's certain how little fun this is meant to be.

The dice lands and it's John going first. At least they'll get a chance to see what's in store... He rolls a six, celebrates sarcastically, "Faster through the board," and looks ahead to the spot in question. Looks unlucky.

[turbedon]

"It's the opposite of 'disturbed'," Dick explains casually even as he's counting the number of squares Blake's going to walk across, tempted to see if he's still got his wings so he can get a better vantage point of the board. "Like like and dislike, yeah? Opposite of disaster should be aster, and disturbed would be turbed."

English is broken, and Dick Grayson is here to make sure he breaks it further to make it make sense again.

Mindless babbling also helps him concentrate, believe it or not, and he's getting his grappling hook ready to yank Blake out of harm's way should square six be trouble.

[oversight]

"Sorry, kid, not convinced," John says, although it does make him smile just a bit. This precocious young man seems awfully familiar in a lot of ways. But there's a game to be played and he suspects that any lingering on his part is only going to mean something awful for the rest of them later. "Good try, though," he offers, not wanting to sound too discouraging.

Six spots out, John spies his destination and starts forward. Nothing happens as he moves slowly forward, three spaces, four spaces, five spaces... On the sixth space, though, he finds himself suddenly wracked with pain, like ten thousand volts running through him. It lasts just a second and he cries out, but before someone can come to his aid, he holds up his hand to show he's okay. Or, well, okay enough... until his next turn.

[turbedon]

Dick straightens on hearing that cry, but holds very, very still on seeing that hand going up.

"... You're not feeling the aster much, are you?" comes the quip, Dick adjusting his shades to make sure his eyes are still covered as he looks up to see his own name flash on the screen... and yeah, maybe he grimaces on seeing 'Richard' but oh well. He deals with it.

The numbers flash... and then it's 5.

... Which is pretty boring, since that's just a treasure square, but at least it means one turn without pain or death, right?

A treasure chest appears, flying open on it's own with a silly little fanfare, and in it...

"Mm, Christmas," Dick mutters, smirking a bit as he pulls out a pair of little red devices - his own little birdarangs, he's missed you guys.

[oversight]

At least they're side-by-side now, although it's clear that John doesn't appreciate what's going down. He wonders briefly what would happen if he stepped off the board, but then worries about the consequences of forfeiting. It's already stressful enough to be pitted against a stranger.

"Not like any Christmas I've experienced," John gripes lowly, holding his limbs close to his body. He feels as if he was nearly ripped apart by the pain that had hit him and now he's seeing that it's probably weapons they're going to be given instead of anything useful to him. He doesn't see any need for violence in a board game, but Deerington always has its own agenda, doesn't it?

His number comes up three and he tentatively pushes ahead. This time it's a lucky space and EXTRA TURN pops up. He decides to bank it and wills away the headache he'd gained since the last round. "RIchard, is it? My name's Blake," he says, although the designation of the Fluid hadn't listed him that way. "Good luck," he says, hoping that whatever's next won't require whatever this guy gained on his last round.

[turbedon]

Dick grimaces at his name, even as the numbers start to flash. "Please, just call me Dick. No one uses Richard unless they're a teacher. Al sometimes still does, but only when he's being extra formal or lecturing me."

Three steps forward... And as soon as both Dick's feet are on the skull, he's collapsing to his knees with a wet, choking noise. Water wells up from his mouth and nostrils, his lungs suddenly full of it, and no matter how he heaves or hunches over, it won't come out. It's agony, his vision is darkening, but he forces himself to stay still on all fours, counting down the seconds until he'll pass out-

-And right as he's about to go, the water comes gushing out of his mouth, soaking the square he's in before vanishing just as suddenly as it came.

Dick stays hunched over for a moment longer, focusing on breathing slowly instead of gasping like his body insists he do. Once he's sure it's over and his system is calm again, he slowly gets to his feet, adjusting his glasses and hoodie with a loud exhale.

"Almost as bad as the last time I drowned," he jokes, grinning a bit sharper than before, hands tucked casually away in his pockets.

[oversight]

Oh, god. The brazen way with which Dick seems to take all of this make John's head spin a little. He can't imagine anyone nearly drowning on some sick chess board only to turn around and crack a joke. Then again, he happens to know more than two handfuls of people who do exactly that. In Deerington, in fact. (And if he's being honest, he probably qualifies himself on some level.)

"Jesus, you've got a positive outlook," he says, figuring it's a pretty good defense mechanism no matter how someone takes what this kid says. Waiting for his own number to come up, he watches. Dick's still behind him, but not by much, and as he rolls again, he finds himself with a five and less urge to move than last time.

Stepping ahead, he comes to a stop on a treasure spot. A little theatricality moment passes and in a moment John finds himself with a rebreather-like device. "Well, this coulda helped you earlier," he notes, showing it off to the other guy. Would he recognize it? It's a gadget, just like the last item.

[turbedon]

Spotting the rebreather, Dick snorts, answering drily, "I've got one of those, but I left it with my other belt. Besides, it'd only help if the water hadn't already been in my system."

But enough of that, the dice is flashing again, the number 2 coming up. He can see that far, and is quietly relieved to see it's another item square. On opening the chest though, his lips immediately twist into a distasteful grimace.

The gun is heavy in his hand and he holds it with far more confidence and ease than a kid should. He even takes a moment to take out the clip, examining it and scowling further on seeing it's loaded with real bullets. He doesn't want to... but he knows guns can be useful, so he makes sure the safety's on and tucks it in at the back of his waistband under his hoodie.

"Thanks," he says out into the open space, voice drier than the Sahara.

iii

[cesspit]

Jason stares up at the digital scoreboard and lets out a long whistle.

"I hate to admit it, but this is my first time."

[turbedon]

The short teen just fixes Jason with a mildly incredulous stare through his shades.

"Seriously? The only other person I know under their 40s that's never tried DDR grew up in a giant tube. What's your excuse?" he asks, grinning. "Just keep your head and get turbed. We'll get through it."

Or die trying, and Dick would rather avoid experiencing death in Deerington. Synodiporia was more than enough.

[cesspit]

He raises his arms and stretches. "I can't say they really had them in my neck of the woods - to easy to break into."

We'd have lived like kings if some poor bastard actually tried to open up an arcade in Crime Alley where the kids were just as good to rob you as the next guy.

"Aye, aye. Captain." He grins, giving him a mock salute before turning to the scoreboard. "I hope you can back up that talk because I like this jacket. Be a real shame to ruin the leather."

[turbedon]

"I make no promises," comes the jaunty response as Dick reaches out to hit the START button.

He could maybe try seeing if he's still got his cherubic powers from Synodiporia, in which case he could destroy the building around them... but there's no telling what that scream could do to the guy next to him, and he's not risking that.

As the music starts to play, Dick absently taps a toe to the beat, screen reflected on his shades as the arrows start appearing from the bottom. "Here we go. What do I call you, in case I can't save your jacket and need to apologise?"

[cesspit]

I guess there are worse ways to die. Definitely beats getting bludgeoned half to death by a clown and getting blown up.

He ignores the death spikes from above and focuses on the arrows. It's not hard to get the gist of it. It's like a videogame only your standing on the controller.

I bet Bizzarro would've liked this.

"Jason." He's watching the screen now, his focus shifting to the task at hand. "Save your apologies. If we die, then me and my jacket are haunting your ass."

And so, the game begins.

[turbedon]

Dick pauses at that, eyes flicking to the side to Jason, though he's careful not to miss the beat. He'd thought that face was vaguely familiar, but Jason had only been in Synodiporia for such a short time...

"Call me Dick," he continues smoothly, refocusing on the screen and pretending nothing's amiss.

[cesspit]

The name is greeted by a red flashing word on Jason's side.

'Miss'.

Blue eyes flick to the kid, then quickly shift up as the spikes move down a notch. Get your head on straight, Todd. It's just a stupid name.

"Guess they really mean business, don't they." This time his smile is a little forced at the edges but it doesn't matter. He focuses on the scoreboard.

Just need to get through this murder session. Can't let the kid get hurt.

[turbedon]

"I dunno about that," Dick quips, easily hitting the arrows as they come. "Feels like a game, doesn't it?"

Ha.

Ha.

Ha.

Shame no one's laughing.

i. character arrival / iv. wildcard

[sixup]

🕵️

[ Maine is a hell of a way from Southern California and Brendan is hardly prepared for any of this. The home he leaves behind is anything but regular; however, compared to what he's asked to do in Deerington, it might as well be another world, which is why anyone can find Brandan walking the streets like a lost soul.

Wandering from his starting point, he's hunched low in his dusky green jacket full of holes and patched with duct tape. If anyone had to guess, this kid looks on the verge of homeless, not to mention he looks like he's gone five rounds in the ring. It's produced in him a hacking cough — something that's yet to fade — but only seems to come up at the most inconvenient times. ]

Hey, chief— [ Cough, hack. ] -armacy?

[turbedon]

[Quickly taking in the kid's appearance, Dick thinks on the mental map of the town he's got now.]

It's a bit of a walk. You okay with that, or do you wanna tell me what you need and I'll go get it for you?

[sixup]

Just directions.

[ Brendan doesn't say much if he can help it. What he neglects to tell Dick is that he can't afford much more than that, and when he gets there, he's going to have to pocket what he needs.

He hunches, uncomfortable, the very essence of quiet misery. If he wore black, he'd definitely read emo. ]

[turbedon]

[Staring again a moment, Dick shrugs.]

Just let me come with. That way I don't feel bad that you might faint and get hit by a car, and I can cover for you in the shop.

[He knows the look of a desperate, penniless teen when he sees one, thanks.]

[sixup]

[ Brendan stares back, dubious but calculating nonetheless. ]

No strings? You won't see me tied down or strung up.

[ But he's clearly going to agree, doesn't have much of a choice, really. ]

[turbedon]

How about strung along for a ride?

[Considering things a moment and thinking about distance, then the extent of Brendan's injuries.]

... Think you can manage a bike ride?

[sixup]

If you can manage the tag-along.

[ All it requires is to hold on, assuming Dick means a motorcycle instead of a bicycle. Brendan nods and coughs into his hand before following Dick's lead. If he doesn't hide that hand quick enough, though, Dick will see there's some blood. That is... usually what happens when you spend a couple days getting your ass handed to you in the name of 'justice.' Dick would know what that's like. Brendan's on the other side of working through something big and he's not exactly feeling peachy mentally, either.

When he's gotten himself under control, he presses a little.]

What's your tale?

[turbedon]

Charity case that got kidnapped across weird places like this, pretty much. You can call me Dick. You?

[Waiting for a response, he fishes out the lightcycle baton from his pockets, activating it and leaving the sleek black vehicle parked and ready next to them.]