OCTOBER 2019 TEST DRIVE ME

[sodder]

OCTOBER 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to October's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: HALLOWEEN/MONSTER 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: Blood, organs, stalking, food poisoning, rotten food, bugs, worms, evil scarecrows, body horror, skinning, murder via throat slicing, torture
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Prompt Three
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

pumpkins scream in the dead of night

Everyone loves fall, right? Pumpkin spice, the leaves changing, Halloween. The costumes alone are always worth it. And what's a more classic way to ring it all in than some good old fashioned pumpkin carving.

There's a wave of nostalgia that hits anyone who comes near the carving station set up in town. It doesn't matter if you've never carved a pumpkin in your life or if you've even heard of jack-o-lanterns or Halloween before. You just feel like you know this, feel a longing to reconnect with an act that maybe wasn't even part of your childhood. Some people might be strong enough to ignore it and keep walking. But others will find themselves sitting down at one of the empty chairs and a pumpkin being placed in front of them with all the necessary tools for a good time.

You'll stab your knife into the pumpkin and pull off the stem once you've carved it out. Grab your spoon, get ready to scoop, and then...! You see what's inside.

The pumpkin is filled with blood the moment you stick your spoon inside. Maybe it was like that from the start and you just didn't notice. The knife is covered in blood, so it must have been there all along. Even if you feel sick to your stomach and go to pull the spoon out, it will come up with something stuck to it. Pieces of brain, eyes that look like they've been ripped from their sockets, a still beating heart... Looks like someone was playing a trick on you this month.

When you back away from it, the blood might still be covering your hands, but the moment you try to warn someone else? All the pumpkins innards go back to being exactly what they should be. The only thing stuck to your hands are stringy pumpkin guts and some seeds. Was it all in your head? Maybe you'll stab into another pumpkin to find out. Or maybe you should just get out of there.

everybody scream

TRICK OR TREAT!!!

So you had some rough luck with the pumpkins, but candy can't be all that bad, right? Some of it comes with a money back guarantee if there's any tricks inside instead of just your favorite sweets. Buying these seems to go okay! You get your candy corn, your caramel apples, chocolate bars galore, and all of them are totally normal! It's a real treat for anyone with a sweet tooth. Stuff your face and enjoy.

Getting some from one of the buyers who isn't guaranteed, though — well that's a different story.

Any candy bought anywhere else in town will have some definite tricks attached to them. The candy corn might make you overly flirtatious and downright corny with your pick up lines. The caramel apples will make you clingy and needy to anyone who gets too close. Chocolates will make you bitter and unfriendly. Taffy will keep your mouth stuck shut for at least a full day.

And that's all if you're lucky.

Some places are even giving out bad candies. They look fine from the outside - the apples are shiny and perfectly candied, the Hershey's bars are giant sized and look so good! But when you bite inside a piece of fruit, it will be rotted and filled with worms, the candies will taste like earwax and have maggots stuck inside in place of filling, the chewy candies taste an awful lot like actual rotting flesh — you can only hope it's bad meat and not human.

People who eat these candies will get horrifically sick almost instantly. They'll need to be helped home and probably kept an eye on until it passes. It might only be a few hours or it could be for a several days. It really depends on how quickly it works through each individuals systems.

the "who" when you call "who's there?"

Walking to and from locations isn't always a breeze when Deerington starts to get up to its new tricks. It's unnerving even during quiet times with all the strange things that go on in the shops, or in the cornfields, or even in some of the houses of your neighbors... Sometimes it's best to just keep your head down and walk as fast as you can to your door.

But there's a different sort of unease that follows you as you make your way around Deerington now. A sense of being watched. Of being followed. You can't tell from where and every time you try to look around, the streets seem empty. The fields are still. The only thing you might see here and there are scarecrow decorations in people's yards or even the legit thing in the middle of some crops. Everything seems totally harmless.

Except that feeling gets stronger. Eventually you start to hear rustling. It sounds like it might be jeans rubbing against each other or maybe... straw?? When you go to look around again, you notice that one of those scarecrows has moved — in fact, it seems to be missing entirely. But where could he have gone...?

Turning back around, you'll find yourself face to face with your sneaky friend. The grin feels empty and cold, the eyes bright like fire, and there's a large sickle in his hands that's poised and ready to come down right on your throat if you aren't quick to dodge out of the way. The scarecrow doesn't respond to most weapons the way one hopes — blades just go right through it without even so much as a flinch, bullets will fly out of the straw and hit whatever solid objects are behind it. None of it seems to stop the scarecrow from advancing, so maybe your best bet is to just run.

If the scarecrow manages to catch you, you're in for one hell of time. The lucky individual might just get their throat cut and bleed out quickly. Others might end up getting skinned alive. And still some might find their bones twisting and breaking, their body shrinking, their skin turning to deep, dark and rich black feathers. An evil scarecrow would be nothing without a loyal flock of birds, after all.

But if you remember your lessons from The Wizard of Oz or are just a genuinely reasonable person, you might think to fight the thing with fire. It's the only weakness the scarecrow has and it will do anything it can to fight through it. Crows will swarm around, using their wings to beat out the flames as quickly as they can. So if you really want to do the sucker in, you're gonna have to make sure he gets fully torched and fast.

If you manage to kill him, the crows will lunge at you, disappearing in a thick burst of dark smoke before they can do any damage. The scarecrow will remain a pile of ashes and you should have enough time to get you (or whoever you were saving) home. The ashes will blow away in a gust of wind, though, and the scarecrow? Well, it'll go right back into the yard or field it came from, waiting for the next person to come along.

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

ROCKET | MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE

[beatupgrass]

EVERYBODY SCREAM |

[There are times when reasonable paranoia pays off.

In this case, it pays off less because of the paranoia and more in the sense that Rocket's not big on sweets, but it still counts. He does have a caramel apple on hand that he's been working on for a pretty long time and his focus on said apple is what's put him in what will become known as the vomitorium tomorrow- specifically, the place where everyone ends up vomiting after eating the Bad Candy.

It's a really bad spot to be eating, but he figures there's some honor-bound duty as an Avenger/Guardian of the Galaxy to make sure nobody swallows a razor blade or their own tongue. Also it amuses him.

As a new person arrives, horking or generally showing signs of nausea, a three foot tall raccoon takes a bite out of a caramel apple (smearing a significant amount of caramel on his muzzle) and barely glances up.]

Yeah, you probably shouldn't get candy from that dude. 'S pretty questionable, if you ask me.


STRAW-SCARY FIELDS FOREVER|

[And then there's the times when paranoia makes a bad situation even worse, as Rocket learns when he starts feeling that creepy sensation in the back of his skull that he's being hunted. He's been on the run before. He's seen some shit. He knows that feeling.

The first several times he whirls around, there's nothing there. Eventually, it gets unbearable and with a growl, he whips one of the guns out of its holster and aims it behind him, catching a stranger in his sights.

It's such an elegant solution to his current predicament that he doesn't even think to notice that one of the scarecrows is gone. All he sees is some rando who has clearly been stalking him down the road, and has just now come out of the shadows.]

Is this how you wanna die, jackass? 'Cause this is how people get dead. Stop following me.


THERE'S TROUBLE CLOSE AT HAND |

[Here's a sight: a scarecrow wielding a sickle trying desperately to slam the weapon down on something that is just a blur of movement- as small as a dog and fox-quick. The scarecrow seems single-minded in its task to stab the little pest and eventually said pest comes into view- it's a raccoon in a jumpsuit.

The raccoon has a gun. Two, in fact. Two fancy little pistols that it keeps firing blindly at the scarecrow, tearing bits out of it but never dropping it. His screaming in rage is enough to stir up the crows and get them circling overheard, but that's about all that happens. He's forced to move again, holstering the weapons and bounding away, just barely missing getting his tail hacked in half by the sickle. He's got his sights on a potential new ally- namely you, innocent bystander.]

Don't just stand there! D'you got anything that'll work on this jerk? [Being closer to another person who might be able to draw fire or offer something else allows him to rifle through his pockets for absolutely anything that might be useful.]

WILDCARD |

[WHATEVER ELSE. Great Sleep. Network. Whatever you fancy.]

Straw-Scary

[rage_on]

[Man, he hates this place. It's like every time something new comes up he finds a new level of dislike to apply to circumstances and it is not a happy feeling.

The same feeling of paranoia has been gnawing on him longer than he cares for. Raphael doesn't care if he spooks anyone at this point, he figures they'd be rather understanding of a mutant turtle wandering around with sai bared. ...oooor on second thought maybe it's not the best idea considering the rampant dopplegangers and bloody madness in the not so distant past.

He catches movement out of the corner of his eye as he slinks along the shadows, whirling as he instinctively settles into a battle stance. There's a hot second that he stares, because mutant raccoons are a new one.

Said 'coon's words sink in then.]

Wait, what? Is this some kinda joke? Or maybe you're the one following me!

[beatupgrass]

[Rocket takes in the fact that he has never seen any being that looks like this outside of Half-World because that's where all the mutant Earth animals live(d), and decides he'll save any insults about another person's strange appearance (hypocrite that he is) for later. His gun's still up and his ears are flicked back against his skull.]

Yeah, by walkin' straight ahead, I'm followin' you. Way to go, genius. [Though he has kind of been walking in circles... Maybe this is totally accidental. No. Fuck that. Occam's Razor.] And if there's some kinda joke here, I ain't in on it. You don't survive as long as I have without knowin' when somebody's on your tail.

[rage_on]

[Raphael glares back at the little guy, about the only refreshing thing about the situation being that he's taller than someone for a change. He does take in the obvious firepower the raccoon packs.]

If you're new here then you'll find out pretty quick that this place doesn't make a whole lotta sense sometimes.

[He doesn't lower his own weapons, little good as he figures they'd do against a gun like that but so long as it's being pointed at him then he's not going to back down so easily.]

...okay, genius, if we're eyeballing each other then why the heck does it still feel like someone else is watching?

[beatupgrass]

[Mutant Animal Mexican Stand-Off: The Motion Picture.

Rocket doesn't lower his gun, but there's some deep consternation in those big ol' rust-brown eyes and all the visible fur seems to be raising up in response to some subconscious stimulus. You can make the raccoon tougher than the average raccoon but you can't take away his danger sense.]

Shit. You're right. [He takes a cautious step back, gun still up because like hell if he's gonna be tricked, and does a quick scan. Something's missing... Something...] Wasn't there some dude-shaped thing right over there? [He inclines his head towards an empty pole bearing no scarecrow.]

[rage_on]

[The turtle frowns, kind of hoping that he was wrong about the sensation of additional eyes on them, but once the raccoonoid is having a quick look around, Raphael does likewise.]

....

I really wish I could say no.

[All at once he's on his guard again, turning to look around for the wayward strawman.]

There's trouble close at hand

[laminae]

[Fights in the streets isn't the most unusual thing to come across in Deerington, but a scarecrow versus a raccoon, that's a new one. Given the high number of humans here that seems more like an Ooo thing, though Fern doesn't really have time to mull that over as the scarecrow turns to face him, scythe gripped in its hands.]

What -

[Always one to take the talking animal's side, Fern's first reaction is to shift one arm into a huge, thorny fist and slam it into the creature. Which should be more than enough force to send it flying, but strangely, his fist passes straight through it. The scarecrow is quick enough to bring its blade down on his appendage, so when he retracts his arm he's missing his entire hand.]

That didn't work?! Why didn't that work??

[beatupgrass]

Good question! [Honestly, Rocket's so used to Groot doing that that he doesn't even react. Oh good, another plant guy. Awesome. He can deal with this, except where he can't.] I swear I got some grenades in one of these pockets. It can't just shrug off that, can it?

[The scarecrow tries to swipe at them both and Rocket looks up just in time.] WHOA WHOA. Down. Get down! [He shoulder checks his new plant-based friend with a deceptive amount of strength to get him out of the way of the scythe as he swipes over them, ineffectively with nothing but a whoosh of air.]

[laminae]

[Grenades? Okay, that officially sounds cool. Fern is still shocked, but he's on board with the grenade idea, giving a nod.

That's about all he gets out, because that scarecrow is aggressive as heck. Fern yelps as he's shoulder-checked and goes down, breaking his fall with hands. He's quick to get his feet back under himself though, and scoots back.]

An explosion would be great right about now!

[Because that thing is advancing on them menacingly.]

[beatupgrass]

[Rocket's many pockets finally yield a handful of pebbles and a detonator.] Oh yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about.

[He hurls the pebbles, which embed themselves on the scarecrow's body like mites, rather than just passing through harmlessly. The scarecrow's expression doesn't change, seemingly amused at this latest attempt to fail at subduing it.

Rocket, because his sense of drama sometimes overrides everything else, waits until right when it raises the scythe again and hits the detonator.

Several tiny concentrated fiery explosions detonate wherever those tiny bombs were, ripping the scarecrow asunder into so many separate, burning pieces.] This is how you get charged with arson as many times as I have. Sometimes you just can't get anywhere without blowin' somethin' to hell.

[laminae]

[Pebbles don't exactly look like a grenade, but Fern is used to bizarre science gadgets thanks to Princess Bubblegum, so he'll let the professional handle this and hope they're more effective than his attempt at punching.

Thank Glob explosions can be fiery. As he watches the scarecrow blow apart he fully climbs to his feet.]

Geez. Lucky you were prepared, I couldn't touch that thing at all.

[Frustration at that is very clear in his voice.]

everybody scream

[earps]

[ After her last several festival experiences — one of which culminated in her literally getting shot in the ass by a butt-ugly Cupid — Wynonna is, understandably, side-eyeing most of the food being offered, choosing instead to watch other people first for any signs that something sus might be going on before she winds up reaching for something with a money-back guarantee.

Rather than go for a caramel apple (too sticky) or candy corn (definitely not), she just plucks up one of those little bigger-than-fun-sized candy bars that she can absently unwrap and bite into while she cautiously surveys her surroundings.

So far, so good, but the sound of a particularly gruff voice from somewhere in the vicinity of her hip has her glancing down and instantly reacting to the sight of a raccoon munching on his own apple. Coincidentally, it's not the first trash panda she's encountered in Deerington, but the last one was in the Great Sleep and only communicated to her in actual raccoon sounds, so this is a new experience to check off. ]

What? Which dude? [ She'd literally been poised to take a chunk out of the candy with her teeth, but now she looks between the chocolate and the talking raccoon with her eyes narrowing slightly. ] Hold up. You can talk?

[beatupgrass]

Well, shit I lost sight of 'em. [Whether that's true or not is less important, because whatever bit Rocket was committed to doing falls by the wayside when he's reminded, once again, that he's in a new place where most humies haven't had a few years to get used to his talking.]

Either that or you really did get into the bad candy. I'll let you decide. [He licks the caramel off his muzzle. It would be adorable if he wasn't grinning with too many needle-sharp teeth.]

[earps]

[ Talking animals aren't completely out-of-the-ordinary here — if Wynonna wracks her memory long enough, she might be able to recall an instance where one of the newcomers in town had posted a message about a talking rabbit, one with a tendency to repeat the same sentence over and over in what could gently be described as a smoker's cough. But this is something else altogether. ]

Right. [ Maybe she's gotten into a bad something already; Wynonna does a double-take between the candy in her hand and the raccoon again, because she'd at least be able to claim drugged if she'd already eaten some, but no such luck here. Clearly, the most logical answer is a lot closer to her questioning her very sanity. ]

Uh, well — yours doesn't look like it's gone bad. Where's your hook-up? [ Just keep talking like nothing is out-of-the-ordinary, Earp, and try not to think about how you probably look like a crazy person. ]

[beatupgrass]

[That's always the best option when it comes to Rocket. It's probably how all the Avengers coped. And it endears him to her inasmuch as he can be endeared to anyone upon a first encounter.]

Well, I guess since you asked politely, I won't give you the wrong guy on purpose, as much as it'd amuse me. Over this a way.

[He inclines his head and starts walking and just like the fabled Alice in Wonderland, a woman follows a woodland creature in clothes towards some mystery location. This is your life now, Wynnona.]

i knew you were trouble when you walked in

[inconsequence]

[Oh, this again? They did scarecrows last month. Or rather, they did one large, terrible excuse for a scarecrow in a hedge maze. This isn't nearly so interesting, but the person in need of assistance more than makes up for it.]

[Namely, the fact that he isn't human. He isn't just an animal, either - this much is clear. Animals aren't generally good at carrying guns.]

I might.

[A small, knife-wielding child isn't really the ideal cavalry here. That doesn't tend to matter. They have a knife in their hand and in the blink of an eye, they've set the blade alight.]

Distract it for me.

[beatupgrass]

[This is fine. This is normal. Rocket frequently takes his own "child" into battle and said child likes knives, which is a question he really needs to seek some advice on- is that just a phase kids go through? Knives? Whatever. Less important than the .]

You mean like I was just doing? [He snaps the words out belligerently, eventually digging a flashbang out of one of his pockets.] How's this for a distraction?

[He hurls the grenade. It passes harmlessly through the scarecrow and hits the ground with an anticlimactic clack sound only to explode in a flash of light and sound that Rocket has to duck and cover his ears to ward off.] All you, kid.

[inconsequence]

Yes. Keep doing that.

[It would have been ideal if the flashbang were capable of hurting it, but instead it just generates a loud boom and a flare of blinding light.]

[Passing through the scarecrow, too...not a good sign. The blade may very well phase harmlessly through it, meaning that they might be diced by a large scythe, if this effort fails. Ah, well. When has a little risk to their own self been an obstacle? It never has.]

[They charge. The scarecrow has its back to them, so they leap up and - ]

[Sink the fiery blade into its back.]

[beatupgrass]

[He's fresh out of the fiery explosion grenades, having just come from a battlefield, which he is pissed about, considering he didn't expect to be thrown into another warzone this fast.

He lifts his head as the kid runs and leaps and... Fuck. That's actually impressive. The scarecrow thrashes with its scythe, making a move to pry the child off its back with a sharp pointy object and not even remotely caring if it takes Chara's head off in the process.

He makes a decision.]

I hate this already. [He holsters his gun and lunges forward on all fours, jumping up on the scarecrow's scythe arm and digging claws and teeth into it to prevent it from angling the weapon. Now it's got two tiny obstacles on either side of it and it's pissed.

Rocket spits out a mouthful of straw.] Aw shit. That's vile.

[inconsequence]

[The fire, fortunately, appears to be doing something. Fire, then. That's what it takes. What's less fortunate is the dark cloud of descending crows that rapidly start to divebomb the pair of limpets latched onto the scarecrow, trying to beat out the flames with their wings.]

If you can keep these off me -

[The knife is still more or less hilted in the scarecrow's back, and Chara isn't letting go, despite how viciously the thing twists and torques, trying to fling them off. In a brief half second they have to adjust their grip, they winkle a second knife from their pocket and set it on fire as well.]

They're putting out the flames.

everybody scream

[litup]

[Beverly happens to be currently unwrapping the wax paper from an orange-cream flavored taffy, but stops short as soon as she's addressed by... a raccoon.

Her eyes go through a journey this particular raccoon may have seen before, but with a twist: she's more fear than skeptical. But on second glance, the raccoon is dressed in clothing, even standing upright and operating very much like a person.

So, though she's wary, she glances between him and the half-unwrapped taffy, before finally deciding to respond.]

You're eating it too.

[But his words do at least give her pause.]

[beatupgrass]

I can sniff out the ones that're weird. [He takes another bite of his caramel apple, smearing caramel all across his nose and muzzle. He's squinting at her reaction, but she's a kid. Of course some kids would be scared of him at first glance. They should be. That's smart.]

Also I just stalked everybody who got one to see if any of 'em keeled over. They didn't, so I'm good to go.

[litup]

[Bev opens her mouth as if she's going to argue, but then decides that actually, that does make sense. Raccoons probably have good noses. She looks around, notes that whatever other passersby there are seem to notice him. Notice him at the size and shape he is, as well.

She nods and obediently rewraps the taffy and stuffs it in the pocket of her overalls. Even if she doesn't eat it, maybe it'll be useful later.]

Which are the weird ones? Are the apples the only ones that are safe?

[The sober look in her eyes is definitely that of a child who's been told of some new danger, believes it entirely, and is now willing to hear all the gory details. It probably helps that one of the stories that scared Beverly the most was Hansel and Gretel. The night after she heard it at school when she was even younger, she'd had horrible nightmares of a witch forcing her to eat an endless font of candy.]

[beatupgrass]

The apples were the only ones I wanted. [And yet even now, Rocket is sort of moving closer to her without even thinking about it. He could smell the rot on the Hershey bars, the smell of flesh and maggots in the others. What he didn't count on was the actual magic.] I saw a guy bite into one of those taffy things and his whole mouth came out bloody.

[Whether that's because the taffy was pulled with something bloody or because it had razorblades in it, he leaves up to the imagination.]

[litup]

[The imagination supplies plenty, thanks. Bev's face looks appropriately disgusted as she considers the possibilities, hand hovering over the lump of the taffy in her pocket. Glad she didn't bite in, huh?

But that also means she now has something she could use, in case something happens. Something usually does.]

Okay. I won't eat the taffy. ...Thanks.

[Because really, he didn't have to warn her at all.]

You're not from around here, right?