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NOVEMBER TEST DRIVE MEME

NOVEMBER 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to November's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: DEATH/ZOMBIE 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: Possible mild cannibalism, organs (including pictures of fake food that looks like organs), mutant insect in linked picture, blood, sensations of starvation, possible binge eating, possible binge drinking.
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

NOT BEAST NOR KIN

The blood and organs that have been festering in the ground and walls of Deerington seem to not only be attracting rats at this point, but something far more dangerous and... just plain gross. These deadly looking maggots are roughly the size of an average human. They’re slithering in an out of the ground, filling up holes where some organs seem to have burst open, or writhing around in the wake of the red waves that have left bloody puddles in the street. If you keep your distance, they’re mostly just disgusting to watch, adding to the feeling of utter decay that the town has gone into.

But those who wander too close or who are unfortunate enough to go by a nest of these maggots without noticing could end up swarmed. They can leap farther than something that large should physically be capable of and the sharp teeth on the end of their bodies will pierce through even the toughest of skin and bone. Once they latch on, they won’t let go; not until they’ve finished their meal. If you aren’t quick, the blood loss will be, and you could end up an evening snack for a whole group of these creatures.

They are fairly easy to kill, luckily. Average weapons seem to take them down or you can smash their heads (if you can call it that) with a few good stomps from a boot. The only trouble is how quick they move and how strong they are; you might need to call for help to get away from them when you get cornered by too many of these monsters.

ALL YOU CAN EAT

Maggots aren’t the only things that want to eat, though! And it seems that the community center is aware of that as well. Advertisements are strewn all over town for an all you can eat buffet that will be set up, not even an entrance fee required (though donations are welcome at the door if you’re feeling generous). No one in their right mind would want to go and get food from a party into Deerington at this point though, right? Of course not. You’re way too clever for that.

Except that as the party draws closer, anyone who saw the advertisements will find themselves slowly feeling like they’re starving. There’s a hallow belly feeling that no amount of food you consume will ever be able to fill. It feels like you might go crazy from how bad the hunger gets, craving something to fill your stomach, anything... And in the back of your mind, you might remember the buffet. You might start to feel a strange realization that the food they’re offering will actually help get rid of your cravings and you’ll be drawn to the party no matter how adamant you’ve been that it’s not a good idea.

The spread they offer isn’t something that should be appetizing to most on a regular basis; raw, very clearly human organs are laid out across the table on fairly decorative plates. A fountain of what looks like blood is put up in place of chocolate for you to dip your food into. No matter how disgusted you might normally feel, you find yourself practically drooling at the mouth and you’re quick to grab a plate and dive in.

At least the drinks look like they’re normal; sodas, beer, wine, champagne, and liquors ready to create your favorite cocktails. A menu will give you an idea of what pairs best with each organ, so make sure you select something that goes perfectly with your plate of intestines.

What would a Deerington party be without something tricky attached to all this. Even the smallest bites of any of the organs will offer sudden changes to the consumer, each power growing stronger the more that you eat.

Eating BRAINS will make it so that you are able to hear another person’s thoughts. Anyone standing near by, really. They’ll trickle in slowly at first, but the more that you eat, the more you’ll hear, and eventually it could become overwhelming. Sometimes you can focus in on just one person if you stare at them intently, but that could make you look like a creep. Maybe you should just go somewhere quiet until it passes.

Eating a HEART will make you feel compelled to confess your emotions to someone. Maybe a specific person or maybe it’s towards a complete stranger, but you just want to get everything out onto the table. You’re overcome with feelings so strong you don’t know how to contain them anymore and you’ve just got to get them out somehow.

Eating LIVER will cause you to want to drink. A lot. You might find that you’re not able to get enough, even. It doesn’t make you immune to the alcohol though, so it’s got the potential to lead some pretty nasty alcohol poisoning if you aren’t careful. Characters who usually can’t get drunk will find that consuming liver makes them a total lightweight. Woops. Better have someone help you walk home.

Eating the STOMACH will make you want to eat everything. You’ll no longer feel starving, but you just want to taste any food that’s near you, and you won’t stop no matter how full you feel. It’s not just organs, but any food consumed outside of the buffet. It might be a bad time to go to Peter’s Pizza for a late night meal.

Eating INTESTINES will give you an abundance of courage. You’ll find that you’ve got guts you never knew you had and it might make you willing to go tell your crush how you feel about them, or tell off that one guy who’s been pissing you off for weeks, or maybe you might start to think it’s cool to go scale a building or fight a monster when you don’t have any skill sets to actually take one down. Hopefully you don’t do anything you’ll regret in the morning— assuming you don’t get yourself killed doing something stupid, of course.

Eating EYEBALLS will allow you to obtain the memory of the first person that you touch. Depending on how much you’ve eaten, you may just see a small snippet or you could get sucked in to a full and heavy flashback. The memory will feel like it takes place in real time, but by the time that it’s over, you’ll find that whoever you touched is only just starting to ask you what’s wrong — or tell you to watch where you’re going, buster.

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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[ ooc: moved to here ]

Molly, with her own plate of food, is equally surprised to see a familiar face, especially this far from home. The cop brain kicks in — instinct, really, probably of the survival variety — and before she can think about what a mess it's going to make, she drops her entire plate of eyes and brains in favor of reaching for a service weapon she's not even wearing.

"Hold it—!" she says, but even as it's out of her mouth she understands why that won't work. The guy can't hear, right? They'd established that, had shared a tentative, tense bond together in that hospital, two wounded and confused creatures. She thought then that Wrench had reminded her of a hit dog, not just wounded but wary, and hadn't that been how all his kind had acted? Not friendly, not local. Liable to pull knives even at parties.

Backing up, taking a defensive stance, Molly has inched away enough that she's got a clear escape should she need it. She doesn't have a lot of choice here — unarmed is one thing, unarmed against a giant is another — so she's ready to run if she has to.

"Didya follow me? Huh?" He can read lips, she remembers that. And he must recognize her (although Molly is fairly certain there are people who react this way to all law enforcement, not just the ones they might recognize). "Didya— Didya bring me here?" she accuses, widening the conspiracy. It doesn't make any sense based on what she already knows, but in the heat of the moment, the only familiar face in town is most definitely the easiest to blame.

[ she can't let her guard down this time, but she's most definitely learned her lesson, understanding the new depths of her limitations. for all that she can hardly touch anything these days, these maggots seem to have no problem touching her, which meant she'd have to make sure to take them out before they do again.

her gaze is still directed towards where she'd ripped the creature apart, almost as if she might expect it to either piece itself back together or for another to simply swerve its way out into the open. but the woman's appearance beside her is sudden, and she blinks as she peers up to her, lips parting at the sight of the offered and. ]

Um — yes, I'm fine. [ she doesn't reach to take it; she knows exactly what would come of that, instead dragging her boots to press to the ground before lifting herself up. ] I was just caught off guard. Won't happen again. [ more an assurance to herself than her present company.

but as her eyes look to her once more, she curls her lip against her teeth. ] Thank you. For the rescue.

i don't think you get to go back home if you're dead
so looks like i'm stuck with fucking maine

This — oh, you mean the Sleepers! Right, I read all about that, and then there was that dream I had, and — I mean, I got some answers from it, but not a lot.

[ When in doubt — or in a state of slowly diminishing embarrassment — just resort to explaining yourself by way of nervous babbling, and maybe they'll forget all about how you literally just threw yourself into their arms, Kara. She reaches up to push her glass back up the bridge of her nose, the way she does sometimes when she gets so animated that she needs a second to pause. ]

No. No, it's okay, I shouldn't have assumed. I've, uh, dealt with a lookalike before too, once. [ But she's not going to launch into specifics because that would involve revealing that she's Supergirl and that Supergirl had dealt with Bizarro!Supergirl... it was a whole thing.

Instead, the visible furrow in her brow from her squinting smooths out and she attempts a helpless shrug. ] Would you believe since... basically right now?

[ She doesn't reach to take Supergirl's hand, and while that prompts a small frown of confusion, it's also not something to dwell on too long, not when there's a chance that more of those creatures could be on them at any minute. Whatever they are, wherever they're from, she's figured out that they tend to travel in groups, waiting for one to swarm before they all surround their desired target — and usually, by the time that person figures out what's happening, it's already too late.

For not the first time since she arrived, she wishes Alex were here, wishes her sister were in her ear with some kind of advice on what to do. She'd have Brainy pulling up every available piece of information about what these things are, him and the DEO's best technicians looking into a way to defeat them, maybe even finding the location of the nest or whatever the origin might be so that Supergirl could track them to the source and wipe them out once and for all.

But she's alone, and she doesn't feel it any more than she does right now, almost going through the motions of lifting a hand to her ear before she remembers she isn't wearing her communicator. ]

Don't thank me yet.

[ Even now, she can hear others moving around them, the skittering of tiny legs moving across the ground, and on instinct, Supergirl rounds to step in front of the other woman, cape swirling out around her in an attempt to shield her from anything that might leap out at them from the shadows —

— and then she steps forward, twin beams of heat shooting out from her eyes to dissolve another one of the maggots advancing on them, leaving nothing but a singe mark behind on the ground. ]

[ ...ninga. kepler system. he has never heard of them.

maybe she's nuts. ]

So, you're an alien or somethin'? [ read: skepticism. ]

[ does he really want to tell her how to find him?

well, it couldn't hurt. ]

Room 708. [ a beat. ] Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Theo. [ :) ]

Just the gesture of her reaching ignites a pain in Wrench's abdomen that he likes to forget. Five years is a long time for everything but trauma, and he still isn't sure the surgeons didn't try to botch the job. He wonders what must've crossed their minds, to have been told they'd be operating on someone like him. Maybe they'd wished the bullet had struck just a little closer to the heart. The officer, though, he remembers differently. She'd shot him, but now that they're here again in the same room time seems to pitch backward and Wrench finds himself recalling her gentle expression and the kindness in her eyes. She had seemed almost sorry to tell him about Grady.

There's not much to be grateful for in the news that someone you love has died, but she seemed to understand things Wrench still hasn't said to anyone, even a half-decade later. He stalls with his fist around the hilt of the blade, but doesn't take it from his pocket. Instead he waits and watches, a predator sizing up a would-be adversary.

The shake of his head is meant to communicate plenty: that he can't hear her, that he's innocent of the accusations she's volleying his way. Wrench scowls as he looks her over, trying to remember more about her than her eyes. He's changed quite a lot in the time since the ambush. He's leaner, his hair is longer and the curls more unruly. Wrench thought he knew hell before, but it was nothing compared to the time since the loss. Finally, he lets go of the blade and taps his ear. Wrench gestures with the plate in his hand by way of demonstration. He's just here to eat.

As seconds pass, the time for one-two-three shots right in the pot goes by the wayside, and Molly's left cringing, waiting for a second hit out of nowhere. It never comes, and her expression barely changes, except the eyes. She's processing now that immediate, imminent danger has subsided, and details begin filtering in.

Armed. But compliant. Non-hostile. Tall. (Really tall. Was he always that tall?) Older.

None of any of it makes sense to Molly, who finally uncoils, hands slowly coming up to wipe at her nose, to sniffle.

"Well, maybe I got a little... carried away, but— Well, on account of what happened and all..." She dips her head, mindful to listen as she slowly crouches to start gathering the mess.

This is a dream, right? Someone had said that. She'd awoken here, into a dream so real it might as well be. It's her reality, anyway, at least for the moment, and she's very aware that despite all she knows, Wrench could boot stomp her into the stained tile and not a soul would know why except for him. She's been by the police station. She's heard of the cats prowling the neighborhood. Honestly, she doesn't set the odds much in her favor, but she still has fight enough to take the bet if she needs to. Suicide, for sure. No one's told her yet that she'd be right back.

Gathering the shards first, eyes second, she stops and looks up, gesturing to a dark eyeball that had rolled neatly between Wrench's footwear. A four-inch blade, even something as invasive as a pocket knife, if that's all the worse he's carrying, would cleanly end Molly if plunged in from this angle. It's a lot more trust than he probably deserves, but Molly's always been a little more understanding and kind than most.

[ don't think that's how it works, kara, but if it's any consolation, he doesn't have any interest in revisiting the topic of that very... uh, strong hug. unfortunately, he does want to know who she thought he was. he has mixed feelings about doppelgangers.

well, katherine was super cool, but what if he has an elena out there? wild. ]

I believe it. We get some new arrivals every month. It's kinda exciting. [ like their little town is continuously growing (or at least making up for the ones who disappear). ] So, [ he points at his face. ] did you think I was your mon... elle? [ a beat. ] That sounded more right in my head.

[ He looks with interest at the coin. It is of a similar style to the coins in his world, clearly made by experienced craft-workers and quite beautiful. ]

Very strange. You fall into the Greater Sleep and bring back the coins as talismans of the memories you find there? I suppose that must mean any kind of memory, the good and the bad. If you die, then you simply wake in Deerington and it is as though the harm never happened? I have experienced something similar in the world I visited for a few years before I came here. But are you saying that someone dreamed of memories that could only belong to that child you were speaking of, and so you know she is in some way real? I'd accept that as evidence!"

[It's not Mike yelling that shocks Dustin, no, it's the emotion behind his voice and the weight that carries it across in the space between them. Empathy has it all hitting him hard enough in the chest, and he's sure it would knock him back if a feeling could even do such a thing.

He knows better, but maybe asking questions isn't the best thing with some old marm doing her laundry and the atmosphere not being a good fit for any real heart to heart. When his eyes find Mike's, they're apologetic.]

I know you're not, but - you don't have to explain yourself. Not right now anyway. I'll want the answers after your shift, okay? For now, I'm gonna try and focus on the silver linings - I've got my best friend here and a piping hot pizza. On a scale of one to screw your customer, can I just buy them a pie and we'll share this one camp out style? Take a load off.

Edited 2019-11-22 21:44 (UTC)

What are you talking about? The shared dream thing I get, shared perception, whatever you want to call it but the guy that sounds like some Wizard of Oz type shit.

[Which is true, but he's more in the market for answers than he is bloodshed. Dustin can appreciate this guy's skill with a sword though, it's actually pretty damn remarkable.]

[Super memorable goes with the territory of being outwardly so punk rock that the whole town of Hawkins might expunge her. His town was humble and very not with the times.]

So, El's not here anymore - but, you said there's others. Who else is here??

[Dustin's a little suspicious in that don't talk to strangers who have too much good news to tell sort of way, but he can't resist chomping at the bait when it comes to his friends.]

Something like that, yes. Though awakening in this place is not as if nothing happened. The harm grows worse every time we awaken from death. Sodder has greater and greater difficulties bringing us back.

However, yes. I have seen memories that could only have been hers, personally. The method was... not easy, and it involved those talismans in fact, but I have seen her mother through her eyes.

Nah, Prismo isn't some loser wizard. He's a cool guy. A wishmaster, or whatever?

[Surely other people around here have heard of wishmasters. Prismo in particular exists outside of every universe.]

Ah, that is not good, if the harm grows worse with each awakening. It is Sodder who brings you back? What can you tell me about this Sodder? He seems to have a great deal of influence around here.

[ He considers the memories. ] You saw the child's memories yourself, then. You saw her mother? What was she like? Was there any hint of what the child herself is like?

[ Nadass smiles kindly. ] My work is never done.

I have never heard of a planet called Hyrule. But then, that doesn't surprise me. Until we made contact with Earth, Ningans believed our own to be the only populated planet in the galaxy.

From the human perspective, yes. I am what you would call an alien.

[ Disbelieve her all you want, that doesn't make it any less true. ]

My people call ourselves Ningans.

She is a child, a child with incredible magical power behind her that may be the source of what draws us into her nightmare, because she does not have full control over what is happening.

Her mother was ... tired, but sweet and she loved he child. Sodder was very afraid of her father, and in a great deal of pain, scared of many things, of monsters that seemed to be growing out of the world around her, desperate for any protection and hope she could find.

[Mike's silent for a few moments, looking down at the ugly tiles and the detergent stains, focusing on his own see-through toes instead of the aching honesty in Dustin's voice. He wants to sit and talk and let Dustin's presence unwind the knot of horror in his chest, the way it has so many times before, but part of him is afraid of what will come out. He's weighed down by so many horrible things that he doesn't feel ready to share, not on Dustin's first day. But the thing is, there are four more people at home who know every awful truth, and one of them is bound to slip up. Burden Dustin with the parade of horrors, out Mike as a rotten liar.

He sits down, his tangle of limbs still an inch off the floor.]

We get a lot of crank calls. There probably wasn't a customer.

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NOVEMBER TEST DRIVE MEME

NOVEMBER 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

NOT BEAST NOR KIN

ALL YOU CAN EAT

Character Arrival

it's fine - everything is fine

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Sorry for my lack of icons!!

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Psh, please. I am delighted. 💛

<3

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