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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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[ Rot and decay were unfamiliar to most elves, and Legolas had only once or twice come across the corpse of an animal that had not become food for some another creature. ]

Many foul things in my land feast on the flesh of the dead. There are-- small creatures similar to these, but never have I seen them behave like this.

[ Satisfied the danger has passed, he sheaths his knife and turns from the corpses. ]

These maggots you speak of, do they feast on all dead, or only those they have killed themselves?

[ There's a metallic swish and the maggot stills, the handle of a long white knife is sticking out of its head.

A moment later Legolas hastens up the steps to retrieve it, having thrown it from across the street when he heard the cry for help. The dream had not seen fit to bring his bow, so knives were all he had to hand.

First he checks on the small child, kneeling down on the steps beside it. ]

Fear no more, small one, the danger has passed. Are you hurt? Did that creature injure you?

[ His eyes glimmer in the moonlight, reading something in her composure. ]

I apologize for the intrusion. [ A faint smile. ] I didn't realize the area was occupied.

Should I [ he gestures to the door behind him] leave you be?

This is the second pair I've had ruined in as many months, Henderson! I can't just keep buying them! [ Life is hard when you don't have endless amounts of your parents cash, okay

but he takes his frustration out on the bugs, grimacing and swinging and regretting every life choice that led to him becoming responsible for kids who apparently had no idea how to stay out of trouble.]

Okay. If we make a break for it, my car's parked down the street. These things don't look that fast.

Yes. It's not quite as advanced as the networks I am used to, but it should be helpful in getting settled.

[ Nadass doesn't usually have much chance to speak to young people, but Dustin seems just as bright and clever as anyone twice his age. ]

I don't like to waste time being lost and confused, when that time would be better spent getting my bearings so I can easier navigate my new environment.

I may not be visiting your world, but you are a representative of it, are you not? It would be a wasted opportunity not to learn what I can while I'm here with you.

[ Bucky is sitting on his front porch cleaning his gun.

Well, he was cleaning his gun, but he's basically done and he's set it aside to pet his big, lazy newfoundland, Ripley.

Ripley's nose sniffs at the air, but she seems unconcerned with whatever she smells until-- ]

[ pap-pap-pap ]

Damn it!

[ He hops up to get his gun back, glancing to his lazy, useless dog. She makes a low whine that almost seems like the giant dog equivalent of a shrug, so he goes after the goose on his own. ]

Fine. You stay here.

I have not heard of Azeroth before. Are there some humans that have migrated to it, and live amongst other races now?

This town is supposedly part of the United States, although I'm not sure that's all there is to it. The United States of America is one of the largest nations of Earth, on the continent of North America, situated in between Canada and Mexico.

The feeling of watching himself flake away inspires a similar detachment in Grady's mind, as if the parts of himself leaking out of his fingertips are the most vital parts of him. It's almost like he's floating, suddenly distant from himself. He doesn't feel particularly worried -- it's only a dream, after all -- but Wrench's own concern quickly becomes a battering force he can't ignore, shoving into him and gripping his hands before letting him go to throw more questions at him.

Grady blinks up at him, the front of his shirt left in mild disarray by his desperate clutches, scarf askew, for once without an immediate response. Kind of a weird dream, he thinks. Weird town, weird house, and neither of them are naked. And now this hackneyed disintegration metaphor. The stress of the job must be getting to him. All the more reason to wake up and go shoot that fucker Malvo in the back of the head, then they can go home.

He frowns and manages to pull himself back a little way, flexing his fingers against that static feeling before attempting to sign.

I didn't eat anything. What letter? His movements send more dusty particles spinning into the air. "This is fucked up," he adds, probably unnecessarily. "I have a pretty fucked up imagination. Did you know that?"

[ This wouldn't be the first time that Allura has volunteered herself for clean-up crew, but after the chaos that she took part in incidentally creating earlier in the phoeb, it's really the least she can do. These creatures are decidedly easier to take care of in comparison to their last infestation (although the xenomorphs did remind her of creatures she's seen before).

So when she could hear the telltale signs of someone else joining the effort, it seemed the most logical to combine forces. Clear a decent designated area before moving onto the next. ]

Hardly--

[ She was prepared to stomp out the head portion of the large maggot under her boot. She was not prepared to hear a familiar cadence in the voice of her would-be partner once they address her. Still some distance away, Allura stills. ]

...Lotor?

[Whoa! Someone very chatty has approached! Roxas doesn't catch half of what this girl says before he looks down at her had. She doesn't smell like a threat... So he shakes her hand. Hope Hajime doesn't mind shaking the hand of someone as hot as a heater.]

I'm Roxas.

[ Nadass' look is one of surprise. He greeted her as "my lady" and yet calls her a man. Maybe it's some odd Arda custom? ]

Planets can be quite different. Even on one planet, the culture of the people living in one nation may be vastly different from that of the people living in a neighboring land.

[ She's learned as much studying both her own planet and Earth. ]

[You know what, this is just. This is A Lot, Deerington. Even for veterans of your nonsense. Really -- It's too much. There's less blood on Shiro's side of things, if only because the way his hand works tends to cauterize as it cuts. Doesn't mean his armor isn't splattered with gore, however. Because it is. And it's...]

Lovely. [He wipes his visor off with his left hand, the right still glowing, just in case. The voice makes him pause -- it's not one he's immediately familiar with. But this is Shiro, and there's no way he's going to ignore someone.]

This? Not alwa-- [Except he turns. And stops cold. Because man, that sure is an unfamiliar Galra standing right there.] -- always.

And that is the same in Arda! [ He seems genuinely delighted to learn about this similarity. ] Among my own race, the Eldar, there are differences in how we eat or dress or fill our days. I've heard the difference is even greater among men.

[ not that he could really tell, never having visited their great cities to see if this was true or not. ]

The letter from S-O-D-D-E-R! It has to be here. Everyone gets one. Unless this is just another trap. Unless Grady isn't meant to stay in this place. Wrench doesn't stand around to watch more of his companion flake off like bits of sawdust taken in the breeze. He holsters his handgun and turns down the hallway in hurried pursuit of the kitchen. Maybe the trap is his own understanding of what he's condemning Numbers to. Any time spent in Deerington is not a gift, after all. But his knowledge makes him selfish. Wrench wants to exist with his partner in this space. And for all the men they've spent to their deaths and all the way they've justified it, he can't let go knowing that if the other man is alive here and now, his death is still imminent somewhere else.

He flips light switches as he goes, careless of anything outside his own pursuit. The cozy home seems bigger than it looks on the outside. Or perhaps it's his own urgency making his efforts that much more difficult. When Wrench finally finds the kitchen, he puts his fists on the counter and pounds in silent insistence that Grady follows.

You have to eat. Right now. Unceremoniously, he offers out the mason jar.

[ Hang on, she might be getting it.. ]

Excuse me, but... When you say, "men," can I take it to assume that you mean "humans" rather than the male gender?

[ somehow gender politics hasn't yet made it as far as middle earth ]

You are of the race of men, as I am of the Eldar, elves as we are also known in my world. [ Unless she isn't? Maybe he's misjudged her race. ] Forgive me, but you do not look like any dwarf I've ever met.

[ Ah. So it is a misunderstanding after all. It's one that Nadass encounters a lot, so she isn't put out by it. ]

No, I'm afraid you have it somewhat wrong. My people resemble humans very closely, but we are a different species, from a different world. Humans are native to Earth, while I, a Ningan, come from the planet Ninga.

[ At first he thinks she's explaining about her people, that she is not human in the way that the men of Rohan name themselves differently to the men of Gondor. But quickly it dawns on him that isn't what she means at all.

His eyes grow wide in surprise and delight. ]

Of course it would be that on different worlds, there would be different races of beings! Well met once more, Lady Vihalen of the race of Ningan. [ he puts his hand to his heart, bows his head low. To think, he of all the Eldar would meet a woman from a race that none in all Middle Earth had ever dreamed of! ] Your form is so like that of men that I mistook you for one, and for that I ask your forgiveness. I see I must take more care here!

[ She smiles and bows her head as well. ]

That's alright. This is not like the Earth I am used to, I doubt you will be the last person to mistake me for human. [ Of course, she was such a celebrity on her Earth, most people there recognize her on sight. ]

Tell me, what separates the Eldar people from the other races on Arda? Have you all evolved side by side?

▶ 01. ALL YOU CAN EAT

( alec's never been really big on parties but what he is big on is gathering information on people and a place that he's never been before. if anything, he'll need to report this back to the clave and they can decide what to do with the information.

if they believe him. honestly, alec's not sure this isn't some demonic bite induced hallucination. until proven otherwise, he's going to think that.

for most of the party, he sticks to the fringes, staying away from people and glaring away anyone who tried to get too close. sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

but, that wasn't doing him any good so he pushes away and starts moving through the crowd. he doesn't really talk but he does stand and listen. it might be more effective if he wasn't as tall as he is and didn't look as awkward as he does.

eventually, his walking takes him past the table and he visibly recoils, glancing around to see if anyone else was seeing this. )

By the Angel.

( other people were seeing and they don't seem to care. alec has half a mind to just flip the table and ruin everything but that would draw more attention to himself than he wants so he just stands there, glaring at the food.

alec lightwood will glare at anything if he give him enough time. )

▶ 02. NETWORK; UN: LIGHTWOOD

I don't want to be here.

( that's it, that's the message. )

▶ 03. WILDCARD

( feel free to throw anything at me! hit me up at

spoonishly for plotting! )

Edited 2019-10-28 00:14 (UTC)

[ So interesting!!! ]

Side by side? That is hard to say, at least hard to recount without a full telling of the history of the world and it's making. You are lucky I haven't yet the patience for it! [ He's young, and unlike most of his kind would rather not spend a week recounting how the world was made. ]

I will say only this; For most of my people's history we were separate. My people are the Firstborn, and we awoke and lived alone for long years under the starlit trees. It was not until the sun was made and first rose that men, the Aftercomers, also awoke and came to inhabit the land. Sometimes we have been allies, sometimes enemies, and in my time we seldom find reason to come together.

Edited (words!) 2019-10-28 00:27 (UTC)

Fascinating. [ It sounds like a creation myth of sorts, but he tells it like the truth. She wishes she had not left her tablet at home, she would have loved to record this conversation for her studies. ]

I did not know a planet could support life without a sun. Let alone life so advanced as a sentient species. This is truly wonderful. Thank you for sharing it with me.

I highly doubt any of us do. We just have to make the best of our time here until we can find a way to return to our lives.

I highly doubt you will be able to reach your starship. I have been unable to reach any of my contacts, even the ones on Earth.

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NOVEMBER TEST DRIVE MEME

NOVEMBER 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

NOT BEAST NOR KIN

ALL YOU CAN EAT

Character Arrival

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ii & HELLO THERE

Arrival

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2 HELLO

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Thanks for the heads up

all good!

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alec lightwood | shadowhunters

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02. un: Ambassador.Vihalen

un: Ambassador.Vihalen