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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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Trust is something Wrench has much more of now than when he and this woman first met over five years ago. Though one is a number that represents much more than zero. Any amount might be significant compared to the high-strung, uncertain animal he was back then. Time has done nothing good for him. It's Deerington that has shown Wrench a life beyond his own hiding. The months that he's been here have been good for him, death rooms and monsters aside. He's almost forgotten to wonder after the things isolation gave him time to mull over. Like what this woman thought when he turned up missing from his hospital bed, and how hard she might've searched for him.

She'd be happy to know he was on his way to prison, he thinks. She'd be glad to think justice was served, and true to her word he was bound to spend the rest of his life in prison. Right now, nothing is a certainty. Wrench watches her crouch and wonders again about hatred and forgiveness. Everything she represents terrifies him, but he doesn't hate her. Not even with the hot sting of acid in his gut, reminding him of that aching wound. He follows her gesture, and turns his boot to tap the eyeball with the side of the sole. It rolls back in her direction, and Wrench waits for her to stand.

By now he knows this isn't purgatory, and there's no amount of proving himself that will lead to the outcome he thinks he's looking for. But Wrench considers the overflow on his plate -- the excess compared to how starved he was just months before -- and offers it out toward her.

[ well that manages to draw a full fledged flinch from thom. so much for trying to help out a stranger. ]

Someone already told you, then?

shit youre probably right
sorry the afterlife blows for you
at least theres not really cops here
go burn down a house or smth, itll probably make you feel better

yeah that's a good idea actually

[ No it isn't!! ]

[ it is the fucking best idea, okay?? ]

cheaper stress relief than booze and coke
i trashed one of the mergo mansions over on route 7 the other day
nobodys living there and so far nobodys gave a shit
the gas is all free so why the fuck not?
not like those assholes build their houses close enough that ones gonna catch fire from the other

you go though let me know
i wanna break some shit before it turns into a bonfire

It's difficult enough to process their circumstances, let alone the odds, and the more Molly collects herself like shards of the plate in her hands, the more she feels relieved. Perhaps more horrific than being unwittingly but willingly interested in eating organs is the fact that she's absolutely desperate to keep this one touch of home in sight, considering for only a few seconds before nodding and deciding there's no reason they can't share.

"Oh, sure. Hm." Looking down at her former plate, she shuffles the gory pieces and ruined parts into a nearly trashcan and then fruitlessly wipes at her hands with a flimsy napkin. "Lemme just—" Molly starts, gesturing then to the stack of clean plates behind Wrench. Not wanting him to get the wrong idea, she notes one of the empty tables and then drifts around him to collect clean cutlery, too.

With her back turned and her hands hovering over the buffet setup, a slow breath escapes her and she quietly questions her own sanity. Hell, her hands are shaking where they hadn't been a second ago and that ought to be information enough to tell her she's on the wrong track here, and yet... The world suddenly feels so widely out of control, impossible and theatrical, and she can't help herself.

But why? Why them? Why here? Why now?

"What happened to you?" she asks as she sits. A blanket question like that might help her with some context as to why he's offering to share instead of turning on his heel and beating feet to get away.

_{[The only thing stopping Henry from doing the same is that she has to keep her eyes on the road--but in unintentional mimicry, she exhales through her mouth, letting her breath out carefully and deliberately. Half the battle is surviving creatures on a month-to-month basis, and the other half is not letting said creatures rattle you. Even when they are giant, man-eating maggots.

Easier said than done.]}

Fuck. _{[When it comes to things said, an emphatic curse about sums it up.]} Well, that was some fucked up shit. I better not find that thing hanging off my door.

_{[She glances over at the older woman, both hands gripping the wheel tightly.]}

Are you all right? Did they-- _{[Are maggots normally supposed to have teeth? Jesus.]} --bite you?

Huh. No openings for a decent but nothing spectacular science intern with a Heart of Gold?

Well at least it's a tragedy you can set your watch to, I guess.

[ kind of a dark pro to settle on for this whole conversation, but taylor's learned to lean on what she can in rougher times and a pre-scheduled warning is a whole lot more than she ever got dealing with the greens. ]

Anyway, I think that whole Fate thing is just defeatist talk from people that have never heard of the multiverse theory before. No matter how terrible things shake in one reality, there's always a reality where things break good instead.

[It's honestly impressive that Newt didn't let go of the other, but he may have yanked Percival to his feet a little too roughly. Almost as though he didn't actually intend to, but was jerking back.

He looks at the other with wide eyes.]

Percival.

[It's said with no doubt. Had he been suspicious of the other's identity before, he no longer was. He was sure of it. What he had somehow witnessed (and he isn't sure how he did), was a memory belonging to the other.]

I- Sorry. I got lost in my thoughts. [His thoughts were a jumbled mess, that's for sure.]

That depends. What sort of science?

Hers is not the first familiar face that Wrench has seen of late. If he had his choice she wouldn't be here now, crouched before him as a painful reminder of the impact of his choices. There are worse people he could encounter, but this woman brings a set of memories only she can hold. He's not used to having to confront those he's shot after the fact, and her words to him in the hospital are as clear now as when she first spoke them:

And for what?

Wrench seems lost in thought when she first gestures at the table, but her movement jolts him from his thoughts and makes him tense again in anticipation. He feels like a fool when she moves for the buffet rather than towards him, and manages to gather himself enough to slide into an offered seat. Old habits die hard, and as she collects her silverware he adjusts the seat to put his back towards the wall and give himself a faster route away should she decide she wants to take another run at what she hadn't managed to do all those years ago.

When she returns the plate sits untouched and Wrench's hands are folded. He lets her settle in, and finally reaches for his Fluid when she has. Even as he types, though, he doesn't take her eyes from her. Several moments of silence pass before a masculine and automated voice reads the text. I ESCAPED AND I RAN. HOW MANY YEARS HAS IT BEEN SINCE THE HOSPITAL?

A child that is marvelously gifted, then. But disaster must have come upon her family, beyond their power to control or heal. Sodder was afraid of the child's father? I wonder what part the father had in all this? Was he like the child's mother, striving to protect her but unable to do so?

Behavioral and Biological science, mostly. Though at this point I'd say I have a fair bit of experience with computer and engineering as well, out of necessity.

Well, you could make an integral part of the mission's team, even if you're perhaps not qualified to be an Ambassador yourself. I certainly have worked with many engineers and biologists, both on Earth and on Ninga.

[ ......who is he to really question the existence of extraterrestrials when he lives in a warring world between angels and demons? ]

Okay. [ as long as she isn't affiliated with heaven, then she isn't a threat. ]

...What is it like in Ninga?

Much similar to what Earth is like, really. We have as storied a history and as diverse an origin as humanity seems to have, in my experience so far. Our cultures are a bit older, so they've worked out their differences for the most part. [ Except for Pil... The island nation of Pil has always been resistant to change. ] It has been quite some time since there was a widespread war on Ninga.

[ wanda's had the backing of a team — once. these days, it's become easy to forget she's an avenger; even with steve's presence in the town, there hasn't been the rallying call to assemble, or at the least, she hasn't been called for one. if she were to ask him or sam, or any of the others, she's sure they'd insist it's not on some account of not trusting her, but somehow she still thinks that maybe she's become more prone to fighting things out on her own.

whether it's because she's simply been meant to or because she's done enough damage to push away the support of her old teammates, she doesn't know. but right now, she isn't entirely alone, and considering the girl had saved her out of a pinch, she's not about to brush her off either.

but she does prove to have some range of abilities and upon seeing the blaze of light pierce out from her eyes, she's distracted for a moment once more, watching the sight with a widened gaze before she tries to divert her attention back on the fight. ]

You seem like you can handle yourself just fine. [ though even if she can, the number of enemies seems to be continually increasing, as another stampede of maggots come charging in. but as they race forward, wanda waves her arms again, the red light wrapping around the bodies of four at once, raising them high into the sky. expression growing tense, she curls her fingers tight before bringing her arms together, the motion causing the maggots to charge together for a swift collision, bodies exploding at the contact. ] But I hope you don't mind the support.

Then, how is it like Earth?

[ earth is irreparable in its damage and hopeless in its chaos. how is ninga similar to it if it hasn't experienced war in "quite some time" as she so claims? has she ever even been to earth? she sounds like she doesn't know what she's talking about. maybe she is crazy. ]

We 'ave nothin' but rubble and death in our wake, but you say your planet is safe from the ravages of war.

[ "Nothing but rubble and death?" That sounds horrible, and nothing like the Earth she saw. She freezes in her tracks, placing a gentle hand on his arm to stop him too. ]

I... From what I understand, the Earth of one of us is not the same as the Earth of others. I do not know what the Earth you came from was like, but the Earth I visited was thriving and full of life.

[ he instinctively jerks back away from her touch, his brows creasing into a frown. ]

Don't. [ one simple word, yet it's heavy in its warning. ]

...Not the same. [ it would certainly explain a lot, but he isn't sure how it's possible. ] What do you mean by that? [ he isn't a science guy. never been, never could've. not where he grew up, how he grew up. ]

[ She's surprised by his flinch, but pulls her hand back all the same. ]

Why don't you tell me about your Earth, and then I'll tell you about mine?

Oh. And how long have you been here?

[ It never really takes her that long to slip into interview mode, mildly interrogating before she even realizes she’s doing it — but when she does, her eyes widen behind the lenses of her glasses and she waves a hand dismissively, offering a small wince. ]

Sorry, you don’t have to answer that. I, uh, I’m a reporter back home. Old habits. [ But her expression softens at the mention of a familiar person — or, well, the attempted mention, and she ducks her head to mask her grin before nodding. ] Mon-El. He’s — well, the two of you look a lot alike. But standing here now, I can see how you’re different. From him. Not in a bad way! Just... different.

Yeah, why not even the odds a little more?

[ She flashes a quick, bright grin in the other woman’s direction and then lifts herself into the air with a minute amount of effort, closer to hovering over everything rather than flying, but getting a higher vantage point enables her to see exactly what they’re dealing with and how many of them are coming.

Her heat vision reaches pretty far as long as she’s timed it right, slicing an impossibly hot line through one of the maggots to bisect it into two writhing halves that eventually go still. And the woman she’s fighting with — the one she’d moved to protect before — seems like she can handle herself pretty well too, even though Supergirl’s never seen anything like the energy that crackles from her hands, winding its way up her arms. It’s almost like some kind of telekinetic force, but she doesn’t have time to really study it or ask questions, not when they’re in the middle of dispatching these bugs as they skitter close in what seems like waves.

It’s not the first time she’s unexpectedly found herself teaming up with someone, and it probably won’t be the last — but when she’s been feeling the diminishing of her powers lately, she’s not going to decline the back-up.

Inevitably, fewer and fewer maggots are swarming them, and when she’s sure the last of them lies dead, she slowly returns to the ground, docking her hands against her hips. ]

Thanks for the help.

Yeah, you seem like that kind of guy... [Lance says with a cautious side-eye.] And these are unusual times, man.

[He sighs. shoulders slumping a bit.] It's not my job to welcome people. I'm actually a prisoner here too. [He flexes his hands and makes a sound in his throat.] My arms are getting tired, can I put them down without getting shot? I can show you where to get some cookies..

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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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