NOVEMBER TEST DRIVE MEME

[sodder]

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.


All affects from the food will wear off within about an hour if you’ve only had a bite — or they could last up to twelve if you really stuffed yourself. Please be sure to obtain OOC permission from any players for the brain and eyeball prompts!

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

[wwrench]

Grady knows more about the shape of Wes's frustration than most; it's a natural consequence of having grown up so close. Despite sharing a language between them that's as natural to the tall man as breathing, the frustration caused by lack of understanding can be a debilitating thing. With anyone else, Wes can stand his solid ground. He's passively faced all manner of shit from those who could never hope to comprehend him, and managed to find his ability to weather that ignorance a strength. It's different with Grady. No one else on earth inspires these reactions from him. Makes him want to pound tables and rattle teeth and displace his impotent terror with shouts.

At least his partner has the good sense to look nervous. The sight of Grady surrounded in a cloud of white particles might strike him with some amusement at any other time. Wrench would blame dandruff, which he knows the man would rebuff angrily. Or he'd make some comment on the chill in Grady's bones. The snow that seems to want to follow him even as he turns his coat up against it. But Wes doesn't want to see what happens if he loses more. Whether the man will be reduced to his very bone and sinew, or whether he'll simply disappear like dust on the wind, as invisible and uncertain as he's been the last five years.

No! I'll tell you everything. I'll explain it all, but first you have to eat. You're already starting to disappear. I won't lose you again. He isn't waiting. Wrench unscrews the mason jar and flings the lid on the countertop.

[dividingline]

Anyone with an iota of good sense might be afraid of earning such a look from a man like Wrench. Grady's known more than a few who have lacked that sense and come to regret it, most of them currently spending their time at the bottom of various iced over ponds and shallow graves across the Midwest. But nothing about Wrench has ever scared Grady. Sure, he's been scared on his behalf a couple of times -- some near misses he still doesn't like to dwell on, that track across Wrench's body in pale scars -- but he's never been afraid of him. Maybe it's because he can't look at him without remembering that shy and gentle boy with whom he shared what could generously be called a childhood. Maybe it's because he knows, at the end of it, that Wrench will never hurt him.

Either way, he's able to stand in the path of Wrench's anger and look, at most, annoyed.

OK, so it is a revenge thing. That's so fucking childish. Though Wrench does have a point; the spinning waves of dust are starting to increase, making it difficult for him to shape the words he needs without being distracted. He can feel the static starting to hum in his bones. It's weird, sick feeling. But still, it's just a dream, right?

[wwrench]

It's difficult to say which of the two is more stubborn. Wrench would bestow that title on his partner without hesitation, pointing to thousands of instances over the course of a lifetime of knowing one another. Though he'd be loath to admit it to his partner, though, he knows how often Grady shapes himself for the sake of the two of them. Like the language that sometimes blunts his thoughts and presents an inconvenience. Like serving as Wrench's de facto mouthpiece. Like bearing the brunt of the shit that's hurled at them because of that, while the tall blond makes a case for his own ignorance. Sleeping arrangements, after-hours activities, cups of morning coffee... The men he's come to know in this place might not believe that Wrench could be so particular, but it takes a certain comfort and familiarity to let those edges show.

For five years he's dulled himself. He's slept even less hours, eaten far fewer meals, and had virtually no conversations. He's cried tears he wouldn't even admit to Grady, cursed God, cursed Yahweh, blamed Malvo and himself. And now, after listening to Kurt and Logan both independently share their stories of resurrection and connection, his partner is in front of him. Becoming more and more incorporeal by the moment. And Wrench will be damned before he'll be selfless now.

"Listen to me!" His voice echoes in the pale light, off the pristine countertops and around the swirl of Grady's dissipating body. It rumbles with the gravel of atrophy and decay, and of pure desperate terror. Wrench shoves his hand down the neck of the bottle and captures those blueberries in his fist. He sets the jar on the counter, and then he grabs Grady by his hair and shoves the food into his face.

[dividingline]

Grady knows Wrench's limits almost as well as he does his own. Knows, without looking to confirm it, when the eyebrow raise of a stranger will send the big guy crashing over the table to demand retribution. Knows the signs of him pushing himself too far or too hard, when it's time to put out a hand and stop him or lift it off his shoulder and let him go, like sending a hawk out from a wrist. He knows all too well how hard he can go arguing with him before he'll earn a cuff or, worse, the taller man turning away so he can't see the apologies tripped out off the end of his fingertips.

This, now, though? This surprises him, without enough context to explain it, a seemingly undeserved surge of emotion and sudden scrabbling for the contents of the jar that sends him backing up against the wall, because if he doesn't understand the why he's certainly smart enough to get the what.

"Hey, now, wait -- " is about as much as he can get out in the space of time bracketed by Wrench rounding the counter and grabbing him. Wrench isn't gentle about it. Blueberries end up smashed against Grady's mouth, his nose and his chin. Pushed up against the wall and pinned by Wrench's leaning weight, he's still not about to just take this bizarre punishment in silence. He grabs at Wrench's wrist, batters his chest and shoulders with his fists, squirming and kicking, some of the blueberries ending up inside his mouth more due to the fact that he's trying to accuse Wrench of having lost his mind than because he actually wants to eat them.

Then it's either swallow or choke, so he does the former and immediately the static feeling is gone, but not the partner still pushing his hand up against his mouth. Grady pushes him, hard, earning himself his freedom at the cost of his dignity as he almost slides down the wall.

"What the FUCK!" He yells, wiping his mouth with a shaking and much more solid hand, his shoulders heaving. He spits bits of blueberry onto the floor, then gathers himself enough to surge forward again, grabbing two handfuls of Wrench's goddamn fringed jacket and whatever else he can reach to shove him back again. "What the fuck was that!"

[wwrench]

Physicality is a language all its own, and one that Wrench has learned to wield as fluently as ASL. More fluently, arguably, than English. When no others are shared, or when the message risks muddling on uncertain hands or lips, it's by far the quickest route to understanding. Sometimes that understanding is a negotiation, and sometimes it is a demand. Grady has been the recipient of both more times than most. Insisting touches, the clatter of stomps and pounded fists, and at times a full-body capture to act upon and on his own behalf. Wrench's hands know his partner at least as well as his heart, but five years is a long time.

He holds Grady past his protestations, the hand in his hair trembling against its own desire to soothe as his other palm brutally covers nose and mouth. It threatens his air and insists his cooperation until finally Wrench sees his adam's apple bob, and allows himself to be uprooted by the shove. Grady is more powerful than some might take him for, with his slicked hair, his scarves, and the well-tailored garments he tends toward. He has the look of a man built for conversation above action, but those who discount him rarely live to regret it. Still, Wrench doesn't anticipate so much power in the shove. Maybe he's gotten weaker. A half-decade forgetting how to care about anything has taken its toll.

Wrench lets himself be gathered up before he's pitched backward again. He's too interested in the state of his partner's skin to care about much else. I told you I'd explain if you ate! You were already starting to disappear. With no further preamble, Wrench grabs the letter off the countertop and shoves it toward Grady.

[dividingline]

Grady lets go of those handfuls of cloth and leather long enough to talk, ignoring the piece of paper his partner insists in his direction for the moment as he looks up at him.

I swear I'm already fed up of this fairy tale bullshit. Next you'll have me leaving breadcrumbs behind. He flings the words in Wrench's direction, adding a snarled "for fuck's sake!" to really drive the point home. The point that he's pissed off, and confused, and a little scared, because none of this makes sense. Or maybe it makes too much sense. The details in the strange house, in the small changes to the man he knows as well as he knows himself, are too good, too real, to be a product of what he well knows to be a limited imagination. He's never been the poet in their partnership.

He snatches the bit of paper from Wrench, to appease him if nothing else, absently smoothing down his hair and his clothing with his other hand as he turns his attention to the words scattered across the page. Reading the letter itself requires further commentary; Grady mutters as he pours over it, casting narrow glances at Wrench while he does so, as if holding him personally responsible for each word.

"Deer..? Of all the fucking.. dreaming? Yeah, I mean, I guessed that part.. this is all just goddamn.. Maine?!" He looks at his partner, incredulous, and shakes the letter at him. We're in fucking M-A-I-N-E? What the fuck did we do to deserve M-A-I-N-E?

The rest of the letter gets a cursory glance after that, Grady's sour expression darkening as Wrench's earlier comments regarding the food are confirmed. The town laws get an eyeroll, then he tosses the thing back onto the counter, not particularly carefully. Ink smears his fingertips; he rubs them with his thumb, frowning. He can still taste blueberries on his tongue and his scalp hurts where Wrench pulled his hair. He glances around the kitchen, noting the basket sitting on the counter with what appears to be his gun in it, along with his wallet and a set of keys attached to a bit of bone.

"What the fuck did I do to deserve Maine?" The question is quiet and rhetorical, spoken to the shards of fear still lodged in his chest. He rubs his face with the heels of his palms, before turning his attention to the man patiently awaiting.. whatever is supposed to happen next.

So what now?

[wwrench]

He's promised as many explanations as he can muster, but Wrench feels a wash of relief when Grady finally grabs up the letter from his hands. There's nothing he knows to say that could explain any of this. Not just Deerington, but the fact that his partner has somehow found his way here. It's taken months for him to finally accept this new position and feel a returning sense of equilibrium, but this threatens to pitch everything off its course again. While Grady reads, Wrench huddles against the far wall, watching.

In stories, people always talk about the people they've lost as though they're cast in resin. As if the moment they cease to exist they become preserved by time, forever locked in that perfect moment and always accessible. The stories claim that one never forgets the shine of the person's eyes, the sound of their laughter, the scent of their shampoo hanging in the air. But there's a lot that Wrench has forgotten. Five years is a long time to hold onto anything. Over time the way he's touched at the memories like a worry stone has rounded their edges, dulled down the sharpness, and given what Wrench knows for certain an ethereal quality he can't fully trust.

But this is Grady, as sharp and as certain as the morning of his death. His swept hair, his gleaming teeth, the slope of the mustache that Wrench always thought made him look a bit sad. He recognizes those chipmunk cheeks lying dormant. He imagines that if only his companion found reason to smile, they'd spring to life as comically full as ever. And he's solid, too. There's a weight and a life to him that Wrench's hands still remember. He clasps them together near his chest as he watches the shifting expression as Grady reads the letter. Annoyance, confusion, disbelief... he knows them all. Recognizes every line of tension around his mouth and between those dark eyebrows. Wrench could count the strands of hair on his head and time the stutters in his fingers. He's as sure of it as he's ever been of anything: this is Grady alive.

The tears in his eyes come in a silent flood. Wrench doesn't recognize them until he blinks and the moisture spills from the creases, streaking down his own hollow cheeks and falling in wet droplets around the neck of his leather coat. His breaths fall unevenly and then stop altogether as he holds his air in. Keeps close to his chest the signs of life he fears he's only imagining in the man alongside him.

I've been here three months. We didn't come together. You died five years ago. Wrench's hand stalls at his shoulder, and he raises it to wipe roughly at his face. I lost you for five years.

[dividingline]

There's a certain amount of selfishness that comes with shock. When the world becomes threatening, confusing, fear pulls you back into yourself like a fiddler crab retreating into a shell. Everything becomes about getting through it. Senses sharpen, time slows; it's natural to look out for number one while bullets fly and glass shatters and everything else falls apart. It comes easier to Grady than it does to his partner, that selfishness. He's known it for years, become used to it, the bitter core at the center of himself that tells him he's not a good person. Sure, he's good at his job, good at looking after the two of them, good at survival -- good, in some ways, but not good enough, because there's loyalty and then there's the look that Wes is giving him across the kitchen that makes his heart hitch in his chest.

Selfish asshole, he chides himself, but can't work out what else to do.

He's seen his partner cry before. More when they were kids, less so as an adult, but it's happened a few times. Work like theirs, it gets close and hot and emotional sometimes. Not a bad thing, necessarily, it's the difference between being a guy doing a job and a fucking psychopath. They've both been there, usually after a few drinks, angry or frustrated or just exhausted. But not like this, not the way Wes is pressed up against the wall like a drowning man looking for something to hold on to. A slow, dreadful weeping, like he's broken somewhere inside and hasn't figured it out yet.

Grady starts forward, though not without an instinctive glance at their surroundings as if to make sure they're completely alone. He's never been able to be as demonstrative as Wrench wants -- needs -- him to be, too aware of the kind of places they end up in, the kind of men they have to associate with, who already damn them twice for being a Jew and a big Deaf guy and don't need to add 'queer' to the equation.

But they are alone here, in this weird dark house, so he gets close enough to reach out and tug at Wrench's lapels, as if helping him straighten out his clothes, murmuring quietly, automatically.

"Hey, hey, don't.."