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soddersays2019-10-26 07:49 pm
sodder) wrote in soddersays2019-10-26 07:49 pm
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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!
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.
no subject
Seeing was absolutely not believing. After all, none of the adults in Derry had ever seen what they had gone through. It never made that any less real.
He looks warily at the guy, not too thrilled at the idea of handing over a sharp object to a stranger, but at the end he winds up doing it anyway.)
If you're going to remove some of it I have extra gloves if you want.
tw: body horror, organs, inducing a heart attack - some bullshit back at it again with these vans
[There's a gradual shift in demeanor for Barry, who had seen blood and gore in his time and was more than familiar with the inner workings of something like this. Whether it was tangible or not, that remains to be seen.
This kid had that in common with him, experience, and it's a look and attitude that can't be replicated. So, he does them both the favor of not doting on him more than he really needs to.]
Actually, yeah, give me the gloves.
[Curiosity has piqued and even if his initial plan hadn't required it the rest of what he'd been hoping to do absolutely would.]
I'm Barry, by the way.
[It's such a small thing for him to do, to see whether or not this was real or in his head, but he doesn't want to scare this kid either. Basic understanding of the human body allows him to have at least some concept of the way the human body works. You need that knowledge as a soldier, and even more so in his current line of work. He sighs and points down to the floor piece with the scalpel.]
I'm going to sever this little valve right here, so unless you want to see a heart attack in real-time you might want to look away.
[If this town was living and breathing and these organs really worked then they could replicate a heart attack lungs and all once the aortic valve was snipped but that doesn't mean this fifteen-year-old or whatever he was needed to stick around and see it either.]
Re: tw: body horror, organs, inducing a heart attack - some bullshit back at it again with these va
I'm Eddie. (He glances again at Barry's face, a little too long, trying to place it still, but his interest is taken away pretty effectively by the fact that they were apparently about to dig right on in. Eddie's face doesn't so much as twitch. If anything, he leans over a little closer to get a better look.
Eddie snorts softly and looks up at Barry. He can't blame the guy for trying to want to shelter Eddie from some serious surgical gore, but it never failed to feel a little ironic when adults cautioned him about medical things anymore.)
I'm practically a registered nurse, dude. I've done a lot more than snip an aortic valve. I actually harvested a decent amount of the organs we've been finding in the floors this month just in case they're viable for transplants.
(Which he still isn't sure of, but at least they had them around in the freezer. If anything they could prove as valuable research.)
Don't expect the other organs to react. Sometimes they're connected but sometimes they're completely separated. It doesn't make any biological sense- but I mean. Organs in the walls and floors aren't really on par with reliable science, so.
tw: body horror, organs, inducing a heart attack
[A nod back to the reality at hand, he picks up the gloves and puts them on and they strain against his hands. He's got pretty large fingers and wrists, definitely not the kind that should be stuffed into a size medium or what might be comfortable for Eddie.
Barry wasn't a combat nurse, he wasn't even close but he'd seen injuries in the field and he'd had to do botch medicine to keep people alive, sometimes himself. So, his skills were hackney at best.
He smiles as Eddie proclaims himself a registered nurse, references the right anatomy. Calls him dude. It's all a little surreal.]
I'm a former soldier. I've seen a lot worse than an exploding heart.
[He'd done a lot worse too, but all the same he takes the scalpel and snips the artery apart. The heart does, in fact, start laboring, working overtime to cover the loss of the valve but there's no keeping it beating past a certain point, other parts of it rupture, and it bleeds out. It's quick, and that's how quick it can happen.
This might just be the weirdest shit I've ever seen, but I don't know that I'd call it monstrous. More like ... confusing.
Re: tw: body horror, organs, inducing a heart attack
I know. But they could be good for research. And you don't know this place, okay? Not everything works how it does back wherever you come from. Like this month if you ate a heart you could access someone's fucking mind. So. Logic and science aren't exactly your allies here. So it's a little dumb to assume they're gonna work the exact same way normal organs do.
(One day he'd just make a glossy brochure about Deerington and how you should really avoid figuring anything will work how you expect it to. Dream logic, baby. It was the fucking worst. He curls his small arms around his knees and makes himself comfortable in his squat. He watches Barry put on the gloves, has a strange, absent thought that he doesn't quite understand, and then is looking up at Barry's face again.)
Yeah...Most people here have I think. (By now anyway. Some haven't, but a lot have. He glances briefly over the rest of Barry, and he can kind of see the soldier thing. He had -- arms. Nice ones.
Eddie stares down at the heart because it sure was a good distraction from whatever the fuck was going on in his head. He laughs outright then, and it's more of a giggle really.)
You're in for a wild ride if that's the weirdest shit you've seen. I'm not gonna show you a monster. I could but last time I showed someone a monster who didn't believe me we almost got killed. So why don't you take my word for it for now and you can check back in with me later after you've seen a monster, huh? It'll happen pretty fast. Bet your fur it will.
no subject
[There's no sense in cutting away more floor now. This was a lot to wrap his head around and he passes the scalpel back to Eddie once the heart stops because it was
his after all. The gloves get pulled off of his hands, flipped inside out and on top of themselves so the blood couldn't be touched easily when handling them.
He sighs, adjusts the strap of the duffle on his shoulders with some malaise for his current situation and whereabouts.]
You've been here a while. [A normal kid, an average kid, wouldn't be so despondent when faced with this sort of thing. It's not that he assumes the guy isn't normal outright but there's a world-weariness he understands and has come to notice in those that have been trapped in less than savory circumstances. It's something that can be seen around his expression too, worn thin in ways that loom just under the surface.] How long?
[The part about the monster just gets a sage nod in response, he wets his lips and presses them together into a terse thin line. The last thing he wants to do is have to deal with a monster, whatever it might be, but he's gotten used to fighting- to survive, despite the issues he still has with what he does and he's more than capable.]
no subject
He takes the scalpel from Barry and takes out some alcohol wipes to carefully clean it. He's meticulous in his work and eventually seals the scalpel and puts it away. The gloves are peeled off and deposited with Barry's in a similar fashion.)
Over a year now. I turned thirteen here and in about two weeks I'll be fourteen. Before that I was in other weird places. (Eddie gives a thin shrug, and it's true. He carries a whole lot of weariness. A lot of scars, a lot of weight that he hadn't carried back when he was eleven.)
I've been gone from Derry and in other worlds since I was eleven though. So. I honestly don't remember much from my home sometimes anymore.
(Sometimes he even forgot the faces of his own friends. But that's something he doesn't feel like talking about even on a good day. Eddie gets to his feet and although he's much smaller than this man, he offers both of his hands anyway. They're both scarred heavily on the palms, but the right far more than the left.)
Upsie-daisy. Don't wanna sit near organs for that long. God only knows if they have anything wrong with them in the long run.
no subject
[It's true, but he takes the things that Eddie's saying with some sincerity on his end because there were all different types of hell. Sometimes hell was something you lived in, and sometimes it was what you took with you. This kid was clearly older than his age, in ways that spoke multitudes for not only his maturity level but also the insight that he has over the same age bracket.
The offer of hands surprises him, but it's not like he wants to be rude so he gives him at least one palm and uses his own legs to pull himself up. He dwarfs Eddie, both in sheer height and body mass. The last thing he wants to do is topple them both over.
Well, thanks for the dose of realism, Doogie. And happy early birthday.
[Barry does notice the scars but it's not like him to ever ask about another man's wounds, there were things you didn't do. An unspoken rule and he had enough of his own to know better.]
no subject
He felt oddly flattered, and looked down at himself, wondering silently if maybe he had gotten taller without realizing it. A pleased flush was working its way into his face. Eddie was at the odd age where he still didn't want to abandon his childhood, but part of him was getting older and liked the idea of people respecting the maturity that came with that. It was a funky middle area to be stuck in.
Eddie sure knows he can't do shit physically to help this guy up, but he's glad to be humored anyway. Dude's hands were definitely as big as they looked.)
Doogie? (He curls his lips around the nickname and stares up at the guy, brow raised.)
Thanks. Sorry I can't really offer you much of happy-anythings. Since I doubt you're that happy to be stuck in Horrorville 2.0.
no subject
Even that was fleeting, uncomfortable for him in a myriad of ways he wasn't ready to own up to just yet.]
Yeah? Am I off? Sure, you're kind of small - thought that was normal. I wasn't much to look at around your age either.
[Which is true.] Yeah, Dr. Doogie Howser, he was a savant, medical genius, doctor type. It's a TV show, a young kid doing medicine.
[Horrorville 2.0 was a good way of putting it but it begged the question.] What was 1.0?
no subject
(He's blushing again, mostly at being told he was kind of small. It didn't sound so negative coming from Barry somehow. He didn't really...mind being small around the guy, and it reminded him of how he never really minded being small around Bill or Richie.)
Are you saying I'm ugly? (He puts a hand over his chest in mock offense, looking up at Barry with big eyes. He's honestly just fucking with the guy since he knew that I wasn't much to look at wasn't meant that way- but hey. Eddie was, if anything, kind of a brat sometimes.)
Oh. Yeah. I'm from the uh- 1950s so I pretty much don't...know any sort of references most people make. That sounds kinda cool though. Dunno if I'd go far enough to call myself a genius type, but still.
(Cool idea.
He looks at Barry for a few seconds and then looks away.)
Derry. My hometown. It's a pretty miserable place, generally speaking.
no subject
[The guess was more of a reality, he'd learned the hard way that he didn't even come close to most normal well-adjusted individuals.]
No? I don't think so. Am I?
[Not being much to look at didn't automatically equate to ugly, Barry sort of just figured anybody under the age of twenty-eight was still growing into who they were supposed to be and anyone between 11 and 16 were faced with the homely reality that their bodies were stacked against them.]
The 1950s.... [Okay, Barry will buy a lot. Organs in the floor, monsters, hellscapes and all the rest but a time crux wasn't on his list of shit to just blindly accept.] Bullshit.
So is Cleveland. Most places are terrible places in the north-west.
cw: child abuse, IT in general.
It's not unsurprising that the 1950s thing is unbelievable and Eddie just sighs hopelessly.)
Yeah, okay, sure dude, but trust me, you talk to me for long enough and you'll realize very quickly that I'm definitely from the 50s. Most people say it's pretty obvious after a while.
(There were too many mannerisms and lack of media-understanding for him to be fibbing about it. But that wasn't something so easily proven in a brand new conversation.)
Yeah...No, I mean like literal evil. We had the literal manifestation of fear that like slept under our town and rotted it all the way through and made everyone like- fucking horrible people. And not like 'Doug's a real jackass' terrible but like 'What, another dad beat his kid to death? What's new' terrible. We have like this astronomically high homicide rate and most of its for kids or hate crimes, so. I'm not being metaphorical, by the way. There was like- literally a god of fear that fed off that shit.
(He's not really even trying to play a who-suffers-more game. It was just one of those things he always tried to emphasize a bit because a lot of people from the future seemed to mistake the whole 'my hometown sucks' thing for a kid whining about some lousy town when in actuality, no. Derry really was just the worst.
And it didn't really feel like oversharing considering most people didn't believe Eddie and after a while, you got really numb to sharing these sort of things when people just gave you a doubtful look. What was the point in trying that hard to convince someone?)
no subject
[Whatever Eddie might deem as literal evil is worth paying attention to for Barry, considering his own skewed view of the word and the reality within it. He nods his head while listening, and despite being already very unnerved by this new location the corners of his mouth crease even further down at the notion that this kid lived in a world that had been so toxic and impossible to survive.
He'd seen some shit, sure, even been the cause for some of it but he still had a moral code.]
So- one fucked up situation to another. You're a seasoned professional.