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DECEMBER 2019 TEST DRIVE

DECEMBER 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to December's Test Drive Meme!

This month's Test Drive's theme is: PROPHETIC 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 death via exposure (freezing), Krampus imagery, possible vore, visual and auditory hallucinations, monster violence, stalking, decapitation

Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One Prompt Two Character Arrival Master Navigation

VANISH LIKE THE WARM STOVE

Winter has set in in Deerington and it’s as harsh as one would expect for the frigid mountains of inland Maine. There’s snow on the ground, icicles hanging off of most buildings, and black ice all over the roads. Better be careful where you step or you might just slip and hurt yourself while you’re walking around town!

But there’s something unusual about the cold. It feels bone-deep and no amount of layers or staying inside seems to make it shake. Your teeth are always chattering, you feel the need to hunch in on yourself to keep any heat from escaping, and if you look at your hands, you might see them go from bright red, to white, to even the slightest tint of blue throughout the day. You’re getting colder by the minute and it feels like there’s no way to stop it. Maybe you’re just doomed to freeze.

The box is waiting on a bench. You didn’t see who placed it, but there’s a small tag with your name on it, so clearly it was meant for you. If you ignore the box, it will start to show up on random surfaces around town wherever you might be; the kitchen counter, a desk or display case at your work, the floor of your bedroom… No matter where you are, the box is there too. Eventually, you might as well just give in and open it.

Inside every box are three matches. They’re relatively long, like the sort you’d use to light a fire in a fireplace, and they appear to be completely normal. People who can sense magic won’t get a reading off of the match and no amount of testing the wood or the tip will show anything other than the exact chemical make up one would expect. So maybe they’re safe! There’s a small note tucked inside the box with only two words written in childishly messy scroll; Keep Warm.

If you light the match, you’ll find that you’re instantly starting to feel a little less cold. It’s the first bit of heat you’ve managed to snag in so long that you’ll probably find yourself a little desperate to hold onto it. The matches burn at a relatively steady rate, not too fast or too slow, and the wind can easily blow them out, so be careful! You’ll have to protect the flame from the elements if you want to keep yourself toasty. The only strange thing that you might notice is that whenever you’re near another person who has a lit match, both the matches seem to burn a little stronger and stay lit a little longer. So maybe you’ll have to pair up and learn to share. If you’re smart, you’ll light just one of each of your matches at a time, giving you a total of six chances to keep yourself from freezing to death.

There’s always a catch though, isn’t there? Each match will come with a unique vision as the flame dies out. A vision that can be seen by both of you. The vision will belong to whoever’s match as burning and it will be as vibrant and detailed as if you were really in the middle of it.

The end of the first match will show you something you want. It can be anything; a warm meal, a new bed, an object from home you’ve longed for. You’ll be able to pick it up, taste it, smell it, do whatever you would normally do; but at the end of the day, it isn’t real, and ultimately you might find that you’re just chewing on your own (or your companion’s) hand.

The end of the second match will show a vision of someone that you miss. Whether it’s from home, a previous world, or someone who’s come and gone from Deerington, you’ll see them clear as day, calling for you and beckoning you to come with them. It’s probably best to not. After all, you’d have to leave your matches behind, and it’s cold out there.

The end of the third match will show you a vision of somewhere you miss. It’ll be like you’re standing in the middle of the very place you’ve been longing for ever since you arrived in Deerington — maybe even longer. It’ll look, sound, smell, and feel like the place you’ve missed most. It’s almost easy to want to stay and forget to come back to reality and light your next match.

If you both can make the six matches stretch until the sun sets, you’ll find that the cold has finally broken, and you’re able to keep yourself warm again. If you don’t? Well, it’s time to find someone else with a bundle of matches, and hope they’re okay with some basic invasion of privacy to stop you both from getting hypothermia.

BETTER WATCH OUT

Have you been a good person this year? Probably not! This is Deerington after all and everyone’s got a sin or two they’ve committed that they’ve been carrying around some deep shame about. Whether it’s something you’ve done here or something you did back home, the things your character feels guilt over will start to plague them more and more frequently as of late. Maybe you’ll start to see small little snippets of the memory flash before your eyes, or hear the voices of the people you’ve hurt calling out to you for mercy. No matter how it manifests, it’ll be gnawing at your insides, growing more and more impossible to ignore.

It might just be the paranoia from having to flashback to your worst memories at all hours of the day, but eventually you start to feel like someone (or something) is following you. You hear the scrape of nails against cement, the thud of heavy footsteps, or the sound of a heavy sigh by your ear accompanied with the smell of rancid breath. But every time you go to look, it seems like there isn’t anything there. No matter how logical a person you might be, you still end up feeling a little on edge, and you know you’re right about being… well, stalked. You may not be the sort who usually goes for comfort from others, but something inside of you tells you that maybe you’ll be a little safer if you aren’t alone. You seek out a friend, a colleague, or even a complete stranger— just someone who might make this creeping suspicion of being watched go away for a little while.

Except the moment that the two of you are together, Krampus finally arrives. He seems to fall from the sky, landing in front of you with a ground shaking thud, his long tongue hanging out of a mouth filled with razor sharp teeth. He’s ever bit the demon you’d expect him to be and he looks hungry. You can try to run or you can try to fight, but he’s quick and strong, certainly hard for any normal human to take down. And if you look into his eyes, then things are about to get a whole lot worse.

Whoever locks eyes with him will have the very thing you have been feeling guilt over put on display for both you and your companion to see. It’ll be like you’ve been transported directly into the memory, Krampus’ clawed hand gripping your shoulders and forcing you to watch whatever your shame is play out in front of you all over again. The detail is striking and there’s nothing left out, no matter how hard you or your companion try to stop it.

When the memory stops playing, Krampus will start to move his tongue around you, wrapping you in the long, blood red muscle like it’s a snake. You can try to break free and it’s possible to cut the demon’s tongue with a sharp blade if you or your companion happens to have one; whatever you do, it’s best to do it quickly before you end up a snack.

Krampus can be taken down in one of two ways; either the person who is experiencing the guilt must confess their sin out loud and profusely apologize, begging for forgiveness for their misdeeds or he can be taken down in a somewhat simple ceremony. The chains dangling from the Krampus wrists must be grabbed and somehow secured into the ground; this will weaken Krampus greatly and leave him more vulnerable to attack. Once he is secured, you must take off his head. It doesn’t matter if it’s cut off, ripped off or blown off, the moment the neck is severed from the rest of the body, the Krampus will turn a deep black, like coal, before crumbling into dust, leaving only the head behind.

A little messy, but definitely efficient.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ what an asshole. she'll be an asshole right back! ]

Irreplacable.

[ hint, hint, nudge, nudge, doppelgänger. ]

elena. ( he should be playing the game right and coming up with a proper word to counter her back with because he has a whole dictionary of big words he could very well use. after all, he's hanging out in the library of all places. but point is: she's been replaced. did she really need the reminder that his brother loves elena? apparently so. )

[ but what about dickmon? ]

Stefan.

[ did damon need a reminder that elena loves stefan? it's always stefan (until it's not). it hasn't been about stefan for a long time for one katerina petrova, but no one needs to be alerted to that fact. ]

better. ( better than him by far. he's the bad brother and he more than deserved to die from that pesky werewolf bite. boo hoo hoo. this game is turning out to be depressing and unfun. but what did he expect? it's katherine. soon enough he'll get upset with her and then get upset with himself for letting her get to him. )

[ this is where she says "yes", right? "agree." "fact." but… ]

Subjective.

( he'd pretty much exposed a wound and had expected her to dig her nails in but what's this? it's subjective? he makes a face, reading and rereading that one worded text before making a response because what even. ) bullshit. ( everyone and their grandmother picks stefan over him. like he doesn't remember the night he'd finally had a face to face conversation with katherine only for her to tell him that she loved stefan and not him. )

[ her favourite pastime is hurting damon. it's so easy! all she has to do is poke him in his stefan wound and kick him in his elena one. if she really wants to rub it in, she punches him in the jugular—the one where she reminds him he waited for her for decades.

although it does cross her mind to take a blow, she remembers him in her house. he doesn't know who she is. no one does. ]

Hybrid.

[ tangent!!! ]

pesky. ( super duper annoying to deal with. first the werewolves and then klaus. mystic falls was turning out to be quite the circus. he wants to say more, but that would mean losing to katherine and that's a big no no so he'll just flip through these books he has on the table to help cure his boredom. yes. these dusty books are far more entertaining than one katherine pierce. he's certainly leveled up. )

Damon.

[ it's unfortunate—or maybe fortunate?—damon can't see her face. she types it with a genuine smile, thinking of him as causing trouble in a light, positive way. although she'll claim the damon of now is much more enthralling than the boy of 1864, she's lying. even back then, he had a trickster quality to him. ]

( ooh? are they going to start discussing the ways in which he's-- ) phenomenal. ( one of a kind amazing? there's really no one else quite like him. and he's met a lot of people. he's just way too cool. no need for katherine to tell him otherwise. she might have owned his heart for over a hundred years, but he's not an idiot. fool him once... and never again. she's on his list of people who no longer matter to him. or at least -- he's working on putting her there. it's a work in a progress. )

Delusional.

[ look, she could've said "unchosen." see? she can be fun! ]

unbothered. ( he's past caring what she thinks is what he wants her to know. the old damon who was idiotically keen on pleasing miss katherine is long dead and gone. )

Lie. :)

[ can you tell she's smiling? can you?

damon is a liar. is his pants on fire yet? he's the most bothered person in existence. to be as emotional as him, you have to be bothered. ]

cheater. ( she can't just add an emoji to a one word game. also, she's the one whose mouth is full of lies. like 24/7. can't trust her. won't ever trust her. )

Rules.

[ isn't everyone glad she didn't say "me".

but perhaps that word alone is a trigger in itself. who needs rules? everything's always a game. ]

broken. ( kind of like his heart when she shattered it into a million pieces. no way they're ever getting back together. and her attempts to be cute? they're just grating on him. yet he's stupidly playing this game anyways. what on earth is wrong with him? oh, wait. it's boredom. that's all it is. no biggie. )

[ so dramatic.

damon—and by extension, katherine—knows why he's playing. it's the reason why he's never been able to truly let her go and stop caring. ]

Heart.

[ contrary to popular belief, she's not thinking of damon's or stefan's broken heart. it's the one that elijah's meticulously pulled apart with his quick leap to distrusting her.

he sucks. :c ]

unlikely. ( that she has one. please. )

[ she has a better one than you! ]

Stubborn.

[ that's about you, dickmon. it's kind of sexy. ]

always. ( now come on, katherine. lose already. give it up because he is so not letting her win. never ever ever. )

[ and give up annoying damon with her inevitable and rightful win? nope. ]

Sexy.

[ on second thoughts, perhaps this game is the best way to communicate with him. while he's her favourite to hurt, what she says is true—she's always found him sexy, and not in a condescending manner in which she's confessed it most recently. ]

( uh-oh. he doesn't like where this is going. katherine's doing that thing she does. attempting to reel him in like a helpless fish to the chopping block. )

boobs. ( there. much better.)

[ insert eyeroll here. ]

Predictable.

bored. ( which is why he even played this game but he's still oh so bored. he switches the video function on. time for her to say each word out loud. does she dare to show her face? )

[ this is katherine. when does she ever hide from a challenge? *

* klaus not included.

he'll see her lounging on a very comfortable couch, wearing her usual smug™ look. is she bothered? nope. ]

Child.

DECEMBER 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

VANISH LIKE THE WARM STOVE

BETTER WATCH OUT

Character Arrival

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