APRIL 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

[sodder]

APRIL 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to April's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: ENCHANTMENT 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: Enchanted food, possible body horror, mild finger injuries, magic based mind control, rapid aging, possible death
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

YOU UNCULTURED SWINE

Pork is on sale!! Time to buy it up for all your family meals. It also means anything with pork in it in all of the restaurants is on special and super affordable for just about anyone. New arrivals can even get a free meal of bacon, sausage and eggs at the diner! Seeing all the low prices, you find yourself craving pork more than ever. But who doesn't love bacon, right? Maybe you had ham and pineapple pizza at Peter's or those delicious and mouthwatering pork dumplings at the Hot Pot. You could have cooked a nice pork loin with your friends and family for a large get together. Candied bacon is a real treat to munch on in the park!

You're cooking it yourself or getting it from the local restaurants, so nothing bad could happen with a little self-indulgence, right? Just about everyone has learned not to trust the food at a giant feast in Deerington, but short of the lunch and dinner menus at the diner, the restaurants and the grocery store have never done a Sleeper harm! At least, that's the way it's always been before. Two years is long enough to start taking things for granted.

Anyone who has any of the specials from the restaurants or who cooks any kind of pork related product at home will find that once they have finished their meal, they will slowly turn into... pigs. It seems to vary on how fast a single person turns, some moving slowly over the course of days while they eat more and more food, and others will turn into a full blown pig in a manner of minutes. At first you can still talk to others and display your usual personality in pig form, but the longer you stay a pig, the more boarish you'll become.

So how do you break the curse? Locals say there's a magic stream up on the mountain that will stop these kinds of enchantments, but you can't go alone. Someone will have to carry you up and sing to you while you drink. It might be a friend or a lover or a complete stranger, but whoever you can nudge into it will have to physically carry you in their arms up the side of the mountain looking for this stream. It can take a while— the walk is fairly long, a few hours at best, but you'll know it when you find it. The stream sparkles unnaturally in the sunlight and it seems like none of the animals are willing to drink from it's unnaturally cold waters. The moment you take a long sip while your companion sings whatever song pops into their head, you'll turn back into a human. Hopefully your clothes turn back with you.

If your character does not eat meat/pork, then they'll be safe from this event!

GOOD ENDURES

Mirror mirror on the wall...

The pork doesn't seem to be the only enchanted object around Deerington this month. There are several of them cropping up all over the place and each one has a different outcome for those unfortunate enough to run into them.

Spinning wheels seem to be in the most random of places. Some of them will even just appear in your house. Sometimes multiple spinning wheels show up. Anyone who gets to close will have the strong urge to prick their finger on the spindle, the needle very easily cutting the tip and making you bleed more than you might have expected. Hopefully you have a first aid kit around.

Anyone who pricks their finger will find that they are forced to follow the next person they see around everywhere. They'll follow them to work, to school, to the bathroom, to the kitchen, even to bed. It doesn't matter if it's someone you've never spoken to in your life, you will follow them like a lost duckling every hour of every day. It's enough to drive anyone bonkers.

Mirrors will also suddenly be being displayed in every home and every shop, even if you never had them before. It doesn't matter whether or not you have a reflection, any person who looks into the mirror will find that they are forced to imitate the next person they make eye contact with. This can be their personality, their posture, the way they speak, their basic movements— you'll start to become a total mirror image. If it goes on too long, you might even start to find the two of you start to look more and more alike...

Apples start to pop up in all the stores as well as in your fridges. They're bright red and look so delicious, you can't resist taking a bite. Even if you don't like apples or are normally allergic to them, you'll want to eat these, and you'll find they taste delicious and don't bring harm to anyone. At least... not at first.

A few hours after eating the apple, you'll start to notice differences in your appearance. Your hair has start to thin and become gray and limp, your skin is wrinkled and covered in spots, your hands become frail and shaky. You're aging, and rapidly at that. Before you know it, you've turned into a hideous hag, one that would frighten children in any fairy tale book. But how do you reverse it?

The cure for all three enchantments is to tell three facts about yourself. Even just introducing yourself will show improvement if it's to someone who never knew your name before. Those who ate the apples will have to seek someone out, but anyone who pricked their finger or looked in a mirror will specifically have to confess these three facts to the person they're enchanted to follow/imitate. Once three facts have been shared, you'll be able to leave, return to normal, and age back to your regular self.

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

[droptheious]

You're not, I mean- it's cool. You're new. I get it.

[He should pay some of the charity shown to him forward, after all. He pulls out his Fluid from his pocket. ]

Um. You should have one of these? They're called Fluids. I don't know... how familiar you are with technology? I sure wasn't, but basically this is a communication device. You can speak to other Sleepers on it.

[touchofrogue]

[ She only hesitates for a second, really, because she doesn't want to be caught in that compulsion again. But, she figures 1) Still wearing gloves, so it's probably okay and 2) the compulsion doesn't seem to be impacting the other girl, so maybe once it's been used up it... needs to recharge?

...or, you know, her initial volley was correct and it's all part of a Diabolic Plot by the woman in front of her, but you know, she doubts that.

Rogue looks behind her, notices the Magically Upright Spinning Wheel, and siiiiiighs. ]

This is just going to be one of those days, isn't it.

[ She gingerly approaches the spinning wheel, and relieved that she is not feeling a compulsion, just picks it up and glances around. Maybe she can hide it? She looks back at the other girl. ]

This happen often?

[touchofrogue]

[ A muscle in Rogue's cheek pulses and she has to take a breath to contain her temper. She's already irritated that she had to give in to the compulsion to eat the (now splattered against the ground) apple. On the plus side, the head-aching-gnawing compulsion is gone so... yay. ]

Well, I haven't passed into death-like sleep yet, so that's a plus. [ She turns and gives him (and his notebook) a scathing glance. It's like a 7 on the Rogue scale of Disdain and Irritation. ] Who are you?

Jonathan Sims | The Magnus Archives | OTA help me voicetest

[itknowsyou]

Arrival
[ Well. This is an improvement on his usual dreams, but that is a dreadfully low bar.

Jon… isn’t sure that this is a dream. To be entirely honest, he has no idea what this is. The heavy, buzzing prickle of being watched—second nature to him, now—feels oddly distant. The inside of his head feels disconcertingly light and silent without it, as though someone’s turned the volume down too abruptly and his ears are still ringing with the loss.

Not that he’d like to call the absence of an eldritch voyeur a loss. He decides not to examine that too closely. He can still feel its gaze on him, anyway; it's just not as acute as before.

So Jon wanders, inspecting street signs and house numbers with an air of acute suspicion, and then begins knocking on strangers’ front doors.

Open your door and you may find a man—skinny and rumpled, his face and neck dotted with pockmark scars, his right hand marred by some old and terrible burn—blinking at you in surprise, as though he really didn’t expect anyone to answer. ]

Uncultured Swine
[ Oh! People are turning into pigs. Why didn’t anyone say so. This, at least, makes some semblance of sense.

The first time Jon encounters one of the newly-transformed, he eyes them with a mix of pity and wariness, gently edging backwards so as to keep his distance. ]

I do hope you don’t try to eat me. [ There's a sort of tiredness to it. ] That sounds… extremely unpleasant.

Spinning Wheels
[ From the moment he sees the spindle, an old and familiar panic kicks up in the back of his head.

It should help. It doesn’t help. He should be too powerful for this, for it to compel him, for it to puppet him like this—

So here is Jonathan Sims, an exhausted-looking man with an expression of absolute terror on his face, hesitating with his finger held poised above a spindle.

Whether you make it to him before he brings that finger down is up to you. ]

[paradoxpoint]

You've been gone for almost a year.

[variantcover]

Oh, no, the grocery store is fine. And some of the restaurants are run by Sleepers, so they're fine too. Like the diner. The diner's safe.

I just mean, if they host a party or something and it's catered, chances are the food and drink are going to mess with your head.

if you want it!

[itknowsyou]

[ Apparently, he's stalking children now. Excellent. Wonderful. Of course this is happening.

Even worse, he looks—haggard with exhaustion, hair going grey, his neck and hands a mess of scars—like the kind of monster that would stalk children.

And yet he can't seem to stop following her. It's to do with the spindle, he knows. There's still blood on the cuff of his sleeve, from where the pinprick bled so much more than it should have. He's tried to cut his own finger off, in the past, and hadn't even been able to leave a dent; so how was a needle able to make him look like a crime scene?

He has his suspicions. The same suspicions might explain why he cannot stop following a young girl.

But if he keeps to the shadows and tries to avoid eye contact, maybe she won't notice him. That'll definitely work. ]

[lightthedarkness]

Oh, well that's something. Um, how... can I pay for things? Like, if the citizens here are always looking to do something to us, so can I get a job or something if I need to?

[variantcover]

Oh, yeah, you can pretty much work wherever you want. They'll pay you to go to school, too, but school is lame.

[lightthedarkness]

Well, then thank you, Varian-kun! [She'd hug him but he didn't seem the sudden hug type.

Usagi checked her basket and shuffled things around before she pulled out the cellphone. Admittedly, Usagi had seen plenty of advanced technology, Ami's compact alone was a mini-super computer that nothing on earth could compare to. There were the senshi bracelets, the senshi base... really, she had seen a lot. So this... didn't shock her all that much but... well...]

This thing, yeah? Kinda looks like a portable game.

[droptheious]

[Varian completely ignores the scathing glance. He's hung around with Cassandra, okay. She has a scathing glance that can kill a man. He makes an 'mmm' noise, scribbling it down. ]

For now, anyway. Let me know if you feel woozy. [He taps the side of his notebook.] Uh... so I can get you to some help. Not just... for this.

[But also partly for this.]

I'm Varian. You new?

[casuistic]

It seems like yesterday. Is this common?

[droptheious]

[He is absolutely not the sudden hug type. He only deals with Rapunzels because there's no escape from Rapunzel's sudden hugs. They just happen and you have to let them. Like playing dead while being mauled by a bear.

He squints, canting his head a little.]

Do you mean like... like an arcade game? The big boxes? [Then, by way of explanation:] I'm from 1820, it turns out there's a lot of stuff I haven't heard about.

[He hates not knowing all the things. He's used to being the smartest person in any room at any given time and now the future has moved against him. It's mean. ]

[paradoxpoint]

I've only heard of it happening to people for a month at longest, and in those cases they didn't vanish completely.

You were gone. Your apartment was empty, too.

[lightthedarkness]

[Well, Usagi is the moon, not the sun. You can't look at the sun but you can definitely look at the moon.

But fear not, Varian, you will definitely be the smartest in the room if it's just the two of you. Usagi's claim to fame is not her intelligence. However, at the mention of being from the 1820s-]

OH MY GOSH! THAT'S SO COOL! I've never met someone from the 1800s before! [Because never having met someone from the past would be a lie... considering she does frequently look in the mirror.]

So like, where are you from? I'm from Tokyo, Japan! It's the 1990s for me! But yeah, the big arcade games, I love love love those! But this is like... ya know. We have cellphones but nothing this like... amazing, ya know. This is a cellphone and video game combined in a way.

[lightthedarkness]

Oh, well, I actually just graduated high school, so I guess I'm in the clear here... [Though, somehow, she can hear Ami screaming out in rage.]

I've never had a real job before. [No one paid her for being Sailor Moon.] Wonder what I should do....

Arrival

[lonelynotforsaken]

Jon...?

[Martin's hair is sleep-tousled, his voice rough. He's only just woken up in a place that is not the safe house. Jon missing, deer... trying to eat him? What?]

Did we- move?

[touchofrogue]

[ The picture of comfort, he is. ]

Yeah. [ You're terrible at this. Which honestly makes her feel a little better; she tends to be terrible at this stuff too, and it's a lot easier to deal with someone obnoxious than it is someone nice. Still, she manages to hold back the commentary, because if he is doing this to her... ] You see what happens when someone else eats one of those apples?

[variantcover]

You can do anything you want! What have you always wanted to do, but never got the chance?

[droptheious]

[Wow, that's the most excited anyone has ever been about his time period.]

Uh... well, honestly, if you're from the 1990's that's not surprising? I mean, anyone from the 1800s would be super dead by that time.

[He only has the vaguest idea what a 'cellphone' is from hanging around other people here. It seems the future is quite the time. You have have a conversation with someone in real-time from miles away. It's so dang cool.]

Um... nothing like that. I'm from Corona. It's part of the Seven Kingdoms. It's... pretty much worlds away from what's here. We don't even have electricity yet. Lots of obnoxious magic, though.

shrieks

[itknowsyou]

[ Jon’s head snaps up at the familiar voice, jumpy like he expects— he doesn’t know, this is all very disorienting, probably some unfriendly aspect of the Spiral?— around every corner, and...

It’s Martin. Martin, half-dressed and rumpled, his face soft and… jarringly open. Vulnerable, one could say. Very much like the man who stumbled around the Archives without trousers on, and not the man who spends all his time being worryingly mysterious with Peter.

Not that Jon could really mistake him for that other, younger Martin. Not with how tired he looks.

Something in Jon’s chest has gone kind of— wobbly. He swallows it down. ]

‘Move?’ What? Not intentionally. [ He takes this opportunity to barge past Martin and start. inspecting things. The place looks very much like a normal, sparsely-decorated townhome, but there’s sure to be something eerie just below the surface. ] I don’t know where we are.

[threelayers]

[So, funny story? Rogue wasn't the only one with compulsions around here. A second or two after the girl had picked that thing up, there was short stuff walking right up and pricking her... damnit. Well, thankfully her own gloves had staved off any blood too. They were both lucky this time around, though she was frowning in irritation. Damn this place, that was supposed to do something, wasn't it?

Oh right, the girl with the white stripe'd said something hadn't she? Glancing over at her, she thought for a second, remembered what it is and smirked before nodding. Definitely one of those days.

The other question, though, got more of a frown and her tapping her lips. She wasn't quite sure what to answer or what 'this' meant. What, the spinning wheels? Those were new. Random bullshit? That was every day. Random bullshit recreating itself to find new targets? Hard to say, but probably often enough to be a thing.

She settled finally... on a very visible shrug. She wasn't quite sure.]

screams back

[lonelynotforsaken]

[Martin just backs up, allowing Jon in and realizing he's really not dressed for the day. That's troubling. Are his clothes here?]

Oh... Okay.

[And closing the door. Martin rubs his eyes beneath his glasses. Right, right. Wake up. There's trouble, and Jon's obviously agitated.]

See anything interesting out there? [Tentatively:] Killer... deer, maybe?

[He heads to a dresser and finds some of his clothes, thankfully. He's going to start getting dressed, pulling off his sleeping T-shirt without preamble.]

[itknowsyou]

[ Tightly, craning his neck to peer through the windows: ] Not yet.

[ He turns, and— OH ALRIGHT WE’RE SHIRTLESS NOW. That’s. Better than going to meet their death in pajamas, possibly? But it might have merited some warning. He makes a noise of general indignation and turns hurriedly back to the window. ]

Did you dream of a deer? Do you remember anything else?

[ Agitated as he is, there’s the faintest hiss of power to it, an unconscious edge of compulsion. ]

[droptheious]

[Everyone benefits from having a Varian in their life.

He's the worst at this. How do you social? He doesn't know. It's a msytery.]

Not yet. I've observed what happens when people prick their finger on the spinning wheels- but I haven't seen anyone eat the apple yet. Once I know the effects, I can try and figure out a way to counteract them.