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

cw: body horror

[yourule]

Y-yeah.

[ robin would say something more coherent, or at least wordier, but she's interrupted by some very unpleasant and involuntary heaving. but instead of looking pale, robin's skin starts to take on a pinkish tone. meanwhile, her stomach continues to expand, and robin can feel her nose almost...flattening. it's turning into a snout, but robin doesn't know that. to her, it just feels like her body is being pulled apart. ]

Wh--what the fuck. This -- [ another heave ] -- this isn't food poisoning.

[laruetheday]

[ Clarisse very bravely jumps the fuck out of her chair and knocks it over in her hurry to back as far away from Robin as she physically can without leaving the building. You know, just in case the whole turning-into-a-pig thing is contagious.

Here's the thing: the gods turn people into animals all the time as punishment. They turn into animals themselves whenever they feel like it, usually to trick mortals and get up to some weird nonsense. But there's a huge difference between knowing that and seeing it happen, horrifically, to another person for no apparent reason. ]

Shit. I— [ Nope, she doesn't know what to say. Much less what to do. She can only watch, horrified. ]

[yourule]

[ robin only dimly registers clarisse’s fear — she’s too busy being horrified herself. there’s a crunch of bone as robin’s limbs start shortening, and she slides forward, leaning against the counter, unable to support herself sitting up anymore. robin tries to speak, tries to scream, try to do something —

but all she can do is squeal.

a tail pops through the back of her pants. robin’s transformation is complete — she’s a medium-sized pig in the remains of a chintzy sailor suit. ]

[laruetheday]

[ The transformation finishes, and Clarisse gets her shit together enough to peel herself off the wall and take a closer look. It's... oh, it's a pig. Her immediate first thought is of her father—it's one of his sacred animals, after all.

And it's not like she's never thought about it before—having her own war boar, something huge and mean, with tusks that could rip through armor. She'd always thought that would be pretty badass. She might have asked for it once or twice after throwing a part of her meal into the fire, when she was younger and thought her dad might actually answer.

This, though? This thing with the stupid outfit (and who used to be a perfectly nice looking girl, by the way)? If it's a gift from Ares, it's only because he's messing with her, expecting her to get mad about it. She grits her teeth and looks up at the ceiling and mutters, ] Thank you. [ Because that'll show him. ]

[ Then, she crouches, looking at Robin with mingled curiosity and apprehension. Like... is it hers? Does she have to feed it? Take it for walks? Do pigs go on walks? Can she get rid of the sailor outfit and get it a biker jacket? Can pigs be house trained? Shit, she has a lot of questions. ]

Can you talk? Remember who you are? [ First things first, though. ]

[yourule]

[ robin is, understandably, extremely disoriented. she lets her body slide off the stool and onto the ground, where she starts pacing back and forth, back and forth, clumsily trying to get acquainted with her new body. she butts her head into the base of the stool, hoping that'll get her to snap out of this nightmare, but no luck. she's still a pig.

then clarisse says thank you and robin looks towards the other girl again, bewildered. thank you? for what, turning into a pig? robin oinks indignantly. ]

[laruetheday]

[ Clarisse rises again with a sigh. She didn't want to spend her day taking care of a pig. This sucks. But, you know, at least said pig appears to be aware of its predicament, judging by the headbutting and indignant oinking. ]

So you can't talk, but you can understand?

[yourule]

[ robin oinks again and nods her little piggy head. thankfully, she can still understand human speech, even if she can't speak it.

pig-robin sits on her hindquarters, her head slumped forward, almost dejected. what now? is she going to be a pig forever? in front of this very strong and attractive girl? this sucks! ]

[laruetheday]

[ Clarisse looks down at the dejected pig, not sure what to do. It's kind of funny, sure, but she's not a total sociopath. She doesn't want this girl to just... live as a pig forever, unable to speak or use opposable thumbs. Finally she sighs again and leans down to scoop Robin up under one arm. ]

So here's what I'm thinking. You're either a terrible gift from my father or this is a thing that happens in this town sometimes. I need to find out which.

[yourule]

[ oop, and up robin goes! robin squeals in surprise, but then relaxes a little as soon as she realizes that clarisse probably isn't going to hurt her. robin pokes clarisse's mouth with her snout, trying to indicate that it was something robin ate -- the bacon -- that might have done this. ]

[laruetheday]

Yeah, yeah, I got it.

[ CUE A MONTAGE: Clarisse hauling Robin all over town while she interrogates the townspeople, Clarisse finally cornering some evil old lady and getting her to admit that she needs to carry Robin (now dubbed Scoops) up the mountain and sing to her, Clarisse's reluctant acquiescence (because, after all, she is Involved now, even if this quest is dumb), and the long trip up the mountain. Clarisse is strong and carries Robin without complaint, rarely having to stop and adjust her grip, but by the time they get to the top of the mountain there's sweat on her brow. She sets Robin semi-gently on the grass near the stream and flops onto her back a few feet away. And then, glancing over to make sure Robin's drinking, she starts to sing Genocide by The Offspring. As soon as it looks like the transformation is reversing, she'll stop mid-lyric. ]

[yourule]

[ once robin gets over the initial shock of being a pig, she find that she's actually having a pretty okay time, given the circumstances. being carried up a mountain by a very strong girl is, in its own way, pretty fun. and also kind of hot? very hot, actually, and robin will think about this trip every night as she's falling asleep for the next several weeks.

the transformation does reverse, and robin reverts back to her human form. she's still wearing her scoops ahoy uniform, but luckily, it isn't too badly damaged. the power of dream-logic!

robin does have a few questions though, the first and foremost being: ]

Dude, what were you singing?

[ the offspring don't exist in 1985. ]

[laruetheday]

[ Clarisse didn't find the trip up the mountain hot at all, mostly because Robin was a pig during it. But now that she's human again, Clarisse can admit there's a certain level of, like, weird Greek romance attached to this whole thing. Turning someone human again. It's kind of intense.

She props herself up on her elbows so she can look at Robin more closely. She would've thought there were better questions to ask first. Things like "what the fuck?" and "who are you?" and "no, really, what the fuck?" But apparently not. ]

What, you don't have The Offspring where you come from?

[yourule]

[ robin shakes her head. ] I mean, we have people making babies, yeah. But if The Offspring are a band, then nope. [ she shrugs. ] No Offspring.

[ she smiles now, trying to keep her facial expression chill and easygoing even though right now, robin just feels embarrassed. ]

Thanks for that, though. Would’ve sucked to be a pig forever.

[laruetheday]

Whatever. I just didn't want to have to take care of a pig forever. I don't even know what they eat.

[ Clarisse sits up, curling her arms around her knees and looking at the stream. Weird that there's no animals around at all. ]

We'll need to walk back down before it gets dark. [ Because she's done worse, but she doesn't really want to camp out on the creepy mountain overnight. ]

[yourule]

Aw, you would’ve taken care of me forever? That’s so sweet.

[ robin beams. she’s having a great time messing with her savior. clarisse does make a good point though, and robin starts back down the mountain. she’s not sentimental about this place. ]

What’s your name, anyway? I’m Robin. [ she rolls her eyes. ] If you couldn’t tell by the name tag.

[laruetheday]

[ Clarisse sighs and gets to her feet; she wouldn't have minded a couple more minutes to rest, but she starts to follow Robin down the path. At least it's downhill this time. ]

Clarisse. And I don't know, maybe. Maybe I would've sold you to the diner. You know, so they could make more bacon.