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

spinning wheels ( a )

[magija]

[ she's grown quite accustomed to temptation in this place, the subtle urges that slip up beneath her skin that she can't be found able to take much control over, but she'd like to believe that after a year in this town, she'd have hardened her resistances a bit more than how she'd started.

so why is it that she feels so drawn to that sharpened point, flickering with a shine in the sun, her own hand lighting with physical curiosity, tempted to feel the sharp press at her skin —

until she's shaken out of that momentary trance by the sudden shout near her, body shuddering as awareness looms over her once more and she feels the gripping hold around her wrist before her hand meets that dangerous point. ]

I was — [ she turns her head, eyes finding that of the red-haired woman beside her as she blinks, almost as if she's only now gaining consciousness. ] I wasn't myself. I — you sensed something about it, didn't you?

[redheat]

[ Whether or not her gut feeling had been right in the possibility of something happening to this woman, Jean hadn't mean to simply stand back and see if she was right. To pretend to not feel what others feel or somehow just know that something is either happening or about to happen, it's something she's struggled with in her youth and still something she finds difficult to make sense of at times. But this, with this woman, she had felt a very sharp sense of something not right with this. ]

I did, yes. I don't know what but...

[ The last time she had felt something terrible would happen... she simply didn't want anything to happen to anyone here. Gently, fingers slip away from the woman's wrist. ]

Are you ok?

[magija]

[ it's ... familiar. the internal sense of something feeling off is something that's always come to her for as long as she's had her powers, and she finds herself surprised that she hadn't been the one to catch it first on her own. really, just the idea of pricking her finger in the first place would be completely nonsensical.

but there's something even further in what these wheels carry, something that makes her chest tighten uncomfortably now that she's broken out of that accidental trance. ]

Yes, I'm fine. I'm — [ she shakes her head, raising her own fingers once her hand is free to peer upon her palm, as if she might see something that isn't there. ] I usually have a better instinct about these things. I don't know what happened there. [ she raises her eyes to look at the woman again, attempting a soft smile. ] You probably saved my life. Even with a small prick like that —

[ who knows what this place might have done to her? ]

[redheat]

[ All she can offer the woman is a gentle smile of her own in regards to her thanks. ]

Who knows what might have happened.

[ Hands come to clutch at her arms then and they gently smooth themselves down, falling into a folded position against her chest then. ]

I can't really say I've been here anywhere close to even a few days, but I get the feeling this place isn't entirely friendly a lot of the time.

[ She purses her lips in thoughts, a glance around them to be sure that there's nothing else that might give her the creeps. At least for now. The things she had seen when she first found herself here and even before she first woke within that bed with the soft music playing... she still can't get those images out of her head nor the feeling of being watched in some way. ]

It's strange... [ words trail off for a moment, her gaze drifting past the woman ] ...I feel like normally I could make better sense of a lot of this but it's... difficult to.

[magija]

Only a few days? [ a newcomer, then. she doesn't know why it still always surprises her when new faces slip into the town. perhaps because it just makes her all the more aware just how long she's been here. ] As a year-long ... resident of sorts, I can guarantee it's not always the friendliest.

[ there's been more than sufficient time for her to learn, for her to know the difference between genuine good will and manipulative intent. still, there was always a way for them to catch her off guard if this spinning wheel had been any proof of that. ]

They play with your mind here. [ she speaks bluntly in response to the woman's uncertainty, knowing precisely where the discomfort comes from. ] You have to be careful in learning how to separate your own thoughts from the ones they try to place in you.

[ which is the sort of trick she's capable of doing, with her own abilities. ]

[redheat]

[ A telepath's worst nightmare, to be perfectly honest. To have little to no control over your own thoughts or even keeping those from others out. Her telepathy had been off as it was, before Alkali Lake and everything that happened moments before coming here. Even here, the couple times she's reached out, it hasn't been without a sort of fuzziness to it. As if blindly reaching through a thick fog that was both familiar and not at the same time.

So the look she gives the woman is one both unnerved and curious. Could a mutant be behind all this? There were those capable of creating and planting illusions within one's mind, but... she's not sure this is what any of this is. But she also can't rule the possibility out. ]

You've been dreaming for a year?

[ Because that's what all of this, isn't it? A dream? A very lifelike dream with obvious consequences attached to actions done such as feeling pain when one pricks their finger or something else of that nature. The mind is powerful thing, one doesn't need to tell Jean Grey that and yet... she still feels at a loss with all this. ]

A shared dream then... [ words she mumbles to herself as she gives a curious look around once more ] ...I'm not sensing any sort of presence that might be the one fabricating this.

[magija]

[ dreaming. it's always strange to hear someone refer to it like that, and it's always from the lips of someone who's just freshly arrived. calling everyone "sleepers" has become a common habit, only because it made things easier in separating them from the locals who seemed to be a definitive part of this whole set up. but the longer she's been here, the less it's felt like a dream, the horrors always too real to simply call a nightmare. ]

Something like that. Hard to say how much of it really is a dream.

[ though she'll agree with that sentiment since she can't confirm or deny it one way or another. even after a year, it's not as if she's received much more clearer answers about what all of this is.

but the woman's words earn more of her curiosity, and wanda watches her as she peers around. ] What do you mean by ... "sense"?

[redheat]

[ Believe her, she's not so sure she's entirely sold on the idea herself but she's aware of just how powerful the mind is and so, she can't entirely rule it out. Or that this may be someone's own extremely powerful illusion that even a telepath can't seem to penetrate.

Which, speaking of, she comes to pause when the woman asks for clarification regarding her sensing things.

For a moment, Jean looks to her a little apprehensively. Even back home coming clean that one has gifts... is a mutant, had mixed reactions depending on who you happened to be talking to. Some accepted it, some took it with confusion, some even praised it. Others? Others looked to you with hate and disgust.

Thankfully, she doesn't entirely get that feeling from this woman and so, after a moment of biting her lower lip, she sighs. A shake of her head, shrug of her shoulders, a smile shyly touching her lips. ]

I'm a telepath.

[ And she looks to the woman straight on then, swallowing as she does, smile still on her lips. ]

I can read people's minds. Hear their thoughts. Feel things that you can't normally see... that's what I ran to you. I had a feeling that something wasn't right.

[magija]

[ she's not sure how much the woman is prepared to share, especially considering that they'd only just met, and she knows full well she'd be hesitant to share the depth of her own capabilities. but the surprise comes when the woman makes that confession, simple and honest. ]

Telepath. [ she says it quietly, more to herself under her breath, like she's not quite sure that's exactly what she'd heard. but as further details are pieced together, wanda's struck with confusion that she's hearing parallel words that she'd be more inclined to say.

suddenly, she exhales a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. ]

Are you ... are you really? [ she's met people with magic, even others that could move things the way she can, but ... to read the mind — ] I thought I was the only — [ she shakes her head. ] Well, I'm not ... not quite that, but ... [ she raises a hand to her temple, almost laughing at how she's suddenly at a loss for words. ] It's more ... emotions than direct thoughts, but I suppose I'm something like that, too.

[redheat]

[ At her own surprise, Jean lifts her gaze to meet the woman's and she finds herself feeling a little more... relaxed. Not to say that she was tense around her, just... there's always something about being in the company of another who just gets it. The Professor had always been that comfort for her. ]

Like an empath.

[ Her lips curl up into a gentle smile. ]

But... I am. I can read minds I mean. I can also move things with my mind as well. Protect myself. Protect others.

[ That's what she had been doing before she found herself here. But she shakes herself from those thoughts, a hand running along her arm as she drags her teeth over her lower lip, letting her attention fall back onto the woman. ]

I'm what you would call a mutant. Someone with extraordinary gifts.