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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

arrival;

( Whatever comes next, Elijah knows that he and Niklaus will face it together. Whether they face onslaughts of torment or find a settled peace, or whatever in between, they won't be alone. Together, always and forever. Before life started to slip from him, he'd surmised that they both may end up settling in a state of eternal sleep; the sensations of death may even be akin to being daggered.

What does come next sweeps all breath from him, holding him in a space that's like a tale of fantastical horror. It is, perhaps, the punishment they deserve.

Attempts at grasping how the throes of dying have played out flood over him when his eyes snap open. He's in a cottage, alone, interior dilapidated and foreign. He happens to have died in a suit, though, so he's able to leave that place with haste. Forest around him, his face remains hardened and unyielding as he examines what could have been an idyllic scene, if not for the must and decay tainting the air.

He walks, at human speed, stance guarded wholly because that's how he usually finds himself, especially over the course of the past few days. He gets several paces away from the house when he stops, glancing slightly up at absolutely nothing, listening out to try to pick up on anything noteworthy. About half a minute passes before he speaks, question thick in his tone, the single word purposeful. ) Niklaus?

( He hasn't heard a sound indicative of his brother being nearby. Are they in separate hells? Only one way to find out...

Elijah continues to walk, spotting a town just past the treeline. It gives him pause, but he makes no show of that. He comes out into the open and finally makes a dash at heightened speed, pointedly at what could be the main street of any small town in America. When he stops, he lets one hand slide into a pocket of his pants, eyes narrowing as he gives a full, pressing gaze around. ) Who knew the afterlife would be rife with quiet. I'd expected the torturing of souls. Brimstone. Imps. Not a space without anything glaringly...sinister. ( Talking to himself, naturally, and he just continues to stand there as he looks around.

All in all, he looks like he always would. Suit well-tailored, clean, ironed. His hair is neat, face shaven. He doesn't appear to be lacking in confidence, though he's undeniably stoic. He lets a quiet, resigned sigh slip from his lips as he swallows just so. Wherever the fates have taken him, he only hopes that Niklaus has found any semblance of peace. For all the darkness either of them have wrought, it's his younger brother's final deeds that really should matter most: Elijah isn't wholly surprised to be in what appears to be a bizarre purgatory, not after all he's done. He'd rather the outcome be different, but at least he'd had control over choosing to be there in those final moments of two far too long lives. Now, well, who knew what would transpire, truly. )

good endures;

spinning wheels

( Elijah explores his surroundings, likely a bit more informed about the whole of the situation he's in. He does absorb information quite well. One of the spinning wheels is the first jarring item he comes across. Or, he spots someone else pricking themselves upon its needle. The smell of blood fills his nostrils as he conjures up an expression of muted concern after making steps over to the person. ) Can I be of some assistance? It doesn't appear that this device remained gentle with you.

( He even offers a little smile, donning his suit and perfectly willing to sincerely provide aid. He's not familiar with what kind of consequences enchanted items may have, whoops. )

( ooc: please do feel free to pm me with any questions; also feel free to throw a wild card prompt at him! )

Edited 2020-03-27 12:52 (UTC)

[ she would recognise the way he wears a suit anywhere. katherine hasn't spent her immortal life not taking in the finer details of the people around her, especially of him.

when she sees the back of elijah along a sidewalk, her first instinct, as with anyone she knows from home, is to turn around and find another street to make her way to her destination. but katherine has been making it a point to stop running. stop running from the people she knows but also doesn't quite know, stop running from people's kindness, and stop running from her own shadow.

the last she'd seen of him had been beneath an archway in pennsylvania, and in that moment, she had thought she'd lost him forever. being in deerington had allowed her to run even from that, but sodder and her deers have a really funny way of giving a girl her wish to bury her head in the sand.

she narrows her eyes at his words, but she doesn't want to question them—not yet, anyway. filing them away for later, she decides to test the waters first. she stays a distance away, wondering if he can sense her near. ]

Be careful what you wish for. [ she shrugs and scrunches up her face. ] Imps could still happen here. [ she really wishes that there was something in her tone that would imply to him she's joking, but after the last two month's she's had... her jokes need a rewrite. ]

( She can finally go for a run again.

Lacing up her sneakers, she pulls her longer hair into a high pony tail and takes off. She's done drinking her month away. She's about action. And right now, her action is going to be running.

The last time she'd seen Elijah in person she'd had her emotions turned off. Elena's always remembered everything vividly, including her time without her humanity. It's why it she focused so intensely on her hatred for Katherine Pierce. Elena knows Elijah and Katherine couldn't have worked out. Katherine was back in Mystic Falls - for what she'd later learn would be help from Bonnie and Quetsiyah. But, knowing where Katherine ended up, with Elena shoving the cure down her throat and Elena's freshman year of college has made everything all the more complicated in this town.

She'd always respected Elijah, having made the original sacrifice deal with him and not his brother. Her relationship to Klaus is also complicated with a capital C on the end, and she wouldn't be Elena if she couldn't see through bad intentions and see the human beneath. )

Eljah.

( She has her headphones in, wanting to drown everything out. Danaerys is still cooped up inside during the day, her tentative truces remain in place with certain people and Stefan is still MIA. Without her headphones she'd hear Elijah's footsteps. But, with Kelly Clarkson blasting in her ears (Since U Been Gone, Elijah will hear), she rounds a corner and all but runs literally into the Original vampire. She stops short, not needing to catch her breath, because, vampire, but the shock remains. She tugs her earbuds out of her ears holding them in her right hand. )

Hi. You're - here.

( But besides Caroline and Stefan, nobody from her life in the past year. No Jo. No Ric. Not even Tyler or Matt. And please, for his safety, keep Jeremy away at art school. )

Did you just wake up?