Sodder (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sodder) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
soddersays2020-03-25 05:21 pm
sodder) wrote in soddersays2020-03-25 05:21 pm
Entry tags:
APRIL 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME
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!
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.
good endures
Eventually, though, she's tired of it. She's tried to lose him, but he's still there. She waits until she turns a corner, and he continues to follow, before she stops and turns to him.]
What the hell're you doing? [She's got her arms crossed over her chest, glaring up at him like she's not only five feet tall.] I don't take kindly t'being followed.
no subject
Oh fuck!
[ --lets out the most startled yelp that a fully grown, six-foot-tall man can. But, hey, it snaps him awake, gets his conscious mind and his unconscious actions back in sync together. ]
What?
[ Jeff blinks, as if he's just coming to, annnnd... realizes he's being stared down by a woman who's about a full foot shorter than him-- which is pretty impressive, but also a really bad look on his part. The last thing he ever wants to do is come across as a threatening creep, even if he has no idea why their paths happened to cross so completely. ]
Oh! [ He holds up his hands to show that he comes in peace. ] Sorry-- I wasn't following you. I mean, I don't think I was? [ He doesn't really know what he was doing, to be honest. Everything's a bit fuzzy between pricking his finger on the spinning wheel and... now. ] I was just-- out. For a walk. Which, I guess happened to follow the same path as you, and I know that sounds super suspicious, but it's really just a coincidence.
A... ah... [ He wrinkles his nose, aware of how ridiculous and totally suspicious this all sounds. ] Really weird coincidence...
no subject
An extremely weird coincidence.
[She doesn't believe him, and the look on her face is proof enough of that.] Usually, I can lose someone quick as you please. But you managed to stay on my tail. How the hell is that?
[Nancy had been raised to be an incredibly skilled member of the underside of London. Picking pockets, picking locks, and quick escapes were all part of the package. That she was capable of doing magic was just a bonus.]
no subject
Uh... Pure dumb luck? I mean, not luck, there's nothing lucky about this-- But I swear I wasn't following you! [ If he says it a few more times, will it suddenly sound believable? Okay, no, maybe actions will speak louder than words here. ] Look, I'm just gonna turn around and go the other way, so, uh... Sorry. Again.
[ So that's his cue to leave.
Except, instead of turning around and walking away, he's still just standing here. It's like he forgot that he just said that he's leaving. ]
Okay. Leaving now.
...
Now?
[ Nope, still standing here. Now Jeff's looking disturbed, his brow furrowing as he murmurs under his breath: ] Okay, what the fuck is going on?
no subject
Fine. You stay there, and I'll walk away. Close your eyes.
[Just in case. And if he had a problem with keeping his eyes closed, she'd happily fix it for him. She waited until he complied before turning on her heel and marching off back the way she came.]
no subject
Except it won't be that easy, and he's starting to cotton on to that. There's a queasy sort of dread rising in his stomach, because as weird as this all is, there's something vaguely familiar about it. No, he's never felt compelled to stalk anyone before, but...
But. He has been in a situation where he didn't know which impulses were his, and which came from something else. Where he never really felt in control of himself. Where reality and dreams (and nightmares) all bled into one another, in a totally inescapable hell, and-- okay. This is mild in comparison, it is. But it's kind of like... the distant cousin of some old wounds. It's just similar enough to make him feel sick-- and worse-- doubt himself.
After all, it wouldn't be the first time he zoned out and snapped to his senses hours later, with big blank spots in his memory. Maybe he was stalking her? Okay, no, that's just paranoia talking, and he's got no reason to feel that way, except every second he stands there with his eyes closed, it just gets worse. The bad thoughts in his head, the self doubt, the sickness and bile rising up inside, the ghosts of traumas past, and the overbearing panic weaving through it all, telling him the only way to stop this is to follow follow follow--
He opens his eyes, and the girl's nowhere in sight. That should be a good thing, but the noise in his head doesn't stop. It isn't until he just gives in to the impulse-- follow-- that it starts to quiet down. But it won't go away until he's near her again, that much he's starting to realize. ]
I'm not crazy. [ He's just telling himself that-- and the girl, if she can hear him-- like it's some kind of mantra that'll put a stop to his... totally crazy behavior. ] Not crazy. I'm not crazy-- and I get that repeating that out loud over and over again definitely makes me sound crazy, but I'm not.
no subject
Suffice to say, she can hear him when he wanders back into her sight. She sighs heavily.]
You absolutely sound crazy. But lucky for you, this ain't the first time I've been followed. But it is the strangest. [Honestly, it sounded like a curse.] What did you do before you started following me? Is there anyone you've upset particularly badly lately?
no subject
But at least she seems to be taking this with a little less (totally justified) hostility now. Maybe, between the two of them, they can get to the bottom of this before it gets any worse. ]
Yeah, ah... [ He winces sympathetically, rubbing the side of his neck. ]. This isn't the first time I've... [ Lost his mind? Like hell he's going to say that. ] Experienced really weird shit like this. [ With a wry smile, he adds: ] I wish I could say that made me an expert. But I can't even think of anything that happened...
[ He lowers his hand then, thinking, before his eyes light up, all EUREKA! and he lifts his hand again, holding his needle-pricked finger up to Nancy with way too much excitement. Settle down, Jeff. ]
Oh! I poked my finger on one of those spinning wheels around town! [ Which might seem innocuous to a suburbanite like him. But while Jeff may be new to this town, he's sure as hell not new to magic. ] That's like Fairytale Curses 101...
no subject
Aha! [She grabs his hand to take a better look at the injury. She doesn't want to risk doing anything to try to heal it, her healing magic completely switched around on her and she didn't want to be the reason a man's finger fell off.]
Yeah- yeah it is. [She's judging him. Just a bit.] I'm quick learning if strange things appear in the streets here you don't interact. Chances are they're cursed.
no subject
Okay, in my defense, I totally didn't mean to touch the damn thing. I definitely remember thinking to myself: do not go near any mysterious objects that only appear in fairy tales and the Renaissance Festival, because that shit definitely spells trouble and--
And then, it was like...
[ Jeff trails off, frowning, as he tries to figure out how to describe it. It's difficult, though, because every time he tries to pinpoint the memory of that moment, it's like it gets swept away in a fog. ]
Um. Anyway. You don't happen to have any experience with breaking a curse, do you?
no subject
[That was really par for the course here.]
Well. Aren't you a lucky man- I happen to have plenty of experience breaking curses.