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

[ She's in the process of rubbing her temple when she notices the girl approaching and despite Laura knowing of Logan and the Professor, Jean can't exactly place any sort of recognition with her. Frustrating, just a little. But how can a person stay that perplexed when staring at a pair of those heart-shaped sunglasses?

The question, of course, has Jean come to pause for a moment before a tired smile tugs at her lips. ]

I... was in a lake right before I woke up here. That's why I'm... [ she gestures to herself ] ...like this.

[ Soaked. Cold. The possibility of what happened to her doesn't need to be addressed, really.

With Laura a little closer now, however, she takes a moment to really look at the girl and feels something... familiar about her now, though she can't quite place just what or why. Instead, she opts to smile again. ]

It's nice to meet you, Laura. I'm sorry to make you come out here like this. I'm just... a little out of sorts at the moment.

[Laura glances toward the direction of the lake, wondering how that happened. This town is a place where anything can happen, at least... It could drop a giant stack of pancakes on them from on high to kill them and she'd only be mildly shocked.

After a moment, she moves to remove her backpack, long enough that she can fetch the blanket. The quilt has a bunch of patterns of horses, because of course it does.

The hand that offers the blanket has a bit of dried blood on the knuckles, but it's a typical daily sight to her family; they're used to it — and used to bleaching a shirt clean of a few blood drops.]

It's okay. We are all a little 'out of sorts' when we wake up here.

... Besides, it is nice. To go for a walk.

[ Still with that smile on her lips, she takes the blanket offered to her, but comes to pause when she catches sight of the dried blood on Laura's knuckles, a concerned touch to her eyes. From what she can see, there doesn't seem to be any sort of wound that needs to be tended to and yet... ]

Thank you.

[ The blanket is draped across her lap and her attention back on the girl rather than keeping herself warm or drying off. ]

Everything's ok? [ A beat, she closes her eyes, a slight shake of her head before she smiles again, looking to Laura again. ] I mean... you're not alone here, are you?

[She blinks, looking a little unsure why Jean's asking.]

Me?

I am fine. I have... people here, looking out for me.

[It's something she's getting used to, to be sure. People used to look out for her in very different ways, after all, behind thick glass windows and across long sterile halls — not an ounce of love in it, other than those kind nurses who tried to sneak it when they could.]

You should worry more about yourself. You're the one who just crawled out of a lake.

Logan will not be happy if you get sick.

Or dropped out of one.

[ She's still not entirely sure how any of that makes sense considering what happened before her waking here, but... she shakes her head. Something that can be figured out later. Right now, she has a blanket and she's grateful for that. Wrapping it around her shoulders then, she brushes some damp strands of hair out of her face as she looks to Laura. ]

How- I mean... [ what does she even want to ask? ] ...are there any other X-Men here? You said you're... a fan?

[She nods slowly.]

There are some mutants. Some who are X-Men. I don't know if they're any you know; many of them are from different universes. [She doesn't particularly talk like a normal 12-year-old, but, well... that's just how it is, sometimes. She glances aside, unsure what she should say; that uncertainty is palpable.] I don't know very many mutants from home... Most of them are gone now.

It's nice to get to meet them here.

[ She's toweling her hair some and trying to wrap her mind around different universes when Laura says the word gone and Jean's focus is entirely on the girl once more, hand dropping down to her lap with the blanket. ]

Gone?

[ The first thought to come to mind is the Mutant Registration Act. The next is what that could mean for everyone she knows and loves. ]

What exactly do you mean by gone? Did something happen?

[Laura glances up at her, eyes dark and scanning and probably too familiar. Ultimately, she shakes her head. She knows some of why there aren't anymore mutants, but what good would it do, to launch into something so miserable? She's learned a little about tact the last year and a half.]

There just aren't anymore. I do not know a lot.

I lived in a building for most of my life, and we were not told important things. Things about the outside.

[... Okay, so avoiding miserable topics is impossible in this universe.]

[ To say that's unsettling would be an understatement, but Jean does her best not to let her concerns show too strongly through expression as she sits there, gaze drifting off. Mutants are no more. Laura has lived in a building and not told of the outside world while also being a mutant... it doesn't take much for her mind to begin gently clicking and sliding certain pieces into various places and she looks to Laura with a soft concern lingering within her eyes.

Something about her still pings familiar to her. ]

I'm sorry. [ She wears a weary smile on her lips. ] I'm asking you so many things out here like this when I haven't even dried myself off. I feel like conversations like this are a lot better over hot chocolate and something sweet, don't you?

[The girl offers the slightest smile, as is her way.]

It's okay.

... Hot chocolate would be good; I can tell you more about the town. Show you were things are.

[If anything, she's more than happy to be a glorified tour guide... at least until the harder hitting questions are presented again; she's not a very good liar. Much too honest about reality. But she'll do her best.]

The diner has really good food, as long as Frank's the one who cooks it.