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soddersays2020-03-25 05:21 pm
sodder) wrote in soddersays2020-03-25 05:21 pm
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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.
no subject
The second emotion isn't as generous or charitable, and so obviously Alex is just going to try and refute it:]
What? A hoax? Richard, you can't be serious.
[Calling him Richard was generally a new phenomenon, that had mostly come from the things that they'd talked about that very long night, even if she'd slipped up and had done it before when she should have drawn more professional boundaries around their relationship. Alex was fairly well versed at ignoring all personal boundaries, even her own.]
An infection? It looks like someone has gone all Circe with this.
[Circe and her island of pigs who had once been Odysseus' sailors on their doomed voyage of course, after so long Alex knew her mythology.]
no subject
[Really Alex? Throwing Greek mythology at him? Someone lets out a shriek and he stands there nonplussed as the shriek dissolves into a squeal.]
Scientists have pointed out it's likely Circe's "transformation" of human beings was attributed to anticholinergic reactions. Symptoms include hallucinations,delusions, and amnesia. They think it stemmed from consuming Datura stramonium. You'll like this. Most people know it as the 'Devil's snare.' It's taken to induce hallucinations like LSD.
[Though...]
There could be something in the air that's afflicting us with this. Theoretically the pork could be fine.
no subject
Alex doesn't make a comment about it being related to demons again. Even here. She wants to, but she doesn't and just lets her low sigh speak for itself. It doesn't make her feel better, and it doesn't feel like enough.
Instead she just lifts her left wrist and shows off the brand new tattoo that appeared there when she'd woken up. Alex doesn't like it, there's too much about it that reminds her of all of the sacred geometry from back home.]
Really doubt I would have hallucinated something like this. And you're missing your unabomber flannel if you're going to say that we've got airborn LSD infection or something.
That said...
[Alex picks up a pork bun, but she doesn't actually eat it. She doesn't want to it it, and she's not going to eat it. Probably.]
It sound be fine for me to eat this then.
[Alex may or may not be counting on Richard to stop her from doing it.]
no subject
[The tattoo is disturbing. Especially because he rolls up his right wrist and there's a creature there with those same horns, only these are wickedly curved. His is bigger, covering parts of his forearm.]
I was hoping I was the only one unlucky enough to have something like this.
[His voice is soft because this seems just like - just like something Warren would do.]
...It's Tiamat-
[And then she makes a grab for the pork bun. His voice is firm and commanding.]
Alex. Don't.
[No. Absolutely not. He makes a grab for the pork bun.] Don't you dare. I don't want you to get sick.
no subject
The question will probably come later. It normally does.
Wiping her hands on the fabric of her jeans, just to be sure that something doesn't happen (because she's an idiot but not that much of one. Normally) Alex just carefully reaches out and traces her fingertips along the edge of the tattoo that he'd had. Given everything, all of their research and how far down the rabbit hole that they'd gone on Tiamat and her Horn, she doesn't need him to tell her who it represents. Though it's quite clear from the frown on her face that she doesn't like that this place has chosen to mark them with things that they're both afraid of: Alex and the sacred geometry that brings the demons and Richard with Tiamat and everything that Howard Strand represents.
After completing the circuit of the large tattoo with it's horns, Alex's hand stretches out, and she just lightly cups the skin there, giving it a reassuring squeeze in the same way that she had before when things had been difficult for him. Her voice is soft, and it's clear that what she's apologizing for isn't the bun.]
I'm sorry, Richard.
no subject
Then Alex touches him and it's like electricity runs through his skin. It's some unholy family legacy and he feels terrible because Alex has one too. None of this is real. None of it. But the ink didn't come off. It's my blood. That my bloodline has some kind of key for this.
Seeing Tiamat right there on his wrist filled him with a profound sense of unease and discomfort. Especially because of the sense, slight in his mind, that it did not look wrong. Like it was supposed to be there, engraved on him.
Taking her hands, he squeezes them mutely before a third person turned into a pig behind him.]
...How long have you been here? Did you just arrive too?
no subject
But it's easy for her to take his hands and give them a reassuring squeeze of her own, and Alex just nods at him, even if she does definitely wince at the person turning into a pig. That probably doesn't bode well for things, but Alex is still used to jumping at shadows considering well... everything that had happened in the last year. So instead Alex forcefully ignores it and she just nods in response to his question:]
Yeah, I woke up here last night. Felt like the first good night's sleep I've gotten in... Well. A while. I guess.
no subject
He doesn't pull away however, but he does go stoic and cold as he studies the people around him. When she says she got a goodnight sleep his tone is sincere.]
Good.
Something good came out of this.
[He laughs weakly.] Let's get something to eat that's not pig. The hamburger -
[Pause] Actually. Where are you staying? There should be food there, I'll come and cook for you.
[he pauses. Taking charge feels natural at least and he looks down at her.]
Hopefully it stays that way. You getting sleep.
no subject
[Alex just frowns for a moment, and she takes a steadying breath. There's something ironic, to her at least, that after so long and so many things that Alex has tried to be able to sleep, to be able to stay asleep, to stop those racing thoughts, that back home she's knocked the fuck out and here? Well, here she might as well have been a normal one of her nightmares. Well, almost. There'd be more demons. There'd be less of Richard holding her hand and more of him screaming at her about how she'd ruined his life. Just normal things that Alex Reagan doesn't like to think of when she's awake, so she can't stop thinking about them when she's asleep.
But at least she got some rest here, and she actually feels kind of okay right now that he's here too. At the very least, she's not been turned into a pig because he stopped her, so that's a win for the day. Giving him a nod, Alex gestures, she's always had a pretty decent sense of direction so she knows the way back to her apartment.
Besides, Alex is starving and she can't cook. Like she's going to turn him down considering he'd been asked to be on Podcast Chopped?! So she just gives him a nod and keeps one hand in his. Holding it. Which is probably fine. This is all probably fine considering it's a dream. One doesn't need to worry about journalism ethics in dreams.]
I'm at the David Cliff Apartments. Not too far away actually. I've been told to take the stairs because weird things happen which sounds about right. Where are you staying?
no subject
[It's him who pulls away. She believes this "dream" theory and he can't figure out what that might mean. He has speaking engagements, he has a book due. He can't figure out how to soften the blow of pulling away but instead he looks sincere - keeping an eye on the world around them as they walk.]
...I can't think of what that means. The last thing I remember was...
[Falling asleep on the couch. Had he been crying? He recalled holding Coralee's ring and turning it over in his hands as the wounds opened up again. At least it didn't bleed as much.]
...I was kind of hoping it was just some sort of delusion.
[It hits him that he would rather be insane then asleep and his hands drop into his pockets. Taller, still clad in his suit, he looks at Alex, wanting to speak - before he wipes a hand over his face. God that's awful.]
That means someone had to find our bodies if this is a dream...
[Charlie.
Charlie
He looks punched. He can't help it because - she has been angry with him. She has been angry with him for a long time but if he was in a dreamless sleep - she was in his will. She was the sole beneficiary of his will and the thought of her having to...see him like that was...
He swallowed.]
Distract me. Do you like Ramen?
no subject
Going back to work and throwing themselves into it had always been how both of them coped with things and Alex knows it. Here (so far anyway) there isn't any work, but at least they're not alone. Stepping closer to him, and taking the same sort of leeway that she'd taken the last time he'd looked like that, Alex just pressed her hand to his face, holding it for a moment.]
It was probably me who found you. I was planning on going over there anyway, to make sure that you were alright. And Nic knew where I was going.
[From the tone of her voice, it's clear that her best friend/boss might not have agreed with it, but was aware of it.]
We don't know what time looks like here, how it matches up or not. Don't panic yet, Richard. Yes, I like Ramen. You know me, I'm a sucker for soup, all soup. But pork. How do you feel about pho?
no subject
[He can cook anything if he puts his mind to it but-] When I was in college, I was determined to not live off pasta and mac and cheese. So I taught myself all kinds of pasta dishes.
[He hasn't really had time to go through his apartment. They're close however and he smiles at the memory.]
I'm afraid I can be a bit of a pasta snob. Freeze dried noodles is just...lazy cooking. Pho, Ramen- and you can make beef Ramen, Alex.
[He pauses]
I'll teach you. If you'd like.
no subject
It's a generous offer, but I'm guessing that you missed the whole thing where I was given the Hello Fresh stuff when they started sponsoring the show. It was supposed to be easy to make gourmet food. The only thing that I managed was gourmet ashes. I tried to do group meal prep with some of the interns last year, but that worked out about as badly as you expect. I'm pretty much banned from making anything more than popcorn or ezmac in the microwave. I mean, coffee and toast obviously but anything other than that seems like a recipe for disaster.
[Though Alex does pause and remembers the one thing that she can actually kind of cook. Or bake really. Even if they're no bake.]
I can make nanaimo bars though. I don't know if you've had them. They're kind of a Canadian thing.
[And not really something would have for a meal unless the wanted to get sick like a kid who ate all of their Halloween candy in one night.]
no subject
[He stares at her with a slight little smirk - his attempt at a smile.]
It'll...give us something to do. My tapes didn't end up coming with me. Investigations will have to happen so we can go home. But.
[He shrugs mutely.]
In this case however, I think beef pho would be good. Maybe with a garlic mushroom dish. My kitchen's fully stocked.
[Controlling things when you can't control everything. It's the way he's lived his life. His throat works and he smiles at her.]