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

[ there’s a part steve’s caring instincts that robin thinks is really, really noble. and there’s a part that she thinks is incomprehensibly stupid. right now, she’s having a hard time figuring out where “taking in a possessed high school bully” lies. ]

Just be careful. [ robin says, solemnly. for once, there’s no joke here, no sarcasm in her voice. billy better not hurt anyone — and especially not steve. ]

Yeah.

[ and maybe steve shouldn't have led with "there's a monster in billy" because billy lived in their house and is kind of steve's.... well whatever the word is.

He drums his fingers on the steering wheel. ]

Okay, so there's more, but you have to not freak out.

I won’t. [ robin shrugs. she owes steve that much, after all. it can’t be that bad. ] What is it?

So. You remember how you were telling me about how you. Were into Tammy.

[ Steve's told plenty of people about him and Billy. Most days he forgets that back in Hawkins it'd be suicide being that open, because here everyone acts like it it's just normal. But Robin's just got here from Hawkins, and it's making him nervous.

But it's Robin, he tells himself. She trusted him, so he can trust her too. ]

Well. I'm-- not just into girls. Apparently.

...You're into Billy.

[ robin fills in, connecting the dots so quickly only because she's lived that -- and lived it recently. she still remembers how it feels, not knowing if her palms were sweaty becuase of the drug or the nerves, her heart beating a million miles a minute, like it was about to jump out of her chest...and then the relief, when steve wasn't an asshole. when he'd accepted her, even joked about it.

so even though he's picked billy -- or at least, robin's like 95 percent sure it's billy, why bring this up right after mentioning that he's helping billy manage the mind flayer? -- of all people, robin just smiles, and offers steve a high-five, even though he's driving. there'll be time to talk about the rough details later. ]

Welcome to the team, dingus.

[ there's a genuine warmth to her voice, now. ]

Edited 2020-04-09 05:06 (UTC)

[ steve can't duck his head because he's driving and that would be dangerous, so there's nothing to hide how he winces, then blushes and grins when she gets it right on the first try.

jesus, he hadn't realised that he missed being called a dingus

he gives her a high five in return, briefly catching her eye in a grateful look ]

Team terrible taste, that's us.

[ at steve's comment, robin has to laugh -- and she does, letting out a big hah! ]

Woah, woah, easy there, Steve. I've got much better taste. I'm pretty sure Billy, like, stuffed Neil's head in a toilet once.

[ that poor, poor tuba player. ]

[ Steve keeps grinning, turning back to the road. ]

Neil-- [ it takes a second to think who that is ] What, like tuba Neil? Yeah, probably. He was such a douchebag back in school.

Oh, you don't even know the half of it.

[ robin pinches her nose and whines: ]

Joy Division's sophomore effort, Closer is really superior to Unknown Pleasures in every way, both sonically, and musically, to the point where it really set off a whole new genre...

[ robin makes a gagging face. ] So he might have deserved it.

[ steve's expression freezes in that look he used to get where he has no idea what's being said but he's not going to let on. ]

Uh-huh. Yeah. Definitely deserved that swirly.

[ But then he laughs, because he's older and doesn't care ]

He does really care about music, though. You should hear him and Byers go on and on about bands and genre stuff that literally no one cares about.

You mean Jonathan Byers? He and Billy actually talk to each other?

[ robin raises her eyebrows -- forget creepy townspeople with mallets, that's the strangest thing she's heard since coming here. ]

How many people from Hawkins are here anyway? There's you, and now me, and one of your kid friends, the one with the bad attitude and long hair, and Jonathan and Billy?

Edited 2020-04-09 21:27 (UTC)

Okay so there's you and me. [ Steve counts off on his fingers on the steering wheel ]

Billy, Jonathan Byers, his kid brother Will, Dustin Henderson, Mike Wheeler, and El. [ That's everyone? ] Nancy Wheeler was here for a while, but she's gone. So that's eight. Not too many.

[ Wait there's something he should share. ] We're all living in the same place, actually. It's pretty busy.