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)
soddersays2020-04-24 09:40 pm
sodder) wrote in soddersays2020-04-24 09:40 pm
Entry tags:
MAY 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME
MAY 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME
Welcome to May's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: DARK FANTASY 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: Heightened mental health issues (anxiety & paranoia), auditory hallucinations, option for visions of canon death and violence, child death, corpses, possession.
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!
DEATH'S EYE
Desperation and anxiety are things that come easily in a place like Deerington, but lately it seems like it's being felt in waves. Maybe you're feeling more desperate to get home, maybe you're afraid of what will happen when you do leave here, or maybe you're dreading what the month to come has in store for you. Some people might just start to feel anxious and terrified with no real reason behind it. The worries are plaguing your thoughts, leaving you unable to trust those around you. You keep seeing visions in your dreams of violent wars, senseless murders, and all of it seems to end with a stand in the middle of the woods with a single glass orb.There's no rationality for it, but eventually, you'll feel compelled to find the orb. You'll find that when you leave the house to go somewhere, you'll forget where you were headed, only to end up at the edge of the forest. Sometimes you might sleepwalk and wake up in the dirt by the trees. If you decide to fight it and keep leaving, you will grow more and more paranoid, isolated, and violently aggressive to those around you. If you can wait out a full week, you might find the anxiety starts to ease, and slowly over the course of five days, you will begin to return to normal.
If you don't fight it and head into the woods, you will feel pulled to follow a long and winding path through the woods. There are multiple branches off of the path, but you won't feel compelled to go down them. Keep heading straight. Another personal will eventually stumble down the path you're on as well and the two of you will walk together through the woods.
Eventually you'll find a clearing. It's the same clearing from your dream with the same orb displayed in front of you. One or both characters will hear whispering throughout the clearing that grows more intense the closer you get to the orb. They're urging you to touch it, to free yourself from the pain you've been feeling for days on end. The strong can fight it, but most characters will be too weak from the lack of sleep and the constant fear to refuse to give in.
If you do fight it, you can leave the clearing, but the same anxiety and paranoia cycles will follow you for another full week before it begins to ease. If you don't fight it and you touch the orb, you will be filled with a blinding pain that runs through your entire body. There will be a quick and heavy sequence of images that runs through your mind; they will be images of the most traumatic experiences that your companion has ever faced and you will feel as though you were experiencing every moment first hand.
When you break free, the anxiety and paranoia will be gone and you'll be back to yourself. It seems you two will have a lot to talk about on the walk home.
Note: It does not have to be just one character who touches the orb. Both characters are welcome to.
NOW YOU SEE ME
The first few signs you're being haunted are easy to miss. Maybe you think you just misplaced your keys or put that book you were reading down on a different counter than where you find it. Things get a little harder to ignore when random objects start to fall off shelves or glasses shatter without any warning. Eventually there's no denying you've got a full fledged poltergeist on your hands; the walls will shake and screams will echo in your head that you can't block out no matter how tightly you cover your ears. Lights will flicker and bulbs will eventually blow from the power surges. Objects that fly across the room will barely miss your head— some might not even miss at all.If you know any tricks for getting rid of angry spirits, none of them will work. Trying them seems to only make the spirit angrier. If you try too many times to get rid of the spirit, it will eventually possess you, filling you with a blind and violent rage that can make you attack even your closest of friends. The possession will last for one full hour and once the spirit leaves you, you'll feel completely drained for the rest of the day.
But there's hope! In your blessing's basket, your character will find one-half of an antler wreath. The trick is to find the person with the other half. Each wreath will have a unique set of flowers on them and you will have to find the person who has the flowers that match your own. Both of you will have been being haunted by the same ghost, it seems; they were a busy little poltergeist.
Once the two halves of the wreath are connected, it will begin to glow, before a faint wisp of light starts to travel a path in front of you both. If you follow the path of light, it will take you through the town, down the roads, through the playground at the elementary school, and eventually stopping near the edges of Koji Pond. Continuing to search will eventually lead to both character's stumbling on the body of a young child. Rest the wreath against them and the light will encompass the body, becoming blindingly bright, before disappearing altogether.
Both characters will be filled with a sense of peace afterward and will be safe from harm for a full twenty-four hours after the ceremony is complete.
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.
Excellent! Rogue will hate it. But it will also be a little bit of connection to make her think
[ But the... softness she sees in Raven's expression, the... fondness..
It's not that she doesn't know that her mother loves her. She knows her mother loves her. She just also knows that love didn't mean a damn thing when it came to lying to her, manipulating her, betraying her, attacking her friends while they were helpless, and serving her brain up to Apocalypse like it was a plate of catfish and hush puppies.
She's learned a lot from her mother and one of the most valuable lessons is that love doesn't mean anything if it's not backed up with action.
But... she can't ignore what she's seeing. There was no one who could act, who could lie as thoroughly as Mystique, but this is not the way her mother would be dealing with her after Rogue pushed her off the cliff. There was no desperation, no anger, hardly any guardedness -- no, this was not her mother, this was not the person who had hurt her.
That means she's not being fair. Rogue hates it when people aren't fair to others, when no chance is given. But... it's Mystique.
Rogue closes her eyes for a moment in clear violation of what she knows is the worst thing to do with Mystique. She absolutely knows that her mother would not hesitate to strike her if she was dumb enough to close her eyes in front of her, but she also is choosing to - trust - just enough that this vulnerability will not come around to bite her in the ass as she takes several deep breaths and tries to gather herself.
Assuming Mystique does not, in fact, strike, Rogue will open her eyes and lean back little to regard her with distance, but she at least has a handle on her temper (and her guilt and her shame and her hurt and her anger). ]
You an' I, in my world, we did not end well. An' I ain't ready to treat you like someone who can start fresh. I know it's not fair, but I think it's best if we steer clear of each other.
[ For. Ever. ]
no subject
Maybe this was an opportunity to do just that.
It's not clear what the other version of herself did to Rogue, but it might be comparatively less bad than her own track record, so she has no incentive to be forthcoming with the truth there. Not if she wants to try to make amends somehow--another skill she's not too great it. It could be her pride, or maybe purely stubbornness.]
It's the same in mine. Although when I tried to sneak into your wedding to watch from a distance, you personally invited me to be there with the other guests. Which is more than I deserved, but I did get to see you happy. [Even if it was with that thieving cajun womanizer. She could pick her battles!]
If that's what you want, I can keep my distance until you're ready. [Raven doesn't really want to keep her distance, and is likely to go back on her word, but for now she can agree to it.] If ever..
no subject
[ Let's just be clear about that. She is not married, and not the same person, and it may be pedantic but when it comes to Mystique, Rogue is not inclined to give her an inch. She still gets the gist of the story - rocky terms, enough reconciliation that the other her didn't turn her out on her ear when Mystique showed up for her wedding. (Wedding??? You know what? She's not even going to ask.) ]
And that is very much what I want. [ She manages to bite of: That's what I said, isn't it? She is really, really trying her best here, but all she really wants to do is-- well, nothing fair. ] An' I wouldn't hold my breath. [ But if there's one thing her time in another world has taught her, it's telling people who you want to change to change, and then giving them no outlet to prove it is just a recipe to give them zero incentive to change. ] Just don't go pretending to be other people in order try to get me to change my mind. That'll just make this personal.
no subject
Have it your way, then. [She can respect boundaries. At least until they become inconvenient to her.] Understood. But if you need anything, I'll be around and you can come find me. [Rogue's last comment isn't entirely out of order, but it doesn't mean she likes hearing that kind of warning from anyone.]
For whatever reason I'm not a wanted woman here. There's no reason to be anyone else as long as I'm well enough behaved, right? [And then maybe Rogue will see that she's able to be trusted..somewhat. She's may be agreeing to distance, but it doesn't mean she's giving up on the idea that they can fix the rift between them gradually. Somehow.]
If you were wondering, Remy is a bit too old for you now. You shouldn't bother. [Raven really can't help herself.]
so much tl;dr, i apologize
That should make her feel better. All it does is make her feel... not worse.
She is fully aware that Raven is being, for Raven, very generous in her agreement. Her temper is starting to level out, but she still just wants to be not there. ]
Thanks for the offer. [ She'd rather get her teeth drilled without Novocaine, but it's a testimony to the fact that her temper is calming that this is not said out loud or even fully implied in her tone. ]
And yeah, that's right. [ She hesitates a moment before that inner compulsion of being fair and offering a way out has her saying something she'd otherwise keep to herself. It's also the way Raven's been handling herself - if it wasn't so clear that that she wasn't the same, if she hadn't been so accommodating, then this would be going differently. ] We both know if you're tryin' to, you can become my best friend. [ A specific example, in her case, and one she's still not over, but general enough that she hopes Raven won't pick up on that massive hint. ] But if you want anything real -- then yeah, no reason to be anyone else.
[ ...and okay, that dig about who the other her had married does spark a quick flare of temper. It's the sort of thing that gets her saying more than she should in an instinctive effort to push back. ] S'alright. My last boyfriend was over a thousand years old. But I don't go after other women's husbands.
[ Her stony gaze communicates 'You don't know me' in a way that belies that Raven just got the most detail about one of the most important relationships Rogue's had in her years since she was yanked out of Bayville.
Meanwhile, her brain is circling around: Remy. She married Remy. wtf. ]
no worries i love it. and we're keeping this, right?
Over a thousand? That's interesting. [This one is different than hers, and she keeps underscoring that she is different than the one Raven knows. It's probably better that way, to treat them differently, not to assume they'd react to things the same way. Or that this Rogue would end up with that cajun playboy. Actually, that part is a relief. She could do so much better.]
Good. It's not a good habit to have. I know from experience. [For both their sakes she won't go into detail on this.]
i'm totally good with keeping this, yes!
She barely restrains herself from making a snide comment about Mystique's seduction techniques, except she really doesn't want to think about that. ]
So we're done here.
[ She has, at this point, forgotten what brought her out onto the street in the first place. She's clutching the half an antler wreath like it's stress relief. She turns to go. ]
awesome
So before Rogue can get very far, she rests a hand on the sleeve of her shoulder to get her attention for one more minute.]
One last thing since you're here. Will you humor me? [She holds up her half of the object, gesturing for Rogue to do the same so she could quickly be on her way. So far nothing has matched yet no matter how close or similar the halves looked. She's not holding her breath over this one.]
no subject
She doesn't think Mystique is going to attack her, she's not worried about that. It would be easier if she did. But she doesn't want to be touched, doesn't want the comfort that comes from it, not from her. And she doesn't want to risk getting a download and leaving an unconscious Mystique on the sidewalk in a town she doesn't trust. So - she takes a deep breath and doesn't say - Don't touch me - because she thinks that much is obvious.
Her gaze drops from Mystique's down to the wreath in her hand. ]
Fine.
[ Because saying yes is the easiest way out. Because teamwork and fairness and being trapped in an armpit dimension - because of trying to be at least a little bit Reasonable. She doesn't even really look as she holds the wreath out. ]
we can handwave this part if you want?
Thank you, sweetheart.
[She holds up her half to put them together, and Raven sees it before they join fully that it's a perfect match. When they link up a light comes from the completed wreath, first just radiating from it all around, and then it's more clear that it's pointing somewhere specific because as she moves it around in her hands the light continues to shine in the same direction, toward the school.]
Alright, this is more complicated than I understood it to be... How badly do you want to not be haunted? Can you tolerate me for a little longer?
seems like a good call - clears the way for the next
Her jaw works and she almost storms off just because fuck this. Of course the town would put them together, of course it would. ]
Let's just get this over with.