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OCTOBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME
OCTOBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME
Welcome to October's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: MONSTER 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: ... Monsters..., excessive blood, possible death via monster or drowning, violence, being trapped in tight spaces, bloody GIF, dead body parts
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!
curse the fiends

You aren't alone. There may be one, two, or even three people there with you. You're all in this together, so you may as well work as a team to see if there's a way out. The room isn't very large and it's completely empty, save for a single flashlight in the center of the floor. The only way out (or maybe it's a way in) is a long, narrow, and very dark corridor. That's gotta be completely safe. Despite hesitations, what choice do you really have?
The flashlight won't give off an abundance of light, but it at least makes it so you aren't stumbling around blindly. As you move through the corridors, you'll start to hear the sickening screech like nails on a chalkboard, but there's something worse about it. Something that makes you feel like a bucket of ice has just been dropped down your back. Something dangerous. There are different corridors that branch off of the main one you're walking down and your team will have to decide whether to stick together an choose one path or split up and explore multiple to find away out. Given that you've only got one source of light, you'll want to choose carefully.
Whether you stay together or split up, the corridors all look the same. The same sound follows you wherever you go. Eventually you'll start to notice it sounds close. Too close. Like it's right... above you?
Looking up, you'll see a large monster which jumps down in front of your team within seconds of having the light turned on it. The beast takes up the majority of the space in the corridor and there's no getting around it. Time to double back and try out one of those other passages, it seems. Hopefully you can run quickly. It's not the only thing that's jumping out of the shadows to try and hunt you, either. The large creature is working with a smaller set of monsters who seem to appear out of nowhere, their footsteps impossible to hear, but the screeches they give are almost deafening. If you split up earlier, maybe you'll run into each other now; it seems like the monsters are herding you together, trying to make you easier to hunt.
The small monsters can be killed easily. Any weapons you have will work against them, no more than a couple of shots from a gun or a good hard swing of a blade will be needed to take them down. The big beast you first ran into is another story. Nothing seems to work to slow this guy down. It'll bleed, sure, the injuries are more than apparent, but it doesn't seem to make the monster any weaker. If anything, it just makes it more irate. The only chance of living is getting out.
If you're lucky, you'll eventually turn enough corridors to see cracks of light at the end of one. Light that seems to be coming through a door. If you can outrun the monster down this long, straight stretch, it seems to actually be your exit. The door is heavy and the lock is a little rusty, but with a little team effort, you should be able to get the thing shoved open. Slam it closed before the monster can get out and you'll find yourself safe again.
fear the old blood

While you're observing the cramped space around you, trying to find a way out, you might hear the sound of air rushing from above you, almost like the sounds of an elevator shaft. There's a ding, a click, the sound of doors opening— all from the ceiling up above. It's a way out! But nothing ever comes so easily in Deerington. Within seconds of the doors cracking open, blood will start to fill the room, pouring in from your only exit.
Working together and using the shelves as leverage, you might just be able to reach the ceiling to pull yourself up (and hopefully your partner), but you'll have to push against the downpour of blood in the process. It's far from easy, definitely slippery, and you'll have to move quickly if you don't want to end up drowning. Waiting it out for the room to fill so you can reach the top easier will prove to be a horrible idea; the moment the blood reaches the top of those bookshelves, rotting hands will begin to reach from the walls, dragging you down and keeping you from getting to the top.
Once you have both made it into the exit above, the doors will close, and the elevator will right itself. There's no blood anywhere to be found and there also isn't a button to press to choose any floors. You'll simply hear the sound of the elevator climbing the shaft before the doors open again, and you'll be let out into the lobby of the Grady Hotel.
Time to head home and take a shower, I guess.
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.
library; a - idk if this is ok
At any rate, it's not all that weird for him to appear in a library and since this place is goddamn crazy bananaland, he reckons this is the least strange place he could end up late at night.
And it is zero surprise he finds Becket here.
He flops right across from him, an...enormous book on Greek philosophy in his hands, and stares at Raleigh. ]
You're not supposed to have that shit in here.
s c r e a m
His stomach falls through the floor, heart immediately pounding as his poor stupid drunk brain tries to process-
Chuck. Chuck Hansen. Chuck who not long ago- Chuck who had given everything- Chuck who's last words Raleigh had heard over the comms in a goodbye not meant for him-
All at once Raleigh yelped and jerked back and tried to get up and forwards and backwards and fucking sideways like he's seeing a ghost because.. well. Isn't he? Toppling back over and out of his chair, book and bottle clanking together on the leather armchair as Raleigh and practically jumps out of his skin.
Maybe it was a little dramatic. but its late and this!? THIS IS HOW YOU SAY HELLO?!]
Hansen?!
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He doesn't think so, though. You proved yourself - more than once.
And honestly, the reaction is satisfying. Chuck leans back in his chair, book in his lap, and props an ankle on his knee. His boots are big and old and dirty, and his posture is almost...relaxed. Comfortable. Still a little (lot) arrogant, but more chill than Raleigh's probably ever seen him. There's an ease to his shoulders that wasn't there before.
Probably because he thinks he's dead, but whatever.
Chuck flashes Raleigh a wink. ]
Well hello to you too, Ray.
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[He takes a breath. He's drunk. He's drunk and Deerington has decided to fucking torture him with hallucinations of a dead colleague who's death could probably be pinned on Gipsy's back too if you tried hard enough.
He recovers a little bit and scrapes back his hair with his hands before pinching the bridge of his nose with his hand as he thinks about how to handle this. A beat. A breath. Nope. Chuck is still there.]
How- how long have you been here?
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Chuck isn’t actually sure how he feels, because he’s suddenly hit with a wall of emotion. Even if he’s dead, this all feels very real and he never thought he’d see Raleigh again - even just to cuff the back of his head and go oi ya cunt, we did it, and now the man is in front of him, real and drunk and as golden as ever.
Ahh, a childhood crush come to life. ]
Eh...a day or so.
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[What else was there to say. He and Chuck have never been on the right foot. Not once. Only in battle which, sure, that's what counted but they were on the same team after all. Outside of the conn-pod Chuck was constantly in Raleigh's face. Aggressive and snide and pissed off.. and Raleigh couldn't really fault him. Chuck had reason to be. Didn't piss him off any less but if he hadn't gone for Mako, Raleigh probably just would have taken it. Maybe.
Probably not.
By the end of it, though, they had began to work things out. Raleigh had proven himself. They'd shared a moment. And yet here Chuck was and he was so... blasé.]
Huh..
[Quiet. Thinking. Whoosah. Okay.
But of course out of everyone from his world showing up it would be the guy who hates his guts.]
Someone told me that people from the same world tend to show up at the same time.. I haven't been here long, a couple of weeks.
[He moves to sit but thinks better of it. Fuck it. The guy can hate him, whatever, he's just so relieved to see someone he knows. Closing the distance between them Raleigh stands at Chuck's chair and tugs him up into a rough, slightly desperate hug.]
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What else do you want me to be?
A better PERSON!
A better person. Please. His father never had the right things to say.
And in fact, Chuck wasn't even a pilot for the reasons a lot of the others were. They wanted to save lives (and have some glory, obviously, plus it really is hella fun to jockey). Chuck was a pilot because he had to be. Because he needed to be. Because his father was, and he would do anything possible to outdo his father and be the best Ranger, period.
Being a good person wasn’t in the cards. Maybe his crew would say otherwise, they knew him better than Herc but Chuck personally, when he looks in the mirror and sees those hazel eyes staring back at him…it’s just a stranger he sees. He doesn’t know himself. He doesn’t know who the fuck he is. Maybe he never did. As a kid, he liked math. Science. Chemistry. Maybe he still does. Maybe in another world he could’ve gone to college, ran off to MIT or Boston Dynamics. He’ll never know.
What does it matter, anyway? What if’s are pointless; he’s dead, maybe Becket’s dead, or maybe this is a weird purgatory or the beginning of a very bad hell loop, and there is one thing he knows for certain – he didn’t make it. There is absolutely no way he survived Striker’s detonation. None.
He wets his lips, focusing his eyes back on Raleigh and pulling himself from dark thoughts that are swirling around in his head like a thick, dense fog. He doesn’t really know what you’re talking about, and he frowns to himself, watching Raleigh get up and stumble over.
Before he can even protest, he’s being pulled out of his chair and for one wild, crazy moment Chuck thinks Becket is about to kiss him, but then he’s pulled into a drunken, desperate hug. He can smell the Scotch on Raleigh and were this real life and not..hell, or whatever, Chuck would make some kind of crack about it but instead he freezes, stiff, completely unsure what to do with physical affection.
He hasn’t been hugged since his mother died. Not since he was a boy.
Chuck laughs, a little uneasy, patting Raleigh’s back awkwardly, hand warm. Some deep piece of him relishes this, mind curling around the memory in the making and coiling tightly, storing it away for when he’s cold and lonely later. Maybe he’ll…just awkwardly…hug him back a little. Just a little, because he’s wary and unsure and not used to this. At all. ]
Heeeey, it’s alright mate. Didn't know you cared that much.
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Maybe he shouldn't have. Maybe it's weird and awkward. Probably. He's just so relieved to see a familiar face.]
Shut up, Hansen.
[And while Raleigh had been dying to say that to him before there's no heat behind it now. In fact he's smiling as he pulls back and grips Chuck's shoulders, giving him a little shake like he can't believe this is happening.]
Are you real? Are you actually here?
[Because he's doubting himself hard and he wouldn't put it past this hellhole dreamscape to fuck with him for the contraband booze he's using to self medicate.]
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[ As Raleigh told him to shut up with no heat, Chuck's words equally hold no vitriol. He has spent a long part of his life fluctuating between idolizing the Becket brothers, lusting after them, hating them, and then starting the cycle over again. He'd said Raleigh was a washed up has been who jeopardized the mission, and after the first test run with Gipsy, he'd been proved right. The rookie and the wash up were going to get everyone killed. He'd meant every word of it. He had been desperate to live, to maybe....maybe see the end of that fucking war and there Pentecost was, putting two jackasses on a suicide mission to save the planet.
But in the end...they've proved themselves. They hadn't been able to save Cherno or Crimson but they'd sure as shit saved Striker's ass, and Chuck won't ever forget that. And...well. He hasn't asked about Pitfall yet - he's afraid to know the answer. Or if the answer he gets will even be real since...lets face it. Chuck thinks he's dead, and in hell.
Raleigh doesn't immediately let go and Chuck sort of...
Well. He lets himself enjoy it for a few moments. Why shouldn't he? This is his version of hell so fuck it. Why not squeeze a little bit of comfort out of it, before it all goes to utter shit.
He blinks slowly at Raleigh, hands lifting to rest on his biceps, tipping his head a little. Is he here? Is he real? ]
Pretty sure I'm dead, mate. So wherever 'here' is, I reckon I'm as real as it gets. [ And you're just a figment of his imagination. He thinks. He sort of hopes because if you aren't, then that means you fucked it up and he'll have to hate you all over again. ]
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So maybe he was back full circle to him not surviving, either. Or maybe it really as like Joe said and Deerington pulled people in from all places and times. Maybe it pulled Chuck in the hair of a second before he was incinerated by Striker's thermo-nuclear payload.
He thinks about that for a moment. The memory is fresh for him still. There's been a lot going on but he's also had a lot of time to reflect and obsess over Pitfall much to his personal chagrin. Too much time. And no one to talk to about it who understood a word that was coming out of his mouth.
Raleigh squeezes Chuck's shoulders again before letting his hands drop to his sides, suddenly wired even with a blood alcohol level well above what it should be.]
That's about what I've found out. They're saying this is all a dream.
[He knows how crazy that sounds and steeples his fingers into a sort of ball as he tries to illustrate.]
A sort of.. nexus between dimensions. I think.. because we were so close to the breach.. maybe we were taken here in the blasts.
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His brow furrows as he churns this over and over in his mind, gears grinding. A dream. That…that part doesn’t make sense, because Chuck is very definitely dead, not sleeping somewhere. But being yanked to a Nexus makes a little but more sense. ]
Blasts? [ More than one, more than just his. That word is what he zeros right in on. That’s what has his hands on Raleigh’s shoulders, giving him a small shake. ] Ray, what happened after—
[ After I died. After it all went white. After Stacker and I-- ]
Did you and Mori finish it? Was it— [ Chuck’s voice catches a fraction here, a sharp crack in his armor. ]
Was it worth it? [ Was it worth his life? ]
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Did they do it. What a question. His expression tightens a little as he tries to sort out everything he remembers. He's been obsessing about it for weeks now and has a pretty well stitched together time line but something about being confronted by a ghost swept it out from under him.
He's pretty sure. Mostly sure. But giving a half answer is cruel on both of them and hurts just as deep as Chuck's follow up.
Maybe isn't going to cut it.]
Yeah.. [Soft. It aches. Everything aches inside and out. He meets Chuck's eyes with a mustered certainty he knows the other needs.]
It was worth it. We saved the world.
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It's worth it, though. Waiting for the answer. When it comes, Chuck locks eyes with Raleigh and gives a shaky exhale, fingers clutching at Raleigh's shoulders, gripping his shirt. ]
Good. That's-- that's good, then.
[ Means he can rest easy. He can let things go. Find some peace, maybe. Forgive, if he can.
His head drops, and he exhales again, his whole body trembling, just a little bit. He is not gonna cry in front of Becket, no sir. ]
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Standing there at ass o'clock in the library in his crusty uniform drunk trying to console- Think, Raleigh. Think and then act.]
You did it, man. It's over.
[Because that's what he would need to hear. Hell it's what he still needs to hear but no one in Deerington can provide him that. He has to be the one to give it to Chuck.. and if Chuck believes it then.. well. Raleigh has to as well and maybe that's alright.
He brings his hands back up, one to Chuck's shoulder, the other to the back of Chuck's neck. A solid support. A voice of clarity. It's real. This is real and it's over and it's all going to be alright with two little words.]
We won.
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[ He repeats the words slowly, like he's not...sure he completely believes them right away. Chuck is vaguely aware of Raleigh's hands, of the comfort he's attempting to convey, but Chuck is...mentally very far away at the moment, lost in a tumbling, swirling sea of thoughts that nearly overwhelm and drown him.
He never thought he'd see the day - and truthfully he technically hasn't, because he died that night, he knows that. He's not stupid. Whatever this is - a 'dream' (unlikely), a nexus (possibly), hell (almost definitely), heaven (more unlikely than the rest put together) - it's temporary. His fate is tied inexorably to that of his jaeger, which is blown to shit at the bottom of the Pacific ocean.
He never imagined a life for himself after the war. That was too far ahead, an impossibility he barely entertained. A world that existed without kaiju and with Chuck Hansen was as unlikely as pigs sprouting wings. He'd given it brief thought, on occasion, of course. He’s twenty-one and twenty-one year old men often think they’re unkillable. So yes, he’d given it some thought. What he might do. Where he'd go. But whenever he started to dream about those possibilities, what that life would look like, klaxons would scream and drag him into real life, away from thoughts and hopes for the future.
Chuck Hansen had no future. Chuck Hansen was dead. ]
We won. [ He says again, pulling his face up to look at Raleigh properly, eyes wet but no tears spilling, red rimmed, looking very much like the battered, seen too much, lived too little twenty-one year old that he was. A kid – that’s all he is, in some ways. A kid that grew up too fast, and died for a world that would never love him. ]
no subject
But that's never going to happen. It just isn't. That's not the way it played out.
Raleigh holds them like that for a long moment, braced and emotionally charged. He tries to think back through Mako's memories for any thread of something she knows about Chuck that he can use now to help him now but nothing really comes to mind. And really, Raleigh doesn't need a cheat sheet to navigate Chuck Hansen, he has to be a human being. And for better or worse that's what he is, flaws and all.
Raleigh squeezes him firmly but doesn't move. There's nothing more he can say or offer except his presence and time. He's got plenty of that. And he thinks maybe that's something no one has spared for Chuck.
Finally. Soft.]
Do you want a drink?
no subject
Fuck yeah.
[ He deserves one, he thinks. He hasn't had a beer since he was probably fifteen or sixteen, when he was promoted to pilot with his daddy.
God, fuck -- his father. He'll never see him again and Chuck just-- fuck, he can't. ]
Make it a double.
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Well I've got half a bottle and all night.
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[ Leave me.
He swallows, and he know it sounds pathetic and needy, but he can't help it. Chuck feels a little like he's been hit by a bus.
He takes a long, deep, shuddering breath. ]
Thanks, mate. Lets sit down and catch up, ay?
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And maybe more than that he was seeing a side of the other man he'd never glimpsed. But try as he may to avoid it, Chuck Hansen and his perfect record was human. And if he had any excuse to be scared and confused it was, well, this. Thinking Raleigh is a hallucination only to find that the likelihood of that being true is lower than the likelihood that their consciousnesses have both been relocated into another dimension and they are real and are, in fact, having this very conversation.]
I don't have a cup.. [Trying to explain as he moves his book and bottle, setting down the biography of Virginia Hall he's about half way through on the table and uncorking his scotch before offering it to Chuck.]
I guess.. Cheers.. to victory. Fuck the Kaiju.
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They separate, and Chuck's left feeling a little cold and needy, but he's not a pussy so he sits down hard in the chair he'd picked to begin with, moving the huge book on Greek philosophy he'd started with. ]
I don't care. [ He reaches for it and takes it, a half smile on his face, dimples briefly flashing. ] Fuck the kaiju.
[ He wont sniff it because he knows alcohol tastes like shit, but he'll take a swig and make such a face before handing it back. ]
no subject
And yet.. as Raleigh takes the bottle and a swig for himself with no grimace at all.. it's just so funny.
Or maybe it's just how absolutely bizarre the situation is and he's still only barely keeping his own shit together.]
No? No good?
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[ Christ. He's trying so hard to play it off but what the fuck. This is terrible, Raleigh. Why are you doing this to yourself?
He has such a sour expression on his face, and the taste is so terrible the panic eases and subsides, leaving behind a more human Chuck than ever before. ]
Ray, this is fuckin' terrible. Give it back.
no subject
I knooow.
[He hands it back and gets a little more comfortable in his chair. More to talk, less.. Chuck has three heads.]
Easy, man. Burns like hell but you'll get used to it.
[Was that sad sounding? Shut up. He's never claimed to be a good talker. Good social...anything, actually. Maybe when Yancy was around but Raleigh's always been a little bit of an outlier and left to his own devices it's been.. well. Bad.
Seems like he's been doing a lot of talking lately. Which is new. Maybe it's being forced to adapt to Deerington that's doing it.. maybe it's finally finding some kind of closure with the kaiju. Something.]
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But he tips it back and takes another swig anyway, coughing a little as he chokes it down as he passes it back to Raleigh. ]
I reckon the more you drink, the easier it gets?
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