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July 2018 Test Drive Meme

JULY 2018 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to July's Test Drive Meme! This is our first Test Drive ever so let's make it a good one. This month's Test Drive's theme is: JAPANESE BASED 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: Psychological horror, supernatural horror, body horror with stitches, potential gore, potential burning.

Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Prompt Three
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

THE SISTERS OF KOJI POND

The streets of Deerington are hazy this fine summer evening in July. Buzzing drunkenly through the tall wild grass on the sides of streets are the speckled dots of fireflies as they fly about. It's a bit muggy, the kind that makes your clothes hang from your body and cling against the slopes of your shoulders and arms. It's easy to feel lost in the tranquility of that perfect summer night. The stars are bright overhead, and there's a full moon in the sky that looks as big as a quarter from where you're standing. Distantly, it smells like somewhere someone is having a late night bonfire. If you listen hard enough, you could almost hear the crackling of the wood as it splinters and burns.

That's when you can hear the soft laughter of a woman. It's the appealing kind of laughter that maybe reminds you of a distant lover, a sister, a friend, or maybe even your own mother. Turning towards the laughter, you might see the shining glow of the moon tucking itself behind a nearby building. But no, the moon was still up in the sky where it belonged. Wasn't it? The moon has halved itself. That's all right. That's how it had been when you last looked. Wasn't it?

The laughter distracts you from the halved moon, sounding closer now. The exhale of a sigh and you feel that prickling sensation that you are not alone. That's when you see a white cat. The creature is sitting neatly in front of a street lamp, and it's positively otherworldly with its luminescent glow. So that's where the moon had gone. The cat appears perfectly normal except it has twin tails winding slowly back and forth behind it.

When the cat finally looks your way, it opens its mouth and a woman's laugh comes out of it, bright and cheerful.

The cat stands up and pads down the sidewalk, its tails twirling about in an almost mesmerizing motion. Behind you, the moon has gone from a half down to a thin crescent, the stars blacking out one after the other.

If you follow the cat, it takes you down winding streets. The cat takes you to Koji Pond. Above the sky has gone completely black, and there are no fireflies to see. The street lamps have gone completely out. It's just you and the woman-.

The woman? What had happened to the cat? No, it had always been a woman you were following, right? You can't mistaken a cat for a woman.

But there's not just one woman. There's two, you realize. Two at opposite ends of the pond. Each are wearing an identical moon-white kimono. One is laughing softly, but the other is staring blankly across the water. The grave woman wears her long black hair up in a tight bun, whereas the laughing woman's hair is flowing free and filled with soft flowers. The grim woman turns her flat, black eyes and gestures to you.

"Come here. Now."

The laughing woman tucks some hair behind her ear, looking your way. She radiates warmth and that summer sweetness you remembered feeling before the world went dark. "My sister is so cruel. Ignore her. Sit beside me."

Which woman will you go to? Neither of the women will pressure you, but you'll find that if you try to leave, your sight will grow darker and darker, though you won't be blind exactly. It's more like the light from all the worlds in existence have been stolen away and put into these two women. Everything beyond them is cast in darkness.

If you go to the stern woman, her tight expression will smooth out and she will bow her head, cupping her hands against her chest. From her sleeves, she will remove a silk bag of roasted soybeans. She hands them to you, not smiling, but not looking quite as severe as she had moments ago. "Scatter them."

Once you do, you'll notice the more you scatter, the more stars you bring back into the night sky. By the time you're done with the bag, the women will have both disappeared, and the white cat from before will be sitting where the stern woman once sat. Only this time, the cat has one tail.

However, if you decide to go to the laughing woman....

As you come closer, you'll notice that her hair is parted to hang evenly over her shoulders, and at the back of her neck is ...a mouth. A snarling mouth with sharp teeth. The closer you walk to her, the hotter and more stifling the air around you becomes. All you can hear is the woman laughing. Her face is reflected a million times in the water's surface in Koji Pond, all laughing, an entire auditorium's worth of laughter hurled at you.

You must overcome the laughter. The woman's hair will grow, wrapping itself around you wherever it can to drag you towards her. The moment you assault the woman, her laughter will turn to screams and the world all around you will feel as if you've been placed into an oven. Small fires will spark live in nearby bushes and across the grass.

It doesn't seem like regular objects can truly kill her though.

The other sister can't reach you, but she is throwing raw soybeans to you. They scatter all over the place. If you're quick on your feet, you'd think to pick them up. If you're even quicker, you'd think to throw the soybeans into the nearby fires to roast them. This seems to be the only way to really hurt the woman- and the only way to eventually banish her. But it'll take some time.

The worst part? The longer you stay near the woman, the sicker you'll feel. Maybe you'll come down with the cold, or maybe you'll grow blisters on your tongue. It doesn't matter: you'll grow terribly sick with some illness in the world and nothing will cure it until the woman has been abolished. And when she finally is? You will be left terribly weakened, but the stars will slowly come back as will the full moon.

I LOVE YOU: PLEASE LOVE ME BACK

It begins as a regular day in Deerington. The only problem is that there's really no such thing as a regular day in Deerington. When you come to, you'll find yourself feeling particularly emotional. Whether that's overly sad or happy, it doesn't seem to matter, because you're feeling everything so intensely. Maybe you just didn't sleep right, or maybe it's this weird dream you're having. Hopefully if you ignore it, it'll go away.

Except it doesn't go away. It's beginning to feel isolating being alone with your thoughts, even if they're happy, because it feels like you're near bursting to express yourself to someone.

When you finally cave, it's to the nearest person. The urge grows even louder inside of you until finally you're exclaiming loudly to the other person how you're feeling. Then you think to ask something that seems perfectly natural to you: you ask for a hug. Or maybe you ask for a handshake. Any contact.

Maybe the other person is sympathetic, or maybe they're feeling this emotional onslaught as much as you are. Either way, the moment your skin makes contact with another person's body, you'll feel a sudden swoop of sensation slide through your skin. It doesn't hurt, necessarily, but you've never felt anything quite like it before. And you don't want to stop touching this person wherever you may be touching them. As a matter of fact, you want to get closer. This urge does not need to be felt on both ends.

But the closer you get, the more yourself you begin to feel. Until at last you decide to look to where you have touched the other person.

Securing the two of you together are thick, coarse black stitches. Try and tug yourself away will result in atrocious pain on both ends. Anywhere your skin has touched the other person's will have been stitched to it. Careful getting hysterical though- the more emotional you become, the more likely you'll be to crowd closer to the person you're sewn into, and the more you'll fuse together. Better try and calm each other down first.

The solution is simple: you need to cut your way out of the bond. The tricky part is finding something to cut it with...and, well, the fact that the moment someone tries to cut the stitches, you'll both feel a hysterical urge to stay together forever.

It's possible to overcome that urge- but boy, do you need to have an iron will. Cutting the stitches is a miserable ordeal that hurts every snip of the way- but each time you cut a stitching, it fades away entirely as if it had never been there to begin with.

There is another option, of course. You could always jump into some water and get the stitches wet. Once you do, they'll melt right off you, not even leaving holes or dots behind. Surely you hadn't just imagined that, right?

THIS IS MY HOLE, IT WAS MADE FOR ME!

It is certainly a nice day for a refreshing hike into the woods! Or perhaps you have decided that a little exploration is in order for this new, strange town you have woken up to. At some point along the way, perhaps you find someone else on the trails of the National Park. No such thing as bad company, right? As you traverse towards Mount Rheum, the wind begins to pick up and you hear a low moaning. You could swear that you recognize that voice. Before you can place any names, the moaning stops and it's easy to think that maybe it was just the wind. Winds pulling through the trees always did make the strangest noises.

Except when the wind picks back up, you're more certain that you know this voice. Maybe it's the voice of your companion, or a loved one, a hated one from back home...Maybe it's even your own voice that you recognize. Each time the wind blows, the voice seems to change. It can't be the wind? It all seems to be coming from one direction: Mount Rheum.

You never quite reach the base of the mountain.

Even if you head straight on towards the mountain, when you pass through the line of trees that should technically open up to the base, you'll find no such thing. Instead, you'll find an enormous looming wall of gray slate. You can't even see the mountain behind it, it's so immense. How did you not see that from the forest? The wall seems to be tipped towards the mountain, and you think, just maybe, you could climb it. It crosses your mind for just a second before you notice something odd about the wall. From far away, it looks like a bunch of black smudges. But as you grow closer, you realize they aren't smudges at all. They are holes.

Holes the shape of human beings. And every single hole looks completely different from the next. There's hundreds of them, maybe even thousands, and they climb all the way up the slate wall. And there is one hole made specifically for you.

You may even find the hole that belongs to someone you know, or your companion, and every time the wind blows, you can hear the groaning voice of that person coming from within their hole.

It is impossible to get over the wall of gray slate. No matter how hard you may try. But it seems possible to find your own hole. You'd swear that the holes are moving. Examine the inside, and they seem to go on indefinitely. Put your hand inside any of them, and they will feel oddly warm. As warm as a human body. If you put your hand into the hole that belongs to the person you're with, they will feel a terrible coldness overcome them. Keep your hand in long enough, and you'll begin to see them die right in front of you. Better keep your hands to yourself....Or that'd be easier said than done if you didn't feel yourself grow in power, in intelligence just from stealing their life force.

Climbing into your own hole? You'll feel exhilarated! Alive! Like you have truly found the proof of your own soul. You don't want to leave your hole. It was made for you!

It is almost impossible to get out of your own hole. Chances are good you'll be slowly pulled into it, your body steadily crushed and stretched out, but you'll be conscious the entire time, and at some point you'll begin to moan horribly from the pain of it all.

Of course, you can always be saved. If someone climbs into your hole after you, it'll break apart the rock structure clenching down around you and they might be able to pull you out in time. You'll be left terribly weak, pale, and incapable of proper speech for a couple of hours...But at least you're not dead.

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.

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ALL WORK AND NO PLAY; (option 1)

[ The comic book store doesn’t get a lot of patrons — or, at least, ones that will interact with her. She’s not sure why she was hired, in all honesty. A lot of the townspeople refuse to let her ring them up, and don’t interact with her when they come for their tournaments.

But. It’s a paycheck. And she can catch up on some of the older issues of the indie comics she prefers to read while she sits and mans the cash register. She likes the quiet the place affords her. And if she’s being entirely honest, she likes that it reminds her of Simon. True, the patrons don’t look like him — he’s not a saturated, technicolor, person. But he liked comics, and he liked card games, and if she can have even just a little piece of home, then she’ll take it.

Even if it is a little boring.

She’s got an old, faded, copy of an old Marvel comic titled ‘Mystic Comics’, today, paged open to a story about a minion of Satan known as The Black Widow. She’s still glancing up every now and then when the door opens and the bell signalling someone is walking in sounds, and she raises her hand in a wave. ]

Welcome! Can I help you find something today?

IS THAT ANIME? (option 2)

[ On her days off from work and classes, Clary spends time at the cafe. She’ll be the first to tell you that she bleeds coffee, although she does find it a little weird that the baristas there can never seem to remember her order or her name, despite the fact she’s there almost every day.

She is, at least, left alone for the most part, by the Townies. Which is good, because it means she can people watch. The bright colors of the people who live here always catch her artistic eye, and today is no different.

She’s seated in a corner, sketchpad out, colored pencils scattered on the table in front of her. She’s in luck today, too — she opted to get a croissant with her latte, so if you get her attention, she might actually respond, unless she’s too busy trying to capture the exact shade of pink that colors the hair of the barista currently manning the espresso bar. ]

THE SISTERS OF KOJI POND (option 3)
[ Tonight’s walk home from work feels… different. She chalks it up to the weather, sticky hot, her clothing making her feel like nothing more than a sweaty sausage. She’s looking forward to a shower, but the lazy night coupled with the smell of a distant bonfire has Clary taking her time on her route. It’s peaceful, if soggy, and she almost doesn’t hear the laughter at first.

Clary stops in her tracks, her heart seizing up, because &mdash ] Mom?

[ It’s not the thick air that keeps her from breathing. Clary whirls around, distress marring her features until her gaze lands on the cat. The consternation of seeing it stops her movement, and her confusion is only compounded when it opens it’s jaw and laughs — exactly like her mother.

When it stands up, Clary follow, pulling her seraph blade from the sheathe on her thigh, although she doesn’t extend it. Not yet. There’s something weird going on here, and as the cat travels on, so does she, her suspicion (and fear) only growing the longer she trails after. It’s the darkness that causes her to release her weapon, the sight of the two women sending an otherworldly chill down her spine.

She can’t see anything — even to her Sight they look normal, but something isn’t right, even as the far woman sternly tells her to come and the near woman laughs and tells her to stay. Clary tosses a glance the other woman’s way, but steps closer to the laughing woman —

And immediately regrets that choice. Her blade is dropped to the ground as hair shoots out, wrapping around her wrists and throat, tight enough that Clary can barely breathe, the heat hitting her like a wall. She digs her heels into the ground, but it’s soft and doesn’t do much.

And the woman laughs and laughs. ]

BYOB (option 4)
(( got a different idea? feel free to leave me a prompt of your own! you can also catch me on plurk at

johanssons if you want to brainstorm something. ))

[ by now, sean's figured out that this place is as different from thisby as can be. the population's thinner than skarmouth's and much more colorful at that, aggressively american (to sean's island sensibilities), and full of things he's never seen before in his life. diners, for one, a library as huge as st. columba's, pubs and entertainment the likes of which had never come to sean's tiny island.

so, with corr squared away (as well as he can be, anyhow), sean's doing a bit of exploring, wandering through the town on foot and popping into shops as he sees fit. flights of fancy don't suit him, but it's nonetheless a flight of fancy that drives him into the shop with the comics in the window. ]

I don't know. [ that's the truth. sean's not looking for anything particular, so he's not sure if she can help him find it. he's never even actually seen a comic book before. ] What sort of store is this?

[ Her smile, while not unkind, is a little confused — but Clary takes it like a pro, setting her comic down and hopping off her chair to move around the counter. ] It's a comic book store!

[ She gestures, Vanna White style, at the wire shelves lining the walls, filled with comic books from all eras, although some of them look worse for the wear. ] It also has things like card games, board games, collectible figures... I can give you the tour, if you want?

[ vague confusion is not an uncommon response in sean's experience, so he's also learned to take it like a pro. not everyone here is from a place as small and sheltered as his home.

he nods once, and although he doesn't thank her aloud, his body language seems to imply it nonetheless. ]

I'm learning my way around.

[ Her smile turns sympathetic. ] Honestly, same. Not — [ she says, raising her hands in protest. ] — the comic book store. I know my way around here. Just this town in general. Oh-!

[ And now she's a little sheepish. ] I'm Clary, by the way.

[ clary. it sounds almost familiar, in a way—a common enough surname in the part of the world sean's from. ]

Clary. [ he pronounces it the manx way, long a, lilting. ] That's pretty. I'm Sean.

[ and what a blessing it is to have to introduce himself, for people not to know him by sight. ]

Have you been here long?

[ She can't help the slight tinge of pink that hits her cheeks at the compliment, nor the fluster that happens as a direct result. ] Thank you. Uhm —

[ She reaches up with her tattooed hand, tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear. ] Just a couple of weeks. I woke up in a house people were already living in — it was kind of awkward.

[ he follows the gesture, noting the tattoos. he's never seen someone with so many, except maybe on some of the men in skarmouth who'd come back from the war with decorations on their arms. they're interesting, but he's not quite feeling free enough to comment on them. ]

I think I did, too. Though I didn't realize at the time. [ he'd left the house immediately after finding his basket, searching for his horse. ] I suppose that's as warm a welcome as we could expect.

[ charlie hesketh is no hero.

he doesn't run headfirst into danger to save people and he doesn't put others before himself. his survival is his only priority; everything else comes second. any aspiration to become a better man has long been buried. but despite his many flaws (and he has a ton), he happens to hold a soft spot for women.

he can't help it. his mother raised him right in that one particular area.

so when he sees a young lady wandering in the dark seeming a bit dazed, he decides to approach her to see if she's alright — or at least that was his intention until she started moving. by the time he catches up with her, she is already very much in danger. fuck. what the hell is going on here?

he doesn't bother to make sense of the situation. (how can he when there is a laughing woman with a mouth in her neck strangling someone with her hair? it's absurd.) instead, he acts quickly — a metallic fist shoots out from his cybernetic arm as he sends it whipping harshly against the bizarre woman's legs. hopefully, it'll be enough to knock her over and, in the process, disorient her enough for her to loosen the hold she has over the redhead.

charlie hesketh is by no means a hero, but he does still have a heart. ]

[ Clary falls to the ground, gasping for air, a hand at her throat to try and somehow aid air back into her lungs. She doesn't see her rescuer at first, blinking back tears, from the heat, from almost blacking out.

There's only one word in her head, though: demon. It doesn't look like any demon she's ever seen, but she'll be the first to admit she hasn't seen many. It doesn't matter right now anyway. Scrubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand, she casts about her for seraph blade, hand finally landing on the grip and releasing it once more. It shines with angel runes in the presence of the demon, and Clary stands up, staggers. She still hasn't quite caught her breath entirely. ]

Thank you, [ She calls out, briefly turning her gaze towards her rescuer. ] Do you know what this is?

[ The creature, for what it's worth, watches them, both mouths curled up in a mocking smile. ]

_{[She doesn't mean to be at the lake. She doesn't mean to be in a lot of places--but when you're Henry, sometimes that just happens and at the most shit times.

Combined with the surreality of the thickening darkness, the laughing faces shifting and distorting on the water's surface, and the band of something black and thick she recognizes in the back of her mind isn't rope wrapped around a girl's neck, she has every reason in the world to turn and run the moment she realizes what's going on. This isn't her life. Monsters--of the actual fairy tale variety--aren't real. That girl has an actual fucking sword, she's already leagues more equipped to fight them than her. She can't do anything. The best she can do is--]}

Hey!

_{[Yell and be a distraction, apparently. Doesn't know what the fuck she's doing; too stupid to run, she really is a winning combo. Self-directed sarcasm makes the lurch of her heart bearable when she lunges for the redhead, scrabbling to pull her back.]}

Let go!

_{[Laughter is the answer. Laughter--and a shower of soy beans that flake the ground and pelt off Henry's shoulder.]}

[ She's about ready to black out when she hears the yell — it sounds distant, like it's through water, but then the constriction on her neck is being released and Clary falls into the other girl's arms, inhaling almost too quickly, sending her into a coughing fit. She doesn't feel the soybeans at first, too busy trying to regain her equilibrium, staggering to her feet, using the other girl as support. ]

Thank you, [ she says, the words coming out more as a gasp than anything. Her eyes are watering from the heat, but she can get a clear look at the girl — blonde, no runes. A mundane. Clary casts one look at the demon (because that's what it is, she's sure now) and then back to the girl. ] Thank you, but you need to run. I know you probably don't believe me, but that thing is a demon, and —
[ She's cut off by the demon lashing out at them both, and Clary tackles both of their bodies to the ground. ] This is bad.

_{[It takes only as long as feeling the coarse hair transfer to her hands and wrists in an attempt to snake around them (ugh, she's going to vomit) to figure out yanking the hair from Clary's throat with her bare skin is a mistake. She shakes the clinging hair off and settles for bracing the redhead with both arms amid that horrible, skull-splitting laughter.

What height advantage she has is minor and the closest she's ever come to working out is lugging heavy textbooks around school, but adrenaline gives her the necessary boost to keep dragging Clary further out of reach like it's going out of style.]}

Don't mention it.

_{[Her voice is breathy with exertion and fear. What else can she say? Things stopped making sense the minute she teleported out of Clay's truck; Deerington is just an extension of her understanding of the world growing soft and melting away. A demon--sure, why not.

What doesn't make sense is the girl with the sword saying she needs to run. Her. Before she can protest they should both be running their asses off, Clary moves quicksilver fast, knocking her on hers. (Damn, does she play tackle football for fun or what?) The breath goes out of her, and when she sucks it back in, the air burns her throat.]}

Jesus fuck. _{[Translation: agreed. She squints against the suffocating darkness.]} What the hell--? We need to get out of here, like now.

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