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Sodder ([personal profile] sodder) wrote in [community profile] soddersays2021-02-25 12:33 am
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MARCH 2021 TEST DRIVE MEME




MARCH 2021 TEST DRIVE MEME









Welcome to MARCH's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: PSYCHOLOGICAL 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 that deals with gaslighting, losing one's grip on reality, being trapped and restrained, threat of drowning, threat of being eaten, sensory deprivation, bleach, blood, violence, haunting apparition of a child, injury by rusty implements

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

IMPORTANT INFO FOR PROSPECTIVE PLAYERS: This past month we were excited to announce that Deerington will be entering a new chapter in a few short months. This new chapter will involve a permanent setting shift that you can read about in more detail on this post. All prospective players are welcome to ask any questions they have on the linked post.










THE WALLS HAVE EARS. AND EYES.


With all of the shifting in Deerington, it's not shocking when you start to feel like something in your home or workplace has begun to shift. You can't put your finger on what it is. Your furniture is exactly where it should be. Nothing seems moved. Maybe it's just Deerington paranoia acting up. God knows Sleepers have plenty to be paranoid about.

Then you start to notice little oddities. Scratch marks on the baseboards of your bedroom. If you have a bedframe with posts you might notice what looks like human bite marks have taken out chunks of the material. Only surely no one's gone around biting your bed? When you walk by windows, you start to think you see a trick of the eye and you could swear you see bars on the other side of your window. What? No. You don't have bars on your bedroom windows...

You're just seeing things. You're just seeing things. But maybe you're hearing things too. You can hear scuttling in the walls - maybe the rats from February? No, no...This is different. It sounded too big. More of a sliding shuffle than a scuttle. Maybe you look into your vents just to make sure but there's nothing to find. Nothing at all.

Then you start to look at your walls. Was that stain always there? Was it just part of the wallpaper or paint? Hmm...You don't remember there being a stain there.

You keep looking at the stain. Maybe it only takes a few days or a few hours but eventually, you start to see a face in the stain. If the stain's big enough you could swear it looks like...a person crawling. No. No! That's ...Just your imagination. Get a grip. But that stain may start to look like it has eyes, eyes looking right at you. Or the design in your wallpaper might start to look like a face is tucked among the floral patterns, eyes staring right at you.

You start to notice creeping figures out and around Deerington. While you're shopping for groceries you swear you can see a woman crawling from one aisle to the next, quick and scurrying. Were you the only one who saw that? Surely not? Maybe others have too. Then you see more women crawling across yards and you feel paralyzed with fear because they all look like that stain on your wall.

When you come back the stain has moved.

This drives many mad. You start to obsess over the stain. Maybe you even break apart your walls to see if there's really a person behind them. Maybe you start to peel the wallpaper off your walls or try to repaint everything to hide it. But the more you do, the more you sink down into paranoia. Eventually you start crawling around, trying to see if you can conjure up these creeping figures. You find yourself scratching at the baseboards and gnawing on furniture, becoming the very creeping fiend you feared.

Maybe you even eventually start to creep into people's homes, into their walls, to start the cycle of madness all over again. The only way to break free of this cycle is to catch one of the people in the walls, take their hand and pull. If you win this tug of war, you and the figure you chased in your madness into the walls will fall back into the three dimensional space of regular Deerington and you'll find the person you were chasing was just another sleeper trapped in the cycle like you. If you lose... you find yourself falling into an endless void and when you slow to a stop--


WASH AWAY THE MADNESS. PURGE THE SIN.


--You find yourself floating in midair in the middle of a sterile white room. You lost the tug of war with the other sleeper in the walls, or perhaps you were just walking down the street and got distracted by your reflection moving strangely in the storefront window and touching it pulled you through the glass and landed you here. Regardless of how you got here, now you are in what looks like a room that belongs in a hospital. Somehow you are also dressed in white pants and a t-shirt and there's a hospital bracelet on your wrist that has your name and blood type printed on it as well as a patient number. Beside you is another sleeper, either the one who you lost the tug of war to or a completely new one. You are able to speak to each other in this space and there is a slight echo as you do, enjoy it while it lasts.

After a moment of weightlessness, your bare feet touch the ground, which feels cold like concrete but is as white as the white subway tiled walls. There also appears to not be any light source, it just comes from everywhere and you may notice you're not casting a shadow. And neither is the albino german shepard that's appeared in the room with you. It looks friendly enough and you get the sense that it wants to guide you somewhere as it turns to walk through an open door that has suddenly appeared in the room.

Follow the dog and you'll find yourselves in an all white hallway, only there's a mirrored ceiling and the yellow stains of age on the peeling white wallpaper move in ways that make you uneasy. Almost immediately, you'll notice that there is no sound, not even from the dog or your own steps, not even your own heartbeat can be heard. But oddly, you can hear your own breathing, so loud in the otherwise utterly silent space that you speak to your companion just to have a different sound, but your voice is muted as well. Charades might be the only choice of communication between you two for some time. And as you continue on in this odd liminal space, out of your peripheral vision you'll notice your reflections on the ceiling above acting oddly, walking backwards or twirling in a childlike fashion while you are walking a straight line.

Spend long enough in this never ending silent white and bright hall with nothing but your breath to remind you that you're physically occupying this space and you start to feel on the edge of your sanity. After pulling your gaze from the disorienting reflections and stains on the wall, you look for the dog, but the dog is gone and in its place far down the hall is a small child dressed in white from head to toe with very little skin showing. It feels like it's been so long since you heard a voice that when the child speaks your ears hurt, blood trickles out. Wait, that can't be right... is it because of the silence from before or is the voice just supernaturally immense?

"GET OUT."

Is all the child says before water starts slowly rising up from the floor, but take a whiff and you catch the strong chemical scent of bleach. You and your companion must rush to find an exit or another creative solution to the problem at hand before you are drowned, and there will be no holding one's breath and swimming with your eyes open if you are submerged in bleach so you must act quickly. At the end of the long hall where the child stood there is a red light, but if you run towards it, it seems to only get further away.

If you can't go forward or back, then through the walls is the only solution. It is difficult though, at all the spots on the walls that are white, they are indestructible. It's the aged, yellow stains that are perpetually moving and shifting that are the weak points. Together, you must try to corner the shifting stains to stay still long enough for you to kick and punch your way through very thick walls. The stains seem to move away from anyone experiencing strong emotions and towards those who are calm and collected, and the key is to get them to stop moving entirely.

Once you burst through the thick wall and escape drowning by bleach, you'll either find yourself back in Deerington, or...



BREAK MY CHAINS AND I'LL BREAK YOURS.


You stumble into a mostly empty and dimly lit surgical room with blood on the floor and old dinge and rust on tiles and sinks. If you came here from the white hallway slowly filling with bleach, the pungent liquid will spill into the space as you enter, but turn around to look at the hole you and your companion made and you'll see it magically stitch itself up, like a wound in flesh speed healing rather than tile and drywall reorienting itself. However, it's possible to arrive here from Deerington without going through the white hall and that's by passing an empty lot in town. You could have sworn that lot had a house or a store the other day, but instead there's a dingy storage shed that draws you in with an intoxicating scent that wafts from a jagged hole in the side. No matter where you came here from, when you walk through, one or more other sleepers can walk through holes in the other walls at the same time and each hole will stitch up behind you.

It's too late to turn back once you're in and you barely have time to realize the danger you're clearly in when you are struck from behind and knocked unconscious. No matter what your body is made of or what abilities you have, you are knocked out cold... and when you awaken you are chained in the center of the room to a rusy old cair. The other sleeper or sleepers you found yourself with in this place are in the same situation facing you and on the floor in between you is a pile of old rusted keys of varying shapes and made of all different kinds of metals. The only thing these keys seem to have in common is the look of sharpness on every edge, like if you picked them up too hastily you could slice open your hand and get a tetanus infection from the rust.

The next thing you might notice is the heavy breathing of another person nearby, and when you look you see a large man in a soiled button down, jacket and khakis. He looks like a pro wrestler that went to a court hearing that then got blown up and he was the only survivor. But more striking than his size and attire is the fact that in place of a human head is just a black smoky blur with what looks like hundreds of eyes poking through the darkness, and when he turns, his face is nothing but a gaping circular maw with rows and rows of jagged teeth that spin like a food processor. The man doesn't speak, the only sound that seems to come from that horrifying void that is his head is haunting and hard to describe. It gazes at its prisoners with its infinite eyes for a moment, washes blood from its hands in one of the sinks along the wall and then lumbers over to the only exit while sharpening a butcher's knife.

It is rather clear what his intentions are. But why leave a pile of keys and not kill and eat you now? Who cares what game he's playing, what test you're undergoing? Time to figure out how to get free and obviously the keys are important. The chairs can be moved, tilted over and pushed, but they are heavy and you'll have to work together to get the right leverage to start picking up keys and testing them on each other's locks which are placed by your hands bound behind your backs. Your hands are so tightly bound that you have to use the keys blindly on the other person's lock, and don't forget that those keys are sharp and hard to hold too. One of you will get free first, but then the haunting sound and the thump of his feet can be heard in the next room. Do you leave your companion to the monster or risk it and try the other keys?

Whatever your choice, the door to get out is locked and unbreakable, but there's a vent high above it that you can get through alone with great difficulty, but will be much easier and faster with the help of your fellow sleeper. The moment you are inside and moving through the vents, the hulking man with the void head will let out an ear shattering screech and chase you from below, the butcher knife and other stabbing objects will slice through the bottom of the vent and you'll have to dodge and weave until you see the light at the end. Kick the exit vent open and you'll crawl out onto grass outside any building in town.


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.
thecanarylives: (face: brows up smile)

the walls have eyes. and ears.

[personal profile] thecanarylives 2021-03-06 04:33 am (UTC)(link)
The woods have been eerily quiet tonight, which would normally be a nice reprieve from the town's horrors. But she's been itching for a fight, eager for some kind of distraction from her thoughts, a channel to let out the pent up tension that's been building up over the past few weeks.

She's been following the shimmer of a ripple that's lead her towards the stream, the moonlight glinting off the water and the ripples of movement catching her eye. Cocking a brow, she draws closer for a better look, chuckling at the familiar silhouette in the water as she trudges towards the shore line.

"Well, look what the deer dragged back in."
loihtija: (pic#13024482)

[personal profile] loihtija 2021-03-07 04:41 pm (UTC)(link)
He hears her approaching, even if she's quiet, there are things around her that get quiet as well and the lack of sound is what alarms him to her presence before she's speaking out. He drops the rock he was pulling up from the bottom of the stream in case she would have been someone hostile and pulls his hair up from the frozen water to look at her.

"I got an invitation I couldn't refuse," he says with a snort. He squeezes some water out of his hair and then stars wading to the shore towards her.

"How are things?" he asks her as he steps out of the water and reaches down for his jeans, completely undisturbed by his nakedness.
thecanarylives: (face: jobber)

[personal profile] thecanarylives 2021-03-07 11:25 pm (UTC)(link)
He seems so at peace, even in the sharp chill of the water and the loom of the forest around them. Peace is a rare thing to find, in a town like this, but damn if he doesn't make it look good.

And yes, maybe her eyes follow his form curiously as he moves, bare and apparently unabashed by the winter air. She's only human, after all.

"Same old shit," she shrugs innocently, tucking her hands into her jacket and shifting her weight. "Is this a thing you do now? Skinny dipping in a frozen stream?"
loihtija: (pic#13679801)

[personal profile] loihtija 2021-03-07 11:53 pm (UTC)(link)
He doesn't miss that look but he doesn't comment on it. There's a quirk at the corners of his mouth, that's all.

Jeans go up to his hips and he starts to button shut the fly.

"There's something in the house I woke up in. It's in the walls," he says as if that explains why he's skinny dipping in the forest. He needs to wash up somewhere. It's really simple.
thecanarylives: (Default)

[personal profile] thecanarylives 2021-03-08 12:17 am (UTC)(link)
Cocky bastard. Even if there's plenty for him to be cocky about.

She smirks, canting her head at him as her eyes drag up his torso to finally meet his gaze.

"Rats? Or worse?" She smirks. In a town like this, it's always worse. "You could've just used my shower, you know. It's got hot water and everything."
loihtija: (pic#14145040)

[personal profile] loihtija 2021-03-09 12:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Most of his chest is bare of tattoos, unlike his arms and back. Just a little bit of it spills over his shoulders and sides to his front. He picks up a shirt and pulls it own, the shoulders of it soon darkened by the water that keeps dripping from his wet hair.

He looks her right in the eyes, snorting softly, then focuses on toeing on his boots.

"Something worse," Grey replies. "I didn't stick around to find out what exactly." In this place it doesn't pay to take risks like that.

"And I will hold you to that." A hot shower would be definitely more pleasant than dipping into the icy stream. "What are you doing here? In the woods. And don't say saving random naked guys from cold bathing."
thecanarylives: (black canary: staff)

[personal profile] thecanarylives 2021-03-10 04:52 am (UTC)(link)
She's seen pieces of his tattoos here and there, but it's been a while since she's seen them in all their full-fledged glory. And maybe she's a little disappointed when he covers them up with that dumb shirt, gaze finally meeting his before she offers a small, playful smirk.

"Probably for the best. Friend of mine's got an occult shop here. You could try to... I dunno, smoke it out?"

She's not exactly an expert - hell, he knows a hell of a lot better than she does, how to handle this stuff. Shifting her weight, she picks up the bo staff leaning against the tree and flips it easily in her hand.

"To be fair? Hypothermia's a real thing, dream world or not. But mostly, I was just... out hunting, I guess."
loihtija: (pic#11159402)

[personal profile] loihtija 2021-03-14 10:06 am (UTC)(link)
He gives a soft snort at her obvious appreciation. It's flattering and very mutual. Has always been. And while he pushes up his hair to tie it up onto a bun at the back of his head, he looks at her with a quirked brow. Maybe she'll invite him back to her place for the night. Her couch would be plenty more comfortable than the cold ground. But he doesn't say that, just looks at her with something amused crinkling the skin around his eyes.

"Occult shop?" he asks, curious. "Yeah, I wouldn't mind getting an address to that." Grey doesn't use a whole lot of ingredients with his magic, but he's curious to see this.

"And hunting what?" he asks, directly, not bothering to beat around the bushes.
thecanarylives: (face: jobber)

[personal profile] thecanarylives 2021-03-15 03:33 am (UTC)(link)
No, she's not being subtle. And yes, she knows it. A quirk of a smile settles on her lips, eyes grazing over his arms shoulders as he fixes his hair. There's no guarantee he'll be safe at her place, but at the very least she's heavily armed and mostly warded against evil. Not that Deerington seems to care.

"John Constantine's. Forget what it's called. I'll text you where it is." She leans on the tree again, arms crossing over her chest. "Whatever I can get my hands on. Sometimes you just gotta let off some steam, you know?"
loihtija: (pic#13679813)

[personal profile] loihtija 2021-03-15 08:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Grey files the name away, nodding. He's going to look it up. One of these days. But right now he's not in any hurry. Instead, he shrugs on his coat and with one of his quicksilver smiles, he gives her a look that says whatever you can get your hands on, huh?

"Have you tried ice bathing?" he asks, voice as deadpan as it always is, rumbling from the depth of his chest. "Has the steam been blown?"
thecanarylives: (black canary: above)

[personal profile] thecanarylives 2021-03-16 03:59 am (UTC)(link)
She'll take him over there, at some point. If the whole down doesn't fall apart on them first, anyway. She shoots him a smile in return, the glint in her eyes screaming you know it.

"Sure, but just for muscle recovery." She cants her head at him, still sizing him up. "Not quite yet, no. Your fault for distracting."
loihtija: (pic#14145074)

[personal profile] loihtija 2021-03-19 03:38 pm (UTC)(link)
He snorts, looking down at the wet ground with a mild shake of his head.

Then he reaches down to pick up his backpack and throws it over one shoulder.

"So, I suppose some atonement for the rude distraction is in order," he says as he steps right in front of her, looking down at her with unreadable grey eyes. "I'm at your service."
thecanarylives: (smile: ^^)

[personal profile] thecanarylives 2021-03-28 07:50 pm (UTC)(link)
He's always run warm, and that's true enough even in a dream world. The chill of the water steaming off his skin, dripping from his hair.

She smirks up at him, crossing her arms over her chest and tilting her head up at him as he drops closer.

"It really was very rude," she agrees, holding her ground and his stormy gaze. "We should get you warmed up, though. You look chilly."

He doesn't. Not in the least. But she reaches up to brush her fingertips against a strand of his hair anyway.
loihtija: (pic#13679827)

[personal profile] loihtija 2021-04-20 12:29 pm (UTC)(link)
"Do I?" Grey asks with a calm sort of amusement lingering in his gaze. She has such a mischievous, laugh-ready nature that tends to catch on even if he's not exactly prone to playing around.

He tilts his head towards her hand as she reaches up to touch his hair but doesn't make a connection, instead he looks at her quietly for a moment longer and then nods.

"If you say so," he finally agrees. Whatever "getting warmed up" means.
thecanarylives: (face: brows up smile)

[personal profile] thecanarylives 2021-05-02 07:24 pm (UTC)(link)
His gaze is calm and stormy all at once. Soaking her in, analyzing. Assessing in that quiet, dangerous way that's always so quick to reel her in.

That little cant of his head is a damn tease, and he knows it. He also knows exactly what he means by getting 'warmed up', but he does like to play coy, doesn't he?

She takes a step back from him, hand dropping to her side before she nods back up the path.

"My bike's parked out by the road. Unless you wanna have a drink here, first?" She cocks a brow, tugs a flask from the inside of her jacket.
loihtija: (pic#13679827)

[personal profile] loihtija 2021-05-03 07:48 am (UTC)(link)
He's sparse with his body language, just as he is sparse with his words. But she knows to read into the little gestures that are quite expressive and calculated, designed to speak to those who are willing to listen. A tease, maybe.

"Lead the way," he says as he takes that step after her, keeping the distance somewhat similar to what she first initiated. Almost like she lures him to follow, and it's not that far from the truth, her hot to his cold, her fire to his ice. There's also something about moths and flames and he sighs to his own thoughts.

"Maybe I should drive if you have taken more than a few sips," he suggests mildly.
thecanarylives: (Default)

[personal profile] thecanarylives 2021-05-04 02:00 am (UTC)(link)
That's the charm of him, really - that dark, quiet mystery he's got to him, the fun of reading into the little he does give away.

Even now, after so long, there's that electricity ever present between them, the way they hover in each other's orbits, unable to step too far out of reach.

"Don't worry, I don't drink on the job," she shrugs, turning to face him and walking backwards up the path. "But now that you're here, I could take some time off the clock."
loihtija: (1)

[personal profile] loihtija 2021-05-04 02:26 pm (UTC)(link)
"Are you on a job now?" Grey asks, amusement lingering in his low tone of voice much like his gaze lingers on hers, following her step for a step.

"I see, I inspire you to slack off," he says in a deadpan tone, humour crinkling the skin around his eyes.
thecanarylives: (Default)

[personal profile] thecanarylives 2021-05-05 01:58 am (UTC)(link)
"Does hunting count?" She catches his gaze, holding it playfully a moment before she glances away to find her footing on the rocky ground.

"You really are a bad influence on me." She smirks, leading the way up a larger hill.
loihtija: (pic#11052880)

[personal profile] loihtija 2021-05-11 11:49 am (UTC)(link)
"Here I thought it was the other way around," Grey replies with a snort as he follows her over the hill.

When they get to her bike, he peers down along the road, quietly listening to the surrounding area. You never know in Deerington what could be jumping at you from the bushes.
thecanarylives: (talking: arms crossed)

[personal profile] thecanarylives 2021-05-12 03:06 am (UTC)(link)
"No way," she dismisses playfully, grinning as they make their way back to the road. Their surroundings are eerily quiet, and she frowns as she casts her gaze up and down the street before glancing back at him.

"Maybe we should head back into town. Something doesn't feel quite right."