countryclub | December 2021 Test Drive Meme

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meme: tdm

December 2021 Test Drive Meme

DECEMBER 2021 TDM

Another month, another test drive meme! Our test drive memes are open to anyone interested - regardless of whether or not you join our game!

All Test Drive Memes are game canon. Players can choose to keep their TDM threads canon or not. TDM threads can be used for AC and can be used as your writing sample for your application.

Our TDMs serve as a way to build into the actual lore and worldbuilding of Deer Country and we strongly encourage everyone to enjoy and participate! Current players are always welcome to pull prompts from the TDM to reference on the Network or bring into logs as well as tag out to new characters top-leveling on the TDM itself.

Characters will always be able to actively die during TDMs as this is an extremely dangerous world. You can still have this be game canon! Check out how character death in Deer Country works here.

If you have any questions about the TDM, please ask down below!

IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Prompt One
[Image One: A cat skidding across a frozen lake.]
[Image Two: A man carving ice sculptures]

Prompt Two
[Image One: A woman laughing as she plays with many tentacles.]
[Image Two: A naked girl in a fetal position under water.]

Prompt Three
[Image One: A cold limp hand in bloodied snow.]
[Image Two: Jack Nicholson slamming an axe into a door in The Shining.]

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SEMI-STANDARD ARRIVAL

WHEN: End of December, early January
WHERE: The Farther Shores/The Boardwalk
CONTENT WARNINGS: Similar warnings from November's TDM. Drowning, freezing to death, trapped under ice, hypothermia, frost bite.

Arriving in December has most of the same from the November Arrival. One difference is that the beach itself has completely frozen over, making it a slick black ice skating range. And that's exactly how Wakers treat it. You can rent skates and sleds. People have taken to the beach to have fun as well as help Sleepers out. Learn how to ice skate and help your fellow Sleepers! Win-Win!

Tents are filled with furs and warmth. Someone is giving out hot soup and hot chocolate to those just arriving. You can find plenty of hot bread rolls. Local seamstresses have gathered and are giving out thick wool cloaks with unique designs. You can find thick fur ushankas, gloves, and scarves. There are coldblood stone snaps as they call them where two small coldblood stones are hooked together so you can make a snapping noise that generates a small spark of flame that's hard to blow out.

Along the Boardwalk are magnificent ice sculptures of various intricate creatures: humans, animals, monsters, Pthumerians and other things. Some Watchers are in the process of working on new mounds of ice and are willing to teach anyone interested in the art of ice sculptures.

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

WHEN: End of December to mid January
WHERE: The Pthumerian Ocean and the Farther Shores
CONTENT WARNINGS: possible drowning, injury, hypothermia, giant friendly tentacles, confinement in a goo egg, nudity/exhibition, body horror of varying degrees

A new year is upon us and the winds of change can drive rough and tumultuous waters, now filled with big chunks of ice. Some incoming sleepers will be facing more obstacles of ice, cold and wayward currents that can take them off course and delay their arrival on the shores. But many are in luck as the massive tentacles of a benevolent beast from the deep can be seen rising from the waves on the horizon as it collects as many sleepers as it can who have begun to shift from their squid form before they are safely out of the choppy waters and onto the ice covered beach.

The tentacled behemoth will wrap new sleepers up in a protective, transluscent and spherical fish or squid egg filled with a gooey liquid to help further suspend and cushion them on their journey to shore. However, this protective egg is a toss of the coin in how helpful it can be. Merely by chance, a sleeper may find themselves in either a red or blue tinted egg that they wil likely need help getting out of, and quickly, seeing as the warm goo that is cushioning them doesn't exactly provide air for those who require it.

A Red egg will provide extended magical warmth even when a sleeper exits it into the cold, they will feel as though they are stepping into a heated room and wearing comfortable warm clothes, even if they are naked. Wakers who assist someone getting out of a red egg and who are splashed with the gooey contents will also feel this effect, and if they are clothed they may feel... overheated and overcome with the strong compulsion to get their clothes off.

A Blue egg is not so helpful, if a sleeper finds themselves in this egg, they will start to transform back into their squid form, even if their mind is continuing to reform and remember themselves. They can regress all the way back into a squid or be unfortunate enough to get trapped in a grotesque halfway fusion of squid and their regular form, but either way their mind will still be normal and somehow some will be able to speak. Just like a red egg, this can happen to Wakers who come in contact with the blue egg's goo. This effect can last for an hour or longer depending on player preference.

Characters who attempt to make their way out to sea to make contact with the tentacled monster will never seem to be able to reach it to see what it looks like. The waters will become darker and colder, and more tumultuous the farther they go either by boat or swimming (why you're swimming is beyond literally everyone else, but you do you). Chances of ending up in the freezing water and dying by drowning or freezing to death are extremely high if this attempt is made, and locals will advise against it if asked.

BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE

WHEN: Late December to mid January.
WHERE: All over Trench
CONTENT WARNINGS: Surreal/existential horror, out of body experience, temporary memory loss and fugue, imprisonment, frozen death, blood, possible insanity and violence, monster/creature leech

All throughout Trench there's a phenomena of bloody snow piling high in whole districts within minutes and snowing people into their homes or whatever building they happened to be in at the time, even a tent on the boardwalk can be covered. Most of the blood is a stark red, but other blood type colors can be found in large or small swaths here and there. At first it seems like an inconvenience that you can either wait out with whomever you've found yourself snowed in with or dig your way out of, but the blood in the snow is thick and heavy and pressing in against the walls and windows and if you choose to try and dig, the influence of blood in the air will hit you hard and the ill effects will come on fast and halt you in your efforts...

Soon, the rooms appear to warp, minds become foggy as what appears to be an illusion or a reality warping takes hold, no longer does the room look like your home or the store you were browsing, and you can't quite remember what it was before or why you were there. The roof over your head is different, and the slow motion of the fan causes the cracks in the plaster to show shadows in ways that just don't match your memories. It is strange, but as you walk through the new space, you do not feel in danger. Something is just not quite right.

You recognize the furnishings but you can't place when you bought them. It looks like a hotel room and this is a suite for two. How long have you lived in this place? The door of the kitchen or perhaps the pantry opens, and someone else emerges with the same look of vague confusion there. You recognize them, but not quite. Their name is on the tip of your tongue until they speak. Do you know each other? Yes, you do. This is your house, right? Weren't you just standing there together not long ago...?

It must be your home: Some Sleepers, for one reason or another, might accept the surreal experience as the new reality even as they grow weaker and ...thinner? Their life feels impermanent, almost like you could peel the wallpaper away to find something entirely different underneath. But it isn't a bad life. It's simple, comfortable, food is always magically available somewhere when they need it and the people they are with are family, are they not? You're pretty sure that's what you remember. The scope of the vision grows, somehow you find yourself in the bar of this hotel where a bartender stands waiting. He doesn't feel quite real, but he'll happily chat over a cocktail 'on the house' with guests, who he assures have always been there.

But some Sleepers find themselves rejecting this vision, as comfortable as it is, it's still wrong. This isn't their home. This feeling everything should be fine is a lie. Everything is wrong, and at a certain point, they snap. The idea of sleeping a night in this place is just too much and the moment that their mind refuses this reality completely, it is replaced by a singular urge: to destroy this lie entirely. Paranoia and a frantic instability overtakes them and they find whatever weapon they can to start breaking everything in sight, even attacking their fellow Sleepers and hunting them through the shifting little hotel spaces that seem to move around them rather then them moving within it.

Violent Sleepers can be subdued and reasoned with, but it may be difficult. Powers are also dampened, though not gone, if Sleepers can remember that they have them at all. All sleepers, docile and violent will start to weaken to the point where they collapse and they will eventually die, but if they are lucky enough to pull themselves and/or each other out of it, they'll be able to see clearly that it's the bartender that they should attack. Once they do, there will be a screech and the illusion/reality alteration will falter and the bartender's true form is glimpsed.

Once the creature is wounded sufficiently, Sleepers will find that there is a fleshy pulsating rope attached to the base of their skull as the creature was feeding on their hopes and dreams of the future, keeping them in a state of complacency, confusion and conflict. The only way out of this is by attacking the bartender or death.

CODING

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Ezra," she repeated. She liked the name. It sounded almost Alastrian. Like something one of her cousins might have been called, if she had any cousins. She gave him another curtsy, this one less cursory than before. "I'm Ariadne," she said. "Well. 'Airy.' No one seems to call me 'Ariadne' any more."

Not that it mattered.

And, really, the nickname 'Airy' suited her. Her presence was light and frothy. The way she spoke, the way she moved, the way she held herself...it was as if, at any moment, she'd spread wings and take to the air.

Once upon a time, she would have.

"I guess you have a lot of questions right now, Ezra," she said. "Arriving here can be a little confusing."

Ezra frowned a little. "You like going by both?" he tried to check, because it sounded to him like maybe she minded the nickname being used so much.

He'd get to questions about where they were in a second.

She smiled. His manners were courtly enough. Although he didn't seem quite as...well. He wasn't Obi-Wan. And considering how angry she was with him, at the moment, that was probably a good thing.

"Either is fine," she told him. Sincerely. "I've been called some pretty horrible things in my life, but 'Airy' isn't that bad. And I'm told, it suits me." Which was good. Like fitting in. Something she'd always struggled with.

At least, when being herself. Not some invented character as part of a heist.

Ezra shot her a mildly alarmed at the bit about being called horrible things. Was she from someplace pretty terrible (which he sympathized with very much with) or did she do things to be called those bad names?

"Well, if you say you're ok with the nickname," he said, obviously doubtful.

"So. I'm actually not that confused about people being...collected? Arriving somewhere strange, from all over time and space?" He shook his head. "Not the first time I've seen that happen, and I'm just gonna assume any answers about that shouldn't be taken at face value, anyway. My first question is - I swear I had tentacles there for a while?"

Which was not really a question, but it's one of the parts his mind was sticking on.

He wasn't confused. Well. That was something. Probably a good thing, because when it came to explaining the multiverse, Ariadne wasn't exactly the best or most reliable source of information.

It was just such a big mess!

So she nodded, setting aside the tray of chocolate so that she could give him her full attention. "Yes," she said. "Everyone arrives that way. It's...disconcerting, but I promise you, you'll get your balance back pretty quickly."

And when she made a promise, she really meant it. Ariadne kept her promises.

"Ok, sure," Ezra said, nodding, his hands still wrapped around his mug.

"I guess I'll have to. Roll with the punches and all that. But, uh. What was that? Is there, like, an official explanation? Popular theories?"

Roll with the punches? "No one should be punching you," she said, looking genuinely confused. Perhaps even upset. It wasn't that there was no violence in Trench. But it always worried her when the new arrivals experienced it, before they'd even gotten off of the beach.

She knelt down in front of Ezra, the lines of her face, softening with concern. "Who was punching you?"

By the gods, she hoped it wasn't Anakin. If it was...she was seriously considering punching him.

Ezra stared back in confusion.

"Nobody? Not yet, anyway. It's - it's a turn of phrase. I'm just trying to, like you said, find my balance. Not get worked up."

"Turn of phrase!" She laughed, at once flooding with relief. Her laughter was, like everything else about her, airy and light. Ariadne had many talents. She was lithe and graceful, spoke thirty five languages, and could pick more or less anyone's pocket. But turns or phrase?

No. Those she never failed to mess up.

She nodded. "Right. Balance. Balance is good. Especially in a place like Trench."

Ezra broke into a sympathetic smile. He liked idioms, slang, specialized terminology, and things like that, but he didn't always immediately get it when people were less than direct and literal with words, too.

"Well. Balance is pretty much right there in the job description, for me," he remarked, lightly. "Hopefully I can help out on that front, a little, here in...Trench, you said? Is that the world, or the town, or?"

"Trench is the town," she said. "I don't really know if the world has a name or not." It was a little jarring, to go from town to world, without kingdoms or continents in between. But after Deerington, Ariadne was getting better at just...as Ezra put it...rolling with the punches.

She decided that she liked Ezra.

Or rather, wanted to like him. He seemed kindhearted. And he didn't laugh at her for not understanding him.

Nevertheless, she had to ask. "What do you mean? Job description?"

"I mean, on a practical level, I'll do whatever job needs doing. Where I was before I got here, I was mostly a farmer," he said with a shrug, then peered at her.

"If you know who I meant by Padme...have you ever of the Jedi?" he asked.

She exhaled slowly. This was what she'd been anticipating. She didn't want to say...dreading. Still. She was so deeply entangled with--and angry with--some of the Jedi here. The last thing she wanted to do was cause even more trouble.

But trouble tended to find Ariadne. And it didn't help that she was curious by nature. And determined to help people. It was a bad combination.

"I know the Jedi," she said, careful to keep her tone even. "I've met at least four of them, over the last year or so."

"Oh," Ezra said, eyes going wide. He did notice she didn't seem....thrilled, and wondered why. But he still, he leaned forward a little.

"Do- do you remember their names? Are any of them still here?" He winced. "It's just - even if I don't know any of them, I want to finish my training as much as I can. I'd hoped to be able to, where I was, but-"

He broke off unhappily, letting a wave of grief and loss wash over him. He struggled for a moment, with how unfair it felt to lose two masters in the space of a year, one to death, and one to separation - not to mention the rest of the small enclave he'd had months to get used feeling nearby in the Force.

He looked so sad all of a sudden, she had to fight the urge not to reach out and give him a hug. And Ariadne couldn't help but feel a little guilty. It was obviously something she'd said that triggered it.

Of course, he'd have found out about the Jedi one way or another.

They had a way of getting into everything! Or, at least, it felt like they were invading every bit of her life.

Gently, she reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. Hopefully, that wouldn't be overstepping. She couldn't figure out where hugging fit into the 'no attachments' rule that she hated so much. "Well," she said. "There's a boy named Luke. He's probably the Jedi here I trust the most. Luke Skywalker."

Ezra would usually welcome a hug; as it is, he gave Adriadne a shaky, grateful smile.

"I know Luke. Or...a Luke?" He decided to leave aside some of the confusing details of how he knew Luke and his family, for the moment. "I guess it's possible he comes from a different, um. Timeline. Slightly different universe? But yeah, if he's like the Luke I know, I'd trust him too. But, uh, if most everything matches up, technically I've had more formal training than him, and he probably won't know me."

She shook her head. "I don't know if he knows you or not. But if you want to talk to another Jedi, he's the best one there is."

And because she was Ariadne, she couldn't quite leave it there.

"There are...a couple others," she admitted. "But honestly, I might stay away from them right now. Things are a little...complicated." Which was the nicest way she could put it.

As it was, there was a small flare of anger. She was trying so hard to forgive Obi-Wan and Anakin. But she couldn't. Not the way they were acting, treating her. To say nothing of what Anakin had done to Dean. Attacking him was like attacking Ariadne. They were family.

"You don't trust them," he guessed, concerned, and then frowned, that concern deepining. "You're...angry with them?"

There was no point in dissembling. Ariadne was very, very good at lying. But only when she had to.

The truth felt more valuable this time.

"There's a man named Anakin," she said. "I think he's a good man, but he's very, very angry and he...killed someone. Someone very important to me. So right now, I'm kind of upset with him."

It didn't help that he was ignoring her calls. But at least she hadn't gone after him, like she initially wanted to. That would have been very, very bad of her.

Ezra was much the same, when it came to lying. Right moment, he was shocked enough to not even try to cover his reaction - how color drained from his face, and his stomach clenched.

"Anakin Skywalker," he guessed, numbly - except it wasn't really a guess. Did she know he was Luke's father, he wondered.

"Anakin Skywalker," she said, with a tense nod.

Oh, was she mad at him. Just saying his name brought it all back, everything he'd done that she was struggling so very hard to forgive.

Hoping to calm herself down, she glanced at Ezra's mug of hot chocolate. He hadn't touched it. A wise precaution, she supposed. She might not trust it, if she had a weak, Human nose.

To prove it was safe, she picked up one of the spare mugs, taking a small sip for herself. No poison. Just chocolate.

It had the added effect of calming her down a little bit. The chocolate warmed her body and soul, enough to continue in a gentler tone. "There's also his keeper, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Although she isn't doing a very good job of it."

Ezra closed his eyed. He wanted to cast his senses out in the Force, to try to find Obi-wan immediately. He was nearly certain that if he tried, he could find him anywhere in the town.

He didn't try. For one thing, if he brushed close mentally to the Jedi Master, there was a possibility the older Jedi might pick up some of the complicated swirl of emotions Ezra was wrestling with. Which would likely be confusing at best, and maybe even add to Obi-wan's stress.

"Obi-wan," he whispered, voice filled with love, and longing, and hurt. Some of the hurt was himself, because he didn't imagine this-not-his-master would know him at all. A lot of it was for Obi-wan, because he was betting Obi-wan was deep in blaming himself about Anakin's faults and bad behavior. His shoulders slumped.

"I'm sorry. About your friend," he added, heavily.

Words had power. That was something that people in Trench took for granted. Maybe because they could all speak the same language. There was never any real effort, no translation, to consideration. But words had power nevertheless. And even though Ezra didn't know the story--and certainly didn't know Dean--his words had an impact.

Because that was all she wanted really. A little bit of sympathy. Compassion.

Obi-Wan and Anakin weren't really about...sympathy.

She smiled at him, over the lip of her cup. A genuine, warm smile, that made her gray eyes shine like silver coins in a fountain. "Thank you."

He let out a breath slowly, opened his eyes, and nodded in acknowledgement.

"Even just knowing that little bit...I can just bet that it's complicated. And I can guess that Master Kenobi-"

He paused, trying to find the right words. To not assume too much, to be fair, and try to explain to someone without Jedi training.

"I think it can be one of the hardest things for a Jedi. Maybe the very hardest thing. To try to keep our judgement clear, to stay balanced, when people we love are involved."

"That's the part I've never been able to understand," she admitted. "Obi-Wan talks about the Jedi as being a loving group of people. But when he says that attachments aren't allowed. It...doesn't make a lot of sense to me."

He'd explained it again and again. It just felt...completely anathema. A part of her wondered if that was because she was Alastrian and an Alastrian was defined by her attachments.

Another part wondered if it was just a broken system. Which she realized was a judgmental thing to say, so she kept it to herself. Even as her doubts grew larger and her irritation transitioned to anger.

She took a sip of the hot chocolate and felt better.

"How do you go about protecting a society if you're not a part of it? I'll never understand."

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