singillppl | April 2025 Test Drive Meme

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April 2025 Test Drive Meme

APRIL 2025 TDM

PROMPT ONE — ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST: A new group of arrivals find themselves lost in the frozen wilds and vulnerable to the dangers of nature. With luck, they make it to the town of Milton, and to a friendly face offering food, warmth and shelter — and the current inhabitants, their fellow survivors.

PROMPT TWO — THE THING WITH FEATHERS: The Aurora has long since begun to alter the behaviours of animals in the world, and the Interlopers face a threat from above.

PROMPT THREE — MISFIT: Interlopers haven’t been feeling themselves lately. And one day they wake up to find they aren’t themselves at all: they’re someone else.

ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST

WHEN: Mid-month.
WHERE: Milton, Milton Outskirts.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potential animal attacks, potential injuries, potential cold injuries/hyperthermia risk.

'You are the Interloper. You are not part of nature’s design.'

It’s the last thing you hear. A dark, deep voice. Impossibly ancient. You feel afraid. Maybe you’re dreaming, maybe you’re wide awake. You saw the lights, and then your world went dark. But you hear it in the blackness, you won’t forget those words.

These are the words of the Darkwalker, you’ll soon come to find.

You awaken. You are not where you were before. It’s different for everyone, there doesn’t seem to be much of a pattern in where you find yourself. You may open your eyes to find yourself in a cold, dim and dank cabin. The air is stale, dust hangs in the rays of weak sunlight that shine through the tiny windows. Someone lived here once, but they aren’t to be found. This place has been ransacked, abandoned long ago. It is quiet. The wood creaks around you.

Or perhaps you may awaken to find yourself shivering in the yawning maw of a cave, the freezing stone below you. Or maybe you’re unfortunate enough to sit up to find yourself lying in the snow, in the middle of the wilderness. Snow lies thick around you. It’s freezing out. You haven’t felt a cold like this before in your entire life. Cruel and biting. You have no idea where you are, and what’s worse — you are completely alone.

The sun is bright, enclosed in light fog. It is a strange kind of twilight.

You may feel different, too. Any powers or magics you may have feel... absent. Disconnected. Things that may not have affected you previously now do. Something in you has changed.

You know you can’t stay where you are. You’ll need to move, try to work out where you are and how you came to be here. So you walk, head out into the unknown, in hope of finding a trail or a road. You’ll find one soon enough. It’s here you may find someone else in the same boat as yourself, equally freezing and confused. You’ll both need to keep going. It won’t be easy. You hear howls of wolves around you, and the terrain is difficult: slips and falls are likely. You’re completely vulnerable out here in the open.

Or it’s possible you may come across someone else here. Someone who looks far better prepared to deal with the freezing cold and frozen landscape, out hunting or gathering. They’ll likely offer help and get you into town. However, for the unlucky ones who don’t come across anyone, you’ll carry on until you see it: the lazy trail of smoke rising in the air. Fire. Not just one, but several. Civilization...?

Follow it, and soon enough the way you’ve taken will certainly become a path or road. Unfolding before you in the mountainous forests, you’ll see the most welcome of sights: a small mining town tucked up in the valley. Battered, rusted road signs will direct to “MILTON, POP. 947”. You’re almost there, you keep going, and it looks like other people have had the same idea as you. In fact, you’ll hear the muffled sounds of life. People! In the town!

As you head into the outskirts and then further into town, you’ll find it’s a little easier to walk but the cold has gripped you hard. You’ll find the buildings, both shops and homes, some are dark and lifeless, some of them are boarded up, some of them are occupied. People are going about their business, or stood watching from their tiny porches of their small, timber homes. For a town this big, there doesn’t seem to be many people. Several dozen at most, but no more.

Towards the center of town, you’ll find the building from which the biggest of the smoke trail rises: a school-house of sorts, or some kind of community hall. Perhaps both. You’ll find more and more people all drawn to this place, each and every one of them in the same position as yourself (and your companion, if you’ve found one). Some are in worse states than others: some are bloodied, nursing bite wounds or cuts; others might have some other kind of injury sustained in the journey here from falls. Others may look as if they could faint from the cold at any second.

The door opens, and you’re greeted by the gnarled, wizened face of an elderly man, dressed in thick furs. He has a kind face. He smiles warmly, and with pity, ushering you in with haste.

“Ah. Once more, you poor souls come.” he nods gravely. No, this is not the first time that this has happened. “I am Methuselah. I welcome you, Newcomer, although I’m sorry for how you’ve come to find yourself here. You are not the only one, the lights are changing things. Come. Mother Nature has not been kind to you, but there are plenty here to help.”

The room is dim, lit only by natural daylight through the windows. A roaring fire sits at one end of the huge hall. It crackles, bright and cheerful... and warm. Even as big as this place is, the room is pleasantly warm. You’ll also find basic cots set up down one side of the hall, and while it seems there's a few people already living here, there's enough space for those in need of them. There's places to rest for a moment and get your bearings, or just trying to recover from the cold. Down the other side are tables and chairs, and long tables laden with food, drinks and bottled water similar to one might find at a soup kitchen. Once again, Methuselah offers a feast, aided by some of the other Interlopers.

There are canisters with hot herbal teas, mostly. But some coffee can be found. There’s also soup and stew and trays of charred deer and rabbit meats, plus some grilled fish. It’s very basic, but it’s hot and filling. A feast for those who have battled the cold to come here.

Methuselah will continue to busy himself, still; there is plenty to do. He will fetch blankets, tend to wounds, serve food and drinks — aided by a handful of others in the Hall. Your fellow survivors, but those who have been here for some time now. He does not have much time to talk. More and more people seem to be coming in from the cold. He will not stop to sit and rest until everyone is seen to, taking up a place by the fire to gaze silently into its flames.

He will encourage newcomers to get warm and eat, and when they are ready to — they can explore the town and find one of the many empty homes to call their own. He will not speak much, but gesture to your fellow survivors. They will have better answers than him.

THE THING WITH FEATHERS

WHEN: Throughout the month.
WHERE: Milton area.
CONTENT WARNINGS: animal attacks, altered wildlife, gore, possible character injury/death, possible animal injury/death.

It is no secret that nature has been warped here somehow. Interlopers discovered this in the very early days of their time in the Northern Territories, when packs of wolves descended upon Milton. A frightening and terrible thing to try and survive — plenty were injured in the attack, a few unlucky Interlopers even lost their lives during that time.

There have been other ways in which the world around them has become strange: extreme weather, shifts to the flora of the world, changes in native animal behaviour, supernatural creatures, beats from the world’s old stories—

It is hard to tell what may happen next.

The flocks of crows are common sight enough, soaring through the skies, and often the heralds of death: a body, human or animal is close by. But soon enough, the crows began to gather in large groups around Milton. They watch the Interlopers with interest, and seem less easily scared by the people around them. That is the start of things.

Over time, their behaviour grows… unsettling. Interlopers who attempt to chase, scare or even hunt the birds will be met with squawks and even attempts to divebomb. Crows are very intelligent creatures, after all. They recognise the fact that someone is trying to harm them. An Interloper might even kill a crow will be met with raucous anger with their fallen fellow crow. They Will Remember That.

But what is stranger still is to see the birds fighting amongst themselves whilst in flight.

It’s hard to tell why the crows fight one another, but it’s a startling sight to see: the birds tackling into one another, talons trying to rip one another to shreds as they swoop and rise in the chilly air. Some will die, too, and even if one misses such fights in the skies — it is common to find the bloodied remains in the snow, feathers strewn about.

Soon enough, Interlopers may find themselves jumping at the sudden sound of something quick slamming against a door, a window, a roof, a half-buried car in the ground. Investigating will find freshly-dead crows with broken necks, glass cracked where their beaks have struck glass, blood upon wood.

And in time, the birds will stop their assault against themselves. They will turn their attentions to those below: other animals, and to the Interlopers themselves — flocking in huge groups to divebomb the unsuspecting below.

To be set upon is to be met with beaks and claws: the birds are set upon tearing you to shreds, a fluttering fury whirling around you. The best you can do is to try and protect your body from the attack, or run. The birds will be kept back by flames, filling the air with burning feathers as they try to flee — but the best that can be done is Interlopers find somewhere indoors to hide. At the very least, these birds are no stronger than usual animals changed by the Aurora — but they will likely cause some damage to buildings, particularly windows, as they try to get themselves inside.

In time, they will give up their pursuit, finding something else to focus their attention on — whether it be another unfortunate Interloper or some other poor animal.

MISFIT

WHEN: Throughout the month of April.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: personality shifts; body-swapping; possible themes of body dysmorphia; potential body horror, of a sort.

In the month of April, Interlopers have days when they feel….. off. It’s in little ways, at first. Maybe you don’t feel as brave as you normally are, or feel a little more melancholy when your spirit is usually upbeat. Changes in your personality. Little things.

Or perhaps it’s particular habits you keep. Maybe you find yourself not liking your tea the usual way like it. Maybe you find yourself less of an early bird, or prefer to sleep in a different position that you usually do. Those sorts of things.

It is really all that strange, considering the circumstances? Far from friends, family? Stranded in an unfamiliar place, with little-to-no luxuries or even the most basic amenities? Cold and hungry and afraid? God forbid someone feel unlike themselves for existing in this place, just trying to survive.

Eventually, you realise, something is far more wrong than those little shifts in personality or in personal habits. One morning you wake up and you feel… physically different. The weight of you shifts differently, and as you pull yourself out of bed, your perspective is different. Your limbs don’t feel like your own, and as you look at yourself— it doesn’t look like you.

It’s only when you find yourself a mirror do you really realise: you aren’t you at all, you’re someone else.

You’re in someone else’s body.

How do you broach this new existence? Do you roll with it? Do you recognise who you’ve become? Do you feel shame, embarrassment, or an opportunity to cause a little chaos? Are you curious, or very much determined to put an end to this nonsense? Are you horrified? Feeling a deep and strange feeling of wrongness?

Go look, and you’ll…. Well, find yourself. Eventually, somewhere in town is the person whose body you’re currently stuck in, now stuck in yours.

Good luck dealing with that, Interloper.

It’s not permanent, though. Probably. Maybe.

What’s that old saying? Something about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes? That might have something to it.

FAQs

ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST

1. Arrival threads can be treated as game canon.

2. Items characters have brought from home can be found either strewn around them when they awaken, or in the community hall — as if someone left them out for them to collect. Methuselah will not know how they got there, and will be quite bemused by the happenings.

3. Reminder that all characters are now depowered upon arrival. They can choose not to notice it at first, or can immediately sense something is different about them.

4. If asked any personal questions, Methuselah will smile and say "Oh, you don't want to know about an old man like me. But I have lived all over in these parts for all my life." He will be more concerned with trying to help Newcomers, and is genuinely concerned for them and their well-being. Other Interlopers will say much of the same — there's little to know about him.

5. More information about Milton can be found here.

THE THING WITH FEATHERS

1. Interlopers who have hunted the crows previously will find themselves subject to more aggression in their attacks, and the crows will be less likely to give up their hunt for them if they choose to hide.

2. Which... yes, you can eat the crows. It isn't recommended, as they are carrion birds.

MISFIT

1. This prompt is pretty flexible in how players wish to approach this! Interlopers can wake up in the other's home in the other's body and come face to face with a stranger's home and potential housemates. Alternatively, they can find themselves in their own homes but their body has swapped. This would also mean that whatever clothes they happened to wear to bed that night would now not properly fit them. Oops.

2. Interlopers can undo the body swap by talking it out and trying to reach a moment of empathy and understanding with the other.

3. If Interlopers don't reach that understanding, the 'curse' will eventually run its course after 72 hours.

TALES FROM THE NORTHERN TERRITORIES NEWSLETTER

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Charlie isn't too stunned to feel like he's distinctly on the back foot. The feeling comes in the form of a horrible little alarm bell, only countered by the fond teasing in John's voice. The King's vocal cords. John's voice. Yin and fucking Yang.

Arthur's voice breaks the spell, and his presumption is 100% on the money. It feels as natural a suggestion as if they'd agreed on it beforehand. What the hell else would even make sense?

"Oh yeah," he says, more than readily, "use this fuckin' robe for kindling while you're at it." Charlie starts uncurling himself from the blanket to begin with -- slowly, but relieved to find that his fingers are starting to halfway almost grip again. He might make a crack about taking clothes off, except the hat thing didn't stick in his memory.

"Got any kinda timeline on when I should stop shaking? Getting pretty sick and tired of it." It's just chatter, pushing off exhaustion and anxiety with light words. "Think the fire here might be broken."

"I don't know," John admits, "...I found someone on the way in. He let me rest and warm up on the way to town, so I wasn't doing as badly when I got here. And-" a flickering glance at Arthur, because he hates this fact, "I wasn't there when Arthur came in."

He glances over at Arthur.

"...fire can be broken?"

Arthur can't help a short chuckle at John's befuddlement.

"It's a joke, John, he's just fucking cold." He holds out the jacket for Charlie so he can get his arms in the sleeves without having to muddle around with four pounds of lined wool. "Sorry, Charlie, it'll be a while longer yet. And I'm afraid we can't let you sleep until the worst of it dies down. But we'll get the fire, some tea, we'll bring the blankets down from the loft - you'll be back to normal before you know it."

While Charlie tends to keep his feelings in the basement, he's full of so much fondness and gratitude for these two at the moment that he can actually feel it lapping up the stairs.

John's befuddlement, like that of a child asking about the world, catches Charlie off guard and makes him grin genuinely as he struggles into the jacket. (It would be a lot harder without Arthur's help; everything seems to use all of his energy, and take forever.) They didn't tell him the manifestation of the fracture of a terrible deity was cute.

"Lucky me. And hot cocoa and marshmallows?"

Edited 2025-04-11 14:43 (UTC)

"Do we have those?" John asks immediately, because if he can get those, he will. He hasn't heard of them, or heard of someone having them, but he'll go ask around if it means making this less awful.

"Not in our house, no. Maybe there'll be some in another abandoned house that haven't gone completely moldy," he comments dryly, pulling a scarf from his pile and draping it around Charlie's neck. And then leaning up again to fix the knit cap that he hasn't managed to wiggle entirely out from underneath yet. "But we can get drag that tub out from the bathroom and stick it by the fireplace to keep warming you up, Charlie."

It's not much; it's certainly not hot cocoa and privacy. But it's keeping him warm, which is keeping him alive, so Arthur will take whatever wins he can get.

"Heaven."

Charlie's got a strange relationship with privacy these days, after ten years both alone and not and constantly observed. The privacy he worries about is privacy inside his own head; physical privacy is a distant enough second that he sees no reason for it to get in the way of a good hot bath. He wraps the scarf more thoroughly around himself, willing it to warm up and warm him up in turn. How come he's in the middle of this pile of clothes and arms and fire and still shaking with fucking cold, that's what he'd like to take up with God right now.

Arthur's choice of venue for where they might get marshmallows is... notable. Abandoned house. Huh. He doesn't like the sound of it.

"You, uh, get banned from the grocer's or what?" he says, misgivings on his face.

~~Look, God's a little broken up right now...~~

John, for his part, looks over to Arthur. He knows about grocers, sure, but they're certainly not a major component of how the world works in his experience. How do they want to break the reality of Milton, etc. to Charlie?

Well he'd been hoping to save this until Charlie was a little more present, but if he's coherent enough to question it now it might well be the best time they'll get.

"We have one, but right now someone's using it as their own home base," he comments ruefully, shifting to sit slightly closer to the fire, so he's facing Charlie more head-on. "Look, this town we've landed in, Milton - there's no power here. And no access to the greater world, between the mines, the forests, t-the mountains around us - it's just us, all the people that've been brought here. The only supplies we have are the ones we can make, o-or salvage. Food is, er." His mouth tightens, but he takes a breath and continues easily enough, "It's whatever we can hunt, or gather for ourselves. So things tend to be... limited, across the board."

He's coherent enough to ask, but it's still uphill work to take all of that in, and even more if he wants to turn it over in his head, think through the implications. And he does want to, just. Give him a minute.

Food, or more precisely the way Arthur says it and the way he looks while saying it, is the part he understands immediately and reacts to with the most definition. His eyes unglaze for the time it takes Arthur to explain, and his face is frozen. Then he covers it with an exhausted sort of rueful grin. As if he's been trudging uphill instead of just sitting talking, the strength drains out of his body, and he gives up the work of staying upright completely to John again for a bit. His eyes are faintly crossed and heavily blinking.

"Alright. Alright, that's... alright."

Could be worse! Could be worse! Could be worse!

That response is... Not. Great. John picks up the slack, keeping Charlie upright and close, keeping his tentacles combined into something that looks like a claw, and he doesn't say anything for a long moment. Finally-

"We do all right. I'll show you all the food we've had. It's... It's good. It's new, for me, but it's still good."

"It's okay, Charlie," he says gently, leaning in to grip his friend's forearm lightly. "It- it's fish, mostly, my friend Konstantin and I go fishing nearly every other day. Some of the others trap rabbits, o-or birds, people are trying to raise chickens - occasionally people even bring down deer or a moose, so we have red meat for a while."

He tries to give an encouraging smile. "Sometimes it's just scarce, that's all. But we're doing alright for now, a-and we've got some aside for when things get tight again."

"I ain't worried," he lies. Livestock is good. Fishing and game is good. Arthur hasn't exactly put on weight but the two of them aren't visibly dying of hunger. There are beds for the infirm and a communal fire. Nobody's tearing each other apart over scraps, at least not in his current eyeline.

"I'm just fuckin' tired." This is not a lie. He's half convinced the shaking is going to kill him before the cold would've.

It feels a lot more stable when they're touching him, one hand on his arm and two propping him up.

"You should focus on healing," he says, only a little grumpy. It's not at anyone, just at Charlie feeling poorly, Charlie being in a bad state. He doesn't like it. It makes him feel like a failure. "Resting. Recovering from the cold and the blood loss. We can talk about... how to handle everything later."

"There's nothing for blood loss except proper rest and maybe red meat, to get the iron back," he says idly, grabbing a dislodged blanket with one hand to try and drape it around Charlie's shoulders again. "But we'll get you back to temperature again in no time, a-and some hot food in you to help."

He looks back at John. "D'you think you can get him home soon? Straight up to the loft, keep him rugged up while I get the fire and a bath started."

Again, there's something settling about being manhandled but not hurt: hands fussing at him and hands supporting him and hands of exhaustion gently but insistently pulling him backwards. John's voice rumbling around him and Arthur's voice chattering to them both and if the first one makes him shake harder now that he's starting to float in earnest again, it's hard to even tell when his insides still feel like a block of ice despite the burning and sweat on his skin.

He sees himself beside himself, shouting mutely at himself to stay awake, but sadly that guy doesn't always call the shots.

He says something like "chickens take the cold well," more specifically chiiiins tay the coh weh, eyes closed, head sunk, breathing laboured, going, going.

"Noel? Noel!"

That's going to get him a little shake as he looks to Arthur. He gives a gruff nod.

"I can get him there. Go up to the loft and peel some layers off so he can get warm from touch, the way you did with me."

"Charlie-!"

He leans in immediately, catching Charlie's face to give his cheek a few quick pats to try and wake him up. "Fuck, he was coherent, I-I thought--"

And a horrible worry suddenly rises in his stomach, and he's surging forward, tugging open Charlie's layers with a muttered apology until he can reach skin - and gasps, quiet and sharp.

"Change of plans," he says, his voice suddenly hollow. "Put him on the couch, and start a fire. A-a teepee, like I taught you. Now." As he's scrambling to close Charlie's layers again, and fumbles for his bag.

Charlie's eyes crack and then close and then crack and then close, and his lips move but not in a way that would make any particular words. He's still trying, though what he's trying is based on unconscious instinct. Emphasis on the unconscious.

He's good at floating above it, is the thing. He can kick an incapacitation can down the road with the best of them. He spent ten years practicing staying coherent to the last second, and he got, if he can toot his own horn for a second, pretty talented at it. He's got his room where he puts pain when it gets too big, and he's got his little watchman that prods him with sticks so that he doesn't go under until he's forced under.

But, you know, he's still human. And even the most hard-earned watchman has to put down his stick and rest eventually. The cold is penetrating and the shaking is like a full-body intensive workout he can't opt out of, and please. He's too fucking old for that.

"'Change of plans' why?" John demands, because he can't feel what's wrong with Charlie. He can't sense Arthur's distress, the shape of it, what is upsetting him. He has no idea of what he's thinking and he fucking hates it so much he can almost taste it.

He's going to follow Arthur's example, though; he uses the tentacle arm to help shove off the clothing he has, leaving him down to his yellow robes, which despite their looks are not clothing. He'll shove Charlie's own clothing out of the way as well before wrapping him in the robe with him, careful not to smother him even as the tentacles work furiously to re-cover him with John's clothes on top. Once that's done, though, he nods gruffly to Arthur, not waiting for further confirmation, before booking it towards their house.

He'll do as Arthur said, about the teepee and the fire, but he isn't putting Charlie down during any of that. No, Charlie is staying curled up in him, against him, soaking in what warmth his oversized body can provide while he gets it down with his tentacle arm. Thank fucking goodness he's effectively got an extra couple set of arms.

Meanwhile, though-

"Noel? Noel. You don't get it, do you? You have to wake up, Noel. You have to. Because- because Arthur can't lose anyone else. That's why he screamed, you realize. Why- why I did what I did. Why I had to save you. B-because neither of us could lose you. So we can't lose you now, you understand? You have to be okay. This is not optional."

And Arthur grabs everything they left behind, before he books it himself. A part of it feels lazy, like he's not doing enough - as he sprints through the footprints John left, lungs burning from the wicked cold, stinging against the lingering heat from the hall - but it's delegation. It's half the reason they wanted separate bodies to begin with: for moments like this when an extra set of hands, of more muscle could be the difference between life and death.

He shoulders their door open and kicks it shut behind him as he dumps their things on the ground, spares only a moment to watch John coaxing the fire to life, to make sure he's doing it right without panicking - and then runs for their couch. A worn, heavy two-seater piled with blankets, and moves behind it to start shoving it closer to the fireplace.

"John-" through gritted teeth, the couch is heavy - "We have to strip him. Can you-?"

"No fuckin' bakshish," mumbles Charlie with his eyes still closed, being extremely helpful and relevant to the conversation.

John's speech was moving and deserves a better answer, but that's the best they're going to get out of a guy who's fast asleep.

Edited 2025-04-18 00:08 (UTC)

John's speech was nonsense and he's saying it because he has to keep himself calm and he's not about to freak the fuck out while Charlie needs him. He's glad Arthur didn't hear any of it. Some part of him hopes Charlie didn't hear any of it, even if he also sort of does want him to know those things.

"Yes, right," and John's going to start pulling his clothing off, his own, piece by piece until he's down to the yellow cloak and John will unwrap that tentatively before he's pulling Charlie's clothing off to get that cloak around his bare shoulders.

...again, it's very helpful to have, effectively, two extra set of arms. None of the buttons even get removed. Charlie's down to his skivvies and wrapped in yellow robe soon enough.

Charlie's skin is marked with a handful of scars, though there's nothing that would even come close to speaking of ten years of torture. Two are from bullets -- three if you count the new one on his neck. Shrapnel scars dot his left leg like scattered grains of salt on a watercolour; below them, three small toes and a slice of foot are missing, their absence neat enough to be surgical and old enough to have happened long before New York.

Unlike what's on his head, the thatches of hair on his body are grey and white. He's muscled, but with a little of the loose-skinned look of someone whose weight has swung around.

He's a shivery little ice cube in John's robe, but the shivering starts to slowly relax as he's warmed, till it's less jackhammer and more half-charged electric toothbrush.

It felt... wrong, in a way, seeing Charlie like this. The fact he's all but ass-naked doesn't necessarily bother him, but for the fact it's seeing Charlie vulnerable, seeing all his scars and vulnerable splayed against John's chest.

But still, the shivering going down is promising, and he breathes a sigh of relief when he puts a hand on Charlie's chest, feeling his pulse fluttering less weakly beneath his fingers.

"Better," he says, with no small relief. "Good job, John." He brushes the folds of his cloak aside to expose Charlie to the fire more. "Try and catch some of the warmth in here, i-it'll help. When he stops shivering we'll start adding blankets again."

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