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singillppl2025-10-06 11:02 pm
singmod) wrote in singillppl2025-10-06 11:02 pm
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October 2025 Test Drive Meme
OCTOBER 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 — POWER IN WORDS: Interlopers gather around the campfire and decide to tell stories: only to find their stories begin to come alive right before their very eyes.
PROMPT THREE — FRONTIER COMFORTS: Interlopers come across a surprise baker in Milton, offering up tasty treats — with unexpected effects.
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.
POWER IN WORDS
WHEN: The month of October.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: reality warping; potential fourth-walling; horror monsters/creatures; potential character injury; potential character death.
They say there’s nothing more powerful than stories. Tales of caution told to little children to mind the great and terrible things out in the darkness of the world. Accounts of folk horrors or great adventures to thrill and entertain. Or perhaps stories of valour and hope to help inspire the hearts of the downtrodden and destitute. Words have been spoken over campfires for eons, passed down from lips to lips.
In the Northern Territories, there is plenty of time on one’s hands. The hours seem to crawl by, and there is very little in terms of entertainment to keep one’s mind busy after the chores and business needed to survive is done. Sometimes all there is left to do is to sit by the fire and talk. And with winter quickly approaching, huddling around a fire certainly isn’t a bad idea after all.
And certainly, Interlopers have found themselves compelled to gather around fires as of late. To spend time with their fellow Interlopers, to enjoy the sense of community and togetherness.
Considering the time of year, it’s October — a favourite time of year for some. Halloween draws close, and what better way to celebrate it in a world where nothing much can be celebrated by telling some of your favourite spooky stories for the evening? It feels like as good a time as any, after all.
So you gather around a fire with your fellow Interlopers and begin to tell one another stories. They might be retellings of your favourite horror movies, folktales from your country, stories that freaked you out as a kid. Stories of cryptids or the monsters under the bed. Maybe it might be some supernatural encounter you once experienced. Something to really spook your fellow Interlopers for fun.
… only it isn’t just for fun.
In a world where there are bigger powers at play, there is so much power in words spoken. As you tell your story, something… unexpected happens. Interlopers will find that the horror stories they tell around the fire will start to become a reality. The cryptid from your hometown may just start stalking you from the shadows. The werewolf from that favourite horror film of yours? You hear it howl in the distance. The ghosts you swear you saw once as a kid will appear before you.
You have brought these stories to life, accidentally.
How do you deal with such a thing? Well, how does it end in the story? Your creations only have as much power as the stories that hold them. Stake through the heart for a vampire, a ring of salt for ghosts, silver for werewolves. And you better deal with it quickly, less you become just another victim in the story.
Fortunately, if you’ve talked yourself into a bit of a jam, the monsters you’ve spoken into life will eventually disappear into nothing by the time the sun rises again. You only have to survive the night first.
FRONTIER COMFORTS
WHEN: The month of October.
WHERE: Milton.
CONTENT WARNINGS: altered/magical food items; severely altered/warped behaviours; potential personality switches/animalistic behavioural characteristics; minor body horror; loss of senses; physical age changes; precognition/future visions.
In the month of October, Interlopers have been practically plagued by the delicious scents of homebaking that fill the air in and around Milton. Following their noses, however, has turned up nothing,and no one’s been able to find the source of those smells no matter how hard anyone’s tried to look. Interlopers aren’t exactly living on the most luxurious of diets, and often the most basic and simple of meals is what’s on the table for them in the general day to day. Whatever this is smells practically divine, and no one is immune to being enraptured by them.
One particular day, as you walk around Milton, the scent is particularly strong and this time you’re determined to find the source of the baking. Maybe whoever it is might be in a particularly charitable mood, or might be willing to trade for whatever it is you’re baking.
You see lights on in one of the cabins that had once otherwise been empty, or maybe you’d just never noticed someone lived there. But as you draw closer to the front door, the scents of home cooking are overpowering and you knock, hoping and praying for an answer.
The man who answers the doors isn’t someone you recognise. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about him: he is middle-aged and tall, with a thick beard. Behind him is a busy scene: a roaring fire and the ongoing process of baking. He chuckles at your staring and invites you in. Inside, you find the source of the smell: home-cooked pies of varying types; some more rustic than others, with golden pastry and rich-smelling fillings.
You’re not sure if the man is a fellow Interloper, or perhaps one of the folks from Silverpoint — a Milton native who’s returned home. Or maybe he’s neither. He doesn’t speak much, and only beckons you to pull up a chair at the large kitchen table and eat.
He offers a selection. The choice is yours, Interlopers. But trying out one of these pies might have you biting off more than you can chew.
STALKER’S PIE: A rich pie made with Bear and Wolf meat. Dangerous, mysterious filling. This pie gives the Interloper eating it an animalistic instinct. Your senses are sharp, keen. You hear, smell and see as an animal would. Your nails are sharp like claws, your teeth are now fangs to bear and snap. You see the world in black and white: predator and prey.
PREPPER’S PIE: A dense pie made from foraged vegetables. Rough around the edges. After eating this pie, you feel your mind is clear and untroubled. You feel prepared… in a way you didn’t think possible. For a time, you are able to see things in the immediate future around you. And with that, you are ready for anything.
DOCKWORKER’S PIE: A satisfying pie made from the day's catch. The taste of the sea. As you eat this pie, you feel a sensation of waves washing over you. A gentle rocking, as if you are a vessel on the ocean. With each gentle rock, you feel yourself shift. You’re still you, but another kind of you. Maybe if you’d made another choice, or maybe you hadn’t been chosen. In this world, this timeline, things had gone differently. And now so are you. Different. An alternative version of yourself, rippling through.
BREYERHOUSE PIE: A pie any meateater would love. Lunchbox-ready. Chowing down on this heavy, meat-filled pie reminds you that you too are just meat. And like the game butchered and broken down to make it, the same can be done to you. This pie will temporarily take away one of your five senses: sight, touch, smell, taste or hearing. You may find yourself feeling completely numb to touch; or unable to hear or see anything.
PEACH PIE: A pie filled with sweet, canned peaches. Reminds one of warmer seasons and brighter days. Eating this pie will change your physical age to a younger version of yourself. It will be of a time when things were simpler, happier. The world around you did not feel so empty and terrifying, and you now see it with eyes of wonder and an unbridled heart.
Afterwards, you’ll find you can’t find the man or his cabin again. Once you leave the area and try to return, you’ll find the cabin empty, with no trace of the man or his baking to be found.
FAQs
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.
1. While any monsters are fine to bring in, we do ask that players are mindful of bringing in gigantic monsters (ie. Godzilla) that could potentially break the game's setting.
2. Players are welcome to go with monsters from their character's canons, or make up their own ghost stories or go with real-life examples of ghost stories.
1. The effects of the pies will last between eight hours to a week, depending on how much was consumed. Nothing can be done to alleviate symptoms. You will feel incredibly hungover the day after the effects have subsided, like you've eaten something way too rich, but feel completely fine after that.
2. Dockworker's Pie can be any kind of AU, whether that's a canon AU (ie. Endverse in Supernatural) or a player-made up AU. Genderswaps would also be acceptable in this instance.
3. Peach Pie is flexible in how it can be played out. Characters can keep their normal mind/memories, or they can revert themselves to their literal child stage. Or even an in-between point where they find others around them (ie. CR/canonmates) familiar but can't really truly suss out their current situation.
frontier comforts
And it's this craving that he's perpetually sensitive for, thrilled for, even as much as he hates himself for it. One can't help it, on that instinctive level that goes beyond the concepts of moral and goodness. He once believed that no truly decent man could be swayed to partake in such evils. Now he knows better. And now he has begun to associate people — at least some of them, the ones whose life-forces he thirsts for — with food.
....It's rare that the smell of actual food excites him in such a way. But something tantalising lingers in the air, conjuring forth memories of a time in which Edward did find himself breathless each time he smelled real food in this place, after so long of unbearable starvation. He follows that scent like a child and he eats what's offered to him as though in a dream. He welcomes the idea of enjoying the food, remembering faintly what it is to be a normal man, to feed on normal things and nothing so terrible as what he is cursed to consume now.
But of course there's a punishment. And now he shuffles blindly out into the street, trying not to panic. The loss of his sight is— terrifying, and his heart hammers, head dizzied. He thinks of every dangerous thing with sharp teeth he has ever known — and how, should he find himself in the path of some horror whether natural or unnatural, he would be utterly defenseless. Briefly he wonders about turning to his beast form, but he fears what the animal might do when blind. Lately, his other form has been... wild, bloodthirsty, unstable. No, better he stay as a man. But that means he feels all of a man's terror, nostrils flared, body tense, instinct driving him to stay quiet, unwilling to draw attention to himself.
He makes contact with someone and pulls back quickly, alarmed. But then he's abruptly freezing in place, stunned.
It's been a very, very long time since he heard that distinctive voice, outside of his dreams and nightmares alike. He recognises it as one of his many ghosts, the ones who haunt him perpetually. Surely this is only another transient moment in which one of his lost men flutters before him — close but never close enough. Still, he turns towards that voice, eyes wide, useless but searching all the same, and wounded. A knife twists through his heart, causing the name to come out hoarse and pained. ]
.........George?
no subject
But he cannot mistake that voice.
The last time he'd laid eyes on Edward Little, he'd stood atop a small slope, staring across the shale. He hadn't been able to look, for the most part. He'd stood apart from the others, shame coiling tightly in his chest, when they'd come for their Captain, sent by that torrid and vile man Hickey.
Edward was to march south. And Hickey sent them on that march up the ridge, chained to the boat sledge to— yes, he knows. He knows. He can't be anything else, now.
And yet even the shame remains in death. It makes him close to weeping, and he can feel his eyes grow glossy. Edward, here. And he is sorry, so deeply sorry. If he had been braver, if he had been better— perhaps they might not have been truly scattered to the winds. ]
... E-Edward?
[ He breathes out the name, shamed and uncertain all at once. He wants to reach out, and yet his limbs are still frozen. ]
Have I — have I gone— [ He cannot finish the sentence. He swallows, his head shaking. ] Is it you, truly?
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It does not matter, to him. Whatever form the ghost of Terror's second lieutenant may be, Little will only welcome him.
And so he reaches out, one hand first — gloved fingers blindly seeking contact and finding it at the side of Hodgson's arm. There, his hand curls, grasps onto the material of his clothing, and his second soon brushes the other man's chest, patting it careful and awkward, as though casting a feeler. No, George hasn't gone mad. This is real. ]
Yes. Yes, it's me. It's all right. It's Edward.
[ His hands tighten against clothing, and he gives an odd sound, certainly no laugh, but an emotional, stuttering exhale. ]
I cannot see you. Something has— happened to my sight. But you're there.
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We are both lost, then. [ He wheezes out the words, a weak, helpless kind of humour in them. His head drops. ] I see nothing but terrible darkness.
[ He doesn't understand how Edward Little is here, and it aches terribly. He knows he has met his end: felt the jaws of the creature close around him and felt the hot, wet crush of it's maw in the moments before his arrival into this place. He is dead, he must be. And perhaps this strange place is Hell, punishment for every wicked thing he has done — but Edward, Edward— ]
You... you were to march south. You were to live.
no subject
Keep very close with me. [ Spoken quickly, Edward turns his head to one side and then the other, nostrils flared in his alarm, as though listening out for something. He doesn't know what might follow up this particular torment. It may only be beginning; any moment now, something worse might come for them. And he isn't prepared, doesn't have his weapon on-hand right now. He prepares himself to turn if needed; at least the beast can hear and smell far beyond his human capabilities. And despite its recent feral shifts, it seems to maintain a loyalty towards those he knows. It would protect George; he has to believe that.
At the other man's words, Little's head turns back to face him and he stares, even if he cannot see. There's a soft sound, a swift, startled inhale drawn and held for a long moment. 'You were to live.'
Hearing those words brings him back with a jolting stagger, though the edges to it all are hazy and eroded with time and other things. Still, he forces his mind back to what happened over two years ago now. What happened in the end. His last moments with the other man, and it all feels like some dream. Everything happened so.. swiftly, so strangely, in those final months, weeks, days. (Irving dead and maimed — orders gone wrong — Hodgson trailing Little, grasping his own arm like he was lost, desperate and unsure— a growing nightmare eating away at them all from within—)
The last time he ever saw George Hodgson: an odd figure standing too far away to reach, seeming almost out of place amongst the others. The slow-burning realisation of what had happened. And then— a shot, Hartnell bleeding out and shuddering like a child. Crozier's final command.
Edward releases that pent-up breath softly, and his head tips forwards. This is where Hodgson arrives from: freshly in the middle of those horrors. ]
I was meant to come and rescue you from that devil's camp. All of you. [ His throat moves in a hard swallow. ] I failed you. I failed, George.
[ His hands squeeze. ]
What is the last thing you remember?
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I failed you. I failed, George.
There's a tight inhale of breath and he stares, even if he stares into nothing but the blackness. No, he cannot accept this. He will not. ]
Never. If anyone failed— [ Then that blame rests with him. He should have spoken up sooner. About Neptune. He shouldn't have sent John off with that fiend, should have kept him close instead. He should have be braver, he should have killed Hickey— ]
We were atop a hill, on the shale. Hickey had chained myself, Tozer, Golding and our Captain to the boat-sled. Made us haul it there.
Then he baited the creature to our position. He was a madman, and— delirious, poisoned with— Captain Crozier had signalled to us, discretely. Not to eat— [ To eat what, he cannot say. He cannot speak of it. The chunks of cooked meat up his fine china plate. He had looked up and seen Crozier's faint shift of his head. No. And then, he realised, with Manson hunched over, gripping the boat behind him as he vomited upon the road — the meat tainted. His stomach lurches painfully, and he fears it may reject the pitiful amount of meat pie he had consumed. His head jerks a little, as if to rid himself of the thought. ]
... It was upon us. Armitage meant to shoot Hickey, but Manson shot Armitage instead. He had the keys to our shackles. We worked to get them, and I had them—
[ He holds a hand up, fingers curling into a fist — he can still feel the cold metal against his skin. ]
The creature began to pick the others off, slaughtered them. Pilkington, Diggle— I had but one key left to try. As I freed myself from the chain, Captain Crozier called for me to be still— [ He stops, suddenly. He is dead, he knows that. And yet it is still so sharp and startling all at once. His eyes are glossy, and he blinks back tears, straining against the words: ]
I was not still.
no subject
The question is there, even after all this time: how did it all come to this?
One by one by one, those men died. And then—.... Hodgson is quiet for that beat, and Edward exhales a soft sound, head tipping forwards slightly, throat tight, his own breathing strained. 'I was not still.'
He was killed. He can imagine the brutality of it; he'd seen, heard the creature kill before. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, and his hands slowly loosen from George's shirt front, though he doesn't move away. Once again, as he was when faced with John Irving, a living ghost before him, he can hardly fathom how gruesome the deaths of his men were. He knows of his own ending too, Crozier had regaled them, though vaguely, strangely. Little doesn't quite understand how or why it happened, only that— this place gifted him a pocketwatch chain, and he keeps it on-hand at all times now. He knows he died last. And he was unable to do anything to help any of them. ]
You are safe now, [ he says, trying as hard as he possibly can to push the tremour out of his own voice, to strengthen his resolve for Hodgson now. He is glad that his own teary eyes can't be seen. George isn't safe now, not really, but he's safe from that. He's... alive, here. ]
I know this is... impossible to believe, but we live and breathe here. It is another... world, another time. I have been here for two years now.
[ He can't explain how it works, slowly shaking his head. ]
Perhaps we were... touched, by the supernatural, back on the ice. Perhaps it lingered with us, has... affected us now. That is the only way I can explain this reality, but George... you are alive. [ He reaches to grasp both of his shoulders, giving those a squeeze now. ]