exsangui: [insomniatic.] (2serious mod stuff.)
SANGUI mod. ([personal profile] exsangui) wrote in [community profile] sangui2021-09-29 05:16 pm
Entry tags:

TDM 1.

Hey guys, it's the first Test Drive Meme! Please note you do not have to app a character to play in here, and this is only game canon if you want it to be-- this is set up to be a freaky dream your character has pre-game, and maybe your character remembers, maybe they don't! It's left purposefully open-ended, because this is dream logic, so feel free to go off the rails if you're feeling creative.

CW: death, blood, (optional) harm to animals. Please warn if your thread has animal harm in it.

Since this is a dream, death is not permanent. Characters 'killed' in this log may find themselves coming back to life at any point, in any way.





𝕿𝖊𝖘𝖙 𝕯𝖗𝖎𝖛𝖊 𝕸𝖊𝖒𝖊: 𝟏


You awake in a strange dreamscape, without memory of how you got there. You walk through clouds, under a beautiful sky. You see others walking with you.

The sky starts to swirl into a strange shape: a face.




You are mine, and I am yours. Great gifts have been bestowed. Within you now lives a terrible purpose.」 They say.


Suddenly, you know what vampire abilities you possess. It's as though the face spoke to you directly and whispered them in your ear.

The sky changes, like a storm is coming over sea. You feel grass bloom under your feet. Then cold. Then snow. Before you stands a cold, decrepit castle. Yet cheering can be heard inside: humans cheer and warmth radiates from inside. They beckon you to come in, you're just in time for the feast!

The feast itself takes place in a medieval castle, kept warm by the heavy tapestries over stone walls. Yet the people inside it seem to be clothed in more industrial era garments. They sing and laugh, joking as they serve you copious amounts of meat. Some of it is well-cooked and seasoned. Some of it is still raw and rare. All of it is recognizably fresh, and from an animal.

They chatter happily, about how lucky they are to be here, safe and inside the Lord's castle. He wasn't doing anything with it anyway!

As time goes on, it becomes evident this castle was taken over, hostile, from its previous owners. A rich lord and lady would not allow anyone inside, despite the frost. You begin to notice people around you, smiling and laughing, are very thin from hunger. Many have missing or blackened toes and fingers. Many are covered in blood, and from their joy, it is not theirs.

Several people, once the first few songs are done, ask you to aid the wounded-- they are similarly poor, and far more injured. Honorable injuries, these are, you're informed, got 'em storming this here castle.

The desire to drink from their wounds is overwhelming. Some even seem to recognize it. Come here, they say, it'll put an end to the pain.

If you drink, you will be rewarded. Your head will clear. You will feel stronger, safer, more yourself than you ever have before.

Others may hear screaming from the topmost rooms of the castle. It seems the young children of the dead nobles are still locked inside. They beg to be freed, to be saved. Upon hearing them, the festivities pause. The slightest hint of sympathy toward these children is met with violence.

You are chased from the castle into a verdant, if dark and foreboding, forest.



You walk through what now feels like spring weather, dark and hot and humid. The foliage is thick, the plants hang low, and each trudging step feels endless.

Your hunger grows, especially if you didn't feed on the wounded. Yet regardless, it is harder and harder to stop yourself from feasting on the fat, lazy wildlife that trudges through the underbrush. Deer, elk and boar are most common. They seem to watch you from the treeline with suspicious eyes, and barely make an effort if you destroy them.

IF YOU FED ON THE WOUNDED: You come across a red altar of blood and bone in a forest clearing. It asks you to sacrifice whatever you can give. Is that a memory? A fellow traveler? All you know is that it hungers like you hunger: for blood. If you make a sacrifice of any kind, it will be kept forever, safe and unmoving.

Yet you can hear something in the depths of the altar, as though they've slipped into the center and gotten stuck. If you work very hard to save them, tearing at the blood and the bone, you will soon find the altar enveloping you.

Who will save you? Or was that their sacrifice all along?

IF YOU ONLY FED ON ANIMALS: You come across a forest clearing with strange trees standing ominous and alone. Fawns, small rabbits, and little brown birds sit among the branches.

The sky grows dark. Time seems to pass with horrible foreboding. And then-- the animals attack. All at once, furious bites and pecks and kicks, and there is little you can do against an assault of this kind.

Except, perhaps, run, and hope someone will try to save you.

IF YOU DID NOT FEED: You find your way to strange monoliths at the edge of a field. You feel instantly better once you've left the treeline, but you can't escape the feeling that eyes are on you. And look at that-- a person holding a snake stands at the highest peak.

"Come join me!" they say, but the climb is laborious. It's basically impossible without help. A long, steep climb, but you can make it, and once you do, the person who beckoned you is gone.

Sitting at the top of the monolith, you can see the forest, the castle stretching out in the distance, and even the clouds you walked on to get there. You know this is a dream. You know you'll wake soon.

And you are so thirsty.

goty: red. static. angry. (isn't it strange?)

ellie | tlou2 | ota | CW for light animal harm / gore.

[personal profile] goty 2021-09-30 12:22 am (UTC)(link)
(a.) castle
Maybe it's a peculiarity of her upbringing; she is suspicious of the food they bring her. She picks at it with her hands, trying to find some evidence within the meat. Careful, tentative, she licks her finger, before wincing.

It's clearly been some time since the girl had a good meal, but she remains hesitant to eat, and if you dig in, she'll give a hot, hard, judgmental look.

"You know how you tell if meat's human?"
(b.) wounded
She knows she's not a medic, and so she passes the wounded by. Or, well, she tries. One of them, a frail old woman, grabs Ellie's ankle, and Ellie yelps and almost kicks her before she realizes what's going on.

Throughout, the woman never, ever flinches.

"End it," the woman asks, "please."

Ellie is lost. She looks to the nearest person, searching for some idea of what to do.

The stench of blood is overwhelming.
(c.) forest
The forest is almost a relief. Ellie falls back into form like a hunter finding their grounds. The hunger still pulses within her, and she does her best to listen to it, this time. She spends several hours sharpening a stick with almost maddening concentration, until it's a fine point, a deadly spear.
(d.) boar
The job is done. The boar is before her, all blood and gristle, guts streaming out in an ominous shape. Far from the elation she was expecting in a hunt gone well, she feels only revulsion, yet she can't look away.

"This motherfucker," you might hear her saying as she wipes blood from her face. "Why couldn't he just go easy?"

Not long later, she's retching up nothing.
(e.) altar
The altar is red and lovely and inviting, perhaps too much so. Standing near it, you may hear a voice echoing from the deep. Help me! Wait a little longer, and a bloody hand will emerge from the earth, grasping at anything.

"Please!"
(f.) wildcard
[im down for anything.]
Edited 2021-09-30 00:27 (UTC)
icasm: (so many feelings)

(b.) wounded;

[personal profile] icasm 2021-09-30 01:29 am (UTC)(link)
"Honorable injuries," the tall man at her side repeats, putting one hand on Ellie's shoulder lest she be inspired to kick at the woman again; he hasn't realized that was just a startled reaction on her part. "It would be a mercy. She's not going to make it through the night."

His eyes are green and dark, catching the light thrown their way by torches and shadows. Loki lets go of her shoulder. "Can you manage it?" Killing the woman, draining her blood. He won't step in if she says she can.

goty: sad. injury. (emotions i can barely afford)

[personal profile] goty 2021-09-30 02:04 am (UTC)(link)
A memory or a premonition-- a dead boar. Gore everywhere. The terror of a barnyard, windswept. An infant in her hands, so easily destroyed.

She gulps warm air. Everything smells like meat. "I don't think I can make it painless..."

Isn't that what the voice in her ear said?

"You'll stand watch?"
Edited (wow wordS???) 2021-09-30 02:11 (UTC)
icasm: (tried my best)

words are hard! why do we engage in this weird hobby with words anyway

[personal profile] icasm 2021-09-30 02:58 am (UTC)(link)
Loki's nostrils flare. He smells it too, the viscera, the blood, and gods above and below is he thirsty.

"Can you do it quickly, then?" It doesn't matter, he realizes, if she can or not. He has to give her the opportunity to make the attempt.

The woman asked her. Not him.

He nods. "I'll stand watch."
averagemedium: (pic#8968204)

ryan farrow / oc

[personal profile] averagemedium 2021-09-30 05:54 am (UTC)(link)
castle, a;

Everyone around him is laughing, joyful. It should be a good time, it really should, he recognizes that it should, but the warmth and the noise and the crowd in this place feel oppressive. He spends his time keeping to the fringes as much as he can, posture slouched in a desperate attempt not to look as tall as he is, not to grab attention. It doesn't help-- likely he stands out a little more for his overt efforts to shrink away, arms folded around himself more than over each other, and he's just... busy trying to breathe. Was he breathing before this, come to think of it? Does he need to right now? He's not positive he wants to find out, so-- he inhales, exhales shakily. Inhales again, trying to ignore the smell of food in the room.

If anyone else here doesn't appear to be an immediate part of the feast, he gravitates a little closer, eventually. Still tentative, uncertain. "Should we, um. Leave? Would that be rude?"

castle, b;

And then there are the wounded people, later. It's hard to ignore the desire that comes to life at the smell of blood, like something lingering there he just hadn't put a finger on yet, and he has a hand pressed over his nose and mouth, covered by an oversized sweater sleeve.

"I, I can't, um-- it's nice of you to offer, I think, but I really couldn't just-- you should, you know. Keep that. You kind of need your blood a lot more than I do, probably?"

It's still hesitant. He's not sure how true that last part is, right now. The sleeve of his sweater does absolutely nothing to mask the scent in the air, and he has no idea how long he can decline. Maybe he should go.

His feet don't exactly want to move, and he shoots a wide-eyed, sidelong glance at whoever is nearby.

altar;

He's seated in the grass of the forest clearing, knees pulled up to his chest, chin resting on top of them, arms wrapped around his legs, and he seems to be just... watching it. There's no trace of disgust at how it looks. No real hesitation. There's nothing to hesitate for, in his estimation, and he's observing it with a furrowed brow and a distant expression.

It doesn't look like he's using it, for the moment.
exsecrabilis: (heck)

a

[personal profile] exsecrabilis 2021-09-30 06:02 am (UTC)(link)
"No??"

And what kind of question is that, anyway, least of all for a young lady to be asking? The man she addresses, the sort who seems as though he could get forty-eight full hours of sleep and still fall out of bed ruffled and exhausted, fixes her with a gaze both intense and lost.

"Do you know?"
exsecrabilis: (my density)

b

[personal profile] exsecrabilis 2021-09-30 06:06 am (UTC)(link)
The glance is caught and met squarely by an equally uncertain face, which subtly-- in a frightened, jerking motion-- shakes from side to side. They're both feeling it, but shouldn't do it. It's a test of will, clearly, and now is not the time to be weak.

Even if it does smell so wonderful, and is offered so freely.
averagemedium: (pic#8968202)

[personal profile] averagemedium 2021-09-30 06:11 am (UTC)(link)
But you do need it, the person offering presses, and he flinches slightly. Okay. Maybe he unintentionally implied that he did, in fact, need it to some degree. That was probably not an ideal dodge.

Having someone else refuse sort of helps, sort of makes him more torn about it. They're literally offering, he would do the same thing in their position, so is it really that bad?

"I mean-- I'll be fine, I really will, I swear," he tries to insist, but there's not much energy behind it. "...right?"

Help.
icasm: (to a close)

Loki (Variant) | MCU/Loki TV | ota

[personal profile] icasm 2021-09-30 06:23 am (UTC)(link)
→ a) the castle | insane, inside, the danger gets me high
They invite him in.

First mistake, perhaps. First step, definitely. They invite him in, and Loki gazes at the people, their frostbitten appendages, the blood on their clothes, and their raucous merrymaking and wonders just what he's stumbled upon, here.

There's raw meat on the table in front of him. He can't stop staring at it.

→ b) the wounded | can't help myself
The man in front of him is bleeding profusely from the shoulder. His arm hangs limp at his side.

Loki kneels down, frowning.

"What happened to you?" He asks. Loki can't pull his eyes away from the blood, the deadened hand that will probably never move again. Something about severed nerves. Something about the damage that lingering cold does to open wounds.

"We stormed the castle. They were going to leave us out there! To die." The man raises his chin, grinning. He's missing teeth. He's young, Loki realizes. "I would rather die warm."

Loki is reaching out towards the bloodied shoulder before he thinks to stop himself, but the young man nods his assent, and so his hand comes back to his mouth red with fresh blood.

He knows what he is. Some strange monster that feeds on blood. This young man knows it also, isn't afraid.

He dies warm, unafraid and Loki's mind clears for the first time that night just as he meets the eyes of whoever has been watching him for at least the last several minutes. Loki wipes the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, raising his eyebrows. "Yes?"

→ c) the children | got secrets I can't tell
He hears the children crying.

The party halts, the singing dying down. Several of the 'liberators' sneer, make jokes about the children's impending doom and Loki sidesteps into a shadow. There's a brazier to his left merrily burning away.

In a moment there's a curtain on fire, several people are screaming about the fire, and Loki has begun racing up the stairs.

→ d) the red altar | I love the smell of gasoline
He stares at it for a while, this altar of blood and flesh and bone. Eventually, he leans over it, tilting his head as he listens.

Instead of reaching for whatever, whomever is buried at the center of it, Loki whispers a story into the altar.

He straights, blinking, before looking around. Something has happened, but he doesn't know what.

→ e) wildcard | I light the match to taste the heat
[ hit me with your best shot. it's a dream! let's go. ]
Edited 2021-09-30 08:20 (UTC)
icasm: (so many feelings)

altar;

[personal profile] icasm 2021-09-30 07:16 am (UTC)(link)
Loki approaches through the trees, hands empty and at his sides. He could be quieter, he's aware, but he doesn't exactly want to startle the other person at the altar. He does want to know... what, exactly, he's doing.

"Are you going to just sit there?"
averagemedium: (pic#8964019)

[personal profile] averagemedium 2021-09-30 07:24 am (UTC)(link)
"...probably?"

He blinks owlishly up at Loki, stirred from whatever he was thinking about, then gives the altar an uncomfortable glance.

"I don't, um. I don't really have anything worthwhile to give it."
icasm: (something really real)

[personal profile] icasm 2021-09-30 08:06 am (UTC)(link)
"You could feed it a rabbit." He shrugs, an elegant gesture somehow, despite... everything. "Or a secret."

He wonders what this person thinks of themselves, that they wouldn't have anything 'worthwhile' to give to the altar.
rhenalfailure: (8)

Dettlaff | the Witcher | OTA

[personal profile] rhenalfailure 2021-09-30 08:13 am (UTC)(link)
I: UNWELCOME
The dream is sluggish as it forms around him. Dense and swimming underfoot, too slow initially to be a perfect mirror of reality, all but rushing to resituate itself as he presses further into its belly. Yet unlike the rest, the details of it feel— foreign. Not his own. He doesn’t recognize this landscape, these people. Their clothes are wrong. The castle rotten in its own bones, as they rot in their own skin. Masses of short-lived flesh gnawed at by sustained cold. Sickly for it still.

And the scent that clings to the air is thick with temptation.

In truth, he’s used to this particular lure. Resisting its call has never come easy, but even as his head swims, he knows how to pull himself away. To draw back from urging— physical, spoken. Dark leather in a sea of bloodied cloth. One clawed hand raised, held half-high in front of him. Warding. Passive. A barrier against anyone coming too close. He makes to leave. He can’t be here.

But then he hears shrieks from upstairs, and his attention twists— sharp.

A moment later, he moves for the nearest stairwell, against all muttered urging from an increasingly resentful crowd.

II: FOR A FRIEND
Heaviness. Like a shroud. Grim and exhaustive. His senses feel too dull to compensate, his mind beating in his skull. He barely has the presence of mind in wandering to mark the shifting silhouette of someone else on the hunt— and for their far lazier prey: a black-feathered bird, resting almost within reach.

His intercession is muted. He steps between both, broad-shouldered, tall and dark and hunched with the drag of his own current state. But his eyes are clear, and his gruff voice low and humming when he speaks:

“Not this one.”

It isn’t sharp. It isn’t cruel. In fact, if not for the way his stare bores without blinking, it might almost sound like a petition.

“Find something else to sate you.”

III: IT ENDS THE SAME

No good deed goes unpunished.

Or blood begets blood.

Or—

Or what.

What is it that mankind expects from cold, dark places. When they stare into hollow eyes in an empty wood and feel their shadowed sins creeping up along their own spine. Dettlaff’s sense of danger has always been different. Men fear monsters. Monsters fear—

Nails scrape over swaths of bloodied bone as he claws with howling, snapping, snarling fury to break free from that altar's drowning hold where it's already snared one of his arms high above the elbow.

If you betrayed him to it— intentionally or otherwise— those short, sharpened talons are lunging for you. Cutting mercilessly through deadened air, jagged teeth snapping. Eyes gone silver with pure, primordial hate.

If you didn’t, there could be something said about wild animals snared in traps. A wolf will still bite while it’s saved, a snake will spit venom— and he bares his fangs now like he means to use them.

Because he will.

icasm: (proudly on display)

wildcardish to iii

[personal profile] icasm 2021-09-30 08:31 am (UTC)(link)
Someone is watching Dettlaff as he claws his way out of the altar.

That someone is not standing in the clearing, or even is visible by merely glancing around, and yet. The feeling of eyes on him is pervasive.

Loki was not the one who fed him to the altar; he'd heard the scuffle, to put it lightly, and came to see what was happening before his sense of self-preservation told him to hide. He can't just step into shadows anymore, disappear from view, and thus...

He's up a tree. Watching as Dettlaff rages against the very air. He'd applaud the skill of the escaping, but. The man... monster... whathaveyou might scale the tree and come after him and Loki would rather not discover what the business end of that encounter would be like.

Whomever put you there has long since left, 」he informs him, without speaking.

Neat trick.
averagemedium: (pic#8964019)

[personal profile] averagemedium 2021-09-30 08:52 am (UTC)(link)
"That doesn't really seem fair to the rabbit, is the thing," he murmurs, picking at a loose thread on his sleeve. It's his own problem, why make another life responsible for it?

The second suggestion, though, doesn't get an immediate comment.
rhenalfailure: (15)

[personal profile] rhenalfailure 2021-09-30 08:56 am (UTC)(link)
Since this is a dream how much will 'reality' bend to accommodate our dreaming bats? Are old powers a possibility before they're forever shelved? Are new powers able to reach overachieving strengths?

Asking for an angry friend. The angry friend is Dettlaff.
rhenalfailure: (14)

cw for mild allusion to animal injury

[personal profile] rhenalfailure 2021-09-30 12:27 pm (UTC)(link)
He hears noise. That's all it is for one livid, wrenching moment as his heels dig and his shoulder twists violently against the grain— rows of jagged fangs gleaming in the light. Language equating in his mind to the messy grit of stone dragging across stone, or the hissing of wind through quivering branches. Nothing. Nothing.

And still, Dettlaff makes no progress, though the pain is bone-deep; his choice, the consequence of his increasingly less effective efforts, rather than the trap itself. An animal gnawing at its own pinned leg.

Though perhaps thankfully he hasn't yet reached that level of desperation.

Who are you.

Rasping. Baleful. Even unspoken, the press of his thoughts dig like gnashing teeth.

Where. Are. You.

Edited 2021-09-30 14:37 (UTC)
rhenalfailure: (10)

[personal profile] rhenalfailure 2021-09-30 02:05 pm (UTC)(link)
hell yea, awesome, ty!
goty: injury. sad. (no words on a screen)

[personal profile] goty 2021-09-30 02:40 pm (UTC)(link)
There is a stake-knife. She was instructed to use it to saw through the food they were given, raw and blackened, and she refused. Yet instinct bid her to keep the knife close.

She brings it down, hovering over the woman's neck. A voice in Ellie's head says, you're doing it again.

She rakes it through the woman's neck, hard and fast, and can't stop herself from pressing her lips to the wound, drinking. Is this what she's become?
goty: red. static. angry. (OtPQ2AQ)

[personal profile] goty 2021-09-30 02:41 pm (UTC)(link)
Ellie, who came here pre-bloodied in a dirty tanktop, blood-stained and wearied, takes little notice of the man's discomfort. She was never a young lady.

"You can't," she says, and sets the food down, though it makes her stomach lurch with want.
goty: red. angry. (on someone else's time.)

iii.

[personal profile] goty 2021-09-30 03:11 pm (UTC)(link)
She did this, is the thing. A moment of weakness, listening too much to that thundering voice in her head, louder than her pulse, and she pushed him.

She's familiar with regret. She recognizes it instantly, and grabs for him, goring one of her shoulders in the process. After all the pain, you'd think new hurt would be dulled, but no. It's there, vibrant as ever, making her eyes water, her grip weak.

Now is no time for apologies. She pulls, grateful her shoes are at least sturdy in the mud. "Fucking- work with me!"
icasm: ('cause she miss the cologne)

[personal profile] icasm 2021-09-30 06:12 pm (UTC)(link)
If he's concerned about fairness towards a rabbit just wait until he has to feed on a living, breathing, human being.

"Are you a vegetarian?" Seems like an important question for this stage of things.

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