soddersays | SEPTEMBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

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SEPTEMBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to September's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: CHILDREN/YOUNG ADULT HORROR.

All Test Drive Memes contain at least one clue to the Deerington's upcoming in-game events for the month! Keep your eyes peeled! But...not literally.

Characters may die during TDMs, but you do not need to count it towards a game-canonical death unless you want to. Consider it a freebie. All TDMs can be considered game canon as TDMs introduce minor aspects about the world of Deerington that can be revisited by characters later on in the game. You may also use TDMs for your application writing sample as well as AC.

CW: Evil dollhouses, potential body horror (turning into a doll), heights, pranks with the potential to cause harm, some stalking vibes
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

THE EVIL DOLLHOUSE

When you wake up, you find you're not in your own bed, your own room, or even your own house. The room is well decorated, almost Victorian in fashion. The bed is pretty uncomfortable and you're not even sure the mattress is a real mattress. The chairs look like they might be made of plastic and the doors are flimsy. But it might not be what catches your eye, especially if you look out the window.

Through the clear panes (which also seem to be plastic), you will notice you do not see the town of Deerington, or even the outdoors at all. You see a living room that feels larger than life. There aren't any people in it, but as you look around at the fake looking furnishings and the strange view, you might be hit with a realization: you're inside a dollhouse.

The dollhouse has three floors for those who explore; the second floor you woke up on has two bedrooms and a fake little bathroom, all decorated in the same Victorian dollhouse style as the room you originally found yourself in. The bottom floor has a cute little kitchen with small porcelain dolls sitting around the table, a living room with all the basic furniture one would expect to find (in fact, it looks a great deal like the living room outside the windows), and an office filled with books that can't actually be pulled out of the shelves. On the very top floor is an attic. It's dusty and filled with broken toy beds and chairs, a few shattered doll pieces, and on the far wall you'll see another bookshelf. All seems... fairly standard, really, if you're used to seeing dollhouses.

But what there doesn't appear to be is an exit.

While searching, you may run into another Sleeper. A friend or a stranger, it's clear you're both stuck here together. And the longer the time ticks by, the more concerning things get. You might not notice at first, but anyone inside the dollhouse starts slowly... changing. It seems to go at a different pace for everyone, but the results are always the same. Your skin will start to become porcelain, your cheeks more rosy, your clothes made of cheaper cloth material, your joints become stiffer, and your eyes will start to become more and more glass like. If you don't get out of the dollhouse soon, it's clear that you may become the next doll at the kitchen table.

Searching the house again may feel fruitless, but keen observers may find light scratches on the floor in front of the bookshelf in the attic. Maybe they were like that because of someone moving things around or maybe there's a reason. If you decide to eventually pull the bookshelf aside, there will be a large door in the wall. It may seem strange, given that the wall only leads to the outside, but it's the only door to the outside that actually opens. You expect it to open up into the living room, but instead you'll see the grass of the park below. Far below. It's likely you could get hurt jumping, especially if you've started to turn to porcelain, but what other choice do you have?

Once characters take the plunge, they will find that they land rather softly in the grass, despite how high the jump may have seemed. As soon as you are out of the dollhouse, your body will have returned to complete normal.

And the house with the dollhouse in the living room will be nowhere in sight.

THOSE PESKY KIDS

You start off thinking maybe you're just forgetful and moved minor pieces around in your house without paying attention. You might think you're just seeing strange things out of the corner of your eye, because why wouldn't you? It's Deerington. Things are always strange. But each day, there's something weirder going on. Small objects might turn into entire rooms being rearranged, strange sightings out of the corner of your eye might turn into you swearing you saw a lake monster running through the street, and you swear you can hear the rattling of chains or the sounds of someone telling you to leave echoing in your house at night or following you down the street.

A haunting seems plausible. It wouldn't be the first time in Deerington. But no amount of herbs burned, or exorcisms performed, or chants and spell cast will make these things go away. In fact, they seem to just becoming more and more frequent, and more and more intense. Eventually, the strange creatures you see running around may start to try and attack you. They may start to try and kill you. But they always run off before you can attack back or show yourself to be stronger than them. It's probably the first time the monsters have ever been so easily scared.

Anyone who looks into it further may start to find weird clues lying around after a monster has been chased off. Footprints that don't look quite monster-like, tapes or records that when played will make strange rattling sounds like the chains you've been hearing, a piece of rubber that looks a lot like the monsters skin... Huh. The more you follow the clues, the more they'll lead you towards the answer to your dilemmas; these aren't hauntings.

They're pranks.

People can work together to catch a monster or ghost (or killing it, if you decide to); catching them will lead to them getting quite flustered and angry, struggling to get away. Pull off the mask or the sheet and underneath you'll find... a very disgruntled townsperson. Maybe your business was taking too much money away from theirs and they were hoping you'd close down with enough scares, maybe you talked back to them one time and they were looking for revenge, maybe you ruined their house or garden when you were fighting the things in Deerington that actually try to kill you, or maybe they were just having some "harmless" fun; they all have a different excuse, but they're clearly angry about getting caught.

They woulda gotten away with it if it weren't for you pesky Sleepers, after all.

Character Arrival

You can read how all characters arrive in Deerington here.

There is not a collective "all these characters showed up at the exact same moment" occurrence in Deerington. Since characters fall asleep, die, or pass out at various times throughout all their worlds, it wouldn't make too much sense if they arrived in game all at the exact same time. There should be some discrepancy between character arrival, whether by a couple minutes, hours, or even days up to a week.

The players are entirely in control of how/when they want to play their characters arriving in Deerington. For TDMs, you can play it like your character has just arrived and that can be maintained as your game canon, or you can wait until game events for that moment. Or you don't need to acknowledge it at all. The flexibility for character allows a bit more of an organic feel to the character arrival situation, so please play it to whatever feels right for you.

If you are interested in having an "arrival" introduction for one of your TDM prompts, you are more than welcome to explore that option.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Evil Doll House
This was creepy, waking up inside of a dollhouse, with no one else around, it sent shivers down Makoto's spine. Of course, the front door was the first thing that she tried, followed by the back door. When that didn't work, she resorted to trying to use force to get out, kicking the doors with all of her strength, and then trying the windows. The plastic barely budged, and after a short time, she had to stop when there was the sound of something cracking. Lifting the edge of her dress a web of splintered porcelain covered her shin.

"What do I do now?"

Reaching up it felt like the rosepetal earrings she was wearing were almost fused to her ears. Was she turning into a doll?!?

Those Pesky Kids

"Hey! Get back here!"

Makoto was chasing down one of the monsters that had tried to attack her. She was sure that this was the jerk that had been messing with her things, and that ruined her plants. There's no way she's going to let them get away from her that easily. Though running at full speed, as she turned a corner she didn't have time to stop as someone stepped in front of her.

Wild Card
[If you want to do something else go ahead, if you want to plot shoot me a PM or find me on plurk at

remembered_message.]

Edited 2020-08-31 03:26 (UTC)

There were footsteps from above her as she fought with the door. Someone was walking downstairs slowly, almost a little methodically. Dressed in a red cheongsam with a high necked black mantle that came up all the way on her neck, the three eyed woman was currently sporting one of her arms in a decidedly rigid pose and a very displeased look on her face.

"I take it the door doesn't work? Of course it wouldn't. She crams us into another doll house, naturally it wouldn't be that easy. Are you alright, miss?" she said, trying to keep her calm.

Makoto had started to check out the cracks along her leg where she had kicked the window when she heard the footsteps. There was someone else here, besides those creepy dolls that were at the kitchen table. Standing up she was ready for a fight, whoever it was they certainly didn't seem like they were in a hurry, so they might be the one who made this.

Wait, three eyes, and what was up with that outfit and the arm? She didn't lower her guard, but Makoto did straighten up a little, standing taller and looking back over her shoulder towards the door.

"No it wouldn't budge, and the windows are sealed shut too."

Looking back over at the stranger, Makoto was obviously not very happy with the situation either.

"Who put us here? And what do you mean it wouldn't be that easy? Who are you?"

"Let's start with the easiest question to answer," she said, resting against the wall and sighing a little bit. One hand went to first point at her third eye and then to wrap around and cradle the unmoving, porcelain arm. "I am Vira-Lorr. A seer and sorceress from another world than this place. Trapped like you."

She followed with a sigh. "We're trapped in the nightmares of a child with incredible powers. If she's feeling like someone is turning her into nothing more than their plaything, we might be experiencing it. And getting out of these situations is never as straightforward as opening or breaking down the door. There's always a trick." She looked over at her and frowned, a little nerves there. "Are you alright though? You're... changing too, right?"

Ok, so that answered two of the questions at least. She had said she was trapped, and it did look like she was affected too, but did that actually mean that they were going to turn into dolls?

"Something's happening to my leg."

Even as she took a step, rather than the normal sound of a footstep there was the light tink of porcelain. For a moment it almost went out from under her as if it had completely fallen asleep. Lifting she rolled her ankle a little not feeling anything, though the sound made it pretty clear what was happening.

"And it's getting worse."

SEPTEMBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

THE EVIL DOLLHOUSE

THOSE PESKY KIDS

Character Arrival

Makoto Kino | Sailor Moon | OTA

Dollhouse

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Those Pesky Kids

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Pesky Kids

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dollhouse

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