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

Oh, don't worry, David is pleased to enjoy the appreciation. Even the laugh.

"Way to crush my hopes and dreams there, Jean-Paul. I'm impressed I kept my speedster's attentions nearly as long as I have. Now you give me the bad news."

"It's not bad! It's better in a lot of ways." He's definitely warming up a bit. "And if I may be frank? If he loses interest it's his fault, not yours. Being fast is no excuse for expecting other people to entertain you."

Well, that's comforting.

"I haven't had the best luck in life, so every bit I get from him is a blessing. But one day he'll come up with an excuse. Probably something like Surge had, a problem with my mortality, even if we have the Five to deal with that right now."

Right now. Yes, David is a pessimist. He understands that Krakoa, while so good and so good for him, wasn't something fated to last. His faith in the very idea of hope was killed so long ago.

"You know what we're having right now, Jean-Paul? A friendly conversation. I think I'm taking that title you scoffed at earlier, and running with it."

Jean-Paul makes a face. "David, if he comes up wit' an excuse to dump someone who'll put up wit' his shit? Then he's an idiot." Jean-Paul isn't about to debate the 'right now' part - he too believes things will change. He just doesn't know when.

Jean-Paul nods and smiles. "Ouais, okay, fine. I'm a dick, what can I say?"

Yeah, David isn't going to point out that if he did happen to get broken up with for stuff like that before. He definitely expects it. Expecting good things were a bit weirder.

"I think you literally just said what you can say. You're a dick. But people love you anyway," David assures him. But he doesn't really have a lot to say about the rest.

Jean-Paul snickers. "They do now, yes. Which does make me wonder how many people I pushed away when I was younger just because I expected them all to leave me."

He drains the last of his latte. "Come. Show me where you're staying, or you can walk an old man back to his apartment. I want the fresh air. It was summer when I left here, and a miserably hot one at that."

There is a lot David could say in response to that. About how those who had been hurt the worst, those that had abandonment issues, had a harder time accepting people near them. How it was often easier for them to push people away to save themselves from a fear of abandonment. How likely Jean-Paul was to have done the same thing.

Jean-Paul is more than sufficiently self-aware for that.

"I think for now I'd rather walk a perfectly reasonably aged man to his apartment. There is no way I'd consider you old."

"Now you're my favourite," Jean-Paul says with a smirk. "I have no idea how old I am, now. Do I count time here? Hn. Let's just stick with 'early forties.'"

He stands, eyes scanning out the window one last time. "I should warn you, David, October is wild here. So use this month wisely."

"For getting you the truth?" David counters, shaking his head. "You're not even twice my age. Hardly old."

Warn him? Oh dear.

"Please tell me this place doesn't decide that it has to be spooky just because it's Halloween."

"I feel old," he confesses. "Kyle is younger than me. Fucking scandalous."

He nods. "Like 'rivers of blood' spooky. Invest in matches and lanterns."

"So, literal worst form of spooky," David grumbles. He hates Halloween. Sorry, he's a winter guy.

He feels old. Perhaps it makes sense. Jean-Paul was a speedster. He'd lived more in the length of his years than many men twice his age. But the 'younger than me' earns a soft smile from David.

"I don't think real love cares about age gaps, my friend. Consider Logan and Jean and Scott. He's generations older than them, but they make it work."

"Ouais. But fire helps. I noticed it's getting dark very early already, and I doubt that's a good sign."

Jean-Paul smirks, one eyebrow arching. "mm, Logan makes lots of things work," he says, amused beyond measure. "But you're right, and it's not even much of a gap. I'm just used to it being a bit of a joke - you know, older boss seduces handsome employee."

Somehow Logan makes his hair style work. That's definitely weird. But who is David to judge? Well, other than David who judges a lot of things.

"Was that the way it happened? You seduced him? Or did he see you and decide 'I want that'?"

If there is one way to get Jean-Paul to stop looking like he just sucked off a lemon, it's to bring up his loved ones. For all of his crankiness, he is a bit of a romantic at heart.

"Well. He'd say it was him doing the seducing, which I guess is true if your idea of seduction involves being really competent and knowing the best wine pairings." He shakes his head a little. "I don't know. He had to spend a fair bit of time wit' me and somehow I didn't drive him off. That's pretty special."

“I mean... he was paid to be in your presence. Handsomely I expect.”

Oh yes, he feels like he can tease. But only because he could see how much the men loved each other.

“You’re the ideal, you know? For a mutant being so fully accepted and loved by someone. For coming from bad to be happy.”

"David, this just proves that we're not far into our working relationship - I can pay people a lot of money and still drive them off. It's a talent." Not a good one, but...

He blinks with genuine shock, looking at David with honest bafflement. "Me?" he asks stupidly. "Oh, David, non. I'm..." What? A garbage fire of a person?Is that even true? "...okay, I see your point," he says slowly. "But I think that says more about Kyle being the ideal human than anything to do wit' me. I'm an asshole."

"So you're suggesting that I'm going to regret living with you?"

Somehow, David doubts that. He's happier with this team that is just starting out than he has been for a while.

"I didn't say you. I said your relationship. And yes, Kyle is part of that, but so are you."

"I'm saying it's a possibility," Jean-Paul says with another quirk of his eyebrows.

"Ah. Well." He isn't sure how to respond to that - for all that he's a famous figure, he still likes to think of himself as private. He honestly never thought his marriage would be of interest to anyone.

Seriously? Jean-Paul's wedding had been NEWS in the heroics community. Of course people were interested. It was major. It had been to David, who was still coming to terms with himself. You could be a mutant and queer. Hell, you could lose being a mutant and be queer.

"Perhaps I will. Perhaps I won't. All I know is that working with you was a life I chose, Jean-Paul. Because I want to help people. Because I want what I do to matter. Lorna and you gave me that."

Jean-Paul looks at David like maybe he's grown another head. "We wanted you," he says simply. "Do you have any idea how many idiots I've had to work wit'? Chrisse, having the luxury to actually pick people was amazing."

Oh come on, Jean-Paul. If there was one thing David wasn't used to, it was being wanted rather than used.

"You have to understand something, Jean-Paul. I was one of the smartest people on Utopia, despite my age. And yet I was never asked to assist the X-Club. The literal island genius team trying to solve our problems. With humans on it. People don't pick me."

Hell, except for the finding the hotel the rest of the work could easily have been done without him, except for the final analysis and presentation to the Council.

Jean-Paul tosses his head and says, with the perfect arrogance he is so well known for, "I am not most people."

"If you think that is something that has not occurred to me, you'd be incorrect," David reminds him, with a smirk.

This? This was why Jean-Paul was fun to be around. The guy was confident in ways David envied.

"Then have a little faith, my handsome young friend." He gestures at the door. "Come on. I want to get home before anybody I know sees me - I'm moping."

"I noticed," David muses as he gets to his feet. Time to go.

"So, who are you sleeping with so I can specifically not mention having seen you to them?"

SEPTEMBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

THE EVIL DOLLHOUSE

THOSE PESKY KIDS

Character Arrival

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