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

Not really! If I can't bend and I can't feel the spirits or even reach the Spirit World, then I'm not much of anything.

You're still you. Even without all that stuff. And you can bend, it's just... [ Mako lifts a hand, flicking his fingers so a flame ignites over his palm, small and shaky. He grimaces at it and flicks it away again. ] Bad.

You can say that again. [ She sighs and drops back onto the ground, starring up at the canopy. ] Why d'you think we got stuck here?

What's the emphasis in that question? [ Mako watches her for a moment, with needles stuck in her hair and a small, shiny burn-spot on her shoulder from what must have been bending gone wrong. The dappled light plays wildly over her face as the wind rustles the high trees.

He sighs, and drops to the ground next to her. ] Why are we here and not Asami and Bolin? Why are we stuck?

Why here? [ Korra looks over at him with a frown. Of all the people in the world, Mako isn't not the person she would want here. Korra loves him, and has for years, but her relationship with Mako is also complicated, possibly one of the most complicated ones she has. If she was stuck here with Bolin or Asami, it would be easier. ] And why us.

I don't know, Korra. [ It's hard on Mako, too. Not that he wouldn't pick Korra to be stuck here with—honestly, Korra is exactly who he'd have picked, if he'd had to choose. He said he would stick by her and Mako intends to keep that promise even in a crazy dreamworld with real consequences.

But it is... kind of awkward. ] You're the wise Avatar here. Think we pissed off some ancient spirit?

This place doesn't even had spirits! [ It's so frustrating, and normally she would bend to get the frustration out, but even that is too dangerous.

Instead, she gets to her feet and holds out a hand for Mako. ]

Spar with me.

No bending? [ Mako claps their hands together and lets himself be tugged out of the leaves and needles, shaking his head to get the rest out of his hair. ]

Nope. Just old fashioned fisticuffs. [ She drops into a fighting stance, putting up her fists. ] No headshots, no bending.

You think you have to tell me not to punch you in the head? [ Sure, he grew up on the street in a gang, and sure, he's been known to fight dirty, but still! Still. He drops into his own stance, anyway, grinning a bit. ] Show me what you got.

I dunno Mako. You're kinda a hair puller. [ She grins wider at him and takes the opportunity to dive in for a hook to his ribs. ]

Korra! Can we not— [ Honestly Korra bringing up their relationship is the best way to fight dirty with Mako, he is so red and so distracted that she just straight-up punches him, sending him stumbling back. ]

Aw, come on! [ She laughs and falls back, giving him a second to recover ] You're too easily distracted, Mako. Gotta keep on your toes.

Cheater. [ Oh, it is on now. Sure, he's still kind of pink in the cheeks, but he is absolutely using his street tricks now: pretending to still be embarrassed, dragging a hand through his hair while he resets his stance and then feinting at her. ]

I never said I played fair. [ Korra dodges out of the way and aims a sweep kick at him. Luckily, that gets her out of the way of his real punch. ]

Edited 2020-09-06 04:01 (UTC)

[ It's hard for Mako not to bend, at this point, but he manages to keep the fire banked as he leaps over her kick. ] If you're cheating, your win doesn't count! [ He's going to use his momentum to try and knock into her, get her off-balance. It's the best way he knows to get the upper hand against Korra. ]

[ Mako's body slams into hers and Korra rolls off him, shuffling a few steps back to catch her balance. She brings her fists up again. ] Says you.

Hey, I was a pro-bender for way longer than you. I think I know something about winning. [ Back into his own action stance. Now they're just circling each other, and as much as Mako's getting nowhere, he's also having a lot of fun. There's nothing like a little sparring with the person he knows best, besides his brother, to take his mind off the near-constant horror of this place. ]

Sure. Because you won so much before I came along. [ Her eyes narrow, watching, waiting.

But she's never been very good at waiting.

She surges in with a jab to his gut. ]

We did fine, alright? [ Which is BS and they both know it, but Mako is grinning as he ducks and throws his leg out, imitating her sweeping kick from earlier. ] And we didn't exactly win.

[ It catches her, but she catches her fall and rolls out of the way, coming at from from the side with a push kick. ] Hah! We would've, if Tahno hadn't been such a cheat.

D'you ever wish we'd competed again? [ He tries to dodge but Korra is fast so he's shoved back into the needles, rolling as he falls so pine needles stab into his palms. Mako temporarily breaks the rules just be flaring out some fire to clear them off his hands. ] Gotten the championship for real?

Edited 2020-09-07 17:29 (UTC)

Yeah. [ She laughs, circling around him. ] I really wish we could've. But, y'know, it was kinda unfair. Everyone would've said it was because I was the Avatar.

And they would've been wrong. [ He circles, too, hunching down, his eyes on Korra's feet so he can try to predict where she's going to go. After a moment, he lashes out with a quick jab at her shoulder. ]

[ It clips her, but she rolls off of him and weaves in, using the opportunities to thrust a knee into his gut. ] So wrong.

(no subject)

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